InvertedMind once referred to quarterback-then-former-quarterback-now-quarterback Michael Vick as an “a**hole” for his forray into being…well…a moral-less, heartless, scumbaggyish butthead who hated dogs and may very well have regularly thrown kittens against brick walls for some sort of perverted kicks and giggles*.

It’s hard to forgive someone for some sort of heinous crime, be it against yourself, a friend, or even just against humanity.  In this case, Vick gave the entire world population a black eye by showing that, even though we’ve come a long way from stone tools and living in caves, we can still be barbaric.  It’s especially difficult when we are, in no way, close to the individual; love is something that is formed and nourished through intimacy, not through news clips and sports highlights.  When there is no positive emotion in that space between you and another subject, negative emotion is likely to fill the void.

But, as a Christian, it’s my duty toward God and my fellow humans to forgive.  As much as we all tend to believe that a person cannot change, that is proven, time and time again, to be an falsehood based solely on ignorance and short memories.  More often than not, because of the good in all of us through the grace of God, a person does learn from his or her mistakes, and grows into a better steward for the Lord because of it.

Is Vick a Christian?  I don’t know; but that should never be a basis of my forgiveness.  The Bible clearly states that, if I harbor animosity toward other, I cannot possibly draw close to Christ.

So, on that basis, InvertedMind has forgiven Mike Vick of his transgressions.  And, no, this is not some holier-than-thou post where I make you look bad for still holding his past against him.  Rather, it’s to call out groups like PETA (already a horribly misguided group that puts animals above human beings when Genesis clearly states that God gave us animals for numerous uses, including for food).  There are marches scheduled tonight as Vick takes to the field for the first time since his arrest, protesting his involvement in the game, and in life in general.

I, for one, applaud Vick for at least trying to look as if he has changed; and until proven guilty again, he remains innocent in my eyes.  I wish him the best of luck, and I hope beyond hope that he has, truly, changed not just in his actions, but in his heart’s desires.

* – This is pure speculation; InvertedMind has no way of knowing what the walls were made of.

In roughly 10 minutes I will leave for a visit to my back pain doctor for a procedure that is just painful enough to qualify for sedation.  Anyone who has experienced sedation knows there is one universal rule: no eating beforehand.  Let’s face it, no doctor wants to perform medical procedures with a smock full of your lunch.

So, I’ve been starving myself since a triple-decker PB&J around 10:00 last night.  For anyone counting, that was 13 and a half hours ago.  By the time it’s all said and done, it will be at least 2:30 before I can eat something, putting it at 16.5 hours.  I’m starving.  I’m famished.  I’m wasting away.

I’m hungry.

Of course, to top it off, I had a long meeting this morning.  Nothing says “GET ME OUT OF HERE!” like being hungry during a meeting.

Then, suddenly, because I apparently did something to tick someone off, in walked one of our project managers, carrying a gift for everyone in the room.

A tray full of cookies.

That was the point at which I passed into a coma.

Because I apparently have time for everything but writing posts, I present to you “InvertedTwitter!”

If you look in the sidebar, you will notice a Twitter logo and some blue text, along with a few other paragraphs in gray. These are InvertedMind’s three most recent “Tweets” on Twitter.

So enjoy. I tend to update that a little more regularly than I post — but not by much.

More often than not, unintentional humor is the sort of thing that makes you fall on the floor laughing. Sure, we all love a good joke, but the reality aspect of something in your daily progression through this world being accidentally hilarious trumps any joke you’ll ever hear.

Such was the case a few evenings ago. Sitting next to Mi Amore doing what has become our nightly ritual — the Yahoo! Games Daily Crossword — I found myself slowly start to chuckle, then laugh out loud, at a certain clue’s answer.  I wondered, out loud, how it could have slipped by the censors.

The funniest part about it is that I almost completely missed it.  And, for someone who has radar for absurdity in the daily grind, that’s depressingly impressive (is that possible?).  Granted, it was late, but how did I almost miss this?

Okay, I’m thinking of making this “Childhood, Remixed” thing a new category. It depends on how much I feel like doing it (and, relative to how often I post in general, posting once a year to this category would make it worthwhile). I present to you, in honor of the fact that stores are selling Halloween decorations more than two months in advance, The Giant, Hairy Spider:

The giant, hairy spider
Walked up and freaked me out
Landed in my hair
And made me scream and shout
Gobbled up my eyeballs
And ate my nostrils, too
Now the giant, hairy spider
Is coming after you

In roughly 13 hours, I will officially begin my final trip around the sun as a twenty-something.  Age 29 is upon me, and is looming large.

Of biggest concern is the expected maturity that comes with reaching 30.  Personally, I think I largely hit that point sometime between 15 and 23 due to things like living essentially my whole life with divorced parents, living in three different states by the time I was nine, a lengthy bout with depression, or simply just my personality.

Sure, there were still aspects of my personality that didn’t reach trigenarian levels until recently.  My parenting skills, for one, didn’t arrive in full force until my own divorce, which placed on me the responsibility of protecting someone else’s life on my own.  Nothing will mature you quicker than that.

But enough of the woe-was-me stuff.  It’s time to kick off a year of reflection.  The way I see it, for every nine seconds I’ve lived in the last nine years, I have precisely one second with which to reflect on that time before I reach 30.  So, in honor of me..well…yeah, just in honor of me…I invite each of you to share in a comment any of your favorite stories of me.  They can be shared so long as they fit the basic rules of the site: 1) this site adheres to Christian values, so your comments doggone well better, too; 2) Everyone’s privacy is respected, including mine; 3) an occassional “d*mn” or “h*ll” is acceptable language, but only if it is pertinent to the story; and 4) differences of opinion are not just expected, but welcomed — but be polite about it (i.e., anyone trashing me or another commenter will immediately be asked to stop, and continued abuse of this rule will leave me no choice but to ask again (and we all know we don’t want it to come to something as harsh as asking twice)).

I fully expect between zero and three comments here, considering my level of readership is usually directly proportional to the rapidity of my posts.