(This essay is several years old and refers to my very patient and forgiving ex-wife. Enjoy.)

COUPLES ARE WONT to go through many pleasant infatuations after getting married. A gardening fad, a fancy for sewing, a board game craze – these are all well known. Sometimes these are long and involved, others are brief, like a shooting star. My conservative estimate is that my wife and I went through at least 5,237 different mania during the seven years we were married.

The majority were of a singular kind – I began woodworking, she began doing something called ‘tatting’. Notable were the obsessions that involved both my wife and myself, such as the ‘survivalist’ frenzy of 1999, or the disastrous ‘Atkins Diet’ event. For a time (an odd time), I even found myself saving dryer lint for a planned future mania (I was not informed what that might be). Few of these frenzied activities came and went as quickly as the Great Dehydration Passion of 1995.

Continue reading Hot, Hot, Hot →

(This essay is several years old and refers to my very patient and forgiving ex-wife. Enjoy.)

I DRIVE TO WORK. Thirty-five miles is the exact distance from the end of my driveway to the driveway of my workplace. Over a period of two years, this drive took exactly 35 minutes per day, due to the speed limit over the bulk of my sojourn being 70 mph, or so I thought. I recently discovered the reason my journey took so little time. It was because of Driving Physics. I will explain.

Physics is the science of explaining why something beyond understanding happens. It succeeds, because it uses mathematics as it’s language. This leaves most people at a bit of a loss. Attempts to explain physics using a written language almost always fail, and further attempts to show why the math works ends with hurt feelings. Expressing the incomprehensible ideas of physics with math, for most people, is like taking your car to a mechanic. When you’re done, it works, but you have no idea why.

Continue reading Driving Physics →

(Author’s Note: This essay is several years old and refers to my very patient and forgiving ex-wife and her relatives. Enjoy.)

THE OCCASION WAS AUSPICIOUS. My wife and I were to sojourn to the Great State of Arkansas, (the Natural State) spend 24 hours with her sister and said sister’s spouse. After that, we would all travel in one vehicle North, until we had reached Missouri (The Show Me State), whereupon we would spend Thanksgiving with my wife’s Father, his wife, and her 2 children. I was making efforts to try to remember the current family tree, while my spouse was determined that I would know the history of the tree as well. In addition, I had been given clear instruction not to mock or ridicule things that seemed peculiar to the region. I planned to ignore this advice, but I did not say so at the time, for I was not in the mood to defend my right to be sarcastic and ignorant as I chose.

Continue reading Car Rides With In-Laws →

(Author’s Note: I am re-publishing all of my past writings here on the new Komejo.com. This essay is several years old and refers to my very patient and forgiving ex-wife. Enjoy.)

THERE ARE MANY CHORES that befall a man when he owns a house. Lawn care is traditional in this regard; there are few men who pass up the chance to wander the yard in the company of the lawnmower. In the summer, this task must be performed every two weeks or thereabouts, and it adds still more order to an otherwise well regimented existence. All men know the true meaning of a quietly rhetorical question about the state of the lawn. It means you need to hop to it, man!

Continue reading The Snake Charmer →