Hey you guys ever sucked on a highlighter?

Try it sometime. Bite down hard on the felt tip and start sucking. It makes a weird sound and it tastes terrible and it kinda screws up the color of your lips for a couple days, but it’s awesome.

Here, watch how I do it.

*phhffffffffmmmmmmmmmmmmnngh!*

There, see? I just sucked that pink bastard dry. Oh god, that taste is disgusting. It’s like the chemical formula for sorrow. Why did I do this?

The remorse is unbearable. I am seriously regretting sucking on that highlighter. I can feel the pink toxins begin to drip into my stomach. Everything is so awful right now.

I’m seeing colors I shouldn’t be seeing. The room is beginning to spin…

Father? Father, is that you? I sucked the pink highlighter for you, Father. Just to see your face again.

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Thanks for visiting my blog, everyone. I hope you found it to be encouraging and edifying.

Yikes! Have you been outside yet today? It’s cold!

As I drove to work this morning, my car was warm and familiar. The skies were dark, but I was at peace. Listening to the cozy melodies of my mix CDs, my consciousness was an annointed bed of comfort and acceptance.

However, as soon as I stepped out of my car, I could feel the windy hate-prickles burrow beyond my stout whiskers and molest my cheek-skin. The icy wintershame penetrated my lungs as I sunk my head into my winter coat and bustled along toward the doors. In the 50-meter jog from my vehicle to the school, my nose became reddened and crisp, and my voice croaked in a haggard, frozen agony as I cried out for mercy into the callous void.

Just before entering the school, I paused. Somewhere deep in the crystalline distance, I heard something. After a still moment of reflection, I was able to identify it as the distinct, orgiastic echoes of an unblemished goat being sacrificially hacked to death by dancing visigoth barbarians. In my chilled mind’s eye, I could see their ceremonial dances and shouting as their hulking cheiftan held aloft the goat’s warm, still beating heart.

Also, I think I heard children sledding.

Winter has returned in all its glory, my friends.

Yesterday, Bridgette and I officially celebrated our two-year anniversary! Huzzah for Jeff Davis!

We celebrated in an excessive manner befitting a corpulent sheikh of Araby. We ate fast food while sitting at home in front of our Christmas tree watching an old episode of Family Ties on DVD. As we were entertained a manic young Alex struggle with using amphetamines to help him through finals week, our love for one another solidified and grew deeper. Watching the sexually ambiguous young Tina Yothers crack wise at the antics of Mallory’s vacant consumerism ignited the flame of our passions, like a torch to a pile of subversive literature.

Finishing our unsatisfying meal of burgers and Chinese food, our eyes parted from the bemused asides of Michael Gross and found each other. Somehow, some way, our mutual appreciation for 80s sitcoms had led us to a moment of greater meaning and significance than either of us dared acknowledge. Could it be that the jittery overacting of Michael J. Fox was beginning our love anew? Could Family Ties be some harbinger of greater mutual affection, understanding, and forgiveness?

Then Bridgette got sick from eating Leeann Chin, which we in no way could see coming.

That’s one more anniversary ruined by crappy Chinese food. If only there were some sort of lesson to be learned here…

Another crumb from Rock TV’s abundant table!

It should be noted that this isn’t technically a Rock TV, per se. Instead, it’s a promotional video for the Faithwalkers retreat in December, created by the Rock TV crew.

The pleasure in creating this video was in its ease from start to finish. A quick writing meeting, a short morning shoot, and a general attitude of “point the camera at Leroy and let him be funny.” In a lot of ways, this one is similar to many of the older Rock TV’s, before plotlines and Kevin’s ego got involved.

My favorite bit? Leroy’s childlike satisfaction when he says “dips and salsas”. Just fun, bizarre stuff.

Enjoy!

There was a time in American history when discourse was civilized.

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas toured Illinois while campaigning for the U.S. Senate, debating the future of slavery in the territories, and how this future should be regulated. The two were mismatched and in strong opposition, to be sure, but each held the other in high esteem. The debates regularly ran over three hours, but the crowds were held in rapt attention as the two discussed the merits of popular sovereignty versus a more rigid ban on slavery in the territories. Newspapers across the country reprinted these debates and civic-minded citizens across the nation took note of Lincoln’s plainspoken but sophisticated rhetorical style for the first time.

In 2007, however, we have this:

AWESOME! Did you see that? Chevy totally won that argument! There is literally no comeback for that!

In your face, Ford! SNAP!

In summation, the inexorable progression of man continues.

God bless America.

On this, the week of Thanksgiving, physical exercise is at at a premium. As it says in the book of Proverbs, “A wise man works out during the holiday season, but the fool lets himself go and grows a beard hoping it will hide his third chin and then directs Bowling for Columbine.”

My plan yesterday was to get a run in between the end of my workday at 4:30 and 6, when Bridgette is done. Unfortunately, a meeting ran long, and by the time I left school at 5:10, I realized I didn’t have enough time to make it to the Y and go running. So I did what any reasonable-minded man would do - I got into my car and awkwardly changed into my workout clothes in middle of the school parking lot. It was dark, the temperature was in the upper 30s, and I was wearing flimsy running shorts and a t-shirt. There was virtually nothing wrong with my plan.

In a cold-induced frenzy, I took off with a shot through the parking lot. The grounds of the school connect with a system of local park trails here in Eden Prairie, and my intention was to go running along those for 35 minutes or so until Bridgette got done. Cruising along the darkened trails, I was doing great until suddenly a man was shining a flashlight in my face. It was a cop, telling me that the trails were closed for the evening. I assured him that I was but a meek and lowly social studies teacher, not some meth-addled adolescent or Senator Larry Craig (R-ID).

After a mustache-laden chastening, I was turned around and on my way. Running once again through the school parking lot in shorts and a sweaty t-shirt, parents and co-workers gawked at me from the comfort of their luxury SUVs as I heaved and lumbered through the November evening. Chastened by their stares, I covered my groin with my hands and called out, “Avert your eyes, all of you! I have been reduced to my mere essence before your eyes! O, that I were dead!” As mothers shielded the eyes of their children, my gate slowed to a weary, awkward lope as steam and hot spittle flew from my bloated lips. “I am in agony! Happy Thanksgiving! Welcome, sweet unconsciousness!”

As the same police officer from before beat me into submission and eventual darkness, somewhere in my heart I was glad this had happened. After all, it’s important to work out during the holidays, and what better way to get the heart pounding than with a brisk, thorough beating from the baton of a trained professional in full view of my work community?

I really couldn’t imagine a better start to the holiday season.