5. You are an astronaut. Describe your perfect day.

Everybody wants to be an astronaut when they grow up.  Well, everyone except my nephew Axes who for years said that he wanted to be a truck.  When you tell people that you are going to be an astronaut they give you that look.  The “stop being a smart ass” look.  I seriously wanted to become and astronaut and I did.  Was it easy?  Heck no!  Do you know how much math and science it took to become an astronaut?  In college I would always have to room with some geeky liberal arts major who was trying to figure out a new way incorporate the wind in her interpretive dance.  Do you know how annoying that is?  So, as a “going to be an astronaut” I had plenty of rotten days.  Now that I am an actual astronaut (it says this in the occupation blank of my W2’s) I still have lots of rotten days.  The space program is being cut left and right, I’ve had to testify before congress seven times trying to get them to put some money into NASA.  Do you realize how big a check we have to write to Russia to get me into space? But when I am in space, it all disappears.  The politics, the math, the science, it all falls to the wayside.  I am floating.  There is no tension in my body.  I am flying around the space station doing the things that I was trained to do.  As I am floating my eye catches something outside the hatch.  It shines like the most beautiful blue and green marble.  Earth.  When you have seen your home from this vantage point it changes you.  You know that this small speck in the massiveness of space is a fragile beautiful thing.  Poets and artists can try to convey the beauty but it just can’t be done.  As I stare at the Earth I think, this is where I work.  This is perfection.