Speaker Joel Saltzman sent me some articles today that actually made me stop and think. In one of them, he asks, “How are you having fun today?”

And it did get me thinking. I’ve been so busy all week playing catch-up after vacation, before leaving for a conference next Tuesday, that it’s kind of been like, “Fun? What’s that?” No wonder my brain has had such a hard time adjusting from vacation to everyday life. But he doesn’t ask, “are you having fun today”; he asks how, with the underlying assumption that of course you are having fun–how are you doing it? And I am, actually, having kind of a low-grade fun fever, now that I stop to think about it. Catching up on all my reading is pretty fun, at least some of it. Knowing that you all are reading this babbling is really fun. An e-mail earlier today from my sister made me laugh out loud. And after 10 days on a small sailboats, I’ve gained a new appreciation for hot water showers, flush toilets, cutting vegetables on a non-moving counter, and being able to get drinking water from a faucet, rather than taking all the cushions off a seat to rummage around in the storage area underneath. And, of course, the sight of my nine-year-old dog romping like a puppy in the snow is enough to make me take a quick break and join him.

As Theodore Geisel (aka Dr. Suess) said, “I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.”

So, how are you having fun today?

Oh, and I almost forgot–check out the Washington Post’s annual “word” list, where by adding/subtracting/changing a letter to a word, you give it a whole new meaning. I can’t find it online, but my colleague e-mailed the list over earlier today. My favorites:
sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person
who doesn’t get it.

hipatitis (n): Terminal coolness.

osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when
they come at you rapidly.

arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve
accidentally walked through a spider web.

Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your
bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.