Like plenty of other people, when I learn a new word or phrase it finds its way into far more sentences and conversations that it probably should. I briefly worry that someone might be put off by my excessive use of "schema" or "hardly the case." Maybe they are.

Today while driving down the Guide with the grated in-construction roads rattling my teeth, I made out "zero sum" on the radio. I'd just left the middle school where I've been observing - and for the first time today, teaching - and I was feeling hopeful. There was a time when I'd used "zero sum," not just in my speech, but in imagined album titles, song lyrics - all over the place. Today, as it buzzed in my ears, it struck a chord in relation to hope and I realized that my life isn't all leaking tires. It's barreling down the Guide, approaching incredible change.