Mr. Tanny Wrinkleface 12.01.03

Just a little note to say that I was in much better spirits, today. I had a rather pleasantish day at work, and I think just doing work, in general, is good for me. I'm not the best man to be left alone with his thoughts...I tend to swim too deep.

I just sold all the stock that I own in the company I work for. (Yes, I ended a sentence with a preposition...take that Mr. Pickard...ooooo footnote on Mr. Pickard at bottom) I figured why have all of this cash in 'savings,' of sorts, when I could cash it out and pay off some bills, some not all..., and fix my car that has been sitting in my back drive for 3 months. If I keep it in my yard much longer, I will have completed yet another step in my journey towards inevitable red neckhood. I will then be able to afford Christmas. Isn't that what it is all about? (I, of course, don't believe that...of course...)

Okay, footnote on Mr Pickard. He was my sophomore English teacher and he was insane. He was a little skinny man, about 5'5", very fake bakey tanned with wrinkles so deep you could explore them spellunking style.

He was a total control freak. He had drawn little half circles around the feet of all the desks in the room, and no desk leg was to be outside of one of those semi-circles. If you did scoot outside the bounds then you would get detention, no shit.

We had to take spelling tests, like twice a week. There were three levels of spellers, Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. Each Level had a different word, like Level 1 would have "onomatopoeic" and Level 3 would have "crayon." Anyway, so there would be 25 words times three, and Mr.. Pickard, years before, had made tapes of him reading the spelling words, using them in a sentence, and then repeating the word. He would then play them during the spelling tests. It was unbelievably annoying. He would just sit at his desk and stare out at us with his beady little eyes, while his voice, which also sounded wrinkled and tanned, would come from his old black tape recorder. (Remember those old tape recorders? They were always black and the record button had a red dot on it, and you had to push both that one AND the play button in order to record anything...)

He looked a lot like a tan, wrinkled, featherless bird.

He once told us the proper way to answer a phone was, "It is I to whom you are speaking." Hilarious.

I suppose the plus side is because of him I can recite the entire poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Eve by Robert Frost:

<>Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here,
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

<>My little horse must think it queer,
To stop without a farmhouse near,
Between the woods and frozen lake,
The darkest evening of the year.

<>He gives his harness bells a shake,<>
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep,
Of easy wind and downy flake.

<>The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
<>But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

That's all I got...g'night