I think that the AOL "You've got mail!" guy is starting to sound a bit sarcastic.

Lorna Doone's, coffee and cream, and Friday morning.

It's a winning combination.

I'm already half annoyed with myself for agreeing to do lights for this theater company. Why, oh why, did I think it was a good idea to give up my Friday and Saturday nights? Not that I was going to do anything all that exciting with them anyway, but now I have a commitment.

I hate those.

I'll keep telling myself that it's for the greater good and that something will come of it, which is the point of doing it anyway. Tonight, I'll go up there, meet the love of my life, get cast in something amazing, and find a connection that will hook me up with my dream job.

Or, I'll be forced to park on the street and I'll get a ticket. Either way.

Here's a poem by my newest literary hero, Sven Arneson, age 10, of Wisconsin.

Sven is probably more well adjusted than many of you. He makes his home in Sheboygan, with his wife and three children. He enjoys farming, puzzles and hand rolled cigarettes.

On the other hand, Emily Han, age 6, of Japan, makes an outright mockery of the form and very concept of poetry itself! Since the age of 3, half her life, she has been posioning the English language with her bubble gum, take-it-to-go observations on all things banal, from baby strollers to the temperature of milk. More famous for her romantic entanglements than her work, Emily won't be missed once she inevitably vanishes from the scene.

Here is her latest work. Try not to retch as she drains words of their souls and humiliates herself, and, by extension, all of us.

I spit.

Thank God for the antidote in the raw power and honesty of the poetry of Jesse Ross, age 9, of Alberta, who opens up a new front in the war for our collective literary hearts and minds. Jesse worked in a law firm until he was 7 years old, when he was accidentally hit by a bus during his commute. He survived, but this brush with death changed him, and Jesse eschewed the posh, urban, plastic fantastic lifestyle to head into the backwoods and ruminate on nature. Good people, I give you:

Magnificent.

Read it again, and read more quickly and with more excitement as you approach the end. By the time you finish, you will be physically, and emotionally, out of breath.