Treason of Words

We've expanded our legion of carved pumpkin-like hollow foam decorations by 75% this year, fielding seven such orange lanterns. The grizzly creations line the path from the sidewalk to our door, in such shapes as a vague impression of a human skull, an angry cyclops, an unnatural abomination wrought by the new Prometheus, a kittycat, and a trio of traditionally styled faces displaying the expressions Happy, Angry, and Scared Shitless. The great shame, though, is that while they are to be lit from within by the latest in flickery LED technology, they will also be lit from without by the latest in motion-sensing, mood-killing, bright-ass floodlights from not one, but at least FOUR sources that I can think of. Safety factor: eleventy-bajillion; Spooky quotient: zero. It does make me a bit sad for the kiddoes who won't know the tinge of terror from walking up a long, dark drive, with only the hint of a lit pumpkin or two to suggest that there might be candy to be had at the door, a...

Friday was reserved. From months out, the fifth of September was claimed, set aside for a special event due to the receipt of an adorable postcard bearing the likenesses of our friends Monique and Nathan, a young couple we know through Christina's role as Monique's Undergraduate Adviser in Zeta Phi Beta. They planned, at long last, to wed. Certainly, they were already hitched in the eyes of the state (and Facebook), but before friends, family, and the church? Not so much. Rather than tie the knot locally, Galveston was the destination wedding's destination. We'd never been to the island, and so planned to make a weekend of it, staying an extra night to see the sights, and taking advantage of a deal from Southwest Airlines that made spending the time and gas money it'd take to drive there seem like sheer folly. As the date neared, complications arose. The wedding was canceled, for one. A glance at Christina told me that this was not sufficient reason to also cancel o...

Madam Speaker, Mister Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow cephalids: It had been a year since my last MRI, and in the strange way of memory, the noisiness of the tube had become exaggerated in my mind. This time, I almost managed to snooze through it, the rhythmic buzzing and knocking and whirring lulling me into drowsiness. But, then, I can sleep almost anywhere, especially when I'm bereft of anything to hold my attention. A week later, this past Monday, m'lady and I met with Dr Stovall to compare and contrast the new with the old. It seems that in the intervening year, my meningiomic mind mite has been busy. Although I've experienced no change in symptoms (yay, carbamzapine!), I'm carrying around even more non-brain material in my head. It's now approaching a size that raises concern, having grown along all axes. It would seem that now is the time to act, or at least, to plan. The preferred treatment is surgical removal. While it ...

I wrote this up for the company newsletter; we're trying to recruit members for our chapter of Toastmasters. It'll be interesting to see if this attracts anyone. The promotional literature for Toastmasters generally presents a litany of reasons for joining up: there's the appeal to the shy, that they might become more confident; the paean to enhanced leadership skills; and always the promise of camaraderie and bonhomie. While worthy reasons to explore our bold, competent and amicable group, they don't capture the opportunity Toastmasters offers that caught my eye. I've not been shy in front of an audience in decades, being an officer lacks appeal, and being gregarious has never been a personal goal. What I was seeking, although I didn't realize it, was a place to give a speech. Backing up a bit: I was a competitive debater and speaker back in my school days. Adult life, though, doesn't have much to offer in terms of opportunities to exercise rhetoric and ora...

It's always a bit of a chore explaining just what it is that I do at work. It still amazes me the fraction of the public who, upon hearing the word "parcel," first think "package" instead of "land." I blame UPS. Folks will ask, often in lieu of understanding, whether I enjoy what I do or not. Oh, I do enjoy it. It feels worthwhile; a project that should have been undertaken ages ago, but is just now becoming really do-able. It always feels like we're advancing the state of the art. These are all things I like about my job, my career, if you will. Few ever ask, though, what I don't like about it. There's not much, really. As order-phillic as I am, I even kinda like the chaos that our many priorities bring. Petty as it is, the thing that bothers me most on a day-to-day level is comically mundane. I work in a modest office building of four stories, all of which are part of our company or parent company. It's a great place to work, clean an...

Last night, our slender gray cat, Smoke, got lost. We didn't print up a bunch of fliers and paper the neighborhood, though; we're rather used to it. You see, she got lost the night before, too. And several days ago, as well. In fact, at least once a day or so, she can't be found; by herself, that is. She'll meow loudly, plaintively, in a way that echoes off the smooth tile that dominates our flooring, making her call much more demanding than it might otherwise sound. Like a little kid "lost" on the other side of a clothing rack, out of sight of mom, she calls out to be found. Her people are lost; where could they be? Don't they know where she is? The cry goes out, bouncing down the hall just as we start to drift off to sleep. No answer? A half-minute later, she tries again. Louder. A judgment is made: which disturbs our nascent slumber less - the noise, or mustering a rapidly dissipating consciousness to do something about it? "Smoke, we're in her...

I couldn't help but chuckle a bit when the bespectacled clerk at Budget Rent-A-Car asked if I'd be driving 75 miles or less. "I'm afraid," I said "that we'll be going a good deal further than that." My wife smiled too as he went out to pull the twelve passenger van around, several tons of gleaming white American steel that would carry us to Beaumont and back. Months earlier; in fact, the better part of a year before the Southern Region Business Conference, I was drafted. The seasoned Zetas of the Alpha Kappa Zeta (AKZ) chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority (Inc.) decided that it would be great if someone were to rent a large passenger vehicle so that they might avoid the chore of driving the hundreds of miles between the capitol and the eastern corner of the state. It would be fantastic, in fact, if that someone were, for example, me. The sun was out in force when I pulled up at the house on San Bernard St, the Archival Center for Texas Chapters and the ...