Think of the name “Dr. Seuss.” Pronounce it in your head.
You’re wrong. Almost everyone pronounces it wrong.
He took the pseudonym from his mother’s maiden name.
All his close friends and family pronounced it to rhyme with “Joyce” or “Zoice.” If you are saying it like “Soose” or to rhyme with “Zeus,” you’re wrong.
There are multiple reasons why Dr. Seuss went along with the mispronunciation. You can look it up if you’re interested.
You’ll also discover the heart-breaking suicide of his first wife. She knew that Dr. Seuss was having an affair with one of her best friends, while significant health problems were affecting her.
Not that I ever get writer’s block, but he’d sit in a room of hats and try one on to stimulate his creativity.
Depending on whom you ask, he might have coined the word “Nerd” in his book, “If I Ran To The Zoo.” That book is no longer printed, among several others, for reasons based on perceived prejudice. He also wrote and illustrated a book for adults about seven naked ladies.
“Green Eggs And Ham” was written on a dare that he couldn’t write a book with fewer than fifty words.
This morning, as I quietly stood on the landing, I heard someone below fail to realize I was standing above, listening to the sounds of the insects and watching the infrequent traffic. My cat Güino stood next to me, sniffing the air.
A series of staccato flatulent blasts interrupted the nature sounds.
They weren’t mine, in case you’re pondering.
One, two, three, four; the toots almost echoed against the cheap vinyl siding and the wooden platform above the anonymous performer.
I couldn’t help it.
I laughed.
Below, a single word was uttered: “Oops!”
If you can’t even fart outside at 3:30, nothing is sacred.
What a delight it is to watch two small children scampering in this heavy rain. They are squealing with happiness. But I’m also confused because they’re wearing raincoats! .
My sister posted an affirmational meme, and it reminded me of something I wrote a few years ago in response to people’s addictive or destructive behavior. Including my own.
“Fill your life with people who reflect who you are and who you want to be, not with those who are a reflection of who you once were and no longer wish to be.
If you’re a fuse, don’t stand near dynamite, as the results are inevitable. You start to believe it’s your purpose and inalterable. Abnormality begins to normalize patterns that aren’t ones you’d otherwise choose.
And if you are a fuse, choose to stand elsewhere. Proximity to undesirable people and behaviors infects you incrementally.
You end up with a life you didn’t choose and don’t want, and you wrongly assume, “Well, I am a fuse, after all.” That’s garbage thinking.
Every change commences with a choice.
Stay away from the fire and those who need or want you to be a fuse.
I reminded myself that I’m an imperfectionist. And I take pleasure from the idea of people frowning when they can’t read the text on the picture very well. Like a lot of things that are true, you have to look a little harder. .
This post isn’t for you. You know who are, favorite DNA person. 🙂
Most of us live in our private nests.
Pretty much everyone feels like they need to clean more, reduce more, and spend more time in the bureaucracy of keeping their nest aligned with an arbitrary level of cleanliness. That’s okay, too. Each minute spent to do so should not be at the expense of your moments, your friends, your family – but more so, at the cost of your mental well-being. Time spent concerned about how your nest looks is time not spent being creative or enjoying even simple pleasures. You become too focused on the “ought to and obligation” of keeping your nest perfect.
Stacks of mail in the kitchen, dust everywhere it can be. Clothes to be washed, clothes to be put away, clothes that don’t fit inside the closet, dressers, and on the floor. Books to be read, magazines you will never read. You don’t have a crazy drawer, you have an entire crazy room, garage, or storage space filled with miscellaneous everything. Most of us do. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there! People keep their nests largely unhidden, so we wrongly assume they don’t have the same problem as we do.
You can’t triage the physical space. Look around. For the most part, whatever condition your house is in right now, it’s probably the default. That might bother you to accept. It shouldn’t. You can fight an agonizing fight to spend a lot of time and energy temporarily fixing your space, or you can yield and do the best you can and let it go at that. Homes and nests are meant to be lived in, and you will always have to make choices to keep it pristine or lived in. You can’t have both without wasting a lot of your now moments.
The same is true about your job, your diet, your vices, and your mind.
Each person’s best is variable, fluid, and often contradictory. And that is okay.
If you have precious things, keep those that are tied to defining moments and memories in your life. The rest? Sell what you can to have the things that add value to your life.
Donate, discard, disown.
We hoard and clutter partly because it makes us feel like our place is a home, a nest, and our place to be. But we also do it because we don’t see the arc of time getting shorter and shorter.
For a later day, I might need it, it’s valuable; these are all valid reasons to keep things. But it is not things that matter. Not if you don’t use them regularly, not if they don’t light you up, or if they fail to make your life fuller and more satisfying.
“Treasures that aren’t treasured, admired, or used aren’t treasures at all. They are anchors, ones that keep up from enjoying the here and now and the people in our orbit.” – X
Out of sound, out of mind, trinkets, and treasures stored for no witness or participant.
Things are to be used or admired. Everything else? It not only clutters your nest, it clutters your mind.
Simplicity is the toughest goal. It requires herculean effort to overcome the urge to keep, to store, to accumulate.
As someone smart once told me, “Ain’t nothing you got that can’t be taken except for your peace of mind. This world honors nothing with permanence.”
There are a lot of bad men out in the world, whether they physically dominate or mentally degrade their wives and children. The smart ones are fiendishly clever in concealment; their masks in public are often adorned with a suit and tie, a quick smile, or an engaging personality. Growing up, I had to endure abuse. A lot of people knew it was happening. Few ever attempted to intervene. I understand the complicated issues at play for their failure. That kind of abuse, however, leaves most people with a shaky faith in their parents, their god, and of their ability to leave such trauma behind.
With that in mind, even though I am a liberal, I have always been drawn to the concept of southern justice. When someone does the right thing, even when the right thing is also terrible. It’s not revenge. It’s taking the light back from someone who isn’t worthy of its possession.
I’m not advocating violence.
I’m advocating action.
Sometimes action yields a terrible consequence yet remains the lesser evil.
Someone I know whose life suffered due to the presence of a human monster sent me this song.
Preface: I wrote what follows this morning…almost as a coda, on the way to the apartment after work, a black Camaro zoomed impatiently into its left lane approaching me from the opposite direction. The driver was going too fast and over-corrected, sending him into my lane and luckily swerving wildly into the far lane next to me. I had no time to react, not even to stomp my brakes, which would have certainly resulted in a multiple-car pileup. As I passed without time to feel my heart accelerate, squeals, honks, and braking behind me filled the air. The driver of the Camaro managed to gain control without being hit. He stopped in the right lane facing oncoming traffic. The capricious and erratic symmetry of just living reared its head and whispered to me. . . .
All of these are true none inscribed to change your hue
An undiagnosed cough ended on the kitchen floor her love and life abruptly no more
Expert pilot fell to the ground his loving sister to conjure the sound
A cluster of cells aligned with malignant intent those around her yearning more time had been spent
The unbearable yet unbeatable beckon of alcohol those who loved him clutching and watching his fall
A 92-year-old beloved woman took her last breath a life well lived, met with welcomed death
An aneurysm unseen and unfelt and then all rendered past tense no warning no reason no sense
Careless driver through the sign leaving one with an unfaithful spine her arc of life flattened to a baseline
You worry about how you sound or look how you sing, how you dance, how you might be mistook any given moment, the universe can close your book
You have this moment to scribble your notes to construct and imagine needless moats
Kind heart, clear eyes, and curious mind make sure that you leave something meaningful behind
We are all preterit
This can both energize and immobilize, this insight into truth beauty and love are in the eye of the beholder
May you live your life just a little bit bolder no guarantee of life or that you’ll become older
Seize the day, come what may otherwise, it will seize you even if you do everything to perfection these words are no mere early morning reflection affection, expression, introspection of these words, there is no question
When I’m doing these goofy videos, it slips my mind I still have my cape on. This was the case a few minutes ago when I went out on the landing to do chores and favors. One of the neighbors was sitting in her SUV and looked up and laughed fairly raucously. When I came back up the stairs to the landing, another neighbor popped out his door and casually looked at me. Then his head whipped around again to take another look. I had no choice except to swirl my cape dramatically, because that’s what people do in those unusual circumstances. I wish I would have thought to jump over the side of the railing and then duck out of sight. This neighborhood could definitely use a superhero. Or even an average guy with a broom and sweeper. Dream big y’all!
PS I keep hoping during one of my many convenience store excursions that I have my cape with me. And that I catch someone in the commission of a crime. I think someone in a cape would startle a would-be criminal so badly that they would freeze. Also the news headline would be very amusing. I would totally pretend that I actually have super powers.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 