I've been running on the treadmill nowadays instead of Webb Bridge Park or the Greenway because, well, my mother has set up a television and DVD player directly in front of the treadmill (all Kristen's accusations of my family being rich as Nazis aside). And television is always more fun than going to the park to watch housewives push their babies and/or pull their dogs around (the one time we saw a lady speed-walking the Greenway while she read a book notwithstanding). My DVD of choice has been, naturally, Simpsons Season Six, but instead of watching them straight I listen to the commentary by the writers. Normally these commentaries are far more chock full of self-congratulatory remarks and meaningless inside-jokes than I care to acknowledge I paid for. But the fact that I listen to them diligently might attest to the unacknowledged truth that being a writer for the Simpsons would be hands-down, for me, the shit. Is it possible that, instead of running in place on the treadmill, I'm actually motivating myself to run forwards towards... my dream job?

Maybe not likely. I don't know if I want to so much as dunk my toe in the cesspool of sitcome writing. And anyhow, when I say, "I want to write for the Simpsons," I really mean, "I want to write for the Simpsons in 1994." Like High Fidelity's Rob Gordon, whose dream jobs are constrained by musical eras like Motown's golden age.

Hey, that gives me an idea--

TOP 5 DREAM JOBS (IF EDUCATION & TALENT WERE NO OBSTACLE)

5. Staff Writer for The Simpsons, 1992-1996

4. Professor David Bevington, Shakespeare Scholar + Hyde Park Playboy

3. Novelist = John Steinbeck - Cannery Row + Faulkner's A Light in August - moustache

2. Professional Improvisor funded by Mysterious Benefactor

1. Desk job at a university press

(Guess what lucky horse I'm putting my bets on?)

Moving along now, I have three nights left here before school starts, which also might turn out to be the last three nights I spend in this house in Alpharetta where I've lived since in this house since 6th grade (Alpharetta since 1st grade). As of now that's not creeping me out at all. While I've lived here for 8 years, I feel like this house skipped the influential age before 12 when a location can really get imprinted in your mind. The Alpharetta house we lived in before this one? We only lived there 4.5 years, but that house is still remarkable vivid in my memory. In fact, when reading books, I automatically substitute in my mind's eye the interior of that house when there's a less than clear description of a house in the text. It almost serves as the default definition of home. This current house seems to have no such permanence in my subconscious. Still, I think I might have trouble when Sunday morning comes and I realize I'm taking one last look at it.