Just got what is quite possibly the sloppiest haircut of my life, and definitely the bloodiest since the ear incident of 1985. I may have to buzz my noggin for the first time since aught-one to minimize the damage. Will update.

Winter break, alias Christmas vacation, is three days away. All I want this Christmas is for my students to put some substantial effort into doing those assignments over the break before the weekend before they come back. That’s it. Not world peace or universal happiness–that would be asking an awful lot of billions of people. I’m just asking for a little bit of reading and paperwork from 162 people. Please, Santa.

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I might take a day to go up to South Cackalacky. No other travel. Little-to-no Christmas shopping in accordance with my anti-gift policy. Only a little bit of paperwork. Fulfilling a few more resolutions. Catch up with some old friends. It’ll be nice and relaxing.

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I finally caught up with 2006 and bought a PS3. I still say today’s game systems have too many buttons for my taste. One shouldn’t have to have the reflexes and skills of a real-life fighter pilot or a real-life football player or a real-life diminutive plumber in order to enjoy a video game. Right now the only game I have is FIFA Soccer 10. Everywhere outside the U.S. it’s simply called “FIFA 10”–I guess the designers were worried that we Yankees might somehow think it was a bowling game. Anyhow, I have no idea what all this machine can do, but it’ll serve at least two useful purposes. First, I can set it up right in front of the exercise machine and use it to break up the monotony. Second, once I figure out how to hook up the internet connection I’ll whip my little brother from 900 miles away.

Actually, it might take a little bit more than merely hooking up the internet connection since I can barely beat MLS teams with AC Milan.

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The Bears’ season ended today. Forget a non-winning season and not making the playoffs–they went 0-2 against the Packers. That makes the season a failure. There’s not much to say that I haven’t droned on and on about already. I think they have decent enough skill players on offense, but they need the best QB coach on Earth and a pretty good shrink for Cutler. They need a big, as in tall, receiver who can outjump defensive backs on long bombs. They need a better offensive line–Olin Kreutz is old, and when Orlando Pace is touted as a big-name o-line signing, you’re clearly in trouble. They need to fire Ron Turner first and probably Lovie Smith second. Bring in Cowher or Shanahan. And burn the orange jerseys.

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Three days ’til vacation. Despite recent ill omens–a coworker’s dream that I died, a bag of oranges (watch the Godfather series if you don’t get that), lots of rain and goofy weather, the Bears getting swept by the Packers–I can make it three more days.

I was just going through some old voice memos and found one about a dream I’d had recently:

I’m in the faculty lounge at work, telling somebody that a former coworker, Jeanelle (who used to be the English Department Chair at my school) had died. A few minutes later, Jeanelle walks into the room. Stunned, I apologize profusely for telling people that she had died. I can tell that it bothers her a bit, but she forgives me. After all, I can be forgiven for thinking that she had died–especially since she did in real life.

A beautiful redheaded woman sits nearby, has heard the entire discussion, and is not as forgiving. She gives me the evil eye, and I try to explain that I have made an innocent mistake. As I explain myself, she says nothing, but she clearly grows angrier. The more I explain, the angrier she gets, and the darker the rest of the room gets, until I see nothing but her fury. She launches at me.

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I find myself in my parents’ house, circa 1988. I’m trying to talk on the phone with a friend from college (which doesn’t make sense because I hadn’t met my college friends that long ago). My brother and sisters are goofing off and making it extremely difficult to have a conversation. I go upstairs to use the phone in my old bedroom (which certainly didn’t have a phone in real life). One of my sisters in on the line, complaining that she needs to use the phone. I tell my friend I’ll call him back some other time. I hang up.

I try to go to sleep in my old twin-sized bed with the brown blanket. My brother is already asleep in his bed. I can’t get to sleep. I also can’t speak. I feel as if something is physically restraining me. I figure it’s just sleep paralysis–which is no big deal now since I know what that is, but when you’re ten or eleven it’s still pretty damn scary. But I realize that this isn’t mere sleep paralysis, that something actually is restraining me. I try to talk to my brother, but my words are muffled by this thing’s grip over my mouth.

I reached over and shook my brother awake. He asks, “Are you nuts?” I try to ask my brother if he can feel whatever’s restraining me. I guide my brother’s hand towards the invisible thing to see if he can feel it. He says he can feel the ghost. So we grab it and wrestle it off me. It slips away.

The family’s three Siamese cats are lying on my bed, tails lashing back and forth angrily, all staring intently at a particular corner of the room, opposite the door. My brother points at the corner and says, “It had to go that way. Maybe it lives under the house, or between the floors, or in the wall.”

So I go to the corner where the ghost had hidden, presumably waiting until I tried to go to sleep again, and get him in a bearhug. My brother and I drag it out of the room, into the hallway, and punch it and stomp on it until it gives up, apologizes and leaves forever.

…

I woke up and thought it was an especially strange dream. I wondered if I had the dream because of what I had said about Jeanelle dying. I looked around and realized that I was still in my old bedroom at my parents’ house in 1988.

…

I woke up for real. I think.

Lessee…

Clemson got caught looking ahead to next weekend’s ACC title game, and got worked by South Cackalacky 34-17. The bright side is that they’re still in that title game, and if they beat Georgia Tech they’re on to a BCS bowl.

Worse, I’ve had November 25th marked on the calendar for months because it was the US release date for The Road–but it’s not playing anywhere around here. The closest showing in the next few weeks is somewhere around Winter Park, more than two hours away. The theaters around here won’t show the film adaptation of a powerful, post-apocalyptic, Pulitzer Prize-winning instant classic, but they will block off multiple screens for those g@#$%^&*d emo sparkle vampires.

And worst of all, the Bears got hammered 36-10 by the Vikings and have no hope of making the playoffs. So much for the Cutler experiment, but I just can’t believe that they’d be doing any better with Orton at quarterback. There’s no offensive line, the defense has vaporized, the offensive play-calling is still atrocious (and I’ve been hoping they’d fire Ron Turner since before Super bowl XLI), and Lovie Smith is not exactly confidence-inspiring. Time to start a two- or three-year plan: fire the coaches, bring in Cowher or Shanahan, rebuild the offensive line, and bring in the best QB coaches and sports psychiatrists money can buy to get Cutler’s head straight. No bright side for the time being.

And the pressure in my sinuses still hasn’t gone away. So much for birthday wishes.

If not for a pretty good belated birthday dinner last night, there would be absolutely no hope for anyone crossing my path in the next couple days.

I’ve decided to start celebrating my birthday as a season, rather than as a single day. My birthseason shall begin on Halloween, is followed about a week-and-a-half later by a day off for Veterans’ Day (with the occasional Election Day thrown in-between), then what I like to call the “My Birthday-Thanksgiving Corridor” (November 22nd-28th), with at least two Leftover Days and a long weekend in there somewhere. My mom’s birthday is shortly thereafter, which is an opportunity to eat cake so that’s something. Then Hanukkah, Christmas Eve and Christmas, usually in that order, followed by at least one more Leftover Day. The final week of my birthseason includes New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, the college football bowl games, and it ends on January 6th, the Epiphany. Forty-four days of celebrating the day of my birth and the time around it.

..

Last night was birthday dinner with the family since I knew I wouldn’t have time today: Chicago deep-dish pizza with pepperoni and black olives. It did not quite make up for watching the Bears suck their way to a 24-20 loss against the Eagles.

Actual Birthday Today went pretty well, considering I woke up with a stuffed-up nose and the sinus pressure was incredible. It’s still pretty bad. Anyhow, I got to school, opened my office door, and found that my room had been decorated with blue and yellow crepe paper left over from Homecoming week. I thought that was nice, but I had to take it down because the kids wouldn’t have been able to see the screen or the board. I received several cards, several posters with “Happy Birthday” scrawled on them, a drawing, a watercolor painting, a birthday cookie, and a birthday song-and-a-half. No other presents. Close enough (to my goal of no presents aside from cards and food) for government work.

Got home, made a steak, ate the steak, felt like drilling a hole in my head to relieve the sinus pressure, was given a chocolate cake with buttercream frosting, made a wish that my sinus pressure would disappear, wasn’t surprised when it didn’t, ate said cake, felt better. All in all, another successful birthday.

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I would like to celebrate the day I turn one-third-of-a-century-old. The question is, on what date should I celebrate? There are two possibilities. The easy one is March 23^rd, 2010, which is four calendar months after my 33^rd birthday. But the more precise one is two days later: March 25^th, 2010. Consider: on my 100^th birthday, I will have been alive 36,525 days; one-third of 36,525 is 12,175; and adding 12,175 days to the date of my birth yields a result of March 25^th, 2010. Tough call, but I’ve got time to make it.

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Here are my previous birthday entries. Enjoy.

11/23/2005: On turning 30.

11/23/2006: On turning 30 (for real this time).

11/23/2007: On turning 29.

11/23/2008: On turning 30 again.