I have a friend, Justin, whose wife, Heather, wanted to write a book. Now, sure, lots of people want to write a book, but Heather wanted to so much that she actually did write a book. After writing it, she sent it to a load of publishers, all of which, in return, sent her their boilerplated rejection letter.

Justin wanted to help, but Justin has no experience with writing or publishing bo...

last week was high on troy week. at every turn it seemed i was being lavished with a body of compliments and kudos and appreciation for a variety of things, unrelated, from a variety of folks, also unrelated. some of the people i see weekly and some of the people i hadn't heard from in many months and in one case many years. the many years person rounded the week out, coming in on saturday evening. it came as such a surprise and carried such an unexpected remark, it is the only specific item from the week i'm going to share: the "pager site" mentioned would be the third website i ever made in my life, which justifies my friend's astonishment that it could have possibly withstood any test of time. regardless, if that isn't a puff of wind up a fella's skirt, i don't know what would be. thanks j. and thanks not for having the thought, but for having the consideration and going to the effort of letting me know you had the thought. i appreciate this doesn't always happen, or doesn't happen enough in today's frenzy-filled days at least.

and then monday morning as i walked anthony to school i took in my scene. my four year was energetically charging on his bike towards school, which he is still thankfully crazily excited about. i was appreciative of the early fall weather. i had a solid night of sleep. i had a good swim the day before. i thought of the previous week and how dear and giving my world had been to me. as i studied the blue sky i thought that perhaps this life of adulation may be my new standard and i could now routinely expect such generous feedback from the folks in my life. perhaps this was the universe making good on all of the karmic rewards surely due a soul as kind and gentle and needy as mine. then at work, before i had logged the first hour at my desk, a young co-worker told me that some of my behaviors were indicative of a high-functioning autistic and she wondered, aloud to me, and believe it or not, innocently, if i'd ever been tested. before her sentence was complete, i heard the magic bubble that had been following me around for the last seven days implode with a wispy simper behind me. and that quickly the universe i thought may have so recently changed in my favor, appeared to have righted itself.

Justin Yunke can't sleep at night. People are mistaking my friend and his domain for the popular Puerto Rican rainforest, Yunke National Forest. He regularly receives inquiries about the park and pedestrian requests for information. The major problem here, a great majority of these inquiries are written in Spanish, a language he has not mastered. In defense, he tried responding to said messages in the most basic English possible, explaining that he was neither the actual park nor in any way affiliated with it. This routinely resulted in more email from the original sender, not understanding his reply. Frustrated, Justin attempted a new tactic. For every email he received in this foreign tongue he simply replied with the following: "Yo tengo el tocadisco" which translates to "I have the record player". This has surprisingly cured his dilemma and saves him from fending off these redundant queries. Justin es muy intelligente!