42

Today was the kind of day that makes you want to go fling yourself upon your bed, pull the covers over your deep fried brains, and never, ever, EVER come back out again. Not one of those bad hellish type days, just one of those irritating pointless "did I actually make an impact on any of these heathens" type days. There was however one very bright spot in today that came right smack dab at the end with my little book discussion group. This was our first of hopefully many meetings and we discussed The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I upon reading again for the first time in years found ironically hilarious, however much of the humor seemed to go over their heads. I had 4 attendees besides myself in this little gathering of aspiring bibliophiles. We munched on oatmeal raisin cookies and those one amazingly thick doughy sugar cookies with the grotesque icing while discussing the Answer to the Ultimate Question regarding Life, the Universe, and Everything (the answer is of course 42) then moved on to Dinosaurs, Intelligent Life elsewhere, evolution, and the true meaning of the Babelfish. Laughter, surprisingly open discussions, and genuine enthusiasm for the topic at hand almost made up for the fact that one of my students will only write poetry or short stories about topics related to The Office or Napoleon Dynamite, and that in 42 being the answer to the Ultimate Question, I have absolutely no idea what that Ultimate question is....