School Called. Why Must You Always Make Your Teachers Cry?

Greetings! I found a scene I kind of like, from my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel (first time reading it since I finished on 11/30/09). Enjoy... Or don't. Hahahahaha - no, really. Enjoy it...

One cold 4th-grade morning, we came into our double-wide classroom to find "SPELLING" scrawled on the blackboard. Beneath that, it said "Miss Adams." My chronically-knotted little stomach relaxed a bit. At least for now, there would be no math, and I preferred Miss Adams to Mrs. Martin, whom I found frightfully intimidating. Maybe I could survive the morning.

We sat in a circle on the floor, with all the desks shoved back toward the outer edges of the room. Mrs. Martin was sitting way back in the corner at her desk, grading tests or concocting new ways to torture us or reading a Harlequin Romance or whatever the hell teachers did when they weren't actively making us do stuff we didn't want to do. She was a big, sturdy, pretty woman in her forties, always impeccably and - I realize now - expensively-attired. Her black hair was always perfect and shellacked like one of those new non-stick skillets, and usually featured a bow or ribbon in the same color as her dress. She wasn't mean. She was just strong and firm and a little loud. She was a force in the classroom.

If Mrs. Martin was the bad cop in this double-teacher arrangement, then Miss Adams was clearly the good one. She was at least ten years younger than her co-teacher, and in many ways her opposite. She had a softness about her. She was much thinner than Mrs. Martin, her hair was wavy and usually left to its own devices, she wore simple dresses and occasionally - gasp - pants, and she had a gentle teaching style. Her southern accent probably added to that. She just always sounded sweet and encouraging and concerned. Miss Adams had the patience of a saint, so seeing her there walking slowly around inside the circle of students was comforting.

I suppose public humiliation is just a part of learning, and short of having one teacher per student in private cubicles, there doesn't seem to be any way around it. Spelling was especially brutal. Today, it appeared that Miss Adams was going to go around the entire class, counter-clockwise, starting just a few kids to my left. I could live with that. There would be plenty of little humiliations before she got to me, so any failure on my part would just be one of many by then. It was worst when you were the first kid to spell a word wrong. Looking around the circle, I was confident that at least ten mistakes would be made en route to me.

I wasn't too far off. The very first word given was misspelled by one of the girls, but she was known to be smart, so no one laughed at her. A couple of kids down the line, "mountain" was spelled wrong. To my right, one of my few acquaintances, Lewis Hardy, elbowed me.

"That was a tricky one," he whispered, "but that guy is kind of an idiot."

"Yeah." I laughed a bit too loudly, as evidenced by the glance Miss Adams shot my way over her shoulder. Lewis was the class genius and to this day is probably the most intelligent person I have known, so his casual friendship was both a blessing and a curse. It felt good to know that such a smart person valued my company, but he was extremely quiet and a little too smart to avoid the "weird" label. He was a nice guy and usually exceedingly diplomatic, so hearing him refer to someone as an idiot was kind of a jolt.

Lewis gave Miss Adams a minute to refocus on the boy who couldn't spell mountain, then he leaned in my direction. "Do you remember his Pilgrim hat from art class last Thanksgiving?"

"Yeah," I answered, much more carefully than before. "It was all pointy and cone-shaped, like a dunce cap."

"Right. And how many pictures of Pilgrims have you seen where their hats have big John Deere belt buckles on them?" he sneered.

I had to think about that for a second. I had remembered some sort of oversized buckle on that guy's construction paper hat, but it took my brain a moment to connect "John Deere," a name I barely knew, with the anatomically-incorrect dog-like monster sitting in the middle of that creation. "Is that what that thing was supposed to be? I thought it was a dragon getting blown up by an atom bomb." I whispered. "How about that diorama of the Nixon Resignation Signing he did last year? What a joke."

"I know!" Lewis chuckled. "He had Nixon signing with his left hand, and he put Earl Butz between Ford and Kissinger. Now, I don't know if Ford and Kissinger were in the Oval Office for the signing, but I'll bet you a million dollars that the Fucking Secretary of Agriculture was not! If any Cabinet members would have been there, it would have been Saxbe. What an imbecile."

I let another surprised laugh escape. I had never heard Lewis cuss before, let alone use the F-word. "Right. Saxbe. I mean, duh!" I said.

"Worst diorama ever." Lewis shook his head in disgust.

From my left, Marty Collins, Lewis' friend, interjected. "Don't act like you know who William Saxbe is, James." Marty was another smart one, but unlike Lewis, he always had an irresistible need to make sure everyone knew how intelligent he was. He wasn't brilliant - just a know-it-all, so it made me feel all warm inside when Miss Adams turned and uttered her southern little "shoosh" (She actually said "shoosh." It sounded as though there might even have been an extra O in there) squarely at Marty.

"Burn!" I whispered just as she returned her attention to the spelling torture at hand.

After a few more relatively uneventful stops around the circle of tormented spellers, Miss Adams arrived in front of Lewis. There was an expectant hush, as we all knew she'd give him a really hard word, as she always did. "Lewis, please spell 'scimitar.'"

Lewis sat up and cleared his throat thoughtfully. "Can you use it a sentence, please?"

"The dreaded pirate Blackbeard's weapon of choice was his scimitar." she said.

"With all due respect, ma'am, Blackbeard's primary weapons were the Queen Anne's Revenge and when push came to shove, his pistol." If anyone else in the class had made such a statement to one of the teachers, he or she would have been in trouble, but Lewis was always so respectful, quiet and correct that he got away with it. "May I have the word's origin, please?" he continued.

"This isn't a spellin' bee, sweetie." Miss Adams smiled. He spelled the word. Correctly. My turn.

"James," she said, "Please spell 'plowin'' - as in, 'The farmer was up early, plowin' his field." She winked at Lewis, then looked at me.

"Plowin'?" I asked.

"Plowin'." she repeated.

"P-L-O-W-I-N." I stopped. She looked at me expectantly. I heard a muted giggle from somewhere behind her.

"Almost, hon. Sound it all the way out as you think about all the letters in the word."

I was puzzled. "You said 'plowin'' - right?"

"That's right, James. Take your time." she was very focused on me and doing her best to keep me from getting upset, but it was not working.

"P-L-O-W-I-N." I said, already seeing the disappointment on Miss Adams' face. "As in, the farmer was up early PLOWIN' his field." Another giggle or two, then uncomfortable silence.

"No, sweetie. P-L-O-W-I-N-G." she said.

"Duh!" Marty blurted. A full round of laughter followed, before Miss Adams squelched it with another "Shooosh!" and a wave of her finger all the way around the circle.

"You didn't say G!" I protested.

"Well, sure I did, darlin' - P-L-O-W-I-N-G." She titled her head quizzically, then looked up momentarily, as if the next word was written on the ceiling tiles. "Okay. Let's try another one. Spell 'fishin' - as in, 'Tom Sawyer spent the day at the fishin' hole.'"

I could feel my neck and face flushing with anger. "Fishin'? You said FISHIN' - right?"

"Yes. Fishin'," she said again. Way back at her desk in the corner, Mrs. Martin had stopped working and was watching me intently.

I sighed and tried again. "F-I-S-H-I-N." Sniggering ensued and after another lengthy "are you sure you're done" stare, Miss Adams shook her head. "That's exactly what she said!" I insisted. "I spelled exactly what she said!" This only amused the class more. I'm quite certain I heard the word "stupid" more than once, out there.

Mrs. Martin had made her way over to the circle of chortling cruelty and was standing just behind Lewis, looking at me as though she were concerned that I might have been poisoned. With one sharp little stomp of her heel on the tile floor, she silenced the room. "James, let's try one more. Can you spell the word 'Spellin' for me, darlin'?" Yes, although hers was more aristocratic and a bit easier to deal with than Miss Adams' southern accent, she had one, too.

I was shaking with frustration. I spelled what I heard once more, and as the laughter started again, I looked at Mrs. Martin. She was nodding toward the chalk board across the room, where the word 'SPELLING' had been so clearly written. Just then Martin and at least two or three others started scolding me with "G! G! There's a G at the end, stupid. I-N-G!"

I leapt from my spot on the floor, knocking Martin into the girl to his left. "I know that! She didn't say 'spelling'! She said 'SPELLIN'!' There's no fucking G in 'SPELLIN' Goddamn it!! And I know how to fucking spell 'FISHING.' But she wasn't saying 'fishinG.' She kept saying 'FISHIN' - so that's what I fucking spelled. What is WRONG with you people???"

I was sent to the Principal's office, and later received a week-long grounding from my parents, for refusing to tell them where I'd heard such language because it sure as hell wasn't from them.

Lesson learned. Several, actually. Southern accents are a pain in the ass. Don't trust your ears when your brain knows better. Children are awful little predators who feast on any misstep or sign of weakness. Swearing a lot can make one a little bit cooler, if only temporarily and if only with the tough kids. Finally, it seemed that accuracy and precision were concepts in which I believed much more strongly than anyone around me.

I Here The Writeing's Are On The Wall: A Lurch In To The Dumbening

This has been a long time coming. I fought. I resisted with all my waning strength. [Maris] did, too. We clawed and punched and kicked and stabbed and slashed, but our enemy has proved far too powerful, too massive, too young and quick and impervious to our feeble blows. We found ourselves backed repeatedly into the corner, unable to escape. Faced with a choice between letting our nemesis obliterate us, or giving ourselves up, we have chosen the latter.

So. Ignorance, Laziness, Marketing: We bow before you, utterly, unequivocally, irrevocably defeated. We will fight you no more. Secretly, we've always wanted to sneak over to the Dark Side, as we have long heard it said that there would be cookies. We'll even join forces with you, and rule the galaxy as father and son! Wait. Not that. But you get the idea. We couldn't beat 'em, and never would, so we're ready to join 'em.

No longer will we bellow at the TV when news anchors tell us about fires caused by shortages in washing machines. We'll ignore stories from highly-respected global news outlets like Reuters and the Associated Press, telling us that Istanbul's main square had been teaming with tourists and shoppers when the bomber struck. We won't even notice when faced with headlines informing us that our recession is to be followed by a mancession, in which men will face more economic difficulties than women will.

We'll buy your insipid products full of cheesy and beefy, and the more modulicious they are, the better. I think, in time, we will even come to compare our fast to yours, and our ready will be more ready than your ready. We will make excellent happen.

But we won't stop there. We will abide by the rules of grammar, vocabulary and spelling in the new millennium, and stop fretting over each and every faux pas that heretofore would have made us bristle with angst. From now on, apostrophes WILL mean "here comes an S." Your and you're will be one and the same. There, they're and their? Why bother with three words, when just one (there, by the way) will suffice.

Now, before you go calling the Spelling Police Police on us -- we're not talking about the safe, silly havens of email, IM, Facebook etc.. We know that the rules have never really applied, there. No, we're talking about media and news and such - the professional communicators. Those are the victors in our little war. We surrender.

Now, if you'll excuse us, we have a bunch of noun's waiting to be used as verb's.

Dunsten Crackbarry in Graduate School

Another scintillating peek into the twisted - no, mangled - world of Crackbarry and Fleen:

By the time he had slummed and slurped and struggled his way to his 24th birthday, Dunsten's nickname had evolved from "Dun McCrack" to "Goin' Down McCrank" to "Goitervillanueva Cracklinberries" to "Smokin' The Crack" to simply "CrackSmoke." He had arrived at the Lake Wad School of Business Gloaming with an undergrad degree in Clown Arts (minor in Theology) and a burning desire to further his education and master auto-erotic asphyxiation.

He taped copies of his mother's latest letter all over his dormitory room, to inspire and propel him onward toward his goal of becoming Fleen's second-in-command.

"You stupid sod - why are you wasting your father's hard-earned ducats on that stupid circus degree? You'll burn in hell for this, you will! You could have been accepted at the horse
school, or even the sheep college - sea monkeys community institute, at the very least. But no.
We're ashamed to have ever found you by the side of the lane and brought you home to be raised by our dog, we are. Pooey on you, and write back soon, sweetie. Love, Mum" was all it said.

"Aw, sod off, mumsie," Crackbarry would say every night (excepting those on which he was too drunk to see or speak or both, and the rare night when he had co-ed company, or the time he spent the evening in the infirmary with that piece of balsa wood shoved under his toenail - ouch) as he
patted the note with his fingers on his way to bed...

Drop The Tiny Corn And Step Away From The Salad Bar, Al (and I assume your last name is Kada)!

In the past several years, there have been many things that I've encountered that have sent me scurrying for the comfort of a comically-large rum and coke and my DVDs of Carl Sagan's "Cosmos." In 2008 I sought that solace as my employer vortexed away (yes, I just made vortex into a verb - stick around - who knows what I'll do next) and unemployment loomed. The death of my dad, my own wretched mystery illnesses and the days just over a year ago when my [Maris] was in the ICU (although then, it was a comically-small rum and coke, in case some horrible call came from the hospital), as well as any time I stumble upon footage of Sarah Palin (or, to be fair, Nancy Pelosi) speaking -- all of these trigger my "Cosmos" need.

Most recently, it was the "news," on our local "news" radio station, that Al Qaeda is plotting to poison America with ricin and arsenic. One salad bar at a time. It wasn't even this scary and probably true revelation that spooked me. Listening to this alarmist "news" for the past 9 1/2 years has desensitized me to the threats themselves. I'm sure terrorists are dreaming up all kinds of incredibly inventive ways to terrorize and kill us. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they succeed, blah blah blah. No, what really froze me in my tracks like a kid playing "red light, green light" was what the reporter and news anchors recommended we All Do. Everyone needs to be extra vigilant, they said, and REPORT anyone seen lingering around the salad bar, returning items from their plates back onto the salad bar etc.. Report it? To whom? The sneeze guard doesn't seem interested.

Waitress: How is everything over here? Did you save room for dessert?

Vigilant Citizen: No, ma'am, but I need to report a suspicious subject at the salad bar.

Waitress: A... A suspicious what at the what?

VigCit: A possible terrorist, ma'am.

Waitress: (giggle) A terrorist? At the salad bar? Here?

VigCit: (very, very serious) This is very, very serious, ma'am. Could you please get your manager? Quickly!

Manager: Good evening, sir. I'm the manager on duty tonight. I understand there's a problem with the salad bar?

VigCit: I need to report-- Holy crap - you look even younger than the little girl who's been waiting on us. How old are you, son?

Mgr: Seven--squeak-- Seventeen, sir. Is there something I can do for you?

Waitress: He said he saw a terrorist by the salad bar. You think it's a suicide bomber?

VigCit: I didn't say suicide bomber!

Waitress: You said terrorist!

Mgr: Thank you, Kaytlinne. I'll take it from here. You go on and check on your other tables. Now, sir - you want to report a terrorist at the salad bar?

VigCit: Yes. I think you should do something. He's still here. I can't believe no one else is alarmed. He's got a Turban, for Christ's sake!

Mgr: Um... What did he do at the salad bar?

VigCit: He put something back.

Mgr: Put something back?

VigCit: Yes. It was on his plate. He looked around suspiciously, then he carefully put it back onto the salad bar. It's an olive.

Mgr: Oh my goodness! Now why would anyone put an olive back on the salad bar? That is suspicious. Was it a black olive or a green one?

VigCit: It's a black one, and I can see it from here. He carefully put it in the ice next to the olive bowl.

Mgr: Oh my! Do you think it's a bomb? What should I do?

VigCit: Well, for starters, you might want to keep customers away from the salad bar. And you should probably call the police, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. I can keep an eye on the guy while you do that. Then, I'd be more than happy to help you escort him out, if you like.

Mgr: Where is he?

VigCit: It's the Al-Qaeda-lookin' guy alone at that table by the front window. He's the only one in the restaurant wearing a turban.

Mgr: (gasp) Oh, I see him, sir! He does look awfully suspicious. But...

VigCit: But what?

Mgr: But aren't turbans worn by Sikhs and not Muslims?

VigCit: Boy, you gonna stand around quibbling about what part of Al-Qaeda that guy's from, or are you gonna do something before people start dropping dead from anthrax?

Mgr: Well, I'm going to get to the bottom of this. Nobody puts anthrax in the olives when I'm the manager on duty. (He marches over to the man in the turban. The two begin to converse. There are gestures toward the salad bar, gestures toward Vigilant Citizen, discussion, smiles and then laughter. Vigilant Citizen approaches the terrorist's table.)

VigCit: Excuse me, but is there something funny about this situation?

Mgr: Yes, well, it actually is kind of amusing, sir...

Turban Guy: And quite embarrassing.

VigCit: Son, there's nothing amusing about terrorism! And you - suppose you show me some identification and don't make any sudden moves.

TG:

Mgr:

VigCit: Well?

TG: No offense, sir - but who are you to demand another man's identification?

VigCit: I'm a Goddamn American citizen, that's who!

Mgr: Okay, fellas...

TG: Oh. In that case, I demand to see your identification, as I am also a Goddamn American citizen.

Mgr: See, I think I can explain what happened...

VigCit: You ain't no American. We don't wear that Arab stuff here.

TG: This is a turban. Arabs do not wear turbans. Many Americans do, however. Including me. I am a Sikh. And I was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. My parents were both born in the United States. I'm pretty Goddamn American, and you're starting to piss me off.

Waitress: There he is, officers. That's the salad bar bomber!

Mgr: Now wait a minute...

VigCit: Officers, I saw this man looking around suspiciously and putting food back onto the salad bar. We're supposed to report that kind of thing, right?

TG: Oh you've got to be kidding me.

Officer: Um...

VigCit: It could be poison! Or a bomb!

TG: It's an olive!

Officer: An olive? Black or green?

VigCit: Black! It's still there! Do something!

Mgr: There's a logical explanation, officers. Let me explain...

VigCit: What's the matter with you people? Isn't it obvious? The turban! And look at that shirt, with that Arabic "death to America" stuff on it!

TG: That's not Arab you imbecile! It's Punjabi, and it says "peace!" I told you - I'm a natural-born American Sikh, not Arab, not Muslim and very much not amused!

VigCit: I saw you put that olive there. Explain that!

Mgr: Sir, this is my restaurant while I'm on duty, and I'm going to have to ask you to stop harassing my customers.

VigCit: What?

Mgr: I told you there's an explanation. Yes, you did see him put that olive there. It fell off his plate onto the floor. He didn't see a trash receptacle, and he didn't want to put it back on his plate, but he also didn't want to put it back in the olive bowl. He looked around for a staff member to ask for help and, finding none at the moment, decided to put it into the ice next to the bowl. He's very embarrassed, and he told me all about it as soon as I approached his table, before I'd even said anything. See? It's not terrorism at all. Just a silly mishap.

VigCit:

TG: I am terribly sorry for instilling such fear and trepidation into the hearts of all these good people who hadn't so much as looked at me until you came over to my table.

VigCit:

Mgr: Your dinner is on the house tonight, sir. I apologize for the way you've been treated.

Officers: See ya guys.

TG: (whispering in Vigilant Citizen's ear) Death to America.

Fleen Visits Crackbarry At Gloaming University - Easier Said Than Done

Hey gang! I think it's time to foist some Crackbarry and Fleen upon your unsuspecting noggins. I have been trying to come up with a nice succinct introduction to this madness, but I can't, so I've decided instead that it will be much more fun (and just as coherent, really) to simply foist away with a random excerpt. I like saying foist. It rhymes with. . . stuff. Anyway, I will say that the characters have a co-creator, and until I confirm whether or not he is actually still living, this sample may be all I will be able to share with you, and that makes it all the more special, non?

News from Crackbarry's dorm room:

Fleen stared at the telly with murder in his eyes. "We're going to make that 2-bit lounge donkey wish he'd never been spawned of the wretchedness of his foul mother and the seed of the murderous dentist. Crackbarry my man, I'm going to need your help. But first, I must tell you what happened to me on the way here from my Auntie Ashlee's summer home in Middle Pussexton."

Crackbarry wiped the Armadillo dribble from his face and listened with rapt attention as Fleen related the story of his short but intriguing journey of that morning. The Ashlee vacation house was no more than five minutes behind him when Fleen had been run off the M5 by a pair of lime green Mini Coopers with fake police insignias on their doors. The entire contents of his newly-opened bottle of Absolut Peach found its way onto the floor mat of his modified, heavily armoured Hummer (which he lovingly called Betsy-Wetsmee and to this day, no one knows why) as it left the road and went briefly airborne, landing in the cornfield of one Roberto "Flaxseed" McManus. In the course of the wreck, Fleen's ever-present spice pipe (today he was smoking a mixture of cumin, sage and oregano, but the oregano was way too dry this time,
which was a bit of a buzzkill) fell to the floor and immediately ignited the vodka-soaked carpeting.

The flames of the polycarbon carpet fibers, spices and booze had created a sweet-smelling but powerfully hallucinogenic smoke which quickly filled the interior of the Hummer, and Fleen was overcome within a few breaths. He tripped all over the landscape of his cerebral cortex. He saw himself torn to bloody shreds by the girls of Miss Pinklebaum's kindergarten class, the pieces carried off by Australian parakeets, all to a soundtrack of "White Light, White Heat." The
expression on his face in this image confused him, as it was a pre-adolescent smile of sheer glee. There was a scene from "Too Close for Comfort," only the Ted Knight role was played by Fleen's first romantic conquest, Kiera Pukingintheskya, and her Russo-Yapese broken English was here more menacing than funny.

When Fleen had emerged from his peachy fog, he had found himself sitting on the living room sofa in the frighteningly country home of Mr. McManus. "Hey Flaxseed. Sorry about your fence. Where might I find my pants and an Atari 5200 with a pair of joysticks that fuckin' WORK?" The farmer's wife, a giant mannish thing named Bobbi, stopped Flaxseed's cross-living room lunge with one of her hairy arms, clotheslining the man and sending him to a gurgling unconscious spell on the floor. She seized Fleen by his elbow and led him to the barn, where her three strapping sons had already returned the Hummer Betsy-Wetsmee to a close approximation of road-worthiness. Fleen had lost several hours of his life and some good vodka and admittedly sub-par spice, but still managed to make his way to Crackbarry's dormitory by mid-afternoon.

"Well, that explains the news reports and that weird peachy pizzeria scent coming off your smoky clothes." Crackbarry chuckled. "Now what do you need me to do to this Crustedseabass bloke?"

Coping Mechanisms - Like Carl Sagan Making Whale Sounds - Or Creating Drinking Games

"Life is a shit storm, kid. And when it's raining shit, the best umbrella you can buy is art."

So quoth the Peter Falk character whose name I am too lazy to look up, from the underrated movie "Tune In Tomorrow." I'm one of approximately seven people to have seen this picture, and that includes the entire cast and crew and all the mothers thereof.

Anyone who knows me - or has had the incomparably down time to actually read this blog, specifically the "Double-barrel Unemployment" posts - can surely tell you that my past couple of years have been a bit of a shit storm. Okay, maybe not one of those early June end-of-the-world shit downpours, but a shit shower. A shit drizzle, at the very least. And yes, I definitely turned to art on more than one occasion to help get me through that creepy darkness in one piece - if you can call [Adult Swim] cartoons, "Sunny in Philly" and "Surf's Up" ART. I use those so frequently that their collective medicinal value has started to wane. "Wane???" Yeah, it's waning. Same goes for ATHF, Futurama, Archer, Tom & Jerry and Hoarders.

But you know what hasn't waned? The soothing, healing, rejuvenating power of Carl Sagan's PBS series "Cosmos." I can't exactly explain why this 30-year old series has such an effect on me, and some would say that pretty much defeats the purpose of this post. So, those people are hereby excused from reading any further. We'll wait. We'll wait a couple of minutes, apparently, as one of those people seems to think this is his personal chat room. Hang on. (sigh) Any time there, buddy. Don't worry about the half of the class that is staying, legitimately interested and anxious to hear about Joe's depression/anxiety and how "Cosmos" coats it in a cool, soothing, protective salve. Really? Gonna take that call here, are you? Okay. I guess we're all invited. Your girlfriend wants to see other people? Oh dude - that is tragic! Well, it would be tragic, if you hadn't taken that call here, in our room, in front of us, as we are all clearly waiting for you to leave. "Let's see other people?" You know what that means, don't you, bra? It means, "I'm already seeing other people and I've already decided you're not cutting it so goodbye." Ha! Yes, that's it. Move along. Scat. We have ancient TV miniseries to discuss. Buh-bye.

Okay. Where were we? Oh yeah - Cosmos. How can a nerdy science series, produced around 1980 by an admitted carbon and water, how-can-we-be-alone-in-such-a-vast-universe "chauvinist" possibly be the slightest comfort to an overwhelmed person in 2011? Dr. Sagan's presentation oscillates between too-elementary and too-M.I.T.-Grad-School, and his perception of the cosmos (everything that is, ever was or ever will be) and our place in it is at once heartening and bleak. Bits of it are empowering and comforting and can make a math-averse non-scientist feel like a peer of the best and brightest in earth's short history. Other parts, late-1970s-special-effects notwithstanding, can instill feelings of massive, overpowering insignificance and futility. The universe doesn't know or give the tiniest rat's butt about the earth or anything or anyone that has ever happened here. And so on.

And yet.

And yet, when my best job ever was going to hell and we all knew we would be on the street in the middle of the worst employment market since the Great Depression... when my soul mate was in the I.C.U. with an unidentified infection trying to kill her... when she and I were both unemployed simultaneously... and other times of indescribable stress and anxiety (like when they canceled "Wonderfalls")... I have resorted to dusting off the old "Cosmos" DVDs and falling asleep to them, night after night, until the storm clouds have passed and the sun returns - however briefly - to warm my cheeks and make life once again worth living - to gently coax me back in and off the ledge.

Maybe it's the material itself, telling me that I'm tiny and that's okay. Maybe it's Sagan's optimism, his irrepressible glee at the fact that our country at that time had begun to land exploratory robots on other planets. Maybe it's the effects, technically limited, but artistic. Maybe it's the music - an eclectic blend of classical and 1980's most ethereal electronic compositions by the likes of Tomita and Vangelis. Maybe, it's the reverence with with Sagan approaches the subject matter. Maybe. I know it's a combination of all of the above. I can watch the episodes wide awake or I can fall asleep before the opening credits end - it doesn't matter. Life makes more sense. I am closer to being at peace. I can cope with the stuff with which I need to cope, and I can let go of that which I can live without mastering. It's like a drug, only it's good for me.

Sure, the next morning, it all comes crashing down and the guy in the car next to mine - the guy who clearly has never seen "Cosmos" - is just as capable of ruining my fragile little day, but for an hour at a time, I cope. I deal. I survive.

I survive. Thanks, Dr. S. And thanks also for creating a show with several built-in drinking games. I'll share just one, the most obvious: Every time Sagan says "billion," drink. You won't make it through the first episode.

Sorry I Got All Bloggy On You - It Probably Won't Happen Again Until Next Time

I don't wanna get all bloggy on you guys, but well, here we go...

Most of the time, [Maris] and I feel like the only sane people in a lunatic asylum filled with 7 billion patients and no doctors. In recent years, we've come to understand that in reality, it's the other way around. It is we who are apparently defective, in so many ways. Either way, we are now fully aware that we do not belong here. You know, like, on Earth, with you nice people.

Exhibit A: We don't like coffee. At all. I know! Somehow, with both made it through college and retail jobs and decades of being complete night-owls and beyond our thirties without developing a taste for - let alone addiction to - coffee. Caffeine - yes! Mountain Dew for [Maris] and Coke/Lime Diet Coke for me. But not coffee. Just to add some weird sprinkles to the weird frosting that is our coffee-free existence, [Maris] absolutely adores the smell of coffee beans. Walks down the coffee aisle at the grocery store, just snorting the aroma. Brew it up and place it before her, and it's hemlock. "It tastes like burnt dirt in water."

Exhibit B: We don't watch "reality" TV in any form, including the "talent" competitions. We used to watch "The Soup," because Joel McHale and his writers are brilliant, but a couple of years ago, it reached the point where sitting through the clips from the actual shows became so unbearable that we couldn't even get to the funny stuff. What's new with The Bachelor? How's that new kid who can more or less carry a tune doing on A.I.? What happened in that cliffhanger on The Kardashians? Don't know. Don't care. If we had known that all it took to get rich and C-list famous was to do a sex tape or whore ourselves out in a scripted show with a bunch of narcissistic 15-minutes-of-fame-seekers, we could have done all of that and more. Well, maybe ten years ago. Not that we're bitter. Hey, if it's what you want and the machinery is in place for you to make it happen, who are we to stop you. Just please, go away. Soon. You're taking up valuable airtime that could be occupied by more interesting things. (watch for a future post about the downfall of western civilization, wherein "reality" TV will play a central role.)

Exhibit 3: We cringe at the sight (or sound) of bad grammar, made-up words and the abundance of other evidence of the death of the English language. Sadly, that somehow makes us the defective ones. Yeah - we're the weird ones. But just being grammar Nazis doesn't make us that odd. It's the fact that one minute, we'll be bitching at a commercial featuring subject-verb disagreement and the word "deliciocity," and the next thing out of our mouths will be some abomination of English, lifted from "Family Guy" or "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia." Wait. That just makes us hypocrites. That's not weird at all. That's the norm, today! Okay, never minds Exhibit's 3.

Exhibit D: We don't fight. I know, I know. Lots of couples think they don't fight. Seriously, we simply don't. It's not because we agree about literally everything, or have an unhealthy aversion to marital conflict; we just have neither the time, nor the energy for fights. We were already in our thirties when we married, so we have to use all our minutes being smug about our happiness together. Fighting is not on the schedule. It's not like we don't want to fight -- we do! But we can't think of anything to fight about. I'll just stop now. I can hear your skeptical harrumphs. It's true, though. Sorry.

Exhibit E: We love kids, but don't have or want any of our own. This is obviously big enough to be its own post. Hell, it could be its own blog. It's complicated, and don't even start with us because we've heard it all before. Our child-free existence is not a condemnation of almost every other couple on the planet. However, more often than you might expect in 2011, we're thought to be selfish, stupid or utterly insane for not wanting to procreate, and we're perceived as child-hating, anti-family assholes who stand in judgment of all parents - as if we are "right" and everyone else is "wrong." It's not really okay, but we understand. Anyone who deliberately does something differently is automatically seen as disapproving of your way, and by extension, of you. We're the ones going against the grain, here. I just marvel sometimes at the giant toes that surround us, just waiting to be stomped upon. We love kids, and we're not having any, and that's okay. And you're okay, too. We're all okay! Except you English ruiners. We hate you guys.