Reading: Two books concurrently: Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte as etext on my Palm (how totally geeky am I?)

Listening: The Winter Solstice series of Windham Hill CDs. They make a good soundtrack for Advent: seasonal but not too many carols.

Watching: The X-Files, which I taped on Sunday. It's hard to believe, but the X-Files folks have pulled off a Mulder-Sculley kiss that managed to please both the 'Shippers and the Noromos on alt.tv.x-files.

Just Do It

Have you seen the new Nike commercial? A hung-over guy stumbles out of bed on New Year's Day. Remnants of the previous evening's festivities litter his room: party food, balloons, and a poster that reads "Y2K: It'll be OK." He stretches and warms up outside; an army tank rolls down the street behind him. He jogs past marauding hordes and haywire ATMs spewing out money, traffic lights blinking crazily and people praying in the streets. He runs up a hill and pauses to catch his breath while behind him the city goes up in flames and a missile is launched. He greets another jogger running in the opposite direction, and a giraffe wanders by. The commercial ends with the Nike tag line: "Just Do It."

My first thought, after I finished chortling, was that this commercial must have cost more to make than some small indie movies. It's a clever way of capitalizing on the Y2K hype, and it certainly succeeded in getting my attention. I happened to catch it on tape when I recorded X-Files, so I saved it for Tab to watch when he came home.

In thinking more about the commercial, I realized that one could read into it an unintentional criticism of athletes and dedicated exercisers: that they are so self-absorbed as to be completely oblivious to what is going on around them. I doubt that is the message Nike is trying to convey, however.

Of course, I'm viewing this commercial through the eyes of an exercise drop-out. It was bad enough when we were supposed to exercise thirty minutes daily, but now we're told that to lose weight and keep it off, we should exercise an hour a day. An hour! A day! Who has the time?

I'd be all set if picking up toys and breaking up the boys' fights counted as exercise.

(Disjointed) Conversations in the Car

Matthew is drawing on his MagnaDoodle. "Reno, I'm going to draw you!"

Stephen: "Don't draw me, Matthew!"

Matthew: "See, here are your eyes, and this is your hair."

Stephen: "Mama, Matthew's drawing me! I don't want him to draw me!"

Me: "Matthew, why don't you draw me, instead."

Matthew (surprisingly agreeable, for once): "OK."

Daniel: "How old do I have to be to blow up a can with Poppy?"

Me: "Oh, gosh, Daniel, I don't know. At least fourteen or fifteen, I guess."

Daniel: "Why does Poppy like to blow things up?"

Me: "Beats me. He always has, though."

Tab (to me, not for the first time): "Your dad should have gone to Hollywood. He could have had quite a career as a pyrotechnics expert on film sets."

Matthew, holding up his MagnaDoodle: "Who can guess what this is?"

Me: "Ummm...a Christmas tree?"

Matthew: "It's a caterpillar with ants! No, wait, it's a Christmas tree."

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