Three fucking hours are gone. Wasted. Idled away. Spent doing nothing on the stupid internet and looking at nothing on the stupid TV. Nowhere. Nada. Zilch.
This happens. And I hate it. I’ve no patience for wasted time. Used to be it didn’t bother me. I guess because I felt like I had so much of it. Time that is. Now I see it running out. Oh I’ve got a ways to go yet but the writing is right there on the wall. Calendars don’t lie. Clocks speak the truth. The majority of my time on this planet has passed. And that’s not even taking into account that I could be among the next victims of a mass shooter or get in the way of a drunk driver swerving into a crosswalk or be in a subway train that explodes or be stricken with inoperable brain cancer or be zapped by an angry alien spacecraft. Accidents do happen and people do take fatally ill. Look it up.
So I try to make the most of my time. Writing is one way. Reading. Working. Studying Italian. Watching a good movie. Running. Engaging in meaningful social interaction. Although that latter is fraught with risks. You could find yourself talking to a fricking idiot and then whattaya gonna do? How many times do you seem to be enjoying a nice chat with someone when they up and say something stupid? So incredibly stupid that it’s impossible to ignore or let slide and so incredibly stupid that you realize trying to correct them would be like trying to talk an angry dog out of barking. It bloody well ruins a conversation for me when someone says something totally asinine, especially when its empirically wrong.
Here’s some samples a few of which I might have already made mention of on this blog:
“There wouldn’t be any crime in Oakland if it weren’t for the police.”
“Maybe Donald Trump can do for the country what he’s done for his businesses.”
“I don’t like the Beatles.”
“When my students are late I make them write sentences.”
“Ernest Hemingway was a hack.”
“I watch golf on TV.”
“Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Union.”
“Sex should only be between a man and a woman.”
“What’s the point of a three day weekend? it’s only one day longer than a regular weekend.”
That last one was said by an adult human being. Seriously.
Then there’s people who give opinions on topics they know nothing about. They often preface it with “Well, I don’t not a lot about_________but I think…” It’s akin to the idiot conservatives who are forever disagreeing with the science on matters such as evolution and climate change and start off by saying: “I’m no scientist but….” You are not required to have an opinion on every topic under the sun and if it is well out of your area of expertise and you've decided to fashion an opinion anyway, do us a favor and keep it to yourself. People do this about sports all the time. They know next to nothing about a sport (and certainly never played it) but can't be stopped from bloviating about why the Capital City Turnips lost last night.
But I go back for more. Conversations I mean. Even with the same people who've said something that would embarrass the intellect of a five year old. If I stopped talking to everyone who ever said something stupid to me I wouldn’t have any conversations at all. Hell, I couldn’t even talk to myself and I love doing that. I not only talk to myself all the time (I rarely give myself compliments which has had the effect of making me somewhat self conscious around me. I mean, what do I have to do to earn a little praise, a little recognition from myself?) I also say excuse me to me when I burp. I guess it's to me. Who else could I be directing an excuse me to when I’m home alone? It used to be that I was saying it to the cat but we don’t have a cat anymore so it must be that I’m being polite to yours truly. Oh how sweet.
Here’s something I realized that is clearly evident to anyone who has spent more than a few minutes perusing my blog (god love you). I come off as a cranky old man. That’s odd because in truth I’m really really irritable and complain constantly about virtually everything. Anyway its more fun to turn writing into bitch sessions than it is to write about rainbows and ponies and tea parties with pastries and pink chiffon dresses and children's ballet recitals.* Actually it could be fun to write about a ballet recital if it was a killer ballet recital where people were getting massacred by an evil six year old girl with plans for world domination. Or how about a Swedish ballet recital in 1963 with depressed parents trying to watch but being pre-occupied by the cold war and their extra marital affairs and god’s silence and the ballet instructor’s suicide? Now that would be interesting. Ingmar, I'm looking at you on this one, buddy.
Point being I write a lot about misery. These days I’m feeling anything but. I’m so god damned cheerful these days it would make you sick to hear about it. The job is fantastic, my health is great and I’m in a happy marriage with the woman of my dreams. Of course all this bliss tends to make me nervous. It can never last. Another serious bout of depression is bound to be lurking around the corner or radical unpleasant changes are forthcoming at work or my appendix is about to burst or the wife is about to wise up and realize that I’m a no account bum. There are also the scenarios mentioned earlier in this post in which I meet an untimely demise. If it happens that I keep not dying everyday I’ll eventually be the world’s oldest living person. That’s the kiss of death. No one keeps that position for very long. They all eventually kick the bucket and some new asshole comes along and is stuck with the title.
Longevity would be really cool but I’m more interested in staying healthy for as long as possible. So far so good.
(This would be a rotten post to put up if I believed in jinxes. I mean I’d be due for some tragedy for sure if I thought you could really tempt fate that way. Actually I’m going to go ahead and tempt fate and I’m going to do it right here and right now: come here fate, I’ve got some delicious cookies for you, plus you can stretch out on a nice comfy sofa and I’ll put on the TV for you. Whattaya say? Tempted?) Let's say if fate is tempted. Actually I hope not, no cookies.
Well this has all been sufficiently weird but that’s who I am and what I am. By a lot of standards I’m one weird dude but there’s worse things to be. Like someone who watches golf on TV. Fuck that.
*Speaking of ballet...oldest daughter did a turn in ballet when she was about five or six. To that point all the teachers and day care workers and what not she'd been surrounded by were pussycats who believed in praise and kind words and all that goody two shoe shit. But the director of the ballet school was a matronly looking woman of about 70 who was a latter day Herman Goering. I loved her. She was strict as hell with the kiddies and got results. She wasn't just old school she was medieval school. Memories.
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