We all have our problems. 
     If you're reading this on a laptop in a refugee camp in East Timor, you know exactly what I'm talking about. 
     If you're stuck in a San Francisco-area office cubicle trying to maintain your balance in sexy black high heels while suffering from vertigo brought on by Hollywood's ignorant and inexcusable refusal to recognize your talents as a screenwriter, you probably know what I'm talking about, too.
     And if you're an Ontario cricket attempting to escape an early frost by flying away to have hot sex in southern Connecticut, well, if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's only because it's hard to know anything at all while moaning your little buggy head off for hours on end.
     Instead of belaboring the point further, I'll just repeat a neat trick I learned from the authors of my high school Geometry text and say "We all have our problems" is a postulate in need of no proof whatsoever.  If you feel you simply MUST disagree, fine, but if our entire system of mathematics comes crumbling down as a result and the earth goes flying off its axis or something, it'll be YOUR fault, not mine.

     So:  We all have our problems.  From women in British Columbia unable to sleep at night because of spiders to women in Phoenix, Arizona forced to attend parties for the next president of Bosnia where the band was too loud, the food too meagre, and the heat simply unbearable, we all have our problems.
     The real question is: What can be done about them?
     The simple answer: Nothing.
     This depresses me.  It depresses me as a can-do American, and it depresses me as a "Well, try hitting it again with a bigger hammer!" kind of male.
     Thus, it should come as no surprise when I say that I am not going to accept "Nothing" as an answer.  If nothing else, we can at least forget our problems awhile.  And good, soft-hearted guy that I am, I feel compelled to play the role of martyr and help everyone else forget about their problems for awhile by whining a bit about my own. 
     Please hold your applause until all my complaints have been listed, lest the lesser ones end up feeling slighted.

     Allow me to begin with the fact that Robert Mundell has just won the Nobel Prize for Economics.  Not me.  Not my cat, Jester.  Robert Mundell. 
     Despite the fact that I'm the one who has lectured extensively on the idea that "A penny saved is a penny still." 
     Despite the fact that it's been Jester and not Mr. Mundell who has been keeping the Bounty Paper Towel Company in business the last 6 months with his regular, selfless, and oceanic bouts of diarrhea. 
     I can only surmise that the Nobel Committee gave their prize to Mr. Mundell rather than us because he happens to have been born in Canada whereas it's hard to tell that Jess or I have been born at all, thanks to the fact that we ran out of Bounty a couple days ago and haven't been able to find the door yet to go get more.
     Well, harumph!  
     As soon as I can find a clean pen and a dry envelope, I'm writing them a little letter....

     Complaint #2:
     It seems as if the creative bankruptcy which led to Claire's online journal's going belly up and being auctioned off this week (as recounted yesterday) may have actually been a staged event.  Maybe another case of misguided performance art gone awry, maybe an unfortunate attempt by yet another troubled Episcopalian to swindle me out of my sympathy, and perhaps - just perhaps - one more example of what some women will do for kicks when PMS fails to provide them with all the entertainment Mother Nature intended. 
     For further details, visit Ophelia's own online journal by clicking here.  Added incentive for clicking here: You'll get a fuller account of how some British Columbian women are unable to sleep at night because of spiders.
     I'll be under my bed curled up in the fetal position with a pair of ballet slippers if you need me....

     But wait.  Curling up in the fetal position has never solved anything as difficult as a problem, and, besides, now that I think about it,  there just might be spiders under that bed. 
     Instead, I'll be playing with my frog in a blender if you need me.
     And especially if you don't.
     Ahhh, I feel so much better already!
     Hope you do, too!!
     Unless you're Robert Mundell....

     *Insert blatant growling noises HERE*
 

Just remember:  If you DO get yourself a frog in a blender, the first 9 blender buttons are a riot.  UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES PRESS THE TENTH BUTTON!!!  Pressing the tenth button really ruins the mood.  And I refuse to even hint at what it does to the poor frog....