I have nothing to say today. So, I will now present to you, FACTOIDS ABOUT MY LIFE:

• Last night, I went for a run. It was SO hot. I weighed myself before and after the run. The temperature outside was 91 degrees (32 degrees Celsius) at 8 PM (when I went for my run), but the humidity made it feel like 111 degrees (44 degrees Celsius). I lost exactly 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) during the run. It was hot.

• I have a 32 inch Sony television that I bought from another teacher sitting in the office. I don’t use it. I’ve turned it on maybe twice. Tracey was asking me why I haven’t sold it, but I only bought it for $30, so I’m like, “WHY would I sell this TV? I only paid $30 for it?!?” This has to be some kind of psychological disorder, though I am unable to name what that disorder might be.

• I eat the same thing every morning for breakfast. Toast and banana with peanut butter. I also have a Coke Zero with it. Most people drink coffee. I drink Coke Zeroes. This is an entirely unhealthy habit and I am well-aware of it, but I’m doing an experiment, testing the addictive qualities of Coke Zero, because I am firmly convinced that Coke Zero is addictive. I try not to drink them in the evenings because they keep me awake at night. This is some kind of psychological disorder, though I am unable to name what that disorder might be.

  

• I have a pair of 100 year pants from Vollebak. I have told you before of my desire to wear the same clothing every day for the rest of my life. This was the first step. Recently, I bought a second pair. Now, I will have two pairs of indestructible pants that I will wear on alternating days for the rest of my life. I am achieving LIFE GOALS here. Every single day that I wear my pants, someone comments on them. “Nice pants,” they will say, whereupon I will then go into a lengthy monologue about both the indestructible nature of my pants and why I want to wear the same thing every day. About ten seconds into my rant, their eyes start to glaze over and they realize that they’re talking to a madman. They wonder, Was he one of the January 6th rioters? Will he try to kill me? I do nothing to dispel any of those notions.

  

• I have not shaved since June 6th. I do not plan to cut my beard until at least December. When I look at myself in the mirror, all I see is glory; the glory of still being able to grow hair on my head; the glory of having an almost perfectly shaped beard; the glory of being able to twirl the ends of my mustache so that I look like an aristocrat from New Hampshire in 1889. Tracey claims to like my beard, but I know that she lies. For the last couple of months, I’ve noticed that she stays a good distance away from me and if I catch her at the right time, she looks at me side-eyed and I can see her thoughts floating above her head like a cartoon, where she imagines Randy with a goatee instead of Randy with a Grizzly Adams-beard. I’m sure she ponders divorce frequently. I will not give in. My daughters, of course, openly say that I look terrible. There is no hesitations when they say it. Still, I keep my beard. There are little things that they don’t tell you about having a long beard that I wish I knew. The first is that you have to be extraordinarily careful with what you eat. If I eat the wrong type of food and it gets in my beard, I will smell it for hours and the only way to get rid of the smell is to have a shower with lots of shampoo. It’s awful. Another thing they don’t tell you is that you have to dry your beard thoroughly after you shower, or you will have a ring of water around the collar of your shirt once you put it on. The last thing they don’t tell you is that the longer it gets, the more it takes on a bouncy life of its own. When I get bored, I flip it back and forth like a fidget spinner or I grab the whole thing in one hand and pull on it. My beard is glorious. Let’s see if I can last two more months with it.