Yesterday was a Tuesday. Got to work at 8:00, or at least that's what I put on my time card. Moved papers around in a not-entirely-stochastic fashion and thought about having a snack. Went to the john and picked my nose. Ate an apple. Started thinking about lunch. Made three desultory phone calls. Wandered the halls and smiled awkwardly at Cute HR Girl (Single Mom Remix). Ate lunch -- homemade chipotle chicken chili, by a wide margin the highlight of the day so far. "Worked" on TPS reports. Thought about having a snack. Ruminated on the utter hopelessness and emptiness of it all. Eavesdropped on coworker's cell phone conversation with ne'er-do-well son. Took a nap on the john. Ate some mixed nuts. Glanced impatiently at clock. Had strained conversation with visiting manager from Virginia. Left work at 5:20, wrote 5:30 on time card. Ate a Clif Bar while driving to gym. Aquajogged for 45 minutes while uselessly attempting, unassisted by corrective lenses, to ogle swimsuit-clad girls. Drove home. Affixed The Club to steering wheel. Pulled junk mail and bills out of mailbox.

You know: Tuesday.

But when I got to my front door, suddenly it wasn't Tuesday anymore. It was a Good Day! Somebody sent me an unexpected package! A large padded envelope decorated with silly stickers! What could it be? Unwashed underwear from Sadie? Saucy photos of The Maximum Leader's sister? Great green globs of greasy grimy gopher guts? It hardly mattered. Any time I get an unexpected package on a Tuesday, I'm walking on sunshine, whoaaaa oh.

I fumbled through the front door, dropped my credit card solicitations and auto insurance bill on the floor, and opened my unexpected package without removing my jacket. The booty:

• A 2005 mathematics calendar, with a problem to work every day. Finding the solutions is sort of anticlimactic, because the answers always comes out the same as the dates (that is, the answer to August 15's problem will be 15), but an wonderful and challenging gift nonetheless. Click here to see a photo of January and here to see my solution of January 2's problem.
  
  When I went to hang the calendar, though, I found that it had no hanging hole. I turned it this way and that, frowning and wondering whether I was just too stupid to own a mathematics calendar. In the end, however, I decided that the hole-punching guy at the calendar factory must have been hopped up on goofballs or flirting with his own Cute HR Girl at the time my calendar was printed. I considered leaving the calendar the way it was, thinking that maybe only a few holeless calendars had been printed, and it might be worth a lot of money someday, like the upside-down Jenny Biplane stamp. But finally I fetched my Leatherman tool and used the awl to punch my own hole. Given the calendar's subject matter, I considered using a compass and straightedge to find the exact midpoint, but I ended up just using a tape measure.
  
  
• A The Nightmare Before Christmas illustrated children's book. Some of you might be surprised to learn that I like children's books -- I have The Giving Tree, The Cat in the Hat, and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs, among others. Isn't it strange that I like children's books, but hate actual children?
  
  
• A mix CD titled "Kilgore Trout: The White CD." Here's the thing: I have Very Bad Taste in music. I listen to Linkin Park rage-pop, 80's power ballads, and Caucasian-compatible hip-hop. The kind and thoughtful friend who compiled this CD, however, has Very Good Taste in music, so she stocked "The White CD" with dozens of songs by Bonnie Raitt, Meat Loaf, Elvis, Morrissey, Johnny Cash, Prince, Dean Martin, and some outfit called "The Pixies" -- tunes that make my favorite music sound like soft-drink jingles. Listening to this CD flashed me back to my days working at a 24-hour diner in San Francisco, where we were allowed to bring our own CDs to play on the restaurant's sound system. Everyone else brought their ultrahip Siouxsie and the Banshees, Monkey Cunt, and ironic Cyndi Lauper remix albums. I brought Christian pop music and Will Smith.
  
  Like Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer using a pay phone, good music frightens and confuses me. I'm a sucker for catchy hooks, but complex musical themes make me adopt an expression like the one your dog makes when you pretend to throw a ball and palm it behind your back. Take Johnny Cash, for example, a man universally lauded as a musical powerhouse. I don't get it. All I hear when I listen to The Man in Black is the whooshing sound of allegedly great music cruising thousands of feet over my head.
  
  Please -- no angry emails defending the musical genius of the man who penned "The Gambler."* This is all my fault, not Johnny's. So I've been listening to "The White CD" on repeat, hoping my brain will soak up some Very Good Taste. Wish me luck.
  
  * I'm just kidding. I know Willie Nelson wrote "The Gambler."

UPDATE! Thursday turned into another Good Day, as I arrived home to find another unexpected package leaning against my door, this one courtesy of Motive Mayhem, my favoritest Utahan ever. Choosing not to lay up for himself treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal, mM sent me an 18-oz. bag of Oreos and a toenail clipper. Thanks, mM!

+posted by Lawrence @ 1/13/2005 11:04:00 PM