What if you had one in-depth thought a day instead of the 50,000 random thoughts they say we normally have? Let's try this. For the rest of the day think only about this: Why am I the way I am?
June 2, 2018
At age 7 she "dated" her neighbor Kelly. By 13 she was having sex with Kelly. At 18 she and Kelly got engaged. In their small town there was little opportunity for employment, so Kelly enlisted and was sent to Afghanistan. There, he stepped on an IED and was discharged with significant injuries and a life now requiring full time care. She wasn't prepared for that. The realization that Kelly was now a broken, depressed, PTSD laden lifetime burden knocked her socks off. What about her?
June 4, 2018
It was the penultimate day. Tomorrow would bring irrevocable changes. He would have no choice but to embrace the new. How graciously he manages that remains to be seen. His track record isn't great. Success is not assured.
June 5, 2018
It's your birthday. You get a party. You get a cake. You get presents. After doing this year after year, decade after decade, one day you realize the party's over. Cheers?
June 6, 2018
5 QUESTIONS TO:
Larry Pinkman, spokesman for the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association
A: Well that depends on the breed and whether you want multiple colors or monochrome.
Q: Could you grow a green cow?
A: We here in South Dakota pride ourselves on being the best animal growers in the world. Green cows? Listen, we have labs where we are growing animals never seen before! You wouldn't believe what they're coming up with! Green cows? No prob.
Q: Could an amateur grow his own stock?
A: Don't be silly. That's how you end up with green cows!
Q: Could you grow a chicken as big as a house?
A: Sure, but it ain't gonna fit in your oven so what's the point?
Q: Have you ever grown a wild animal, say, a tiger or a giraffe?
A: Don't be daft. That would be against God. We stick strictly to growing farm stock, other than, as I said, our R&D labs concocting new species.
Mr. Pinkman, thank you for answering 5 QUESTIONS.
June 7, 2018
Everything in our world is neutral. Until we put a label on it or entertain a notion about it or adopt a belief concerning it, it doesn't exist for us. Do you care about health care in Samoa, centrifugal compressors or the chemical nature of covalent bonds? You have no opinions, preconceived ideas or even generalizations about them, so to you, they are neutral. Well, EVERYTHING is neutral (until you have thoughts about it). You might see something as good while I see the same thing as bad. But the thing itself is neutral. We get to decide what it means (or doesn't mean) to us. You form opinions, engender beliefs, and act accordingly. You create and control your life this very way. Do too.
June 8, 2018
This guy hates his job. Asked why he doesn't get another job, he shrugs. Too much work. Sending out resumes. Going to interviews. Kissing ass. No, he decided, it was better to stay where he was, bored out of his mind, hating the job, hating the work, but no further effort required. What if he found a job he really liked at a company he really liked working with people he really liked? Har, he snorted. And that was the end of that.
June 9, 2018
At some point in every overweight person's life, they passed a tipping point where they just let it go. But a tipping point can work both ways. Someone can reach a bigness that is no longer acceptable and that is a tipping point in reverse. The tipping point itself is motivation, or lack thereof.
June 11, 2018
Overheard two grandmas in public.
-- You know Teddy, my grandson by Kylie?
-- Yeah?
-- I'm scared of that kid. He's mean and you can see in his eyes something demented. Every time I'm around him he gives me the creeps.
-- Have you ever said anything to Kylie?
-- No. What can I say? Your kid's a walking nightmare and he will undoubtedly grow up to do heinous things?
-- Well, that's a start.
-- Look, if I know he's bad, she surely must know.
-- So what are you going to do?
-- I fantasize about killing him first before he slaughters the entire family.
-- (gasp)
June 12, 2018
I did a tarot reading on a potential business partner. It implied that he was all right and the deal would be fair but it kept warning me of his wife. It said she was duplicitous and dangerous. I had to meet her. We all scheduled a dinner together. She was very protective of her husband and suspicious of everything else. She was defensive, accusatory and guarded. She answered for him and told him what he thought. She was a steamroller, a jackhammer, a promise of difficulties to come. It was obvious that involvement with him meant involvement with her. Welp, I'm out.
None of these things are mutually exclusive. You can have 'em all. Can too.
June 15, 2018
What if you HAD to smoke four joints a day and drink a gallon of beer. What if you HAD to have sex seven times a week whether you wanted to or not. What if you were told that you HAD to eat fast food for every single meal. Question: If moderated pleasures became mandatory, would they cease to be pleasurable?
June 16, 2018
Our little town has taken in Syrian refugees and I was in a store where one such newly arrived family was shopping. None of them spoke English but their excitement at the availability of products was obvious. There were five of them, chattering in Arabic, each one was wearing a little Canadian flag pin. As I passed them in the aisle I smiled warmly and said, Welcome to Canada. The father said something in a language I didn't understand, but I assume meant thanks, or groovy to be here, or right back at ya, bud. But to be fair, I guess he could have been saying, screw you privileged white boy or bugger off, dude, you don't know what we've been through. Who knew?
June 18, 2018
Her husband was for sale. He was useless as a regular husband, wouldn't do anything a husband was supposed to do and she had had it. But she thought she was owed for all the wasted years and therefore decided to sell him. He was a perfectly useless husband, but was good at one thing - sex - and she decided to capitalize on that. She didn't want to rent him out as she didn't want him back the next day all full of himself for his sexual prowess but still a lousy husband. No, she wanted to be rid of him and get what's coming to her. She put an ad in Craigslist and sold him a week later. Win-win?
June 20, 2018
Well knock me over with a feather.
I said, What do you do?
He said, I tape English speaking comedians all over the US and Canada, translate their routines into various languages and sell them to foreign comics who do them in their native languages.
You steal comedy sets?
Yup. The North American comics have no idea they're being stolen from because they are defiantly proud they speak only one language - English. Idiots. I speak eight languages, am a polyglot joke stealer and rich because of it. There's a Croatian Jerry Seinfeld. I've got a Latvian Mitch Hedberg. A raunchy French Amy Schumer. You would be surprised how universal humour can be. I tape hundreds of comedy shows a year, translate the best stuff and sell them to foreign comedians who emulate the real ones. I have a villa in Cannes, an apartment in New York and a condo in LA.
Huh, I thought.
June 21, 2018
Damn! Someone promised me, swore!, this thing would happen and it didn't happen. Now what? Now what?! Damn.
June 22, 2018
So Stephen Hawking is now buried in Westminster Abbey between Darwin and Newton. Uh, frankly I can't understand the Hawking reverence. He never won a Nobel Prize, he is probably most remembered for writing a book for "laymen" and barely anyone outside of physics could detail any of his scientific achievements. Throw in the fact that he urged us to hide from the aliens, move to Mars and in general live a life in fear makes me again question the reverence the rest of the world seems to hold this guy in. Frankly Scarlett, I don't get it.
June 27, 2018
Overheard two geezers on the road by our field.
-- Hell, I didn't know we was gonna take so long a walk. I'm beat.
-- Me too, but we got at least another mile.
-- Jerry, I gotta take a rest. Let me sit down for a bit.
-- Jake, you sit down and you'll get all stiff and frozed up and we won't never get home.
-- But I can't hardly take another step. I gotta stop.
-- Ok, but only for a minute.
-- Jerry, how come we decided to take this stupid ass walk?
-- 'Cause we had to get out of the house, remember?
-- That's right, Alice came home and caught us. That wasn't pretty. Now that Alice knows about us, what do you think she'll do?
-- Didn't you hear what she said? Two old men going at it with each other is disgusting and sinful and she won't have none of it.
-- Who ever thought we'd be in trouble for sex at this age?
June 28, 2018
Roses are red
Violets are blue
A toddler is President
Woke America, still asleep
June 29, 2018
She was a regular gal living a regular life when she became Internet famous. Her initial fame was quirky, fluky, serendipitous, but it quickly spread to a mass audience and she was the digital darling of the moment. For weeks she was flattered, overwhelmed and in a daze until saturation overcame novelty, the tide turned and the trolls rose. After a proper scorching, the Internet went looking for its next momentary thrill. Afterward she felt used, chewed up and spit out by the same faceless, nameless masses who made her famous, turning on her like rabid sheep, oh the flashbacks! The funny thing was, she cursed the Internet for ruining her life, as if the Internet was ever something real in the first place.
