Viva Dave Barry

This has been a fairly typical day.

I spent the morning, and part of the afternoon, ferrying a member of the family to St. Cloud (about 45 miles/70 KM down the road) and back. An attache case full of books and writing tablets kept me mildly productive, although getting five hours of sleep last night kept real efficiency at bay.

When my daughter was finished with her business, she found me: elbow on table, supporting my forehead a cubit above piled papers. Contemplating the infinite, absorbed in thought, or napping? I'll let you pick an explanation from that list.

Even with the near-all-nighter last night, I'm still unlikely to have a bit of advertising ready by the end of the week.

I may have mentioned this before: my father-in-law is recovering from double knee replacement. It doesn't have a thing to do with the online publishing project(s) I'm trying to launch, but lending a hand in his recovery is distracting the family. And me.

Let's see. I'm feeling stressed. That's bad for efficiency, and blood pressure. Doesn't do my digestion any favors, either.

• I could run, screaming, down the street. Nope. I've had both hips replaced, and believe the medicos when they say "no running."


• I could go down to the corner bar and get plastered. No way. Aside from the expense, that's just adding a hangover to stress, and making more stress when I realize how much time I wasted.


• I could run away. That's crazy. I'm living in the best place on earth: there's no place to run to.

Now it hits me. This is a job for the Dave Barry column. the Miami Herald has an archive of Dave Barry columns at least far back as 1994. I recommend Shooting carps in Wisconsin and, copying from a previous post, Living under the influence of the Weirdness Magnet.

A word of caution, though: Some may not like the wit and wisdom of Dave Barry as much as I do, just as not everyone likes lutefisk or haggis. Or, for that matter, reading blogs.