Dispatches (the harried let’s start this day over edition)

Yes, dear ones, it’s Wednesday. Meaning it’s time for “Dispatches,” that delightful little post that brightens up your week. Right? (You better say so. You don’t know how um, err, interesting today has already been.)

Let’s just say today is off to an omnious start. (Yes, I sometimes like to utilize little-used words randomly in conversation. But as a warning, should you try this at home, you have to judge your audience. Once, I was about to say something in Life Group at church and almost used the word dichotomy, which really wouldn’t have worked out so well. . .)

Anyway, let’s get on with the show.

• Yesterday was a little bit of a downer kind of day. I was über productive in the morning, then in the afternoon, things kind of went downhill. I threw myself a little bit of a pity party, celebrating feeling slightly slighted (ha! Slightly slighted!) at work, stressed about work load and leaving on a trip tomorrow morning, and obsessing on a friendship that’s floundering a bit. Of course, the rules of pity parties are clear: you generally only invite yourself. Because if you invite friends and they’re good sorts of friends who call you on your crap and speak godly wisdom into your life, they’ll tell you to stop thinking only about yourself, man up, and look at the ways you are blessed and the opportunities you have to help those around you. They may agree with you that you’re facing a crappy situation, but they won’t join you in the feeling sorry portion of the party—and they may encourage you to take actual steps to deal with the issues you’re feeling so badly about. Which defeats the entire purpose of the pity party. Invite fellow complainers if you MUST invite someone.

• Yesterday afternoon my mom called with info about my nephew who spiked a fever Monday night that got worse and worse. My brother and sis-in-law took him to the doctor who said it was viral, meaning there’s not much that can be done right now other than taking steps to keep the fever down. But at some point, his fever spiked, reaching 105 and sending him into a febrile seizure (a seizure caused by extremely high fevers). He’s fine now and was painting the coffee table with applesauce when I talked with my brother last night, but I think it was a scary day for everyone involved. Even Aunt Mandy who found out after everything was OK.

• I leave for a trip to Chattanooga tomorrow morning. I get to be in the student ministry booth at a youth ministry gathering. Fun times. Not so fun times is the fact that we have to leave at 6:30 a.m. Yes, you read that correctly. I’ll get back from this trip around 6 or 7 on Saturday night and leave for a focus group in the Dallas, Texas area on Sunday afternoon.

• Someone just came by my office and asked if I was awake. I must look way worse than I thought.

• Last night, I played the boardgame Quelf with some friends. OK, this game is CRAZY. I think it was invented by someone who was ridiculously high on mind-altering drugs.

• Have you guys seen trailers for the movie Hot Tub Time Machine? Does anyone else think it looks really dumb? Are you as confused as I am as to WHY John Cusak is in the movie? It looks like something the guys on my floor in the dorm would have watched on a boring weekend with no football or basketball games after they’d engaged in a little underage drinking. B/c they did that. But they probably would have watched this movie after watching their tapes of that week’s “Days of Our Lives,” because they watched that, too. (Yes, the guys in my dorm watched soap operas. Yes, I lived in a coed dorm with coed floors. Oh, the SCANDAL! Oh, the IMPROPRIETY! Oh, the aghast faces of some of the people I share this info with. It’s always fun to contrast my experience at a state school with those of my coworkers who mostly went to private Baptist colleges. Not that there’s anything wrong with state schools or private colleges. They’re just very, very different.)

Well, after getting to work late b/c I forgot my phone on the one day I actually needed it and having to go back home and get it, I have things to do. But I’ve got to find some caffeine somewhere first.