Jeffrey Ricker's Blog, page 64

Day Thirteen

This week

I'm writing this on Sunday, August 29. This week, I just have to make it through to Thursday, and the rest should be clear sailing. Tomorrow I have a meeting at work that will set up the rest of the work I have to get done this week, and that's really all I care to say about the day job (I like to draw a bright line between the thing that pays my bills and all the other things that collectively make my life). Monday night, I have a meeting of my writing group, Writers under the...

Day Twelve

What's in your bag

The bag itself is a black Targus laptop backpack that, more often than not, doesn't hold my laptop. But it holds a lot of other stuff. I'll go through it pocket by pocket. It has a lot of pockets.

WalletBusiness cards from a company where I am signed up to do anonymous taste testingHeadphonesA packet of Biofreeze gelA money clip (but no money)Three pens. One of them needs a new refill.Business cards. Eyedrops. Burt's Bees chapstick.Container of mints. Quarter. Old Panera...

Day Eleven

Your siblings

Thank you, brother, for continuing the family line.

I wouldn't have thought I would worry about that either. However, I tell my smart friends that they need to have more children so that the stupid people's offspring don't outnumber the intelligent ones. My brother and his wife are among the smart ones; my niece (I know this is a completely biased opinion but it's also true) is nothing short of brilliant. She's also athletic and pretty and has a fantastic sense of humor. I think s...

Day Ten

What you wore today

It starts with a t-shirt and a pair of grey track pants. These are also my pajamas, and occasionally workout clothes. Today I don't want to work out, though I probably still will, which is why I'm also wearing a pair of ankle socks and trainers.

For work, I change into a pair of blue trousers and a gray, short-sleeve pullover (which later I will proceed to splatter coffee upon—I should really wear brown more often). Also, a black belt and black shoes, shoes that I wear...

Day Nine

Your beliefs

In one of my journals, there's a drawing that looks suspiciously like a coffee bean. It's a straight line in the center of an oval. The line represents our corporeal existence. The oval is reality. Outside that oval exists the answer to whether there is any higher power beyond this corporeal existence. You'll notice that the oval and the line do not intersect. Some things just can't be known in this life.

I do believe in coffee, however.

I also believe, like Katherine Hepburn, that ...

Day Eight

A moment

The first cup poured. A cold morning. Wisps of steam curling from the surface as I lift the cup and bend my head to take the first sip. A string of incomplete sentences.

Life in a boat bubble

So, Mike and I spent the last week with our friend (also named Mike) on a cruise to Alaska, stomping groups of Sarah Palin and her folksy, homespun wisdom. (Except for the time when we were in Juneau, where one of our traveling friends saw a sign still in a window that said, "Hey Sarah, your job's here." Apparently, as governor she didn't spend a whole lot of time in the state capital.)

I wasn't on this trip to meet the locals, really. I wanted to walk on a glacier, see the route the Klondike ...

Day Seven

Your Best Friends

In my life, there is no best friend. There are friends who've been the best thing for me at a certain time in a certain place. In the luckiest of cases, their friendship has endured beyond those key points and they have grown into companions on a longer journey.

Brad held me up when life had brought me to the lowest point I've ever reached. Ryan offered an outsider's perspective on St. Louis that mirrored a lot of the things I saw as well, and made me realize, no, I wasn't...

Day Six

(Picking up where I left off before my vacation began. I had hoped to post these daily during that time, but 3G access from Alaska? Rather spotty.)

Your day

During the week I wake up every morning at 5 o'clock. More often than not, the first word that crosses my mind is "Shit," especially if it's Monday. I seriously wonder if there will ever come a week when I look forward to Mondays, or at least don't dread them.

Snooze. Snooze. Typically I hit snooze a third time but then hit the off button...

Day Five

Your definition of love

Don't bore me with grand gestures and obvious but pedestrian declarations. Love is the shot glass on the vanity that is filled with mouthwash every night before I go to bed.