Behavior, Entertainment, Mental Health, Opinion, Psychology, Relationships, TV

Reality TV Is Us

08/16/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

This is not a post about reality TV per se. Reality TV fascinates me; not as a watcher, but more for the process of misdirection, drama creation, and constant familiar themes to provoke an emotional or shocked reaction. When I do watch reality TV, I spend an inordinate amount of time looking up the people and places to find out what really happened and how the writers and producers repackaged it for entertainment.

Again, this post isn’t about reality TV per se. It’s about the fact that a great number of people are exactly like reality TV. They aren’t living authentically, they don’t say what’s on their mind, emotional connection feels foreign to them, and honesty tends to be in short supply. We tend to be reactionary by nature. And even with legitimate reasons to react with frustration, anger, or emotion, our tendency is to bite our natural response to whatever is happening around us. We watch one another, evaluating what’s going behind the facade. It’s why memes caution us to remember that each of us has things going on that others don’t know about.

Turn off the TV. Surprise yourself and other people. As a self-admitted hypocrite, I can write these words without feeling like a fraud. I hate the disparity between who I am and how I communicate and behave in a lot of situations. All of this artifice we build up around us is a cage. The strange thing is is that we are our own guards. The key is in our pocket.

Love, X

Music, Nostalgia, Personal

Who Knew?

08/16/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

Who Knew?

I had to pull over and let the music play. It was unexpected. Pink’s song “Who Knew” came on and it took me back a couple of decades. It was only recently that the singer talked extensively about the song originally being about a huge loss she had suffered. The song was featured in a short-lived TV series named “October Road.” I didn’t watch the show but I heard it often in the background, as someone close to me loved the show. Afterward, it was impossible to hear the melody without a bell of melancholy ringing inside me. All these years later to find out that Pink felt a similar loss makes the song much more meaningful. Not all melancholy is bad. It serves as a reminder, too. Especially when you find yourself doing the things you have to do so that you can do the things that you want to do – and can’t always grasp the point or meaning. Most of our days are founded on obligation and routine. While the universe laughs and flies by us.

Love, X

Humor

PSA Prank Temptation

08/15/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

Public Service Announcement!

It is unwise to leave a stack of traffic cones near the sidewalk. Especially when a creative prankster has to talk himself out of doing something ridiculous with them. I had to literally run away because the urge to be hilarious with these overwhelmed me.

Fayetteville, Lemon Moment, Personal, Psychology

Lemon Moment / Glimmer

08/14/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

“If you go into the building with that much enthusiasm and energy, you’re going to end up with a nail driven into each palm.” That’s the quip I hollered at someone as they came in this morning and the one which inspired the following words:

When you run into somebody who is so full of enthusiasm and energy, it is either one of the best things in life or a trigger. It’s a trigger if you’re missing those things. But when the mutual laughter and enthusiasm collide, it’s a joyous ball of energy. Probably one that annoys onlookers. For that reason, I carry both Lone Ranger masks and COVID masks for the potential naysayers. Due to legal issues, they confiscated my taser. My plea that I only used it on myself went unheeded.

Because I didn’t want to miss the opportunity, I took my shoes off in the work parking lot and walked down to the creek nearby instead of one of my usual spots. The water is much cooler than my last visit. Unlike me. I’m as hip as a polyester suit at this point. But my desire to come down here and stand in the water stands among my best decisions. It tickles me as people race by and see me in their peripheral vision. I probably look like a rutabaga with a dumb smile on my face. I look goofy enough to get a nomination to the Supreme Court.
Love, X

Fashion, Opinion, Personal

Dashiki Comfort

08/14/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

Dashiki shirts have a lot of history and symbolism. I realized that my new scrub tops were very similar to the style and cut of these shirts. So I got a colorful one. Of course. It’s extremely comfortable. I’m wondering why we don’t wear this type of garment way more often.

Since it is a cultural item, I will studiously avoid driving inside any small municipality around here. I won’t mention any of them by name.

Entertainment, Humor, Opinion

X’s Great Idea Series: Comedy

08/14/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

Listen… People keep begging me to share more of my great ideas. And to use a LOT more words doing so. They complain that I keep things too short. And I think this is a really good one!

For comedy clubs, after the MC comes out and tells stale jokes laden with false enthusiasm, they should bring two people from the audience to the stage. The first one should be a volunteer. He or she has the opportunity to tell any joke they want. I think we would find some good comedians accidentally this way. I’ve known several people who would be phenomenal as comedians. They look at me like a three-headed armadillo when I point it out to them. The second person would be chosen randomly. They would be asked to tell a joke or do an ad-lib.

Both of these scenarios would drive audience participation and keep things interesting. It would also give all their friends and family an opportunity to witness most of them experience most people’s most fundamental fear: public speaking. Oh, and a really good photo-op.

Thank you for participating in my great ideas series.

I apologize in advance for my failure to write at least 11,256 words.

Humor

Humor?

08/13/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

“Welcome to the Married People Phone Sex Line. Do you identify as a husband or a wife?”

“Wife.”

“Thanks. Let me connect you.”

Dead silence…

“Hey, is anyone there? I’ve been waiting 6 minutes.”

“Oh, we’re here. We’re just not listening.”

Fayetteville, Lemon Moment, Personal

Light Show

08/13/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

It was about 4:00 a.m. I had a delicious bitter cup of coffee on the banister railing. The booms of thunder and lightning bedazzled my eyes and ears. It’s fascinating watching the traffic at that hour on Sunday morning. An unhealthy percentage drivers at that hour are on their way too or returning from unhealthy shenanigans. I heard the vehicle brake a little bit in anticipation of making a right turn across the railroad tracks. The big white suburban attempted to execute the turn while traveling at about 40 mph. As it turned, both passenger side wheels came up as the vehicle wildly turned and then spun all the way around, hitting the sidewalk curb. The wheels slammed back down. I expected the protuberance of the railroad rails to flip the vehicle. The suburban was motionless for a few seconds. The driver was probably checking his or her pants. Assuming they weren’t drunk and oblivious. I could not help but laugh. My laugh echoed much too loudly across the parking lot and against the building. Later, shortly after 5:00, huge gusts of wind buffeted anything not nailed down. I was already back outside with my broom to pick up the plants that I knew would not withstand the wind. None of them were mine. My corn stalks are on the inside railing and oblivious to the weather. My cat Güino darted outside long enough to get splattered by the rain. He was adorable, his face turned up against the wind and rain, his little nose and eyes squinting. He ran back inside when a singular wind gust slammed the door completely open.

Thanks for the light show.

Behavior, Exercise, Mental Health, Personal

Boots

08/12/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

“Knowledge comes easily, but wisdom wears a different pair of shoes.”

We all know that change and new behavior is the only way to move forward. But we are reluctant to put on work boots. Inaction is easier. To reflect, evaluate, prune, and move in another direction. Every important change starts with a new attitude. Followed by action. And if it doesn’t? You move first, and motivation will follow. Almost everyone gets stuck in the familiar; no matter how unhelpful our status quo is, it’s familiar and comfortable despite its consequences. Most of us observe with wonder at how complex our brains are, how filled our world is with surprise, and how powerless we feel when we want to connect with the invisible and intangible power of just being alive. “You’re your own worst enemy” was intended as an insult. I took it as an insight. Knowing you’re an idiot can debilitate or motivate. Everyone says they will do the things that matter, express the words that want to spill, and be a better person. Tomorrow. Later. When the time is right. Your boots are stuck under the bed somewhere, lonely from disuse. Love, X
.

Behavior, Death, Lemon Moment, Mental Health

A Morning

08/11/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

This isn’t my story to tell. But I’ll trespass because it blankets the lines of odd convergences of the things we all experience. Regard it as fiction and find whatever value that words can convey.

She seemed to melt against the wall, her head down, with a cell phone pressed against her ear. “Margaret died this morning,” she said, her voice flatter then the plains of Iowa. It was the flatness that conveyed an overwhelming emotion behind her words. Numbness, like a whisper, sometimes telegraphs greater information.

He stopped and was about to ask her what she needed. A woman walked up to her and put her hand on her shoulder as she ended the phone call.

“She’s in a better place,” the late arrival told her. Though he looked indirectly at her, he watched her face wrinkle with conflicting emotions. He could read her mind.

They spoke a few sentences back and forth. The woman returned her verbal volleys with diminished enthusiasm and volume.

As the late arrival walked away, he asked her what she needed. “To be about 200 miles from here. None of these people knew my Aunt.”

Because it’s what he does, he hugged her. He wasn’t going to add vacuous words.

When he stepped back and away from her, she told him that she didn’t think she could stand listening to people talk about her aunt.

“Then don’t. The person you loved is gone. Your debt is paid.” He didn’t quite say it in so few words because he was surprisingly caught off guard by nervousness. His entire morning was a bout of unidentifiable anxiety. His arms still quivered with the exertion expended to quell what had saved insurmountable at the time.

“I hate it when people say someone’s in a better place.” The irritation in her voice was evident.

“They mean well. None of us know what to say. I put my foot in my mouth a lot. We’re not thinking about where they are. We’re thinking about going on without them. That’s what grief is.”

She looked at him directly. “That’s a really good way to put it.”

“I learned the hard way. When people are grieving, they say and do almost anything.”

She nodded. He walked away, hoping that time would warp for her. Time is one of the few things that helps. But sometimes, it remained fresh forever.

He wondered how the universe sometimes finds a way to overlap lessons that superficially have nothing in common.

X
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