Words to Hang in There By

If you've seen the movie Overboard, League of Their Own, or Three Men and a Baby, then I don't need to tell you that Calvin and Hobbes is a perfectly acceptable book for read-out-loud time. (All three movies make a statement about the fact that it doesn't matter what you are reading as long as you're learning to read and/or you use your soothing voice.) Jake has been reading Calvin and Hobbes to me before bed. I laugh harder than he does. Calvin uses big words. (More reasons I feel justified using it for Jake's reading.)

Last night Calvin ate six boxes of Sugar Coma-O's (or something like) so he could send in the proofs of purchase for a beanie with a propeller. Then he had to wait SIX WEEKS for the beanie to come. The next day - I mean, you won't even believe this - I finally got in the mail my new The New Yorker "weekend bag" that I earned the last time I renewed my subscription. A New Yorker weekend bag is my beanie. I had to wait just long enough that I actually emailed customer service to just see if maybe, I mean, I don't want to be a pest, but will I really get my New Yorker weekend bag or is it one of those "while supplies last" kind of things? The very nice man who answered assured me my free gift was being processed, that I would get my bag and to please allow six-to-eight weeks for delivery. Only a few days later, the morning after laughing at Calvin's plight with the beanie, I got my bag.

And like Calvin's beanie, it was of course somewhat less-than I had expected, "As almost all hats are".

Calvin and I have a long history of relating to one another. Poor Jake can't really keep up with the inside jokes I share with the dramatic and over-imaginative little boy who got me through my teen years by his reaction to the giant snowball he planned for Susie Derkins that ended up being way too big to actually throw at her. Reality continues to ruin my life, Calvin said, and I was empowered to endure my adolescence.

This week, I printed and added to my bulletin board at work a little picture by Jon Acuff. Fear No Monday, it says, followed by a post about the possibilities in life. It's on my board next to Lily Tomlin's I always wanted to be somebody, now I know I should have been more specific, Kurt Vonnegut's advice to Go into the arts, I'm not kidding, Felicity's advice that Today is not every day, and Shabaka Williams' (real life) encouraging words (to me) that, "Martin Luther King Jr., said if you want to change the world, take up your pen and write. I think that you have."

Thank God for weekend bags and beanies and giant snowballs and people who make words into art that helps me fear no Monday. This is the bulletin board in the office of my LIFE. And I am grateful.