if i had facebook

My status message would read: "got the official kiss-off from the job for which she's been pining for the past year and a half."

My favorite TV couple broke up tonight.

At this rate, tomorrow, someone will spill coffee on me, my recently washed car will get shat on and towed, and I'll get food poisoning from my favorite sushi joint.

Go ahead, life, kick me while I'm down.

seriously? seriously!

My friend's daughter will soon celebrate her first birthday, which I welcome as an excuse to buy some tiny, citrus-themed pajamas, including one piece that reads, "Squeeze Me."

But the pajama set says something else as well: "For child's safety, garment should fit snugly. This garment is not flame resistant. Loose-fitting garment is more likely to catch fire."

It crosses my mind that perhaps somewhere in the annals of baby pajamas, some little one... No. I can't really imagine anything involving loose-fitting pajamas catching fire that doesn't also involve some form of negligent supervision. What I can imagine is the truly responsible party pinning the blame on the maker of pajamas with the help of a contingency lawyer.

Because, seriously, a warning that cotton clothing is not flame resistant should not be necessary. Because, seriously, an unattended child near an open flame is more likely to catch fire, no matter how snug the pajamas.

road trip

You're on the road with a friend. Perhaps the two of you are headed for the same destination; perhaps one of you is dropping off the other somewhere along the way. You take turns at the wheel; you take great care not to backseat-drive the other. You talk, you sing, you take in the scenery. The journey is long, but the company makes time fly.

Then somewhere along the way, you run into trouble. Actually, your friend drives into a mud ditch. He's sure that he can accelerate his way out of it. But you know the grinding tires do little more than deepen the ditch. You ask your friend to stop accelerating; you tell him you have to push the car to get it out of the ditch. Your friend wants out of the ditch but he doesn't want to push.

You have a few options. You can ditch your friend, hitch-hike or find some other means to get to where you need to go; it's frustrating and pointless to try to reason with him. You can sit back and let him keep doing the same thing in the hopes of obtaining a different result; you know he'll fail and you wait for your "I told you so" moment.

Or, you can get out, go to the rear of the car and push. Whatever the ditch is in the particular case - an unfulfilling job, a troubled marriage, weight gain/lack of exercise - there is no guarantee that you'd be able to get the car out of it. The only assurance is that you'll get a mud facial and on top of that, possibly an "I told you so."

What do you do?

better sorry than safe

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. " ~Theodore Roosevelt