I’m sorry this blog is late. I played hooky yesterday.

I consider myself reasonable adult, someone who is dutiful, who thrives on self-denial. But the truth is this: it takes just one friendly suggestion to push me into doing what I really want to do, and crack my steely inclination to do what I should be doing like a corn chip.

Playing hooky is so much more fun when you’re not your own boss. As a kid it was cheating the school, my parents, the General Authority. Employed, it’s like screwing The Man for those little daily hosings he gives you. Being self-employed gives you freedom to do what you want, but then there’s no authority to defy. It’s like cheating on a diet: indulgent, yes, but you know you’ll pay later. What we need is a way to cheat on a diet and have our boss get fat for it.

It started around lunchtime. I accepted the offer of a Tom Collins, beverage of the month among my friends. “We’re on vacation, right?” Well, she was on vacation. (Actually, she calls it “stay-cation,” because her family isn’t vacating.) She says, “Take us sailing.”

It’s warm and sunny and windy. Along with whiskers on kittens and warm woolen mittens, these are a few of my favorite thigns. My [sailing] mind can’t [sailing] seem to concentrate [sailing] on much of [sailing] anything else anyway. My resolve to work relents with the crunch of a junebug under my shoe. I took the afternoon off.

In the mail yesterday I also received the missing part I ordered for my antique seltzer bottle, one of those big silver jugs filled with squirting soda water you saw in every Cary Grant movie as he made a cocktail. And like in every Cary Grant movie, I immediately tested it by squirting someone in the back of the head.

So yesterday was a pretty good day. Maybe I needn’t worry to much about being an adult after all.

Now if I could [sailing] just get caught up [sailing] on my work to make up for [sailing] yesterday.