The phrase "Wouldn't it be nice if…" gets me in a lot of trouble.

Courtesy of Heather:

Over the past couple of years, I've really begun to hate commercial radio. Here's why. In honor of my spouse's engineering trade, let's do some numbers.

In a vain attempt to make myself look organized, I thought I'd undertake a three-day cleaning project in my kitchen. Day One would involve the reorganization of my spice collection and the cleaning of the stove and surrounding areas. Day Two would involve the cleaning of the rest of the counters.

(Implied: that I'd clean up, tidy, and put away the various messes that were ON said counters.)Day Three would be the tackling of the kitchen table.

I said I wouldn't write tonight. I kept my promise; by the time this will be posted, it will be morning. That's fair, is it not? (In some fashion?)

I generally don't write here when I'm troubled or upset. Partly because these moods pass, partly because I am ruled by those moods more than I care to admit, and partly because my natural reaction to 'the blues' is to retreat down deep into myself. Down, past verbose explanations and even sillier tears, to my little mental hiding place where no people, no words, can touch me.

What you can't see is that I'm writing this in the dark. I have the mini-blinds open, and outside, I can see the rain sluicing off of our roof and running into the garden. Farther away, I can't see the rain, but I can see the shimmering effect it has on the reflection from the neighbor's streetlight. It's raining hard enough that I can hear it over Jeff's computer; in the master bedroom it is, probably, quite loud indeed.

I had a lot of roommates during my collegiate years, and to be honest, I didn't care for most of them. Monica stands out as the only one I've kept in touch with; we were friends before we became roommates, and despite my worst (best?) shenanigans, we managed to stay friends afterward.

I emailed her this past week to tell her that one of her collegiate games has stuck with me; that I've infected others with it, and it shows no sign of stopping.At some point, just about every person who attends an American college and lives on-campus discovers one beautiful, innate truth: it's really fun to mess with the heads of your drunken college friends. It takes almost no mental effort on your part, and the rewards are so great that it's sometimes even worth staying sober at the parties, just so you can be the one to tell the stories about all your friends the next day.