My dear Valentine

Nice W by the Jayhawks tonight. The difference was Lagerald Vick. He looked like he had played basketball before, which was a big difference.

I know what he's going through. I never played to his level, but there were times when the basketball felt alien in your hands. Then, a week later, it's a big ol' bucket.

Confidence, maybe. I think it's deeper than that.

***

Had a dream about Dad last night. We were outside grilling, and the neighbor's son drove through his garage, busting through the house.

I was grilling corn (with lots of chili powder) and chicken breasts. I have a Spangles tray I use to hold the meat when I pull it off the grill. It's plastic. For some reason, I placed this tray on the grill, and it made me panic. I thought I burned the corn. I put the fire out.

Turns out the chicken was still raw in the middle. So I tried to get the fire going again.

Pretty sure Dad laughed at me at this point then told me to trade in the truck. But I told him I want to drive it a little longer. He told me to get a used truck. I shrugged him off.

He looked good in my dream, and I didn't know he was gone. We were in our old driveway in Mulvane. Jack Shields was the neighbor, but the car that was wrecked was in my current neighbor's house.

***

Boyd had a big stack of stuff in his backpack. Adrianne was in San Antonio. He told me it was time to review the contents of his backpack.

BJ dumped out his backpack. Instantly I was discouraged. Not because there was a lot, or because it was disorderly... but because I HATE paperwork. Ask Adrianne. It gives me the chills.

In short: I would rather talk to you about what you need and when you need it... then get a sheet of red copy paper rife with misspellings that meanders between AP style and modern English.

But I found some cool stuff in the stack, including the art you see here. Yes, there was also the notification of lice in the classroom (so happy to have a boy who keeps his hair short) and the book orders... but also these cool pieces of art.

If Evey had done this art, I would have done a 1,000-word post on how brilliant my daughter is.

Now that we're on child No. 2, you get, "Boyd doesn't have lice!"

***

You couldn't see me but I just did the RUN THE JEWELS hand sign and in my mind it was BADASS.

Man, I miss me. Where've I been?

Oh, yeah...

Lazy.