Last night I went to bed with the intention of walking to work this morning. It is the duty of this cup to get me awake enough to walk.

I have a bad feeling that I am becoming one of “those” Starbucks people. Not the cool, hipster type. The other type.

I spent part of the morning talking with Don, our engineer, about the variety program our students will produce this semester. We got some good ideas about the set and the set-up. The show will look as delicious as this cup of coffee is going to taste.

My son wants me to build a shed for his trains this morning. My wife wants me to keep quiet because she doesn’t feel well. Our contractor wants to talk about the next stage of the house construction. An inspector outside wants to collect data for the next draw.

What do I want? Coffee.

I picked up this cup on the way home from having dinner with the in-laws. Time to go home and write.

I read yesterday that you should spend New Year’s Day doing what you want to do all year. Yesterday I met my writing goal: I completed a complete draft of the analysis section for the chapter I’m co-writing. Hopefully, this year I will continue to meet writing goals. Today’s goals: begin drafting my 2010 self-evaluation, and start composing syllabi for the spring semester.

This morning’s cup is helping me think through a debate on my Facebook. Yesterday I Tweeted “Number of gays Jesus condemned in the Bible: zero.” This irritated one of my church friends, and she posted a rebuttal. Her rebuttal irritated one of my non-church friends, and he challenged her position. Now they’re going at it on my wall.

My post was motivated by Christians who use their faith to condemn gays. I figure if you are going to model your life after Christ, you should look to the Gospels for examples of Jesus’ character. He was more likely to condemn the “righteous,” and it’s the “righteous” today who are using their faith to condemn gays. If you want to be like Jesus, it seems you would do better than to commit your energies condemning gays.

Still at work. Still editing the chapter.

I have one writing goal today: to take the draft of an analysis I’m co-writing and make it complete. Yeah, I know. That’s a ridiculous goal. But I am nothing if not ridiculous.

I dreamed last night that I produced a biopic on Stephen Hawking starring Richard Kind. In the closing scene, Hawking got out of his wheelchair, crawled across the floor to a cardboard box, and sorted diapers in the box with his mother.

I really need this cup of coffee.

This cup is to my left. To my right is my woman lounging with me on the couch as we watch the year end.

The last cup of 2010. It just may be the best cup of the year.