Art, Book, Opinion, Personal, Psychology

You Do You Part Two

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I’ve written a few clever things about the folly of mocking other people’s hobbies or interests. This is not another clever take.

Soap operas, sporting events, reality tv, crocheting, video games, reading, stamp collecting, or having a skeleton display in your yard two months early (excluding serial killers). Putting up a Xmas tree in July. All of these are stupid to some people. It’s likely you love doing something that makes others roll their eyes. I know one woman who is so weird that she attends Billy Idol concerts. On purpose. (I put the last joke in for John K.)

The same is true about complaining about each holiday appearing early at retailers. It’s shocking news, I know, but they wouldn’t do it if sales didn’t justify it. We can laugh and ridicule the stores for doing so, but practically speaking, it wouldn’t happen if human behavior weren’t driving it.

If someone wants to put up Halloween decorations in September, good for them. A Xmas tree in August? Even better. It’s their life, time, and money. If you snark, we’re going to comment on your large belt buckles, commemorative plate collection, or shelves filled with what-knots or tchotchkes. (I included that last word for oddballs from Pennsylvania.)

A considerable portion of the adult population watches reality tv or sporting events. Taken from a certain context, both are equally ludicrous on a couple of levels. If you enjoy them, you don’t think so. That’s the point. We won’t vote you off the island; we might not let you on the boat, but we won’t banish you.

If you want to careen around with your cellphone and collect Pokémon, even if you are seventy years old, go for it. We’ll try not to run you over on our bicycles or cars.

If you’d rather sit on your couch and relax instead of going out and about to socialize, then do it and enjoy it.

If you want to watch grown men and millionaires throw inflated balls around while wearing absurdly tight pants, please do. I mean, it seems perfectly normal if millions of people do it, right? We don’t question your time or masculinity. Not to your face, at least.

Xmas trees in the fall are normal. So are Halloween decorations two months early. Valentine’s candy in January? You bet. Nothing says “love” like diabetes-inducing sugary treats. Except, of course, for doing the dishes without giving an Emmy-worthy “Did you notice?” performance afterward.

Get excited about whatever you enjoy and enjoy those things without guilt.

The next guy is just as full of crap as you are.

We can revel in that.

Just please stop complaining about seasonal merchandise appearing early in stores. It’s not going to lessen or abate in your lifetime.

Just like you can’t drive in traffic without BEING traffic, you can’t participate in capitalism without contributing your own version of “Xmas in July” at your favorite store.

You just don’t see it as weird to some people.

Because it’s not.

It’s just you doing you.

Keep up the good work, y’all.

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English, New Word, Writing

Lejósia

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Lejósia

(lay-HO-see-uh)

Noun. That primordial and overwhelming feeling of homesickness as you travel back to your nest. The eternal feeling that you’ve been gone forever and might not make it back.

No matter where you’ve been, once your focus returns to your everyday life, you want to be home, surrounded by the mundane and familiar. Excitement and travel are interposed moments, transitory and impermanent. They comprise only a tiny percentage of your life.

My word originates in Latin and then passes through Spanish.

DIY, Humor, Organization

DIY Fresheners

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Because I want to, I will start with a random weird fact: the first McDonald’s Drive-Thru was created for military customers who weren’t allowed to be in public in their uniforms. I’m guessing nudity wasn’t an option.

Pre-emptive Intro: Look at those retro Elvis sunglasses! Feel free to submit my pictures as a visual for a “douche photo.” Even I cringe and laugh when I see it.

Listen, I know y’all are rich.

This means you don’t like your place smelling like dog farts or cat tootsie rolls. If you’re married to a man, you should be accustomed to it. If you have teenage boys, you might as well live in an Army dorm.

As noted philosopher SpongeBob said: “I smell the smelly smell of something that smells smelly.”

You can make really cheap do-it-yourself Febreze.

If you don’t love throwing money out, make your spouse or teenagers make the stuff for you at home. You can make it for much less than half a dollar a bottle. And it works just the same.

It’s not as cheap as a clothespin on one’s nose.

Febreze isn’t good for birds or Venezuelan Poodle Moth (which is real, and you should look it up!), but it’s pretty safe with all other animals. People with respiratory issues of any kind already know to be careful around this type of product. A lot of the commercial cleaners you buy can be replaced with simple things you make at home. I’ve noted that many homeowners wait until they need a flamethrower to clean some areas.

Most of the things you need for a basic homemade Febreze are already in your house. If not, your neighbor probably leaves their door unlocked, which is tantamount to implicit permission to borrow liberally from them.

Fabric softener, baking soda, alcohol, essential oils. You don’t need ALL those. There are various competing recipes on the internet. The ones which use fabric softener, white vinegar, a bit of alcohol, and water are the easiest. You can search for it using your favorite privacy-robbing web browser.

“Cleaning is putting stuff in less obvious places.” To which I’d reply: “Turn off the lights, and suddenly the mess disappears.”

Having said all that, do you know what works the best because it attacks odors at its source? Vinegar and water at mostly equal concentrations. Yes, the strong initial smell might throw people off, but it does a much better job after the application dissipates, as it attacks a lot of bacteria, something Febreze and knockoffs don’t. The smell will disappear. But so will a lot of what is causing the odors in the first place.

“Everybody wants to save the earth; no one wants to help mom do the dishes.”
P.J. O’Rourke

Did you know that psychologically speaking, just spraying something that smells like a cleaner often gives a person a mental boost? It’s associative; the scent triggers a similar feeling to actually having cleaned. Even if you spray and then walk out on the patio and drink a cup of coffee.

If you make your own, you can make anywhere from 10-20 bottles for the price of one bottle of Febreze or a can of air freshener.

You can use the extra money you saved to buy something nice for yourself. Like one of those virus-zapping robots. It won’t remove the dust, but your dust will be germ-free.

Hint for bad housekeepers… remember some of my helpful tips. Hang underwear on the door, or leave a murder scene outline inside your front door and then apologize for the mess. Tell everyone the coroner just left. Either usually stops the Q&A or wrinkled noses as visitors enter your nest.

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Personal, Poetry And Prose, Writing

Time’s Rustle

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i got a brief unexpected glimpse

through peripheral eye

not indistinct
not vague

of a branched and labyrinth truncated future

every choice, each decision, and contrary whim

a scarcity of calendar turns

i stood breathless and in wonder

breathe in, breathe out, I whispered

above me, a bird perched on a branch

above it, a sky shielding me from the illusion of infinity

below me, the ground that belies impermanence

and the wind invisibly rustling

what more can I say
like another, just a day
if I squander this one
surely I must pay

not in dollars but in minutes

they do not casually pass me by

they flutter, then they fly

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Behavior, New Word, Opinion, Psychology

We Cut

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“If you never heal from what hurt you, you will bleed on people who didn’t cut you.”

I’ve written about this topic before. We carry our wounds and issues, often in plain sight of everyone except ourselves.

This statement states it in a way that exceeds pithiness.

I made the image, too.

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Behavior, Death, Lemon Moment, Mental Health, Opinion, Personal

Personal Post 76

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It is possible that one death prevented another catastrophe.

It woke me up to the fact that other people would be devasted by more loss.

I don’t know what another two weeks might have brought.

Whether a fortuitous accident, fate, or simple happenstance, the universe rolled in my favor this time.

It’s been almost a year since my emergency surgery.

Thereafter, I committed to a ‘reset’ project. I failed at that on a couple of levels. I’ve kept the weight off and stayed active. My failures were personal.

The funk I experienced not so long ago wasn’t that much more profound than others I’d temporarily passed through. It was like a mile-long curtain of beads hanging from a doorway I was attempting to go through. I did, however, get wrapped in those beads, ones which got heavier the further from their source I traveled. The feedback loops in my head trapped me there. My feet were moving step by step, but no motion propelled me.

It’s a dangerous place to be.

I understand it much better now.

Being humbled does that to you. Having to look at yourself harshly is never a comforting experience.

Our egos have a way of whispering with too much bravado.

Someone in my circle recently suffered a profound loss, one which will forever demarcate her life into the before and after.

I don’t want to be a part of anyone’s loss or regrets.

The curtained beads are behind me again. I hope I retain the lesson, though. I always hate that I forget the primitive lesson of loss I learned in 2007.

No matter what happens, you have to “Get busy living or get busy trying,” something I originally was going to add to this post.

I woke up this morning with so much energy that I could feel it radiating off of me. I hope that energy converts to motivation and enthusiasm. Without those, life is a series of responses to the world around us.

I chose the picture for this post because it’s one I took a year ago when I was just happy to be outside feeling the sun on my face. That was enough – just literally standing outside in a foreign place, surrounded by trees and distant people in the periphery. Gurus have maintained for centuries that simplicity is one of the components of happiness. I’m not sure any of those gurus had to live life in this modern world.

Love, X

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Business, Opinion, Personal, Work

It’s Not Delivery… It’s Stupid

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Yesterday, I wrote about a couple of ways to save money on one’s phone bill or internet – and that one of those opportunities also led me to get a nice desktop setup for just $20.

Delivery company __ attempted to deliver my computer on Sunday. That was weird enough. In order to avoid another misdelivery or return, I paid $5.55 to have a specific delivery window for Monday from 5 p.m – 8 p.m. I’ve got a couple of shenanigans stories about deliveries here at the apartments for another day.

When I came back to my apartment simplex at 4:30, the delivery driver was parked backward, facing the parking lot. I walked up and asked, “You aren’t by chance delivering to apartment 10/X?” He smiled. “Yes, I am.” After showing him my ID, he, of course, asked, “Where is your name on the license?” I replied in the way I always do, with a smile: “It’s the same place as every other license in the state. My first name is X.” He laughed. “Yes, that does make sense!” Just because we were bantering, I pointed to my balcony and said, “See? There’s even a 30-inch X right there to prove it’s me.”

“I’ll go ahead and take the computer package now if you’d like so you can be on your way.”

The driver smiled and said that would be great.

He called his supervisor.

The supervisor surprisingly told him, “Even though the customer is there and has IDed himself, you can’t deliver or give him the package until 5 p.m. as indicated by the order window. You have to sit and wait in the truck until then.”

I could see the look of incredulity on the driver’s face as he listened. “I have to wait here in the truck until 5.”

In the interim, I chatted to the downstairs neighbors about ways to save money and that I’d received a computer for just $20. I also offered to fix two of their older computers for free. I seem to find myself always preaching at people about having computers, phones, or tablets sitting in closets or allegedly broken. I can repurpose anything. Stuff is meant to be used or donated to places like Free Geek. The recycling and repurposing center is about two blocks from where I live, and they do fantastic work.

At 5 p.m., the young male driver came up to the apartment with a large box.

“I’m so sorry you had to wait for no reason,” I said.

“Thank you so much for saying so. It’s not your fault,” he replied, sitting the package on my landing.

He hesitated. I knew he was about to say something important.

“Yeah, I have an accounting degree. I think it’s time I put that to use and stop enduring this job. I appreciated the position at first, but I’m definitely wasting my time.” He sighed.

“I told the neighbors that I was sure you were paid a salary or by the day instead of the by the hour and what your boss had told you.” I waited for him to reply.

“Yes, I get paid $140 gross a day, even though I work an insane number of hours a day. The faster I work, the more they add on top of my routes. There are days when I net less than $7 an hour working this way.”

Though I wasn’t surprised, I was taken aback.

“I’m so sorry. I do hope you reach out and take a job that not only pays you more but lets you work in the field you choose. I work at the hospital and have a great wage and benefits if you’re ever interested. ” I shook his hand.

I was very happy to get such a nice, low-cost computer. But I was also irritated that such a large company making so much profit put its drivers in a position to spend most of their waking lives working that way.

Though the policy that led the driver to waste his own time and wait 30 minutes might have a logical basis, the practicality of such a policy leads me to believe that is simply stupid. Such policies always impact the human beings who are giving their time to help companies make record profits.

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