It's all about me

In the past, I've dreaded the drive back to Fort Wayne from visits with my family in Indianapolis for various reasons: It was snowing, it was raining, I was tired, I had chores to do when I got home. Today, I found another reason: Worrying about whether a sniper might pick me off on I-69. Early this morning, my sister and I were talking about the two sniping incidents on I-65 in southern Indiana, and by the time I was ready to leave, there was news of the two on I-69 near Muncie.

I can't remember -- is today the first day of the rest of my life, or the last day of the first part of my life?

So, just quit trying to hold on to that self-control and live a little:

Have that extra cookie. Sleep with him on the first date. Call in sick, even if it's for a sample sale.

You won't regret any of it, says a new study; rather it's salads, celibacy and soldiering through the flu that will bring you down.

So, mornings are so intolerable, I have to make my Folgers stronger and stronger just to get through them. Lately, the coffee has been so strong it has been inducing flashbacks. The smell, that first biting, scalding taste, and it's 1968 again.

How much of your house do you actually use? I read this story about tiny houses with some amusement:

Artist and architect Jay Shaefer, who lives in his own 70-square-foot home near San Francisco, designed and built Johnson's house when he lived in Iowa City. Shaefer is the owner of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. He sells plans for, and builds, tiny homes in sizes ranging from an extremely small 50 square feet to a practically roomy 500 square feet.

Happy Mother's Day.

When I was in high school, the student newspaper office had this machine that dispensed the tiny bottles of Coke that some of you might remember. Guzzling a few of those -- about three good gulps each -- got me through more than one day. Thank goodness the health police weren't around then:

Tens of millions of students will no longer be able to buy non-diet sodas in the nation's public schools under an agreement announced Wednesday between major beverage distributors and anti-obesity advocates.

I seem to remember spending hours and hours fascinated by how Play-Doh could lift impressions of color comics . . . say, that might count as pre-Internet blogging. I don't think even the most creative types, with the happiest memories of the stuff, will go for this, though:

I know I find this sad because of my job, but I can't help feeling that others might also read it with a twinge of regret:

A young teen riding his bike at dawn reaches into his shoulder bag, grabs a tightly folded newspaper and deftly throws it to the front steps.

It's an image as American as apple pie, but the paperboy has gone the way of the milkman.

Life sorts. Time levels.