I Love You, A Little

       

      I love you, my dear, but only a little. Oh yes, there was a time when I loved you with all my being. I first saw you exiting a Curves as I sat in the parking lot eating a Quiznos sub. Out of curiosity, I followed you, and I fell in love somewhere between your trip to the doctor’s office and when you bought groceries at Whole Foods.  I was addicted, and I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t get enough of you.

The Office “The List”: This Can Work

          

         After an over-bloated cold open filled with tons of exposition, pregnancy reveals, Internet fads, and Stanley’s new catchphrase I was pleasantly surprised by a very solid episode of “The Office.” I admit, I’ve had my doubts about the new season (especially since the NBC promo department spoiled the fact that Andy was the new manager). Since the beginning of season seven, after it was announced that Steve Carell was leaving, I had wanted Darryl to be the new manager. I thought it would be nice to have a grounded, normal character as the boss. After all, there’s a fair amount of crazy still floating around the office without Michael around. But after Dwight was manager for an episode, I changed my mind. I wanted to watch the show where Dwight was the manager. He got the crazy out of his system in “Dwight K. Schrute, (Acting) Manager,” and if he were offered the job, he would tone it down a bit while still being the Dwight we’ve come to know over the years.

Party Pooper

How I Single-Handedly Ruined a Murray Family Tradition

A Confession by Chris Williams (In His Own Words)

     The Fourth of July has never been that exciting to me. Fireworks and flag colored cupcakes pale in comparison to presents under brightly lit trees, Pilgrims and Native Americans “sharing a meal,” and zombie Jesus rising from the dead and asking his friends to stick their fingers in his wounds. Now those are the exciting holidays filled with family, turkey, dancing elves, more food than I would like to admit that I ate, and cards stuffed with $20 bills. Fourth of July has been more of an enigma in my family. Year after year, I would reluctantly go to see the fireworks and feign interest in the history of our nation. However, in September of 2010, I suddenly became more interested in the Fourth of July than all the other holidays combined.

Losing My Heart On: Looking Back at “The Office” Season 7

       

       There was a time when “The Office” was my favorite show on television. I would defend it to the very end due to its expert mix of laugh out loud comedy and pathos. However, the show has been on a downward spiral for a while and season seven of “The Office” made me realize that I am no longer emotionally invested in the show. After Jim and Pam got their happy ending, the heart of the show became Michael Scott and his relationship with lovable HR rep Holly Flax. While his departure was very satisfying, despite the pointless and infuriating Will Ferrell appearances, the show now lacks the emotional core that it needs. Going forward I think that one of the show’s biggest challenges is to do what it did so well in the early years, finding the balance between heart and comedy. 

TB Determined

     In my senior year of high school I decided that it was time to become an even better person. Obviously, this would be difficult for me since I was already so wonderful, but I was up for the challenge. I was in a course which required me to do some type of community service. Most of the guys in my class opted to volunteer with school children. Helping black kids learn algebra didn’t exactly have much of a zing to it. Anyone could do that. Me? I wanted to volunteer with hospice patients. I was pretty sure at the time that if there was a heaven, volunteering with dying people pretty much means you have a guaranteed spot up there. It would be difficult, sure, but I would have so many stories to tell and people would praise me for my bravery. It would be like Tuesdays with Morrie or Driving Miss Daisy or something like that. I would connect with a patient and they would connect with me, and we would change each other’s lives (that is, of course, until the person died and I moved on to the next life-changing bundle of death). So, without even considering helping school kids, I signed up with Grace Health Care Services. Give me my badge, and I’m off to meet some dying people. Unfortunately, there was training. A lot of training. Training that required me to rub oil on a 65-year-old woman’s veiny hands. Training that also required medical tests. Medical tests that would reveal, or seemingly so, a startling fact about my then current state of health.

The Philanthropists

       We are the most generous people in the world. We don’t mean to brag, but there is no denying that bold statement once one has examined all of the selfless, marvelous things we have done. Just last week we built a school for some filthy little Guatemalan children. Oh, their lives were so wretched before we helped them. Imagine, they didn’t even have a school to go to. Well, once Jim and I found out about that, the first thing we did was ask Maria, our maid, if her family had schools back in Guatemala. Apparently, Maria is Mexican, but it doesn’t really matter, it’s all the same country.