The One In Which He Turns Sage...

Perhaps this is not the right way to open a new year of blogging, especially on the tail-end of a many-week hiatus from blogging and especially given my recent reading of a slew of articles talking about the erosion of privacy rights in the wake of Facebook and the proliferation of blogging. (Will this blog keep me from being president? Hopefully...) However, here I sit drinking cold Sierra Nevada after yet another mind-draining night of teaching.

You may ask, "Did hookers come up?"

Yes!

"What about crack-heads?"

You betcha!

"But what about herpes?"

Here I sit at 2:59 p.m., which sounds pathetic until you let me explain that I work nights and am usually halfway through a shift right now, and my thoughts have turned to comfort. To moments when the world seems like a very decent place to spend a few years kicking around in.

Specially, I was recalling a moment on my "road trip" out to Deadwood and the Black Hills two summers ago. (Was it two summers ago already?) It dawned as a day of disappointment: I checked out of my cabin that was nestled in the Badlands, fought through morning traffic on I-90, paid a ridiculous entry fee to walk around a plot of land with huge heads of former presidents, almost wore out the shocks on my car trying to drive down a washed out gravel road to a ghost town, had a little trouble finding my campground back in Deadwood.

However, the campground had internet, and I spent that late afternoon following the Brewers on ESPN as they lost to whomever they were playing that evening. Gamecast baseball on a spotty internet connection a heal-all? On that particular evening, yes. It was one of those nights that was cool enough for a light coat but warm enough to sit comfortably in shorts. I had just enough potatoes and carrots and stove-gas to make a modest dinner. I had a backpack full of books. And baseball. It was a small moment with a simple pleasure, and that's what sustains us in life. Not the major awards or prizes, the raises at work (if anyone out there is still working), the lottery win. It's those small moments that I'll be clinging to on nights when the Sierra Nevada is cold, my girl is sleeping in the next room over, and I'm frantically searching for excuses to keep from grading this next stack of papers. So here's to 2010 and all the small moments it will bring. Let them always outshine the big, and let us remember them.