there is something very entertaining about driving past a portly, thirty-something year old man singing along to the fugee's cover "killing me softly."

i feel a little out of touch with everyone. everyone come closer so i can touch you. i just spent a weekend in the great state of iowa, celebrating my aunt Mary's induction into Dowling High School's Athletic Hall of Fame. mary has been running and running and running for the past 30 years. like forrest gump but longer. she's been to the olympic trials three times and she's run over 125 marathons, which i personally think is ridiculous. that's approximately 3300 miles. just in competition. when you run 3000 miles, does that mean you're due for an oil change? anyway, mary has done a FINE job, and was very deserving to be honored, even if she is afraid of pinecones.

in other news, ara went to the art institute yesterday evening to look at starting school. in a week! he's been making a living doing the automotive thing for as long as he can remember, and i guess finally decided that he would need to start taking steps to pursuing his passion if he was ever going to do anything other than cars. i think secretly his dream job would be to design video games for a living (we'll call the field of study animation and media art), which makes me giggle on the inside because he's almost 28, he's really a man, but he loves cartoons and video games. i know it's really not that uncommon, but i have to say i like it. it makes me smile. in any event, i'm really proud of him for going back to school. and i am secretly even more proud since his parents don't like him going back to school for art. not because i don't want them to support him; i definitely do, BUT going back to school is a major life decision, and maybe, just maybe, he's realizing that one day his parents are going to be gone and he's going to have to live with the life he has made for himself. that's big for him.

i'm off to school.