MISCELLANY . . .

Things that crack me up in good and bad ways:

* when people who don't know me all that well think they know me better than they do, and say things like, "You should (verb) this (noun); you'd really enjoy it." Would I? WOULD I?!?!

* ladies in full makeup and really really tight ponytails who talk on their cell phones while jogging on the treadmill at the gym. Why?

* when I get so sleepy that my eyes start to close, and I know that they are closing and I'm telling myself, "Wake up! WAKE UP!" but I just can't because my eyelids are way too heavy for human strength, and then I fall into a three-second sleep where I have a three-second dream that I remember when I wake up.

* an always funny joke. There are some jokes that never die. Then there are the jokes that should die but never do, and that is precisely why they are funny.

* when I see, in my rearview mirror, a car speeding up behind me, and I start to get annoyed at the young punk behind the wheel who is obviously in some kind of stupid rush to get somewhere and why didn't he just leave earlier so he didn't have to terrorize people on the road ... but then when the car gets close enough, I see it's a blue-haired granny. And then, I'm just confused.

* when I start to plan, in the middle of summer, my fall television viewing (or video-taping) schedule. So far on the slate: "The West Wing" on Sundays, "Lost" on Thursdays.

* when I'm telling a really emotional story over dinner at a restaurant and weeping and weeping and wiping my eyes and weeping some more, and then the waiter comes over and asks "how is everything?" and I smile broadly through my swollen and red eyes to say a little over-enthusiastically, "GREAT!"

***

Things that warm my heart at unexpected moments ...

* when I'm standing up at the front of the room, singing with the NHF praise team, and I see, out of the corner of my eye, MJ the 2-year-old Zombie come charging at me with his arms outstretched, asking for a hug.

* "I forgive you."

* an emailed reminder that no matter what my warped and self-degrading perspective says to myself, there is always someone watching me and watching out for me.

* hearing for the first time ever: "when we grow up, we want to be just like you."

* when I realize that I'm reaching out to "kids" and having real conversations with them, and see that they are reacting to me and warming to me in ways that I know that I could have done had someone "older" reached out to and conversed with me when I was their age.

* "I love you, my sister."

***

Things that I'm looking forward to ...

* time off.

* painting my kitchen ... dare I? Dare you join me?

* time off.

* running errands, all day, every day ... at my beloved Target.

* time off.

* endless hours where I can pack up Bob, my Bible, my journal, a fat book, coffee money, multiple multi-colored pens, stationery paper, and Herb, and head out to a local coffee joint to plug in, tune out, and create.

* time off.

* catching up on Season Three of "Alias."

* time off.

* making people who don't work outside the home during the weekday hang out with me.

* the end of time off and a new start.