Never to be one to stand on my own two feet. Maddog packed up his belongings and moved back to NYC last night. Oh, wait. That's not what happened. I packed up my blog and moved to WordPress following in the shoes of Spider, Kelly, Ur-Spo and many other favorites. My new URL is: http://maddoginthecity.wordpress.com/ don't forget to make the change in your blogroll and links. We wouldn't want you to miss a single minute of Maddog's adventures. Especially now that he's in San Diego and playing with "gay" people. Boys to be specific.

So drop by my new house, tell me what you think. I'm open to suggestions, criticism, and praise. You name it, I can take.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Maddog

I'm still a sick Maddog. I've come to the realization that breathing is highly over rated. Especially through the nose. If God had meant for us to breath through our nose he wouldn't have given us other options. Right? I'm going to try and get to bed early tonight hoping some good rest will hit the spot.

In other news, I'm travelling to San Diego tomorrow. I'll be there until Monday. You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to being around other people. I haven't had a non-school related conversation with someone face-to-face in almost six weeks. It'll be great to talk about politics, and movies, and drink beer with people that I know. If I weren't sick I'd be jumping up and down with joy right now.

In Iowa news. I had another mediocre meal tonight. I'm now o for 10 in the food world. Ten meals out of ten mediocre meals. Tonight the chair of the department treated all of us out for dinner to welcome me to the department and to treat the woman who is here designing scenery for the spring show. My big question is: How is the meat tough? By my best guess, it was alive on a pig farm down the street two minutes ago. It was probably eating breakfast this morning without a care in the world and now it's sitting on my plate covered in yucky barbecue sauce and so tough it would take 3 days to chew through it. And to make matters worse the portions are huge. I wouldn't mind so much, if the food was good. But why make a situation worse by giving me more bad food than I would ever want. I've decided to give up eating out in Iowa. Maybe I'll treat myself to Hardee's, McDonald's, or Dairy Queen. At least then I know what the food will taste like and I won't be expecting more than I get.

On a better note the temperature has been in the 50's for the past few days. Which is good and bad. Good because I was just about done with the extremely cold weather. Bad for two reasons. The first: The warm weather melts the snow during the day. At night the temperature drops back down below freezing and for the past three days I've ice skated home. And if any of you know me, you'd know how non-athletic I am. I've almost hit the ground at least a dozen times. This leads to me bad reason number two. There are no street lights to light my way from school to home. I walk home blindly lit by the passing cars or what little light spills from the living rooms of the houses I pass. Therefore, it's impossible to see the ice on the side walk until you are already skating across it. Or even better, you can't see the puddle in the middle of the walk until you are ankle deep in ice cold water. Both feet were soaked tonight before I got home.

Did I mention that I was going to San Diego where it's always warm and never rains. Somebody slap me the next time I say I miss winter.

I can't breathe. I haven't been able to breathe all day. And to make matters worse, my nose is running. I finally had to excuse myself today in class to go get tissue because I could no longer hide the fact that my nose was running.

I don't think I mentioned it but I had a job interview on Friday. I had the first interview to be hired for the full time tenure track position in Iowa. The interview went amazingly well. I don't think I could have been more on if I had wanted to. I had all the right answers and was able to answer all the questions honestly, with the answers I think they are looking for. Of course now it's just wait and see. I feel like the interview went well because I'm not 100% sure that I want the job. I just don't know if living in small town America is for me. But who knows we'll have to wait and see. But I do think that interviews for jobs you don't want always go better because there's no pressure. If it works out great. If it doesn't great.

I also know that someone from my small town is reading my blog. The hit shows up every couple of days on my site counter. I continue to hope that it's the guy that I met on line who told me he had found my blog. I would hate to think that some student of mine has found me and reading my deep dark secrets. Actually, I haven't told any truly deep dark secrets in a while. The more I get to know all of you the more I edit myself. I don't want you to find out what I am really like because then you won't like me. At least that's my perception.

I woke up yesterday with the beginnings of a cold. I attributed most of it to allergies, so I took some Claritin and after a couple of hours felt okay and I thought the worst of it was behind me. That was not the case. I woke up this morning and it was back with a vengeance. I'm congested, tired, sneezing and just feel overall like crap. I found the local pharmacy and bought some Sudafed Sinus medicine. It's helped a little but I still feel like crap. I got home around 4:00 and by 4:15 I was taking a nap. I had thought I would sleep for about 30 minutes. I woke up to the phone ringing at 7:00. I had been SOUNDLY asleep, dreaming about school. Who knows how long I would have slept if the phone hadn't woke me up. I will probably never get to sleep tonight after sleeping so late in the afternoon.

The worst part about the cold is that I'm a terrible sick person. I have the hardest time functioning when I am sick and like to do pretty much nothing but sleep. Unfortunately, I have a very busy week. Classes are going to take a lot of planning. In fact, one class I'm winging tomorrow, because I just didn't have the energy to do what I had planned. I'm also in the process of doing a design for the local high school. They have a brand new theatre space and this will be their first fully produced production. It's not a very complicated show, but it still takes work. I was surprised last Friday with the information that the design had to be completed before I left to go to San Diego on Thursday. I spent the weekend figuring out the rough designs. Tomorrow after class, I have to solidify my ideas and start drafting them. I don't like drafting on a good day, but I especially don't like it when I am sick. Perhaps Donnie or Digital would like to do some drafting for me? Luckily the design isn't very complicated and shouldn't take long to do, it's just the reality that I have to do it.

I'm going to try and get some sleep now.

What I learned today in small town America.

Audiences in a full theatre here behave just like they do in theatres in NYC. I went to see Bridge to Terabithia and the theatre was packed with screaming kids. There were at least two people who answered their cell phones and then there were the two teenagers who were eventually escorted from the theatre for throwing popcorn, farting, and disturbing everyone in the back of the theatre. For two plus hours I really felt like I was back in the big city. Just for the record the movie is not for small children. It's really for kids 9 or 10 year olds. Unfortunately, the average age today was about 4 and they were BORED.

I also learned that unlike NYC people here don't assume what your buying should go in a bag. I went to the Kum and Go (Insert joke here) last night and the girl looked at me like I had three heads when I asked for a bag for my things. The same thing happened today at the grocery store. Is it too much to ask that when you buy something that it can be put into something you can carry.

After almost six weeks in Iowa I've yet to find a restaurant in town that has decent food. Tonight I tried Chinese. I've heard since I got here which Chinese place is best and was told in fact that the one next to the coffee shop was excellent. I guess excellent is relative. I had the worst broccoli chicken I've ever had. It's was completely lacking in flavor and I almost didn't know I was eating. It was more than a little disappointing.

That's it today for Life Lessons in Iowa.

I keep learning a lot about small town life. For example today I learned that just because it's the best diner in town, doesn't mean it's the best diner ever. I ventured out in the fresh snow today to get breakfast out for the first time since moving here. I had been directed to the A & M Diner about 10 or so blocks from my house, so around 10:30 or so I headed over.

I wanted to take pictures but I wasn't sure that the locals would like it much. Let's just say it's a DIVE! In fact, there was an entry door that led into the restaurant, except it opened up on to what looks like a large storage closet. In that room there were about 5 or so solid doors an old refrigerator some boxes and other odds and ends. One of the doors had a hand written sign that said "pull to enter." I wasn't sure what to expect or even if I was in the right place, but I went to the door and pulled. Inside was the seating area for the restaurant. It was a huge open space with a concrete floor, plastic chairs and old signs on the wall. At one end of the room was a Christmas tree on a stage that had been decorated for Valentine's Day. The room was so thick with smoke that you could cut it with a knife.

The restaurant was about half full and I wandered in looking for a place to sit. I was also looking for a place I could breathe. The seating area is quite large and I kept moving all the way to the back corner. There was a booth open. I sat down and waited. Scattered around the room was thirty or so people and my guess would be that 75% of them over the age of 10 were smoking. Luckily my corner seemed to be out of the air flow. After about 10 minutes or so "Flo" showed up with a menu and water. The menu looked like it had seen better days. "Flo" went off to get me a Diet Pepsi and I began to look for breakfast. I decided on a ham and cheese omelet and a cinnamon roll. "Flo came back, took my order and was off again. I might add at this point that the most expensive thing on the menu was 6.50 I think. It was for some sort of lunch meal.

I waited a few minutes and my cinnamon roll appeared. It was huge, smothered in icing and looked great. Ah, but disappointment was soon to present itself. The roll had the consistency and taste of white bread. It was soft and mushy and had no flavor. In fact if it weren't covered in icing it would have had no flavor at all. I ate about half of it, because I was starving and still waiting for my breakfast. Eventually my omelet was dropped off. I might start by saying that most of the ingredients were on the outside. The cheese was melted on top of the eggs and the ham was sprinkled on top of that. And it tasted awful. I wouldn't even know how to describe it other than awful. I ate about a half of it. Luckily, it's hard to screw up hash browns and toast so those were enough to fill me up.

"Flo" had dropped off the check with the omelet in true diner fashion. The bill was totalled but it was easy to see that the entire thing was less than ten dollars. My favorite part of the morning was that omelet was spelled omlet on the check. I took a deep breath and headed for the cashier. I paid and was out the door.

As I said I have been told that this is the best diner in town. I'm not even sure where the other one is and I have been assured it's too far to walk. What I do know is this one is not worth the walk. If I go back it will only be to take pictures for you guys so you can see the proof of what I'm talking about.

It's been a great day. I actually saw another gay man in town tonight. Before you get excited it's not like we had sex or anything. In fact we didn't even speak. We just kind of glanced at each other across the coffee shop secretly knowing the truth.

I discovered that one of the coffee shops in town also functions as a bar. So on Monday and then again today, I went there to prep for my classes and to have a beer. It's been kind of nice being out where other people are and since I don't/can't drink coffee after lunch or it keeps me up all night, beer is the perfect alternative. So today I got to the coffee shop around 4:00 and ordered my beer and a bowl of tomato soup and got to work. It took about an hour an half to get my notes together for tomorrow. I then ordered another beer, and scanned my notes. While I had been there the place had kind of cleared out and since I knew talking on my cell phone wouldn't bother anyone I decided to catch up on some calls. While I was on the phone... in walked Mr. Gay Man. As he walked in and to the back of the shop, he glanced at me three or four times. He settled in and I continued my phone call, but every once in a while I noticed him watching me. Unfortunately, he was with a number of other people and so there wasn't a time for us to talk. It was nice though at least seeing someone else gay. And he was kind of cute. He was probably in his late 40's with just a touch of grey at the temples. And he was short, and you know how I like my short boys. I may just have to go hang out there some more and see if he shows up. I'll keep you posted.

Hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day.

Maddog's Monday check-in on Tuesday:

I haven't posted in the last couple of days because I haven't had much to say. There's not much going on here and if I have one more conversation just about the weather I'm going to scream. I've been talking to my mother almost once a day and she can talk about the weather for 40 minutes without talking about anything else.

So what has been going on with me? I went to the movies twice over the weekend. As I reported Happily N'ever After sucked. However, I did see Dreamgirls again. It was just as engaging the second time as it was the first. The audience was more reserved and no one applauded but I felt like they were enjoying it as much as I was. Overall, it's a great movie and it's easy to see why Jennifer Hudson is getting the attention that she is.

I applied for two jobs last week. One was the full time position here in Iowa. The other was in Oklahoma. The job application process for Oklahoma sucked. It all had to be done on line and the catch is there is no way to go back and add documents once you process the application. Unfortunately, I didn't' have electronic copies of my transcripts so I don't know if I'll be considered for the position or not. At this point, I'm not too worried about it. I do have a phone interview scheduled for the job here in Iowa. I have no idea what to expect and I'm not even sure I want the job, but at the very least it will be practice interviewing which I haven't done in a while.

As for my weight this week. I gained 1.5 pounds last week. This isn't as bad as I thought it would be but it's still not losing. I have been eating everything in sight...well not really but too much to lose weight. It's all out of boredom and I'm aware of this. Unfortunately, I am bored.

The one saving grace is that I leave for San Diego in a week and a half. I'm going out for four days to go my friend's memorial service. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone as well as having some warm weather.

Have a great rest of the week.

I dropped off my application materials today. The results are now out of my hands. The secretary was kind of funny, commenting on the fact that I was turning in my stuff a week late. I didn't tell her that I wasn't going to apply at all. I just ask her not to hold it against me and left it at that. We'll see in the next week or so how this turns out.

I also mailed out seven scarves today. Unfortunately, I was boxing up the last scarf when I realized I had never taken a picture of them. You'll just have to trust me that this batch was nicer than the last batch. I realized today that it actually cost more to mail them, than it does to buy the materials. Not that I mind. It really is a labor of love. It's also been a way for me to reach out to my blogger friends. This guy asked for a scarf for himself and his dog Diamond. And this guy asked for a rainbow scarf. Both scarves have been finished. One is on the way, including a scarf for Diamond, and the other scarf will be mailed on Monday. I have started my own little club of people who have Maddog scarves.

I also went to the movies today. Since it's only $4.00 a movie here for a matinee I don't sweat going much. In NYC it's almost $11.00 bucks so to go very often gets to be expensive. Today I saw Happily N'Ever After. It was awful. In fact, if I'd had just about anything else to do tonight I would have left about 30 minutes into it. But since I'm in Iowa with little else to do, I stayed. It did not get better. I highly recommend NOT seeing this film, even at home on DVD. There was nothing redeeming about it. Of course going to the movie did allow me to see the guy who works at the theatre. He's by far the best looking guy I've seen in Iowa. He's been there every time I've gone and it's always a pleasure to see him.

That's it for this very cold Friday night. I hope everyone has a wonderful, and relaxing weekend.

I keep forgetting that I am not in Kansas anymore. So what did I discover today.

Did you know you can still smoke in restaurants? I guess I knew this but it's been so long since I witnessed it, I had forgotten. You can't smoke in restaurants in NYC, you definitely can't smoke in them in California, and surprisingly enough you can't smoke in them in Lexington, KY. You can however, smoke in them at Kelcy's Restaurant up the street. I discovered this when I was informed tonight that there was no seating available in nonsmoking and if I wanted a table I'd have to sit in smoking. It didn't give me a lot of choices, so I took it. It wasn't too bad, luckily the only people smoking were the waitress and hostess. Yes, you heard that right the only people smoking, in the smoking section were the hostess and waitress.

Next, I discovered that you can pay for dinner with a check. I didn't even know checks still exist. I pay everything on line except for my rent. But as I sat and ate dinner, patron and after patron wrote checks to pay for their dinner. In fact here in Iowa you can write a check for any purchase at all. Most people here have never heard of an ATM card or credit card. You find yourself standing in line waiting as little old ladies write check, after check, after check.

I also discovered that people are still hung up on the French not joining us in Iraq. Tonight I got American Fries. Which look like French fries. Taste like French fries. And smell like French fries. But I guess they can't be French fries, because, well you all remember.

I also discover that Citgo, the store that "Almost Never Closes" according to the big sign on the front of their store, closes at 10:00. I don't know when they would close if they were "almost always closed", or "almost always closes early".

These are all the lessons I learned today. I'm sure the longer I am here the more I'll learn about life in the Midwest.

As for the job applications, every thing's been proofed and re-proofed and I think it's ready to go. I'll get up in the morning and take it all to school. Who knows what will happen but as my recovery friends say, "I've taken the action, I'll let go of the results."

I was called into the department chairs office yesterday after class. In fact, she interrupted my class to let me know that she wanted to see me. My first thought was, OH NO! I've done something wrong. For the life of me I couldn't figure out what it was and then I realized what she wanted. She wanted to talk to me about why I hadn't applied for the tenure track position that they are hiring for.

As soon as class was over I stopped by her office, and I was right. That's what she wanted to talk to me about. I tried to explain my reasoning to her but she was having no part of it. She specifically asked me to get my application materials to her by the end of the week. I didn't know what to say, so I agreed.

I spent most of yesterday pretending that everything was ready to go, knowing of course that it wasn't the case. So what did that mean. All day to day I have been working on Teaching Philosophy's, Letters of Application and updating my resume/CV. It has NOT been a lot of fun. I hate doing this stuff. Why can't I just go in, fill out an application and get the job. That's the way it should be done.

Long story short, the first drafts of all of these items are finished. I emailed them off about 30 minutes ago to my friends who are smarter than me, to correct. I am hoping my friend T.M. can add the magic touch since he's some big shot S.V.P. of marketing. He actually just got promoted to big chief in charge last Friday. He'll be reading this post, so everyone say hi. Anyway, I should get every one's responses back tomorrow. I'll print out everything and turn it in on Friday. It'll include everything but my letters of recommendation which are being written as we speak and will be sent separately.

Who knows if I'll get the job? I spoke to friend of mine today about it and we both agreed that teaching in Iowa is better than temping in NYC. So a job here would be better than some of the alternatives. The nice thing about getting these documents finished is it prepares me to send out applications to other schools. There are job 0openings in schools in Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and about three in California. Who knows if these are better positions. I do know they at least wouldn't be so isolating.

Wish me luck.

Last week I mailed off all the scarves I had made. My friends A.N. and C.D. and K.E. and L.M. and S.H. and T.O. all got surprises in the mail over the weekend. They weren't expecting the packages and they all were pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately A.N., C.D. and T.O. had theirs delivered at school and caused a little bit of a sensation when they opened their boxes. Seems everyone is jealous that they didn't get a scarf. So yesterday, I was on the phone with two friends from school choosing what color they wanted for their scarves. In fact one is a teacher. They all loved them so much they want one for themselves.

So I won't be able to sit around a mope this weekend. I'll be crocheting my fingers off. I now have 6 scarves to finish by the middle of next week, and I have enough yarn for 20 more laying in my living room floor. It's actually been kind of fun doing these little projects. They take about an evening and a half to finish so it's not a long process. The hardest part is figuring out what color works for each person. I'll post pictures of the latest creations later in the week.

It's time for my Monday check-in:

Weight Loss this week: 2 pounds
Total Weight Lost: 27.5 pounds
Miles walked: 16 miles
Miles run: 2 (slowly, but it's a start)
Average Temperature this week: 25 million degrees below zero
Scarves finished: 5
Total scarves since moving to Iowa: 12


It's been a much better day today. I slept late, which I desperately needed, and then actually got busy doing all of the things I had put off from the weekend. I returned email, while drinking a lot of coffee, returned a number of phone calls, and got started planning my classes for the week. The afternoon was gone in a flash and it was time to walk to school for a production meeting. The meeting went well, and most of my concerns were things that have been changed in my favor so I no longer have to deal with them. After the meeting, I attended rehearsal, and then walked home. That's the short and sweet of it, concerning my day, and as I said, the feelings from the weekend were gone.

I've dealt with depression my whole life, and in the past 7 or 8 years it's been kept in check by a number of different methods: Exercise, medication, therapy, healthy eating, etc. The one thing I have come to terms with over the past few years is that no matter how depressed I am, I know it's not going to last. Sometimes, I have to stop my pity party and remind myself that's true but I just tell myself that if I get some sleep, hold on and in a couple of days it will be gone. For the most part, for the last few years this has worked. That was very much how I dealt with this past weekend.

Thanks to everyone who offered their words of support this past weekend. It always makes me feel better to know that I am not alone. So if you stopped by and left a comment thank you. If you didn't leave a comment thank you too. It's kind of funny but according to the counter on my sight more people are stopping by my blog than ever before and yet the comments have been slipping. I don't understand why, but I'm just glad that people are stopping by to see what I have to say.

It's been a long couple of days. I have been in the worst mood possible. I've searched and searched for what's going on and although there are many reasons I might be in this space nothing really jumps out at me. So what could it be.

First it's fucking cold here. And I don't say that lightly. It's -7 right now, and with wind it feels like -20. It's been that way for three days and it's not supposed to get any better in the next few days. We have a warm front moving in on Tuesday. The high will be 17. That will be the warmest it's been in several days. I haven't left the house today because it's so cold outside and without a car, walking anywhere is painful. Yesterday I walked to the gym and the wind was causing my eyes to water which promptly froze on my eye lashes. By the time I got to the gym I had icicles hanging from my face. I was not about to try that again today.

It's also more than a little lonely here. I haven't seen a gay person in more than three weeks and I haven't had a personal conversation in just as long. At school, the rest of the faculty has been super friendly and super helpful. What they haven't been is interested in me personally. No one talks to me about my personal life, or even my professional life outside of school. They also aren't interested in doing anything outside of the school day. There have been no invitations for coffee, or a beer, or lunch or dinner. I go to school, I teach my classes, I come home. The rest of my day is spent by myself. This gets old after a while. Before you ask, there aren't really any social outlets in town. I don't see myself going to the sports bar up the street and watching football. I also don't see myself hanging out on campus with a bunch of students who are young enough to be my children. So for the most part, for the next three months I'm on my own.

I'm also tired of dieting. I've talked about this a little on my blog but I'm on a couple of medications for depression. One of those meds, the one I depend on most, that changed my life dramatically as soon as I started taking it, can slow your metabolism, if you take it for long periods of time. I've been on the med about 7 years and I can tell the difference in my metabolism. If I eat three light meals of mostly vegetables. I don't lose weight. I stay exactly where I am. The only way for me to really lose weight is to starve myself. Not really, but it feels like it. I have to watch everything I eat and monitor it like there's no tomorrow. And even with that the weight is very slow to fall away. In all, I'm tired of it. I want to be skinny now. I want to not think about it. Before some of you start talking about switching meds, I've already talked to my doctor about it. He's agreed to do it, but not before I come home from Iowa. He doesn't want me to be suddenly thrown into a deep depression while I am here because we are playing with my meds. So until July, I'm stuck.

I could go on but it's making my mood worse. I realize the weather isn't forever. In fact this job isn't forever. I also know in a couple of days I'll be completely over this and it'll be as though nothing was ever wrong. In the meantime I just need to get back to my schedule and keep myself busy. Believe it or not there's a lot a person can do to stay busy in a three bedroom house all alone. I have movies to watch, scarves to make and posts to write. Of course I should also do the dishes, put my laundry away and put together my notes for Tuesday's class. And for now, I'm going to brush my teeth and go to bed.

Thank God this weekend is over!!!

The 25 Question Meme
If you could build a house anywhere, where would it be? If money were no object I wouldn't build the house I'd buy a brownstone in the West Village of NYC.
What's your favorite article of clothing? Don't really have a favorite that I wear. Have a couple of things that are saved from when I was a kid that I value a lot.
Favorite physical feature of the opposite sex? Why are we worried with the opposite sex?
What's the last CD that you bought? The Dreamgirls movie soundtrack
Where's your favorite place to be? Paris...specifically in the Rodin Museum in the garden.
Where is your least favorite place to be? today....Iowa....
What's your favorite place to be massaged? My back
Strong in mind or strong in body? Stronger in mind than body.
What time do you wake up in the morning? On Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:00...the rest of the week, whenever I wake up.
What is your favorite kitchen appliance? My coffee maker. It's the only thing that gets me going in the morning.
What makes you really angry? Stupid people...and close minded people
If you could play any instrument, what would it be? I play the piano but not very well. I'd love to be able to play anything I wanted and not be afraid to play in front of people
Which do you prefer...sports car or SUV? Sports Car. I don't understand why most people have SUV's when sedan would do just as well and would be better for the environment.
Do you believe in an afterlife? It depends on the day of the week. Today, I don't know.
Favorite children's book? The Wizard of Oz...I read the whole series as a child.
What is your favorite season? Spring. I love when everything is in full bloom.
Your least favorite household chore? How can you have a favorite chore? If it's a chore, then it's not usually fun.
If you could have one super power, what would it be? I'd like to be invisible. I think it would be fun and could use it to do good. Like look at boys in the showers.
If you have a tattoo, what is it? I don't have one. I'm afraid I would get one and change my mind the minute it was done and have to spend tons of money to get rid of it.
Can you juggle? Not very well, but I can.
The one person from your past that you wish you could go back and talk to? If it's someone who's no longer around Tony. If it's someone who is still alive just not in my life then it would be S.G.
What's your favorite day? Fridays. You have the whole weekend in front of you.
What's in the trunk of your car? What car?
Which do you prefer, sushi or hamburger? Sushi? Yuck. Definitely hamburger.

Sorry about two memes in a row. I don't do them often, but I am in the worst mood I've been in, in a long time. I woke up in a bad mood and the events of the day have made it worse. I'm hoping that a good night's sleep will make things all better.

1. Home theatre or movie theatre? - Movie theatre. All movies are better in the theatre.
2. Hardwood or wall-to-wall? - hardwood. Always hardwood floors.
3. Pencil or ballpoint pen? - Neither. It's a pen, but not a ball point.
4. Digital or analog? - If we're talking time. Digital. And military. It's 23:06 as I type this.
5. “Wet” or dry? Hmmm. Makes me think of my friend S.H. who used to joke about Spit and Ram. Never completely dry though. That's painful.
6. Hardback or paperback? - I'd only read hardback if I could affortd them.
7. Gasoline or electric? - Gas until the perfect the whole electric car thing.
8. Photograph or painting? - I like both, but in my house they are all paintings...all painted by friends of mine.
9. Mountains or shore? - I prefer the mountains although I'd never say no to going to the beach.
10. Curtains or blinds? Blinds most of the time...but I am gay so a good window treatment will also work.
11. Shower or spa tub? - Shower, although I once lived in an apartment that had a claw foot tub that was 7 feet long. I took more baths in that year than ever in my life.
12. Blu-ray or HD DVD? - Huh? TV is TV. I'm not sold on the High Definition thing. I don't watch it enough to care if the picture looks perfect.
13. Paint or wallpaper? - Paint. Unless you're a grandmother. And it's 1962.
14. Thoroughly cleaned and prepped or go with the moment? I've always gone with the moment.
15 “Ties” or “loafers” (slip-ons)? - Ties mostly
16. Stick shift or automatic? I've had both, but prefer a stick. It's more fun to drive. Unless you are stuck in California traffic going 4 miles an hour.
17. Saturday or Sunday? Saturday. Sunday's just a reminder that school/work starts again tomorrow.
18. 15% or 18%? Almost always 20%. If the check is less than 20 bucks sometimes even more. I was a waiter tooooo many years not to tip well.
19. Football or soccer? - Absolutely football. I've always liked standing up and stretching during the 7th inning stretch. It's also a good time to go get a beer.
20. Lands End or L. L. Bean? - They're both great. But since my best friend M.M. moved to Maine I've shopped at L.L. Bean more.

I got this from Spider and since I'm at a loss for words tonight. This is what you get.

What a great day I had today. In fact it was one of the best days I've had in a while.

It started with getting out of bed at 6:00 a.m. For those of you who don't know me, until I came to Iowa, I don't remember the last time I saw 6:00 a.m. In fact, the alarm went off at 5:30 and I snoozed it till just before 6:00. I finally had to get up because the alarm on my phone in the living room was ringing and forced me to go deal with it. It's no small miracle that I was awake at all this morning since at 2:00 a.m. I was still lying in bed waiting to go to sleep. I have had trouble sleeping every night before class day. I'm hoping this will wear off.

So I was up early, checked email, and watched CNN while drinking muchos, muchos coffee. At about 7:35 I wrapped myself up nice and warm and headed to school. The thermometer on the bank I pass said it was 6 degrees at 7:45. If I wasn't awake before the walk, I was certainly awake after the walk.

Got to school and taught my two classes. They both went very well. In fact I didn't have time to finish either lecture because my students were very involved in the discussion. It's sort of a double edged sword. I'm glad they were participating, but by the end of next week we have to be back on schedule or we'll never get through all the information we need to get through.

After class I ran by the post office to drop off my Netflix movie. Have I mentioned how wonderful Netflix is. I love that I don't have to go anywhere to get my movies. They just sort of show up. And when you live in BFE Iowa you need something to keep you busy.

After the post office I stopped at the grocery store. This wouldn't be blog worthy except the store near my house, I discovered today, doesn't sell pre-packaged meat. You have to get everything from the butcher. This too wouldn't be blog worthy if it weren't for Nick. Hmmmm. I may have to go buy meat every day. He's beautiful, in his clean cut Iowa way and just as sweet as can be. Who knew pork chops came in so many different varieties.

After the grocery I came home, changed clothes and headed back to campus. I was on my way to the gym. I got my faculty ID card yesterday which gives me gym privileges until the end of May. So I trudged the half mile back to campus to work out. I also discovered that the gym and building are only about a year old so everything is in great shape and brand new. All of this is made better by the fact that no one was there. I only did cardio today. I ran a mile (first time I've run in well over two years) and then walked 3 miles. In all, I did an hour of cardio. It felt great, I just hope that I am not sore tomorrow.

After the gym I trudged the half mile back home and had lunch. Then it was the best time of all. I got my comforter off my bed, curled up in the recliner in the living room and the next thing I knew it was 4:45. Nothing like a warm nap on a very cold winter afternoon to hit the spot. After the nap, I talked on the phone for a while and then got re-dressed to go back to school.

In April I am designing the lights for a dance project that's turning out to be very exciting. I'm going to be able to stretch my abilities and approach it differently than I've approached most of my shows in the past few years. I think it's going to be fun. Anyway, I went to school to watch a rehearsal of the piece, had a brief conversation with the choreographer and then headed back home.

Then it was dinner, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and now blogging. All in all a near perfect day.