Groundhog Day, 2014. The same as Groundhog Day 1998.

In celebration of all things Bill Murray, I present for you a random bit of writing dating back to February 2, 1998. This was back in the dark ages of the internet, when porn was plentiful, but information was scarce. Way back before Wikipedia, so if one could not find information, one had to make it up (eventually to be uploaded to Wikipedia). My original missive is presented here in its (mostly) unedited glory. I fixed a couple spelling errors and added a few words to a sentence that I must have started but never finished. Some references are dated. Deal with it.

Happy groundhog day, everybody.

Fabulous holiday, that: Groundhog Day. Bit of a scam, really. As I write this, I’m trying (without much luck) to get some information about the history on this blessed event off the Internet. I’m going to take a wild guess and assume that the official website of Punxsutawney Pennsylvania, and all things groundhog never gets so many hits as it does today. Which is making it very difficult for me to get you the true story (as the good people of Punxsutawney would have us believe — and possibly the evil ones, too) of Groundhog Day.

Damn. Once again, the server timed out, but not before I noticed it trying to load a link to the “inner circle”.

Creepy...

Well, I’ve done my duty. I tried to tell you their side before proposing my hypothesis. Don’t say I’m not being fair. I’m just trying to look out for the animals, here.

So. My theory? I think that somewhere along the way, the people of Punxsutawney Pennsylvania took a deep look within themselves and accepted the truth about themselves. They were a town with nothing much to speak of: no tourist trade, no interesting religious sects, and no factory that produced some sort of product that was needed by the rest of the country, thereby validating them as a viable and necessary part of America at large, regardless of the byproducts that such a factory would produce, thus endangering the environment of beautiful little Punxsutawney and the rest of America as well. But the fact that Punxsutawney was such an unspoiled little chunk of the world led to just the right conditions for groundhog reproduction.

It’s a little known fact (little known, because it’s very likely not true) that groundhogs need just the right circumstances in which to reproduce. Just like weathermen. You see, to be a Weatherman is a calling, like the clergy. A “weatherman” without the call is like somebody who goes enters the priesthood because he’s the youngest in his family, and it’s tradition, or a somebody who gets his divinity degree because he hopes to make a killing as a televangelist. Sure, anybody with an unnatural attraction for weather can go to school to be a meteorologist, but a Weatherman is something greater. It’s like a mixture of biology and alchemy. And the case is similar with a groundhog.

So some sharp cookie in Punxsutawney realized this, and understood that there was some psycho-scientific truth to the groundhog legend (possibly some member of the aforementioned “inner circle”, or maybe the fellow who started it) and this individual decided to market the holiday, for the good of his town. Or rather its survival.

From what I understand, there are towns scattered around America that, because they had nothing to offer the rest of the country, either eventually became ghost towns or ended up desperately grasping at straws to remain viable. These are the towns that honor anyone who happens to achieve some modicum of fame, even if what that entails is having been on both “Geraldo” and “Jerry Springer”. In light of that, i think you all will agree with me that Punxsutawney has done ok for itself.

But what about the animals?

How do the groundhogs feel about all this? Do groundhogs like the attention of humans? I suppose, as a groundhog, all your days pretty much blend. One day as about the same as the next. Maybe burrow a little bit. Gather some nuts, or whatever it is that groundhogs do. Perhaps an exciting day involves having to run from a predator. I wonder if they hold little elections, perhaps a lottery, to determine who gets to be “Phil”. That may be an honor. Or not. Maybe it’s like being a sacrifice, and whoever ends up being “Phil” (by holy calling or by the drawing of straws) is revered in groundhog songs, and honored as a martyr. So perhaps it’s not so bad.

I guess that’s all I really have to say about nothing for today. Spread a little groundhog love.

A Valentine's Day blast from the past.

Have I got a box of Valentines Day Chocolates for you! Actually, it's a recycled box. And it's not chocolate. And it doesn't really come in a box. Anyhow, for your amusement, I'm posting here a couple of Valentines Day related essays (manifestos?) I wrote back in 1998. Before I was married. Before I had a proper blog (which I have largely ignored for the past couple years). Before everyone else had a proper blog. I used to write this stuff and email it to everyone on my email list. Here it is, out of context. Enjoy.

XOXO

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

[Feb 10, 1998]

ok...here we go.

take a deep breath, and graciously accept this bouquet of roses from me, off-color and slightly wilted though they might be.

on my drive into work today, i was told that what women want, what they really, really want (spice girls included) are 1K diamond earings from jewelry 3 [2011 Marc is unsure if Jewelry 3 is a store that exists any longer, but let's just say that the modern equivalent of said perfect gift is just about anything from the open hearts collection by Jane Seymour, available at Kay]. is that true ladies? just checking. see, i figure that if i give the right gift to the girl of my dreams, she will ignore my bad hair, crooked and slightly yellow teeth, my lack of washboard abs, my lack of adequate finances, the fact that i sing vaguely off-key, my collection of comic books, and poor self-image and will love me. and they cost only $97. apparently, the beatles were incorrect in assuming that they couldn't buy them love. of course, in the '80's, girls just wanted to have fun, and that was a bit more cost-effective. interesting when you think of the '80's as the decade of excess (and INXS), you wouldn't think economizing was such an issue. i gues cindy lauper was just ahead of her time. a real pioneer, that wacky girl was.

but on to the matters at hand.

in trying to make some sense of this whole valentine's day thing (something i have been trying to do for years, ever since the little tastless heart candy i got from dori bicek, in fourth grade said "hey dude" and the one that phil jones got said "be mine") i have researched the history of this blessed event. i have always felt, or rather, i have always been told, that if you understand the past, you are better prepared for the future.

now, as with all history, particularly history seeped in legend, one encounters the problem of conflicting reports. so i have compiled all the facts at hand, cross referenced them, and then filled in the blanks to try to give you an accurate, reliable, and archeologicaly supported historical reference.

the significance of february 14 dates back to before anybody thought to canonize Valentine (whose identity is in doubt anyway), possibly as far back as the fourth century b.c.. way back then, you see, romans had a lot to offer the world. domination, conquest, funny hats (they still have those, only you have to be a pope to wear them), latin and many, many, many gods. on february 14, one of these gods got a party thrown in her honor. juno, apparently the queen of the roman gods, known most for her support of the female gender in general, and the institution of marriage, specifically. i don't know what this particular shindig involved, but if the women's only parties i have spied on are any indication, i suspect paper hats, toilet paper, and strange party games were involved. what i do know about this day, is that towards the evening, the women, or girls, as the case may be, would write their names on a peice of paper (separate peices of paper, of course) and they would place them in a large shoebox decorated with hearts cut out of construction paper, elmer's glue, and glitter (if they wanted to get really fancy.) the neighborhood boys would then wander by, dressed to impress, collars turned up on their togas and sandles shined up for the occasion, perhaps a bit of sheep lard to hold their hair in place, and they would reach in the box and grab a slip of paper. the young lady whose name they drew would be their partner for the upcoming festivities of the feast of Lupercalia, which began the next day. other historical documents suggest that this young lady was to be the man's companion for the year, after which another lottery would take place. this hardly seems in keeping with the idea of juno as the goddess of marriage, but who is going to argue with ancient romans? a guy with a time machine, maybe.

at this time, i would like to voice my opposition to the "grab bag" method of choosing a date, and possibly a mate. true, those guys too shy to ask a girl to dance don't end up sulking in the olive groves, loathing themselves for their lack of courage. but on the other hand, it seems to take the choice out of the whole thing for the women. and what happens if there is an uneven number between the sexes in that town. this could lead to trouble.

the feast of Lupercalia was apparently a rite of passage for young men, and a festival in worship to the god lupercus, who, if honored properly, would protect flocks, and keep animals and people healthy and fertile. lupurcus really liked singing and dancing, so the romans did that a lot. amidst the singing and the dancing, goats and dogs were sacrificed, and the young men would make straps out of the skins, and they would run around the streets and then lash the women with those straps. apparantly, lupurcus liked that as much as he liked singing and dancing, so he would be pleased and would ensure fertility and easy child delivery to those women who would subject themselves to such behavior. now, something else the romans believed was that on february 14, doves and owls mated. not with each other. with other doves and owls, respectively. so this seemed like a good idea to the romans, so those who were paired in the "lottery" would slip off together and imitate the owls and dove. i suppose that means that they would hoot and coo at each other. i can't imagine what else that would mean.

this sort of thing went on for some time, but eventually, the roman gods fell out of vogue, and policy decisions began to be made by the Christian church, who also had a monopoly on party hats. They did not approve of this festival, but rather than do away with it completly, they dusted off good old saint valentine, and made a big deal out of him.

but i'll get to that tomorrow.

until then,

make love, not war

marc.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

[Feb 11, 1998]

hi, everyone. i hope you are all well. i have a splitting headache. well, not so much splitting as throbbing. have you ever had somebody repeatedly swing a rubber mallet at the inside of your brain? and then your brain bangs against the backs of your eyes? well, that's what i feel like. i have taken some painkillers, and intend to make another score soon, so don't worry about me. i will be comfortably numb soon enough.

of course, the headache didn't exactly help with the drive in. and the rain. visiblity was so bad that i wasn't sure if the vague shapes in front of me were other cars, or if perhaps those red glowing blurs were the eyes of some sort of demonic creatures. running backwards. very fast. it could happen.

and i kept repeating that nursery rhyme over and over in my head "rain, rain, go away..." it's been so long that i don't remember all the words, so that was pretty irritating. but then i began to think of the nature of children's songs, and i realized that they are little more than mantras that children repeat to themselves to conquer their fears. "ring around the rosey" is a little chant that dates back to when the black plague ravaged england. [2011 Marc has actually since heard evidence contradicting this, but as I don't know for sure, I choose to like the black plague story] "the itsy bitsy spider" casts a spider, a truly horrible creature (if you don't think spiders are horrible, rent "kingdom of the spiders" featuring william shatner in a role that will surprise you) as a determined hero. anyway, then i thought about how almost all "adult" songs deal with love in some way or another. and it occurred to me that like children, we sing about what we fear the most, which is, after all, love.

which brings me back to this whole valentine's day thing. (that previous paragraph was somewhat contrived and not very well-written. for that i apologize, but i present my headache as an excuse for all my faults today. )

in case anybody out there was wondering, of the ladies who have responded to my half-asked question, the vote is unanimous. the earrings that jewelry3 (stupid name, by the way) has been shilling are not the way to every woman's heart after all. i guess i have to take them all back. commercials have lied to me yet again. i'm going to have to stop believing everything i hear that happens to have a snappy jingle behind it.

but the real issue here is whatever happened to good old saint valentine. well, here's the deal. i have several versions of his tale that, while similar, are to some degree in conflict. plus, it's not clear if there was more than one valentine.

either way, like cupid, valentine, or valentinius, was a bit of a troublemaker. not so much because he flitted about shooting darts o' love into the hearts of unsuspecting potential lovers, but because the romans didn't much like christians. yet. so valentine was a christian, and as such (unlike many christians today) he was compassionate to his fellow man. woman. whatever. so he used to let the christians hide out at his swingin' bachelor pad when they were on the lam from the romans. to make matters worse, the emperor, one claudius II decided in his lead-poisoning induced madness, that if he abolished the practice of marriage, then he would have more soldiers in his army. without families, these men would have no excuse to not go about killing people. this, of course, seems a bit short-sighted to me. one would think this might lead to an eventual reduction in population, but he was the emperor, and who's to tell him that he has no clothes. well, valentinius, for one. Valentine took it upon himself to marry young couples who had such a desire. needless to say, this landed him in the pokey. the hoosegow. the slammer. the joint. the big house. whatever your favorite jail slang might be.

once in jail, valentine was a model prisoner, and the jailer was impressed with this kind and peaceful man, and would allow his daughter to spend her days with him. see, she was blind, and as such was no good around the house, so she would go to work with dad. always a good place for a young girl, prison. anyway, either they became pals, or valentine fell in love with her. it's unclear. maybe she wasn't so young. maybe there's something about valentine we don't know. anyway, legend has it that the day before he was executed, valentine wrote her a letter in ink that he pressed from violets, and signed it "from your valentine". wich seems odd, because the girl was blind. but, with violet ink, at least she could smell the card. miraculously, thought, when valentine gave her the card, her sight was restored. now. again, the story diverges. either he was executed as scheduled, or the jailer, pissed off that his daughter had fallen in love with this prisoner, clubbed him to death.

that's amore.

but, i tire of the history lesson. suffice it to say that when christians took over, they decided that a feast to the roman gods was a bad idea, so they made a big deal out of valentine and turned the feast of lupercus into Saint Valentine's day.

so for years and years, saint valentine had the honor reserved only for heads of state and rock stars, but probably because of his immense popularity, or because he was jaded by all the relationships gone sour that he was forced to oversee from his little pink room in heaven, he sold out. the catholics wouldn't stand for that, so they dropped him from their calender in 1969.

that's all for today.

more fun valentines facts tomorrow. probably.

later.

marc.

I lied at the end of that post. I did not post any more Valentines facts the next day. There may be some people still waiting for that follow-up post. Get used to disappointment.

XOXO

Corporate Haiku

large, black rectangle
I report to work today
elevator up

a true fax

a true fax, originally uploaded by basest.

Let me start by saying that while I continue to be a little bit skeptical about the benefits of the slogans and platitudes that my current pseudoemployer displays to motivate it's workers, it is generally a decent place to work. I've had no complaints thus far. (Give me time, I'm sure I'll come up with something...)

Not everybody is as pleased with Office Max as I am. Much to my amusement, I found the above fax transmission that had somehow ended up at the fax machine on my floor.

I don't know how it ended up there. I don't believe there are customer service people on my floor.

And I don't really know what happened to this person to make them so angry. What kind of speech could Office Max possibly try to be silencing?

I do know that someone with access to a fax machine at the offices of Pacific Gas and Electric is very angry. I hope he has a better day tomorrow.

today's report from the workplace

My status as an employee of the Company where I work is a little bit strange. I am not a true employee, as my paychecks come from a placement service, not the Large Office Supply Corporation where I work. This has its advantages and disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage is that I can't be sure whether or not I will have a job from week to week, or even day to day. A smaller inconvenience is that I am not allowed directly into the building, but rather have to login to a security computer every day and print out a new identification card that says "VISITOR", clearly signifying to anyone who might care to look at my badge that I don't genuinely belong. (I suppose this is a step up from high school, where my fellow students didn't need any sort of identification. They assumed that I didn't belong.)

The upside to this is that even though I otherwise function as a full-time employee, I feel free to park my car in the spaces reserved for visitors. It's the perk I give myself as a pseudoemployee.

This morning, the gentleman in front of me was having some difficulty logging in as a visitor. As it happens, he wasn't a freelancer like me... more of an actual "visitor". Visiting. And it had been some time since his last visit, so his information was no longer active in the database. If I saved any time by parking in the visitor spaces this morning, I lost it because I was waiting for this guy to be processed.

This gave me some time to glance around the building some. I actually like the building, but find some aspects of it unsettling. It's five floors, not including the basement, which houses the cafeteria. The office spaces are all centered around an atrium, so there is a lot of open space in the building. There's also a hole cut out of the lobby floor to expose parts of the eating area of the cafeteria. This creates a strange sense of space that I'm sure the architects designed to make the interior of the building even larger than it is, but in me manages to induce a slight sense of vertigo. I avoid walking to close to the edge of the walkway. Even though there's a 40inch glass wall to keep me safe, I imagine myself plummeting to my death and really spoiling someone's lunch.

The Company sends mixed messages to it's employees in the form of slogans applied in large vinyl appliqué letters applied to various glass surfaces throughout the building. From my side of the building, I can see the tagline "passionate | innovative | fun" repeated in a friendly font along a whimsical curvy path. This is on the windows on the third floor. If my work area was located on the other side of the office, the direction from which I was looking this morning, standing by the security station, I would get a completely different message.

Those on the South side of the building enjoy a different kind of inspiration. If your perspective finds you facing north, you will read five different phrases:

focus & discipline
sense of urgency
think company & customer first
teamwork & trust
integrity & accountability

Instead of following a curved path in a light typeface, these messages are bold and straight. Less friendly. At least they're lower case, otherwise, it would be a really aggressive use of type.

So today I count myself lucky that while I work I'm reminded to be passionate, innovative and fun. Or...at worst, to work on my enilpicsid & sucof.

a dish best served...tepid?

So I got a little bit of revenge on my former employer. This requires a little bit of explanation. There's this podcast I listen to out of England called Punky! Radio. It's a punk/chat show that plays all sorts of new (and the occasional old) punk music, as well as some related sub genres that might be of interest to the fans of punk. But in addition to the music, there's the wacky chat between Paul B. Edwards and Tony Hearn. It's a lot of silly fun, as they crack each other up and tell each other stories about their drunken exploits, make fun of Emos and generally blather on.

One of their regular features is one in which listeners are asked to nominate someone in their lives who has wronged them, or is generally just sort of a jerk, and if Paul and Tony agree, they will declare for all the world to hear, that said person "Izzatwat" (is a twat).

So, anyhow, I encourage you all to listen to the most recent episode of Punky!, as you will get the pleasure of hearing my former boss declared a twat for all the world to hear. So it's not really revenge, I guess, since I could pretty much assume that he doesn't really know that all of Punky's listeners think he's a twat..but it makes me giggle.

the word for today, and madonna of walmart

a word that's floating around in my head today:

fetid

I really like that word, and rarely get a chance to use it. The problem, of course, if that if one has occasion to use it, it's often when encountering some sort of unpleasant or foul situation.

So I'm sort of ambivalent about it.

---

Speaking of unpleasant situations, I had to stop by the local Walmart today. I'm not a big fan of Walmart, for a variety of reasons, but sometimes it's the most convenient place to make a quick stop and pick something up. Anyhow, my two boys are obsessed with the products I use for my personal hygiene. They want to use my deodorant. They'd shave if I let them. (not sure what they'd shave...) They want to use my mouthwash. So they have this mouthwash for kids that I've bought for them, and they love using it and it's good for their teeth and all that...but it ran out, so I needed to get more. Every store seems to be out of it. Which is what brought me to Walmart.

Walmart didn't have it either. But it did provide me the most amusing visual I've had all day.

As I was wandering out empty-handed, there was this older gentleman. Who am I kidding. He may have been a gentleman...I have no idea about whether he is particularly courteous or chivalrous, or if he is a man of good social position, or if he is of noble birth--all definitions of "gentleman". I was calling him a gentleman to be polite. But this particular Walmart is out in Dekalb, IL (the town where I work). The town is growing, and is home to a rather large university...but it is still very much a farming community. If there's a wind blowing, I can smell manure when I get out of my car in the morning.

So, I'm going to go out on a limb, and call this guy a "feller." Because, basically, he had that look. Kind of an old guy...a little grizzled. An expansive belly. He seemed pleasant enough. Anyhow, this feller is sitting there, talking up a woman who may have been there with him, or may have just been someone he had just met. He's wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. And underneath the flannel shirt is a Madonna t-shirt. I think it was from the "Music" tour, because she was wearing a cowboy hat...she seemed to favor that particular headgear during that period.

And what I liked so much about seeing that is the guy--the feller--didn't in any way seem to be the sort of person who might be a Madonna fan. It's more likely that he picked up the shirt at the local Salvation Army down the road. But I'm going to imagine that he didn't...I'm going to pretend that he went to go see Madonna. That he really digs her music. And that he dropped $25 on that shirt at the merch table and put it on right away over whatever shirt he happened to be wearing at the time.

yeah...I like that.

and so it goes...

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
Kurt Vonnegut, Sirens of Titan

I woke up too early this morning. I had slept on the couch. Often in situation comedies, men find themselves sleeping on the couch because of arguments they have had with their spouses. It is a cliché locale for banishment. This was not the case for me.

I don't much care for my couch. It was purchased new to fill an available space when we moved into our home two and a half years ago, and it quickly became clear that the couch was not going to last very long. It's a bad couch. The cushions don't stay on the couch very well. They slide around and quickly get out of shape. It began to get threadbare within just a few weeks of its arrival. And so on.

Ironically, the couch bears some responsibility for the reason I ended up sleeping on it. I was carrying my son Jack two mornings ago. As I leaned over to drop him onto the couch, something snapped. Or pinched. One of the millions of nerves in this amazing body I live in was affected in just the right way to create the sensation of having been punched reasonably hard in the middle of the left side of my back.

That night, I had a difficult time sleeping in our bed, so I chose to sleep on the couch last night instead. It was a little bit better. I slept more consistently, but still woke up earlier than I had intended to and in more pain than before I went to bed in the first place.

So I got up to get a drink of water and like any reasonable person with an unreasonable addiction, I checked my email. I found it to be somewhat unfulfilling, so I hit the news sites to see what had happened while I was sleeping. Sadly, I learned that it was reported that Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday.

I was turned on to Vonnegut many years ago by my friend Maht, and quickly consumed many of his works. He quickly became one of my favourite authors. He's an incredibly deep thinker who often presented his ideas in a deceptively simple form. Vonnegut also had a cameo role, appearing as himself in the Rodney Dangerfield film "Back to School."

Like my last post about Sol LeWitt (I have to stop writing about people dying--I'm in danger of getting into some kind of rut), I'm not going to attempt to analyze Vonnegut. It's been done. I could probably babble on at length about how great he was--what an amazing body of work he left and all that. I might even be able to write intelligently about his work. But I think his work stands for itself, so here's a link to an essay he wrote about three years ago regarding the current state of the world. It's called "Cold Turkey." It's really great. Read it.

One of the things I really liked about Kurt Vonnegut was that he would occasionally embellish his novels with simple line drawings. Later in life, Vonnegut extended this to creating artworks that were made into lithographs. The drawings on this page are all by Vonnegut. I always wanted to buy one of his prints...never could afford one. I doubt that's going to be any easier now. There's probably a few novels out there that I haven't read yet. Maybe I'll go buy one and read it.

groove vs. rut

Have you ever noticed that it isn't such a bad thing to get in a groove, but you should avoid at all costs being in a rut? These two words are relatively similar, but their differences in connotation are pretty vast. A groove can guide you, while a rut restrains you.

It certainly helps that in music, a groove is definitely a positve thing. LPs have grooves, within which you would defintely want your needle to remain. And that rhythmic interplay between the bass player and the drummer is a groove. (I have no idea if these two musical notions are related.) Years ago, Madonna encouraged the "Boy" to whom she was singing to "get into the groove" so that he might prove his love to her. If he did so properly, he could live out his fantasies with her. The groove could guide you to your reward. Guy Ritchie could probably provide more information on this. I suppose a host of others could as well. At this point I will refrain from any further discussion of Madonna's groove.

John Mellencamp (or was it Cougar?) also had some things to say on the subject of "groovin' "--an activity that I suppose has somethign to do with getting into the groove. In his song "Cherry Bomb", he waxes nostalgic about a time in his youth:

That's when a sport was a sport
And groovin' was groovin'
and dancin meant everything
We were young and we were improvin'

I can't argue with that. I don't really don't think it means anything, though--and maybe that's all the meaning it's supposed to have. What I'm really interested in, though is whether he chose the word "groovin' " to rhyme with "improvin' " or if it was the opposite.

Probably the most ubiquitous form of groove is perhaps epitomized by the Simon and Garfunkel song "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy)". Or perhaps even better defined by Bruce Campell as Ash in The Evil Dead whereupon strapping a chainsaw to his bloody stump of a wrist, he utters the word "Groovy!". Either way, the word "groovy" seems to imply that the winds of fate have set you upon an irrevocable course, but the expected result is a pleasant one that will lead to peace of mind. (note: If you are wondering how I can relate a trippy-hippy Simon and Garfunkel song to The Evil Dead, just remember: I went to art school. I can relate just about anything to anything.)

Overall, the definitions of groove and the words and phrases to which it has given birth are all pretty positive. And then there's "rut."

I believe rut's problem lies entirely in its sound. Groovy is blessed with "OOH!" in the middle. It just sounds like more fun. Looking at the etymology of each word, rut certainly has the advantage. Groove gets its meaning in Middle English from a Dutch word for furrow or pit, which is related to "Grave". That's hardly pleasant. On the other other hand, rut comes from Old French for "route". What could be more pleasant than a path, except for a path defined by some nice, tasteful shrubbery? It seems that rut has more in common with the benign and gentle guidance of fate implied by groove than groove does.

And let's not forget that other definition of rut. Derived from an Old French word which meant "to roar", the second definition of rut simply implies doing it like they do on the Discovery Channel. And is that so wrong?

So I guess it really all depends on how you look at it. Being in a rut may not be so bad.

Being in a rut may not be so bad.

Being in a rut may not be so bad.

Being in a rut may not be so bad.

Being in a rut may not be so bad.