MELP

MELP, or Minimum Expected Level of Performance, is a value based on the number of classes I am teaching, the variety of life-stress I am anticipating, and the number of dollars not in my bank account times my waist measurement (in inches) divided by my hip measurement (in iches), rounded off to the nearest hundredth and scrawled on the back of an envelope and placed under a cookie bag on my desk. I permit myself to have a moderate level of healthy self-esteem if I maintain MELP.

Let me start over.

There are four levels of MELP.

Level One: whatever, whenever, just don't show up for work visibly drunk. (A little bit drunk is fine).

Level Two: whatever, most of the time, just don't show up for work visibly hung over.

Level Three: make it to the gym once a week, no visible holes or stains, grade the papers instead of throwing them directly in the trash.

Level Four: be attractive, polite, virtuous, strong, and competent in every measurable way.

Fall semester was a Level One in every way. It is positively bizarre that I did not get fired and I might have suffered a psychotic break and did so publicly right here on this blog.

I have been functioning somewhere between Level Two and Level Three all semester and I have even, on a few occasions, performed for an entire day or 1.5 days at a shiny, happy, church-going Level Four.

(woohoo).

Today I am formally and officially going to do an unthinkable and unwise thing: I am not only going to GO to a Level Four, but also make it policy and tell the whole world, right here on this blog.

Oh and my dad 's surgery was canceled and he is on his way home because really there is no point in trying to fix the leg of a man who has leukemia.

Have a blessed day. I am going climbing.