Oh, yeah. Five days in a work week, five updates. If this week were a Jeopardy category, I'd consider it swept.

I'll take "Meaningless Accomplishments" for $1000, please, Alex.

So. I'm having some shoe issues.

It all started last week. I entertained the idle thought "Hmm, perhaps I should purchase new shoes. I've had these Vans for a while."

I swear to you, the next day, my shoes mutinined. It was as if they knew.

I remember putting on my shoes one morning to go out and get a newspaper. Somehow, I was not having luck stuffing my feet into my footgear. My as yet sleepy and uncaffeinated brain actually had the thought "Why are my feet misbehaving?" I wrote it off. Didn't analyze it. Went on to the next thing.

When I got home that night, I crowbarred off my shoes, using my toes against the back of the heel, as is the common practice. Actually, it may have been the heel-to-heel method. I doubt it's important. So, I walked away, and when I turned back to look at my shoe removing area near the door, it was like looking at a grisly crime scene.

Shoe stuffing, everywhere. Laces splayed across the floor. One shoe, upisde down, the other about eight inches away, on it's side.

It was horrible. I nearly broke out the chalk and tagged the scene.

"No, Detetctive, I just turned around and found them this way. What's that? Well, yes, I was thinking of getting some new...now, wait just a minute! You don't think...You think I...? No. No! I couldn't! I wouldn't! I loved them! Sob! Oh, my shoes! My poor, poor shoes!"

That, right there, is every single episode of 'Law & Order' ever. Now you never need to watch it. I just saved you hours of your life.

So, anyway, I still wear the shoe carcass. Yes, even though the stuffing is starting to disappear near the right heel. I'm starting to rub up against the plastic layer. It doesn't hurt yet, so I'm sticking with my current situation. Besides, I don't have New Shoe Monies available at the moment. For the first time ever, that hackneyed line of gamblers "Come on! Papa needs a new pair of shoes!" has relevance.

Still, though, things are getting critical. Everywhere I look in my apartment, there are little bits of shoe stuffing that fall out as I walk around. They're like little mocking ghosts of my dying shoes.

Yes, my life is a frantic, exciting race against the clock.

Well, if I want a shower, and I do, I should go now. First though, Francine gets "mad props" for finding this great article about homeless children and the mythology they've developed to justify their terrible situation. It's a pretty long read, but that's good because it's so fascinating. These kids have come up with some incredibly rich and complex stories.

Example: They're still so young, in most cases, and their lives are so hard, that they can't fathom a world in which God has any power to help them, and they think that there is currently a war going on between God's angels and demons, the demons being led by a Virgin Mary gone turncoat, the idea of which has driven God insane and rendered him helpless to intervene in their lives.

That just scratches the surface. Go read. Francine always finds good stuff.

Oh, and St. Patricks Day: Man. It's ruined for me forever. In 1998, I was in Cork, Ireland for St. Pat's. After the parade, my youngest brother and I found and spent the day at an out of the way pub up a narrow street on a hill overlooking the city, and sat in the corner drinking cider and Guinness, eating doughy, flaky sausage rolls, while we watched the locals and their kids play live music and generally go nuts.

Now what? I'm supposed to go to a bar and stand next to some shmoe with a sweatshirt and baseball cap? Pay too much money for bad Guinness? Listen to people yell "Woo!"?

It just can't compare, man.