It's Better in Wyoming.

Is this not the weirdest 'help wanted' ad you've ever seen? WANTED: Nurse for bsmnt apt. Must be single & willing to be on call evenings. Please contact 742-xxxx. Maybe it's not that weird, really. But it seems freaky deaky to me. If any nurses turn up missing in the next few weeks, though, I know where I'd look first.

So on the way back from the clinic yesterday morning I passed by the shuttle stop at the university apartments. The UW physical plant guys were there, cleaning out glass because somebody had smashed out 7 or 8 of the glass panels at the shelter. It's at moments like that that I wish I were a superhero. An avenger. A regulator. I'd bust the guy who did that in the kneecaps with a tire iron. Whack! Whack! This is a more serious offense than, say, running a yellow light. Personally, I'd like to bust those people in the front headlights (whack! whack!), but this is probably just a personal preference, no great transgression in the grand scheme. Breaking out the bus stop glass, though, that's not cool in anybody's book. Why people gotta be like that? I like that Willie Nelson guy. He sings: Grandpappy told my daddy: Back in my day, son, A man had to answer for all the wicked that he'd done. Take all the rope in Texas, find a tall oak tree Round up all of them bad boy...

I really don't have much to say but feel like I should check in on the ol' blog. So maybe I'll just start and see what comes out. This weekend I went to Pueblo for a conference of writing center tutors. A girl from CSU who is a social work student working in the WC there said that when she asks students a question and they respond with, "I dunno," her follow-up question is this: "Well, if you DID know, what would you say?" At church I like the windows. We're in the old auditorium of the old junior high school, and the arched windows are blocked out with some sort of paper or fabric, only the covering has come off several of the windows, giving the whole space the feeling of being shuttered, sunlight streaming in randomly, the sense that light will find its way, that all is not dark. And that a bulldozer may arrive at any moment to begin the demolition, too. I am really hating the grading thing right now. Maybe because it forces me to know what I...

So after Princess Buttercup learns that her true love Westley has been murdered by pirates, she says to herself, "I will never love again." Lately that's sort of what I've been feeling. In talking to a friend last night, I realized that attraction, and admiration, and respect, and trust, are not love. They are the foundations of love, but feeling all of those ways about another person does not mean that you will also feel love, or develop a feeling of love, for the other person. I guess this probably seems obvious to everyone but me. But maybe not: I wonder if lots of people don't go into marriage feeling respect and trust and admiration and attraction to a partner and expect some deeper attachment to develop based on those elements. And then they disconnect when they discover that those feelings are not enough to sustain the relationship. This is very weird to me. I don't think you have to feel 'love' immediately when you meet a person (not in the lov...

so the new nick cage flick 'ghost rider' was unexceptional. a couple of quotes from the film: "You can't live in fear" -- johnny blaze (the alter ego of the ghost rider) "Anybody who's got the guts to sell his soul for love has got the power to change the world." -- the caretaker (Sam Elliot's character) deep stuff, man.

So I admit a paradox. I found it totally unnewsworthy when Anna Nicole died. No, I take that back: I didn't find it totally unnewsworthy. Just not worthy of the HOURS of playtime that it's gotten since. The paradox is, I just spent 10 minutes looking for more pictures of Britney Spear's newest look, after reading on msn that she's emerged from rehab with a shaved head. Turns out, doing an image search for 'britney bald' will turn up other shaved parts too. What a surprise. I like the photos that use a biohazard warning icon to censor the, uh, naughty parts. Amazing what counts as news these days....

Hoo-wee! It's a windy one out there today. The plan for this evening was to get together with my friends Andy and Shanda from Rawlins, drive up to Cheyenne and meet my friend George from Sidney, eat some steak at the Outback, and then watch the UW club hockey team whup on Air Force at the Tace John's Center. Now it looks like we'll all just stay put: I-80's been closed from here to Cheyenne since this morning, and the wind's not much better between here and Rawlins. And Sidney got rain followed by snow, with lots of wind, which doesn't make for great travel weather. Also, I'm not sure Air Force will make the trip up; wind gusts up to 100 mph are expected along the Front Range. I think they should shoot meat-and-potato burritos out of a canon at the Taco John's Center, where they play the hockey games. Ole! Ole, ole, ole. Ole! Ole! Liz broke her nose after she passed out after getting sick from salmonella after eating the peanut butter from Walma...