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Archives from 2002-2006

My spring quarter class starts tonight and I’m squirrely-nervous all over again, wondering if I’m going to get lost finding the room or somehow show up at the wrong time or just be the wrong-looking person in the classroom. It would be awfully nice if I could bypass these pointless anxieties whenever I approach a new situation, but my personality doesn’t seem willing to bend on that front and I’m too goddamned nervous about asking about Xanax to ask for Xanax.

The subject is nutrition, and I’m hoping that taking a course in something I assume is so relevant to my long-term interests will help . . . I don’t know, clarify my path a bit. The process of signing up for a class this quarter was a little discouraging as I chewed over my limited options and got on waiting lists and tried to find a middle ground between being overwhelmed by everything and, you know, not seeing the forest for the trees.

Have you even looked at the prerequisites you still have to take? When do you think you’ll be able to get this stuff done? It’s not like they offer evening classes for everything. And you’re not the only asshole with ninety thousand low-level math classes to take, which is why they fill up the instant registration opens. At some point you’re just not going to be able to progress any further, so why waste the time and the money now?

If I want to really freak myself out, I go to this page. That’s the page of my Mondo Beyondo dream, where somehow we are living in the Eugene area where we have always talked about raising our children and somehow I have the money and time and brains to be finishing up a program that there’s no way I can actually afford or qualify for or graduate from due in part to terrifying words like “biomechanics” and “microbiology”. Somehow my age doesn’t matter and my kids’ schedules work with mine and I’ve got the energy and freedom to make a complete career transition.

It’s like being an armchair mountaineer peering at a photo of Everest, where you just can’t tell if the challenge is worth the dream—or if it’s just too fucking huge and far away, you know?

Still, I’m telling myself I’m doing the right thing by moving forward rather than staying still. Even if I’m not entirely sure where I’m going. One more class, and who knows what the next months will bring. Maybe there’s something between right here and way over there. Maybe the path doesn’t have to be as long as it looks. Maybe when you shoot for the ridiculously big stuff, you’re bound to land somewhere good.

We celebrate pretty much everything about Easter except its actual meaning, and I was just thinking earlier that I’m not sure why we limit our agnostic holiday cherrypicking to the traditional Christian ones when there’s an entire world culture out there we could be adapting to suit our own chocolate-coated purposes. I mean, why must we be limited to one season of Cadbury caramel eggs? I ASK YOU.

This was the first year we colored eggs with the kids and aside from the predictable giant mess of stains and reeking vinegar everywhere it was a lot of fun. Also fun: eating an entire plate of deviled eggs later. (Less fun: the eggfarts. My GOD, the eggfarts.)

We hid plastic eggs, each filled with some M&Ms and a clue for finding the next egg, which eventually led the boys to their baskets.

This was the second year I stuffed that duck/bunny in a basket, and the second year they both eyed it suspiciously and asked me to put it away. What the HELL. It’s not a MUTANT, it’s a DUCK wearing BUNNY EARS. I am going to trot that thing out EVERY GODDAMNED YEAR until someone acknowledges its CUTENESS.

So basically the Easter bunny came down the chimney and laid eggs . . . which we dyed . . . and something something M&Ms . . . okay, we were maybe a little shaky on the whole concept this year (I find, say, Santa much easier to describe) but I think everyone had a good time, especially since candy was involved.

How was your day, holiday or otherwise?

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