He sat at the wooden gazebo, staring out at the world outside its confines. The seventy-degree weather and the bright sun all but negated the possibility of any more winter. It filled his heart with a simple pleasure.
A few of his big moments happened inside the gazebo. He’d found out his brother had died, and he’d made two momentous decisions sitting in the gazebo. One was born of false optimism, and the other emerged from a “get-busy-living-or-get-busy-dying” moment. Some days, the latter still echoed in his head, the realization that so much hinges on an invisible fulcrum of thoughts. The alchemy and uncertainty both delighted and provoked nervousness in him.
As happens with some places, moments become embedded in them. One’s presence takes on a weight that was previously absent. When he needed to objectively consider a problem or opportunity in life, he often waited until he could sit in the gazebo and twirl the nuances in his mind. He learned that the right decision could still cause failure or distress; equally valid was that the wrong decision often yields surprises that lead to positive outcomes. Everyone taking a hard look at their lives surely must agree that some unexpected obstacles produce the sweetest fruit.
He sat for several minutes, silent and immobile to any observer. The gentle afternoon breeze accented the growing shadows falling inside the structure around him and over him. Though his eyes noted passers-by as they finished their respective days, the movement and transitions didn’t enter his thoughts. It was life’s static.
He thought about someone he once knew well and some of their most ridiculous moments. Her consternation with him colliding with her matter-of-fact demeanor, his weirdness punctuating all their encounters. He didn’t realize until much later that she thought fondly of him. Over the years, he failed to fully take advantage of the moments they could have shared as she grew older and frailer. He found out the day before that she’d passed away, never again to smile at his foolishness. Another small door of life had closed. It wasn’t regret per se that hit him; it was more akin to a feeling that life accelerated imperceptibly while he looked away from the more significant meaning and got distracted by mundane concerns. There would always be more pressing matters, details, or distractions. Time and people, however, would continue to decrease in supply.
He stood up and stretched his legs. The minutes in the gazebo already yielded the answer his mind required. Everything has a cost: time, money, or energy. Wasting enthusiasm or energy helps no one.
He’d go forth and find an enthusiastic smile.
Such a smile is one of the underappreciated gold standards of life. One directed at you? It is priceless and elusive. We fear that when people know us, they will recoil with annoyance.
The ‘he’ in the story is me, the proud owner of an unexpected life.
The optimistic part of me hopes that justice has already been served to you on a hot plate.
One of your cases probably already unfolded this morning. I of course hope that the victim in that case is soberly acknowledging that some measure of appropriate response finally transpired.
The realistic part of me, the one who has read and heard so many stories about you, dampens my expectations.
Relying on the criminal justice system to protect people is at best foolish. It is an eternal after ~the~fact endeavor.
I know that karma does not really reach out and grasp the people who legitimately deserve a harsh measure.
I would hope that you would finally yield to the universe’s demand that you be held accountable.
To the women you made victim through no fault of their own, I offer my apology. Were the decision mine, liberal though I might be, legal proceedings would be the least of your worries.
I am hoping Justice prevailed. If not, there is no point in honoring our collective agreement to do no harm.
“Make all the right choices. Eat all the right food. And you will still be dead one day. This is a rigged game, indeed, this gift of life.” – X
Have you ever thought that another way to describe a bath is “butt soup?”
For the first time in MANY years, I am getting a refund for both Federal and State taxes. While I can’t finance a yacht with the refund, it is a pleasant change of pace! Also, I did my taxes exceedingly fast; in previous years, it was a very tedious process, usually involving a lot of typing, swearing, and frustration – and that was just addressing the envelopes. Though I meticulously followed the software and triple-checked it, the IRS said my refund had to be adjusted. Whether it’s worth arguing over depends on whether my hold on sanity is firm the day I receive the letter to challenge their adjustment.
“The chickens came home to roost. Or so they thought… the smell of fried chicken soon permeated the air.” -X
Last week, very early in the morning, as I rounded the corner of the apartments near the trail by the hospital, I found three bags stuffed with personal items. Though there was no one there along the fringe of the building, I surmised that someone had slept between the minimal hedging and the brick wall. I saw someone there the following day, and I left them in peace. When I passed by again, they were gone, but the bags were still there. I left a gift for them next to their bags. I’ve not seen the bags since. I wonder about them each day.
I keep learning that being clear and honest still likely results in a mess. It doesn’t matter what your motivation is or how concisely and openly you share; the odds still dictate that things will likely spin away from you. Likely, there’s nothing you can do about it. So much of the outcome depends on the other mercurial person. Not stating your truth will just as likely cause you to bubble over unexpectedly when the pressure to speak overwhelms you. As hard as it is, between the two options, it’s always better to just state your truth when you feel like you need to. It won’t feel like the best option, though. Most of us are hard-wired to put off what plagues us until it seeps or explodes out. It’s important to remember that the feelings you bury are still alive under all the layers.
Wine ice cubes are fantastic. Not only do they go well in actual wine, but they also can be used as needed when you want wine to cook with. Don’t “at me,” either, saying that ice cubes in wine are uncouth. There are no actual rules regarding taste, cooking, or eating. The sooner we abandon that nonsense, the better off we’ll all be. And happier eating macaroni over the sink – or a bowl of cereal for supper. One wine ice cube is much better than a cheap grape popsicle, too. In my opinion. Adult note: if you drink enough wine, your appetite will likely go away. And your ability to cook coherently definitely will.
“Wisdom teaches us to be patient with the ridiculous setbacks we’re all going to encounter. It also somehow still fails to prepare us for being surprised by how people will act.” – X
Not everyone is wired the same way sexually. That’s to be expected. But if you’re a sexual person and not being intimate, consequences to your quality of life or well-being always follow. It doesn’t mean that sex is an overwhelming or inflexible motivator; it just means that human behavior will succumb to the urge toward intimacy. People need to stop being ashamed of their essential needs and how they practice and define them. Sex is the big mystery that permeates our lives in multiple ways – yet most of us have a completely mistaken idea of how other people live sexually, much less how to be happy with our sexual selves.
My therapist told me that in one of my first sessions, I said this: “Isn’t it odd how most of our need to look presentable isn’t really so we’ll feel good about ourselves. It’s because we are leaning into the idea of spectator attractiveness. We want to look good to other people. Because if not, generally speaking, we’d all dress comfortably and not think much about hair, makeup, shoes, or how we are perceived. Absent the expectation of attractiveness and left to our own devices, we might be a lot less preoccupied with appearance and happier as a result.” I could be wrong, but it seems to be true generally.
You can drive around the roundabout 17 times if you need to. Likewise, you can fail as many times as you need to or have to until you finally make the turnoff. It’s where you end up that matters, anyway. It would be nice to avoid a convoluted, circuitous path of errors, but life tends not to work that way.
“You’re not afraid of being alone in the dark. You are afraid that you might not be alone in the dark.” This isn’t my quote. It does demonstrate how our fears and thoughts overtake us.
Male secret #34: most men do not care if a woman’s legs are smoothly shaved. Or if their nails are painted, their blouse, shoes, pants match, etc. The enthusiasm of presence derails all those concerns. I’m not sure you should trust a middle-aged man named X or not – but this is true.
Rule of Presence: each of us will jump to hold the door for another person, but we will move heaven and earth to stop someone from passing us on the road.
I’ve put up three ‘fake’ streets signs in the last couple of months. All of them are still posted. PS If you want to do it quickly, have the sign made prior to showing up, with the bolt already through it. Since most street posts have multiple bolt holes, push the bolt through and twirl the nut on it quickly. Also, did you know you can order a custom street sign easily? If you’re bored, google it. It’s no accident that 75 mph is a great sign to add in Johnson. (I didn’t do that one due to public safety concerns. And the lack of a sense of humor with traffic enforcement there, now that I think about it.)
Another one I stole from the internet: “Each and every selfie is a picture of perhaps your own worst enemy.”
It’s been about six months since my surgery. It’s been the longest ten years of my life. I’m still thankful to be here. But I can’t escape the idea that I’d be a lot happier with a check for one million dollars in my wallet. I might not ever cash it.
The time change is supposed to make it feel earlier in the afternoon. By some miracle, I was asleep at 9:07 last night. I woke up at 1:42 a.m. and listened to jokes on Alexa. I did the no-laugh challenge. By the second joke, I was laughing enough to annoy Güino, who attempted to remain motionless and quiet at my knees. His consternation with me was apparent.
My newish downstairs neighbors had visitors last night. I used the tried-and-true “turn the box fan even higher” method to drown them out. It was effective. Standing on the deck this morning at 2:30, I whispered down at a couple of people as they smoked and gossiped outside and below me. One of the two guys jumped. The other one laughed. “I hope we weren’t too loud last night,” he said. “Nah, the fumes from my batch of meth had me hallucinating,” I replied, being as serious as I could. Both of the guys looked at each other and then laughed. My only regret is that I didn’t have a chemistry beaker as a prop to add credibility to my joke.
It doesn’t feel like Monday, and it indeed doesn’t feel like it is March with Spring breathing down our necks. It’s Pi Day. That always strikes me as funny, given most adults’ aversion to math. To me, November 10th would be more fun for Pi Day, as it’s the 314th day of the year on the Julian calendar. Most people don’t know that the Julian calendar reigned supreme until the later 1500s. I love the idea of someone just deciding to add two extra months to a year, or arbitrarily opting to change the year. The effect of this is that many events we have learned that happened on a specific date didn’t transpire on the date we note. In 1582, much of the world simply skipped ten or eleven days entirely; some parts didn’t. While we think traveling across time zones is odd, can you imagine traveling across an area only to discover that TEN DAYS was suddenly missing? In England, Sept. 2nd was followed by Sept. 14th.
Myths about daylight savings time that won’t die: we didn’t adopt DST to help farmers. We’re already on DST for 8+ months a year, so what exactly is “standard time?” The ‘extra’ hour of daylight does not make us healthier or happier; it’s physically and emotionally disruptive to many people.
I left my backward clock an hour behind. It’s a good reminder that it annoys most normal people to look at a backward clock to begin with.
Time is indeed an artificial construct. Keep that in mind as you clock in to work today. If your manager asks why you were late for work, feel free to reply, “I’m taking back my time from 1582. And where’s my pie to celebrate the day?”
Party like it’s 1582. It’s the least you can do to celebrate this Monday.
Jessica gave me a page of Subway coupons. I stopped by this afternoon after work. The place was packed. On a whim, I realized that I could surprise all the other customers by sharing my coupons. All of them were pleased and even the workers were curious how creative I could be sharing them. Six other customers took advantage. A few combined their orders to not only save even more money but to take extra food home. We were all laughing. A couple of the customers said they infrequently get the coupons mailed but never think to use them. An older gentleman who was there said he was going to bring his entire sheet next time and do the same thing for anyone in the restaurant when he visited. Subway for everyone. Thanks, Jessica.
PS Oops forgot to include a picture of her that she will grimace about…
As I pulled up to the Casey’s, it was impossible to avoid looking at the tweaker. He was an indeterminate early thirty year old man, replete with thousands of dollars of tattoos across his exposed legs, hands and neck. He sat and shifted on top of the wood for sale out front of the store. His jerky movements were uncontrollable, his eyes and head shifting wildly. I could tell that at some point a few minutes prior the rain had washed him.
For reasons I’ll have to think about later, I felt a wallop of sadness. It was totally unexpected. I see my share of tweakers in Fayetteville. None of them started life with that intention. I parked directly in front of him and when I exited I said good afternoon. His eyes briefly met mine and then he nodded wildly.
While I waited in line inside, the younger man in front of me kept looking out the window at the tweaker. He told the man in front of him that he wished we could round up all the tweakers and put them down as an act of mercy. Though he probably said it offhandedly, the residual effect of sadness inside me flared into anger.
I told him that if that were the case, I hope he would be capable of doing the so-called act of m mercy himself because that kind of heartlessness requires personal accountability. And that perhaps he could call the tweakers mom and let her know that her son has zero value left in life. The younger man commenting was stunned by my words. Everyone grew silent for a moment. Momentarily I felt bad for what I said. It doesn’t matter what my motivation was. My comments did not add anything positive to the world.
It’s true I would not trust the tweaker in my car or my home.
I bought a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a soda for the tweaker. When I exited I placed the things on the woodpile next to him. I told them that the things were for him and he again nodded and grunted.
I know that I didn’t do those things for him. I did them for myself, to feel a little bit more human, and to express gratefulness that I had not chosen a road leading to where he is. It’s raining hard now and I know that he has nowhere to go. It’s likely we all know how his road will end. But there is a very small possibility that the universe will choose him for an unexpected upturn in life.
I drove away, glad that the young man commenting had a good enough life to foolishly think that such a thing could never happen to him. We all think that.
I don’t have a neat wrap-up or lesson here. I sit in my car inside my beautiful life, writing this without edit or correction.
Paraphrasing Alan Watts, he said that muddy water clears best when left alone. So I’ll leave my thoughts here unredacted.
My cat Güino loves pieces of Burger King’s Impossible burger as much as I do. I don’t have the heart to tell him it’s vegetarian. Yes, he speaks English, but only when I talk with a formal tone of English. (He’s a tuxedo cat, after all.)
Untrue fact: nipples are exclamation points in Braille.
I finally made it to 151 lbs, after weeks of trying to incrementally gain weight. My self-determined setpoint is 155.
True (But hard to believe) fact: you can lose up to 30% of your taste bud’s ability while flying. I won’t explain the three main reasons but it is fascinating. Flying while on mushrooms doesn’t count.
I’ve been subscribing to Everlywell’s at-home medical diagnostic tools. It’s allowed me to do an amazing array of testing that doesn’t cost me a fortune and gives me peace of mind. I did accidentally spray blood around the kitchen during one of my earlier tests. Evidently, you’re supposed to nick a finger rather than one’s jugular. My last test was for metabolism and its relevant testable components.
True fact: mace is made from the lining around nutmeg seeds. It is possible to get high from ingesting a lot of nutmeg. I tried to eat 74 slices of nutmeg-dusted custard pie (which I LOVE) and instead ended up with temporary diabetes and the ability to run to the bathroom faster than Flash.
True fact: the last letter added to our alphabet was “J” in 1524. Before that, the ” i ” was used for both sounds. This leads me to want to add other letters to the language, as English dropped a few along the way, which surprises people. Having said that, most Arkansans routinely drop several as they talk – and never bother to bend over and pick them back up.
My cape and mask gift provided a LOT of anecdotes. I’m not sure how to share them all. It was a total hoot. There were a couple of party-poopers about it, of course. Some people loathe others’ happiness, which is an unfortunate fact. But for some, I turned their disapproval in my favor by doing pirouette cape flourishes and magic tricks. My best trick was making the naysayers fall off my radar. One of my favorite moments was when two Latino construction workers were talking about me at the convenience store. I approached and told them in Spanish, “This cape allows me to understand and speak any language.” The looks on their faces were priceless. “Au Revoir and Auf Wiedersehen,” I told them as I spun, flourishing my cape and laughing.
The cape didn’t allow me to fly unless I’m experiencing a “Greatest American Hero” scenario. (That’s an old TV show for the whippersnappers reading this.) It did, however, give me a lot of joy and happiness – leaving me feeling like I was on Cloud 10, which is one cloud higher than the proverbial Cloud 9.
One more true fact: young children ask up to 300 questions a day.
A lesser-known fact is that a jealous wife or girlfriend asks 1000 questions an hour.
True fact: a woodpecker’s tongue wraps all the way around its brain. It’s a shame they can’t hold an ice cream cone, isn’t it?
Allegedly True fact: most of us spend a year of our lives on the toilet. I’m sure this is a low measure now, given how many go numb in the legs from scrolling social media and TikTok.
Untrue facts: Viking warriors wore helmets with horns. Completely untrue, although film and tv have cemented this false narrative into everyone’s brains.
I had more to say but I got sidetracked reading about all the things that people know to be true but are completely wrong.
“It was only when I bought a motorcycle that I found out that adrenaline is brown.” – Not my quote. 🙂
I woke up at 2 a.m., an instant awakening, one flush with a weird sense of foreboding. Güino lay next to me. I checked the apartment, then my phone. Nothing was amiss. The feeling that something sinister had transpired wouldn’t dissipate.
Instead of preoccupation, I chose to put on my shoes and walk. The early morning was a blessing as I moved. The night was quiet. Even traffic, usually dormant at that hour, was more so and devoid of travelers. The roads were mine to traverse.
My mind was calm, but memories and thoughts flowed effortlessly as I walked. Nothing noteworthy happened as the minutes passed. Just me and my thoughts.
It felt like meditation.
It felt like peace.
Arriving back at the apartment and making myself a cup of coffee, I sat at the computer and Güino jumped to my lap for morning appreciation and cuddles.
Whatever unseen force that awakened me still echoed as an almost tangible sensation in my head. Even if I couldn’t perceive anything out of place, I knew that somewhere, someone was experiencing life differently. It’s the way of the world, a constant battle of chaos, energy, and circumstance.
It felt like peace.
It was meditation.
I knew I had to start my routine, the one that cements me into the world of normalcy. And so it begins, this day, two hours already racing past, never to be recaptured.
As I was chalking up a sidewalk, a woman approached. I could tell she had something to say. She didn’t have a Karen name badge on but it was definitely her spirit animal.
“It’s a crime to use chalk on sidewalks,” she informed me. The tone of her voice was that of an indignant school marm from the 1800s.
I’m not proud that my sense of humor and the snark that overcame me. But I am giggling.
“The only real crime here is that you think those shoes go with those pants. As for the chalk, I will let children everywhere know that they are felons if they get out the sidewalk chalk.”
She snorted in disgust.
I wrote underneath my message and drawing: “Karen disapproves of this message.”
I will bet $100 she comes back in a few minutes and erases some or all of my beautiful artwork with her foot. Or perhaps her forked tongue.
Honestly, I’m glad she was snarky and mean. I get really tired of people being happy and tickled by me doing this.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 