I hate shopping.I know that's not the most acceptable way to begin day 14 of The Gratitude Experiment, but I couldn't help myself. This morning, I went out to breakfast with the family, and, afterward I was presented with yet another lady-or-the-tiger dilemma: I could either go shopping with my wife and daughter, or I could shovel snow out of the driveway.
Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd rather do the snow thing.
With a chopstick.
Okay. So I'm out there shoveling snow, getting all sweaty and stuff, and I'm thinking to myself, isn't getting sweaty in the snow like the one thing that Bear Grylls and Les Stroud always warn about? Maybe I should stop for a while and have a beer. Why is it that those guys can build a freekin igloo and get a fire going inside it in like 45 minutes (and a chopstick would be a luxury), and I have yet to uncover one square yard of driveway concrete?
And I'm not even going to get into the Bear Grylls vs. Les Stroud argument, 'cause it's a no-brainer who could kick whose ass.
Okay. I must be getting delirious from all this shoveling and sweating in the snow. Time to sit down and have a beer.
Even though this is the shortest day of the year... two females shopping is good for a good six hours in my estimation. I wonder if Survivorman would concur.
Ever since I embarked on this writing career thing, I've made some really cool friends. Today, I would like to say I am grateful for meeting and becoming friends with a very talented author, Lewis Buzbee. Not only are Lewis' books amazingly good (The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, Steinbeck's Ghost, After the Gold Rush), --
Note to self: I have to ask Lewis if he is a fan of Neil Young. I bet he is. My wife is somehow convinced that we conceived our son at a Neil Young concert, so I'll have to take her word for that.
-- but Lewis is actually the kind of person who takes the time to write incredibly thoughtful and insightful emails... kind of, I'd imagine, the way that some people used to actually correspond by writing letters. I love getting emails from Lewis because he writes so well and he really takes the time to consider the questions I (being the inexperienced nobody that I am) ask. And many are the times when his calming responses have talked me back inside from the ledge.
Not that I have a ledge, but I probably could get a wicked sprain if I jumped off the upper deck.
Well, I'm done sweating now, and that goddamned snow isn't going to shovel itself.
Day 14
