I heard something similar so I modified it to make it more pithy.
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The Holiday Salutation Admonition
It’s that time of year y’all!
Whether you call it Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or nothing at all. This season belongs to all of us.
Lovingkindness, no matter your religion (or the absence of it) shouldn’t be forgotten this time of year.
I made a different version of this, one which is music I composed myself so that the social media platforms couldn’t block it.
Love, X
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The q.t. Observation
Another in the series I was encouraged to make for Tiktok.
Mullet Memories
I’m in my cathedral at work. Because I usually have a couple of hours with no one in here with me, I can blast heavenly music curated with the intent to inspire or motivate. My cousin Jimmy used to torture me with Metallica, and sometimes with horrible bands like Pantera. Because he’s been on my mind a lot lately, I played a few songs for him and had to laugh. I also played “Far From Home” by Five Finger Death Punch, a song Jimmy didn’t live long enough to enjoy.I ended the set with a heavenly song from Il Divo, probably the most opposite and contrasting music possible. In his last few years, he would have appreciated the switch. And we probably would have laughed about his mullet.
Each of us has had our mullet years, the ones characterized by uncertain identity and our place in this world.
When we get older, we laugh about our mullet years. But nostalgia makes it golden.
Some of you are probably living through the best years of your life and you don’t even realize it.
Take a minute today and crank up one of your favorite songs. If you do, I hope it makes you vibrant and joyous.
If it doesn’t, go ahead and fill out that AARP application.
Love, X
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“Hello, I’m Monday!”
“Hello. I’m Monday, that one day a week for some reason you dread. Don’t take me personally.”
While cleverly crossing out the “mo” in Monday to replace it with Funday, I inadvertently created the opposite message!
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Sunday Notes From The Early Hours
I stopped and stood next to the pond near the golf course. In front of me, a huge turtle, one with a 24″ diameter, soaked up the intermittent sun. Beyond the pond, two golfers were stopped on their golf cart. They both jumped off. The first one spent a few seconds pantomiming the swing of an experienced golfer. He then took his swing. The ball bounced about a foot in front of him and died. I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. How the golfer heard my guffaw above the sound of the fountain in the center of the pond is a mystery. He angrily turned toward me and shouted, “F—- off!” I laughed even harder. His partner burst out laughing as well. I couldn’t help myself. I shouted back, “You can’t even hit a little ball in front of you so I’m not worried about you trying to hit me, either!” At this point, his partner doubled over with his hands on his knees, laughing, even as the foiled golfer went through a series of angry faces. I waved goodbye. I took a look back at the chalk work I’d completed in a long stretch across the sidewalk. I’d written a hilarious truth there, in large, scrawling letters. I wanted to add, “Pick another sport,” but I laughed instead.
I discovered again why I shouldn’t cut my own hair. (Or anyone else’s, for that matter.) As careful as I thought I had been, the back of my head looks like I engaged in a wrestling match with a wolverine. I kind of like it.
I was outside painting by 1:30 this morning. My neighbors love the smell of paint at all hours. It combines well with the aroma of marijuana. I should market a scent with both infused into the spray. It’s interesting to observe the activity that normally goes unobserved at that hour. Yesterday morning I watched as a sedan pulled up to the dumpster and miraculously removed an insane number of pieces of furniture from the interior and dumped them illegally. Later, I went out armed with tools and deconstructed all the pieces, and threw them in the dumpster. I couldn’t believe all of it somehow emerged from that mid-size car. About 3 a.m. this morning, a vehicle ran the red light across the street and stopped before accidentally driving into the vacant lot that is currently under construction. Whoever was driving sat there for at least fifteen seconds. I assume they were unclenching their buttcheeks, given they were probably drunk and definitely inattentive. At 4:27, I came back up the stairs, returning from the fence where I’d installed a dozen more tiles. A large rat ran from the corner, along the railing, past my feet, and then took the stairs like a track athlete. I was going to give him a hug but he seemed to be dreadfully afraid of me. Why he ran toward and around me is a mystery.
Luckily, Güino wasn’t outside or he would have lost his mind trying to give that rat a hug. He doesn’t know any better. He’s happy, though. He just finished drinking some horrid cat food juice when I snapped this picture.
I leave my long kitchen window uncovered. I don’t worry about break-ins. I think the dozens of heavy rocks on my landing provide ample means for entry if they’re interested enough. I do have decoy keys hanging right by the door. It tickles me to imagine some would-be intruder standing there trying the keys in plain sight. I’m hoping the LED lights I leave oscillating confuse both neighbors and drivers along Gregg.
It’s been windy this morning and in the low-70s. You might not believe how great it feels out there!
Love, X
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Warm
My day is closing the way it began. Almost 16 hours later, I’m walking and watching the beautiful sunset illuminate the brightly colored houses and the hidden lives they contain. It’s absolutely beautiful and transformative. My head floods with music and if I glance away and look back, the light has already morphed and changed. There are a lot of moments in life exactly like that. You enter the room of memory and although everything is familiar, nothing is the same. Impermanence is the only sure thing. Even the sun filled with hydrogen will one day exhaust itself. But for now, 30,000 steps long behind me, I feel like I have an infinite supply of appreciation.
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Ha!
I guess it’s only fair that Marilyn and Larry surprised me with a recorder or flutophone. I bought them emergency clown noses a few years ago. True story. Should I go stand in front of Target and pretend that I’m jamming? Will people pay me to shut the heck up? This could be really lucrative. A pay-to-not play win-win!
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Sunday Christmas For Janice
Sunday evenings often provide me with encounters that other days don’t. I’m not sure why that is.
I was out and about, buying mismatched birthday/get-well/occasion balloons, a flutophone, spatula (all of which are of course traditional birthday surprises), and various ridiculous things for a belated work birthday shenanigan. A woman was at the register. She had only two dollars. “I’ll pay for the rest with my credit card.” She sweated a bit, waiting to see if it would be authorized. The clerk wasn’t the most sympathetic. He radiated irritation. The woman hid her embarrassment well but I watched her body language as she cringed at the treatment. It took her two tries to get it to go through.
Although I had entered with a light heart and a bit of joy due to being creative in trying to let someone know we hadn’t forgotten them, I have to admit a bitter flare of anger lit me up. I could feel it behind my eyes. I flicked my wrist and saw that my heartbeat had elevated considerably on my Fitbit. I wanted to shout at the clerk but then I reminded myself that I have a superpower that all of us have if I could just stop judging. Even the few one-on-one rapid self-defense sessions I had reinforced the idea that we owe it to each other to disengage before we act.
“Hey Janice,” I said loudly to the woman as she got her bag, a little red-faced. “Wait a second. I have that money I owe you.” Her name wasn’t Janice, but she stopped and turned. I held up a finger to ask her to give me a minute to check out. She was just confused enough to wait.
“Merry Christmas, sir,” I told the young male clerk.
“Yeah, ok.” He seemed unhappy. He looked at his watch.
“Are you having a rough day?” I asked him, smiling.
“You have no idea,” he said.
“What can I do to make it even a little better?” I asked.
“Let me go home. My girlfriend texted me and told me she was putting my stuff outside if I didn’t come home soon.”
That stopped me cold for a second. I was surprised by his honesty.
“I don’t know what you’re going through but I can see you’re stressed. I would be too. Take a minute and call her, don’t text, even if your manager doesn’t want you to. Tell your girlfriend you love her and you will talk to her when you get home. Trust me.”
“Just like that?” He asked.
“Yes, just like that. Assuming you do love her, she will give you a couple of hours to come home and work it out. And if she doesn’t, it wasn’t going to matter what you did now or not. If that happens, I am so sorry.”
He looked at me like I had burst into flames.
“Okay, thanks. I’ll try anything.”
“Would you do me a favor as a kindness?”
“Yes,” he said.
I softened my voice and leaned in: “Tell my friend Janice there that you are sorry for snapping at her and wish her a Merry Christmas.”
He did. Janice listened, stunned, as the clerk said, “I’m so sorry. I’m stressed. Please have a Merry Christmas, Janice.”
Janice smiled, still a bit confused by it all, but happy the clerk had acknowledged his rudeness. “Merry Christmas to you too,” she replied, her voice cracking a little.
I nodded at the clerk and smiled. “I wish you the best. Now go call your girlfriend and let her know how much you need her. Everyone needs to hear it.”
I grabbed my handful of bags and bundle of helium balloons.
I turned to Janice and pulled the ten-dollar bill out of my pocket and handed it to her. I’d been given the ten dollars to help buy a few goofy items for the birthday shenanigan. The person who gave it to me would have wanted it to go to Janice instead. Of that, I am certain.
“I know you’re not Janice. I just wanted the clerk to think we know each other. This is for whatever you need. It’s not a lot because I don’t have a lot.”
Janice took the bill from my hands as I balanced all the things I’d purchased.
“It’s okay. Don’t say anything. Just remember that sometimes the universe is listening, okay?” She nodded. I think she was a little choked up. I know I was.
I smiled and walked out of the store, my anger gone, and my thoughts filled with hope that the anonymous girlfriend was going to get a call to let her know she was loved. And that Janice forgot the embarrassment at the register and remembered only that someone wanted her to have a Merry Christmas.
Love, X
P.S. I’m going to go wrap a flutophone and spatula. As we all agree, they are ideal birthday presents for someone who has everything.
Once More Unto The Brooch
“You’re only given a little spark of madness, you mustn’t lose it.” — Robin WIlliams
As for my smaller lighter brooch I made and wore today, it was wildly successful. Sure, I had a couple of eyerolls and a bit of derision. 98% was effusively humorous. One person asked me to make one for her husband, who struggles to avoid losing lighters. I imagined him on the construction site with a lighter-brooch on his shirt, while his coworkers chortled at him. The woman at the gas station thought it was both practical and creative. The booth clerk at the flea market said, “Art is in the eye of the beholder. That’s fairly creative, X.”
Though I make these things to be creative and for self-amusement, I also accidentally discover human behavior lessons by doing so.
You’ll hear me say with regularity, “Anything can be made into a brooch if you’re audacious enough.” The fact that I have one made out of a pregnancy test should be proof enough of that.
“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.” -Oscar Wilde
Rare is the person who directly expresses displeasure. Not so much about the specific idea or implementation; rather, the IDEA of such a thing. Those people are to be avoided. It belies a lack of enthusiasm for creativity and the autonomy of others to be ridiculous. People who can’t engage in random acts of ridiculousness aren’t part of my tribe, to put it mildly.
People who directly say, “It’s not that clever or not appealing” either do so because they are honest, which is truly a great thing, or they can’t help but to express negativity, which is its opposite. I’m carefree about people’s reactions but I do notice when someone isn’t engaging in a spirit of enthusiasm or encouragement. Life is bland enough without encouraging more of the same.
To everyone who thought it was clever, thank you. To those who didn’t, I can’t hit all home runs. But out of the hundreds of people I ran across today, my cigarette lighter brooch was the most singular thing I saw anyone wearing today. And that’s a home run each and every time – in part because it gives people the opportunity to be amused, annoyed, or to interact. I can’t be certain that NO ONE has ever made a working cigarette lighter brooch. But I am certain that the idea came to me from the mist of my own mind – and that no one I know has ever seen one. Until today. That makes me happy.
The best line I came up with today was a play on words: “Can I send you a Bic pic?”
“Creativity is contagious, pass it on.” – Albert Einstein
Love, X
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PS The next picture is added for varityletter…
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 