Dear Lindy Hop,

You have been a good and faithful friend over the years and it makes me sad to see you so down in the dumps. Many people seem to be asking an awful lot of you right now and I'm here to say: "Don't sweat it." Hey, you're over eighty years old! You should be enjoying yourself! There are still lots of people out there who think you're great just the way you are. Don't go changin'Lindy! People have always wanted you to be done in the "correct" way and you've been, by your very nature, deaf to that request your whole life. I think that's awesome. Fast or slow, smooth or bouncy, you're just you and we DIG that, man! So next time some jive cat tells you you gotta be a certain way, tell him what you've always told all the squares who've tried to put you in a box..."Listen to the music brother, and you'll know how to treat me."

Job, o job, why art thou so jobby?

Lately I've been recording the amount of trips per day that I make to the copy machine/fax/scanner/printer which, heretofore will be referred to as Geoff. No, don't call it Jeff! It's Geoff, motherfucker! Got it? Geoff is a very angry machine.

Today, for instance I have only made ten trips to see Geoff. Geoff is in fine working condition on this day. Of course, it's not always Geoff's doing that requires me to make extra visits. Often times Toaster, my computer, somehow does not register the fact that I have pressed the return key in order to send a document to Geoff (twice yesterday). In these cases, there is loud sighing and much stomping, after extended periods of standing in front of Geoff, hoping that what I think has happened has not actually happened.

On other occasions, it is entirely Geoff's fault. Faxing and scanning are Geoff's least favorite things to do and he takes every opportunity to exact his inky revenge by swallowing two, three, and even four pages of my precious documents at a time, effectively rendering my fax as useless as a high school diploma, and then, beeps at me as if to say: "That was so your fault".

People say that rivalries with inanimate objects are ridiculous. I couldn't agree more. Geoff, however, is extremely animate and probably, sentient. How else can you explain the Machiavellian efficiency with which he controls my emotions?