Gobble, gobble.

I make an entry in my journal each Friday. I look at my calendar for the upcoming week and list all of my obligation. I have lots of obligations these days. Writing them out in my journal makes them seem manageable.

I also list projects I’m working on. I’m writing two books. I’m writing two journal articles. My weekly journal entry keeps track so I don’t have to.

I started an entry and realized, for the first time in a long time, there wasn’t much to write down. I sighed deeply.

Fall break approaches. Gobble, gobble.

***

“Are you going anywhere for break?”

This is the kind of question that fills the hallways of any given university before any given break.

Some small talk follows. People driver here or fly there. Family members come to town. I’m going to this place or that place. And so on.

Iowa City, just as State College did when we lived there, becomes a ghost town during fall break. A quiet, well-lighted place.

Am I going anywhere for break this year?

The answer is, emphatically, no.

I will do as little as possible over break. I’ll play basketball. I’ll play video games. Sure, I’ll write, but I always write.

I will sit on the couch, I will engorge myself with food on Thanksgiving, and watch football until my eyes bleed. And then I’ll complain about how fat I feel when I’m finished.

Once more, with feeling: Gobble, gobble.

***

Gluttony can be a deadly sin, I suppose, though the Bible offers less definitive pronouncements than one steeped in popular Christianity might suspect. When it comes to rest and relaxation, I’ll do my best to forgo moderation this break. I will be as gluttonous as I can without risking my immortal soul which, so far as I can tell, isn’t at risk given the events on Calvary some 2000 years ago.

The events on the Eastern Seaboard of North America some four hundred years ago are less worthy of celebration. And yet feasting will occur across the United States this fall, whether one acknowledges or denies the events that happened at the outset of this country.

One of the students working at the coffee shop in the building I work at on campus was making a finger turkey the other morning. A woman in front of me told the student how much she loved the turkey.

“It reminds me of something my third-grader would make.”

I howled with laughter.

“I think she just said you draw like a third grader,” I said. And then I laughed some more.

Fall break is upon me. Gobble, gobble, my friend.