Snakes on a Blog

Well, you come up with a better title. The obvious alternative was "m*****f****** snakes on a m*****f****** blog" but I think my kids sometimes read this. But do they ever leave comments? No.

So the phone rings last Sunday morning and the caller ID says it's my sister but when I pick up it's none other than action hero and Jedi Knight Samuel L. Jackson. Now, Sam and I are pretty tight but he seldom calls early on Sunday morning and hardly ever from my sister's phone. "Hey, Southern Man," he says. "Call your sister and tell her you're gonna take her to see my new movie Snakes on a Plane."

Southern Man's social life is sufficiently thin these day that even a date with his sister sounds tempting, so I call her. "Hey, sis," I say. "I just had the wildest idea. Why don't you and I go see Snakes on a Plane next weekend?"

"You know," she replied, "I was talking to Samuel L. Jackson about that just the other day."

Thus we (my sister and my son and myself) ended up at the local megaplex last night for what turned out to be a pretty good movie, with equal amounts of suspense and surprise and just plain silliness. Spoiler warning: Mr. Jackson doesn't utter the infamous line until well into the second half. Before that the language was pretty sedate; afterwards we earn our "R" rating for language. I kept an eye on my son during the sex-and-drugs-in-a-747-restroom scene; he did give it his full attention right up to the point where the snakes dropped in for a little serpentus interruptus. By the way, there are a lot of snakes in this movie; ophidiophobes need not apply. Ophidiophobia: that's your Southern Man^TM Vocabulary Builder Word of the Day^TM. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? And they say blogs aren't educational.

Life and work goes on. Especially work. I'm posting from work on a Saturday afternoon (having just taken a break from painting a classroom) and I'll be here all day tomorrow as well. On Monday I start what may be the most horrendous teaching schedule of my professional career: early morning to late night four days a week and nine-to-five on Fridays and Saturdays. No complaints; I did it to myself so I'd keep busy rather than knock around my empty rental at night (not to mention earn a little extra cash, which will mostly end up in my divorce lawyer's pocket rather than my own). But busy I will be, at least until late October when my Saturday class is over. That one I'm taking, not teaching; Southern Man both preaches and practices life-long learning. This particular educational experience might land him a part-time job next spring.

I continue to receive love and support (not to mention the occasional dinner) from friends and family; you know who you are and God bless you all. It would be so much harder without you. Lord, thank you for the love and support and kindness and prayers of good friends. Amen.