There are few things that tell you your day might not be getting off to the best start better than an 18-wheeler spraying your windshield with rotten possum carcass at 75 miles per hour.

I think, if that’s the case, you should be legally allowed to call your boss and say, “Know what? Had my car splattered by decaying roadkill. Think I’ll just hang a u-turn and head back to bed.” And your boss would be fine with it. They’d have to be – it’s the law.

So, where the hell have I been?

I’m not sure why I took damn-near-a-month off from jotting down my always witty and prescient thoughts. But I think a break was in order. Nothing really major was going on, I just needed a little down time.

And, me being me, I probably took too much.

There’s a picture on my desk, a picture I alternately love and hate, taken during my first Christmas visit to Milwaukee the year Emily and I started dating. I love it because it reminds me of good times and happy thoughts, but I hate it because in the picture I look to be (conservatively) about 850 metric tons.

That picture was taken before I started going to the gym a couple of days a week and before I started eating healthier. (read: Subway instead of Taco Bell). But I’ve taken steps since then and thought I was doing ok. Turns out, ‘was’ is the operative word because, based on pictures taken just four days ago, the 850 metric ton behemoth is back.

I have got to get back to the gym. I have got to start packing lunch again.

So, what the hell else have I been up to?

I went to the wedding of a friend of mine down in Northern Virginia. It was a great wedding and everyone had alot of fun. It was nice, too, because for the first time, not only were we not involved in the wedding in any way, but I knew (other than the groom and my wife) a total of 3 people at the wedding. So nice to sit back, relax, share in the happiness of the couple, and not have to feel like I was “on” all day.

The next weekend we went to the Loyola/Hopkins hockey game. As a Loyola alum, those games are always fun and a good, good buddy is the coach for Loyola, so there’s that too. The downside is that, while I will always hold a special place in my heart for any Greyhound, school spirit seems to have taken a major tick upwards since I graduated. There were a million Loyola fans; they were loud, they were drunk, they were very rowdy. But still, good times, and we d-e-s-t-r-o-y-e-d Hopkins, so all the better.

Last week we had Thanksgiving dinner and my aunt’s house in Towson, and then went to see the new kickass Bond movie. It was, well, kickass. Then Friday we drove up to Hagerstown to have dinner at my Dad’s. Later that evening, we met my high school friends out for the annual Hagerstown Pub Crawl. Emily and I made it to 7 of the 9 bars of the evening. I, well, I got pretty damn drunk. But we had an awesome time. It was great to catch up with everyone.

And now? Now I need to focus.

Focus on getting in better shape. Focus on taking the GRE (next Friday!). Focus on taking a few Certificate classes. Focus on applying to grad schools.

You know – same tune, different song.