Spring left and went to Alberta, Canada, leaving room for Summer to arrive and bring its suitcases full of sunny days, strong storms, heavy heat and some kind of machine that both stretches and compresses time. It’s not that we time travel during Summer, it’s just that our sense of how time passes is confused. This is why you’ll often hear people talk about how they have to wait forEVER before their vacation starts, only to discover that it went by just TOO FAST. Students feel the same kind of strange warp, where it seems that the semester just wouldn’t come to an end, only to find that Summer packed up and left even quicker than it arrived. This is the surest proof that we tend to have a really, really good time during these delightful Summer months, because we all know that “time flies when you’re having fun.”

You know why the man threw an alarm clock out the window, don’t you?

It’s because he hated the loud ringing that woke him up while he was trying to sleep. Contrary to the urban legend, it had nothing to do with his desire to see time fly. What a ludicrous idea.

Emily and I have been having a delightful summer vacation as we have been able to call Florida “home” for the last week. Not the entire state of Florida, mind you, but a home in a city called Palm Coast where my sister and brother-in-law live, swim, work, pay taxes and sweat — all delicacies of the Florida life. And it’s a life that we’ve been able to live vicariously through the vacation version (version 1. 1) of ourselves, where its still us, yes, but the .1 makes it so that we’re more disconnected than connected, more disengaged than engaged, more careless than careful. That’s not to say that we’re not careful and doing stupid things like driving into lakes and pouring grease down the drain. But we’re carefree in the way that a billionaire might be carefree — waking up whenever, eating at fancy restaurants with names like Taco Bell, sitting around on a beach with REAL sand and taking the time to read every section of the newspaper INCLUDING the lesser-read comics (I’m looking at you, Mary Worth). Let me just say that Mary Worth makes no sense unless you’ve been paying attention since the beginning.

Ziggy — now there’s a guy you can just start reading from anywhere and it makes sense. He’s round. He loves a life that doesn’t love him back. But he tries really hard. I like Ziggy comics because it reminds me of a substitute we had in 7th grade named Mr. Drabing. Nice fella. Loved life. Tried really hard. Etc.

And that’s just ONE benefit of a nice, leisurely Florida vacation. I’d radblog more but there’s so much yet to be done: pools to be swam, beaches to be footprinted, palmetto bugs to be crushed by the heavy hand of suburbia. When? Oh… whenever.

Today marks the beginning of Summer. I don’t want to miss it; from what I hear, it goes by too fast.