Up for Air

I desparately need to read something. I am beginning to choke and panic. I brought seven magazines home from the office, I visited four convenience stores yesterday to find a Sunday Times, and I am now the owner of the complete collection of Calvin & Hobbes. I sat down on the couch at least three times last evening to exercise my eyes and never made it to one page one. I can almost not breathe.

Hence, I cannot write.

To make things worse, the family has been in particularly good form. They gave me very little material to work with over the past week. Something about Santa and a potential mound of presents I suppose.

I need an event, a catastrophe, an insult. I am working on it. For pure inspiration, I bought each member of the family a game from a collectors' series I happened upon at Target. Risk for the one who won't take one, Scrabble for the one who cannot read, Sorry for the soul who is always at fault, Monopoly for the kid who has no concept of cash, and Yahtzee for the child who leaves everything to chance. I got things going a bit last night, but we started off slow, with the game of Life in the new Sponge Bob Square Pants version. No car or pegs or getting married. This is a much saner version of life. You move a character about, adopt a pet, and opt to live in a cave or a pineapple. Perhaps the biggest difference in playing versus thirty years ago is that all the kids went to college instead of going straight into a career. When the kid who won Life looked like she was going to win the next game, Sorry, too, the group ganged up on her. Now that they are primed, I am going to set the table for breakfast with plates, maple syrup, and a stretch of Atlantic Avenue.

Then I am going to find a corner and read.