It;s Friday afternoon and I have a few minutes to kill. Tonight there is a party for Nathaniel Mackey at the Creative Writing director's house. I'm taking a date to impress her with my severely geeky friends and awkward university professors. If good wine and abnormal friends don't impress the ladies, then I can fall back on the free wine and beer that will be served. Hey, back off, dating is very tought for people over 30!

On the topic of people in my life going to the hopsital, my dad is going in for surgery on Wednesday. He has some herniated disks in his neck and the only way to prevent paralysis and perpetual pain is for the doctor to rebuild parts of his spinal column. This is supposed to be a simple operation...

To end this on a good note, Temple's academic journal, "Schuylkill" wants to publish two of my poems: "Collapsing New Wheat Fields" and "The Best Fertilizer." The only bad thing is that the magazine pays in copies (two) and that the poems won't be published unitl November or December of 2002. At any rate, this marks the very first time that any of my writing will be formally published. So, if nothing else, I have even more of an excuse to drink gallons of vodka this weekend.

PRACTICAL YOGA