Toast is a magical food for me.

I walk into the kitchen thinking “hmmm… I’m hungry.” A quick scan of instant comestibles reveals little — our budgets are a little tighter than they used to be. Then I see the loaf of bread. Toast is a favorite of mine, so I drop a slice of bread into the toaster, depress the plunger, and turn back toward the rest of the kitchen.

At this point my expectations are heightened. My stomach KNOWS that my brain has made a meal decision, and anticipatorially begins doing those stomachy things it does to get ready for food — even if that food is just going to be a snack. Meanwhile, my brain gets those stomachy signals and thinks “hmm… somebody thinks it’s mealtime. We need REAL food.”

So I begin digging through cupboards again. Fast-food options are few and far between, and the pressing signals from my belly only serve to increase the sense of urgency. I root around, search, scour, and then see the loaf of bread. At this point I’ve forgotten about putting the toast in, so I head over to the bread loaf, and right about the time I’m picking it up, POP! It’s TOAST!

“Oh, look! TOAST!”

It’s magical.

The frightening thing is that this happens almost DAILY to me. Even knowing I do it, it still happens. Just this evening I depressed the plunger, scraped a plate of leftover pork-and-beans into my cake-hole, and as I was thinking “gee… this needs a second course. Something light, like maybe–” POP!

“Oh, look! TOAST!” Right there when I need it.

I expect toast will only become more magical as I grow older and this attention-deficit absent-mindedness morphs into full-blown senility. Then again, I may end up starving to death standing next to the magical toaster because I’ve forgotten that bread and depress-the-plunger are required spell components.

–Howard

My brother Bill was in town this weekend for an accounting symposium at BYU. I know, I know, it sounds like a thrill a minute. He was here to present a research proposal, and the neat thing is that when he explained it to me I both understood it and found it reasonably interesting. Mostly this is because it has implications beyond just accounting, though. I’m sure if it had been something esoteric regarding tax code I would have been bored out of my skull.

For most of the weekend he was busy, but we got to spend Sunday together. We had lunch (quesadillas with freshly grilled green chiles!), did the Church thing, and then enjoyed a big ol’ pot of jambalaya with sausage, chicken and shrimp.

NOTE: My freezer has no more shrimp in it, I’m sad to say. My diet is moving increasingly into the “inexpensive staples” area, but I’m good with that. After all, I’m working from home as a cartoonist, and the food I eat gets eaten with my family all around me. It’s not what you eat — it’s who you eat it with.

After dinner Bill and I played shoot’em cars. I’ve mentioned this before in the Open Letter. It’s Rush 2049 for the N64 in “Battle Mode.” Our favorite track is #6, and I’m pretty much king of the game in my family and extended family. It doesn’t matter who wins, though. We whoop and holler and shoot and asplode and everyone is SAD when someone racks up 10 kills to end the melee.

Bill’s on his way back to Cornell now. In another couple of years he’ll have a PhD in accounting and be “Doctor Billy” (well, Doctor Tayler, but you know the family won’t stand for THAT). We’ll all make jokes about the aches and pains and boils and lesions we want him to look at, and then he’ll make sure the IRS audits us all.

I should have let him win the video game. 😉

More Marker Art

And now I’ve been to the gym. I bought a nice pair of swim goggles at Park Sportsman on the way to Gold’s. I haven’t had a pair fit me since I was 12 years old, mostly because every time I shopped for them I bought cheap goggles. Well, I spent $12.99 and tried them on in the store. They worked great. I scowled at the $8.99 pair, realizing that saving $4.00 for goggles that don’t fit right or that slowly leak would be a waste of $8.99 rather than a savings of $4.00.

I’d forgotten what it’s like to see clearly while freestyling up and down the lane. Or what it’s like to come home pleasantly tired and NOT with burning eyes. I could get used to this.

–Howard