All posts by X Teri

COVID, Social Rules, Uncategorized, Work

How Long Is A Piece Of String?

07/29/2020 X Teri 5 Comments

A lot of thought and solutions are ridiculous. I sometimes get caught up in either the details or see the issue from too far away, so much so that complexity becomes obvious simplicity. In my case, though, I’m not in charge and not being paid to weigh the complexities of moving social issues.

It’s possible to give a completely accurate answer to a question – and sometimes such an answer follows a logical route. It might still avoid addressing the fundamental question, though.

During this pandemic, I encounter several such scenarios on a daily basis. When well-meaning people are involved, it isn’t difficult to point out that the objective and the solution aren’t compatible. With authoritarian or toxic people, we get bogged down into sublimely ridiculous situations, like a Seinfeld episode written by sociopaths.

This pandemic has consistently beaten into my head that adults are not in charge and the ones who make many of the decisions are winging it, often for personal gain.

Completely random and incompatible directives and rules are issued. We collectively scratch our heads, trying to figure out the objective to determine whether the rule is a 10mph speed limit sign on a 6-lane highway at noon on a summer day. Eventually, someone will insist on clarification. Inevitably, we regret it because we’ll get an inscrutable non-answer that helps no one. This leads many people to choose malicious compliance or to continue to do whatever they want to.

Years ago, someone hit me with the riddle of “How long is a rope?”

Given no more information, I surrendered and said insufficient information was provided.

I knew it was going to be a trick answer. The smug look of victory on the guy’s face asking me was evidence of it.

“It’s twice the length from the middle,” he replied. “Gotcha!” He proclaimed.

“Does a fart smell or stink?” I asked him, as I walked away. Because I gave him the same condescending and smug look as he gave me, the question tortured him for a day.

Which leads me to the look of confusion on an expert’s face today. He gave me a stupid non-answer. I immediately reverted to my tried-and-true, “Does a fart smell or does it stink?” I bowed and walked away.

Biographical, DIY, Project, Yard

A Forgotten Monday

07/27/2020 X Teri 1 Comment

a forgotten Monday

Moments before, I’d been crouched against the dry, brittle earth as I pried it loose in a 16″ square, throwing the depth of removed dirt into a large bucket. I’ve been engaged in a methodical war with the ground along the back fence since I started my infinite project. Stone by stone, my bites of the earth growing larger as the squares I use become heavier and thicker.

The virus has involuntarily trained me to tolerate being hot and uncomfortable. At work, it is for safety; at home, it is for the war I declared on the ugliness left by my neighbors. Today, I stayed in my work clothes. Often they get so filthy that I must wash them unaccompanied in the washer when I’m done.

Though it was late in the day, I went outside and began the slow process of gouging rectangular templates in the ground. The work for Monday at my job was relentless. As contradictory as it may sound, working on the infernal yard project has probably saved me from a bit of insanity. My job does not reflect who I am and leaves me bone-weary some days but unsatisfied that I’ve accomplished anything real. I suspect it is a malady shared by many of my contemporaries, and one amplified by the virus intruding upon us.

Though working in the dirt tires me even further, it also rejuvenates me. There are no conflicts, no agendas, and no uncertainties.

After finishing my first large stone, drops began to hit me in the head and neck, dissipating instantaneously. I left my hat in the house, where I’d left it last time to dry and harden back to normal shape. A breeze lifted from the void and billowed my work shirt around me.

I walked over to the remainder of the old chain link and barbed wire fence and leaned against it. I stood there, my face upturned into the advancing rain and wind. As the droplets increased, dozens of dragonflies began their dance of pirouetting into the air to catch gnats, flies, and other insects as the rain brought them from the dense grass of the neighbor’s lawn behind me.

Because my clothes and shoes were already dirty, I stood for several minutes as the rain advanced and peppered me. The temperature dropped, and goosebumps rose along my arms and back. The dragonflies scattered from the other yard and began to circle around me and through the links in the fence.

I couldn’t help but smile.

The Monday accumulated behind me disappeared completely as I lost myself in the simple pleasure of the dragonflies and rain.

Uncategorized

Nothing New

07/23/2020 X Teri 1 Comment

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*I’m going to name my new insurance business “Asterisks,” because then everyone will read the fine print on my signs, no matter how small.
.
Note: this post started with an * because there is a business named Asterisk.

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I decided to do an OnlyFans account which features me wearing a variety of sundresses. So far, 328 people have paid me NOT to do it. For my part-time job, I’m going to be a lounge singer, hopefully with similar results. Lack of talent, ambition, and looks sometimes pays.

“She said she was going to slip into something more comfortable. Little did I know it was a coma…” – X

Two things:
First, it’s a sublime thing to go to Tractor Supply to get an ax. Social distancing suddenly isn’t a problem.

Second, I changed my brake light and discovered that my car has an external trunk latch.

Anyone tempted to mock me for admitting my ignorance should review point #1.

…Wouldn’t it be better if microwaves counted down like a bomb timer on a tv show? And in 1 in 25,000 uses, a huge plume of smoke would emit from a secret slot at the top?

If you stand in the bathroom with the lights off and say “Michael Jackson” eleven times, you have a LOT of patience for delayed results.

Have you ever been in a room with zero doors?
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…A bolt of lightning contains enough energy to toast 100,000 slices of bread, but evidently not enough to give a teenager enough willpower to pick up all his towels.

You can hear a blue whale’s heartbeat from two miles away and smell whether everyone’s bathed from the same distance.

The inventor of the frisbee was turned into a frisbee after he died. As for the inventor of the boomerang, he hasn’t gotten back to us yet.

Instead of saying “cheese” before taking a picture, Victorians said “prunes.” Smiling for photos was frowned upon. Note: that last bit was a joke that you probably missed.

Useful bit: cold water cleans as effectively as hot in the laundry with modern detergent. 75% of the energy used in a modern washer is from the heat of the water rather than the mechanics. Almost no one believes this, even those who attend Bigfoot Is Real conferences and people who think Beth didn’t make a million dollars from the Cadbury Egg marketing.

“How long are you going to spend NOT making supper?” This seems like it might be something to avoid saying inside the house.
(From the book, “Conway Wisdom”)

*If you want to feel like life is too short and flying by, go through the Whataburger Drive-Thru while on hold with Walmart Customer Service.

I watched the most recent remake of “The Invisible Man.” For jumps, it was well worth watching. I couldn’t be an invisible man. At my age and given both my fiber and probiotic intake, they’d hear me from 20 feet.

34,000,000 Americans smoke. That’s not statistical data. It’s how many people I counted outside the Dollar General today.

I thought my sister-in-law Darla was outside. My bad. Someone was using a blower on the sidewalk.

Fall. Boom. Ouch. The new single by Luke Bryan, geared to older fans.

Weird that people give noise warnings. My Mom could produce 120dB just griping.

From my book of inscrutable text humor…

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You’re right, he was a real heart-braker.
And no, I didn’t misspell that.

“Springdale Gives Away 10,000 Masks,” said the headline. The 50 people who wear them in Springdale will be very appreciative.

I laid awake last night, my mind racing with this question: how many vampires confusedly and excitedly signed up to work for Bite Squad?

If the United States is the world’s Florida, then Arkansas is Daytona Beach at 1 a.m. – and Springdale is the urinal closest to the men’s room door at Margaritaville Resort.

I’ve never been in favor of the death penalty – then I found out he was rooting for the preacher in Footloose.

In my remake of Dirty Dancing, as Baby runs to jump into Johnny Castle’s upraised arms, he’ll bend over to tie his shoe as she crashes over him. It’ll be the romantic comedy all craven-hearted men will applaud.

Getting old and losing one’s hearing causes awkward situations. When management announced the “New Mascara Policy,” I wore my heaviest shade. Bedroom eyes result in weird meetings. But I got two phone numbers from Steve and Bill.

I read an amusing thing today. Someone speculated that people living in the “A Quiet Place” universe probably died violently and needlessly while complaining that being quiet violated their rights. I think the fictional invisible killer has a lot in common with our current situation.

Practical adult wisdom: Don’t swim in a sea of despair; the lake of misery is a shorter drive.

For reasons I don’t understand, church membership dropped significantly after the installation of the new Baptismal Diving Board.

tttttttt

From my book of snark. I left the comment up briefly. After investigating the commenter’s social media profile, I felt bad, as he fell somewhere on the preliterate end of the spectrum. I removed the comment due to a suspicion that the person commenting wouldn’t appreciate the barb of humor – and that the person posting might regard it as hostile. What might have been…

“Noah get the boat” is a phrase that somehow escaped me until today. I’m going to use it often from now on.

“They were trained to spot stupidity by looking into the mirror.” I scrawled this recently somewhere and I am still amused greatly by my own wit. I probably should not have used my permanent marker to immortalize it, though.

I thought my sister-in-law Darla was outside. My bad. Someone was using a blower on the sidewalk.

Story, Whimsical

Density Of Time And Place

07/19/2020 X Teri 4 Comments

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I walked through a dense, foggy meadow in the early morning. As I moved through the tall grass and flowers in the growing light, I walked across the meadow and into the stand of trees on the other side. The dense smell of foliage and trees lay heavy around me. For several minutes I walked. Finally, I stepped through into a small clearing. In the middle, a man sat hunched near a small fire. Above it, a metal coffeepot swayed slightly.
As I cleared my throat, he turned and laughed.

“Took you forever!” He said. “Sit,” he said. I walked over by the fire as he poured me a half a cup of coffee. I sat on the ground. It was covered with dry pine needles.

As I took my first sip of the aromatic coffee, he spoke:

“For anyone taking the time to share their stories and especially for those prone to self-doubt, here is the phrase you need to consider: “the voice in your own head never needs to stop to take a breath.”

Even while you’re hearing this, it’s likely that the narrator trapped in your skull is talking to you in ways that seem slightly out of your control.

If this happens to you consciously, imagine the number of ways your mind is interfering with you in ways that you can’t or won’t notice.

Most of us don’t hang around people who embody what we’re aiming for. Absent such examples, the people who’ve shouted into our periphery through life get the front row in our heads. When you’re taking the risk of doing something meaningful for yourself, you look out into your life’s audience and the first faces you see are generally those packed into the front rows. You didn’t choose them as your audience. Be wary of all those who are spectators to your life. They aren’t you and don’t know you.

Even if we imagine several people applauding toward the back, we tend to assume that they are outliers and aren’t seeing something that those who know us best see. The truth is that your entire life will be different if you treat the outliers as the ones who matter most. They see something in you that those nearest cannot.

Each of us is lucky if we have one or two cheerleaders in life. Most people are too busy with things in their own corner of the world to encourage you; it’s the daily grind of life manifesting itself by taking people’s attention.

When you consider that every other person in our lives has a different version of us in their head, it becomes easier to understand that we’re never going to be understood in the way that we ourselves understand what motivates us.

Equally true is the fact that many people are insecure and don’t have experience with authentic people or those doing things differently. Most are dialed into the common routes and expectations of what being alive is supposed to entail. We focus on the process instead of why.

People dedicated to doing their thing also tend to reflect back honestly to those around them. It’s evident that many people resent their reflections and respond defensively. Silence is easier for them, even though it lessens their time here. They’ll work hard to push you into silence, too.

It is a rarity for someone to stand on top of the pile of all these tendencies and forge ahead. Think of someone you admire. Whoever it is, they laugh often and always share who they are, no matter where that is.

If each of us could witness the totality of a single life from a distance, we’d see that most of the struggle is of our own making. We cannot win in the sense of winning that we’re taught. You don’t win by playing. You win by not playing by the rules other people demand of you.

The voice of doubt in your head is there for a reason – but not for a reason that benefits you. Make it pause and take a breath. Somewhere in that absence, you’ll discover the absurdity of almost everything we take for granted.

Whatever you’re here for, I’m certain that you can see that silence and uniformity make us all lesser human beings.

Your time is here is almost up. When you finish that cup of coffee, you’ll wake up and wonder why you dreamed of me. Soon after, you’ll look up into the sky this morning and see your life reflected there. There is only one you.”
…

The clearing dissolved to nothing. Despite having a box fan turned to ‘high’ and thunderstorm noise playing in the room, I woke up instantly. Outside, a single bird squawked raucously. Before I lost whatever it was that the imagery provided, I went and made a picture for a friend, one treading the line between reality and fiction. In it, I captured the essence of a world she needed most.

All because of the smell of woodsmoke, fog, and coffee in a place more real than imagined, inhabited by a strange voice that was my own.

Family, Social Rules

The Driveaway Recap

07/18/2020 X Teri 2 Comments

Some of us sacrifice bits and pieces of ourselves by continuing to hold relationships that incrementally burn away our enthusiasm for good people. We stand close to the fire out of loyalty, confused interpretations of the word love, or because we fear that our lives will have a void where people of merit should stand. I’m equally guilty. By depleting my limited supply of peace with lesser people, I rob my future self of openness with people who love sharing the same with others.

She looked in the mirror as she drove away, seeing that foreign place recede from her. Once she became an adult, she’d already forced her way out of her old exoskeleton, even though it tore at her viciously as she escaped it. It wasn’t her choice to shed that skin; the people who should have loved her trained her with callous hands and closed hearts. Being without her protective layer hurt her deeply at first. In time, she grew to understand that being vulnerable ripped away the defenses that those people tried to beat into her. It’s impossible to join the ranks of the living with skin so thick it can’t be pierced.

The house she was departing had the critical components expected of a house and home. All the doors and windows were there, the lawn carefully manicured. Inside, people roamed the halls and kitchen, smiling and motioning as if they were made of the same clay as she. Weirdly, she often surprised herself by remembering the house in sepia tones, as if the vivid colors of the world were removed during her visits.

They weren’t made of the same stuff as she was, though. Her home was filled. Not simply with functioning human beings, but with love, vivacity, and laughter. Conflict surfaced, bubbled, and was pushed aside for better things. In the house receding behind her, she could feel the collective weight of the stones in their hearts. Their mass lessened with distance.

On those drives away, though, she’d ponder the thousand little arrows fired toward her. There were no simple words uttered in that house. Each was chosen to send contradictory reminders of status, connection, and affection.

As she did each time she departed, she mentally washed herself free of the house and its occupants. The blood and kinship she shared once again began to fade by the time she reached her claimed hometown. She could already feel the welcome arms of those waiting for her in her own private place.

Over time, she didn’t need to accuse the people in that foreign house. Her life itself was the accusation, unspoken and directed at no one. Though she was simply living her life in the best way she knew, others waited to use that against her. It was worse than a no-win situation.

“A life well-lived silences the critics,” or so said the old cliché. She didn’t believe it, no more than she believed the other companion cliché: “Don’t start none and there won’t be none.” With many people, the truth is that they can only bring themselves up by using their gifts of love and intellect to stab at people around them. Trying to step close to them with the best of human feelings inevitably gets you stung.

Instead of warm, deep affection and shared memories, she accumulates brief interactions. Standing in their living room, she dreams of the drive-away, where she can escape back to her normal affection-filled house.

One day, she’d find the words to explain their loss to them. It would probably be a day too late for reconciliation or reprieve. All she could do today was drive away. She pressed the gas, going even further away to attain the escape velocity needed. Much to her dismay, she found herself pondering their arrows. Though she was leaving, they’d found their mark with the little doses of poison. Never enough to kill but always enough to wound.

puzzle-137975245935L — A picture I made in 2015.

Eats, Food, Humor, Opinion, Review / Critique

Fazoli’s And The Case Of The Missing Dressing

07/12/2020 X Teri 1 Comment

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*
Many people don’t know that the apostrophe in the Fazloli’s brand name is actually meant to represent a tiny bit of flatulence and regret. I’ll probably get an angry letter from corporate when they read this. Their CEO is busy though, studying for his GED. By the way, I’m one of those weirdos who l-i-k-e-d Fazoli’s. I’m glad that the federal government opted to not require us to wear a special hat as a warning to others.

A friend recently hilariously recapped her working experience at Fazoli’s when she was young, shorter than a table lamp, and evidently 47% invisible. Working anywhere tends to force you to realize that some things are better off unknown. In my case, working at a dairy and seeing clumpy black milk being put into the holding tank ruined me for milk, not that that I was huge fan prior to that. I couldn’t look at milk, knowing that it contained filtered cow manure, urine, and things best left unmentioned.

At its high point, Fazoli’s made it to 400 locations. Northwest Arkansas had several. While I don’t trust my memory, it seems like our franchises went under due to personal financial issues with the owner. If I’m wrong, I apologize. It was a sad day for gourmands like me when they shuttered their butter-infused doors for the last time. During one visit to the location in Fayetteville, I overheard someone tell the manager that “Fazoli’s is the People of Walmart of fast food.” I laughed then and it still amuses me.

I’ll be the first to admit that Fazoli’s was the bologna sandwich of Italian food. Given that my primary requirement for pasta is “quantity over quality,” I loved Fazoli’s. Just to be clear, I didn’t care if the pasta was made from reconstituted paper products: I loved it. After discovering they had an off-menu “all you care to eat” option, I combined this fact with my unnatural and demonic love of their Italian dressing packets.

I almost always ordered plain pasta as well as packets of the Italian dressing. This caused a lot of confusion. No matter how many times I’d tell the cashier, “I want 2 (or 15, let’s be honest) packets, and please charge me for each,” most of them would confusedly stutter and stammer. Most had to turn to a manager who would stop running and sweating long enough to explain to them that there was a single packet charge. More amusingly, watching them math out the complexities of 25 cents X a number often took several tries. As you can guess based on my previous stories, I would sometimes tell them, “I want 20 packets of dressing.” They would turn to no one in particular and holler, “CAN I sell 20 packets?” It was an infinite series of amusements. It was a sight to behold, watching as multiple people asked me to repeat myself: “Do you really want 25? We’re going to have to charge you? How much is that? OMG, that’s too many!”

Later, they increased the price per packet, undoubtedly in retaliation for idiots like me. It was common for them to forget to give me the packets, even after I paid for them. No one enjoyed returning to the counter and waiting impatiently while our congealed food products sat on the lonely table behind us. That is part of what surprised me about them offering an all-you-can-eat option. There were a few customers who made them regret that offer.

If you’re wondering if I used all those packets? Yes. If I had any left, I would take them home. While in the restaurant, though, I’d also use the dressing as a dipping sauce for the breadsticks.

I continued this tradition at the other dubious chain The Olive Garden. The dressing was always my favorite. To this day, it is one of the few go-to dressings we buy. Sometimes we buy the light version. It contains 50% less of the industrial additives and petroleum as its full-bodied counterpart. If I don’t request an extra bit of dressing on the side while ‘dining’ at Olive Garden, I barbarically dip the end of my breadstick into the bottom of the translucent salad bowl to find a drip of the Italian dressing there. If I don’t have in my bowl, I sneak over to the next table, distract the people eating there, and quickly dip my breadstick in their bowl.

I love all sorts of things on pasta and macaroni. Salad dressing, Louisiana hot sauce, A-1, raisins, wing sauce, soup, sliced tomatoes, fried goat eyeballs (just kidding on that one, I think), and various other things. Let’s be honest: you can take a look at my physique and easily determine the likelihood that my youth filled itself with truckloads of pasta.

I heard rumors that the Fazoli’s breadsticks had enough butter on them to grease the chassis of a 1968 Ford Thunderbird. Because I was born in Arkansas, my immortality convinced me to be unconcerned with such trivial details. I tend to joke that pepperoni will be listed as my official cause of death. They might add in “Fazoli’s butter” as a secondary cause. I imagine a bit of it is still stuck inside my venous system, ready to cause a grease fire once my cremation starts. I apologize to the Berna family if that happens. Crematoriums are expensive.

As for being the bologna sandwich of Italian food, most of us will admit that bologna sometimes is exactly what we need. Even though it is made of the innards of animals too unlucky to avoid being combined into a giant industrial blender and then pressure-heated into cylindrical tubes, we enjoy it. It’s best not to note what is in it. Having worked in meat plants, I can confirm that most packaged meats are made in a process that will immediately remind you of explosive diarrhea, except at these plants, the result is cooked rapidly.

Regarding the garlic overload, I buy minced, powdered, and various forms of garlic by the bucket. It’s a good thing that garlic pills are used anecdotally to treat high blood pressure. There are times when I return home from being gone and am stunned by the wall of garlic and onion aroma that greets me upon my return. I think my cat is growing a Luigi mustache from breathing so many garlic fumes.

While I loved the cheap offerings of Fazoli’s, I can see why people had issues with it. Restaurants employing younger people invariably run into similar issues with consistency, cleanliness, and risk to one’s health and sanity. As the old joke points out, you get to pick 2 out of 3: quick, good, or cheap – but never all 3.

When you factor in that their food was somewhere on the “microwave meal” range, it’s no surprise. While it might preclude me from getting a security clearance to admit I loved their pasta drowned in packets of Italian dressing, I did.

Unlike all the other fast food places I liked, Fazoli’s never made me sick. Not that I know of. That’s saying something. I’m assuming that they irradiated all their food.

I love reading clever reviews of cheap fast food. If I owned a fast-food chain, I’d print such reviews on my own products to be snarky.

As for the picture, it’s to gratefully acknowledge that Fazoli’s was both good and not good simultaneously, an attribute shared by every single fast-food chain in the United States.

P.S. The title of this post suggests another story I’ve not confessed to!

Minimalism, Organization, Whimsical

A Trashy Post

07/11/2020 X Teri 1 Comment

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Early last year, I wrote about our waste management company. Previous post…

I discovered that many people didn’t know the precise rules about their curbside pickup. For example, they didn’t know the trash company must pick up all the extra bags you pile on the bin – or around it if necessary. My ignorance was compounded by observing neighbors furtively sneak around and put their overflow into other people’s bins.

The people at Waste Management were among those people who weren’t sure how it worked.

After writing to the City of Springdale and following up, the trash company realized that they offer an additional bin for residential use for just $7.50 a month.

They revised their CSR scripts and information to include the new details I had inquired about.

While you might be proud to own a shiny new luxury car, I can think of no greater luxury than having an additional trash bin at the house. Some weeks, there’s not much. Other weeks, you’d swear thirteen people live at the house, people dedicated to depleting all the earth’s resources.

We already get a large bin for weekly trash and a recycle for pickup every two weeks. I’d call it ‘bi-weekly,’ but a lot of people don’t understand if that means twice a week or every other week. I don’t blame them; English is a tortuous language absent much continuity.

To my credit, one recycle bin for us is not enough. It annoys me to need to put recycling in the regular trash bin. It annoys me worse than needing to repeat myself, especially when I’m the idiot that made it necessary.

Just to find out if the reality of having two trash bins matches my fantasy, I called and requested a second bin a couple of weeks ago.

Yes, jealous friends – you read correctly. I now have two trash bins to use.

I’ll be the envy of the neighborhood. Some of my neighbors already act like they don’t understand that the trash goes i-n-s-i-d-e the bin. They’ll pass out in shock when they see me displaying two trash bins and a recycle bin by the curb. No doubt the people working to pick up the bins weekly will not be as happy. My house will not be double the fun.

Now that I’ve done it, I’m wondering what it would be like to have two recycling bins.

Animals, DIY, Project, Yard

Do Birds Have Surnames?

07/11/2020 X Teri 1 Comment

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I recently put up 2 initial birdhouses. Soon, there will be several more.

For the first, I watched as a small bird began tentatively investigating the house I attached to a peculiar neon jungle green ‘tree’ I created.

I named this tiny bird “Shouty,” given its long birdsong, followed by an odd series of clicks. It would be easy to identify by picture – but I don’t want to.

In its first few attempts, Shouty struggled to get the pieces of stems and twigs through the tiny opening of the birdhouse. It reminded me of those videos where the dogs confusedly attempt to get fetched sticks through the opening laterally. Like those labs, the bird eventually learned to turn its head. Since then, I’ve watched it push through stems and twigs that were 8 inches long.

While it is interesting to know the bird’s name, it’s not necessary. The birds don’t know their human-conferred names. “Pecker,” or “Swoopy,” and “DragonBrid” are more entertaining forms of naming, anyway.

Merlin, Audobon, and others provide incredibly accurate apps to help those interested to identify the birds they see. Song Sleith (and others) allow you to identify the birds around you using their songs.

My point is that while I am fascinated by the names of birds, they don’t add to my enjoyment of watching them. At times, trivia related to specific birds entertains me but is secondary to watching them jump, swoop, and navigate their environments.

In short, I’m a bird moron and I like it that way.

P.S. My backyard project will never be finished. It already looks different. The tree-patterned hanging light I bought from Amazon turned out to be one of the prettiest things I’ve accidentally come across.