We got no class, we got no principles

Friday was the last day of school for the kids. We have only two more days of staff meetings and admin stuff next week. After that, no work until August, except for two weeks of camp. That's an extra thou right there. I'm going to drop by Old Job and get paid for a couple of days, too.

All told, I've got quite a bit of money these days (nice job, no kids, no alimony, no expensive habits, good credit), which is good, since it looks like I may have support my chump-ass father for a while. He's spent literally thousands of dollars on some prescription narcotic that he's convinced himself he needs, and now he's totally broke. Idiot.

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Oh yeah, the 'Jeopardy!' audition. It went as well as could be expected. I think the personality interview went fairly well. There were people there much more interesting than I (a Secret Service agent who's guarded the President) and people less interesting (a social services attorney who gushed about how interesting it was how many people try to fraud the government out of checks). I'm a fairly pleasant guy when I want to be, and I think I may have stuck in my intterregators' minds a bit. I was the only male not wearing a dark color (I wore an orange silk shirt), and one of the few not in a coat and tie.

There was a fifty-question written test. I can't say anything about the questions, but I know for a fact I missed at least seven (including a couple I kicked myself over afterwards), which is still a respectable if not eye-popping score. Finally, we played a mock game, complete with buzzers that lit up pads and questions on a big computer screen. That part was the most fun.

So, yeah, I may get called in the next year to be on the show, or I may not.

After I told a neighbor about the experience, she congratulated me and then said, "I don't know much about that kind of stuff, though. Don't call me if you need a lifeline!"

Duly noted.

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On the last day of school, a kindergartener came up to me and said, "Mr. Chance, Sally lifted her dress and showed her penis to Billy."

That's the kind of thing you have to take with a straight face.

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This weekend, Flax, my law prof friend who teaches somewhere in California, was in town with his wife. Flax and Friar and I we all went out and heard an up-and-coming young singer at a divey bar where the rattling air conditioner served as off-kilter percussion accompaniment to her acoustic guitar and cello. After that, we went to the Hangout, and Maddening Angel dropped by too, as did Gunner's brother. I had just finished reading the excellent treatise Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, and Gunner's brother told me a story about meeting Gladwell and driving him home from a party. Man, everyone I know is more interesting than I am.

Earlier in the week, I learned that my friend T-Bone was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had his thyroid removed. He seems completely fine, which is great. We all went over to his house and played Apples to Apples, which is a very fun game, but I always do poorly at it. It requires an ability to accurately gauge how others think, and I've never been very good at that. What most people rhapsodize over as bizarre or prosaic, I find mundane, and what most people think is just delightful (like Las Vegas) I find repulsive.

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Hey H.P. Lovecraft, why the long face?