Two failures in communication

1. I recently sent an e-mail to everyone in my department, and this is how it started:

In honor of Dr. John Brown’s retirement, you are cordially invited to a gathering to honor our colleague John Brown, who is retiring…

Do you think I got the point across? Maybe I should have been more explicit:

In honor of Dr. John Brown’s retirement, you are cordially invited to a gathering to honor our colleague John Brown, who is retiring. The retirement of our very own Dr. John Brown will be honored at Dr. Brown’s retirement honorary for the retiring John Brown, in his honor.

(You know, the more I look at the word honor, the more it looks like it should be pronounced “hoe-nore.”)

2. I uttered this sentence last week:

“That’s very… um… impressionism.”

Impressionism? I mean, that’s not even an adjective. I think the word I was going for was impressive, which is still wrong considering that the idea I was going for was “amusing.”

Freaky Friday

Friday was weird, man.

But let’s start at the very beginning. (A very good place to start.) Two days ago, my boss let us off work early, because there was nothing to do. It was nice to get the time off, but it raised the question: what am I going to do with myself for the whole afternoon, if I’m not working? My answer: run. And then keep running. So, I ran. I ran from my apartment, over to the lake, then up to Lakeview. For those of you unfamiliar with Chicago, I just Googled the distance, and it’s 13 miles. I accidentally ran a half-marathon. Now, I’m not saying this to boast, ’cause people do it all the time. I’m saying it to explain a major plot point in yesterday’s overall weirdness. And that is…

Malfunction

Something is wrong with this. Check it:

Things that make me cry: When people win big on game shows.

Things that don’t make me cry: Severe physical pain.

Things that make me cry: That Hallmark commercial from years ago where the old woman always checks her mailbox, and there’s never anything in it, so this woman across the street has her little son go put a greeting card in the mailbox, and then the old woman finds it the next day, and she gets very emotional, and so do I.

Things that don’t make me cry: Being lonely.

Things that make me cry: The episode of Monk where Adrian gets his agoraphobic brother to come out of his house.

Things that don’t make me cry: Death.

Um… this would seem to be a problem.