"I'm your biggest fan."

I'm a lazy man. Swimming for twelve hours straight, running all day, and lifting weights has nothing to do with it. Neither does earning a PhD and two master's degrees. I can loaf with the best of them.

Like a lot of people, I'm energetic to the extreme when it comes to doing things l like. But just the thought of fixing things around the house, cleaning up inside, even washing my truck leaves me yawning and looking for a napping spot.

I hate paperwork at school. Textbook Requisition Forms are my favorite form to loathe. How do I know how many students I'm going to have? And why do I have to look up the ISBN? Isn't the bookstore in the book business? And why should I fill out a separate form for every book? Smacks of busy work to me.

I hate busy work so bad I don't even make my students do it. Once, in grad school, I was assigned to produce a bibliography on every thing written on hermenuetics for a decade. The "paper" was in excess of forty pages and what I learned from those hours and hours and hours can be encapsulated in one short sentence: Everybody is writing about hermenuetics. The prof could have just told me that and made me do something worthwhile, something actually educational.

I haven't been driving to Cleveland of late even though our local pool in Greenwood is unswimmable and has been for a few weeks. Besides a pool, my dad's grave is on the way, and better than that, I have grandchildren over there. Thursday I finally made the trip and my grandkids were as happy to see me as I them, and Smu, as usual, was beside herself.

Not only did I get to see the children and pet the dog and talk to my daughter, I was surprised to hear Zane say, "I'm your biggest fan, Poppy. I'm your biggest fan." I didn't know what he was taking about. Usually, he is aloof and busy and pays me little attention, unlike Caitlin who clings to me and tells me constantly, "I love you, Poppy."

My daughter filled me in. "We've been watching your videos," she said. "Zane loves them. We watch them at work too. The women there love them. Marcus looks so innocent." 

In case you don't know, I have a YouTube Channel, EndangeredSwimmer the Vlog. Check it out if you haven't already. At last count, I had 142 vids spread out over several playlists. One playlist titled "School" contains on a number of short clips of one of my students, Marcus, pulling pranks on me. I'm not sure why I stated all that to begin with. I do know that it beats busy work any day of the week, especially Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. After that, I'm off and on the road for some sort of adventure.