School starts tomorrow. Am I a dork because I'm looking forward to it; or am I looking forward to it because work is rather boring?

It's my birthday on Friday and I just realized it will be only FIVE more years until I'm 30. I used to tease my older friends with that--"You're a quarter of a century old!"--and now the joke is on me. That means my parents are more than half a century old, and both my Grandmas are approaching their centuries. Time is weird.

A fat brown spider with a body shaped like a rough thorn lives on (or, I should say, between) the garbage and recycling receptacles. Everyday, it spins a new web about the span of my arm, stretching from the handle of the blue recycling bin to the ivy on the ground. I lift the lid carefully, and the web stretches and flutters like a piece of thread crochet. It squats in the center, skinny legs tucked in, ready to spring at any hapless bug the web ensnares.