A Toast to the New Year

As 2011 swiftly connects to our foreheads with a sickening “crack,” we are left to reflect on the bitter, metallic taste of 2010 that still lingers in our mouths.

2010 proved to be twelve more years of soul-crushing minutia and subjugated emotions for us all. The precious few glimpses of joy we experienced were completely buried in an avalanche of emotional scarring and soul-deep shame. It will take years to forget 2010, and even longer to forgive.

But 2011’s promise is still fresh, bright, and new. The nagging, dull ache of reality will soon swallow it whole, however, and we will once again be left alone and afraid, mere husks of the people we once dreamed we could be.

As our hearts and souls are constantly haunted by the faces of those we’ve wronged, and as we struggle to bury the secrets and lies that we wear on our haggard, shame-filled faces, let us clutch to the shallow, fleeting glimpses of false hope the beginning of the year only can bring. After all, these first few days of January bring us the only tiny twinges of pleasure we will ever experiences in our lives bereft of all joy and meaning.

Please, my fellow friend, join me as I choke back the bile of resentment and raise my glass of suppressed dreams to my one and only fleeting friend, the year of 2011.

Well You're Invited!

Well, hi! Turly Peterfield here, coal miner at the old Dry Rock Mine outside Nickel City. Gotta say we have a great celebration lined up for the 145th Anniversary of the old mine, and well, you’re invited!

Rumor has it that the mine proprietor, Old Mr. Gunnison himself, may drop down in his personal heli-pod and make an appearance, too! Old Mr. Gunnison, bless him, has been such a benefactor to us employees, hasn’t he? Remember that time Scrawny Willis got appendage blown off in a mine accident, and Old Mr. Gunnison bought him a pizza lunch? And even breadsticks? What a fine man!

And now this celebration! With a real live karaoke machine! I hear nobody’s going to come!

- Turly Peterfield, Coal Miner

Professor Hanley McGormick Needs You

A fine morning greeting, colleagues. Though I probably need no introduction, there is a slight chance that some of you in the audience that may not know who I am. I am Professor Hanley McGormick of Century University.

And I've done it again.

Oh, you'll be getting plenty of information about it in the papers. They always did have a way of proclaiming my accomplishments in the headlines in bold, black, inky letters:

McCORMICK HAS ANOTHER BREAKTHROUGH

PROFESSOR MAKES NEW SHOCKING DISCOVERY

McCORMICK DOES IT AGAIN

And the thing is, they're always right! Always right. Makes my heart smile just thinking about it.

I'm not joking!

- Professor Hanley McGormick, Century University

The Results Are In

Well, we just got the report from the lab, and what we suspected is true: Linds and I have tested positive for cuteness.

We suspected it all along really--the way we laugh naughtily during church meetings and the abnormally large amount of walks we take together were a couple of the first warning signs.

For a while we just shrugged it off, thinking, "I'm sure this is normal for all couples in love." But over time, the symptoms just got more severe. We started going on bike rides together and stayed up late night after night watching BBC mystery shows and popping popcorn. Friends and family started to drop hints, saying things like "you're going to be such good parents," or "you guys are so much fun to be around."

So we knew we should just get tested. Get it over with so we could know what to do about it. And you know what? I'm glad we did. It's good to put a name to what we're feeling all the time. "A textbook case of case of chronic cuteness and undying charm," the doctor called it.

Of course our next question was what to do about it. How to treat it. But the doctor said there was little we could do. "Just drink plenty of clear fluids and let it run it's course," he said. "It takes a lot of people a lot of years to get over a case like yours." Then he leaned in closely and whispered, "but I have a gut feeling you guys may never shake it."

If you suspect that you or someone you know may be suffering from cuteness, please urge them to get tested. Since we are familiar with the condition, Linds and I would welcome you telling us about any of the symptoms you may be feeling. We'll let you know how possible it is that it's due to cuteness.

The Grandeur of Music Time

Music Time. It is the pillar of my Thursday night, and a fulfillment of my childhood dreams.

I get together every week with some buddies from work to participate in music time. As we enter my buddy's basement and don our drumsticks and guitars, we shed our mantles of husband, father, copywriter or designer, and transform into something else. Something with a purpose. We become King Rhino and the Halftones, poised and prepared to rock Del Rio Circle with an an hour and a half of pure, unadulterated, rock and roll.

Cab writes the songs and plays rhythm guitar. I provide the beat. Frew saturates the songs with intricate solos on his guitar. We are loud and fast. We are quiet and thoughtful. We are music time, and we love it.

Bass players can apply at jclarkgardner@gmail.com. Prior experience and bass guitar not necessary.

Salt of the Earth Filmmaking

Boy, the kids today. I just don’t know what we’re going to do with them. If they’re not typing away on their Google Pods and Text Phones, they’re off listening to the rap music, growing their hair too long, or—worst of all—going to the Super-Plex to watch some gosh-awful picture show.

I tell you, I don’t have any desire watching a “flick” about people I wouldn’t want to meet in real life. The square-jawed blokes and buxom blondes on the silver screen are always so fast-talking and busy, drinking booze at parties and jumping from one flaming building to another. Not the “salt-of-the-earth” folks I’d rather associate with.

Why can’t they make a movies about a single mom living in the projects, driving a rusty Corsica to her waitressing job and trying keeping her alcoholic mother out of prison? Where’s the “block-buster” about the bi-polar 50-something agoraphobic man that keeps rusty pop can tops in a margarine bucket? That’s more interesting to me.

But I guess they won’t make any movies about someone that doesn’t type away on a Hand Pilot or a Blue-Berry in the back of a SUV limousine. And I’ll just have to learn to live with that.