On love

I'm deep into the second draft of Project Y and just came to a passage that I really like. It turns out that writing the second draft of a book is more difficult than laying down the first in a lot of ways. Right now I'm engaged in a strange kind of alchemy--desperately trying to turn manure into gold.

Unlike most of the rest of Project Y, I believe I got the piece you'll find below mostly "right" the first time through. When I edited it today, I didn't change a whole lot.

In this passage, Iris, a woman who may or may not be a goddess, delivers a monologue on the subject of love.

I thought I'd share this passage because I was actually surprised when I landed on it. I had forgotten all about this bit, and when I came to it, it struck me as something written by someone else--someone who writes a whole lot better than I do. If I'm ever asked to do an author reading, this will be my selection.

I hope you like it too.

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“Iris, what do you know about love?”

“Oh Tony, I know a lot about love. Then again I know nothing at all. When you get right down to it, love is a mystery, even to the gods. I’ve been around a few thousand years, so it might not come as a complete surprise that I’ve had a few other lovers—men and women, gods and goddesses.”

“It might just surprise you that I’ve earned quite a few doctoral degrees over the years from universities ranging from Oxford and MIT to Texas Tech and Yale. Oh, I see you are surprised, but you wouldn’t be if you thought about it. Gods have a lot of free time on their hands these days, and I’m a bright girl who likes to keep busy. Top universities are really interesting places to hang around.”

“Of all my PhDs, the ones that have given me the most useful insight into the nature of love are in chemistry and physics. You would think one of my biologically based degrees would be helpful, but biology is really just about the plumbing, electric circuitry and mechanics of life, and the field doesn’t lend any real insight into what love is really about.”

“What about psychology?”

“Psychology? What a joke. I got a doctorate in Psychology from the University of Oklahoma, kind of on a lark. What a waste of time. Those morons couldn’t find the human psyche with a map, a GPS and huge signs pointing the way.”

“Here’s what I know about love: love is the most powerful motivator we have. It’s stronger than fear, stronger than hate, stronger than greed.”

“Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is a red, red rose. Love hurts. Love stinks. Love conquers all. Love is eternal. Love is a figment of the imagination and the most real thing in the universe. Love comes in different varieties and in different degrees.

"Sometimes we get to exercise free will and consciously choose who to love or not love. At other times we are prisoners of love and those decisions are beyond our control.”

“Love frees the soul. Love enslaves. Love emboldens. Love and clear thinking don’t usually go well together. Love sometimes leads you to do things you shouldn’t. Love is embarrassing sometimes. Love can destroy a life or save it.”

“Love and sex are different things, but they’re closely related in ways that link directly to the soul. Both are sacred.”

“Some people love everyone, and some people can’t love anyone—not even themselves. Neither of those conditions is particularly good, but people who are incapable of love are the unhappiest."

“It’s very possible to fall in love at first sight—it happens all the time. It’s also possible to be in true love with someone for years and then fall instantly out of love.”

“True love can last a lifetime, but true love can also last just for a split second. Both conditions are as true as the sunrise.”

“Love isn’t entirely about procreation, but love sure does help motivate the continuation of the species.”

“Love usually blossoms through proximity. Contrary to the mortal saying, absence does not make the heart grow fonder. That is just wishful thinking invented to comfort couples who find their love fading through separation.”

“It’s possible to truly love more than one person at the same time, but those situations almost never end up well.”

“Love is the true opiate of the masses. That and cable television.”

“It is possible to make someone love you, but not anyone worthwhile.”

“And the most important thing I know about love is really more about love once removed. When someone falls in love they are powerless to control themselves. There is nothing you can say or do to make them think or act rationally and it’s futile to even try. I’ve seen it hundreds of times, and it always plays out the same way.”

“First, Billy falls in love with Susie. Susie is mean tempered, a crone, a tramp, an addict, selfish, evil, vapid or whatever the case may be. This is not a good match and it’s blindingly apparent to everyone—everyone except, of course, for Billy. Your first is instinct is to warn Billy for his own protection and talk him out of loving Susie.”

“Billy ends up resenting you because of this, and he’s now doubly cursed because he has lost your friendship and he’s stuck with a witch."

"In short, love is blind.”

“That’s all I know about love, Tony. Now come over here.”

Jury duty

Yesterday, the mayor of Birmingham was convicted on numerous felony counts of various kinds of corruption.

It's big news in these parts.

The now ex-mayor is quite a character and highly entertaining. As a politician, he was an outspoken, hotheaded ball of undirected energy. Surprisingly, he actually accomplished some positive things for the city during his brief tenure as its mayor. But the man is also sadly and deeply flawed, and his nature caught up to him yesterday.

But I wasn't thinking about the mayor when news of his conviction broke. I was thinking about the jury and how quickly they did their job. They returned their verdicts on all 60 counts less than two hours after the judge completed his instructions.

I've served on one jury in my life. It was a criminal trial in New Orleans, and the case was as open and shut as it could possibly be.

The trial lasted less than half a day. It was a stinking hot Thursday in late August, and none of the jurors minded sitting through a trial. In fact, we were happy to be there. The late summer days make everyone in New Orleans lethargic, and sitting quietly indoors in the air conditioning while accomplishing something and hearing a good story wasn't a bad way to pass a few hours.

The defendant, a young man, was charged with being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. That is a crime. For reasons that were never made clear by either side, the young man was stopped by a police officer, and while the cop was talking to him, the gun fell through the leg of his baggy, underwear-showing thug britches and onto the ground. The gun, a cheap Saturday night special, was passed through the jury.

The prosecution proved that the guy was a felon and he was in possession of a gun, and the defense didn't dispute those two facts. Case closed.

The defense centered around a legal concept called "constructive possession", something the defendant's lawyer didn't even seem to understand, and it made zero impact on those of us in the jury.

The jury represented a true cross-section of the New Orleans population. We were black and white, male and female and all engaged in differing vocations. There was never a doubt about our ultimate decision, but as New Orleanians we had important business to conduct before getting to the minor matter of our verdict. When we were sent to the jury room to deliberate, each of us gave the others a brief (for New Orleans) autobiography, and then we played a few rounds of who-do-you-know. Living in a city with zero degrees of separation, this took a considerable amount of time. Since it was August, we also had to debate the Saints chances in the upcoming football season.

In New Orleans everything eventually becomes a party, and no party there is complete without good food. There was no way we were going to vote until we got fed something tasty. The bailiff eventually delivered a couple of big bags filled with delicious seafood po-boys and a bunch of cold soft drinks and we enjoyed them while solving most of the world's problems.

After finishing our sandwiches, we gently eased into a very brief discussion of the trial and quickly brought in the inevitable guilty verdict.

The Alabama jury that convicted the Birmingham mayor yesterday barely had time to take a potty break and choose a foreman before they came back into the courtroom with their verdict.

That wouldn't have, couldn't have happened in New Orleans. The food there is way too good and the natives are too talkative for a New Orleans jury to squander an opportunity to have a nice chat-and-chew with a group of strangers who hadn't already their life stories a hundred times. That would have been a grave miscarriage of justice.

Yesterday, those poor Alabama jurors just got down to business and went right home. How sad for them.

Technically, I still owe New Orleans another week of jury duty.

The trial I served on was held on the first Thursday of my two week term in the jury pool. No trials were scheduled for Friday, so I was off the next day. On Monday morning, when I was supposed to be back in the courthouse for my second week, I was instead sitting in my brother's living room in Birmingham, watching television coverage of Hurricane Katrina wrecking my city.

How many writers?

How many writers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Only one, but:

1. It will take him all day to do it.

2. He will irreparably harm the environment in the process.

3. He will damage his home.

4. He will make trips to three different hardware stores for supplies and skip a fourth trip he should have taken.

5. He will endanger an innocent animal and terrorize the poor creature by chasing it around the house and screaming at it.

6. He will make the most of his incompetence by writing about it.

We have a fluorescent light fixture in our kitchen that holds four of those 48 inch tubes. It seemed to be dimmer lately, and when I removed the cover this morning I saw why--two of the tubes were out.

No problem, I think. I'll just replace the bulbs. The whole process should take no more than five minutes out of my day and I'll get on with my life.

I already had errands to run this morning and a hardware store was on the way. I bought four of the bulbs figuring that if two were out, the other two were sure to follow.

Replacing the bulbs didn't fix the problem. The same two lights remained out. In fact, my changing the bulbs compounded the problem since in my experimentation, one of them rolled off the kitchen counter and smashed into a gazillion tiny bits of dust and glass that reached all over the house. Who knew those things could roll? Who knew that all those bits of glass could go so far?

I have read that there is deadly mercury in fluorescent bulbs, but I'm not sure what you're supposed to do about that when tiny bits and pieces are scattered everywhere. My hazmat suit was at the dry cleaners, so after chasing our alley cat Scram away from the crime scene and herding him outside, I opted to sweep up the toxic mess and dump it in the trash while trying my best not to breathe in all the nasty mercury-laden dust particles.

After a little trial and error and some internet research, I determined that my woes were being caused by something called the ballast, which is a heavy black lump of metal with wires sticking out of it. After further taking apart the light fixture to get access to the ballast, I saw that there were two of them. By following the wires I determined which one was bad.

In removing the ballast, I dropped it. Ordinarily it would have landed harmlessly on the mat we have in the kitchen, but I had removed the mat to shake out all of the broken glass and hadn't yet replaced it. Unfortunately, this heavy object landed on an edge, gouging a nasty dime-sized hole in our hardwood kitchen floor.

The ballast successfully removed, I headed off to hardware store number two. They didn't carry ballasts.

So it was on to Lowes where I bought a new ballast, electrical fluorescent tube plug thingies, two more bulbs and a hardwood floor repair kit.

Back home I realized that the wires extending from the new ballast weren't long enough for this fixture, which meant I needed to splice some wire from the old one, but I didn't have any of those screw in electrical thingies. Then I broke one of my electrical plug thingies by installing it backwards.

At this point I begin to "improvise" by cannibalizing some of the old parts and whatever else was already available in the basement rather than taking a needed fourth trip to the hardware store. Even if my improvisations didn't meet code, this actually sped up the process. Eventually I turned the power back on in the house to test my prowess as an electrician. Miraculously, all four lights came on, but they flickered in that annoying way that fluorescent lights sometimes do.
I wiggled the tubes around a bit and, eureka!, I was bathed in a steady glow of bright fluorescent light.

Then I covered the hole in the kitchen floor with the mat, opting to leave that repair project for another day (or maybe for Teri). I cleaned the kitchen, piled up the tools, tossed all the packaging and old and unused and electrical pieces. Finally, I wandered around the house resetting all the clocks.

There--that wasn't so bad now, was it?

So, how was your day?

This made me laugh so hard I cried

A quick comment about comments

Several of you have recently reported having issues while attempting to leave comments here.

I've just eliminated the word verification step for would-be commentators. It's a security measure that is supposed to keep spammers away, so I may put it back if that starts happening.

But I think the problem you've been having is you. A tip for any frustrated discerning readers: when you leave a comment here, you have to select a profile before sending it. You'll select your profile in a drop down menu which is just between the empty box and the Post Comment button. If you have a Google account and are signed in, that's the way to go. You can also choose name/url and type in your name, but the easiest option of all is to pick "anonymous" and leave me wondering who you are.

Quality time

Doctors are busy people. Since most doctors are paid by the job and not by the hour, every extra moment your family physician spends with you is a lost opportunity to make more money by moving on to the next patient.

One time I went to my doctor in New Orleans, and he asked me how I was feeling.

"Fine," I said.

Then he asked a couple of other similar "probing" questions, was satisfied with my asymptomatic responses and within a minute headed for the exit, either to get to his next bit of piecework or to the cute drug rep waiting for him in the lobby.

He was nearly outside before I stopped him.

"Wait," I said in disbelief as his hand reached for the doorknob. "I haven't told you why I came to see you today." I was there for a "permission slip" and a few exotic vaccinations for a Southeast Asian adventure I was planning, and when I explained the purpose of the visit, he got a bit testy with me.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he snapped.

"You never bothered to ask," I snapped back.

To his credit, my doctor was clearly a bit chagrined, although his ego didn't quite allow him to apologize.

So last Friday I was at my Suburbingham doctor for a routine blood test. My doctor walked into the examining room, and before he could say anything, I hit him with the following question: "So, doc, what do you think of health care reform?"

Let me tell you, if you want to spend some quality time with your doctor right now, just ask that question. This ended up being the single longest office visit I've ever had with a doctor as he launched into a monologue on the mess that is our current health care system complete with detailed explanations of insurance repayment ratios, the impending demise of the primary care physician, why the current system is broken and why the proposed solutions out of Washington won't solve the problem. All that was missing was the PowerPoint slide show.

"Okay," I said after I thought I had a full grasp of his perspective and he paused momentarily to take a breath. "Now, let's talk about me."

The really good news out of all of this came a couple of days later when the doctor's office called with the results of my blood test. Cholesterol levels down, blood sugar level down, weight down, blood pressure levels down--all very good news in my case. The doctor is very pleased with me, his office manager said. At least the Best Year Ever Plan is beginning to pay dividends on the health front.

Speaking of quality time, Teri and I spent a beautiful fall weekend in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with a bunch of dear friends. The weekend was wonderful, even if the football game that was the excuse for us to gather together was a dreadful and dull affair.

I want to keep some of these friends, so you'll just have to use your imagination about the antics that took place there, but this trip back to my former home state reminded me of something I had almost forgotten--the average IQ drops 30 points the moment you cross the state line and enter Louisiana. It's not like my current home state of Alabama is the epicenter of intellectual firepower, but compared to Louisiana . . .

I don't know why Louisiana is the dumbest state in the nation, but I'm convinced it's true. I won't offer evidence here--I could, but the stories I would relate are mostly more sad than funny--but if you're an outsider and you've ever been there, you know it's true.

Just to be clear, since I've already mentioned that I really want to keep my friends, I'm not including the Louisianians we were visiting in my assessment of the general population. They included a doctor, a teacher, a financial guru, other medical professionals and a rocket scientist (okay, so he was really a professor of theoretical condensed matter physics--same difference). These people were doing their best to bring up the curve for the rest of the state.

Don't get me wrong--I really love Louisiana, especially South Louisiana, and it was my home for fifteen mostly happy years. Louisiana has a quality of life and a love of life that is unmatched anywhere else. The people there are wonderful, but Louisiana is definitely the dimmest bulb in the American chandelier.

I wonder if all the years I spent there permanently dinged my own IQ level.

Speaking of rocket scientists, the smartest place on the planet outside the bowels of the research labs at Stanford and MIT has to be the Chick-fil-A fast food joint on University Drive in Huntsville, Alabama on any weekday at lunchtime. If you ever go there for lunch, you will literally be surrounded by the rocket scientists who work for NASA and the major aerospace corporations and have their labs and offices clustered in that immediate area. There will also find a smattering of professors from the nearby university, but they actually bring down the average score.

What just happened?

This is just weird.

Yesterday, the number of discerning readers who visited this site, although still very modest, was way more than double the number of you who show up on an average day and easily the most who have ever come by on a single day since I started this thing.

And it was the most international crowd to ever share in the Best Year Ever. You came from from Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Romania, England, Portugal, Sweden, and Vietnam. There were at least three of you from France--Brittany, Strausbourg and Paris respectively (bienvenu!). And of course the majority of you came from all over the United States. I've been waiting for the first South American visitor to show up on my traffic map and three different South American countries showed up at the same time.

And where did the Canadians go, all of a sudden, eh? Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta--I haven't seen you for a few days and I miss you guys. Come on back and we'll share a double-double together.

Anyway, huh?! (or ainnnnnh?! as the discerning French-Canadian reader might say).

I'm thrilled to see you all, but completely baffled by your sudden appearance and I would love to know what just happened. Anyone have any ideas?

Are you pleased? Angry? Confused? Is it something I said? Did you all show up here on the same day by mistake?

Talk to me.

My inner curmudgeon

Yesterday, I promised to expose you to my inner curmudgeon, and I'll stop teasing you in a moment. But it's such a beautiful fall day outside, and I'm in such a good mood, that I just have to start off by sharing something nice.

My friends enjoy teasing me about my demented and unrefined musical tastes. They are way too cool to admit that Hanson's "Mmmm Bop" or ABBA's "Waterloo" are good music, even if they secretly know it's true somewhere deep inside their repressed souls. Fine. Today, for your consideration, I offer a couple of my most recent musical discoveries, which I submit even those of you with the most refined musical palates will enjoy and be proud to embrace publicly.

For all I know these two acts are already familiar to everyone on the planet. I'm the first to admit my knowledge of current pop culture is limited at best, but both of these acts are new to me.

A Fine Frenzy is the name 24-year-old alt-pop wonder Alison Munro (aka Alison Sudol) performs under. Her impossibly sweet singing voice and smart, inventive lyrics are musical honey to my ears. She does quite a few ballads, but I like her faster stuff better. Go directly to iTunes and download "What I Wouldn't Do", "Electric Twist", and "Blow Away". You're welcome. You can see a cute video of A Fine Frenzy by clicking here.

Now take the innocent romantic sensibility of A Fine Frenzy, add fifteen years of life experience, a lounge act backing band and a barely detectable problem with vodka and you've captured the sound of Marilyn Older, lead singer for the group Chaise Lounge. Start by downloading "About Sex" and "I Don't Want To". On its website, the band describes itself as "early stereo, like it was recorded at Capitol Recording Studios in early 1962", and that's about right.

You can check out Chaise Lounge performing "I Don't Want To" here. Enjoy.

Teri and I are back on the road tomorrow. This time we'll be driving to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Ostensibly we're going to attend the Auburn vs. LSU football game with 90,000 or so other fans, but really were going to share some good times with the dozen or so people in that crowd we care most about.

For a long time now, a fairly stable nucleus of partisans have gathered annually for this particular event. The group is split about evenly, with half supporting LSU and the other half rooting for Auburn. There's always a lot of good-natured teasing about the game itself, but the joy we find in each others' company is the real point of the exercise.

Held once every year, this game alternates between Auburn, Alabama and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Last year we rented two cabins on a lake just outside of Auburn on a perfect fall weekend.

Several of the Louisiana gang are connected with some very generous high rollers who own a massive RV and a permanent parking spot just a few steps away from the stadium gate, so on the LSU years we have free reign with the best tailgate situation imaginable. The RV comes complete with an amazing food spread, big screen satellite TV, a hired bartender named Russell who pours liberally and the all-important toilet.

I never go with a ticket to this always sold-out game, but there are always extras floating around. I'm the first to pass up going to the game to let someone else get inside the pigskin temple. Last year, the setting of the lake cabin in the woods was spectacular and the grill needed tending anyway, so a couple of us opted to stay back and not go to town at all, even for the tailgate. Great decision.

On the last couple of trips to Baton Rouge, I've stayed at the RV, hanging with Russell and watching the game on ESPN. Another wise move, but one that comes with a tiny bit of cognitive dissonance. The ESPN telecast is delayed by several seconds from the action on the field as is takes place in real time. So from my vantage point just outside the stadium, I could hear the roar of the crowd and know something big was about to happen a moment before it played out on the big TV outside the RV.

This year most of the Alabama contingent will be staying in the home of an old friend, the lovely and gracious Ninette, and a good time will again be had by all.

Here's where the curmudgeon part comes in. This year, I'm staying at Ninette's place during the game. Even though the forecast is for a beautiful fall day with a zero percent chance of rain. Even though Russell will be there to attend to any whim I may have with regard to food and beverage. Even though someone will inevitably offer me their ticket. Even though the others will tell me I'm an idiot for driving 400 miles to watch a game alone on TV when I could have stayed home and watched it. I don't care about any of that--I'm sticking to my guns.

Big crowds are a hassle, and the older I get, the less I like them. The noise, smells, traffic, inebriated interactions, pointless aggression and other aspects of going to a "big" game are just not as alluring to me as they once were.

So here's my plan for game day, and nobody is going to talk me out of it: As soon as the rest of the gang staggers out in the direction of the stadium, I'm going to find the nearest Popeyes and get a big box of their spicy fried chicken. Then I'm going to plop down on Ninette's couch with that hot chicken and a cold beverage and enjoy the game in complete comfort.

When the band of warriors returns exhausted and happy with tales of mirth, glory and human frailty, I will revel in their stories and pretend I made a mistake by not going with them before offering them my leftover chicken. But I won't regret my decision.

Sounds like the perfect weekend to me.

Connections

I'm about to go all Andy Rooney on you this morning, but I have a few other random items to get through first before I drag out my inner curmudgeon for your reading pleasure, my dear discerning readers.

My favorite Vietnamese poet and the main subject of yesterday's offering, has weighed in from halfway around the world. Check out her very sweet comment attached to yesterday's post.

Speaking of halfway around the world, this virtual freehold had its first visitor from the United Arab Emerites the other day (مرحبا, welcome!). I've lost track of how many nations have been represented by visitors to this site (the Netherlands was another recent addition), but I'm thrilled and fascinated whenever someone from another country lands here. I'm sure many of you get here by Googling a key phrase and finding me instead of anything really useful . . . but still.

I don't know why I continually wonder at the way the internet and cell phones have enabled us to connect to one another with such ease. I guess it's about time I got over it and began taking all this for granted, but I simply can't. For anyone 30 or younger, this is how it has always been and not something to marvel at in the same way that commercial air travel has always been a part of everyday life for me . . . but still.

Today an old high school buddy, my debate partner in the 10th grade, and my first real crush, friended me on Facebook out of the blue. It was such a treat hearing from Pam after a gap of over 30 years and discovering that she is alive and well and living a successful life. She was a year ahead of me in school, we moved to Atlanta in the middle of my junior year and I was as awkward as any teenage boy who ever lived, so there isn't any more to the crush part of that story, I'm afraid. There is a slightly Freudian bit, however. Pam's maiden name is the same as my wife Teri's--same spelling and everything. For some reason I remembered Pam's last name starting with C and not K. Hmmm--we won't make too much of that. Right Teri?

Last week I gave up on waiting until October 26th rolled around and have begun plowing through the second draft of "Carnival Time". I'm sorry to the majority of you who loathe my choice of titles and voted for other options, but I have made the executive decision to make that the official title of Project Y and found a cute way to work it into to the last sentence of the first chapter.

I'm rapidly discovering that writing a second draft is a painful process--partly because I made the decision halfway through to switch from a first to a third person point-of-view and I have to change all those Is and mes to Tonys and hes in the earlier chapters. It's also frustrating, because my first goal is to not make the second draft a bigger mess than the first, and that is turning out to be more difficult I thought. In a few minutes I'll be plowing through a section where Tony muses conversationally about whether the blind poet Homer was actually blind and whether or not he once met the goddess Aphrodite in person. It's actually a lot better and funnier than it sounds, but it doesn't fit with the change in point-of-view and time issues I've created, so it has to go. Ouch!

I tell you what--because you've been so nice today, I'm not going to subject you to my curmudgeonly rant just yet. I'll save that for tomorrow. See you then.

Almost lost in translation

Like many of you I'm on Facebook (friend me), and just like many of you, a lot of what I post there is mundane drivel of interest only to people who already know the information I'm sharing with them. A proclamation that I really like cheese and other similar revelations don't exactly break new ground in the realm of human interaction. I'm not alone in my talent for posting bits of vapidity--a lot of you are very, very good at that too.

Quite a few of my Facebook friends are playing interactive games on the site--Mafia Wars seems to be the choice of the guys, and the women have taken to two games--something called Farmville and another called Island Paradise. Whenever one of my friends accomplishes something in one of these games, I'm notified on my Facebook home page, and I quietly cheer their virtual successes. Today my Facebook account informs me that Carol gained a new figmental level in her game, Cristin needs help finding her lost imaginary dog and Kaye has achieved a new level of immaterial soybean mastery.

The people I know playing these games are responsible adults and mostly somewhere close to my range of middle age. Out of curiosity I played around with Mafia Wars for a couple of hours a few months ago and found it dangerously addictive, so I deleted that application from my profile and haven't been back.

Then there are the high school and college-age women who are my friends on Facebook, and for a 50 year old married guy, I've got a disturbingly large number of them. Some of these young women are family and others are connected to me either through church or through Teri's teaching gig.

When you meet them in person, these are invariably charming, polite and demure young women. But turn them loose with a computer or an iPhone, and some of them become uninhibited, potty-mouthed little minxes. What's up with that? And don't get me started with some of the overly revealing profile pictures some of them post. Ladies, some of you need to leave a little more to the imagination--that's all I'm saying.

One of my Facebook friends is unique among all the rest. I've met her in person only once and there's a fair chance we'll never meet in person again, but she's one of the most charming and interesting people I know.

Her posts are brief and beautiful--mostly poetry and parable. And though she posts in three different languages, mostly she writes in her native tongue, the only one of those three languages I can neither speak nor read.

Minh Thoan Nguyen is a young working mother living halfway around the world, in Hanoi, Vietnam. She's the wife of my friend Tuan and the mother of their beautiful son Pi. In her spare moments she writes about the seasons, motherhood, being a wife and other aspects of the cycle of life.

Most of her posts look something like this:

Mấy hôm nay rồi ko vào được cam. Mẹ nó có xem được ko? Chán thế, gọi đến trường rồi mà chả thấy được khắc phục gì cả. Tối nay mẹ nó mua món gì cho Pi đi rước đèn cùng trường đấy

I paste her posts into Google Translate and get a rough version in English.

There's a problem, though. You can tell, just looking at them, how many of her posts involve rhyme, meter and wordplay, but that important part of her art is lost in the computerized translation, as is much of the literal meaning and basic grammar. Here's an obvious example that will show you what I mean. You can see the structure in this bit of poetry even if you have never seen Vietnamese before:

Bố cho con ăn
Con cười bố cười

Con cho bố ăn
Con khóc bố khóc

Google Translate has real problems with grammar and meaning when it turns Vietnamese sentences into English. But even with those problems the beauty of Thoan's writing shines through. Here are a few recent fractured translations from Thoan. Most of them are about the current season. I've tried to deGooglefy them a bit, which may have made them even less of what she intended, but you'll get the idea.

Any new flower garden blooms late--past life, I have one ......

A bad day in the autumn is still beautiful!

Children are as fragile as dew or smoke on the street, where the wind blows on a fall day ...

They say the wind wrecked his marriage. And fell on him with a gentle fall.

Children and autumn sunshine--listen to each drop of sunshine fill fall. Listen to this morning ..... Collect full sun and the wind will be blue. Extend our hearts to embrace the wind, the sun dances on the face, passes on the shoulders.

October actually steps down gently ... Every morning in the market--do not forget to buy purple flowers ... When we love more than most, the fragrance gently opens up each step into the room ..... Mild sweet fragrances, the gentle, wild and warm association ....

After the rains, in the morning you will find a sweet, peaceful white porcelain vase in the corner of your flower garden. The rains leave behind lives lived sweet and deep and not just as a storm passing through .....

I wish I could write that beautifully. Or feel that deeply.

The first whiff

I found myself in a big box store early this morning, a Target as it happens. I don't enjoy shopping at those huge discount stores, so I avoid them whenever possible. But today, I needed something and Target was open and where I happened to be already, so I went in.

I don't object to the huge discounters for political reasons, such as the way they have driven Main Street mom and pop stores out of business or that they don't provide a living wage to their employees. No, that's free enterprise at work, folks, and if people want to support the monster discount stores, it's fine by me.

No, my dislike of the big discount store experience stems from the fact that I can never seem to find the thing I'm looking for or someone to guide me to it as it hides among all the thousands of things I'm not looking for. Today was no exception, and I ultimately left the Target empty handed.

Home Depot is the worst. Not being particularly handy, I don't know what half the stuff they sell even is, much less what to do with it, so going there always makes me feel less manly. Plus, the last two times I've gone into Home Depot looking for an advertised sale item (cypress mulch and light bulbs respectively), those items were already out of stock.

After leaving Target, I drove to my small town Ace hardware store where a friendly employee greeted me at the door and led me to the exact item I was looking for (a cheap outdoor themometer). I was in and out in less than five minutes.

You see, the first real cold front of this autumn blew through overnight and it is expected to dip down as low as the upper 30s over the next couple of nights, so I'm starting to get interested in how cold it is outside at any given moment. The outdoor thermometer thoughtfully left behind by the previous owner of our estate finally gave up the ghost and has been reading a constant 60 for the last few months. Since the temperature here is actually 60 degrees only intermittently, the information the thermometer was providing was useful only on rare occasions and I had no way of knowing when those were.

But back to Target. As I mentioned, it was early and the store was nearly deserted. It was quiet too--too quiet for one of those places. The televisions in the electronics section were off and no music or announcements emenated from the PA system. As I continued my fruitless wandering through the store, I heard it. It came to me so softly as to be barely audible, and at first I thought I was imagining things. It took a few moments before I positively identified what I was hearing. Yes people, it was the first Christmas carol of the year--for the record, a Kenny G-ized version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen".

Moments later I passed by the source, located somewhere near housewares. It was one of those kiosks that most of the year display racks of light jazz, mood and world music by artists you've never heard of. This one was filled with Christmas CDs by the same unknown musicians. You can touch any of the album covers on the kiosk and it will play samples of the music on that album. I guess it was set to play randomly if nobody was around, and by the time I passed it, it had moved on to "O' Holy Night".

It was chilly outside when I left the Target and I zipped up my jacket. Yes, that season is on its way, and I have just had my first whiff of it.

My little farm girl

Thoughts across the Heartland

CNN talk show host Larry King is a tweetaholic. He sends out random thoughts on Twitter, some of which are either really mundane or just plain bizarre. Others are so bad they're good--like demented haikus. A few examples from the last couple of weeks:

Life goes on... until it doesn't.

Putting on my suspenders... it's almost showtime!

I'm the worst person to be stuck with in a traffic jam.

Show is over & I am heading to dinner. Have a good night!

I got a fortune cookie that read - "Don't believe what you read in fortune cookies" Now what do I do?

The world is unfair to left handed people…

I don’t know why, but I don’t like short sleeve shirts.

Okay, you get the idea. In the spirit of the kind of deep thinking best exemplified by Mr. King's tweets, here are some random thoughts that occurred to me on two recent 14 hour solo drives through America's Heartland. I can't approach Mr. King's sublime brevity, but I'll do my very best to match his level of wit.

Does it always rain in Indiana?

Snow in Wisconsin on October 10th! Ties the earliest date on record. So much for global warming.

The coyote sitting on the side of I-65 in Kentucky looked completely unafraid as he watched the heavy highway traffic flow past. What was he thinking?

So many pheasants, geese, ducks, herons, hawks--I don't remember seeing that many big birds until recent years. Is it that there are fewer hunters? DDT is gone? I'm more observant?

And why are they called Canada geese when I see them everywhere and they live in my neighborhood's lake year round?

Construction on I-294 skirting Chicago made it the worst, most torn up road I've driven anywhere in my life and the jerks had the nerve to charge me $4.90 for the privilege of driving it (each way). That's just evil. Jerks!

In fact the construction is so confusing that I missed the cash lanes on two toll booths and went through the I-Pass lanes instead and had to pay the tolls online to avoid big fines. I'm smarter than the average bear and a very experienced driver, so I can't be the only one. Jerks!

Why did they bother to install cameras on I-294 to trap speeders when it's impossible to speed on that piece of junk road? Jerks!

Just because I-294 is so awful, I'm glad that Chicago didn't get the Olympics! Jerks!

I was driving through Alabama at about 4 AM on Friday when it was announced that President Obama had received the Nobel Peace Prize. I thought it was a joke. Still seems that way.

Wisconsin is beautiful. It's just a shame their winter is nine months long.

You never know what you'll find for sale in a modern truck stop.

It seems like our entire interstate system is under construction. Why didn't they build it right the first time?

I wonder how many of those orange traffic barrels and cones I passed on the drive. Thousands and thousands. I bet the guy who makes them isn't feeling the recession.

Indianapolis looks like a boring city as you drive through.

Big Macs and Wendy burgers don't taste as good as I remembered.

Fried cheese curds aren't the taste sensation I thought they'd be.

People who save a few seconds by cutting ahead before merging at the last instant when the interstate narrows to one lane for construction are thoughtless and selfish and slow the flow of traffic for everyone. They should be publicly executed.

Driving in heavy rain for ten hours straight is no fun.

Rush Limbaugh used to be funny. Now he's just mean.

Apples taste better when they come straight from the orchard.

You forget how much of America remains undeveloped until you drive through it.

Next time, I'm flying.

Down on the farm

My sister Carol and her husband Lee are a rare breed--they are farmers. In 1935 there were 137 million people living in the United States and 6.8 million farms. Today, with our population over 300 million, there are less than one million people who claim farming as their principle source of income.

Over 40 percent of the farmers in business today are over 55, which means that, in addition to being a rare breed, farmers are literally a dying breed.

Teri and I spent a long weekend visiting Lee and Carol at their farm outside of Waupun, Wisconsin. Lee (that's him on the left sharing a moment with my brother Mike) has lived on his 145 acre family farm for his entire life and for the last 22 of those years, he has lived there with Carol. On the land he owns and leases, he raises crops of soybeans, wheat and oats. He also raises sheep and lots and lots of pigs.

I've always admired farmers and especially family farmers. I'm sure there are some jerks who make their livings farming, but every farmer I've known personally has been "good people".

To persist as a family farmer you need several attributes, the first of which is a willingness to work very, very hard.

I'm normally an early riser, but Lee was up before I was every morning we were there to care for the pigs and sheep, clean the barn and do the other necessary daily chores. I never found out what those are, because I was still in bed or sipping coffee while he was out doing them. He does this every day, rain or shine, and in that part of Wisconsin rain or shine includes mornings when the temperature is 20 degrees below zero. It's especially important to be out doing the chores during those bitterly cold early mornings because delay can cause the water pipes to freeze leading to even more work.

But the morning chores are just a part of the job. There are buildings and equipment to be maintained, crops to plant and harvest and the business aspects of the job.

Farm work isn't a nine-to-five job--there's always something to do, and the farmer doesn't always control the schedule of when the necessary work gets done.

While I was there Lee was a little antsy because there had been a lot of rain recently. He had soybeans ready for harvest, but he couldn't bring in the crop until the ground dried up enough to support his heavy harvesting equipment and the plants were dry so that they wouldn't clog his combine machinery. The excuse for our visit was a day-long party celebrating the marriage of one of their kids, but even during the party, Lee slipped away periodically to check on one of his sows who was in the barn giving birth to 15 impossibly cute piglets.

To make it as a farmer you also have to be smart and make good decisions about how you utilize your land. If you breed too many pigs at a time when pork prices are falling dramatically, you'll make little or nothing for all of your hard work when it's time to take the animals to market. If you guess right about when to lock in the prices for your soybeans, you can make a bundle. There's a little riverboat gambler in the soul of every farmer.

I just remembered--Lee wants you all to know that it's the H1N1 virus and not the swine flu. You can't get the swine flu from eating pigs--especially not his. The swine flu has caused a temporary decrease in pork consumption and pork prices and that is bad news for him.

He might not phrase it this way--Lee, like most farmers I know, is a bit of a taciturn man--but you can tell that he loves his life, he loves his land, and he's very proud of the work he does. We're all very lucky that there are still a few hardworking men and women like Lee and Carol in America's heartland still willing to feed the rest of us.

Packing light

Sometime today, I'll get around to packing for our upcoming road trip. It will take me less than five minutes.

Practice makes perfect, and I long ago mastered the art of packing. For many years, I've kept two complete sets of toiletries. One for home and one in my travel bag. That way, all I need to do is add clothes and go.

And here's my recipe for how to pick your clothes: Take the number of days you'll be gone and toss in that many sets of socks and underwear. Add tee-shirts for the number of days in the trip minus one (minus two, if you'll be gone more than four days, minus three if you'll be gone a week or more). Add one pair of jeans, an extra pair of shoes and a good book. Throw other articles of clothing into your suitcase, accounting for the purpose of the trip, the length of the trip and the weather you anticipate, and, voila, you're packed.

Here's a packing tip I've never seen published anywhere. It's a little weird, but, trust me, if you do this, you'll never again arrive at your destination only to realize you forgot to pack your socks. When the clothes are in the suitcase but before I zip it shut, I stand next to the bag. I mentally dress myself and go over what I've put into the suitcase. I point to my feet (shoes check; socks, check), my legs (pants, check), my waist (underwear, check; belt, check), my chest (tee shirts, undershirts, casual shirts, dress shirts, sports coat; check, check and check) and my neck (ties, check).

While I'm pointing to my neck, I throw on the necklace containing my St. Christopher medal, if I haven't already. I'm not saying I'm superstitious and I'm not Catholic, but I wouldn't dream of taking a road trip without bringing the patron saint of travelers along with me. I bought the little medal from a strange old man in a small, cluttered religious shop in Montreal, and it goes with me every single time I travel. The medal and chain set me back a grand total of one dollar (Canadian, so it was really only about 70 cents US at the time), and it is one of my most prized possessions.

If I have any question as to whether I've packed an article of clothing, I check the bag. Usually if I'm in doubt, I've forgotten it. I promise that this really works, and it has saved me many times over the years.

The whole "bag check" takes only a few seconds as I mentally review what I've put into my suitcase. Whenever Teri is in the room while I'm going through this exercise, she giggles and then starts singing to me. She can't help herself. It's always the same song.

Head and shoulders, knees and toes (knees and toes)
Head and shoulders, knees and toes (knees and toes)
And eyes and ears and mouth and nose
Head and shoulders, knees and toes (knees and toes)

I'm sorry. Now that's in your head for the rest of the day.

"Stop it!" I'll say in response to my wife's serenade. "I can't concentrate. You're messing with my system."

Teri can tell you all about my "systems". I have a bunch of them, and they have served me well over the years. I have a system for house cleaning, a system for mowing the lawn, a system for washing dishes and for a host of the other mundane routines of life. When Teri asks me why I'm doing something a particular way or interferes with the task at hand by "helping", I usually get a little irritated.

"I have a system," is my invariable explanation.

"Of course you do," is her invariable response.

Come to think of it, that's a system too.

Memorable road trips

Today we're continuing this week's theme of life on the road.

In the last few weeks I've watched every episode of the first two seasons of the critically acclaimed television series Mad Men on DVD. If you've never seen it, it's a brilliant drama centered around the life of Don Draper, a New York advertising executive and is set in the early 1960s. Draper is played by Jon Hamm (seen here), who was unknown to most of the world until he was cast in the role of his life.

This isn't about Mad Men, it's about something that periodically happens in it. Every so often Don leaves his Manhattan office to go out and sell, and when he does, things always get interesting. Don, who is married on the show with two young children, very often ends up in the bed of someone other than his beautiful wife when he leaves the office on business.

In one particularly memorable episode from the second season, Don was at a convention in Los Angeles trying to drum up business from the aerospace industry. A few words and a meaningful glance from a beautiful girl were all it took to get Don to abandon his appointments without notice, hop in her Mercedes convertible and go missing for several days of hedonistic thrills.

That's what life is like when you're a salesman on the road in a television drama or perhaps if you're a salesman that resembles Jon Hamm.

This has not been my experience. In my world Don Draper's actions would get you both divorced and fired. My best guess is that I've spent over a thousand nights on the road on business, so I've got a pretty big sample size to work with and I know what life on the road is really like.

Here's what really happens on a business trip. First of all, you have to get wherever it is that you're going, which means a long drive or at least one flight. When you do get wherever there is, you're already tired and it's probably well into the evening. You've got work to do to follow up on the business you did that day and you need to prepare for the next. You also need to follow up on the e-mails from customers and colleagues that filled up your in-box while you were traveling. Most road warriors today can receive and respond to their e-mails in real time from their cell phones, but the communications still back up. Typically, you'll have a lousy meal and end up back at your hotel for some quality time with your computer, and then you relax with a little mindless television before falling asleep. If you're lucky, someone else from your company will be on the road trip with you, and you'll have a dinner companion before you both retire to your cells to prepare for the next day.

Sounds exciting, doesn't it?

What doesn't happen is that impossibly beautiful women give you meaningful glances that lead to extracurricular activities. It just doesn't happen. At least not to me.

Today I was going to write about all of the hilarious things that have happened to me over the years on business trips. But after giving it some thought I concluded that my stories from the road aren't all that good. A thousand nights in Hampton Inns and Marriott Courtyards should have produced a more riveting crop of stories than I have to share with you rather than blending together into an amorphous mass.

Most of the better stories I have involve problems with travel, and often revolve around getting stuck somewhere. There was a really close call with a landing in Dallas, the time I had to flee Charleston ahead of a hurricane, getting stuck in rainy Miami for several days during and after 9/11, the blizzard meeting that stranded the whole sales force with Larry King at a Four Seasons in Washington and many, many more.

Another subset of my business travel tales involve brushes with fame. In my travels I've crossed paths with a surprising number of famous people--sports figures, rock stars, movie stars, politicians, professional wrestlers--you name it. You'd know their names, but the fact that I sat next to a Spice Girl on a flight or rode on an elevator with Will Smith isn't much of a story when you get right down to it. They were on the road on business too and just trying to get from Point A to Point B.

In the real world, business travel is pretty dull 99 percent of the time, and most of the other one percent is terrifying.

The happiest place on earth

Can I tell you a story?

I can't remember who told me this parable--I think it may have been Teri's late grandfather--but it has stuck with me for a long time.

A guy steps off a boat in a foreign land and approaches the first local he sees--a wizened old codger.

"Excuse me sir, do you speak English?"

"Sure," the old guy replied. "How may I help you?"

"This is my first time visiting your country, and I'm just wondering what the people are like here."

"What are they like where you come from?" the old man asked.

"Where I live the people are strong, handsome and hard-working. They're serious, but they have a wonderful sense of humor. They're mostly honest and generally kind to others. In short, they're good people."

"You'll like it here," said the old man. "That's the kind of people we have here too."

Moments later, a second man approaches the elderly local with the same question.

"What are people like where you come from?" asked the old guy.

"Where I come from the people are dishonest, ill-tempered and generally disagreeable. They would stab you in the back any chance they could just to get ahead. They're the worst you've ever seen, and I can't stand to be around them."

"I'm sorry," replied the old native. "You won't like it here at all. You're going to find that the people here are just the same."

There's a lot of truth to that story , and, for some reason, I thought of it after reading the results of a new quality-of-life index for the nations of the world. The United Nations studied carefully and has just announced that the best place on the planet to live is . . . Norway.

Norway! Norway?

I don't want to knock little Norway, but I've been there, and I'm here to tell you it ain't all that and a bag of chips.

The UN based its rankings on such things as life expectancy, per capita production and literacy rates. The nations of the world were ranked from 1 to 182. The United States came in 13th. Based on the set of criteria the UN used, I'm sure Norway richly deserves its top ranking, but based on my personal quality of life criteria, Norway would be way down the list. My idea of quality of life has less to do with how rich you are than how happy you are and how well you live.

Sure, you need to meet some basic needs like safety, food, shelter, and base comforts of life to find happiness, so I'm in full agreement with Afghanistan and Niger being ranked at the bottom of the quality-of-life list. But once the basic needs are met, it seems to me that quality of life is more about other things. It's less about how long you live or how rich you are while you're alive but how well you live while you're here.

I don't want to alienate my Norwegian fan base, but Oslo gets my vote for the most boring capital city I've ever visited. I say this even though I can't tell you a single thing that's wrong with the place. Oslo is ultra clean, very safe and runs with an efficiency that would make the Swiss jealous, but after seeing the Viking Museum and the bizarre and wonderful Vigeland Sculpture Park, I was pretty much done with Oslo and couldn't wait to leave.

The lowest ranked nations on the UN list that I've personally visited are China (92), Belize (93) and Vietnam (116). Although I'd happily return to any of those places in a heartbeat, I don't feel a burning need to ever go back to Norway.

The place I've personally been where the population seemed the most unhappy was Russia (71). Almost everyone there just looked sad and defeated. It's like the whole nation needed a big dose of anti-depressants.

Here, in no particular order, are just a few of the places I've been where I think the people really know how to live well based on my own criteria:

Istanbul Turkey. This is a jam-packed city of over 10 million people, but it's full of happy surprises and interesting encounters at every turn.

Bolzano, Italy. I could have picked any one of dozens of cities in Italy, big or small. Italians seem to know the secret to squeezing every last drop out of life. Italy came in 18th on the UN quality-of-life list, but is at the very top of mine.

Cozumel, Mexico. When the cruise ships are in port, the local population hustles to relieve the tourists of every last peso. But when the ships steam off, the place is magically transformed into a relaxed and happy paradise where children dance in the public square. It's the only place I've ever been where you can always find people singing to themselves just because they're happy to be alive.

Lake Massawippi, Quebec, Canada. One of the most beautiful and civilized spots on Earth, and the affluent people you find there know it.

Cullowhee, North Carolina. So beautiful and filled with nice down-to-earth people. I wouldn't mind living there if I had the chance.

Hoi An, Vietnam. It's the funkiest beach town on the planet, and the people there are smiling and friendly.

Tobago and Ambergris Caye, Belize. No worries, man. That makes three tourist islands I've put on this short list--I'm not sure what's up with that. Not every tourist island I've visited is special. For example, Bermuda is the Oslo of islands.

Round Pond, Maine. If you ever find it, you'll find out why.

New Orleans, Louisiana. My home town for 15 years. It's a city with huge crime, education and social problems, but the Big Easy has a special quality of life unlike any other place I've been.

New York, New York. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. Still the capital of the world until Shanghai is ready to take over that title.

Edinburgh, Scotland. What a wonderful surprise.

Suburbingham, Alabama. Our little corner of the world is beautiful and filled with wonderful people. I feel so lucky to live here now.

Road trip!

In one of my most ill-considered feats of logistical legerdemain, I'll be hitting the road on Friday to drive all the way from my corner of the Deep South to the land of the Cheese Heads.

Here's how it will work: I'll get up really early on Friday morning (maybe 3 a.m.), and drive 766 miles to the Milwaukee airport, where I'll pick up Teri. Then we'll continue our trek north and west for another 74 miles until we arrive at the Zills Farm near scenic Waupun, Wisconsin.

Very early on Monday morning, we'll reverse the process. I'll drop Teri at the Milwaukee airport in time for her 5:45 a.m. flight, and then I'll race her home in the Hyundai. Teri will head straight to work from the Birmingham airport, and, if all works according to plan, we should pull into our Suburbingham driveway at around the same time Monday night.

It's a long way to go for a pig roast, and I'm the first to admit this is a really dumb plan for getting there and back, but I'm getting excited about it.

One of the wonderful fringe benefits of my previous career in college publishing was the company car. It was nice getting a new car every few years and never having to pay a penny for gas, maintenance or insurance. For nearly all of my adult life "my" car was a late model sedan bought and paid for by my employer.

Even better, the employer expected me to drive the cars entrusted to me. A lot. Some people would find all that driving a curse, but I generally enjoyed those many thousands of hours of windshield time over the course of a couple of decades. I especially enjoyed the opportunity those long drives gave me to be alone with my thoughts.

Over the years, technological advancement has added to the comfort of the driving but reduced the welcome solitude. First came the cell phone, which gave people the opportunity to interrupt my reverie wherever I happened to be. Then came the iPod, an item I can't conceive living without. As much as I love my pod, it has made it possible for me to be constantly entertained even on very long drives. So instead of switching off the radio in the middle of nowhere and pondering life, I now have an unlimited supply of music and podcasts at my disposal to keep me distracted from myself. Right now I'm "banking" a bunch of my favorite podcasts in anticipation of this weekend's trip.

If you've known me for more than two minutes, you already know that I was born with a strong sense of wanderlust. It is obvious from all of those trips I've taken to "exotic" places, but it also showed up in the several thousand nights I spent on the road on business over the course of my publishing career.

Even 20 years into it, I still got excited every time I got to go to a new place, discovered a great restaurant or just drove down a country road that was new to me as I made my way from Point A to Point B. In all of those years there were plenty of times when I was fatigued, but not a minute when I was bored as long as I was going someplace new.

I did ultimately get bored as I found myself making the 50th long drive to Monroe, Louisiana, Pensacola, Florida or Jacksonville, Alabama, and I'm sure that was a major contributor to the life change I made this year. I was running out of places I hadn't been before and roads I hadn't yet driven.

Now, even though I'm working from my home during the Best Year Ever, every day I get to go down an unknown road to an unknowable destination and that is its own reward.

Married to Wonder Woman

It's not easy being married to Wonder Woman. The comic books and movies don't ever show you this, but sometimes Wonder Woman crashes, and I made the little video above to illustrate that point. Click and enjoy. I'll wait for you.

Right now Teri is crazy busy at work. She is in the midst of several huge projects along with her regular full time teaching job and all of the other personal and professional obligations that overfill her days and nights.

She starts her days early and often doesn't get home from work until 9 p.m. or later. When she does get home, she's both exhausted and wired, and she'll give me a breathless rundown of that day's triumphs along with a preview of the next day's equally jam-packed agenda. I get fatigued just listening to her.

I really don't know how she gets it all done. It's like living in the middle of a circus act and I'm perpetually amazed as Teri somehow manages to keep all of those plates spinning. Well, usually they all keep spinning. Every once in a while they come crashing down, and it's not a pretty sight when all that china shatters.

Teri claims that she's no busier now than she has ever been. It's just that I'm more aware of how busy she is now that I'm in the midst of the Best Year Ever and my schedule is more, um, relaxed than hers. She says that until now I've always had just as many plates spinning as she has. Maybe that's true, but I think there's more to it than that.

Teri and I have a completely different worldview when it comes to issues of time and space. When Teri looks at an empty slot in her calendar or an open spot in the cupboard, she sees something that needs to be filled. When I look at an empty calendar or space in the cupboard, I see valuable time and space that need to be preserved at all costs.

My wife is immensely talented, which is a wonderful thing, but people are quick to recognize that talent and utilize it. Since Teri finds it very difficult to say no to good causes, she often gets way overbooked. She's learning though. In recent weeks she's declined requests for her to serve on the board of a civic group and as president of a professional organization.

Tomorrow is Friday, and Teri doesn't teach on Fridays. But instead of sleeping in tomorrow, she'll be at work bright and early for another crazy day. It will start with an early morning faculty seminar she's leading followed by client meetings, luncheons and who knows what else. From there she'll go straight to a women's retreat at our church and she'll get home sometime around 9 p.m. again.

So tonight, when my little superhero finally gets home I'll have a hot dinner waiting for her and I'll put her to bed early. It's the least I can do during the Best Year Ever.

No it's not easy being married to Wonder Woman, but it is amazing and she makes me incredibly proud.