You know how when somebody says that you're not trying hard enough even though you think you're trying really hard and so to please this person and mitigate the criticism you pick up the pace to show them they don't know jack about your work ethic only the tempo tires you and you fall behind and pretty soon, against your own will, you find you're not trying hard enough and that they were right? No? Nevermind.
How have classifieds changed since the days of newsprint?
Newspaper ad -
For sale: '65 Bel Air. 96,000 miles, one owner, runs good, real nice car. Asking $1900 OBO.
Online ad -
Lost: My beloved green furry stuffed animal! She looks like the bastard child of Elmo and the Hulk. Her name is DeAndra. She was dropped somewhere between 5th and Stewart as I was escaping my tormenters - plushy haters! I miss her terribly. We need to be reunited! Have you seen my DeAndra? Call Rod at 555-5555.
July 4, 2013
Every day you wake up, you're a blank slate. Of course, you are the accumulation of all your previous days, but every single day you arise free to decide what you want to do, what you want to believe in, and what constitutes your world view. During the course of that day, you might make a decision or have an experience that could alter all of those ideas. You could have an epiphany, suffer a life shattering event, meet god, be a god, save a life or more. Even so, the following morning you will again wake up, a blank slate. Good morning, indeed.
The safest apartment in New York? Just imagine the dark, abject, hopeless circumstances a burglar would have to be in to be desperate enough to rob the only apartment in New York City guarded by a pet dinosaur.
July 6, 2013
My wife is a clinical psychologist and yesterday got a new magazine mailed to her office free of charge. The magazine said that it would send her a new monthly issue for her waiting room and all she had to do was pay for postage.
1 year paid subscription to magazine - $39.95
1 year of free complimentary issues with my wife paying the postage - $39.95
So they are offering her a "free" magazine that only costs her the same amount in postage as a full year's subscription. They are soliciting doctors - do they think no one will be able to figure out "the catch" in their offer? Duplicitious boobery it was. Marketing company fail. The worst part? It was a nice looking magazine, probably worth the $39.95. But why would she do business with a company that tried to snooker her from the get go?
July 7, 2013
Do you want to know how to live a good life? All right, come closer. All you have to do is love yourself and respect others. That's it. You do those two things and your life will be so much easier to live, it might actually be fun. If you're already doing that, then you know what I mean. If not, why not?
July 8, 2013
It was hot. 88 degrees hot. Passed a grandma wearing a turtleneck sweater, tuque and heavy coat out walking her little dog. Grandma still looked cold but the dog looked positively miserable as she had dressed it up in a tartan sweater and matching tam. It was barely moving, its tongue was hanging out, it was panting like a freight train, and grandma dragged the utterly defeated little Scotsman along without a clue as to how uncomfortable her little dog really was. I'm guessing this is but one instance in a lifetime of indignities for the game little pooch.
July 9, 2013
For my family, today is one of those marking points in a life together. Things are no longer what they used to be and we are sad about that.
Wayne had always been jealous of Mark's smaller helmet and perfectly smooth hair. "Mine was all scraggly and unkempt," admitted Gretzky. "So I had to work that much harder. Basically we won all those cups because of my hair issues."
Who knew?!
July 11, 2013
Have you ever had to make a decision about one thing when you had all these other things going on but there was all this pressure to decide and you knew that your whole attention wasn't focused upon the issue and that you weren't giving it your best but you did it anyway because other people just had to know? No? Nevermind.
July 12, 2013
It's hard to be egalitarian; to like everybody equally. There is so much ignorance, underdevelopment, so much larceny, greed and stupidity, so much pedantic dogma that when I meet a fool or a jerk, my first thought is usually not 'friend!'. It's then that I remind myself that they too are a conscious being in a body and personal development is a long and winding road. Sigh.
In a world that could desperately use them, how come there are no superhero cats?
July 14, 2013
Overhead in line at the gas station.
-- I would love to be a robot.
-- Dude, that would be so cool.
-- I could be a personal robot for hot chicks.
-- That would be so awesome!
-- I would have a built-in camera of course.
-- Video!
-- You got that right.
-- And while they were sleeping you could go through their drawers and stuff!
-- What?
-- What?
July 15, 2013
I'm the type of person who if offered a keyboard that was eloquently simple, beautifully and ergonomically designed with only the exact keys I needed and no more versus a keyboard with all those keys - plus a zillion more: three rows of F keys, dual sided number keys, keys dedicated to little used letters, other highly specialized, rarely seen buttons and topped off by a whole slew of blinking LED lights in green and orange - I would choose that keyboard every time. The second one. The crazy one. What?
July 16, 2013
Driving slowly on a quiet road I pass a farmhouse with two women on the porch. One is sitting in a chair playing an upright bass and the other is on the couch playing guitar. Though too far away to hear, I can see by their faces that they are making beautiful music. There is one dog and one cat on the porch. Behind their farm house the mountain rises up. The fields to each side are green. There is a small breeze. Everything about the scene is poetic. I didn't even have to get out of my car. Now that's art.
July 17, 2013
In your quieter moments, do you not think life is just fantastically unbelievable?
It's 7AM and the roofers have arrived. Six white guys with the deepest, darkest, bronziest tans you could imagine. Everything is ready. The materials are here, the tools and equipment are here, the only real cause for concern seems to be the 80% chance of rain today. They have commenced ripping off the old shingles, the skies are darkening, breath holding begins now.
July 19, 2013
Listened to a couple of futurologists warbling on about what's to come. Their assumption is that a hundred years from now computer chips will be implanted into our brains at birth and we will be tracked all our lives by other people sitting at consoles with chips in their brains. But I'm not falling for that again. I did this once already with the flying car thing. I'm still waiting on the flying cars, so there's no way I'm falling for the chip in your brain thing. No way.
July 20, 2013
Wouldn't it be great to live in a society where everyone was genuinely concerned for each other and the planet, where the main enterprise was how to have more meaning in your life? Instead of what we have now. Which is kinda the opposite.
July 21, 2013
Many years ago when I was young, someone jabbed a shovel at me and split my eyebrow. It took a dozen stitches to close. Yesterday, I scratched an itch there, felt the raised tissue and was like, What is that? In the mirror I reacquainted myself with the decades old scar. It was odd to rediscover a hidden body wound, remember the incident and think, How could I have forgotten about that?
July 22, 2013
I see an orgasm in concrete. I dunno, you might see something else.
Sitting in my office working I glance up to see a deer looking at me through the window. She is in our yard. Nonplussed, she wandered away, moseying around the yard until she found the Saskatoon berry tree and started eating. After munching berries for a while she casually walked around the rest of the yard checking out this bush and that patch before jumping the fence and heading off into the woods. When I let Maddie out a half hour later she was beside herself with the fresh scent of deer all over her private space. Ah, the rural life.
July 24, 2013
Avoiding work, I decided to see who had the most common first name among my Contacts. Shock! Turns out I have 23 Johns in there. How could a euphemism for the toilet be the most popular name?
July 25, 2013
Your life has a natural rhythm, a default rhythm, completely independent of the false rhythm most people impose upon themselves (get up, go to work, come home, watch TV, go to bed). Your natural rhythms might be more like: wake up whenever, spend your day doing exactly what you want to do, do the same for your evening, go to bed. One rhythm is not better than the other, it's just one is natural, and feels awesome, and contributes greatly to a high quality of life. The other, not so much.
July 26, 2013
Ran into a buddy who had bandages on his face. He said he fell down a flight of stairs. A while later I ran into another friend who told me the first friend didn't fall down any stairs, but that his wife swung a lamp at him because she found out he was cheating. A day later I ran into the bandaged friend again and I told him what I had heard about the lamp. He admitted there were no stairs, but there was also no lamp. Instead, she threw a toaster at his head and he didn't see it coming. And the fight wasn't about cheating, it was over money and credit card bills.
"There isn't much to be seen in a small town, but what you hear makes up for it."
Welcome to my parlour. Please, have a seat. What's that? It looks creepy? You think my beautiful lavender high button couch looks creepy? Well maybe you look creepy! Who do you think you are? I mean really! I offer you a seat on my finest brushed suede sofa and you diss it?! Oh wait, I suppose you hate the table too. Probably think it's, I don't know, something awful. Well I think you're something awful! You didn't mean to upset me?! Are you serious? It's way too late for that. Leave me alone. Get out. Get out now! What? No, I do not want to go for a drive!
July 28, 2013
Overheard in a retail store.
-- These prices are ridiculous!
-- I know. I could buy this way cheaper back home.
-- They rip you off because it's a tourist town.
-- You're at their mercy.
-- Where are you from?
-- Calgary. You?
-- Edmonton.
-- So how's your vacation going?
-- My husband's been off playing golf every day and the kids are on the Sea-Doos at the lake all day and I'm left by myself.
-- Me too. That's why I'm shopping even though their prices are horrible.
-- Me too.
-- Say, you want to get a coffee?
-- I would like that very much. My name is Lindy.
-- Me too! My name is Lindy too!
-- Oh my god! It's like we're sisters who were separated at birth and lived our lives without even knowing the other existed and who miraculously find themselves meeting after forty years in a vacation tourist trap - of all places! - and suddenly realize they were twin sisters separated at birth!
-- What?
July 29, 2013
Ended up conversing with a gent who had a goatee that he kept stroking as he talked. Initially, it had the effect of making whatever he said fat with apparent thought and deliberation, but after a bit, the chin stroking revealed itself to be nothing more than an annoying artifice to hide the fact that he thought very little about what he said. The man was hairy, but empty. His goatee was nothing more than a beard for his vacuous thoughts.
July 30, 2013
Got a phone call from Germany last night. I assumed it was a wrong number as they only spoke German and I don't speak German so there wasn't much to say other than I have no idea what you're saying, so I hung up. An hour later I got a call from Poland. Naturally, they spoke Polish. Are you kidding me? Never in my lifetime have I gotten successive calls from people whose languages I don't speak. It was an historic evening.
July 31, 2013
A lot of things happened in July. I may look back at some point in my life and see that this month was pivotal, crucial...defining. Or not. Say, how about you? Did July make much of an impression?
