The drama that is...For Better Or For Worse

For years, literally years, even before I could drive I've been turning to the funny pages for this epic dramatic cartoon, For Better Or For Worse. I think I am nearing the end of my desire to follow this perfectly annoying Canadian family. But my prediction is that some major drama is about to take place and GRANDPA WILL DIE WITHIN THE MONTH. This is my prediction and if nothing so earth shaddering does occur in this daily strip then I will give it up forever on my 33rd birthday, less than a month away.

For nearlt two decades I've watched dad, John, plug way as a dentist while playing with his model trains. Mom, Elly, started her own business and tried in vain to keep up the household with an internal vacuum system. Last week she decided to sell the business- oh, stop the presses. Michael had gone from awkward teen to an amazing husband with Deanna and their two angelic children. He's blossomed into a successful writer and magazine editor and the biggest hurdles they faced were setting up Weed with a fuck buddy and then a couple of annoying downstairs neighbors. That's all been settled and we haven't heard the last of that quirky photog weed (my fave). Elizabeth has discovered the love of all loves in a northern Canadian policeman, all while pursuing her noble teaching career in an obscure native tribe village. She has become quite sexy over the years and loved and lost enough. She deserves this latest crush and it might turn into marriage, I hope. April has turned from shit upon little kid to awkward teen with some musical talent. Sh'es kind to the retarded kid, trying to relaunch her band and dealing with the classic teenage drama of growing apart from friends, all the while struggling to temper a growing need for independence while grasping to the innocence of childhood.

Hopefully when grandpa dies in the next month, it will hit April the hardest. Grandma died about a year ago and this strip made national news for attempting to deal with such a strong issue. Farley the dog died several years before but that was glazed over. Now there's a a dog that looks like Farley. But that's not such a strange turn of events because I see in my own life how people try to replace old pets with new pets. It fills a void.

So good luck and godspeed to you For Better Or For Worse. I have granted you the goofy Sunday color strip when nothing ever, ever, ever happens in the plot. But now you've got a month to get good or I'm out of here.

Love,
Christian

On the road

The king of introspection
lost a major battle today
breaking down in control
suddenly overwhelmed

April showers

Hard to believe but it's almost April. This is the month during which I turn 33-years-old. I haven't thought about my age a lot lately but I'm sort of happy with turning 33. Although I've never put time constraints on my life, such as being married or having kids at a certain age, I am thinking about it right now, this very moment. Maybe it's because I'm in the library surrounded by kids or maybe because I've been visualizing myself as a teacher lately and dealing with young kids and parents of assorted ages- but most likely around my age.

I find myself wondering what age I want to be when I first send my child to kindergarten. If I have a child in the next two years then I will be nearly 40 when the school bus makes its first appearance. I will be okay if I'm 45 as well, but do I want to be 50 when my child is in kindergarten? Sixty when they learn to drive? Retired when they start college? This line of thinking has the potential to be very, very, very sad.

Vegas, baby!

I'm just sitting here in my Oxygen bar- dreamin' of a pair of square.

Is this making it tougher to be a male teacher?

China on point

In an effort to address U.S. criticism of its human rights violations China today issued a firm 'you betta' check yo' self befo yo' wreck yo' self' to little bully brother Bush and the good 'ol boys. See China.

I think it's wise to not mess with China, especially as we hand over the majority of our product production based on U.S. raw materials on a silver platter. They have a major point in their recent allegations. The United States has puffed its chest in the last few decades and the world isn't getting any prettier.

During a flurry of press for his 75th birthday, Mikhail Gorbachev, the hugley unpopular ex-Soviet honcho, made the following statement: "Ending the Cold War was given as a gift" to the United States, but it only strengthened America's arrogance and unilateralism, he said. "The winner's complex is worse than an inferiority complex, because it's harder to cure." Gorbachev went on to say that "America needs its own perestroika" and that Bush made a huge error in Iraq.



"Yada yada yada." He didn't say that. I'm quoting myself and how I'm feeling right now.