Dribbling Ink

I figured my wife would appreciate this picture. In case some people get worried, this picture was taken at Pumpkin Hollow last year. I just always found it creepy because she looks so pale--and that smile.

Because I’ve been lazy lately, and there haven’t been any random strangers wandering into the apartment, it’s time to break out another list. Things I’ve learned since I got married: 1) I’ll eat cheese cake with strawberries on top (after years of avoiding this topping, making my mother prepare all food “plain” my entire life, my wife forced me to try it—it’s not so bad). 2) I’ll eat vegetables, namely corn not on the cob, which I’ve never liked before. 3) Supreme pizzas are actually quite tasteful. 4) Being “overqualified” for a job is actually Coachspeak—or maybe Workspeak, in this case—for “Yes, you have a degree, which does make you more formally educated than everyone else that applied; however, your degree is a B.A. in English and we’re not sure that it’s practical in any way to the business environment. Good luck serving up White Chocolate Mochas at Starbucks, hippie.” 5) Eating chicken wasn’t just a childhood fad of mine. It’s a lifetime commitment. 6) I think abo...

On Thursday, I’ve been married for two months. See, I am a good husband; I remembered my anniversary—I bet my wife isn’t even aware of this, since she’s always busy with stupid science study groups (that’s an alliteration for my literary friends), which is where I’m at right now. Woo…anyway. In those two months since we’ve moved to Arkadelphia—for those familiar with my former hometown, think Goobertown on steroids, really, really cheap steroids—we’ve received exactly two visits from the outside world: my parents and her parents. My friends and cousins have abandoned me, but who can blame them? I wouldn’t drive four hours either for an old married couple, a rundown apartment, and some critters. However, we finally welcomed our first visitor this week. Well, we didn’t exactly welcome him, but we did have a foreign mass enter our domain. Here’s how the visit went down. I was playing Madden 09 on Wii online and my wife was doing homework on the couch. It’s about ten o’clock, I'm mindi...

There are many advantages to living in Ouachita Baptist University’s apartments, like the fact that my wife’s scholarship leaves us with only a $93 housing bill at the end of the month (of course, without a job that still means giving up cable [see yesterday’s blog]), we conserve gas without having to commute, and OBU provides free internet (like hotels provide “free breakfast”). OBU even provides clothes washers and dryers. That is, if you don’t mind dodging traffic in the parking lot, sprinting in the rain, or trudging through mud, all while toting your dirty underwear over your shoulder to the laundry room. Even then, say you defy all odds and reach the laundry room as clean as you left, your clothes won’t. The laundry room/outhouse/dungeon is last place you’d want to wash clothes that you actually have to wear. There’s usually an inch of water on the floor—I haven’t decided if it’s from improper use of the washing machines or sewage backup— and all the apparatuses (two washers, ...

No ESPN. No college football/NFL. No cable. How does a sports fanatic reach this point? you ask...It's simple really: In August I graduated from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, AR, with a B.A. degree in English. A week later, I got married. Now, I've moved to Arkadelphia, AR, so my wife can attend Ouachita Baptist University--where she will walk-on the basketball team--while I look for a career. Or a job. Or anything that will pay (unlike this blog). I've written or recited the above paragraph to any would-be employer so many times that it’s lost its emotional sting (of course, I wasn’t so heavy with the lamenting). Three weeks later, I still haven’t found a job. Thus, a simple recipe for a life without sports: four cups of a B.A. degree in English, mix in a pinch of marriage, chop up half a head of “small college town” and serve it with a slab of cold unemployment. When all else failed, of course, I turned to the internet. Even without cable I could read ESPN.com, ...