HAVING DRINKS WITH DEWEY--He leans over furtively. We're at a Friday's, and the TV is blaring an incessant mixture of ads, ersatz news and commentary. "I need to ask you something," he says hoarsely.

Can do. I can deliver. I can comment on politics (uninformedly) just as well as pop culture (as long as it's from ten years ago). Hit me.

"What's Tweeter."

Shit, I don't know. I make up some bogus definition involving Tweety Bird and Shakespearian conversion: a verb form of a bird getting chased by a big dumb cat. "Has something to do with us at the mercy of forces bigger than we are."

Dewey nods sagely. "That's what I thought."

Score.

Got a message from NINE yesterday: The Tribune's print edition will no longer be available for my classroom. They'll give me a free online E-version subscription. But no more dead tree version.

I give up. I've lost the battle.

For years, I've converted class after class to the joys of a print newspaper (in theory, anyway). I taught them how to Scan the Headlines Over Coffee. How to Fold it Irritably, how to Hide Behind It in a Crowd, and (my personal favorite) how to Read the Fucking Thing and Ignore the Dumb Ads.

I scored these frugal victories in the face of competition from reality television, Stephanie Meyer books and the drone and whine of our heady froth of pop culture. And now the Trib itself is saying, "Sorry, pal, but those sugar-addled, pizza-faced trolls aren't worth it." Nice. Validation goes miles in my world.

Time for a new lesson plan: How to be a Know-Nothing Pundit. I am now the Mr. Irwin of Media and Journalism Studies. The Machiavelli of Reporting 101. Ideals be damned. Work with the world as it is.

My first words to class tomorrow: "All right, who here can use the phrase "liberal cream puff" in a 200-word rant against Obama? The winner gets an internship."

Draft for an Advent Calendar for the Last Days of School

Yeah, it's only April. But we're getting there. And my patience is frayed beyond belief. So:

The Last Thirty Days of School (first eleven)

30. Insult a student in every class using Latin. Like, Scholas es stolidus.
29. Show a film clip completely unrelated to anything you’re doing. Preferably one with Traci Lords.
28. Put brandy in your coffee this morning. (More than usual, anyway)
27. Use the word merde casually. See how many kids pick up on it.
26. Take a prescription drug that’s not yours. (from your spouse, parent, brother, pregnant cousin, etc.)
25. Trade prescription medicine with a co-worker.
24. Rename your students using derogatory immediate surface details. "What did you get for number five, Push-up Bra?" "Nice to see you this morning, Smells Like Feet."
23. Don’t wear underwear today. Are you wearing it right now? Get it off. Don’t even bother leaving the room.
22. Imagine yourself as a nun in the sixteenth century for the day. Think corporal punishment, rote memorization, and a low-key subtext of homosexuality.
21. Walk into an administrator’s office. Pretend it’s yours. Use their desk. Make some calls. Tell them, “I might ask what the hell are you doing here?”
20. End every lesson with, “And that’s how you achieve orgasm. For tomorrow, casing the playgrounds.”

The Class is a film that actually shows what it's like to be a teacher...

...and I haven't cooked up a worthwhile review of it yet. Or anything meaningful to say. So check it out yourself, why don't you? It's playing in Chicago, and will be for a while, as far as I know.

In honor of National Poetry Month, a work from William Carlos Williams:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

If I'm teaching juniors next year, I'm so assigning essays on this bad boy. They'll hate me. They'll call me "Wheelbarrow." Yeah.

i couldn't wait
to grade

your wheel barrow
essays

but i still shredded
them up

along with the white
chickens.

Six ideas that might make me money

6. "Stone Walls do not a Prison Make...Mostly" A one-act play depicting the Duke of Norfolk's visit to Katherine of Aragon while imprisoned during Henry VIII's efforts to secure a divorce. She hated him. He hated her. But she's in a prison, and we all know what happens to lonely women imprisoned...

5. "E-date" A middle-aged married couple register independently on an online dating service to see if they'll get paired up. They experiment. Drift apart. And, because Hollywood wouldn't have it any other way, they reconcile in a happy ending after realizing the depths of their true feelings for each other. Blech. Watch for the Director's Cut: He takes to erotic body art, and she goes to Vassar.

4. The Dichotomy of Evil. An essay focused on Richard III's wooing of Lady Anne--"Take up the sword or take up me." Lonely geeks can use it as a template to score chicks who hate their guts.

3. In the spirit of The Tao of Pooh and the Teh of Piglet...Dumb Christian Values of Family Guy

2. "I will wax your snatch...for natch." Advertisement. Probably self-explanatory.

1. Blackmail Schemes for the Idiotic. Clever computer skills a must here. Victim must be semi-literate.

The D.C. Guys are in Spain. Well, it's a start.

As far as the beginning of a vacation, this is not-not-not bad.

The F-book post I've been dying for for nineteen years!

"Hi there! I still remember that day long ago when you called for a date and I acted like an idiot. Maybe I can make it up to you now? Be my friend? :)

Yes! Yesss! My moment has come!

"Hi. How you been?"

Ha! Revenge is sweet!

Wait...that's not cutting and cathartic at all...

Dammit!

Bullets in Madison come to Abbey Pub

by db, classical music critic

Watching Bullets in Madison soar through a half dozen or so of their hits on the crowded stage of the Abbey pub is a lot like watching a band that practices a lot get together on a Saturday night to entertain performers at a faux Irish bar.

Stop and absorb that analogy for a moment. Got it? Good.

The band, which fires no guns and, as near as I can tell, doesn't even know where Wisconsin is on a map, took stage at nine p.m. At that point, I'd consumed four or five beers, so admittedly, I was a bit hazy. Still, I'm sure they played some kind of music, which is what they were supposed to do. So, at least they deliver, right?

Me, I was testy because I'd recently dropped my cell phone in the toilet and wasn't prepared to purchase a new one any time soon. So all the texts I would have sent the band during the show couldn't go out. Not that they'd appreciate them. Every time I send a message to one of them, they're all like, "Hey man, I'm trying to play a song up here! Do you mind?" Fame. It corrupts many an aspiring artist, I tell you.

Also, I'd gotten a parking ticket. My car had gone three minutes over the meter, which wound up costing me fifty bucks. Fifty! Literally highway robbery. Except I was on a city street, so I guess it's...city street robbery. Clever.

So the ticket, plus a new cell phone, plus the five or six beers and the ten dollars to get in the door, had me expecting perhaps more than was fair of the six musicians with the eclectic vibe and esoteric mixture of melodies and musings on the potentialities of feeling in an increasingly mechanized world.

And yet, they still delivered. BiM soared through their set without one screwup, blown amplifier, mistimed stage dive, rodent-head-biting stunt or smoke machine malfunction. They sang. They played instruments. I'm relatively sure I heard a drum rhythm in the background, and at one point, the lead singer even looked towards the audience. If that isn't showmanship, then I ask, what is?

I got to speak with the band after the show. "Well, we really thought people enjoyed it," one of them said. "We're releasing a new album in the next few months or so, and we're excited that people want to hear from it."

"I just couldn't believe it was fifty bucks," I said, pretending to take notes on his drivel. "Who the hell does Mayor Daley think he is? More like...Mayor Pay-me. Ha! Hey, that's good!"

"Anyway, we're always looking for a new way to do our kind of music," he continued. "It's important to us to keep it fresh. Without that, the juice stops flowing."

"That sounds great," I said, clapping him on the shoulder and causing him to spill his beer. "Hey, you think you can introduce me to Chris Martin?"

"I don't know him."

"You don't? Wasn't that him on the keyboards?"

Since I couldn't get another interview after that, that concludes this review. I sincerely hope my editor delivers the moolah on time, as I've got this damn parking ticket to pay.

I just got off the phone with my editor, and she says no way on the money unless I come up with a killer ending to this review. So here goes:

"Bullets in Madison remains a band that continually hones its act. Through their words, through their melodies, through John Morton's gravitas and the band's overall appeal to our finer sensibilities, they ensure our constant attention, and remain a promising star in the cluttered cosmos that we call local Chicago rock. Sooner or later, this star will go supernova. Until then, this is your friendly classical music critic saying, I'm going to enjoy watching their star rise."

Next week's column: Robert Fucking Plant. And maybe the rest of Pink Floyd, if I'm lucky.


Before showtime, Bullets in Madison meets to figure out where the hell they put their instruments.

Hubris Lit Mag Introduction, 2008-2009

The real adviser is too drop-dead lazy to write a real one, so this one was ghost-written by yours truly. Enjoy.

Putting together a literary magazine is hard work. Not as hard, I'm sure, as cooking up fourteen couplets on watching your acne explode in the mirror ("Pus n' Boots" by Mike Tugner, freshman--page 45), or visually depicting the world through a lens of distorted images, poorly-chosen color patterns and scrawls of the word "fuck" across a slashed canvas ("Fuck," by Dave Erickson, junior--page 2). But it's pretty hard.

The process through which the Hubris emerges is rigorous and unyielding. A high school literary magazine is a harsh mistress, and I have to take its demands seriously. Before I do anything remotely constructive, I usually take last year's issue out of the files. I page through its contents, reliving its glories and triumphs. I stroke its cover. I inhale the crisp scent of cheap ink and pulp-saturated paper. I take it out with me, to restaurants, topless bars and NRA rallies. I really make an effort to get to know it. And then, after the concerned phone calls and interventions are all over with, I'm ready to Advise.

Advise Literarily, as the case may be.

It all starts for real early August, when, in the midst of my summer break, I begin interrupting my midday, beer- and nacho-induced naps and start to remember that I do indeed have a job that needs doing. By mid-August, I'm getting up at noon and idly thumbing through back copies of Swank and Adam's Quarterly: A Magazine for Gentlemen, in a desperate search for inspiration or, barring that, something to rip off. When school starts, I start plugging the magazine, especially to my freshman classes, young and impressionable as they are. I cook up a series of promotional posters, designed to spark interest and self-confidence.

From September to November, I watch the work roll in. Usually it's submitted anonymously, to my mailbox, with attached codicils bearing instructions for truly appreciating the sweat and blood poured into these pieces. Like, "Teacher: My painting was done after a two-week breakup with my boyfriend, and I would really appreciate it if you'd remember he’s an asshole, please." Or, "Dear adviser: I couldn't come up with a rhyme for 'festering sore' that accurately depicted my feelings about my study hall teacher. Can you suggest anything?" It's communiqués like these that reassure me about the direction the Arts are taking as we Twitter and Facebook our way into the 21st century.

After all of this, truthfully, I don't really do a whole lot. I choose fonts. I decide on the order of the pages. I spend a few days agonizing over where on the page the page numbers should go, and in what font I should supply them. I meet with Lake Park's legal team to make sure we're not vulnerable in the face of any lawsuits over questionable content and poor font choices. I text my colleagues for feedback, and sometimes, I even get it:

ME: I don't really understand the allusion to Ramses in this one poem.
COLLEAGUE: That's just Suzi's style. She's a deep young thinker who's feeling her way towards a higher artistic consciousness.
ME: What are you getting that from?
COLLEAGUE: Dead Poets' Society. It's on TNT right now.
ME: Wicked.

And sometime in May, the presses roll, and the class of 2009 has plenty of lining for their birdcages and litterboxes.

Oh, sometimes there's quite a few ripples upon publication. Debates over symbolism, Dadaism and postmodernism. Occasionally, harsh words, fistfights and the occasional gang rumble do take place. But that's the price you pay for speaking your mind, and I’ve tried to remember that throughout my tenure.

COLLEAGUE: Don't take it so hard. You're doing fine. You're a deep thinker who's...
ME: You were going to say something about an artistic consciousness, weren't you?
COLLEAGUE:...Gotta go.

That said, I can say without a doubt that this year's edition is the best collection of this school's writing and artwork produced and submitted between the months of August and December, 2008, and published the following spring, that you're likely to see in your lifetime. Hopefully, President Obama's stimulus package includes a few bucks for us, so we can finally start our Dead Writers' Centerfolds collection. (First up: Virginia Woolf! Aroooo!) But all of that is looking towards the future, and right now, I'm supposed to be ruminating about the past year.

So, without any further ruminations, here is this year's copy of our pathetic school's excuse for a literary magazine (font: American Typewriter), and you are more than welcome to the wretched thing. I'll see you all in August. Save me a copy of Swank, will you?

Mr. What's-his-Name
Adviser

"No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
--John Donne

"But John, seriously, have you seen what's off my island? It scares the crap out of me."
--Me

Try as I might, sometimes I have to visit the mainland. I've been sick as a dog the past two weeks: stomach problems, back problems, a cold, you name it. The only thing I haven't encountered yet this year is the plague, but I'm sure some kid in study hall who hasn't had his vaccinations will cough it all over me tomorrow morning or something. So after numerous weekends/weekday nights hacking on the couch and blearily watching reruns of Married With Children, enough was enough. Kim hooked us up with another couple for lunch and drinks. And we went.

I'm pretty awkward at going out with another couple. I do better with married couples. I don't know why. Maybe because, with a married couple, some interior labelmaker has pasted them "Stable and permanent" in my mind. Even if that's not the case and they're both sleeping with their secretaries or something, I'll still see a two-weeks-married man and woman as a UNIT, rather than a guy and girl in their mid-thirties who've been going out since Clinton was president. Which, I guess, would be us. And I'm safe enough, I guess. Neither of us even have secretaries.

So whereas with a married couple I ask idiotic questions like, "That linoleum on your kitchen floor is dee-lish. Where'd you get the contractor?" and "Gosh, your youngest is learning to read so well! I had no idea four-year-olds could tell Budweiser from Bud Lite!" in an effort to blend with the domestic crowd, yesterday, I had no such responsibilities. The couple we went out with bicker a lot. Like us. They are not above having lots of drinks. Like us (or at least me). And they didn't mind squabbling with us, either.

Truthfully, after about two hours, I'd had enough and was ready to return home. I mean, I was missing the episode where Al puts up a new antennae on the roof. But then, I kicked myself: For crying out loud, I have to live, right? Who knows when the next time I'll be encountering people will be?

So I shoved thoughts of my couch and basement aside and smiled as Brad, the Man in the Committed Relationship, explained why my belief in an active government ensuring the best for as many citizens as possible is "fuckin' retarded."

Ah. Sheer bliss, this social thing. Is this what others count on on a daily basis? If so, they're screwed.

Facebook posts I haven't had the guts to put up yet

Note--loyal reader(s), none of this applies to you. Anyone who has this address is NOT on my crap list right now, and is NOT referred to below. That said, if there's some overlap, forget it. And forgive. Please. I'm a malcontent.

For those unaware, Facebook has an application whereby you can post whatever you're up to at any given moment, for your "Friends" to see. Most posts range from the pedestrian and soporific ("Linda is doing laundry"; "Darren is taking the wife out to Starbucks") to the asinine and exhibitionistic ("Robbie is getting on a jet plane to head out to Ontario for lunch! Yum yum! Canadian sushi!"; "Ellen is http://incomprehensiblewebsitehere.com and loving it!").

I keep up because most of these people are either friends I rarely get to see and would not keep in contact with as much were it not for Facebook, or people I just like to spar with in writing. Aron, for example, wields his posts like a sharp scalpel.

However, for the record: My posts are poetry. Sheer poetry. I can play Facebook like Rod fucking McKuen:

Digger Blue is an integer greater than 2, so that the equation aMe + bMe=cMe has no solutions in non-zero integers a, b, and c. (Feb 13. People loved it.)

Digger Blue just might have to choke a bitch. (Feb 12. People loved it.)

Digger Blue likes big books and he cannot lie/ You other brothers can't deny... (Feb 6. People sorta liked it.)

Digger Blue is writing a self help book titled "Your husband drinks because you're stupid." (Feb 5. Karen hated it. Score.)

Ironically enough, sometimes I'm maddened that my genius is wasted on people I know.

But every now and then, I censor myself. Such as: Digger Blue ...

--doesn't want to hear about how cute your choir boy kids are. Shut up. Put them in a real school.

--saw your gut hanging out in that vacation picture you put up. Nice spare tire, Jabba.

--sympathizes with how tough it is to go back to work doing nothing after a long weekend lying on the beach and flirting with desperate divorcees. How do you manage?

--sympathizes with the conference call you worked through. Must have been tough, texting me five fucking times while it was going on. When I'm working, I have to concentrate solely on work, or else I can't get the job done. How do you manage?

--didn't have an hour lunch today. Or a half hour lunch. But you did. You suck.

--thinks a body count is a body count. So enough with the Quassam Count. It's what, Israel: 13,000; Palestine, 20, right?

--didn't really like you that much in high school. So why is he paying attention to you now?

--'s notes are better than yours. Know why? Because he's not talking just to hear himself talk. Hello? Are you listening? Uh...scratch that.

--would rather be making love to what's-her-name than hear your gripes about the PTA.

--would rather be making love to himself than hear your gripes about anything at all.

--would rather be making love to OTAS. Period. That's it.

--would rather be making love to a weightlifter named Rocky in his eight-by-nine cell than spend another minute with these idiots.

--is amazed you can carry a grudge that long. And not a little proud, for that matter.

--thinks that just because someone hasn't fully matured, comes from a difficult home life, and hasn't yet come to grips with himself and his place in the world doesn't mean that person isn't still, and will forever remain, a douche.

--knows he could have done a better job today. But he still did more than you.

--just realized, if he were someone else, he would so do me.

I think my decision to remain circumspect speaks for itself. But wasn't it Neil Simon who said, "Once you censor yourself, you're a candidate for mediocrity?" Hmm. I seem to be on thin ice here.

I've been screwing around on Facebook so much with the notes function, I think I've brainwashed myself. Rather than plan out lengthy pieces, with varying degrees of success, I find myself firing off 500-word billet doux on any number of subjects: potty-training my dogs, childhood memories, etc. As a result, I've got a mental drawerful of pieces I need/want/sorta might like to write, but for motivational issues:

1) "Banned spellbooks": My librarian orders a copy of Lovecraft's Necronomicon, and gets brought before the board on charges.
2) "My own personal red list" or "They call me Madame Defarge": people I want to get revenge on when I hunt them down. First on the list, that guy in the Annex bar in 2001 who wouldn't shut up during the football game. Also, anyone who bought real estate from 2002 to 2006.
3) "Little Jimmy." Little Jimmy is a student in my Historiography class who, I just found out, has enough credits to graduate already, and thus has no real incentive to pay attention, shut up, open a book or otherwise be a human being when around me. I'd like to write him up as a case study on asshole-ness.
4) "Debates I'd like to have": Me vs. Bill O'Reilly, 2005--"So, where are those WMDs, numbnuts?" Me vs. Rush Limbaugh, 2008: "Oooh, I'm so scared of you...good thing I'm not a plate of cheeseburgers and pain medication right now, or I'd be toast." Me vs. Renee Descartes, 1637: "Listen, bub, if you only go by empirical evidence, how the hell can you ever hope to promote government or social reform? Go back to playing with your dolls or something."
5) "Children's books I'd like to write": My Daddy Drinks Because I Can't Do Long Division.Followed by my best seller Mommy's Been in the car for Twelve Days and Daddy's Taking Me to Disneyland!

I am damned erudite. I'm an erudite bastard. I'm like an erudite sandwich with a side of loquacity.

As far as new years go, this one is a bit of a puzzler.

I'm still reeling over our new president. Or is it that I'm overjoyed that the old one is back in Crawford, patting himself on the back? Or am I secretly pissed that I'm now robbed of the schadenfreude of watching him crash and burn under his failed policies, telling "I told you so" to idiots who argued that, yes, you can fight a war with no taxes, and, yes, we're so not in a recession, because this is America, dammit, and bad things are what happen to other countries?

Guess it doesn't matter. I'm high on Obamarama. On Hopamine, or whatever cynics are calling it. Three executive orders this week reversing Bush's doctrines, and my pretty little head is spinning like a Prom date's at a Motel 6 after hours. It'll wear off sooner or later. Problems will emerge. Mistakes will be made. But I can't see Obama hanging signs and smirking contemptuously in the face of world and, dare I say, national opinion to the contrary while the walls come crumbling down. Optimism has taken the reins for January, for the first time in years.

Still, there's always Blagojevich.

I may be a mediocre English teacher, but I'm still a patron of the arts. And when our governor quotes Tennyson's "Ulysses" (as he did last week in a press conference before Senate hearings began), I have to grit my teeth, because now, any students I have watching the news will confuse that towheaded, hubris-laden pontificator with an old man past his prime, seeking one more adventure. The poem ends with Ulysses imploring himself and his friends "to strive, to seek, to find, but not to yield" as they set sail from home. Blago, I don't doubt, sees himself in a similar vein, but there are obvious differences. He's not an "idle king" (the phone conversations taped and held by the prosecutor show he was anything but idle), and his people do in fact know him; his wife isn't "aged" (seems she had quite a few things to say herself), and as near as I can tell, he has no Telemachus to pass his kingdom off to. Maybe he should have taken up with the Strogers.

So as far as literary connections, "Ulysses" works about as well for him as Sonnets from the Portugese works for me. What Rod should have quoted, as more befitting his refusal to step down and save himself and the state the burden of impeaching him, would be my pal Macbeth. When the Scottish king realizes he's doomed, that the prophecies that supposedly made him immortal have actually led him to his impending demise, he manages to juggle both his own pride and self-hatred at the same time. Blagojevich could even have rewritten the lines to fit his situation admirably:

I will not yield,
To kiss the ground before old special prosecutor's feet,
And to be baited with John Kass' damned columns.
Though truth be come to Springfield,
And me opposed, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Fitzgerald,
And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Executive Privilege!'

Now that's poetry, baby.

More culture coming my way. Masterpiece Theater does Dickens this spring. Excellent. I now have to get around to David Copperfield, and papers to grade be damned.

Just finished Tess of the d'Urbervilles. What a tramp.

"My dogs are Idiots" by Frustrated Pet Owner

I can't stand picking up after these damn mutts. Every day, it's outside, stand around freezing in the rain, or snow, or whatever, and all they have to do is do their business, and we can go back inside. Oh no, not them. Too easy for them. They'd rather stand there, whimpering, or shaking, or looking up at me with those puppydog eyes (guess that metaphor is rather obvious) until I take them back inside. And then, ten minutes later, we're outside again. What the shit? Do I have to draw you guys a diagram for how this works? Take Crap Outside = Go Back Inside. Got it? Don't make me make rugs out of the two of you. I paid hundreds of dollars to rescue you from that crazy old broad in Flint, Michigan, or wherever the hell she's from. I'll put you back there if you make me.

Okay, we'll go out again. But I swear to you, this is the last time.

"Our Mission is Almost Complete" by Two Stupid Dogs

It is our distinct pleasure to report back to Central Headquarters in Flint Michigan that our plan seems to be working flawlessly. Agent Robyn has perfected her "gotta-go-outdoors" approach to the point that our idiot owner is about to either shit or go blind. We anticipate a few more such excursions before he gets confused, drunk, or frustrated enough and locks himself outside the house, leaving us in.

At that point, we will establish this residence as Home Base and begin distributing our leaflets. Power to the People! Down with Capitalism! Workers of the World, Unite! My brothers, we are so close to victory. Rise up against those ridiculous TV-watching lardasses and let the Revolution commence!

Now you'll have to excuse us. We really do need to go outside and take a crap this time.

Or do we?

One more second...

According to the Times today, whoever is in control of the atomic clock is tacking on an extra second to 2009 to take up the slack of our time-measurement instruments, so that it can catch up to our solar rotation span. Or else it's the will of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, I forget which.

Sweet. I can totally use another second.

Lest it seem sort of pointless to make this particular vertical scratch on the wall, the article points out a few things that can be done in a second: "a cheetah can dash 34 yards, a telephone signal can travel 100,000 miles, a hummingbird can beat its wings 70 times, and eight million of your blood cells can die."

I can add to that list: In one second, I can bore a student to tears. I can find one fuckup of the Bush administration. I can remember that I forgot something. I can forget what I was doing. I can run 1/550th of a mile. I can make love to a beautiful woman. I can make a resolution. I can blow a resolution. I can absorb .35 ounces of carcinogens in a cigar. And I can cure world hunger.

Let's call this an upgrade: the year 2009.0001.

Enter: Two Stupid Dogs

It was a five-hour trip to Indianapolis, what with icy roads, idiot Chicago drivers and me stopping for five coffees to wake up. By the time I got there, I was dehydrated irritable, headachey and idly wondering how long it would take for me to reach Mexico and chuck the whole mess if I were to continue driving south.

Then, I swung into the prearranged Wendy's parking lot. Met a woman named Janet. And got my dogs.

Four hours back to home, and they were in like Flynn.

I used to hate dogs. Then I met my girlfriend's parents' dog. And their next one. And then my girlfriend got a couple of Chihuahuas that were the nicest couple of mutts you could ever meet. There are few enough creatures in this world who are so excited to see you when you come home, that they almost pee themselves.

Now, I've got two more of the little buggers. And while I'm on break, the time I usually spend reading, movie-hopping, binge drinking and vigorously massaging my scalp to prevent hair loss (futilely, I might add), is now spent going through the growing pains of being a dog owner.

It's pathetic. I'm saying and doing things the most schmaltzy, syrupy-sweet kindergarten teacher would throw up over.

For example: one of my dogs came with a Mickey Mouse harness. I took one look at it, rolled my eyes, and prepared to toss it in the trash. Then he growled. Apparently, he likes it. So I now walk my chihuahua in broad daylight in Disney regalia. I might as well be wearing a dress.

For another example, I'm trying to make damn sure they use pads when stuck indoors (it's been a typical ninth-circle-type winter so far here in the Midwest, with temperatures reaching twelve degrees below are-you-shitting-me?). Which means that, every time they use the pads correctly, I've got to carry on like they won the goddam Nobel Peace Prize or something. Sometimes, this interferes with my sleep. This morning, at 2 a.m., my dialogue with Dog #1 was like a James Joycean children's book:

"Good boy, buddy, now use the pad. Use the pad. Come on, ushe-da-pad! Who's a good boy? Huh? Who's a good boy? You are. You're the good boy. Yes you are, now use that pad. Good boy! You use that pad! You use it!"

I can sense my IQ, never all that high to begin with, plummeting as I strain to come up with euphemisms for "take a crap" so this damn dog will be able to dope out Doing My Business=Owner Very Pleased. It does seem to work, though. I may have a curriculum revision in mind next year:

"Who's going to do their paper? Oh whoshe-gonna-do-duh-paper? You are, Fernando. Yes, you."

Sad how a dog with a brain the size of a peanut can be taught better than Fernando, I think.

Hey Dad, if you're reading this...

Happy birthday. Post something to honor the occasion.


PHOTO: My old man, circa 1974, when he was an accountant for a major food services corporation. For some reason, they required their employees to pose for company calendars, although I'm sure it was totally legit.

There are fewer drugs more intoxicating than a snow day off from school. Normal snow days are one thing: if you get a Wednesday off, or something in the middle of the week, you usually wind up throwing at least a few hours of it away grading papers to get "caught up" for the weekend. I cry poormouth here, I admit, but it's still sort of a bummer to have to wait until nine a.m. to get plastered, instead of beginning the day's binging right at 5:15, when you get the call from your chair.

Today, though, is overpowering. I was supposed to give two finals today, grade them, enter final grades, post them, file my gradebook, print out a first-day-back lesson, and hit the pub with James Pepper, a co-worker. Now, though, I find myself with a day off before my two-week break, which means my lesson plans for first-day-back consist of giving the finals I was supposed to give today. Sweet.

So, to celebrate, I've drank two pots of Irish coffee, texted everyone I know who has to go to work today in order to sever any remaining friendships I might have ("I have a day off and you don't! Revenge is mine! Mwa-hah-hah!"), watched The Godfather, and am now contemplating some serious binge reading. No papers to grade. No assignments to plan. Just wallowing in my own crapulence.

This day is mine.



PHOTO: A snowy street in Chicago, filled with people who have to go to work, and therefore are having a suckier day than I am.