I Don't Have to Work

I work at home. I sat down at my desk this morning, looked around… something was wrong.

No work. There is no work to do. A flash of panic hit me. Have I done something wrong? There’s no work on my desk! Have I angered the gods at corporate HQ in LA?

I’m on Christmas vacation. I don’t have to work. I feel lost. I feel this stirring of guilt and anxiety in my belly. I should be working.

I don’t have to work. I could lie around reading all day. I could read anything I want to. I could read Aquinas and Aristotle. Who is harder, Aquinas or Aristotle? Or I could read Betty and Veronica. Who is hotter, Betty or Veronica?

I’m sitting at my desk thinking about Betty and Veronica. I’m a sick man.

I don’t have to work. I’ll get used to this. I will really start digging this around December 29th, just when I have to go back to work.

Well, Merry Christmas, all. Can I still write that? It’s not against the law, is it? Has the Echelon program at NSA picked up the words Merry Christmas and put my name in a file marked “Insensitive to Other Cultures”?

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Caught a few minutes of a Clippers game the other day. They interviewed Lara Flynn Boyle, actress and basketball fan. She was incoherent. I have no idea what point she was trying to make. Twice she said, “I grew up in Chicago,” like the words were some magic incantation. Apparently, growing up in Chicago makes one a True and Knowledgeable Sports Fan. Perhaps she was incoherent because she lacked the courage to come out and say, “The Lakers are for phony Tinseltown fans, but the Clippers are for real meat and potato Americans.”

Chicagoans seem to think of their city as a place full of real Americans. The City of Broad Shoulders. Los Angeles, in their mythology, is a place full of kooks, phonies, starlets and shallow people.

Excuse me, but Los Angeles is the birthplace of the Crips and the Bloods. What could be more American than that?

I don’t know anything about Chicago except that they have a funny accent there. (Think Elwood Blues, the Dan Ackroyd character.) In my job listening to FM radio around America, I always get a kick out of Chicago stations. Instead of “Rock on!” they say, “Rack Ann!”

Minneapolis has a similar accent. (Think Fargo.) Then there’s Lwon Guyland. They all sound like gangsters.

****

Betty or Veronica. I’m thinking Veronica is hotter. She’s such a bitch. Betty is the girl next door, boring. A little perversion makes a woman interesting.

Have you noticed that Archie comics are like A Midsummer-Night’s Dream? Archie is Demetrius, Reggie is Lysander, Betty is Helena and Veronica is Hermia. There is no Jughead in the play, perhaps because Shakespeare was unacquainted with hamburgers.

I don’t have to work. I could do this all day.

In the name of all that is good and merciful, will this vacation never end?