Here I am in Kansas City. My parents moved a few years ago, and now they live in an apartment building that happens to overlook my former school.
I have a great view of the playground where I played Four Square in fourth and fifth grade, my seventh-grade classroom, my ninth-grade chemistry lab, and the playing fields, around which I ran innumerable glum laps during high school.
Ah, the happiness of looking at those fields and knowing that never again will I be required to run around them! I get a little jolt of satisfaction every time I look out the window.
Here’s the irony, though: across the street from my former school is a park. Just this morning I went for a run, twice around the park.
Such is the difference between compulsion and free will, and between being a kid and being an adult.
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If you emailed me to ask for a chart or to offer a subtitle suggestion, you haven’t heard back from me because I can’t email OUT here in Kansas City. I’ll respond as soon as I get back to my desk.
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