I don’t think Samson likes my new job. He seems especially sad in the mornings now, and the outpouring of joy when I come home doesn’t quite make up for the guilt I feel in leaving him alone all day. It’s worst when I have to feed him, walk him, and head right back out the door for taiko.

As much as he claims to miss me, though, when I’m home, he doesn’t ever want to snuggle with me. He will ask for and accept belly scratches, but if I’m sitting on the bed, he’ll head for the couch, and vice versa. I guess he just wants me . . . around.

Today I worked my first full eight-hour day at my new job. During lunch I spent twenty minutes walking to and from a post office that, oddly, doesn’t accept mail or sell postage.

This morning Samson ate some other dog’s poop and threw it up on my carpet. Of all the kinds of vomit, poop vomit is near the top in terms of horrible smelliness.

And now I’m home. Working all day means that, well, not much else happens all day. I’m sure the rest of you have figured this out already. Makes for boring blog posts. Sorry about that.

Every day? Every day I have to write something?

Today my dad and I drove from Amarillo to Houston. It took about ten hours, and it was pretty much the same drive it’s been all the previous times we’ve made the same trip, which is . . . many. We ate lunch at Cracker Barrel, which, if there was ever a place that was the same at all times in all places, would be it. Everything is just as I remember it from twenty years ago, and nineteen, and so on, from the checkers to the restrooms to the maple sugar candy, except that the golf tees in the little triangle puzzle are made of plastic now. But the sameness is their shtick, so, you know, mission accomplished.

Now I’m home and ready to go to bed. Samson is farting up a storm over here, in case you’re wondering what that smell is. Christ it’s awful. Oh, but speaking of dogs, John sent me this picture a few days ago: panda dog! Hope that brightens your day a little.