*ahem* Rumour has it that someone will miss my "cute little tush" while I'm gone next week.
10:01 PM


The thing is, one reason we had 3 boxes of books kicking around the office is that we were out of bookshelf space. We have books stacked everywhere. Do I really need to go buy another $100 worth of books? I think not.

While we were waiting for the air conditioner repair man to arrive (he was an hour late!), I cleaned up the office. Good news, I found my favorite drum sticks. Also, re-tacked the IU soccer poster and put up the Louisville hockey poster. Most of the stuff on the walls of our house is nice (framed and all), but in the office, it is a sports free-for-all. I have poster on top of poster for all the IU teams, tons of hockey stuff, trophies/medals, pennants, banners, etc. Not classy, but it's the funnest room in the house.
4:53 PM


Well, last night when I got home, there was a message on the answering machine. I started listening to it: "This is Harry Thompson, from USA Hockey..." and said to Catherine, "Oh, they just want money, and I've already given enough." I walked away and tuned the rest of the message out--until I heard something about "American Hockey Magazine," "your essay," and "finalist." By the time I really started paying attention, I'd missed most of the message, but the gist of it was...

Mr. Thompson wanted me to send him a photograph because they were going to publish an essay I'd submitted in September's issue of the magazine. And this is when I remember, "Oh, my god, I sent in the world's schlockiest essay!" Well, "essay" is being used loosely here, because we were limited to 200 words. But one day last March or April, I dashed off a couple of completely sentimental, completely sappy paragraphs about what I would do if I had the Stanley Cup for a day. It was right after my dad had a heart attack, and I was feeling uncharacteristically weepy. I wrote out my 200 words, put it in an envelope, and mailed it off. What I *should* have done was write it out, dump it in my journal, and keep it to myself. Now the whole hockey world gets to see what a sap I can be.

The only plus is, I'm now only one degree removed from Jack Falla, since he read the ten finalist essays. If you know hockey, you'll know why that's cool.