For karma, I tip each time I buy lottery tickets. It’s given me so many interesting moments with random clerks at convenience stores. If I have a winning ticket, I try to donate a bit more. The lottery is a fool’s game, one which tricks us into miscalculating the realistic odds of winning. That’s part of the reason I like it. In my heart, there’s not a day that passes that I don’t consider how many against-the-odds things I’ve experienced. It not only amplifies my gratefulness for still being here, but it also reminds me that almost everything that turns out to be magical sounds ridiculous to the reasonable mind. Harry Potter? Not publishable. Haruki Murakami? He had a moment like I did, except in his, he realized he was going to be a writer. Demetri Martin? On his way to being one of the best legal minds in the world and just decided that comedy was his passion.
I sometimes find myself contemplating writing a book based solely on the stories that clerks share with me after I tip them and share my karma theory with them. Most of them realize that I will follow through on my promise to give them a million dollars if I hit the jackpot.
A couple of places in Springdale had clerks who knew me and knew I was going to tip them. I miss the surprised looks on their faces when they saw me walking in. I’m certain they are wondering what happened to the tip-for-karma guy.
Springdale feels like another country to me now. I miss it, especially after having walked 1,000 miles on its streets in the last year. I know Jim at the produce stand is wondering what happened to me. As is Güino, my tuxedo cat.
Lately, I’ve mentioned a couple of times that there’s a clerk here near my apartment in Fayetteville who resisted accepting tips. Now, she smiles, knowing I’m going to leave the money on the counter, whether she accepts it or not.
The last time I went in, I said, “tee-me lie kas-to chaw.” I don’t speak Nepali. But I spoke enough, that day.
As I left her the tip, she smiled.
I’m not sure there’s a value in knowing that I made a human connection.
We all miss the place we call home in our hearts.
A few words of memorization for me. And a gong in her head hearing the words.
I knew I was in serious trouble when my manager called me into his office and asked which type of punishment I’d like: “Biblical or Corporal?” . I did break my pushup record yesterday. I did 1,111 just to have a memorable number. Today’s forecast: ain’t gonna be no rematch. I’m glad I did it but the obsessive component of it is exhausting. . I learned several things yesterday. The problem with learning is that it forces you into cognitive dissonance when you’ve learned but don’t apply it to your life. . Life Tip # 46: If you ensure that you’ve always kept a jar of moonshine nearby, you’ve got both anesthesia and antiseptic. . Edit: I weigh 150 lbs again. I’m eating a lot more; I ate an entire thin crust cheeseless pizza Monday. I’d be happy with 170. Just in case someone tells me they’re worried about me. All my afflictions are mental and I’m keeping a close, albeit crazy, eye on those.
Note: everyone reading this will have at least one gong go off in their heads. I’m not sure why, but a muse settled in my head this afternoon. Feel free to tell me that I’m wrong. .
The Botany Rule: Love and nurturing are on Maslow’s hierarchy for a reason. If you don’t bring your water bucket and a bit of sunshine to those you love, they will needlessly suffer the absence of that which nourishes; if possible, they’ll find it elsewhere. It isn’t the plant’s fault. Just because we have reason and consciousness should not fool you into thinking that we aren’t wired for intimacy. .
So much of what ignites us in the minds of others is practiced. Take a moment and tell someone that they’d made your day better. Instead of speaking when motivated by recrimination, find a way to say something positive. People’s ears become deaf to love when criticism fills the air. We have only so many minutes in a day and attention to spare. Choose, rather than react. Sometimes, in silence, hug unexpectedly, and whisper in the midst of shouts. . Words fade but attitude invades. . The longer you wait to tell someone an uncomfortable truth, the harder it is to be open the next time you want to. Someone who loves you will respond with hurt, but that hurt will be tempered by eventual acceptance. And if not? They have a disparate image of who you are than you do. .
If you’re in an unequal relationship, and most are, you might as well open yourself and crowd them; the end is as certain as the curtain on Broadway. Take your swing and crowd the plate. Living loosely is a great idea but a terrible way to survive. . Rare is the couple in which one prefers to dance and the other to sit. They exist and if you’re in one, relish it if it has lasted. But if your partner won’t dance for fear of looking foolish, they’ve placed appearance and decorum over you. . Love is foolish and its demonstration is seldom appreciated by onlookers; those dancing don’t count the eyes or ears observing them. . Someone smart said, “Faults are thick where love is thin.” If you find yourself listing grievances, you’ve allowed your inability to honestly communicate to sever a significant part of your intimacy. . “Don’t wear your heart on your sleeve” is a great example of something that sounds reasonable while simultaneously belying the fact that we are emotional creatures disguised as thinking adults. Look around. We admire smart people who care enough to not care about how others interpret their sentimentality. Those people feed my soul. I think they do yours, too. . “I would love you more IF” is a thought that should warn you that either you need to work on yourself – or the unstated expectations of your relationship. . I learned something about myself. If a person can tell me his or her worst secrets, my capacity to love and appreciate them blossoms. If the opposite is the case, it’s very difficult to navigate misgivings as they arise. . We protect nothing by failing to reveal who we really are. . The best truths are written in dirt. The best voices are broken. And the kindest souls have learned to turn off their judgment when others fail them. . Finally, one that is not mine, and I’m sharing it as I found it: “You sit in sh!t too long, it stops smelling.”
I sat on the warm ground, watching the sky grow dark. August had come, filled with angry heat, absent rain, and upset souls. The virus had surged, melting away hope for a return to the normalcy of a troubled world. I whispered your name into the encroaching shadows and silence. Around me, the insects awoke and did the same, speaking their alien language in accompaniment. Until the mosquitoes made their appearance, there would be a pleasant truce between human and insect. I silently sat, struggling to count the emerging stars against the luminescence of the city reflected in the sky, With each appearance, I wished there was a way to find my spotless mind. Because that quiet peace eluded me, I remained seated in the tall grass, knowing that tomorrow’s obligations were racing toward me. My secret place is near a busy road lined with scented honeysuckle. No one could see me as I sat. And I saw no one, except for my own solitary soul. There was room in the grass for more than one. But for now, it is just me, wishing it were not so. Of course, there is hope for tomorrow. Each of us has an unannounced last day and few of us know that during that day, our feet will grow motionless and the future grinds to a halt. It’s why I lingered in this grass, my heart whispering bittersweetly to itself. In the air, honeysuckle. In my heart, a smaller jar of time pulsed with one less firefly. Still, I smiled. Though the moment was unshared, it was mine.
I made this for my friend Zach; he’s a Trump fan, and I’m not. And that’s okay. I made him a nice Jesus picture last week and, in previous weeks, made him a few other things to decorate his home. All of us should have places filled with beauty, crazy, and sentimentality. Necessity can clutter the rest.
While watching Erika brush her cat Meatball, I had a flash of genius. These flashes of genius CANNOT be ignored. Erika saved the brushings of fur for me twice.
I had a custom cardboard print made of Trump at Walgreens. I then carefully glued swaths of Meatball’s fur onto the print. Those dark places in each photo are shadows created by the fur as it protrudes from the board.
This is a one-of-a-kind piece of art… or something. Though I made it with creative glee in my heart, I hope Zach likes it. This was not something made quickly, cheaply, or without a lot of thought. If it is the thought that counts, it will be received with a laugh. And Meatball suffered no harm in the making of this fine piece of art.
This is not something I did to mock Trump or his fans. I did it to satisfy that urge to create and have fun with it.
I got accused outright of having a sheltered life earlier in the week.
The accuser wasn’t wrong. I thought quite a bit about it, and to sit and steep myself in the allegation. I indicted myself in agreement with the conclusion.
To be clear, I have witnessed some sh!t in my time. All of us have in varying amounts. Most of our lives probably overlapped a great deal. Thankfully, not everyone had a wild ride of it and each of us disparately experienced what I would label as “fringe” events.
But there’s a lot I don’t know. Obviously. My spell checker reminds me every day, as do my co-workers, neighbors, ex-wife, and even the mailman drops by every couple of days to shake his head in bewilderment at me.
Even at 54, I’m still finding out that there are worlds within worlds all around me. Words, foods, drinks, ideas, a cauldron of ceaseless wonder.
When you don’t eat sushi, for example, the barrage of specific vocabulary one must learn to order it for someone else becomes overwhelming, like signing up for Beginner’s Spanish only to later realize that it was in fact “Belgian Spanish.” I have no problem insisting that I’m ignorant and therefore need guidance. Otherwise, people will be eating a can of tuna and crackers. I won’t even get started on how they price the stuff. The sushi, not the canned tuna.
Food and flavor are 100% opinion.
NO, I don’t care what the various kinds of sushi, sashimi and blah, blah, blah are actually supposed to be called. That you like it is all that matters. I don’t have to like it. I like it that YOU like it. That’s pretty much how all of us should respond to friends and family when they love the stuff we wouldn’t eat if the human race depended on it. I know for a fact that some of the stuff I eat would make Bill puke until next Tuesday. Sorry, Bill. It’s true. Besides, you’re definitely not busy next Tuesday anyway. Yes, I read your calendar, the one by the fridge.
But the prices? I know for a fact that in a dark basement, probably in New Jersey, there’s a really big man who spins a wheel and randomly determines the definitions for both ‘quality’ and ‘price’ of sushi. The worse it looks, the more it costs. (Note: it’s a shame that isn’t actually true for a lot of things, right?)
For those who aren’t around smokers, there are twenty-two million kinds of tobacco and specialty products available now. I remember in the early 70s when you could easily memorize the main twenty or so tobacco products. Now the racks look like Heidi Klum’s makeup room. There are so many adjectives you need to know to ask for the right thing that I feel like I need a thesaurus when I’m around it. Things that look cheap are obnoxiously expensive. Things that look expensive… well, they are expensive too.
The point of this is to forcefully point out that I am very ignorant about more things than you’d realize. I am very knowledgeable about a lot of things, too. But it is a lot of work hiding my ignorance – not that I make much of an effort. I’d need a big box for that.
Because I’m rejuvenated, I’m going to share another vow with you, exactly like the one that allowed me to lose all this weight…
I am going to say, “I don’t know” a lot more often.
I am going to say, “You probably need to show me this again, for the fifth time, unless you’d like a disaster.”
And if you need me to go buy good seafood, lord help you until my ignorance abates.
I’ve always been quite ignorant. You just might not have realized how much. I’m here to help you with that misunderstanding.
Meanwhile, be yourself. Smile, laugh, and growl sometimes if that is what is needed. Eat the foods you love even if your mom vomits, and let everyone eat the foods they love. Take that same acceptance and throw it into all the other areas of life where we encroach needlessly on people’s ability to live freely.
P.S. I have not been drinking. But I am going to have a bit of vodka and homemade sweet and sour.
And those index cards on the floor leading the rocking chair were part of an elaborate ruse that I couldn’t execute today. I have optimism for tomorrow. You’ll note the rocking chair is in front of an open door, leading to a balcony and a whole new world.
I went to Target for a microwave. I picked a really bad day to wear my orange-red shirt. No exaggeration: I helped at least a dozen people find things. The highlight of this visit was when a Target employee asked me where they kept the little portable Ottomans for the college students.
PS I did not get an employee discount for the microwave.
It’s fascinating that an experience can be pale and yet the memory of it prevail. Time flavors all and not always to our benefit.
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Vacations, fabulous meals, and exotic experiences are truly splendid. However, 95% of your life is contained in the other. The surest way to be unhappy is to attempt to derive most of your happiness from the exceptional 5%. -x
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Grammar vs. BotanyI visited Eastern Madison County last month. Walking across one of the protected tracts of forest, I noted a huge grove of conifers. 90%+ of them grew almost horizontally, parallel to the ground. I turned to the guide. “What kind of coniferous trees grow horizontally like that?” I asked him. “Those? Those are supines.”
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What a weird end to my workday! Exiting work and entering the parking garage, I jumped into my car and noticed a huge crack in my windshield. I rolled down my window, leaned out, and told Darian to get the hell off my hood.
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Rule of Specificity: I’m not a real stickler for words; however, there are times it’s important to be specific. For example, if someone working on something for you calls on the radio or texts you, “I need a number 2 ASAP,” don’t be surprised when things go south quickly, and doubly so if the person requesting the item is near a window.
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“There’s always time for what fills your heart. And if not, what’s the point of this mad world?” – X
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If you describe a third person to someone by saying, “…he looks exactly like a disgruntled Russian collections agent,” and the other person knows immediately who you’re talking about, that’s a win.
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Because I deviated from my routine. I exited the car, hands full of masks, trash, chalk, and yes, my car key. Walking out of the parking garage, I absentmindedly threw all of it into the trash container, which of course was mostly full. Small car key included. Luckily it registered that I had done something forgetful and stupid. (This is not usually the case with me.)I pulled the entire bag out of the can and meticulously went through it, as coworkers drove by, wondering why I was foraging in the trash. Of course I could not find my key. And so, I pulled out the entire bag of trash and brought it inside work. I dumped the bag out and carefully sorted through what can only be described as extremely bad food choices for my coworkers. Time and heat had not improved the remains. Somehow, my small car key had managed to get inside a particularly nasty bag of leftover Taco Bell. Not that I’m a breakfast person, but I found myself mentally scratching off Taco Bell from my list of places to eat – possibly ever.
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Pithy quote for Monday…You’re going to run out of time. Die with memories. Not dreams. A fulfilled life in monochrome surpasses a fantasy in Kodachrome.
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Not my joke, but I love it: I got so fat that people couldn’t even lift me up in prayer.
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I am starting to take these new PPE requirements personally. I can’t quite put my finger on it.
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I have been going to counseling since March. I’m better, thanks. The bad news is that my counselor is now convinced she’s a picnic table.
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At 54, I never thought life would involve so much chalk dust. Also, why can a child carry a bucket of chalk and no one blinks an eye, but an adult with one stick of it looks like a terrorist.
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I guess I misunderstood what pride month is. Six lions in the breakroom caused a bit of a problem.
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Because he was in a bad mood, he hung a “Please Disturb” sign on the door.
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I think I will be fired for using suggestive language at work. I suggested that my boss take a practice high dive off the nearest cliff.
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I like a good burn when it’s creative:”X, why are you dressed like that?”Me: “Duh. We’re shooting a music video later this morning.” “Well, I can only assume you have the role of ‘A$$hole #1, given that you’ve got the part down solidly already.”I laughed.
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I misunderstood. I’m pretty sure it’s okay to hurl a ball at someone and scream, “Dodgeball!” Even at work, and even if you hit them on the nose.These are the rules of Dodgeball.
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There are two undercurrents of truth in life. One guides us on the surface of the superficial. The other, swirling and contradictory, gives us meaning. Rare among us are those where the two currents are indistinguishable. -x
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Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. But you can bet your ass he had a terrible summer.
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One of the powerful secrets I learned through counseling… this one habit will change your life substantially, and probably forever: don’t be an asshole.
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One of the most astonishing things in life is this: if you really clench your jaw, you hear and feel a rumbling. There’s a physiological reason for this. The surprising thing is how few people know it happens, much in the same way that we forget that we actually ‘see’ our nose 100% of the time.
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Surely, somewhere, there MUST be a werewolf who suffers from male pattern baldness, right?
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I accompanied my friend Susan, who was ordered by the District Court to go to Kleptomaniac Group Therapy. We were going to have coffee, but all the cups were taken.
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Working in healthcare, I decided I would start cleaning myself with an autoclave instead of showering. I didn’t know my voice could go that high.
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My little car has a lot of new technology. Evidently I’m a worse driver than I imagined. My navigation app told me to pull over so it could get out.
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My latest round in the ongoing insult war: “You’re just a mirror away from self-awareness.”
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If a bat started coronavirus, imagine the consequences if someone eats a dingbat.
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“Love Is a Burning Thing.” Please consult your urologist.
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Y’all probably won’t understand how amusing it is to take a can of soda, put it in a paper bag, and sit somewhere in plain sight drinking from it. How long does it take for someone nosey to tell me I can’t drink in public?
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“It is true he was busy moving mountains; unfortunately, he failed to realize that he is his own summit.” – x
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I wonder how y’all do it, the normal people, that delicate and uncertain dance between the sunburst and the thunder. But then I remind myself to look into people’s eyes and behind the layer that we put on, thinking it shields us. I’m not sure this is a status update, but because I’m human, I can’t imagine that other people don’t wonder this sort of thing.
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In honor of today’s dubious Demolition Derby in Springdale, I plan on driving through all my neighbor’s yards at 8 a.m. According to the new rules, I get 12 points for each bird feeder I run over.
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If I say, “I am SO sore from last night’s twerking class,” the proper response isn’t laughter; rather, you should ask, “Oh? As teacher or student?”
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It’s a sign: I invested in myself and now I have buyer’s remorse.
“Because time is short” is a phrase that came to me in a song in a dream, one so dense and imaginative that I woke up still hearing the lyrics almost humming in my throat.
I’ve found myself to be using it as a preface in many conversations, especially when I find myself cutting across the normal social conventions that we politely adhere to instead of just stating our truth.
Now that I’ve found that I’m not quite as sane as I previously believed, it helps me to telegraph that I’m not just speaking tritely. Our days are stuffed with enough of that already.
A couple of times, it might have alarmed the other person, as if taken that way, it adds an ominous tone to the message.
Because time is always short; if not for me, then for thee. *One of my favorite quotes, from “No Country For Old Men”“All the time you spend trying to get back what’s been took from you there’s more going out the door. After a while, you just try and get a tourniquet on it.”
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 