Gross

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one 

person and everybody else.

~ George Bernard Shaw

- - - - -

People are grossed out by different things.  Some people are grossed out by love, George Bernard Shaw!  Some people are grossed out by people vomiting.  Some people are grossed out by public displays of affection.  Some people are grossed out by public displays of infection.  

My point is that we are different.  We like different things and we are bothered, disturbed and grossed out by different things.  That is what makes the world interesting and allows for the unexpected.  Difference is good.  Well, difference with RESPECT is good.  Difference makes us richer and more dynamic as individuals and as a culture.

For example, the woman in the movie theater restroom was grossed out because one of the toilets wasn't flushed.  I, on the other hand, was grossed out because she didn't wash her hands after she went to the bathroom.

Language

All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language

until it finds a willing and prepared hearer.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

- - - - -

I think that people allow themselves to be too constrained by language.  Some things go beyond the words we know or the words which already exist.  It's okay to take language further.  Of course, when we do this - like anytime someone does something new - others might not be ready.  They might be afraid or intimidated.  

This happens to me a lot.  People are afraid of the new ideas and words I make up.  I give them space to be afraid.  I don't want to hurt or overwhelm them.

Example...

Me:  Jackerwobby?

LL:  Jackerwobby?  And you haven't even been drinking.

See?  My language went further than CS Lewis took it.  

Also, I have no idea what I was talking about.  I mean, what the context was of this exchange.  

But does that scare me?  Am I afraid of the new language I seem to have claimed but now have forgotten?

No.  I'm not scared of that.  I'm scared of dolls that come to life when you're asleep.

House

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

- - - - -

When I see abandoned houses, I wonder if anyone ever loved them.  And if someone loved them once, why didn't someone love them next?  How did they come to be empty and falling down?

Or maybe no one ever loved them, but just lived them.  Or survived them.  Some homes have dark stories.  Others have two or three stories.

Seasons

Love the trees until their leaves fall off, 

then encourage them to try again next year.

~ Chad Sugg

- - - - -

I like that things change with the seasons.  I have lived places where the seasons aren't as visible as here in Iowa.  I like that the leaves change.  The leaves fall.  The leaves get buried under snow.  The leaves spring from the trees again.  The leaves provide shade in the summer.  The leaves fall.  The leaves get buried under snow.  The leaves spring from the trees again.  The leaves provide shade in the summer.

You get the idea.

But I also love the other changes during the seasons.  The stuff they sell in Target changes with the seasons.  The clothes people wear change with the seasons.  The foods we eat and the drinks we drink change with the seasons.  We anticipate those things.

Like the other day, I was having a meeting with Sara at The Hub.  She said, "If they have apple cider, I'm gonna get it.  I bet they don't,, but if they do, it will make me so happy."

I said, "Okay.  But if they have banana cider, don't get it because I bet it's blecchy."

They had apple cider.  She was so happy.

I love fall.

Mystery

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

~ Oscar Wilde

- - - - -

When I was a kid I liked mysteries. I loved Encyclopedia Brown, but I also liked Hardy Boys and sometimes Nancy Drew.  My favorite Nancy Drew book was The Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion.  I don't remember much about the story, but I sort of remember the cover.

And a moss-covered anything is mysterious.  But a moss-covered MANSION?  What is going on there?

I liked trying to figure things out.  I suppose it is sort of because when you are a kid, everything is a mystery.  Why are adults so stupid?  Why are the other kids so mean?  Why can't I find my shoe?  Why did that boy cry when I called him stupid?

Books

You cannot write for children.  They're much too complicated.  

You can only write books that are of interest to them.

~ Maurice Sendak

- - - - -

Books and children go together really well.  Children learn to stretch their imaginations through reading and being read to.  They create stories within stories.  They ask questions about how things worked based on the stories they hear.  They find the world and their places in the world through stories, storytelling and literature.  It is important to read to them and to read for them and to encourage them to read for themselves.  Reading is exploration and helps sustain growth throughout a person's life.

More than books and children going together well, they belong together.  But when you're moving or going on a trip, they should be packed separately.

Memories

Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events.

~ Albert Einstein

- - - - -

I don't think that mailboxes hold memories.  I think that because new mail comes most every day, that they are not connected with any specific memory of any kind.  They are so full of correspondence and sharing and sometimes the giving of unwanted news or insurance offers or home service deals that the mailboxes themselves are without individual memories.

For example, when I think of my parents' mailbox, I don't think about the mail I got.  I don't think about when I sent of to Pueblo, Colorado for information (because when I was growing up ALL information got mailed to you from Pueblo, Colorado).  I don't think about the day that we found a little kid's t-shirt with "KGGO" written on it after my brother Erik answered the phone the day before.

Erik:  Hello.

Little Kid:  Hello, this is KGGO!  You just won a free t-shirt!

Erik:  Great!  Since I'm having this call traced, I can't wait for the shirt to get here.

I don't think about the summers I would run to the mailbox - after watching for the mail truck each day - in hopes that I had gotten a letter from a friend or relative.

I think that mailboxes hold memories.

Water

Don't you realize that the sea is the home of water?  All water is off on a journey unless it's in the sea, and it's homesick and bound to make its way home someday.

~ Zora Neale Hurston

- - - - -

I love the sound of water.  The ocean.  A river.  A creek.  A big fountain in a park.  A little fountain inside.  A water fountain.  I love it.  I think it's because it's about motion and water as a core part of us as human beings.  Or maybe it is the energy or the sense of change or cleanliness or something.  I'm not sure why I love it, but I do.

I don't understand why some people don't like the sound of fountains.  I know a lot of them say that the sound makes them have to pee, but why?  Why would a fountain do that, but not the ocean?  I'm sure there is WAY MORE pee in an ocean than in a little fountain on my desk.  

Time

Time is money says the proverb, but
turn it around and you get  a precious truth.
Money is time.
~ George Gissing

- - - - -

Time is an interesting thing.  I am probably the first person to ever make that observation.  We force our days into structure - false structure and false units - rather than just letting it go on as it will and managing our days by light or energy level or whatever.

And we put expectations on one another for what we ought to be doing at certain times.  The time in our lives by which we ought to be talking or dressing ourselves.  The time of day we should be going to sleep.  The time we should spend slowing down to apologize after crashing into someone else's car.

There are a lot of expectations that come with time.  Don't let anyone tell you differently.  And if they tell you that "time is money," then you charge them for taking your valuable time to tell you something you already knew.  And charge them handsomely so they will remember what you have taught them.

And watch out for time wasters.  And by "watch out," I mean - literally - have your watch out to time things that are wasting your time.  So you can bill people for those things.  A lot of people might not pay those bills, but if even a few do, that's money in your pocket.  And you can't put a price on the money you have in your pocket.

Attitude

Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity 

than straightforward and simple integrity in another

~ Charles Caleb Colton

- - - - -

Leslie and I were talking about a person the other day.  I had written Leslie earlier to say that I wasn't sure if I hated anyone, but if I DID hate anyone I would probably hate this person.  Though I've never met her, let's just say her actions speak loudly enough for me to make this sort of assessment.  Because I'm judgmental.  Or so I've been told.  Which is why a career in judicial affairs suits me.

Anyway...  Leslie said, "I don't know that you should hate her.  I don't think you should hate anyone.  Well, maybe Hitler.  He'd be higher on the list than she would be."

I said, "I don't rank the people that I hate or almost hate.  I just almost hate them."

Leslie, "You don't score them on a Likert Scale?"

I said, "No.  I score them on an UNLIKErt Scale."

Decisions

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem.  

We all have twenty-four hour days.

~ Zig Ziglar

- - - - -

Sometimes I get stuck because I'm not sure what I want to do.  It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes I just am not sure what I want to do with my time.  Some time is rather prescribed for me, going to work, 10 o'clock, nap time, snack time, coloring time, overtime, time out...  But other time I get to decide what I want to do and just can't make up my mind.

Even when I can't make up my mind, that time passes.

Sometimes people give me suggestions...  Like a conversation I had with Leslie not too long ago.

Leslie:  It's 10:35.  Wait.  Not there.  It's only 9:45.  Time for you to go party.

Me: Do you even know anything about me?  Go party.  I do not think I have ever used party as a verb.  Even when I was going to an actual party.

Stillness

There are times when to be still demands immeasurably higher strength than to act.

~ Margaret Bottome

- - - - -

I'm not sure we know how to be still.  By "still" I mean not moving.  Not drumming our fingers on our desks.  Not shaking our water bottles with one ice cube left. 

By "we" I mean the guy sitting next to me in the library right now.



Mysterious

I do not understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us 

where we are but does not leave us where it found us.

~ Anne Lamott

- - - - -

I have always liked mysteries.  I like not knowing all the answers - or at least not knowing them all right away.  I think it keeps us engaged.  Mysteries - or the possibility of mysteries - sometimes keep us paying attention.  And mysteries keep us thinking.

I like seeing movies or reading books with mysteries.  Usually, I like them more if there is information for you to be able to solve the mystery if you are paying attention.  I don't like them as much when at the end they say something like, "But what you didn't know was..." and then throw in the mystery-solving information.

I would not like the end of my life to be an unsolved mystery.  A solved mystery might be okay.  Well, as long as the solution was something happy and not something tragic.  (pause)  Mysteries are usually solved by tragedy, though.  Or so it seems.

I think more mysteries should be solved by comedy.

Forgiveness

To err is human, to forgive divine.

~ Alexander Pope

- - - - -

I am very good at forgiving small unkindnesses.  I understand how they happen.  I do small unkind things every day.  

I stink at forgiving big unkindnesses.  I know I would be better off if I knew how to forgive them.  I'm even very interested in exploring how to forgive them.  I just don't know how.  When it comes to those sorts of things, this quote works better for me than the one above:

There is something to pardon in everything.  

There is also something to condemn.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

 

That should not be confused with, "There is something of Dolly Parton in everything."  While that might be true, that is not what I'm focusing on here. 

Beauty

I can't bear the silent ringing in my skull.

~ Jonathan Lethem

- - - - -

When I saw this in the window of the hair place, it made me chuckle.  It is funny on a number of levels...  The skeleton doesn't have any hair.  The skeleton is either laughing or screaming.  There isn't much you can do - short of paint or a bone saw - to change the way a skeleton looks.

But it made me think of other things, too...  To what extent will people go in the pursuit of a socially-constructed beauty?  How many "bones" are they willing to pay to look the way the world wants them to look?  How different are we, really, under the surface?  Is beauty truly only skin deep?

You know what else is only skin deep?  Skin.

Scary

I'm drawn emotionally to damaged characters 

because there is more to unlock.

~ Helena Bonham Carter

- - - - -

I am not sure why people like to be scared.  I don't particularly like it.  I like to be surprised in pleasant ways, but not startled.  I like to experience the unexpected, but not the unwanted.  I like to be caught off guard but not in a hostile way.

I think there is enough real terror in the world that we don't have to add to that through movies or books or other media.  In fact, we could tone that stuff down.  I have some ideas for less scary Halloween movies.

"Frank and Ben Stein"
"The Mummy Returns a Library Book"
"The Good Vampire Who Only Helped People"
"Witch Crafts: Popsicle Sticks, Googly Eyes and Paste"

(pause)

Don't think any of these films will be good?  Well, you're wrong because Meryl Streep is in three of them and Tom Hanks is in the other one.

Flamingo

Is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo flying
across in front of a beautiful sunset?  And he's carrying a beautiful rose
in his beak, and also he's carrying a very beautiful painting with his feet?
And also, you're drunk.

~ Jack Handey

- - - - -

I love these flamingos.  I have posted several pictures of them.  I think they are hilarious.  I am drawn to them for some strange reason - just as I am drawn to all types of lawn flamingos.  I don't really want them in my yard, but I like seeing them around.

Now, I must admit that if my neighbor put out a pot full of skeleton-flamingos, I would have some concerns.  Why would they put out so many of them?  Why only skeleton flamingos?  What's going on there?

Would I be more or less disturbed if someone put a single skeleton flamingo in my yard?  Less.  If it was just one.  And just happened one time.  I would actually like it.  It would make me laugh.  But if there were a lot, I might wonder what was going on.  Or if it was several over the course of a week, I might be concerned.

(pause)

Nah.  I wouldn't.  I would be curious as to who left them, but I probably wouldn't be too upset or concerned.  Of course, this is coming from someone who wasn't alarmed about received Barbie parts in the mail over the course of several weeks.  I am not always a good gauge of what ought to be concerning or alarming.

But a single clown...  I'd be addressing that immediately and with vigilance.

"But, Michelle," you might ask, "What about clown skeletons?  What would be your reaction to that?"

To which I would respond, "What is WRONG with you?"

Masks

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are.

You trade in your reality for a role.  You trade in your sense for an act.

You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.

~ Jim Morrison

- - - - -

I like Halloween well enough, I guess.  However, the idea of putting masks over the masks we wear with one another every day borders on the absurd.  Hiding the face that hides our true selves...  Just interesting.  There is something safe about disguise, I guess.  Walls.  Shelter.  Barriers.

When Erik was a little guy he was afraid of the people in masks who came to the door on Halloween.  My parents probably should have reinforced that.  How do you discern, as a toddler that someone wearing a mask of Frankenstein or Dracula or Oscar the Grouch is okay on October 31st but not okay in the middle of June.  Or that someone in a plain ski mask is scarier in a lot of ways than someone in witch makeup?

You know how some masks distort or limit your vision?  They also tend to limit our vision of ourselves.  I think we would be a healthier society if we gave each other the freedom to take off our masks and be our true selves.

I don't want to give people the freedom to take off their outfits / costumes, though.  Just the masks.  I don't need to see most people running around naked.  Or sitting around naked.  Or anything naked.  

Togetherness

I will, from this day strive to forge togetherness out of our differences.
~ Josefa Iloilo

- - - - - 

I think that togetherness is important.  Sometimes I think about the human race and community and the connections between us all.  I think connection requires risk.  I think that we have to show our true selves to be truly together.  

We have to give.  Just like in the days of yore when communities would give time and talent to raise barns for their neighbors, we have to be willing to give. 

But I'm talking about giving even more than that.  We have to show ourselves and be vulnerable with one another.  We have more things in common than we have differences.  But we can't know that unless we share.  Openly.  Honestly.  Frequently.

For example, raise your hand if yesterday you were chased down gravel roads and falsely accused of leaving a cat and litter of kittens in an old barn on private property which was not clearly marked, "No Trespassing."

(pause)

No one?  Just me?  

Fine.  I guess we won't be togetherness, then. 

Monsters

The real world is where the monsters are.

~ Rick Riordan

- - - - -

I was thinking the other day about zombies.  Probably because of the dream I had.  It went like this...

There was a family and they were going to get eaten by zombies, but the boss zombie was protecting them because a storm was coming.  I was hiding on a school bus with someone (I don't know who it was).  The person on the bus with me turned off a light in the bus just as the zombies drove by in an old army Jeep.  The zombies backed the Jeep up slowly and then stormed onto the bus.  

I had an axe - like a big axe firefighters use - but they attacked from the front and back doors of the bus.  I don't think they killed me, but I got knocked out.

Then I saw the family they were holding.  The little girl in the family had some special power, but I don't know what it was.  The zombies didn't either, but they had to wait for the storm to pass before they could eat the family.

Then there were two other people - a little boy and an older boy.  The little boy threw his shoe.  The zombies all sniffed the air and it went flying by (I guess because they like the smell of humans).  But they didn't smell anything.  Then they realized that if the little boy didn't smell like a human, he must be an android!  

The little boy and the older boy locked arms in a sort of mini-huddle and a timer went off because they were going to blow up the center of the zombie stronghold.  Their bomb timers were counting down.  The zombies were confused.  And then I woke up.

But my point is this: you do realize that really old people walk like zombies and mummies and Frankensteins, right?  What do you think about that?!

Be careful.