I'm trying to get in the spirit,
to get in the mood,
the mindset,
the tap in or tap out,
something like that.
I'm trying to clear my head,
trying to think,
but all these mismatched moments,
like layers of red and black playing cards,
keep me shifting this one here and that one there,
and just when I think I've got it hacked,
that damn ace gets in the way.
...Aces in the way...
... story of my life...
Just when I think I have it,
that Ace in the hole,
up my sleeve,
under the table,
that beautiful pair of pocket rockets,
someone comes and trumps my shit
with the Queen of Spades.
... the hell is that?
... trumped my Straight?
... trumped my Full House?
... trumped my Royal Flush?
Guess this Joker's gone wild
and I sat at the wrong table,
and brought the wrong deck,
and played the wrong hand
in an entirely wrong game.
Mismatched moments...
one business -- one personal
one sequence -- one group
one deck -- one suit
one red -- one black
one heart -- one club
one for the beating
... the other for the blood.
About Me
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Attitude Of Gratitude
"Attitude Of Gratitude" is a phrase one of my wacky new agie friends and her husband loved to say all the time. Something good would come their way or they'd make some kind of purchase they'd been working toward for quite some time and they'd turn around and say something like, "It's all about the attitude of gratitude, man. When you're grateful for what you have, The Universe gives you more because The Universe KNOWS you're going to be grateful for that too!"
Now, I never really questioned their thought process in front of them (mostly because I was always happy to see them being grateful for what "The Universe" had given them), but it seemed to me that there was a flaw in their logic. I'm pretty sure the starving people in Africa are grateful when they finally get to eat something, and I'm also sure they're uncertain when they may have their next meal so I'm not sure the thought process of being grateful for what you have been given automatically means you'll be given more. But I do believe there is power in what my friends called the Attitude Of Gratitude, but I believe it is a more personal and internal power -- one that heals and brings joy to the life of the grateful person, not necessarily through material or physical things, but through one's self-awareness or one's spiritual existence, if you will.
I remember another friend of mine going through a particularly dark period in her life. Every where she turned something was going terribly terribly wrong, and it wasn't long before depression and bitterness took over her entire being. Every word that came out of her mouth was dark and hateful, every tear that she shed was the tear of the self-absorbed victim as opposed to true expression of grief, and no matter what I said, no matter how I tried to turn her eyes toward something more positive, some form of hope, she shot me down with more hateful words. Finally I asked her to at least do one thing, to lay down in her bed that night and say thank you for something. I told her if she can think of one thing to be thankful for then she needs to say thank you out loud for that one thing and then think of another. And I told her to start small. I told her to start with the basics, like being thankful for her bed and being thankful for her clothes. And I promised her, that once she started the list, eventually it would branch out to things she realizes she has and has never truly been thankful for. And I also promised, if she did this, she would probably feel the first sense of joy she'd had in months.
She went home and she did it. She continued to do it daily for weeks and eventually those things that made her so bitter and so angry and so depressed, even though they were still there, even though they hadn't vanished, had very little power over her life and her own personal sense of well being. And to this day, she's one of the strongest people I know and has mastered the art of finding something to be grateful for even in the midst of what appears to be Hell. There may not be more "things" around the corner, but there is healing and there is joy in expressing the Attitude Of Gratitude.
We all have dark times. I've had many, I'm going through one right now, and I suspect I'll have many more between now and the hour of my death. But even in the darkest of times, much like my friend there, I have to take a moment and start with the basics and say:
Thank you for this bed I'm laying on. Thank you for this apartment. Thank you for the clothes I have. Thank you for the food in my kitchen. Thank you for the job I have that pays me enough to ensure I have these things. Thank you for the car that gets me there. Thank you for my daughter and how wonderful she is and how much she loves me. Thank you for the love I experience in my relationship with her. Thank you for the chance and the joy of being her mother. Thank you for my parents. Thank you for the love they gave and continue to give to me and the hard hours they spent working their whole lives to make sure my brother and I had everything we needed to become successful in our own adult lives. Thank you for my brother. Thank you for giving me a sibling that understands me like no other and has spent countless hours making me laugh through the years when I would otherwise sit down and cry. Thank you for giving me a confidante in him that I have had nowhere else. Thank you for his wife, thank you for giving him a wife that loves him and cares for him in the most beautiful way. Thank you for their beautiful son that brings them so much joy. Thank you for my closest friends. Thank you for giving me friends that would come to pull me from the fires of Hell if they had to. Thank you for allowing me to experience truly good people in a world that seems so dark sometimes. Thank you for giving me hope, that everything works together for good, that everything will be okay. Thank you for giving me strength to move when I really feel like I can't keep going. Thank you for giving me a sense of wisdom when everything seems to make no sense at all. Thank you for giving me a sense of peace when everything around me is storming. Thank you for giving me everything I need, physically and spiritually to survive this world, and thank you for giving me a sense of accomplishment through each and every life experience I encounter. Thank You.
Now, I never really questioned their thought process in front of them (mostly because I was always happy to see them being grateful for what "The Universe" had given them), but it seemed to me that there was a flaw in their logic. I'm pretty sure the starving people in Africa are grateful when they finally get to eat something, and I'm also sure they're uncertain when they may have their next meal so I'm not sure the thought process of being grateful for what you have been given automatically means you'll be given more. But I do believe there is power in what my friends called the Attitude Of Gratitude, but I believe it is a more personal and internal power -- one that heals and brings joy to the life of the grateful person, not necessarily through material or physical things, but through one's self-awareness or one's spiritual existence, if you will.
I remember another friend of mine going through a particularly dark period in her life. Every where she turned something was going terribly terribly wrong, and it wasn't long before depression and bitterness took over her entire being. Every word that came out of her mouth was dark and hateful, every tear that she shed was the tear of the self-absorbed victim as opposed to true expression of grief, and no matter what I said, no matter how I tried to turn her eyes toward something more positive, some form of hope, she shot me down with more hateful words. Finally I asked her to at least do one thing, to lay down in her bed that night and say thank you for something. I told her if she can think of one thing to be thankful for then she needs to say thank you out loud for that one thing and then think of another. And I told her to start small. I told her to start with the basics, like being thankful for her bed and being thankful for her clothes. And I promised her, that once she started the list, eventually it would branch out to things she realizes she has and has never truly been thankful for. And I also promised, if she did this, she would probably feel the first sense of joy she'd had in months.
She went home and she did it. She continued to do it daily for weeks and eventually those things that made her so bitter and so angry and so depressed, even though they were still there, even though they hadn't vanished, had very little power over her life and her own personal sense of well being. And to this day, she's one of the strongest people I know and has mastered the art of finding something to be grateful for even in the midst of what appears to be Hell. There may not be more "things" around the corner, but there is healing and there is joy in expressing the Attitude Of Gratitude.
We all have dark times. I've had many, I'm going through one right now, and I suspect I'll have many more between now and the hour of my death. But even in the darkest of times, much like my friend there, I have to take a moment and start with the basics and say:
Thank you for this bed I'm laying on. Thank you for this apartment. Thank you for the clothes I have. Thank you for the food in my kitchen. Thank you for the job I have that pays me enough to ensure I have these things. Thank you for the car that gets me there. Thank you for my daughter and how wonderful she is and how much she loves me. Thank you for the love I experience in my relationship with her. Thank you for the chance and the joy of being her mother. Thank you for my parents. Thank you for the love they gave and continue to give to me and the hard hours they spent working their whole lives to make sure my brother and I had everything we needed to become successful in our own adult lives. Thank you for my brother. Thank you for giving me a sibling that understands me like no other and has spent countless hours making me laugh through the years when I would otherwise sit down and cry. Thank you for giving me a confidante in him that I have had nowhere else. Thank you for his wife, thank you for giving him a wife that loves him and cares for him in the most beautiful way. Thank you for their beautiful son that brings them so much joy. Thank you for my closest friends. Thank you for giving me friends that would come to pull me from the fires of Hell if they had to. Thank you for allowing me to experience truly good people in a world that seems so dark sometimes. Thank you for giving me hope, that everything works together for good, that everything will be okay. Thank you for giving me strength to move when I really feel like I can't keep going. Thank you for giving me a sense of wisdom when everything seems to make no sense at all. Thank you for giving me a sense of peace when everything around me is storming. Thank you for giving me everything I need, physically and spiritually to survive this world, and thank you for giving me a sense of accomplishment through each and every life experience I encounter. Thank You.
Friday, November 18, 2011
90 Day Chip
It's been 90 days.
Yes, I'm counting.
Some people don't get that, but I had no recourse, no way to navigate through the fog called grief. And somewhere in the clouded visions of my mind I remembered someone calling Love an addiction and so, in the midst of my misery, I decided that if Love was an addiction then I needed to count my days through withdrawal and keep track of my recovery and well, here we are:
I don't know what to say, really. If you know me, if you were lucky enough to truly know "us," if you know what I went through here, you would know that I don't truly have the first clue what to think or say about of any of this (regardless of the jaded jokes I may make about it at this point in a further and more developed attempt to survive).
On day one, after no sleep, I got up out of the pointless bed and poured myself a cup of coffee and called my family and told them that I wasn't getting married. I then pulled myself together long enough to go find a place to live because my lease was up and I had nowhere to go. I came home and wrote my own phone number and address on a piece of paper in front of me so that I could remember what I needed to tell the moving company when I scheduled them to go pick up my things from his house, and I then I called my friends to tell them I wasn't getting married and I needed a group of people to help me move what was left in my hovel over to my new apartment and after I got all of that done... I lost it.
On day two I pretty much stared at the wall even though I was supposed to pack up the rest of my apartment. At some point my "matron of honor" showed up and packed up the rest of my place.
On day three I pulled myself together enough to get to work and told myself that even I sat there like a zombie, at least I was there.
On day four my daughter fell apart and the rest of the week was a wash.
On day six, when I was supposed to get married, my friends came and moved things out of my apartment and the movers came and brought my things over from his place.
On day seven, the day after what was supposed to be my wedding, my family, some of which had flown out from out of state, came to my new apartment to bring me wedding gifts that they now called house warming gifts, and toured through my new apartment trying to be as positive as they could be and all I could do was look at my brother and say, "I know what they're trying to do, but I can't help it... I'm not supposed to be here right now." And all he could do was nod at me in silent recognition of the emotional hell I was in because he's my brother and knows me better than anyone and he's the best person I know and pretty much the only person I really wanted to see that day.
On day eight I couldn't get to work. I woke up and promptly fell to pieces and called my secretary and told her I just couldn't get there and then I went back to bed. Around 11:00 a.m. she messaged me and said, "At least get up and unpack your boxes." She was right. I got up and unpacked my office because that's my sacred space and I at least needed to make that place happen.
Between day 8 and day 29 I got up and functioned. I got up and went to work and explained repeatedly that I didn't have a honeymoon because I had been dumped by the dumpster. And I was thankful for all of the meetings that usually stress me out and frustrate the hell out of me because at least they forced me outside of my own head, but somewhere between the office and home I would sink back into hell and there was no stopping it.
By day 30 someone asked me how I was doing and I said, "I went to bed crying and I woke up crying. I feel like someone sapped my A Game and I have no clue how to get it back, and in the mean time the B team is running with the ball but they keep dropping it and they're fouling all over the place."
By day 32 I received a phone call from my daughter's teacher saying she wasn't doing well and I checked her grades and I fell to pieces because I knew it was my fault, because I knew her performance was directly related to my own and well... we were failing. So I sucked it up and I pulled myself together and I pulled her together and we spent three nights making up work and sleeping very little but we still came out on top because that's how we roll. Shit gets ugly sometimes but if you don't keep moving with life it's going to move on without you and well... that's just unacceptable so... shame on me for letting it get down that far but I'll be damned if I let that happen again.
And somewhere between day 32 and day 60 I was haunted by crazy nightmares where my subconscious either replayed the event over and over again or I was following him around picking up pieces of things he dropped behind him and begging him not to do this.
Somewhere around day 61 my nightmares shifted to him begging me to come back to him and me saying no.
Somewhere around day 65 a friend of mine went out of town and we baby-sat her dog and that was the best weekend we'd had in 65 days. That doggy was the brightest piece of joy we'd had in quite some time and so by day 67 we decided to adopt our own doggy, Charity, because we needed a sweet little happy thing bouncing around our new home to remind us that life isn't all that bad.
Somewhere around day 72 a gentleman from a group of friends I know creatively took me off guard and asked me out on a date and I said yes even though I didn't really want to.
On day 73 I convinced myself that I should at least go on the date and let the man take me to dinner and help me remember that I'm pretty and intelligent and worth being around because my confidence was completely shot.
On day 75 I found myself telling this man that had started texting me and calling me as though he were already my boyfriend that I was far from ready and I remembered why I hated dating and I fell back into some pit where I hated my man for leaving me in this stupid space.
And somewhere between day 75 and now I looked at my daughter and said, "I think I need to resurrect Pandora." And she said, "Yes, you do. She's a strong woman, Pandora, and right now I think we need her."
And somewhere between 75 and 80 something I brought Pandora back and it felt like the best moment I've had in a long long time because I remembered a bit more of who I was before all this shit went down. And somewhere in my head I remembered someone saying, "You don't need him, you just want him. You never needed him, you lived a long time without him, you'll be fine. Just get over the hurt and remember who you are."
And in day 87 someone said to me, "What do you need to do to get your A Game back?" And I said, "The first step is writing." And here I am, best player on the A Team making her appearance.
And on day 90 I want to take a moment to say the following:
I loved that man, not in the shallow way that most people toss that word around, but in the way in which I truly believed I was going to look into his eyes until I was too blind to see. I was going to be with him until my singing voice made people wish I'd realize how old I was and sit down. I was going to be with him until my body was too crippled to move. I was going to be with him until I breathed my last breath. He was not bad to me, he has some strange hang up that ripped the carpet right out from under all three of us because I apparently was too love struck to see it coming but... please don't tell me I'm better off. I may be, but I have yet to have that moment of breathing a sigh of relief because I dodged some kind of bullet. Most of the time I sit here and say to myself, "If he's that fucked in the head, then yes... I can see that this may be best, but the past three years with the man tell me otherwise and this just doesn't make sense." I had beautiful years with this person, I didn't see this coming and I do hope for his own sake he fixes his stupid ass crazy shit (if for no other reason than the fact that he's going to live one hell of a lonely ass hermit life if he doesn't). And I do want to give a certain amount of props to the unique people who have said the following:
"I know you're hurting. I want you to remember this: you did not pick a bad man, Pandora. He was all the things you believed he was. He is just a man with a blemish. I'm sorry."
"We have no doubt that he loved you, but you were obviously a trigger for something he needs to come to terms with."
"We know you, we watched you, we all believed this was perfect..."
"We're going to be okay, Mom. We're going to be okay without him. He's not going to be okay without us, but we're going to be okay without him. I promise."
"It's just a speed bump, Pandora. ...just a speed bump in the road."
My name is Pandora. I've successfully completed 90 days of rejection recovery.
Now give me my damn chip!
Yes, I'm counting.
Some people don't get that, but I had no recourse, no way to navigate through the fog called grief. And somewhere in the clouded visions of my mind I remembered someone calling Love an addiction and so, in the midst of my misery, I decided that if Love was an addiction then I needed to count my days through withdrawal and keep track of my recovery and well, here we are:
I don't know what to say, really. If you know me, if you were lucky enough to truly know "us," if you know what I went through here, you would know that I don't truly have the first clue what to think or say about of any of this (regardless of the jaded jokes I may make about it at this point in a further and more developed attempt to survive).
On day one, after no sleep, I got up out of the pointless bed and poured myself a cup of coffee and called my family and told them that I wasn't getting married. I then pulled myself together long enough to go find a place to live because my lease was up and I had nowhere to go. I came home and wrote my own phone number and address on a piece of paper in front of me so that I could remember what I needed to tell the moving company when I scheduled them to go pick up my things from his house, and I then I called my friends to tell them I wasn't getting married and I needed a group of people to help me move what was left in my hovel over to my new apartment and after I got all of that done... I lost it.
On day two I pretty much stared at the wall even though I was supposed to pack up the rest of my apartment. At some point my "matron of honor" showed up and packed up the rest of my place.
On day three I pulled myself together enough to get to work and told myself that even I sat there like a zombie, at least I was there.
On day four my daughter fell apart and the rest of the week was a wash.
On day six, when I was supposed to get married, my friends came and moved things out of my apartment and the movers came and brought my things over from his place.
On day seven, the day after what was supposed to be my wedding, my family, some of which had flown out from out of state, came to my new apartment to bring me wedding gifts that they now called house warming gifts, and toured through my new apartment trying to be as positive as they could be and all I could do was look at my brother and say, "I know what they're trying to do, but I can't help it... I'm not supposed to be here right now." And all he could do was nod at me in silent recognition of the emotional hell I was in because he's my brother and knows me better than anyone and he's the best person I know and pretty much the only person I really wanted to see that day.
On day eight I couldn't get to work. I woke up and promptly fell to pieces and called my secretary and told her I just couldn't get there and then I went back to bed. Around 11:00 a.m. she messaged me and said, "At least get up and unpack your boxes." She was right. I got up and unpacked my office because that's my sacred space and I at least needed to make that place happen.
Between day 8 and day 29 I got up and functioned. I got up and went to work and explained repeatedly that I didn't have a honeymoon because I had been dumped by the dumpster. And I was thankful for all of the meetings that usually stress me out and frustrate the hell out of me because at least they forced me outside of my own head, but somewhere between the office and home I would sink back into hell and there was no stopping it.
By day 30 someone asked me how I was doing and I said, "I went to bed crying and I woke up crying. I feel like someone sapped my A Game and I have no clue how to get it back, and in the mean time the B team is running with the ball but they keep dropping it and they're fouling all over the place."
By day 32 I received a phone call from my daughter's teacher saying she wasn't doing well and I checked her grades and I fell to pieces because I knew it was my fault, because I knew her performance was directly related to my own and well... we were failing. So I sucked it up and I pulled myself together and I pulled her together and we spent three nights making up work and sleeping very little but we still came out on top because that's how we roll. Shit gets ugly sometimes but if you don't keep moving with life it's going to move on without you and well... that's just unacceptable so... shame on me for letting it get down that far but I'll be damned if I let that happen again.
And somewhere between day 32 and day 60 I was haunted by crazy nightmares where my subconscious either replayed the event over and over again or I was following him around picking up pieces of things he dropped behind him and begging him not to do this.
Somewhere around day 61 my nightmares shifted to him begging me to come back to him and me saying no.
Somewhere around day 65 a friend of mine went out of town and we baby-sat her dog and that was the best weekend we'd had in 65 days. That doggy was the brightest piece of joy we'd had in quite some time and so by day 67 we decided to adopt our own doggy, Charity, because we needed a sweet little happy thing bouncing around our new home to remind us that life isn't all that bad.
Somewhere around day 72 a gentleman from a group of friends I know creatively took me off guard and asked me out on a date and I said yes even though I didn't really want to.
On day 73 I convinced myself that I should at least go on the date and let the man take me to dinner and help me remember that I'm pretty and intelligent and worth being around because my confidence was completely shot.
On day 75 I found myself telling this man that had started texting me and calling me as though he were already my boyfriend that I was far from ready and I remembered why I hated dating and I fell back into some pit where I hated my man for leaving me in this stupid space.
And somewhere between day 75 and now I looked at my daughter and said, "I think I need to resurrect Pandora." And she said, "Yes, you do. She's a strong woman, Pandora, and right now I think we need her."
And somewhere between 75 and 80 something I brought Pandora back and it felt like the best moment I've had in a long long time because I remembered a bit more of who I was before all this shit went down. And somewhere in my head I remembered someone saying, "You don't need him, you just want him. You never needed him, you lived a long time without him, you'll be fine. Just get over the hurt and remember who you are."
And in day 87 someone said to me, "What do you need to do to get your A Game back?" And I said, "The first step is writing." And here I am, best player on the A Team making her appearance.
And on day 90 I want to take a moment to say the following:
I loved that man, not in the shallow way that most people toss that word around, but in the way in which I truly believed I was going to look into his eyes until I was too blind to see. I was going to be with him until my singing voice made people wish I'd realize how old I was and sit down. I was going to be with him until my body was too crippled to move. I was going to be with him until I breathed my last breath. He was not bad to me, he has some strange hang up that ripped the carpet right out from under all three of us because I apparently was too love struck to see it coming but... please don't tell me I'm better off. I may be, but I have yet to have that moment of breathing a sigh of relief because I dodged some kind of bullet. Most of the time I sit here and say to myself, "If he's that fucked in the head, then yes... I can see that this may be best, but the past three years with the man tell me otherwise and this just doesn't make sense." I had beautiful years with this person, I didn't see this coming and I do hope for his own sake he fixes his stupid ass crazy shit (if for no other reason than the fact that he's going to live one hell of a lonely ass hermit life if he doesn't). And I do want to give a certain amount of props to the unique people who have said the following:
"I know you're hurting. I want you to remember this: you did not pick a bad man, Pandora. He was all the things you believed he was. He is just a man with a blemish. I'm sorry."
"We have no doubt that he loved you, but you were obviously a trigger for something he needs to come to terms with."
"We know you, we watched you, we all believed this was perfect..."
"We're going to be okay, Mom. We're going to be okay without him. He's not going to be okay without us, but we're going to be okay without him. I promise."
"It's just a speed bump, Pandora. ...just a speed bump in the road."
My name is Pandora. I've successfully completed 90 days of rejection recovery.
Now give me my damn chip!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
The Detail Is In Your Toes
So... I win an Oscar today for playing it off. Playing what off? Well, I pretty much sliced off the top meaty portion of my second toe and I still stood there and smiled like Miss Congeniality and walked out with the poise of a super model with a book on her head when I completely felt like screaming the infamous F-word multiple times.
"Oh my gosh!" You say (except you don't say "gosh") "What happened?" You say.
Well, I had just been in a meeting for the past hour and a half where I had, once again, been the bearer of somewhat (or at least potential) bad news, and when I got up to leave the conference room I was talking to someone over my shoulder as I pulled the heavy conference room door across my right foot which, as I said above, pretty much sliced through the top meaty portion of the second toe on my right foot.
It hurt like absolute hell. I'm not lying. If it had happened at my house, I have no doubt that I would've fallen to my knees and screamed sinful obscenities in front of my beautiful daughter and would've owed her much apologies later (which pretty much mean nothing to her these days because I'm certain, by the age of 12, she's grown to expect nothing less from me). But instead, I felt the searing pain and simply continued to smile at all the gentlemen in the room as though it hadn't happened and say my goodbyes. I proceeded to walk out the door and greet the gentlemen on the other side of the door, who knew me, as though everything was just peachy. I walked down the stairs as though nothing was wrong when all I really wanted to do was fall over and make a painful and overly dramatic scene. I calmly and elegantly walked out to the parking lot and casually conversed with the engineer I came with as the blood began to pool so badly beneath my foot inside my high healed sandal I could feel it splashing out onto the asphalt with every step. And I didn't say a thing about it until I got into the car and I sweetly asked the engineer that I came with if he happened to have a tissue because I hurt my toe and I thought it may be bleeding. At that point he stopped and looked at the horror that was my toe and said, "Holy shit! We got some blood born pathogens going on here!" (and we need to take a moment to recognize that's a pretty colorful response, for an engineer. We must applaud him for that.)
Anyway, he dropped me off at my office and I promptly walked (or limped by that point because my entire foot was throbbing by then) to the nurse's office (and yes, my company has a nurse's office the same way your child's school has a nurse's office and well... I have to say it's one of the coolest things ever). They soaked my foot in some sort of something and they bandaged me all up and then they wrote a short report and sent it to my boss (which is hilarious and at some point I will have to write about "safety minutes" and such, but now is not the time). And no, in case you're wondering, this is not an OSHA recordable event (thankfully).
After I walked back to my desk and sat there long enough to respond to my boss who had just received the report, my mind started wandering about toes and things (because that's what my mind does, it wanders about stupid things like this). At some point I remembered what a wacky new agey friend of mine would've said at a moment like this. She would've said, "Hmmmm... What detail are you not paying attention to?"
Now, for you or I, we would most likely respond with, "Well, obviously I wasn't paying attention to the fact that my right foot was dangerously close to the stupid door I apparently pulled open with the strength of an ox." But that wouldn't suffice for her. She would be applying some kind of crazy symbol to it because to her, there was no such thing as an accident, everything in the body was a symbol for something else in your external life, and if you did something like stub your toe (let alone slice off the meaty top portion of the damn thing) you must be walking around oblivious to some other detail in your life.
Like I said, everything to her was a symbol. The back is the "support system" of your life. So, if you have chronic back problems, to her this means your "support system," like your friends or your family, is failing you somewhere. Your knees were your ability to be "flexible in life," so if you had knee problems there was obviously something somewhere in your emotional life that you were refusing to "bend" for. She called this "body feng shui," and if you didn't "heal" what was happening on the outside of your body you would never "heal" what was wrong with the body.
I never really took her too seriously because... well, logic and reason and science pretty much overrule any of that mish mash there. However, at least from a writer's perspecitve, her view on life and the symbolism of everything proved valuable for creative purposes. ... for pracitical everyday living? Not so much. She would spend an entire afternoon trying to figure out the meaning behind her papercut and then, after hours of stressing over what spiritual shift must've taken place because of the papercut were wasted, she would call me up hoping I might have an answer and be sorely disappointed when I would say, "You got a papercut. It happens."
I really don't talk with this person anymore, but every once in a while she, or something she said in the past, crops up into my head. This whole slice my toe moment was one of those. So... I had this moment, where I was remembering her and recalling how she would've responded to something like this, and I sat there thinking, "Okay... what detail are you not paying attention to? Did you miss anything in the information you provided? Nope. Did you miss anything in your delivery of the message? Nope. Did you not smile in the right place? Nope. Did you miss some sort of political nuiance? Nope. Did you not notice the man off to the side looking at you a certain way that was not business oriented? Nope. Did you not notice that you've been ignoring the dishes lately? Nope. Did you not notice that you've been stressing out over things that you would usually take with a grain of salt? Nope. So.... what did you not notice? Um... I think I didn't notice where my foot was when I opened the door and that was a pretty significant detail so... that must've been it."
I think that thought process lasted less than the time it took me to write that paragraph, but I still laughed that my mind took the time to consider her perspective. I mean, I guess I could say something like I must've scraped the meat off my toe because I really needed to take more time on the couch tonight instead of doing the dishes in the sink but... I still don't think that's it. The details may be in the toes, but I think it's more like it's because they're easily forgotten. I mean... they're just toes, after all, and I'm one woman in a room full of male engineers who most likely hated what I had to say so... hell... who wouldn't inadvertently slice off the meatiest portion of their toe when trying to escape a room like that?!
(...and suddenly I can hear her saying, "why are you still afraid of the engineers?")
...unspoken details....
...stupid toes....
"Oh my gosh!" You say (except you don't say "gosh") "What happened?" You say.
Well, I had just been in a meeting for the past hour and a half where I had, once again, been the bearer of somewhat (or at least potential) bad news, and when I got up to leave the conference room I was talking to someone over my shoulder as I pulled the heavy conference room door across my right foot which, as I said above, pretty much sliced through the top meaty portion of the second toe on my right foot.
It hurt like absolute hell. I'm not lying. If it had happened at my house, I have no doubt that I would've fallen to my knees and screamed sinful obscenities in front of my beautiful daughter and would've owed her much apologies later (which pretty much mean nothing to her these days because I'm certain, by the age of 12, she's grown to expect nothing less from me). But instead, I felt the searing pain and simply continued to smile at all the gentlemen in the room as though it hadn't happened and say my goodbyes. I proceeded to walk out the door and greet the gentlemen on the other side of the door, who knew me, as though everything was just peachy. I walked down the stairs as though nothing was wrong when all I really wanted to do was fall over and make a painful and overly dramatic scene. I calmly and elegantly walked out to the parking lot and casually conversed with the engineer I came with as the blood began to pool so badly beneath my foot inside my high healed sandal I could feel it splashing out onto the asphalt with every step. And I didn't say a thing about it until I got into the car and I sweetly asked the engineer that I came with if he happened to have a tissue because I hurt my toe and I thought it may be bleeding. At that point he stopped and looked at the horror that was my toe and said, "Holy shit! We got some blood born pathogens going on here!" (and we need to take a moment to recognize that's a pretty colorful response, for an engineer. We must applaud him for that.)
Anyway, he dropped me off at my office and I promptly walked (or limped by that point because my entire foot was throbbing by then) to the nurse's office (and yes, my company has a nurse's office the same way your child's school has a nurse's office and well... I have to say it's one of the coolest things ever). They soaked my foot in some sort of something and they bandaged me all up and then they wrote a short report and sent it to my boss (which is hilarious and at some point I will have to write about "safety minutes" and such, but now is not the time). And no, in case you're wondering, this is not an OSHA recordable event (thankfully).
After I walked back to my desk and sat there long enough to respond to my boss who had just received the report, my mind started wandering about toes and things (because that's what my mind does, it wanders about stupid things like this). At some point I remembered what a wacky new agey friend of mine would've said at a moment like this. She would've said, "Hmmmm... What detail are you not paying attention to?"
Now, for you or I, we would most likely respond with, "Well, obviously I wasn't paying attention to the fact that my right foot was dangerously close to the stupid door I apparently pulled open with the strength of an ox." But that wouldn't suffice for her. She would be applying some kind of crazy symbol to it because to her, there was no such thing as an accident, everything in the body was a symbol for something else in your external life, and if you did something like stub your toe (let alone slice off the meaty top portion of the damn thing) you must be walking around oblivious to some other detail in your life.
Like I said, everything to her was a symbol. The back is the "support system" of your life. So, if you have chronic back problems, to her this means your "support system," like your friends or your family, is failing you somewhere. Your knees were your ability to be "flexible in life," so if you had knee problems there was obviously something somewhere in your emotional life that you were refusing to "bend" for. She called this "body feng shui," and if you didn't "heal" what was happening on the outside of your body you would never "heal" what was wrong with the body.
I never really took her too seriously because... well, logic and reason and science pretty much overrule any of that mish mash there. However, at least from a writer's perspecitve, her view on life and the symbolism of everything proved valuable for creative purposes. ... for pracitical everyday living? Not so much. She would spend an entire afternoon trying to figure out the meaning behind her papercut and then, after hours of stressing over what spiritual shift must've taken place because of the papercut were wasted, she would call me up hoping I might have an answer and be sorely disappointed when I would say, "You got a papercut. It happens."
I really don't talk with this person anymore, but every once in a while she, or something she said in the past, crops up into my head. This whole slice my toe moment was one of those. So... I had this moment, where I was remembering her and recalling how she would've responded to something like this, and I sat there thinking, "Okay... what detail are you not paying attention to? Did you miss anything in the information you provided? Nope. Did you miss anything in your delivery of the message? Nope. Did you not smile in the right place? Nope. Did you miss some sort of political nuiance? Nope. Did you not notice the man off to the side looking at you a certain way that was not business oriented? Nope. Did you not notice that you've been ignoring the dishes lately? Nope. Did you not notice that you've been stressing out over things that you would usually take with a grain of salt? Nope. So.... what did you not notice? Um... I think I didn't notice where my foot was when I opened the door and that was a pretty significant detail so... that must've been it."
I think that thought process lasted less than the time it took me to write that paragraph, but I still laughed that my mind took the time to consider her perspective. I mean, I guess I could say something like I must've scraped the meat off my toe because I really needed to take more time on the couch tonight instead of doing the dishes in the sink but... I still don't think that's it. The details may be in the toes, but I think it's more like it's because they're easily forgotten. I mean... they're just toes, after all, and I'm one woman in a room full of male engineers who most likely hated what I had to say so... hell... who wouldn't inadvertently slice off the meatiest portion of their toe when trying to escape a room like that?!
(...and suddenly I can hear her saying, "why are you still afraid of the engineers?")
...unspoken details....
...stupid toes....
Monday, November 14, 2011
So... much like everything else that has changed since I wrote last May, this stupid blog decided to "upgrade" the way they do things. I'm currently sitting here staring at this, even while I'm typing, and thinking... really? This is an improvement? Because it really looks like a waste of space on my computer screen. No joke. What I'm looking at right now is a small white rectangle with an arrow at the bottom of it, in the middle of a huge gray rectangle, with some stuff that looks similar to microsoft word at the top (probably put there to comfort my writing soul) and some some "post settings" at the right margin that I will most likely never use.
...sigh...
I'm really super tired of change right now. As much as Obama may have used that word to win his way into office, right now it's my enemy (much like the rest of the country... but then again, we could probably make more of a case for stagnation there with the rest of the country, but change is definitely the enemy of my life here personally).
I've lived in this stupid apartment for almost three months now, since my "dumped by the dumpster" incident, and well... I'm not in the hovel anymore, but I am in the same complex (even if we call it an upgrade) and it's irritating me right now (not that there aren't many things that wouldn't irritate me right now anyway). I moved myself into a three bedroom (which is nice, because I actually have an office now instead of a "living room" that I've turned into an office, which also means I actually have a living room now instead of a "master bedroom" that I turned into a living room), and this three bedroom came with complete upgrades: all new flooring, and renovated bathrooms and a renovated kitchen and laundry room. It really is nice to look at. The one thing that's really getting on my nerves is that the upgrade somehow means I've gone green.
Now... I'm very much aware that I'm treading on thin ice here. I've been intending for some time to rant about how "going green" has basically become some sort of government endorsed religion, but ... obviously I haven't done that yet. And unfortunately for me, I may have waited too long because that religion has now forced itself upon me (and isn't it just like the government to preach tolerance until it has a religion of its own to force upon the people). You see, all of my appliances here in this new apartment have "gone green." And I'll be honest, I don't care about the gone green microwave or the gone green dishwasher or the gone green washing machine and dryer. But what's really getting to me is the stupid gone green toilets. REALLY?! Why did they have to mess with my toilets?! I am willing, oh great government, to do the "if it's yellow let it mellow" thing, but to force it upon me in the way you have done is just ... I won't even say unfair. Let's just say it's disgusting.
You see, I have these toilets in here now that have two buttons. One has one drop of water on it and the other has two drops of water on it. I had no clue, the first time I used the things what those stupid buttons meant. So, I apologize for my crudeness here, but I took a doo doo in one of the toilets and I had no clue what I was supposed to do. I pushed a button, to be more specific I pushed the button with one drop of water on it, and next to nothing happened except I'm almost certain I plugged the damn thing for life. Later that day I made a comment to my daughter about and, unfortunately for me she's growing up in the "gone green" generation and so she says to me in her overly educated way, "Um... Mom... one drop of water is for number one and two drops of water is for number two. I can't believe you didn't know that. Gosh..."
So... In all of our highly intellectual gone green save the Earth mentality, when it comes to toilets gone green we still need to speak to one another as toddlers: When you go number 1 you push number 1, when you go number 2 you push number 2.
Dammit... aside from the fact that I've clogged my toilet for life because I pushed number one when I went number two, does this piss anyone else off besides me?!?!?!
stupid gone green....
...sigh...
I'm really super tired of change right now. As much as Obama may have used that word to win his way into office, right now it's my enemy (much like the rest of the country... but then again, we could probably make more of a case for stagnation there with the rest of the country, but change is definitely the enemy of my life here personally).
I've lived in this stupid apartment for almost three months now, since my "dumped by the dumpster" incident, and well... I'm not in the hovel anymore, but I am in the same complex (even if we call it an upgrade) and it's irritating me right now (not that there aren't many things that wouldn't irritate me right now anyway). I moved myself into a three bedroom (which is nice, because I actually have an office now instead of a "living room" that I've turned into an office, which also means I actually have a living room now instead of a "master bedroom" that I turned into a living room), and this three bedroom came with complete upgrades: all new flooring, and renovated bathrooms and a renovated kitchen and laundry room. It really is nice to look at. The one thing that's really getting on my nerves is that the upgrade somehow means I've gone green.
Now... I'm very much aware that I'm treading on thin ice here. I've been intending for some time to rant about how "going green" has basically become some sort of government endorsed religion, but ... obviously I haven't done that yet. And unfortunately for me, I may have waited too long because that religion has now forced itself upon me (and isn't it just like the government to preach tolerance until it has a religion of its own to force upon the people). You see, all of my appliances here in this new apartment have "gone green." And I'll be honest, I don't care about the gone green microwave or the gone green dishwasher or the gone green washing machine and dryer. But what's really getting to me is the stupid gone green toilets. REALLY?! Why did they have to mess with my toilets?! I am willing, oh great government, to do the "if it's yellow let it mellow" thing, but to force it upon me in the way you have done is just ... I won't even say unfair. Let's just say it's disgusting.
You see, I have these toilets in here now that have two buttons. One has one drop of water on it and the other has two drops of water on it. I had no clue, the first time I used the things what those stupid buttons meant. So, I apologize for my crudeness here, but I took a doo doo in one of the toilets and I had no clue what I was supposed to do. I pushed a button, to be more specific I pushed the button with one drop of water on it, and next to nothing happened except I'm almost certain I plugged the damn thing for life. Later that day I made a comment to my daughter about and, unfortunately for me she's growing up in the "gone green" generation and so she says to me in her overly educated way, "Um... Mom... one drop of water is for number one and two drops of water is for number two. I can't believe you didn't know that. Gosh..."
So... In all of our highly intellectual gone green save the Earth mentality, when it comes to toilets gone green we still need to speak to one another as toddlers: When you go number 1 you push number 1, when you go number 2 you push number 2.
Dammit... aside from the fact that I've clogged my toilet for life because I pushed number one when I went number two, does this piss anyone else off besides me?!?!?!
stupid gone green....
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Welcome Back, Pandora
So... I retired Pandora in May but, like an athlete that just can't give up the game, it's time for a resurrection, it's time for Pandora to get back in the game.
You see, I (or Pandora, if you will) fell in love not too long ago. I had this moment in time where some of the rougher edges were rounded out, where some of the jaded self was giving way to something softer and lighter, something that seemed a bit more sound, something that seemed a bit more like hope personified. So I retired her thinking that her time to shine had come and gone. Pandora was born from some of life's darkest moments and her wit and her strength became a way to put life into perspective, to put a sarcastic and humorous slant on some of life's more irksome and frustrating moments, to put sorrow in its artistic place, to put grace in some sort of waltz with words, and make life that much more of a journey, a test of strength and a trial of growth in print. Given the fact that everything seemed to be changing, evolving into something new, some sort of uncharted territory, I had this thought that I would create a new persona to embody the change to come. I was getting married. Pandora wasn't one to get married, or at least that was my thought at the time. Ironically enough, I didn't get married. I had created a new persona, set up a new blog that I think I posted two pathetic pieces to that I wouldn't even consider worth reading, I decided the only way to move forward was to bring Pandora back.
So... why? Why bring Pandora back? Well, because only Pandora would fall in love with an idiot that could dump her via text message on his way to the dumpster six days before the wedding. Only Pandora could stand there staring at her phone saying something like, "Is this a fucking joke?! Did you seriously just dump my ass via text message on the way to the fucking dumpster while I'm standing up here waiting for you to come back for a night swim?!" Only Pandora would have the balls to call up the jack ass and say, "Fuck you, you chicken shit! I'm driving out to your house and you're going to say this to my fucking face, you ass hole!" Only Pandora would have the courage to drive out to his house, walk into the darkness and turn on all the lights to find him hiding under some blankets on the couch and say, "Fuck you, you're not sleeping! I was only ten minutes behind you! Get your chicken shit ass up and tell me to my face that you can't do this!" And when the coward punk with some serious issues sits up and says, "Pandora... I can't do this," only Pandora would have enough fire to throw her ring at him and say, "Fuck you! Go get your fucking check book and write me a check for $2000 because I spent all my money on stupid wedding bull shit and now my lease is up and I have to find a place to live! You go get your damn check book and you write me that check right now!" And only Pandora would drive home after raving and ranting and trying very hard not to rip his face off thinking about the symbolism of being dumped with the garbage at the dumpster. And only Pandora would have the strength to make some kind of humorous joke out of this whole mess. And only Pandora would sit on her patio and remember a stupid line from a stupid Alanis Morissette song about Irony that said, "it's when you meet the man of your dreams and then you meet his beautiful wife." And only Pandora would say, "Um... no, Alanis honey, you've got it all wrong. Irony is when you meet the man of your dreams and then you meet his three cupboards full of disgusting Tupperware that looks like it might grow legs and walk away, and his boxes of pots and pans from World War II that he got as cast off gifts from his grandmother, and his six drawers of socks, and his closet full of clothes that he's been hording from the last 17 years of his life only to get dumped at the dumpster via text message because you dared view them as junk and throw them away."
Isn't it ironic... You meet the man of your dreams and then you meet his Glad Lock containers...
Only Pandora... Queen of Stalkers and Freakishly Strange Experiences that should only happen in B Rated Romance Films.
Only Pandora...
And so, I can take the silence no more. Writing makes me happy, writing keeps me sane and makes me whole, and ever since this happened it's been difficult to find my voice so...
Welcome back, Pandora. I've missed you.
You see, I (or Pandora, if you will) fell in love not too long ago. I had this moment in time where some of the rougher edges were rounded out, where some of the jaded self was giving way to something softer and lighter, something that seemed a bit more sound, something that seemed a bit more like hope personified. So I retired her thinking that her time to shine had come and gone. Pandora was born from some of life's darkest moments and her wit and her strength became a way to put life into perspective, to put a sarcastic and humorous slant on some of life's more irksome and frustrating moments, to put sorrow in its artistic place, to put grace in some sort of waltz with words, and make life that much more of a journey, a test of strength and a trial of growth in print. Given the fact that everything seemed to be changing, evolving into something new, some sort of uncharted territory, I had this thought that I would create a new persona to embody the change to come. I was getting married. Pandora wasn't one to get married, or at least that was my thought at the time. Ironically enough, I didn't get married. I had created a new persona, set up a new blog that I think I posted two pathetic pieces to that I wouldn't even consider worth reading, I decided the only way to move forward was to bring Pandora back.
So... why? Why bring Pandora back? Well, because only Pandora would fall in love with an idiot that could dump her via text message on his way to the dumpster six days before the wedding. Only Pandora could stand there staring at her phone saying something like, "Is this a fucking joke?! Did you seriously just dump my ass via text message on the way to the fucking dumpster while I'm standing up here waiting for you to come back for a night swim?!" Only Pandora would have the balls to call up the jack ass and say, "Fuck you, you chicken shit! I'm driving out to your house and you're going to say this to my fucking face, you ass hole!" Only Pandora would have the courage to drive out to his house, walk into the darkness and turn on all the lights to find him hiding under some blankets on the couch and say, "Fuck you, you're not sleeping! I was only ten minutes behind you! Get your chicken shit ass up and tell me to my face that you can't do this!" And when the coward punk with some serious issues sits up and says, "Pandora... I can't do this," only Pandora would have enough fire to throw her ring at him and say, "Fuck you! Go get your fucking check book and write me a check for $2000 because I spent all my money on stupid wedding bull shit and now my lease is up and I have to find a place to live! You go get your damn check book and you write me that check right now!" And only Pandora would drive home after raving and ranting and trying very hard not to rip his face off thinking about the symbolism of being dumped with the garbage at the dumpster. And only Pandora would have the strength to make some kind of humorous joke out of this whole mess. And only Pandora would sit on her patio and remember a stupid line from a stupid Alanis Morissette song about Irony that said, "it's when you meet the man of your dreams and then you meet his beautiful wife." And only Pandora would say, "Um... no, Alanis honey, you've got it all wrong. Irony is when you meet the man of your dreams and then you meet his three cupboards full of disgusting Tupperware that looks like it might grow legs and walk away, and his boxes of pots and pans from World War II that he got as cast off gifts from his grandmother, and his six drawers of socks, and his closet full of clothes that he's been hording from the last 17 years of his life only to get dumped at the dumpster via text message because you dared view them as junk and throw them away."
Isn't it ironic... You meet the man of your dreams and then you meet his Glad Lock containers...
Only Pandora... Queen of Stalkers and Freakishly Strange Experiences that should only happen in B Rated Romance Films.
Only Pandora...
And so, I can take the silence no more. Writing makes me happy, writing keeps me sane and makes me whole, and ever since this happened it's been difficult to find my voice so...
Welcome back, Pandora. I've missed you.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Time To Retire
I think it's time for Pandora to retire.
Yes "I."
I... the one who is Pandora. The one who wears that ego like a trophy.
I'm not even going to apologize for not writing since February because Pandora, as spicy as she is, has had nothing good to talk about for quite some time.
The truth is, Pandora was born out of some strange time period in my life, one in which I had to give up a dream to survive and Pandora somehow had enough attitude within herself to survive the hell that was my reality. That reality has left me now and as much as I love her, I'm not sure she's still with me in the same way she was. Single mom is a lot, particularly when you have an emerging adolescent on your hands. And once you find yourself in a "real" career that demands a certain amount of creative energy that ultimately depletes you at the end of every day well... I don't know what else to say other than Pandora did better when she had more time on her hands.
And "single mom" somehow rings more true now than it ever did, at least since the time when Hope was a toddler and so... don't have a lot of time to write these days. And to be honest, I can't believe the small amount of readers/subscribers I have had held on this long. Pandora was born out of a stupid payday loan job which had less readers than I have now (Pandora's Payday Loan), but I can't make any more promises and I can't be a consistent writer (which is obvious) so I'm relieving myself of this issue and making Pandora give her fondest farewells.
Windmill Dick was one of her favorite, though most horrifying, stories.
The stalkers will be missed, though they don't happen much anymore.
I still have political rants in me, but they sound more like "myself" than they do Pandora so I haven't bothered to write them.
The friends that have made distinguished appearances in my blog via bad ass dialogues will forever be my favorites. :-)
And the closer I get to forty the more I think the sex appeal of an eligible bachelorette named Pandora, menace to society, is wearing thin.
It is time to recreate myself, my pen name, and I'm not quite sure where that is going to be yet but I am certain it will no longer be here. No great loss. I was, as Pandora, average at best and, if any of my professors had been following this, she was most likely below average because they all know what I'm capable of.
I still have one dream, out of all the dreams I've let go, and that is one day I will actually write a novel that is not only published but read by at least the same 20 people that subscribed to this ridiculous blog. And that dream may never come true. I may lie on my death bed and say, "I never followed through with what I really wanted," but... that's pretty close to everyone else on this planet so... it is what it is.
Anyway, please know that I appreciate all the good feedback I received while this blog actually went on, as irregular as it was, and maybe someday you'll all run across a piece of writing that sounds a lot like me and wonder to yourselves if I finally did it. Hopefully, if that moment happens, it will be me, but... neither of us will ever know for sure (or... at least you won't).
Much love.
Pandora retires at the ripe old age of 36.
PEACE!!!!
Yes "I."
I... the one who is Pandora. The one who wears that ego like a trophy.
I'm not even going to apologize for not writing since February because Pandora, as spicy as she is, has had nothing good to talk about for quite some time.
The truth is, Pandora was born out of some strange time period in my life, one in which I had to give up a dream to survive and Pandora somehow had enough attitude within herself to survive the hell that was my reality. That reality has left me now and as much as I love her, I'm not sure she's still with me in the same way she was. Single mom is a lot, particularly when you have an emerging adolescent on your hands. And once you find yourself in a "real" career that demands a certain amount of creative energy that ultimately depletes you at the end of every day well... I don't know what else to say other than Pandora did better when she had more time on her hands.
And "single mom" somehow rings more true now than it ever did, at least since the time when Hope was a toddler and so... don't have a lot of time to write these days. And to be honest, I can't believe the small amount of readers/subscribers I have had held on this long. Pandora was born out of a stupid payday loan job which had less readers than I have now (Pandora's Payday Loan), but I can't make any more promises and I can't be a consistent writer (which is obvious) so I'm relieving myself of this issue and making Pandora give her fondest farewells.
Windmill Dick was one of her favorite, though most horrifying, stories.
The stalkers will be missed, though they don't happen much anymore.
I still have political rants in me, but they sound more like "myself" than they do Pandora so I haven't bothered to write them.
The friends that have made distinguished appearances in my blog via bad ass dialogues will forever be my favorites. :-)
And the closer I get to forty the more I think the sex appeal of an eligible bachelorette named Pandora, menace to society, is wearing thin.
It is time to recreate myself, my pen name, and I'm not quite sure where that is going to be yet but I am certain it will no longer be here. No great loss. I was, as Pandora, average at best and, if any of my professors had been following this, she was most likely below average because they all know what I'm capable of.
I still have one dream, out of all the dreams I've let go, and that is one day I will actually write a novel that is not only published but read by at least the same 20 people that subscribed to this ridiculous blog. And that dream may never come true. I may lie on my death bed and say, "I never followed through with what I really wanted," but... that's pretty close to everyone else on this planet so... it is what it is.
Anyway, please know that I appreciate all the good feedback I received while this blog actually went on, as irregular as it was, and maybe someday you'll all run across a piece of writing that sounds a lot like me and wonder to yourselves if I finally did it. Hopefully, if that moment happens, it will be me, but... neither of us will ever know for sure (or... at least you won't).
Much love.
Pandora retires at the ripe old age of 36.
PEACE!!!!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Crazy Winds
The winds are blowing through here right now. I've been listening to them all night, and I felt them all day yesterday and I'm sure to feel them again today.
I was lying there, listening to them, thinking, "It's about time. In fact, they're overdue. How long have we been sitting here with nothing but sun and sky and air?" Same thing, day in and day out... day in and day out...
Nothing good comes from too much time at a stand still.
Some people call them change, I just call them Crazy Winds. Crazy because they stir up everything, specifically "the nothing good."
You see, change happens all the time, even at a standstill, because the lovely things like mold and mildew come from nothing good. Dust lands and settles and coats everything at a standstill, and things like that are a change of some sort, no matter how small. But the Crazy Winds, God bless them, they come in and tear the place up! They blow the dust around and they rip things apart and they move things around and limbs are falling, and those loose roof tiles are coming off, and the leaves you forgot to rake are disbursed everywhere, and there's tears in your eyes because of the flying particles of whatnot got into them when you were trying to see, and suddenly you find yourself working to get things in order, things you thought were going along just fine are suddenly flying about in the air and moving about and shifting about and requiring, no DEMANDING, your attention, all because these Crazy Winds decided to rock and roll their way through here and force you to pay attention to the details. They aren't some cliche, some attempt at poetic zephyrs of change, they are your call to action, to fix and repair those things you've let go to long, and to clean up the details and the dust in the corners, and to tie up loose ends. It's time for a make-over, for some personal training, and for a bit of soul searching and closet cleaning because... looks like those Crazy Winds blew out a skeleton or two and we can't have those lying about (someone might call the authorities).
I was lying there, listening to them, thinking, "It's about time. In fact, they're overdue. How long have we been sitting here with nothing but sun and sky and air?" Same thing, day in and day out... day in and day out...
Nothing good comes from too much time at a stand still.
Some people call them change, I just call them Crazy Winds. Crazy because they stir up everything, specifically "the nothing good."
You see, change happens all the time, even at a standstill, because the lovely things like mold and mildew come from nothing good. Dust lands and settles and coats everything at a standstill, and things like that are a change of some sort, no matter how small. But the Crazy Winds, God bless them, they come in and tear the place up! They blow the dust around and they rip things apart and they move things around and limbs are falling, and those loose roof tiles are coming off, and the leaves you forgot to rake are disbursed everywhere, and there's tears in your eyes because of the flying particles of whatnot got into them when you were trying to see, and suddenly you find yourself working to get things in order, things you thought were going along just fine are suddenly flying about in the air and moving about and shifting about and requiring, no DEMANDING, your attention, all because these Crazy Winds decided to rock and roll their way through here and force you to pay attention to the details. They aren't some cliche, some attempt at poetic zephyrs of change, they are your call to action, to fix and repair those things you've let go to long, and to clean up the details and the dust in the corners, and to tie up loose ends. It's time for a make-over, for some personal training, and for a bit of soul searching and closet cleaning because... looks like those Crazy Winds blew out a skeleton or two and we can't have those lying about (someone might call the authorities).
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Love Is...
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.
-- William Shakespeare
Love is like the truth, sometimes it prevails, sometimes it hurts.
-- Victor M Garcia Jr.
Love is friendship set on fire.
-- unknown
Love is the only reflection of man's worth.
-- Bill Wundram
Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
-- Erich Fromm
Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for, and the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more.
-- Erica Jong
Love is what makes the ride worth while.
-- Elizabeth Browning
Love is all of the sharps and flats, we are the naturals. Without it, our lives would be limited to the Key of C (easy to play, but boring after a while).
-- Pandora
Love is the only light in this miserable place.
-- Pandora
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails...
-- God
-- William Shakespeare
Love is like the truth, sometimes it prevails, sometimes it hurts.
-- Victor M Garcia Jr.
Love is friendship set on fire.
-- unknown
Love is the only reflection of man's worth.
-- Bill Wundram
Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
-- Erich Fromm
Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for, and the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more.
-- Erica Jong
Love is what makes the ride worth while.
-- Elizabeth Browning
Love is all of the sharps and flats, we are the naturals. Without it, our lives would be limited to the Key of C (easy to play, but boring after a while).
-- Pandora
Love is the only light in this miserable place.
-- Pandora
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails...
-- God
Monday, January 17, 2011
Apple Bee's Quality
I just left the grocery store. As the cashier handed me the receipt he said, "You saved thirteen dollars." I cynically smiled as I said, "Thirteen dollars..." And before I could finish my thought he said, "Hey, that's a meal. And not just Burger King quality, that's Apple Bee's quality. You should be proud." I started laughing because, to be honest, I was proud. Thirteen dollars is better than average for me.
I'm every grocery store's dream come true. I am what I call a time saving shopper, not a money saving shopper. I hate the grocery store and, unlike most stereotypical women, I hate all manner of shopping. To be honest, the only store I ever truly enjoy being in is a book store. Most of the time I hate to spend money because I have PTSD when it comes to that. I have had so many years struggling to get by that, even though I now find myself in a somewhat comfortable financial position, I don't like to let go of the dollar frivolously. And I hate crowds of people, particularly people in a grocery store of some kind (don't even get me started on WalMart). And I suppose, given my sentence about letting money go frivolously, one would think that would make me savvy shopper that looks for the best deal but no...
I can't avoid the grocery store. I have to get food and sundries to survive and so money must be spent there and to me that is not frivolous spending, that is a necessity. But time is also of the essence in my life, and, like I said, my need to avoid crowds of people far outweighs my need to find the best deal. To be a savvy shopper requires patience and tolerance of crowds and also requires large amounts of time I'm not willing to spend.
My brother once tipped me off to a website called TheGroceryGame.com (back in the day when I was struggling to make peace with living in the financial red zone). This is an extremely resourceful website for people that are looking to stretch their dollar as far as it can possibly go. The woman that created the site is a Grocery Shopping Superhero. She would do tons of research as to what sales were coming up every week at whatever grocery store, and she would combine those sales with the coupons that were offered in the news papers, and you could take that list along with your coupons and go shopping on double coupon days and save countless dollars on your grocery bill. I took advantage of the site for several months and I admit I saved money in a way that I have never done (either before or after my use of that site). The problem for me was that it took up an entire Sunday just to clip the sticking coupons and study the list and put together what I needed to get and then get myself over to the store on double coupon Sunday (because if I went on double coupon Monday or Tuesday, most of the items were sold out). And the older Hope got the more her schedule started to affect mine, and once I landed a solid career well... time definitely became of the essence. So I eventually stopped clipping and saving coupons and I eventually reached the point where I stopped looking for deals all the way around. (some people are cringing now, I know this)
I just can't take it anymore. I have to find ways to get in and out of that place before I break out into some kind of stress rash because the lady with three screaming kids drives me up the wall and the man in the laundry aisle that smells like he needs to put himself on the permanent press cycle with an extra scoop of Oxyclean and bleach is more than I can handle. I have the location of everything in the store by my house memorized and so I create a list of what I need, I go in and grab the items, and I'm out. I probably hold the record for the fastest grocery shopper in America. Depending on the length of the lines at the registers, I can get in and out of there with a week's worth of groceries in ten minutes, I kid you not. And this, to me, is more important than the dollar I saved. (and more people are cringing now).
So anyway... this is why I laughed when the cashier made the comment about the savings being better than Burger King quality. And I was pleasantly surprised that I saved thirteen dollars today, because I didn't even check to see if I was buying the deals or not. I simply grabbed things and left, so saving thirteen dollars is almost as good as finding a twenty in the pocket of some jeans I haven't worn in over a month. And I always have my "valued shopper's card" and I always run it through at the register, but there have been times when I ran it through only to find out I didn't have a single sale item in my cart and I saved absolutely nothing. (more people are cringing) And so yes... today I saved enough for a meal at Apple Bee's! Awesome! I need to put this receipt on my fridge as a bragging right of some kind. I saved 13% off my grocery bill!
(I would say this is a record, but I am pretty sure I accidentally saved 21% last month so... I can't really put that thing on my fridge, but still...)
I'm every grocery store's dream come true. I am what I call a time saving shopper, not a money saving shopper. I hate the grocery store and, unlike most stereotypical women, I hate all manner of shopping. To be honest, the only store I ever truly enjoy being in is a book store. Most of the time I hate to spend money because I have PTSD when it comes to that. I have had so many years struggling to get by that, even though I now find myself in a somewhat comfortable financial position, I don't like to let go of the dollar frivolously. And I hate crowds of people, particularly people in a grocery store of some kind (don't even get me started on WalMart). And I suppose, given my sentence about letting money go frivolously, one would think that would make me savvy shopper that looks for the best deal but no...
I can't avoid the grocery store. I have to get food and sundries to survive and so money must be spent there and to me that is not frivolous spending, that is a necessity. But time is also of the essence in my life, and, like I said, my need to avoid crowds of people far outweighs my need to find the best deal. To be a savvy shopper requires patience and tolerance of crowds and also requires large amounts of time I'm not willing to spend.
My brother once tipped me off to a website called TheGroceryGame.com (back in the day when I was struggling to make peace with living in the financial red zone). This is an extremely resourceful website for people that are looking to stretch their dollar as far as it can possibly go. The woman that created the site is a Grocery Shopping Superhero. She would do tons of research as to what sales were coming up every week at whatever grocery store, and she would combine those sales with the coupons that were offered in the news papers, and you could take that list along with your coupons and go shopping on double coupon days and save countless dollars on your grocery bill. I took advantage of the site for several months and I admit I saved money in a way that I have never done (either before or after my use of that site). The problem for me was that it took up an entire Sunday just to clip the sticking coupons and study the list and put together what I needed to get and then get myself over to the store on double coupon Sunday (because if I went on double coupon Monday or Tuesday, most of the items were sold out). And the older Hope got the more her schedule started to affect mine, and once I landed a solid career well... time definitely became of the essence. So I eventually stopped clipping and saving coupons and I eventually reached the point where I stopped looking for deals all the way around. (some people are cringing now, I know this)
I just can't take it anymore. I have to find ways to get in and out of that place before I break out into some kind of stress rash because the lady with three screaming kids drives me up the wall and the man in the laundry aisle that smells like he needs to put himself on the permanent press cycle with an extra scoop of Oxyclean and bleach is more than I can handle. I have the location of everything in the store by my house memorized and so I create a list of what I need, I go in and grab the items, and I'm out. I probably hold the record for the fastest grocery shopper in America. Depending on the length of the lines at the registers, I can get in and out of there with a week's worth of groceries in ten minutes, I kid you not. And this, to me, is more important than the dollar I saved. (and more people are cringing now).
So anyway... this is why I laughed when the cashier made the comment about the savings being better than Burger King quality. And I was pleasantly surprised that I saved thirteen dollars today, because I didn't even check to see if I was buying the deals or not. I simply grabbed things and left, so saving thirteen dollars is almost as good as finding a twenty in the pocket of some jeans I haven't worn in over a month. And I always have my "valued shopper's card" and I always run it through at the register, but there have been times when I ran it through only to find out I didn't have a single sale item in my cart and I saved absolutely nothing. (more people are cringing) And so yes... today I saved enough for a meal at Apple Bee's! Awesome! I need to put this receipt on my fridge as a bragging right of some kind. I saved 13% off my grocery bill!
(I would say this is a record, but I am pretty sure I accidentally saved 21% last month so... I can't really put that thing on my fridge, but still...)
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Picasso The Cubiclist
What if Picasso were 36 years old and working in a cubicle on January 13, 2011? And what if he had spent the last two years working on one specific presentation that he had to adjust repeatedly to suit someone else's mood? And what if after two years that someone else decided his work was done and he felt success and relief because that particular project was truly driving him up the wall? And what if that someone decided it was time for others to view the project? And what if those others decided to "improve" on what he had created? And what if they systematically started to destroy it? And what if Picasso's colleague that served as a great support in the past two years of the project walked into his cubicle that morning and said, "Dude! They're ripping this thing to shreds! Can you please explain to me why you have nothing to do with this right now?" And what if there was nothing Picasso could do? What would he do? How would he respond? Oh for the chance to find some wacky new agie and hold a seance and call him up from the other world and ask him, because I'd love to know.
Perhaps he would smile and say, "That project was about to make me vomit anyway." Perhaps he would do his best not to give a shit. Perhaps he would sit there and try to focus on the task at hand while fighting back the urge to drop stink bombs on everyone. And then perhaps he would stop and look up from his work and notice the solar powered plastic flower thingy that's bobbing back and forth beneath the florescent lights on his desk and he'd start thinking about how that's supposed to represent the power of the sun making things grow. And then he'd think about how it isn't the sun that's making that stupid thing bob around, but a man made light. And then he'd think about how it's not even a real flower,just some stupid man made piece of plastic thing with some man made internal workings that respond to the man made light. And then he'd sit there and think about his own body and how nice the sun would feel on it right about now but how, much like this plastic thing, he's bobbing around in the cubicle by the power of the florescent lights. And then he'd make some cynical remark to himself in his head and return to the task at hand.
And then perhaps he'd start listening to the voices around him. And perhaps they'd start driving him a little crazy because his ego is bruised and he's in no mood to listen to Mr. Toenail's personal phone calls from the cubicle next to him. And perhaps he realizes he's about to blow an unnecessary gasket and closes his eyes and counts to ten. And like magic he opens his eyes and realizes he hasn't touched his keyboard in ten minutes and the office communicator indicates that he's away when he's really sitting right there working, but before he can reach across the desk to the keyboard, the aquarium screen saver comes on and he's suddenly immersed in a sense of man made peace. He changes the cursor to the fish food bag and feeds his pretend fish and sits back and watches the air bubbles that make no sound and watches the computer generated fish ignore the computer generated fish food.
And then perhaps he realizes he should eat, so he pulls out his garden salad, chock full of spinach and fabulous veggies to feed his immune system in an attempt to combat all the pathogens that linger around this place. And perhaps as he eats his salad he reminds himself that average people take an hour for lunch instead of work through the chewing,
and so he puts up a DO NOT DISTURB sign and decides to pop the iPod into his ears to drown out the sound of the office and do his best to forget where he is right now. And then perhaps he feels a strange bit of relief as the music tickles his ears. Perhaps he starts feeling a sense of relief in the melodic creativity of others and he starts remembering, as he hears songs that most people don't know, what it really means to be creative -- it isn't the acceptance of the majority that makes it beautiful, it's the act of creating itself and the beauty it brings to the creator.
And perhaps he finishes his salad and realizes he still has forty minutes to kill before he must resume the task at hand. And perhaps he sits there staring at nothing while the music plays. And perhaps he starts thinking about that stupid project, and perhaps he starts feeling ripped apart in some stupid meaningless bruised egotistical way. And perhaps just as he realizes that, a random song that came from the iPod's "Genius Mix" strikes a nerve and he starts to write down the lyrics:
I want to forget how convention fits,
but can I get out from under it?
Can I cut it out of me?
Oh...
It can't all be wedding cake.
It can't all be boiled away.
I try but I can't let go of it.
...can't let go of it. No...
Cuz you don't talk to the water boy.
And there's so much you could learn but you don't want to know.
And perhaps then he laughs at the timing and contemplates getting out from under convention and "getting free from the middle man" and starts to feel the fire of creativity in that small space that confines him. Perhaps he starts thinking about all of the stupid objects in front of him and all of the emotions tied up behind them and he picks up the Sharpie on the edge of the desk and he draws a little something something in the last twenty minutes of his lunch. And perhaps he looks at his stupid drawing and smiles and says, "It isn't exactly art right now, but it's at least something I can take home and work on when no one else is looking." And perhaps he shakes the rest of the dirt off, because lunch is over and there is still a task at hand.
(song lyrics taken from Spoon, "The Underdog," from the Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga album.)
Perhaps he would smile and say, "That project was about to make me vomit anyway." Perhaps he would do his best not to give a shit. Perhaps he would sit there and try to focus on the task at hand while fighting back the urge to drop stink bombs on everyone. And then perhaps he would stop and look up from his work and notice the solar powered plastic flower thingy that's bobbing back and forth beneath the florescent lights on his desk and he'd start thinking about how that's supposed to represent the power of the sun making things grow. And then he'd think about how it isn't the sun that's making that stupid thing bob around, but a man made light. And then he'd think about how it's not even a real flower,just some stupid man made piece of plastic thing with some man made internal workings that respond to the man made light. And then he'd sit there and think about his own body and how nice the sun would feel on it right about now but how, much like this plastic thing, he's bobbing around in the cubicle by the power of the florescent lights. And then he'd make some cynical remark to himself in his head and return to the task at hand.
And then perhaps he'd start listening to the voices around him. And perhaps they'd start driving him a little crazy because his ego is bruised and he's in no mood to listen to Mr. Toenail's personal phone calls from the cubicle next to him. And perhaps he realizes he's about to blow an unnecessary gasket and closes his eyes and counts to ten. And like magic he opens his eyes and realizes he hasn't touched his keyboard in ten minutes and the office communicator indicates that he's away when he's really sitting right there working, but before he can reach across the desk to the keyboard, the aquarium screen saver comes on and he's suddenly immersed in a sense of man made peace. He changes the cursor to the fish food bag and feeds his pretend fish and sits back and watches the air bubbles that make no sound and watches the computer generated fish ignore the computer generated fish food.
And then perhaps he realizes he should eat, so he pulls out his garden salad, chock full of spinach and fabulous veggies to feed his immune system in an attempt to combat all the pathogens that linger around this place. And perhaps as he eats his salad he reminds himself that average people take an hour for lunch instead of work through the chewing,
and so he puts up a DO NOT DISTURB sign and decides to pop the iPod into his ears to drown out the sound of the office and do his best to forget where he is right now. And then perhaps he feels a strange bit of relief as the music tickles his ears. Perhaps he starts feeling a sense of relief in the melodic creativity of others and he starts remembering, as he hears songs that most people don't know, what it really means to be creative -- it isn't the acceptance of the majority that makes it beautiful, it's the act of creating itself and the beauty it brings to the creator.
And perhaps he finishes his salad and realizes he still has forty minutes to kill before he must resume the task at hand. And perhaps he sits there staring at nothing while the music plays. And perhaps he starts thinking about that stupid project, and perhaps he starts feeling ripped apart in some stupid meaningless bruised egotistical way. And perhaps just as he realizes that, a random song that came from the iPod's "Genius Mix" strikes a nerve and he starts to write down the lyrics:
I want to forget how convention fits,
but can I get out from under it?
Can I cut it out of me?
Oh...
It can't all be wedding cake.
It can't all be boiled away.
I try but I can't let go of it.
...can't let go of it. No...
Cuz you don't talk to the water boy.
And there's so much you could learn but you don't want to know.
And perhaps then he laughs at the timing and contemplates getting out from under convention and "getting free from the middle man" and starts to feel the fire of creativity in that small space that confines him. Perhaps he starts thinking about all of the stupid objects in front of him and all of the emotions tied up behind them and he picks up the Sharpie on the edge of the desk and he draws a little something something in the last twenty minutes of his lunch. And perhaps he looks at his stupid drawing and smiles and says, "It isn't exactly art right now, but it's at least something I can take home and work on when no one else is looking." And perhaps he shakes the rest of the dirt off, because lunch is over and there is still a task at hand.
(song lyrics taken from Spoon, "The Underdog," from the Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga album.)
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Uniball Vision Elite!!!
(...and no, sorry to disappoint you, this is not a humorous masterpiece about how men with one testicle have been blessed with psychic powers. Though, I have to admit, that would be an interesting read.)
A frugal friend of mine recently went on some random rant about pen circulation. It went something like this:
Have I ever ranted to you about the purchasing of pens? I will never buy a pen, EVER! Why? There are trillions of pens in circulation right now. If the pen manufacturers stopped making new pens and we used only the existing, it would take 10 years to use up the current supply. My colleague has 50 pens in his desk drawer that have all come free of charge. Pen marketing is huge! Every time you go to a convention or trade show, there is some vendor handing out pens with their logo on them. In the business world, pen giving is as common as hand shaking. Pens are everywhere!!!! Most pens do not get fully used either. Did you know there are companies that sell high-end pens? Seriously, these pens go for thousands of dollars! WHAT?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?! Are you kidding me? Who the heck is paying that much for something you can find on the ground for free? Ridiculous! This makes me mourn for humanity. Hurry up and get here 2012 and end this debacle! PENS!!!
[insert applause here]
This pen rant made me laugh. And while I do believe his theory about pen circulation may be valid (considering I do have a few pens on my desk that are not what I would normally choose and am certain I absent mindedly walked away with them in my hand from another location), I will always purchase my own pens.
I have very specific pens I use. They are what I consider anti-writer’s cramping pens. (I won’t tolerate writer’s cramp. Writing is too precious to me.) I have the secretary special order my pens (no one else in the office uses them – unless they steal them from my desk). But I use pens until they are empty. I am notorious for holding onto the same pen until it is completely dry. In fact, I recently chided myself for not keeping better track of the pens in my pen cup at home – they were all dry, except one. Not a working pen in the mix there. How could I let that go unnoticed??? (mostly because I type more than write in my notebooks anymore. I used to write in notebooks much more often than I do now. I should probably get back to the notebook writing again. I did some good things in those days.)
People like myself go on a quest for the perfect pen. I had an English Major friend in college that carried his ideal pen in a leather case in his backpack. He only used it to write in his notebook or for essay exams. One time he let me write my name with it. The funny thing was, though it wrote really well, it wasn’t for me. The pen was metal and the weight of the pen didn’t feel right in my hand. So here he was trying to impress me with his ideal pen, and I handed it back to him saying, “Huh. It’s okay I guess.” I don’t know how much he paid for that thing. I doubt it was a thousand dollar pen or anything, but it was certainly more than my Uniball Vision Elite.
The Uniball Vision Elite is my ideal pen. The ink flows out of it onto the page with the slightest stroke of my hand, and there are no ink blots or globs from the flow to the page. The writing is smooth and perfect, just like my black belt pen strokes were meant to be. And it's some kind of lightweight plastic, just heavy enough to feel between my fingers but light enough to feel as though it were simply a piece of my hand. I am one with my pen. Yes… the pen and I are one. I and the pen are one!
And seriously… can you beat that name??? Vision Elite… I can’t think of a better name to give a pen, particularly a pen that belongs in the hands of a 21st century visionary that no one will pay attention to until after she’s dead anyway. It’s perfect! The best pen on Earth! I will rue the day this Uniball company decides to stop manufacturing this pen. It has taken me years, YEARS, to find it! Stop making The Uniball Vision Elite?!?!?! MAY IT NEVER BE!!!!!
Now, you can buy a pack of 8 Uniball Vision Elite pens for about $12. That’s a $1.50 a pen or something like that. And my frugal friend is probably sitting there saying something like, “...A DOLLAR FIFTY? FOR A PEN???” But for me… this pen is worth every penny in that $1.50. I would pay a $1.50 for this pen way before I would pay $1.50 for a 24 pack of Bic Ball Point Pens (which, until I found this pen, were my pen of choice because I had given up my search for the Holy Grail of pens). It would be a dream come true for me to find a special little leather case to hold my precious Uniball Vision Elite. Imagine it... I would walk into the writer’s work shop with my crazy hair (after the six inches I accidentally gave permission to be cut off grows back -- a story I will have to tell later) and my Celtic jewelry and my flowing sleeves and they would say, “Here is the bardic queen!” And I would sit down and I would pull from my Kathy Van Zeeland purse that my mom gave me this beautiful black leather pen case, and they would all gasp for air in anticipation for the chance to glimpse THE PEN that I am one with, THE PEN of Pandora, THE PEN of The Notorious Scribe! And I would open the case, and I would look over the rim of my new $150 glasses that my insurance paid for, and I would pull forth... a plastic pen from a $12 dollar pack that I got at the Staples on the corner of Southern and McClintock. “YES! YES, Ladies and Gentleman! THIS! THIS IS THE MIGHTY PEN! MIGHTIER THAN ANY SWORD! THE UNIBALL VISION ELITE!!!!!” And they would stand up in great awe and applause shouting, “ALL HAIL THE UNIBALL! ALL HAIL THE VISION ELITE!!! LONG LIVE PANDORA! LONG LIVE THE DIVISION OF THE RUBBERMAID COMPANY THAT MANUFACTURES THIS PEN! HAIL! HAIL! HAIL!!!!”
So… as long as they still make these pens, I will still buy them. And if they stop making pens for the next ten years, I will gather all of my Uniball Vision Elites and lock them up in a safe and carry one in the cleavage between my breasts so that it will never be stolen by one of these office yahoos, and I will leave nothing but crap pens on my desk for the rest of the world.
A frugal friend of mine recently went on some random rant about pen circulation. It went something like this:
Have I ever ranted to you about the purchasing of pens? I will never buy a pen, EVER! Why? There are trillions of pens in circulation right now. If the pen manufacturers stopped making new pens and we used only the existing, it would take 10 years to use up the current supply. My colleague has 50 pens in his desk drawer that have all come free of charge. Pen marketing is huge! Every time you go to a convention or trade show, there is some vendor handing out pens with their logo on them. In the business world, pen giving is as common as hand shaking. Pens are everywhere!!!! Most pens do not get fully used either. Did you know there are companies that sell high-end pens? Seriously, these pens go for thousands of dollars! WHAT?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?! Are you kidding me? Who the heck is paying that much for something you can find on the ground for free? Ridiculous! This makes me mourn for humanity. Hurry up and get here 2012 and end this debacle! PENS!!!
[insert applause here]
This pen rant made me laugh. And while I do believe his theory about pen circulation may be valid (considering I do have a few pens on my desk that are not what I would normally choose and am certain I absent mindedly walked away with them in my hand from another location), I will always purchase my own pens.
I have very specific pens I use. They are what I consider anti-writer’s cramping pens. (I won’t tolerate writer’s cramp. Writing is too precious to me.) I have the secretary special order my pens (no one else in the office uses them – unless they steal them from my desk). But I use pens until they are empty. I am notorious for holding onto the same pen until it is completely dry. In fact, I recently chided myself for not keeping better track of the pens in my pen cup at home – they were all dry, except one. Not a working pen in the mix there. How could I let that go unnoticed??? (mostly because I type more than write in my notebooks anymore. I used to write in notebooks much more often than I do now. I should probably get back to the notebook writing again. I did some good things in those days.)
People like myself go on a quest for the perfect pen. I had an English Major friend in college that carried his ideal pen in a leather case in his backpack. He only used it to write in his notebook or for essay exams. One time he let me write my name with it. The funny thing was, though it wrote really well, it wasn’t for me. The pen was metal and the weight of the pen didn’t feel right in my hand. So here he was trying to impress me with his ideal pen, and I handed it back to him saying, “Huh. It’s okay I guess.” I don’t know how much he paid for that thing. I doubt it was a thousand dollar pen or anything, but it was certainly more than my Uniball Vision Elite.
The Uniball Vision Elite is my ideal pen. The ink flows out of it onto the page with the slightest stroke of my hand, and there are no ink blots or globs from the flow to the page. The writing is smooth and perfect, just like my black belt pen strokes were meant to be. And it's some kind of lightweight plastic, just heavy enough to feel between my fingers but light enough to feel as though it were simply a piece of my hand. I am one with my pen. Yes… the pen and I are one. I and the pen are one!
And seriously… can you beat that name??? Vision Elite… I can’t think of a better name to give a pen, particularly a pen that belongs in the hands of a 21st century visionary that no one will pay attention to until after she’s dead anyway. It’s perfect! The best pen on Earth! I will rue the day this Uniball company decides to stop manufacturing this pen. It has taken me years, YEARS, to find it! Stop making The Uniball Vision Elite?!?!?! MAY IT NEVER BE!!!!!
Now, you can buy a pack of 8 Uniball Vision Elite pens for about $12. That’s a $1.50 a pen or something like that. And my frugal friend is probably sitting there saying something like, “...A DOLLAR FIFTY? FOR A PEN???” But for me… this pen is worth every penny in that $1.50. I would pay a $1.50 for this pen way before I would pay $1.50 for a 24 pack of Bic Ball Point Pens (which, until I found this pen, were my pen of choice because I had given up my search for the Holy Grail of pens). It would be a dream come true for me to find a special little leather case to hold my precious Uniball Vision Elite. Imagine it... I would walk into the writer’s work shop with my crazy hair (after the six inches I accidentally gave permission to be cut off grows back -- a story I will have to tell later) and my Celtic jewelry and my flowing sleeves and they would say, “Here is the bardic queen!” And I would sit down and I would pull from my Kathy Van Zeeland purse that my mom gave me this beautiful black leather pen case, and they would all gasp for air in anticipation for the chance to glimpse THE PEN that I am one with, THE PEN of Pandora, THE PEN of The Notorious Scribe! And I would open the case, and I would look over the rim of my new $150 glasses that my insurance paid for, and I would pull forth... a plastic pen from a $12 dollar pack that I got at the Staples on the corner of Southern and McClintock. “YES! YES, Ladies and Gentleman! THIS! THIS IS THE MIGHTY PEN! MIGHTIER THAN ANY SWORD! THE UNIBALL VISION ELITE!!!!!” And they would stand up in great awe and applause shouting, “ALL HAIL THE UNIBALL! ALL HAIL THE VISION ELITE!!! LONG LIVE PANDORA! LONG LIVE THE DIVISION OF THE RUBBERMAID COMPANY THAT MANUFACTURES THIS PEN! HAIL! HAIL! HAIL!!!!”
So… as long as they still make these pens, I will still buy them. And if they stop making pens for the next ten years, I will gather all of my Uniball Vision Elites and lock them up in a safe and carry one in the cleavage between my breasts so that it will never be stolen by one of these office yahoos, and I will leave nothing but crap pens on my desk for the rest of the world.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
2010 Bragging Rights
These are my top ten UNDER achievements of 2010. (and this, my dear friends, is how I start the new year off blogging -- 9 days late)
10. Never Ending Laundry Load: I just never caught up to that one load that didn’t need immediate attention. In fact, I realized that at some point I stopped sorting laundry by color and started sorting by priority. I have priorities 1, 2, and 3 that get done regularly, but 4 and 5 have been sitting there for quite possibly three months or more. Perhaps someday I will have the money to pay some sweet little old lady named Agnes to not only sort the laundry by color, but also by cycle (i.e. delicate, permanent press, fluff air). Until then… priority loads will most likely be the method of choice until my child leaves for college and I retire and change my name to Agnes at some point.
9. Maintenance Staff Neglect: A friend of mine recently lectured me on the only true value of apartment living – the maintenance staff repairing the problem upon request. I have lived in this apartment for nearly three years and there are three lamps in the vaulted ceiling of the kitchen. Two of the three lamps have now burned out and it’s only a matter of time before lamp three leaves me too, but have I bothered to ask maintenance come and replace the bulbs? No. One time I went two weeks without a functioning dishwasher because I neglected to call maintenance (and anyone that knows me and my loath for dish detail can imagine how much I enjoyed washing dishes by hand, particularly after I let the piles grow to enormous size). And the clothes dryer stopped drying clothes sometime in October, but instead of remembering to call maintenance I’ve just been hanging the clothes to dry for the past three months (which is partly what prompted the lecture from my friend, along with the backed up shower drain that I won’t talk about, and it may also explain why laundry priority piles 4 and 5 never get done).
8. Stalker Elusion: I can’t take responsibility for eluding the stalkers on my own. It just so happened that at four different points within the past year I was stalked for a week or two by some random men that work at my company (this is a very large company so… you apparently never know who’s watching you). Just as I was starting to feel uncomfortable at each time, it just so happened that, due to the economic downturn, each of those individuals was let go in one of the four waves of company layoffs we had here. Awesome… I was saved by recession and the unemployed stalkers had no additional income to help fund and improve their spying techniques.
7. Automobile Goo: Last year my daughter had some crazy science project she had to put together for the Spring Science fair. We had done all of the research and gathered all of the materials to build the project, and I enlisted the help of one of my engineer friends in the actual construction of the project. We had a small window of opportunity in which to meet this fellow and get the construction of the project completed. On our way to his home out on the far east side of town, we stopped at Jamba Juice and got ourselves a couple smoothies. Hope, with her propensity for accidents, reached for her smoothie and somehow squeezed the Styrofoam cup just a little too hard and the top came flying off and the entire smoothie came flying out with it all over the car. Obviously, in the midst of driving, I had neither the tools nor the ability to clean up the mess. And even when we got to the fellow’s house we were so busy working on the project, I had to let the small smoothie mishap stay put. Several months later, I am proud to tell you that goo still sits in the car. Not only that, it has changed from it’s beautiful shade of Peach Passion Orange to some Toxic Brown Broohaha that is sure to frighten you with the threat of disease (if you’re not one of the inner circle, that is). At this point I’m not even sure if there’s a point to trying to wash it off. It seems to be going through its own decomposition process of some kind. I swear… the stain has gotten smaller. I’m no scientist, but I think there may be little microbes of some kind eating itself up over there. If I wait long enough, no ooze or goo or any hint of such a thing will be anywhere in that spot. I believe it was March of 2010 when that happened, so I’ll have to wait until March of 2011 (just a little more than two months away now) to see if my “self-eating” theory is correct. If not, I’ll break down and get the car detailed or something.
6. Going Postal: Despite my sweet little blog post about the lady I know that was kind enough to send me a nice letter and some pictures in the mail (which she did recently as well, thank you very much), I am still terrible about getting the mail from my mail box. In fact, given all of the holiday hoopla, I’m pretty sure November and December were my worst months for mail gathering. I have this feeling that aside from the last week of December, my mail was sent back to the post off and ultimately returned to every sender at least four different times. Yeah… I really hate the mail. Sorry all… it’s truly a waste of trees, if you ask me (aside from my one friend and the good juju she sends on paper).
5. Speaking Of Trees: I’m rarely one to go off on paper and waste and recycling and saving trees and the Earth. I don’t really rant about things like that much. The way I see it, why should I? Every nimrod in Hollywood is doing it for me so… what does the Earth need me for, right? I will say this though – why the heck is the phone company STILL updating phone books and leaving new ones on my doorstep every three to six months? Seriously… this is so annoying! I can’t remember the last time I used a phone book. And I got so tired of the stupid phone company leaving these Tree Death Tomes under the guise of phone books on my door step, I just finally stopped bringing them into the house. “What?” you say. “What do you mean you just stopped bringing them into your house?” you say. “What good would that do?” you say. I say, it did a lot of fricking good! It’s like leaving the faux Hoot Owl on the telephone wire so the mice don’t come and chew the line the death. I swear to you! I had two phone books left on my doorstep and I NEVER picked them up and for two whole years I NEVER saw a new phone book get left on my doorstep. Why? Because they took one look at the dead disheveled weather beaten book of phone numbers that no one had even bothered to throw in the garbage and they walked away in horror and disgust. Who would do that? Who would just leave the pile of book covered trees just lying there to suffer? I would! ME! Pandora! I would so you could see all the lovely rain forests you’ve destroyed in black and white on my patio! (not that the poor soul delivering the things at minimum wage had anything to do with rainforest destruction, and not that I really had that much of a purpose behind my choice to leave them there, but still…) Anyway, the point is, I left those things there until they really were a bit of an eyesore but they seemed to keep the new phone books away so I continued to leave them there for over a year. Unfortunately for me, someone got wise to me and left a new phone book for me right at the end of November 2010. “Really?!?!?” I yelled, and then I picked up the new book and the two phone books of the dead and threw them in the dumpster.
4. Stress Queen: Did you realize that if you don’t find a healthy way to handle your stress it can actually break down your immune system so badly that these happy little proteins inside your body called Heat Shock Proteins (HSPs) will start to work overtime every time you have a stressful moment of some kind and you will break out in a rash all over? I didn’t either until I spent the last year breaking out into some crazy rash every time I tried to stay calm cool and collected on the outside while knowing I was screaming on the inside. How ‘bout that? I can’t hide it too well anymore. Come to my cubicle to tell me something and I’ll break out in a stress rash while I do my best to pretend your halitosis isn’t driving me up the wall. Awesome… Padded cell, take me away!
3. Massage Envy: I think that’s an interesting name for a company. I guess it means that since I have a monthly membership there, you should all envy me as I take advantage of stress relieving massages and the health benefits they present to me as I embrace a healthy approach to coping with stress. I’m starting to think, however, that the name actually mocks me as it stares me in the face and reminds me that I’m paying $50 a month to get a massage to help me cope with the stress in my life and I’m so busy and consumed with the stupid minute details of life I never take the time to use what I’m regularly paying for. I drive past the place and become envious because inside there are people that have taken the time to treat themselves to a mere sixty minutes of relaxing silence and release of tension in the muscles that push and pull at the bones that will soon be aching from the muscle’s inability to relax. Yes, I am envious. I'm pretty sure I've paid for an entire year supply of monthly massages and I've never used one. (...bet those people aren’t breaking out in stress rashes...) Guess I need to see myself as a never ending pile of laundry and make the stress load priority one before it kills me.
2. Christmas Past: I always put the Christmas tree and Christmas decorations up the Friday after Thanksgiving and I always take everything down on New Year’s Day. I don’t know what happened to me in 2010, but I left the Christmas tree and all of the decorations up until Easter, which I think was sometime in April 2010. Now I know for a fact there is someone out there that’s got me beat on this one, but still… that was way overdue (even by my lackadaisical standards) and I have no idea why I let that one ride for so long. Christmas is only fun during that November – December stint, after that it’s just annoying clutter and has no business sitting in your living room reminding you that life isn’t as cheery as all those lights and sugar plums would lead you to believe (although I’m pretty sure some dudes could possibly make the case for why The Nutcracker might be a mainstay in their daily life year round, but I suggest they go see a marriage counselor for that one). Anyway, as of right now, it’s 10:50 p.m. on January 9, 2011 and I still have not taken down the Christmas décor in here. I fully intend to get to it sometime this week, as I will not be convincing myself that this year’s Easter Celebration consists of the symbolic disassembling of the Christmas tree.
1. Slack Ass Blogger: And finally… Not that you don’t already know this, but 2010 was actually the worst year for me, blog wise. I was going to give myself some extra points for content, but then I went back and skimmed through the entire last year and well… August was apparently my best month due to the Salad Bad Ass and my lemonade detox diet attempt, but … the rest of the year was a lot of whining about work and my inability to think creatively in the cubicle (which is pretty apparent from what I see here). And I counted everything up -- from the time I started this blog in 2008 to now, 2010 was the most inconsistent writing year I had, topping out at 27 posts which I even beat in my “novice” year by one with 28 posts.
…sigh…
I guess I owe those of you who still subscribe some serious thanks. I don’t have many of you, but for some reason you keep hanging in there with me and you keep hounding me and encouraging me because you actually believe I have something entertaining and perhaps even valuable (at least at times) to say. I would like to promise that I will do better, for myself as much as for you, but promises are a guaranteed deal breaker so… how about we just leave it at that, take a gamble and see what happens, eh? I know what I’m dreaming up in my head, it’s just a matter of making it happen.
PEACE!!!!!
10. Never Ending Laundry Load: I just never caught up to that one load that didn’t need immediate attention. In fact, I realized that at some point I stopped sorting laundry by color and started sorting by priority. I have priorities 1, 2, and 3 that get done regularly, but 4 and 5 have been sitting there for quite possibly three months or more. Perhaps someday I will have the money to pay some sweet little old lady named Agnes to not only sort the laundry by color, but also by cycle (i.e. delicate, permanent press, fluff air). Until then… priority loads will most likely be the method of choice until my child leaves for college and I retire and change my name to Agnes at some point.
9. Maintenance Staff Neglect: A friend of mine recently lectured me on the only true value of apartment living – the maintenance staff repairing the problem upon request. I have lived in this apartment for nearly three years and there are three lamps in the vaulted ceiling of the kitchen. Two of the three lamps have now burned out and it’s only a matter of time before lamp three leaves me too, but have I bothered to ask maintenance come and replace the bulbs? No. One time I went two weeks without a functioning dishwasher because I neglected to call maintenance (and anyone that knows me and my loath for dish detail can imagine how much I enjoyed washing dishes by hand, particularly after I let the piles grow to enormous size). And the clothes dryer stopped drying clothes sometime in October, but instead of remembering to call maintenance I’ve just been hanging the clothes to dry for the past three months (which is partly what prompted the lecture from my friend, along with the backed up shower drain that I won’t talk about, and it may also explain why laundry priority piles 4 and 5 never get done).
8. Stalker Elusion: I can’t take responsibility for eluding the stalkers on my own. It just so happened that at four different points within the past year I was stalked for a week or two by some random men that work at my company (this is a very large company so… you apparently never know who’s watching you). Just as I was starting to feel uncomfortable at each time, it just so happened that, due to the economic downturn, each of those individuals was let go in one of the four waves of company layoffs we had here. Awesome… I was saved by recession and the unemployed stalkers had no additional income to help fund and improve their spying techniques.
7. Automobile Goo: Last year my daughter had some crazy science project she had to put together for the Spring Science fair. We had done all of the research and gathered all of the materials to build the project, and I enlisted the help of one of my engineer friends in the actual construction of the project. We had a small window of opportunity in which to meet this fellow and get the construction of the project completed. On our way to his home out on the far east side of town, we stopped at Jamba Juice and got ourselves a couple smoothies. Hope, with her propensity for accidents, reached for her smoothie and somehow squeezed the Styrofoam cup just a little too hard and the top came flying off and the entire smoothie came flying out with it all over the car. Obviously, in the midst of driving, I had neither the tools nor the ability to clean up the mess. And even when we got to the fellow’s house we were so busy working on the project, I had to let the small smoothie mishap stay put. Several months later, I am proud to tell you that goo still sits in the car. Not only that, it has changed from it’s beautiful shade of Peach Passion Orange to some Toxic Brown Broohaha that is sure to frighten you with the threat of disease (if you’re not one of the inner circle, that is). At this point I’m not even sure if there’s a point to trying to wash it off. It seems to be going through its own decomposition process of some kind. I swear… the stain has gotten smaller. I’m no scientist, but I think there may be little microbes of some kind eating itself up over there. If I wait long enough, no ooze or goo or any hint of such a thing will be anywhere in that spot. I believe it was March of 2010 when that happened, so I’ll have to wait until March of 2011 (just a little more than two months away now) to see if my “self-eating” theory is correct. If not, I’ll break down and get the car detailed or something.
6. Going Postal: Despite my sweet little blog post about the lady I know that was kind enough to send me a nice letter and some pictures in the mail (which she did recently as well, thank you very much), I am still terrible about getting the mail from my mail box. In fact, given all of the holiday hoopla, I’m pretty sure November and December were my worst months for mail gathering. I have this feeling that aside from the last week of December, my mail was sent back to the post off and ultimately returned to every sender at least four different times. Yeah… I really hate the mail. Sorry all… it’s truly a waste of trees, if you ask me (aside from my one friend and the good juju she sends on paper).
5. Speaking Of Trees: I’m rarely one to go off on paper and waste and recycling and saving trees and the Earth. I don’t really rant about things like that much. The way I see it, why should I? Every nimrod in Hollywood is doing it for me so… what does the Earth need me for, right? I will say this though – why the heck is the phone company STILL updating phone books and leaving new ones on my doorstep every three to six months? Seriously… this is so annoying! I can’t remember the last time I used a phone book. And I got so tired of the stupid phone company leaving these Tree Death Tomes under the guise of phone books on my door step, I just finally stopped bringing them into the house. “What?” you say. “What do you mean you just stopped bringing them into your house?” you say. “What good would that do?” you say. I say, it did a lot of fricking good! It’s like leaving the faux Hoot Owl on the telephone wire so the mice don’t come and chew the line the death. I swear to you! I had two phone books left on my doorstep and I NEVER picked them up and for two whole years I NEVER saw a new phone book get left on my doorstep. Why? Because they took one look at the dead disheveled weather beaten book of phone numbers that no one had even bothered to throw in the garbage and they walked away in horror and disgust. Who would do that? Who would just leave the pile of book covered trees just lying there to suffer? I would! ME! Pandora! I would so you could see all the lovely rain forests you’ve destroyed in black and white on my patio! (not that the poor soul delivering the things at minimum wage had anything to do with rainforest destruction, and not that I really had that much of a purpose behind my choice to leave them there, but still…) Anyway, the point is, I left those things there until they really were a bit of an eyesore but they seemed to keep the new phone books away so I continued to leave them there for over a year. Unfortunately for me, someone got wise to me and left a new phone book for me right at the end of November 2010. “Really?!?!?” I yelled, and then I picked up the new book and the two phone books of the dead and threw them in the dumpster.
4. Stress Queen: Did you realize that if you don’t find a healthy way to handle your stress it can actually break down your immune system so badly that these happy little proteins inside your body called Heat Shock Proteins (HSPs) will start to work overtime every time you have a stressful moment of some kind and you will break out in a rash all over? I didn’t either until I spent the last year breaking out into some crazy rash every time I tried to stay calm cool and collected on the outside while knowing I was screaming on the inside. How ‘bout that? I can’t hide it too well anymore. Come to my cubicle to tell me something and I’ll break out in a stress rash while I do my best to pretend your halitosis isn’t driving me up the wall. Awesome… Padded cell, take me away!
3. Massage Envy: I think that’s an interesting name for a company. I guess it means that since I have a monthly membership there, you should all envy me as I take advantage of stress relieving massages and the health benefits they present to me as I embrace a healthy approach to coping with stress. I’m starting to think, however, that the name actually mocks me as it stares me in the face and reminds me that I’m paying $50 a month to get a massage to help me cope with the stress in my life and I’m so busy and consumed with the stupid minute details of life I never take the time to use what I’m regularly paying for. I drive past the place and become envious because inside there are people that have taken the time to treat themselves to a mere sixty minutes of relaxing silence and release of tension in the muscles that push and pull at the bones that will soon be aching from the muscle’s inability to relax. Yes, I am envious. I'm pretty sure I've paid for an entire year supply of monthly massages and I've never used one. (...bet those people aren’t breaking out in stress rashes...) Guess I need to see myself as a never ending pile of laundry and make the stress load priority one before it kills me.
2. Christmas Past: I always put the Christmas tree and Christmas decorations up the Friday after Thanksgiving and I always take everything down on New Year’s Day. I don’t know what happened to me in 2010, but I left the Christmas tree and all of the decorations up until Easter, which I think was sometime in April 2010. Now I know for a fact there is someone out there that’s got me beat on this one, but still… that was way overdue (even by my lackadaisical standards) and I have no idea why I let that one ride for so long. Christmas is only fun during that November – December stint, after that it’s just annoying clutter and has no business sitting in your living room reminding you that life isn’t as cheery as all those lights and sugar plums would lead you to believe (although I’m pretty sure some dudes could possibly make the case for why The Nutcracker might be a mainstay in their daily life year round, but I suggest they go see a marriage counselor for that one). Anyway, as of right now, it’s 10:50 p.m. on January 9, 2011 and I still have not taken down the Christmas décor in here. I fully intend to get to it sometime this week, as I will not be convincing myself that this year’s Easter Celebration consists of the symbolic disassembling of the Christmas tree.
1. Slack Ass Blogger: And finally… Not that you don’t already know this, but 2010 was actually the worst year for me, blog wise. I was going to give myself some extra points for content, but then I went back and skimmed through the entire last year and well… August was apparently my best month due to the Salad Bad Ass and my lemonade detox diet attempt, but … the rest of the year was a lot of whining about work and my inability to think creatively in the cubicle (which is pretty apparent from what I see here). And I counted everything up -- from the time I started this blog in 2008 to now, 2010 was the most inconsistent writing year I had, topping out at 27 posts which I even beat in my “novice” year by one with 28 posts.
…sigh…
I guess I owe those of you who still subscribe some serious thanks. I don’t have many of you, but for some reason you keep hanging in there with me and you keep hounding me and encouraging me because you actually believe I have something entertaining and perhaps even valuable (at least at times) to say. I would like to promise that I will do better, for myself as much as for you, but promises are a guaranteed deal breaker so… how about we just leave it at that, take a gamble and see what happens, eh? I know what I’m dreaming up in my head, it’s just a matter of making it happen.
PEACE!!!!!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Pandora lives...
...she's just a bit unnoticed these days.
I promise she will return -- riding the pale horse and all Hell will follow with her.
;-)
I promise she will return -- riding the pale horse and all Hell will follow with her.
;-)
Monday, October 18, 2010
Aint Nothing Wrong With The Sell Out
Maybe I should just sell out completely, even though some think I already have.
I sold out to "corporate America."
Do you remember those guys? The ones all dressed in black, somewhere between the ages of 19 and 25, that were convinced you gave up your dreams if you got a "real job" and actually paid your bills. Do you remember them? I do and I often wonder where they are now. Are they like me? (probably, considering I was one of them) Sell outs... sitting in a cubicle somewhere wondering why they have no desire to create, the way they did back in the day when they were all dressed in black playing the role of the anti-social because that was cool and that was "art." Something tells me they're sitting in a cubicle similar to mine, writing advertisements for honeymoon adventures and drinking themselves to death because they hate every minute of it. Life mocks them the same way it does me and I have to admit, I'm laughing about it (at least right now I am).
I read a blurb today about a guy that retired, after 30 years at my company, and in the past two years of his retirement he started writing books. He's actually published now, with another novel on the way. Sure, he may not be making a mint through it, but dude is finally doing what he probably always wanted to do. He's writing.
And sure, he's writing stories about how his main character and his wife are solving mysteries about fraudulent mortgage brokers while they simultaneously explore the wonders of America in their RV, but still... at least the dude is writing. I would love to mock him. I would love to make fun of it -- this couple in their 60s single handedly bringing an end to America's financial demise in their RV. I would love to say something like, "...an RV is a very discreet, stealthy mode of transportation for tracking down evil. Batman had one," but I can't. Why? Why can't I make fun of that guy? Because, to be absolutely honest, I admire the man. He spent a lifetime "selling out" so he could pay his bills and then retired to his laptop to write whatever the hell he felt like writing because it makes him happy.
The Golden Years are upon the man, and I can only hope, at this point, if I'm unfortunate enough to not break through the mundane, that the golden years will be so kind to me when I finally pay for my child to get through college and still have enough money to retire and live the remainder of my days writing whatever the hell I feel like just because I can. Granted, given my cynical nature and sarcastic bite toward life, I doubt I'll write about my RV travels and dream about taking down the evil mortgage brokers that left so many people homeless in the early two thousands, but still... I'll write something.
I imagine, perhaps incorrectly but I still do, that this man wanted to write his whole life. I imagine that this man had to do what he had to do to survive. I imagine that this man took care of his family, the people that meant the most to him. I imagine that this man had moments where the cubicle felt like death. I imagine that he sat up nights thinking that this was a waste, that he was going to lie on his death bed and say, "...but I never did what I really wanted, I never did what I felt drawn to do." And I imagine, when I look at the smile on his face in the photograph included in the article that he now sits with a sense of satisfaction saying, "I'm exactly where I dreamed I would be. Took a while... but I'm here." And to me... that's no sell out. That's a man that had to do what he had to do to survive, to take care of what matters, his family, and when opportunity knocked, he answered. Lord... I can only pray that I have the same endurance as this man. I can only say to myself, "If he can do it, so can I."
Sure... is it art by the young man in black's standard? Probably not. But to me, at this point in my life, art is about feeding my soul and if it happens to feed yours too then I got lucky. Art is all that is beautiful in an ugly world. Art is all about thinking outside the proverbial box, and as far as this man is concerned, writing a mystery novel about a retired couple in an RV with a pertinent political slant to it is most definitely outside the box. More power to the man, and more power to me and people like me. It was a message that I guess I needed to hear today. Do what you must, but never forget your dreams, even if you're sixty something and ready to retire.
The spirit that made you wear nothing but black in your younger years never really dies, it just alters into a bit more color and you actually have money in your pocket. ...nothing wrong with that.
I sold out to "corporate America."
Do you remember those guys? The ones all dressed in black, somewhere between the ages of 19 and 25, that were convinced you gave up your dreams if you got a "real job" and actually paid your bills. Do you remember them? I do and I often wonder where they are now. Are they like me? (probably, considering I was one of them) Sell outs... sitting in a cubicle somewhere wondering why they have no desire to create, the way they did back in the day when they were all dressed in black playing the role of the anti-social because that was cool and that was "art." Something tells me they're sitting in a cubicle similar to mine, writing advertisements for honeymoon adventures and drinking themselves to death because they hate every minute of it. Life mocks them the same way it does me and I have to admit, I'm laughing about it (at least right now I am).
I read a blurb today about a guy that retired, after 30 years at my company, and in the past two years of his retirement he started writing books. He's actually published now, with another novel on the way. Sure, he may not be making a mint through it, but dude is finally doing what he probably always wanted to do. He's writing.
And sure, he's writing stories about how his main character and his wife are solving mysteries about fraudulent mortgage brokers while they simultaneously explore the wonders of America in their RV, but still... at least the dude is writing. I would love to mock him. I would love to make fun of it -- this couple in their 60s single handedly bringing an end to America's financial demise in their RV. I would love to say something like, "...an RV is a very discreet, stealthy mode of transportation for tracking down evil. Batman had one," but I can't. Why? Why can't I make fun of that guy? Because, to be absolutely honest, I admire the man. He spent a lifetime "selling out" so he could pay his bills and then retired to his laptop to write whatever the hell he felt like writing because it makes him happy.
The Golden Years are upon the man, and I can only hope, at this point, if I'm unfortunate enough to not break through the mundane, that the golden years will be so kind to me when I finally pay for my child to get through college and still have enough money to retire and live the remainder of my days writing whatever the hell I feel like just because I can. Granted, given my cynical nature and sarcastic bite toward life, I doubt I'll write about my RV travels and dream about taking down the evil mortgage brokers that left so many people homeless in the early two thousands, but still... I'll write something.
I imagine, perhaps incorrectly but I still do, that this man wanted to write his whole life. I imagine that this man had to do what he had to do to survive. I imagine that this man took care of his family, the people that meant the most to him. I imagine that this man had moments where the cubicle felt like death. I imagine that he sat up nights thinking that this was a waste, that he was going to lie on his death bed and say, "...but I never did what I really wanted, I never did what I felt drawn to do." And I imagine, when I look at the smile on his face in the photograph included in the article that he now sits with a sense of satisfaction saying, "I'm exactly where I dreamed I would be. Took a while... but I'm here." And to me... that's no sell out. That's a man that had to do what he had to do to survive, to take care of what matters, his family, and when opportunity knocked, he answered. Lord... I can only pray that I have the same endurance as this man. I can only say to myself, "If he can do it, so can I."
Sure... is it art by the young man in black's standard? Probably not. But to me, at this point in my life, art is about feeding my soul and if it happens to feed yours too then I got lucky. Art is all that is beautiful in an ugly world. Art is all about thinking outside the proverbial box, and as far as this man is concerned, writing a mystery novel about a retired couple in an RV with a pertinent political slant to it is most definitely outside the box. More power to the man, and more power to me and people like me. It was a message that I guess I needed to hear today. Do what you must, but never forget your dreams, even if you're sixty something and ready to retire.
The spirit that made you wear nothing but black in your younger years never really dies, it just alters into a bit more color and you actually have money in your pocket. ...nothing wrong with that.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Through Stagnant Waters
Everything is moving slow
It’s frustrating
It smells like death here
We’re moving through stagnant waters
Everything is
same time
same thing
same place
And the one time something new appeared
We killed it
Because change is terrifying.
We might have to commit to something
We might have to face opposition
We might have to argue
We might have to offend
We might have to defend
We might have to love something
We might have to stick together
We might have to take a stand
And we might have to fail
Because God forbid we ever succeed.
And now we sail this ship
Through something no one wanted
And no one foresaw
Because no one planned
And the water was crystal clear
When we started,
Manifest destiny,
At least when we started.
But now…
Who knows…
It all depends…
And some mates have jumped ship
Because the stench was just too strong
And others are weeping
Because something appears to be lost
Or soon to be lost
Or potentially lost.
And me…
I’m stuck somewhere in between.
I hear it all
I feel it all
I understand it all
Why some made their break
Why others stayed the course
Even so
I am prepared to sail this ship
Even while the albatross has fallen
And to everyone’s horror I wear the carcass
Like a badge of honor.
I sail through these seas
Stagnant pools and roaring rapids
And care for nothing that was
But for everything that is and will be.
I fear
Nothing
What would that get us?
No man will stop me
No fear will freeze me
Not even this stench of toxic waste.
The most stagnant waters can be refreshed
We just need to find the block and remove it.
So jump ship if you must
And whine and wail about your perceived misery
I empathize
I am here with you
I feel the sting
I breathe the air
I am engaged in this
And I am no fool
Nor am I a novice
Doubt if you must
But I will keep moving
With or without you
The strongest survive
Faith and love are one in the same
And change moves with faith
And success stands with love
Now… shall we proceed?
It’s frustrating
It smells like death here
We’re moving through stagnant waters
Everything is
same time
same thing
same place
And the one time something new appeared
We killed it
Because change is terrifying.
We might have to commit to something
We might have to face opposition
We might have to argue
We might have to offend
We might have to defend
We might have to love something
We might have to stick together
We might have to take a stand
And we might have to fail
Because God forbid we ever succeed.
And now we sail this ship
Through something no one wanted
And no one foresaw
Because no one planned
And the water was crystal clear
When we started,
Manifest destiny,
At least when we started.
But now…
Who knows…
It all depends…
And some mates have jumped ship
Because the stench was just too strong
And others are weeping
Because something appears to be lost
Or soon to be lost
Or potentially lost.
And me…
I’m stuck somewhere in between.
I hear it all
I feel it all
I understand it all
Why some made their break
Why others stayed the course
Even so
I am prepared to sail this ship
Even while the albatross has fallen
And to everyone’s horror I wear the carcass
Like a badge of honor.
I sail through these seas
Stagnant pools and roaring rapids
And care for nothing that was
But for everything that is and will be.
I fear
Nothing
What would that get us?
No man will stop me
No fear will freeze me
Not even this stench of toxic waste.
The most stagnant waters can be refreshed
We just need to find the block and remove it.
So jump ship if you must
And whine and wail about your perceived misery
I empathize
I am here with you
I feel the sting
I breathe the air
I am engaged in this
And I am no fool
Nor am I a novice
Doubt if you must
But I will keep moving
With or without you
The strongest survive
Faith and love are one in the same
And change moves with faith
And success stands with love
Now… shall we proceed?
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Reminder: BLOG
I've lost that lovin' feeling, like an anemic visited by one too many ticks. The resource has gone dry: part-time love affair, part-time singer/song writer, part-time dreamer... don't quit your day job and remember that reality was meant to bite, just like Winona Ryder was meant to end her movie career as a shop-lifter and Mel Gibson was meant to go down as an anti-semitic overly zealous Catholic with a bad divorce and a ridiculous earring.
(God help us when the Catholics decide to get over zealous. Everyone expects a Bible thumping Baptist screaming hell, fire, and brimstone, but an overly pompous preachy Catholic? I think that's an oxymoron of some kind, at least where I grew up it is. I used to envy the Catholic kids I went to school with. They all sinned whenever and where ever they wanted and had no fear of Hell because they were absolved every Wednesday and Sunday morning like clockwork. As a Baptist? Well... you were potentially traveling down the slippery slope if you owned a deck of Hoyle playing cards and all the nerdy kids that are now successful billionaires were doomed for dabbling in the satanic arts of make believe in their dad's garage because they rolled a set of ten sided dice and created their own plot lines and characters with the help of a book called Dungeons And Dragons. And there was no amount of confession or penance that could save you from the doom you repeatedly brought upon yourself for listening to Ozzy Osborne. The only thing that could save you was complete repentance from your overactive imagination and Go Fish, as well as a potential bonfire made up of sinful vinyl records that you should've never purchased in the first place as an external show of your spiritual commitment to change. You never heard ridiculous stories of fears and judgements like that come from the Catholic kids. They just sorta looked at you and said, "You burned your records? Do you like being Baptist?" And you just sorta looked at them and said, "Um... I bet I can beat you in Bible trivia!")
Anyway... the thing is... what I really mean... (and yes I'm going to stop myself before I quote Elton John, which probably also makes me a bad Baptist because I can quote Elton John) aside from the random and the fact that I've been up since 2:30 a.m. thinking about all of the things in my life at the moment that irritate the hell out of me (that also makes me a bad Baptist, by the way, my use of "four letter words"), I have no inspiration. I am, once again, in the habit of giving everything I've got to everyone else who wants a piece of the pie.
(whatever that is -- "pie." I just felt like saying it because for some reason it made me think of The Jefferson's and their deluxe apartment in the sky, which is definitely not what I'm living in, though I did have a good laugh about that when my mother was high as a kite the other day after coming out of her knee surgery and she told me how proud of me she was because I'm the "big shot" in the family, which is really pathetic for me and everyone else in the family if sitting in a cubicle 40 hours a week and getting paid just enough to live in an apartment with neighbors like Windmill Dick and the girl that thinks her dog responds to the F - word makes me the "big shot" in the family (that makes me a little bit of a better Baptist right there because I said "F - word" instead of the actual word). She's over it now though. She laughed like it was the craziest thing she'd ever heard herself say when I told her about it, which is way more like it. I really do wish I had a little of whatever they'd put in her I.V. though. I might have a little more of that lovin' feeling I've apparently lost if I had some of whatever that was.)
Pie... want a piece of me? It's going fast!
(I just noticed that I put parenthetical statements within my rambling parenthetical statements and I'm pretty sure that's as good as it gets today)
(God help us when the Catholics decide to get over zealous. Everyone expects a Bible thumping Baptist screaming hell, fire, and brimstone, but an overly pompous preachy Catholic? I think that's an oxymoron of some kind, at least where I grew up it is. I used to envy the Catholic kids I went to school with. They all sinned whenever and where ever they wanted and had no fear of Hell because they were absolved every Wednesday and Sunday morning like clockwork. As a Baptist? Well... you were potentially traveling down the slippery slope if you owned a deck of Hoyle playing cards and all the nerdy kids that are now successful billionaires were doomed for dabbling in the satanic arts of make believe in their dad's garage because they rolled a set of ten sided dice and created their own plot lines and characters with the help of a book called Dungeons And Dragons. And there was no amount of confession or penance that could save you from the doom you repeatedly brought upon yourself for listening to Ozzy Osborne. The only thing that could save you was complete repentance from your overactive imagination and Go Fish, as well as a potential bonfire made up of sinful vinyl records that you should've never purchased in the first place as an external show of your spiritual commitment to change. You never heard ridiculous stories of fears and judgements like that come from the Catholic kids. They just sorta looked at you and said, "You burned your records? Do you like being Baptist?" And you just sorta looked at them and said, "Um... I bet I can beat you in Bible trivia!")
Anyway... the thing is... what I really mean... (and yes I'm going to stop myself before I quote Elton John, which probably also makes me a bad Baptist because I can quote Elton John) aside from the random and the fact that I've been up since 2:30 a.m. thinking about all of the things in my life at the moment that irritate the hell out of me (that also makes me a bad Baptist, by the way, my use of "four letter words"), I have no inspiration. I am, once again, in the habit of giving everything I've got to everyone else who wants a piece of the pie.
(whatever that is -- "pie." I just felt like saying it because for some reason it made me think of The Jefferson's and their deluxe apartment in the sky, which is definitely not what I'm living in, though I did have a good laugh about that when my mother was high as a kite the other day after coming out of her knee surgery and she told me how proud of me she was because I'm the "big shot" in the family, which is really pathetic for me and everyone else in the family if sitting in a cubicle 40 hours a week and getting paid just enough to live in an apartment with neighbors like Windmill Dick and the girl that thinks her dog responds to the F - word makes me the "big shot" in the family (that makes me a little bit of a better Baptist right there because I said "F - word" instead of the actual word). She's over it now though. She laughed like it was the craziest thing she'd ever heard herself say when I told her about it, which is way more like it. I really do wish I had a little of whatever they'd put in her I.V. though. I might have a little more of that lovin' feeling I've apparently lost if I had some of whatever that was.)
Pie... want a piece of me? It's going fast!
(I just noticed that I put parenthetical statements within my rambling parenthetical statements and I'm pretty sure that's as good as it gets today)
Friday, September 10, 2010
Conversation In The Dark
She said, "It's dark in here."
I said, "I know."
She said, "I can't see you, but I can hear you."
I said, "I know."
She said, "...you keep saying I know."
I said, "Yes, I know."
She said, "Can't you say something else?"
I said, "Well, I said Yes first that last time. What would you like me to say?"
She said, "I don't know."
I said, "Well, between the two of us, at least I know something."
She laughed a little bit.
I said, "At least you're laughing."
She said, "I can't really do anything else. It isn't like I can turn the light on or something."
I said, "I know."
She said, "Even if there were a light to turn on in here, I can't even see enough to fumble around and find it."
I said, "I know."
She was quiet for a minute and then she said, "You're really starting to annoy me with the I know part. If you're going to be stuck in here with me, can you please say something other than I know?"
I said, "Listen, you should be happy that I know. I've been here before. The darkness is thick and intimidating and there is nothing I can do to change that right now. I didn't make it dark in here, but I'm in here, my path brought me here, and until I can get my bearings and adjust my eyes enough to move around in these shadows and navigate my way out of here, there's nothing I can do, just like you said. The difference is, I already know this. Part of being alive is finding yourself in the dark from time to time. And the first time is somewhat terrifying, I know, but eventually something shifts. Eventually you either fumble your way to the light and turn it on yourself, or at some point the sun rises the same way it does every day and you realize that all this time you were sitting in here there was a slight glow to your left indicating a way out. I can't tell you when that will happen, but I know it will happen. I know for a fact the darkness doesn't last forever. There is always a light to follow somewhere, you just have to find it. And in a situation like this, the best thing to do is sit tight, calm yourself, and remember -- this too shall pass. The power goes out, but it always comes back on. The sun sets, but it always rises. You fall into the deep dark pit, eventually you climb back out. You're never stuck, not really, even if you feel like it. This I know. And if you want to disagree with me, well... where does that leave you? What choice does that give you? Other than give up and die here, it leaves you nothing. So... it's dark in here. You can't find the light. All you can do is sit here, back to back with me, the person you can't see but at least hear, and know two things: I know where you are and I know you're not alone."
She said, "I love you."
I said, "I love you too."
And we sat there, together, back to back, in the dark.
I said, "I know."
She said, "I can't see you, but I can hear you."
I said, "I know."
She said, "...you keep saying I know."
I said, "Yes, I know."
She said, "Can't you say something else?"
I said, "Well, I said Yes first that last time. What would you like me to say?"
She said, "I don't know."
I said, "Well, between the two of us, at least I know something."
She laughed a little bit.
I said, "At least you're laughing."
She said, "I can't really do anything else. It isn't like I can turn the light on or something."
I said, "I know."
She said, "Even if there were a light to turn on in here, I can't even see enough to fumble around and find it."
I said, "I know."
She was quiet for a minute and then she said, "You're really starting to annoy me with the I know part. If you're going to be stuck in here with me, can you please say something other than I know?"
I said, "Listen, you should be happy that I know. I've been here before. The darkness is thick and intimidating and there is nothing I can do to change that right now. I didn't make it dark in here, but I'm in here, my path brought me here, and until I can get my bearings and adjust my eyes enough to move around in these shadows and navigate my way out of here, there's nothing I can do, just like you said. The difference is, I already know this. Part of being alive is finding yourself in the dark from time to time. And the first time is somewhat terrifying, I know, but eventually something shifts. Eventually you either fumble your way to the light and turn it on yourself, or at some point the sun rises the same way it does every day and you realize that all this time you were sitting in here there was a slight glow to your left indicating a way out. I can't tell you when that will happen, but I know it will happen. I know for a fact the darkness doesn't last forever. There is always a light to follow somewhere, you just have to find it. And in a situation like this, the best thing to do is sit tight, calm yourself, and remember -- this too shall pass. The power goes out, but it always comes back on. The sun sets, but it always rises. You fall into the deep dark pit, eventually you climb back out. You're never stuck, not really, even if you feel like it. This I know. And if you want to disagree with me, well... where does that leave you? What choice does that give you? Other than give up and die here, it leaves you nothing. So... it's dark in here. You can't find the light. All you can do is sit here, back to back with me, the person you can't see but at least hear, and know two things: I know where you are and I know you're not alone."
She said, "I love you."
I said, "I love you too."
And we sat there, together, back to back, in the dark.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Salad Bad Ass
(Pandora, Hope, and G.B. Wittington are seated at a patio table at the local Pei Wei restaurant. They've already discussed the lack of fortune telling from the fortune cookies and wait patiently for their dinner.)
Attendant: (comes out with the food) Honey Seared Chicken, Gluten Free Spicy Chicken, and Chopped Chicken Salad with no dressing. Anything else?
Pandora: No, thank you. Everything looks good.
Attendant: Okay then. Enjoy!
G.B. Wittington: I think I threw that guy off when I asked for no dressing. I mean, who does that? Who asks for no dressing? How many times has that happened to him? Once, like right now, or maybe twice? I bet no one asks for no dressing.
Hope: (looks at G.B. Wittington) Why didn't you ask for any dressing?
Pandora: Because he thinks dressing is the enemy.
Hope: What?
G.B. Wittington: (grimaces at Pandora) I have learned to simply enjoy the taste of food in its natural state.
Hope: But the chicken isn't in its natural state.
G.B. Wittington: ...
Hope: Well, it isn't alive right now, is it?
Pandora: (starts laughing)
Hope: I'm just saying, dead and cooked chicken isn't exactly a natural state.
G.B. Wittington: Ok, there's that, and salad dressing is just a glob of unnecessary goo so... I go without it.
Hope: But it's tasty goo, isn't it?
Pandora: Yes, but people like him think bland is healthy so... we let it go. Who needs the spice of life anyway?
G.B. Wittington: (takes a bite of bland salad) Spice is for sissies.
(everyone quietly eats for a bit and then...)
G.B. Wittington: (stares at his salad bowl)... this is pretty dry.
Pandora: (sneers) ...should've gotten salad dressing? The natural state isn't doing it for ya?
G.B. Wittington: (reaches his fork across the table and dips it into the sauce on Pandora's plate)
Pandora: What's this?
Hope: (holds up the serving spoon) This might work better, you could scoop more up and drizzle it over your salad better.
G.B. Wittington: I'm not trying to use it as dressing, I just wanted to taste it. (as he takes another bit of salad with sauce on his fork)
Pandora: Right...
Hope: Looks like you're "dressing" the salad to me.
G.B. Wittington: No! I just wanted to taste it!
Hope: Cuz the sauce is in its natural state?
G.B. Wittington: ... (with a strange look on his face)
Pandora: What? (noticing the strange look on his face) Are you okay?
G.B. Wittington: (looking a little pale) Yes.
Pandora: What's with that look on your face?
G.B. Wittington: Some salad is stuck in my throat.
Pandora: What? Are you choking?
G.B. Wittington: No, it just feels like a glob of salad is stuck in my throat. It's not going down right.
Pandora: Good grief...
G.B. Wittington: (picks up his water and stands up) Excuse me for a minute, please.
Pandora: What are you doing?
G.B. Wittington: I need to excuse myself.
Pandora: You're going to the men's room to gag and cough and clear your throat from the chopped chicken salad aren't you?
G.B. Wittington: (heads to the door) Yep. (comes back to the table after about five minutes of gagging absence) It's all good. I fixed it.
Pandora: Good grief... if you weren't trying to be some kind of Salad Bad Ass this wouldn't be happening.
G.B. Wittington: Salad Bad Ass?
Pandora: Yeah, Mr. I Asked For No Dressing. (in a mockingly low voice) "I threw that guy off when I asked for no salad dressing. Who does that? Me! I'm the only man on Earth that does that! No one does that because they are all pansies! I am the Salad Bad Ass!"
G.B. Wittington: Haha! Well, I am the Salad Bad Ass!
Pandora: Whatever! Salad Bad Asses don't go gag in the men's room because they're choking on the dryness of the salad without dressing.
Hope: Seriously... why did you do that?
G.B. Wittington: Because I'm a Mountain Man!
Pandora: What???
G.B.Wittington: I'm a Mountain Man! Mountain Men don't use salad dressing.
Pandora: Mountain Men don't eat salad!
G.B. Wittington: Yes they do! They eat grass!
Pandora: They eat meat!
G.B. Wittington: They eat grass and twigs because if they don't they experience extreme constipation and hemorrhoids!
Pandora: Since when have you seen a Mountain Man pull up a handful of grass from the ground and eat it cuz he needed some fiber? Those dudes are out there hunting bears and big game. They're not eating grass!
G.B. Wittington: They are too! They're eating grass and twigs because they're all natural.
Pandora: You're confused.
G.B. Wittington: I am not!
Pandora: Yes you are. You're thinking about those stupid granola hippies with the hemp necklaces. Those guys are out there eating grass and twigs because they're all vegans and can't hurt the living creatures of Earth and whatever the hell they're thinking. But Mountain Men? Those guys are killing every creature that crosses their path and they're eating them and making clothes out of their skin.
G.B. Wittington: No! You're the one that's confused! The stupid vegans don't live in the mountains, they live by the beach in California, where they can go to the all organic grocery store and buy their granola and their vegetables and go home and smoke pot and feel more enlightened than the rest of us. They're not trolling around the mountains where it takes work to live.
Pandora: You have a point there. Okay, but the Mountain Men still don't eat grass.
G.B. Wittington: What does the Mountain Man eat then?
Pandora: Meat! He kills things and skins them and puts them on a rotisserie pole and cooks them over a fire and maybe sometimes makes a stew.
G.B. Wittington: Okay, he makes a stew. What does he make a stew with?
Pandora: Meat and water.
Hope: ...and maybe some blood and some wild beans.
Pandora: (points at Hope) That's right! Maybe some blood... he may add some blood for ... flavor ... or whatever... (looks at Hope) ... blood?
Hope: Ya, Mom. They used blood.
G.B. Wittington: ...and what else, Hope? What else did they use?
Hope: beans
G.B. Wittington: Ha! Did you hear that??? They used beans!
Pandora: They did not!
G.B. Wittington: They did too! Your daughter said so!
Pandora: What? No she didn't!
G.B. Wittington: Yes she did! She just said beans!
Pandora: (to Hope) Did you say beans?
Hope: Yes, I did. And you agreed with me.
Pandora: You did not! You did not say beans!
Hope: Yes, I did, Mom. I said beans, and you agreed with me.
Pandora: I did not! I never agreed to beans! You said blood! I agreed to blood, but I never agreed to beans!
Hope: Well... I said beans. I said blood and wild beans and you agreed with me.
Pandora: ...
G.B. Wittington: And how do they get the beans, Hope?
Hope: They gather them. (she takes another bite of her food) Mountain Men are basically hunters and gatherers. They do both things to exist. They eat meat, and they eat wild beans and berries that they find growing in the wild.
G.B. Wittington: (smiles triumphantly at Pandora)
Pandora: Well... she didn't say they eat grass, and they certainly don't eat Chopped Chicken Salad without dressing from Pei Wei.
Attendant: (comes out with the food) Honey Seared Chicken, Gluten Free Spicy Chicken, and Chopped Chicken Salad with no dressing. Anything else?
Pandora: No, thank you. Everything looks good.
Attendant: Okay then. Enjoy!
G.B. Wittington: I think I threw that guy off when I asked for no dressing. I mean, who does that? Who asks for no dressing? How many times has that happened to him? Once, like right now, or maybe twice? I bet no one asks for no dressing.
Hope: (looks at G.B. Wittington) Why didn't you ask for any dressing?
Pandora: Because he thinks dressing is the enemy.
Hope: What?
G.B. Wittington: (grimaces at Pandora) I have learned to simply enjoy the taste of food in its natural state.
Hope: But the chicken isn't in its natural state.
G.B. Wittington: ...
Hope: Well, it isn't alive right now, is it?
Pandora: (starts laughing)
Hope: I'm just saying, dead and cooked chicken isn't exactly a natural state.
G.B. Wittington: Ok, there's that, and salad dressing is just a glob of unnecessary goo so... I go without it.
Hope: But it's tasty goo, isn't it?
Pandora: Yes, but people like him think bland is healthy so... we let it go. Who needs the spice of life anyway?
G.B. Wittington: (takes a bite of bland salad) Spice is for sissies.
(everyone quietly eats for a bit and then...)
G.B. Wittington: (stares at his salad bowl)... this is pretty dry.
Pandora: (sneers) ...should've gotten salad dressing? The natural state isn't doing it for ya?
G.B. Wittington: (reaches his fork across the table and dips it into the sauce on Pandora's plate)
Pandora: What's this?
Hope: (holds up the serving spoon) This might work better, you could scoop more up and drizzle it over your salad better.
G.B. Wittington: I'm not trying to use it as dressing, I just wanted to taste it. (as he takes another bit of salad with sauce on his fork)
Pandora: Right...
Hope: Looks like you're "dressing" the salad to me.
G.B. Wittington: No! I just wanted to taste it!
Hope: Cuz the sauce is in its natural state?
G.B. Wittington: ... (with a strange look on his face)
Pandora: What? (noticing the strange look on his face) Are you okay?
G.B. Wittington: (looking a little pale) Yes.
Pandora: What's with that look on your face?
G.B. Wittington: Some salad is stuck in my throat.
Pandora: What? Are you choking?
G.B. Wittington: No, it just feels like a glob of salad is stuck in my throat. It's not going down right.
Pandora: Good grief...
G.B. Wittington: (picks up his water and stands up) Excuse me for a minute, please.
Pandora: What are you doing?
G.B. Wittington: I need to excuse myself.
Pandora: You're going to the men's room to gag and cough and clear your throat from the chopped chicken salad aren't you?
G.B. Wittington: (heads to the door) Yep. (comes back to the table after about five minutes of gagging absence) It's all good. I fixed it.
Pandora: Good grief... if you weren't trying to be some kind of Salad Bad Ass this wouldn't be happening.
G.B. Wittington: Salad Bad Ass?
Pandora: Yeah, Mr. I Asked For No Dressing. (in a mockingly low voice) "I threw that guy off when I asked for no salad dressing. Who does that? Me! I'm the only man on Earth that does that! No one does that because they are all pansies! I am the Salad Bad Ass!"
G.B. Wittington: Haha! Well, I am the Salad Bad Ass!
Pandora: Whatever! Salad Bad Asses don't go gag in the men's room because they're choking on the dryness of the salad without dressing.
Hope: Seriously... why did you do that?
G.B. Wittington: Because I'm a Mountain Man!
Pandora: What???
G.B.Wittington: I'm a Mountain Man! Mountain Men don't use salad dressing.
Pandora: Mountain Men don't eat salad!
G.B. Wittington: Yes they do! They eat grass!
Pandora: They eat meat!
G.B. Wittington: They eat grass and twigs because if they don't they experience extreme constipation and hemorrhoids!
Pandora: Since when have you seen a Mountain Man pull up a handful of grass from the ground and eat it cuz he needed some fiber? Those dudes are out there hunting bears and big game. They're not eating grass!
G.B. Wittington: They are too! They're eating grass and twigs because they're all natural.
Pandora: You're confused.
G.B. Wittington: I am not!
Pandora: Yes you are. You're thinking about those stupid granola hippies with the hemp necklaces. Those guys are out there eating grass and twigs because they're all vegans and can't hurt the living creatures of Earth and whatever the hell they're thinking. But Mountain Men? Those guys are killing every creature that crosses their path and they're eating them and making clothes out of their skin.
G.B. Wittington: No! You're the one that's confused! The stupid vegans don't live in the mountains, they live by the beach in California, where they can go to the all organic grocery store and buy their granola and their vegetables and go home and smoke pot and feel more enlightened than the rest of us. They're not trolling around the mountains where it takes work to live.
Pandora: You have a point there. Okay, but the Mountain Men still don't eat grass.
G.B. Wittington: What does the Mountain Man eat then?
Pandora: Meat! He kills things and skins them and puts them on a rotisserie pole and cooks them over a fire and maybe sometimes makes a stew.
G.B. Wittington: Okay, he makes a stew. What does he make a stew with?
Pandora: Meat and water.
Hope: ...and maybe some blood and some wild beans.
Pandora: (points at Hope) That's right! Maybe some blood... he may add some blood for ... flavor ... or whatever... (looks at Hope) ... blood?
Hope: Ya, Mom. They used blood.
G.B. Wittington: ...and what else, Hope? What else did they use?
Hope: beans
G.B. Wittington: Ha! Did you hear that??? They used beans!
Pandora: They did not!
G.B. Wittington: They did too! Your daughter said so!
Pandora: What? No she didn't!
G.B. Wittington: Yes she did! She just said beans!
Pandora: (to Hope) Did you say beans?
Hope: Yes, I did. And you agreed with me.
Pandora: You did not! You did not say beans!
Hope: Yes, I did, Mom. I said beans, and you agreed with me.
Pandora: I did not! I never agreed to beans! You said blood! I agreed to blood, but I never agreed to beans!
Hope: Well... I said beans. I said blood and wild beans and you agreed with me.
Pandora: ...
G.B. Wittington: And how do they get the beans, Hope?
Hope: They gather them. (she takes another bite of her food) Mountain Men are basically hunters and gatherers. They do both things to exist. They eat meat, and they eat wild beans and berries that they find growing in the wild.
G.B. Wittington: (smiles triumphantly at Pandora)
Pandora: Well... she didn't say they eat grass, and they certainly don't eat Chopped Chicken Salad without dressing from Pei Wei.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Now I'm Schlepped
When I was a kid I used to look cross-eyed at people in an attempt to provoke a reaction from them. If my mother was around she'd usually say something like, "Your face is going to get stuck that way and you're going to look like that for the rest of your life. Is that what you want?" I'm not positive, but I think all moms of that generation said something like that. I know a few friends who had moms that said that right after bopping the kid on the forehead. And though I never believed my mom when she said that, I know some kids were absolutely convinced their mother was right. One time I made the cross-eyed face to a group of kids when there were no moms around at all and still some kid said to me (in a somewhat terrified voice), "Don't do that!!! Something could hit you on the head while you're doing that and your face will stay that way forever!!!" When I tried to argue with the kid and tell him that was a made up statement moms say to make us stop doing that, all I got was, "It will too! My mom went to school with a kid that happened to!"
Anyway, the other day I got into a bit of a stupid debate over the difference between "strolling" and "schlepping." Unless I have a definite purpose or destination to reach in a specific amount of time, I like to stroll -- that is, leisurely walk down the street. However, I was recently accused of "schlepping" instead of strolling. Of course, I highly objected to this.
I do not SCHLEP!!! The elephant man SCHLEPS!!! Igor SCHLEPS!!! Pandora strolls... she DOES NOT SCHLEP!!!
To SCHLEP is to walk as though one has a club foot, a curved spine, and a limp left arm.* So, much like looking cross-eyed at the guy, I demonstrated what it means to schlep: I proceeded to drag my right foot behind me as I hunched over and swung my left arm limply (and I'm pretty sure I made a few strange noises and perhaps drooled a bit for an extra special effect) all in an attempt to a) make a good impression on the guy, b) get a rise out of him, and c) prove my point. It worked beautifully! (particularly since he was forced to admit I was right, because I wasn't going to stop doing that until he couldn't withstand the eyeballs of the passers by and he was forced to say, "Okay okay! Pandora strolls, she doesn't schlep! Stop! STOP!") The problem is, I think the curse of my mother may be coming back to haunt me because I've been schlepping (minus the drool, strange noises, curved spine, and listless left arm) since Saturday morning.
Something happened between sleeping and waking that Friday night. My right hip keeps popping in and out of socket (something that has happened to me every so often since I gave birth to my daughter) causing me great pain and definitely affecting my ability to walk or stroll. Ever since I got out of bed Saturday morning, I've been standing up to hear myself let out a bit of a painful holler and then schlep the rest of the way to my intended destination. It was really great when I went to have lunch with my mother (who's now 70). When I got up from the table and started to schlep to the restroom she said, "Uh oh! You're walking like a cripple! What happened?" and my daughter said, "It's karma, Grandma! She was making fun of people who schlep and now she's stuck schlepping!" And though I denied mocking the schleppers of the world, my mother just gave me that knowing eyeball and shook her head as if to say, "I told you it would stick, and now look at you... you're schlepped."
Anyway, I'm not sure what to do about this. It's day three of schlepping and I have to say it doesn't do much for the power of the power suit when I schlep into the conference room instead of stride. I suppose I'll have to endure this for a while, a sort of penance for mocking the power of the schlep. And I suppose I'll have to start warning Hope about things like this, because she likes to make this sort of lizard looking face once in a while and I would hate for her to get stuck looking like that forever.
________________________________________
*not really. To Schlep means to walk slowly and awkwardly, perhaps even lugging something behind you, but it is still very different from strolling and I was using the art of exaggeration to prove a point.
Anyway, the other day I got into a bit of a stupid debate over the difference between "strolling" and "schlepping." Unless I have a definite purpose or destination to reach in a specific amount of time, I like to stroll -- that is, leisurely walk down the street. However, I was recently accused of "schlepping" instead of strolling. Of course, I highly objected to this.
I do not SCHLEP!!! The elephant man SCHLEPS!!! Igor SCHLEPS!!! Pandora strolls... she DOES NOT SCHLEP!!!
To SCHLEP is to walk as though one has a club foot, a curved spine, and a limp left arm.* So, much like looking cross-eyed at the guy, I demonstrated what it means to schlep: I proceeded to drag my right foot behind me as I hunched over and swung my left arm limply (and I'm pretty sure I made a few strange noises and perhaps drooled a bit for an extra special effect) all in an attempt to a) make a good impression on the guy, b) get a rise out of him, and c) prove my point. It worked beautifully! (particularly since he was forced to admit I was right, because I wasn't going to stop doing that until he couldn't withstand the eyeballs of the passers by and he was forced to say, "Okay okay! Pandora strolls, she doesn't schlep! Stop! STOP!") The problem is, I think the curse of my mother may be coming back to haunt me because I've been schlepping (minus the drool, strange noises, curved spine, and listless left arm) since Saturday morning.
Something happened between sleeping and waking that Friday night. My right hip keeps popping in and out of socket (something that has happened to me every so often since I gave birth to my daughter) causing me great pain and definitely affecting my ability to walk or stroll. Ever since I got out of bed Saturday morning, I've been standing up to hear myself let out a bit of a painful holler and then schlep the rest of the way to my intended destination. It was really great when I went to have lunch with my mother (who's now 70). When I got up from the table and started to schlep to the restroom she said, "Uh oh! You're walking like a cripple! What happened?" and my daughter said, "It's karma, Grandma! She was making fun of people who schlep and now she's stuck schlepping!" And though I denied mocking the schleppers of the world, my mother just gave me that knowing eyeball and shook her head as if to say, "I told you it would stick, and now look at you... you're schlepped."
Anyway, I'm not sure what to do about this. It's day three of schlepping and I have to say it doesn't do much for the power of the power suit when I schlep into the conference room instead of stride. I suppose I'll have to endure this for a while, a sort of penance for mocking the power of the schlep. And I suppose I'll have to start warning Hope about things like this, because she likes to make this sort of lizard looking face once in a while and I would hate for her to get stuck looking like that forever.
________________________________________
*not really. To Schlep means to walk slowly and awkwardly, perhaps even lugging something behind you, but it is still very different from strolling and I was using the art of exaggeration to prove a point.
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