by HMICHAEL | Feb 3, 2014 | Life & Timing |
What does it mean to be in sync? Particularly with another person.
I’ve been thinking about how hard it is to connect with certain friends by phone. Just to say hello. For these particular friends, it’s not easy at all.
We often call each other’s voice mails, leaving these tiresome “Sorry I missed you” messages. It really gets old. I’ve started just hanging up and not bothering with the message anymore. Thinking they see my name on the calls received or ID, and let them figure the rest. After all, I have very few “urgent calls” that need to be explained in a long winded message that wouldn’t be served better in real time with a real person listening as we actually converse. I mean, isn’t that the point behind the phone call to begin? Isn’t that what communication is all about?
Hmmm. Well, maybe it isn’t anymore. Maybe people nowadays, or, shall I say certain demographic groups don’t communicate that way anymore.
We’ve all read and ruminated about the sound bite snippet culture that seems to overtake old norms of passing information, ideas, and just plain greetings to one another nowadays. Everything is either a facebook post, a text message line or two, or a clipped voice mail. Even those of us in older generations who remember the times of endless phone calls, late night rapathons and U.S. Mail, are now finding it hard to connect to one another.
Lots of us lose contact because we can’t catch up without actually making a plane reservation, driving to the destination home, or showing up by surprise. What’s happening? Is it just that so many of us are driven to do our thing so much more heavily now than before? Are we monopolized by families, and more locally accessible friends, distractions, and commitments, than our once close friends who may have moved out of town? And then, why is that a difference maker now, when the phone has been around a hundred and forty years? Why does no one want to talk on the phone anymore? Or, at best, only when it suits their timing perfectly?
Sometimes, I ask myself, is it simply a matter a timing? Of being in sync? Of both people being in some sort of serendipitous space where each of them has just the right amount of time to commit and invest at just the same time on a particular day? If that were the case, then the problem is different. Then, its about being in sync with someone. Could it be that they and I are just not made for good timing? Just for a phone call. Has this happened to you?
What do you sync?
by HMICHAEL | Jan 30, 2014 | Driving & Transporation |
For the love of god, will you people who tailgate please get some psychological help.
For the record, I am not a slow, crawling driver. Anything but, actually. I’ve had my share of speeding tickets, and beieve 55mph is a ridiculously slow speed limit on most highways of this country. 65mph can be found on some highways across the country, but not nearly enough, Furthermore, even on non busy non highway roads, anything below 50mph tests my patience of the law. Don’t even get me started on the absurd 25mph zones that are deliberately speed traps set in place to fund city and precinct holiday funds.
I don’t suffer from road rage. Really. I swear I don’t. Does that mean I don’t, or can’t get upset at a certain type of driver? Hell no! I have major animosity towards a very particular kind of driver. The tailgater. More specifically, the tailgater behind me at 75mph, who cant hold his dick for thirty seconds while I wait for a moment to pull into the right lane so he can get to whatever it is that is giving his life the deep meaning he has to experience to act like a jerk. One thing I’ve seen often is many of these high speed left lane tailgaters move back over into the right lane in 1/4 mile, and exit off the highway, just after they pass me! Seriously. Are you kidding me?
I’m on the road literally putting my life on the line every time I put my foot on the gas pedal and enter a traffic flow. So are all of you. Most of us know what kind of drivers we are. Some of us are fairly accurate in our self assessments. Others, less so. Unfortunately, there is a third group of drivers that are living in some alternate plane of perception. They do not have any grasp on any reality of what kind of drivers they are. The most deficient of that group don’t care what kind of driver they are. They are concerned with one thing, and one thing only. To get from one point to another. Everybody else, get out of their way, or…or else!
Do I have road rage? Not the kind that forces me into a car chase fiasco after someone who cut me off. No. I don’t have that kind of road rage. I have road discouragement. Road sadness. Road disillusionment. Not life threatening, but still, bad news for my sense of peace on the nations roadways. And that’s a tragic state to be in.
BUMPER STICKER IDEAS:
- Hello Asshole
- Please hit me. I need my rear bumper repaired.
- Guess who’s insurance pays for you hitting me from behind?
- If I step on the brakes, and you hit me. Its your fault.
- If you can read this, you are a menace. Get off the roads.
- Get off my ass, you stupid, fu**ing, non driving, jackass!
by HMICHAEL | Jan 29, 2014 | Animals, Pooky |
Cleaning the litter box is not what it used to be. Does anybody know what I mean?
Pooky is fifteen. That’s a long time cleaning up someone’s poop every day. I mean, really. Cleaning up someone’s poop with a scoop that puts your hands only inches away from a substance that is not what any of us would normally want within twenty feet, or at least in a drain pipe somewhere.
I’m just kinda sick o’ it.
I’m sick of smelling it every morning. I’m sick of seeing the small, medium, and large clumps of peed on clay and sand speckled poop greeting me every morning just before, or (no better) after my coffee.
It’s something existential now. Wouldn’t you know?
It’s something that takes my head and mind to a very deep, dark, and dank place. A place where I think of death and darkness. Desolation. Despair. Depression. Dungeons…What?!!
Ok, there’s no dungeons. I got carried away there.
Listen…the litter cleaning sucks. Okay? So what if the dungeons aren’t part of it. I exaggerated. Okay. Big deal. Doesn’t matter. I hate litter cleaning more than ever, and I’m not sure what its doing to me.
It’s not Pooky’s fault. I could’ve trained him to use the toilet, like any responsible half wit cat owner would’ve done. But, I didn’t, and now I have to clean up his poop every day. So, really, its my fault. Kinda.
Still. Still. He’s worth it.
UPDATE: In October of 2016, Pooky passed away at age 18. For any of you who know me, you know how much I loved Pooky, and what he meant to me. He was well worth the litter cleaning, and much much more. RIP, my sweet boy.
by HMICHAEL | Jan 28, 2014 | Artwork |
by HMICHAEL | Jan 26, 2014 | Food & Drink |
Here is an excellent illustrated interactive time line produced by Nicholas Blechman of the New York Times, about what has, and is going on in the world of EVOO. Personally, I am suspicious of many so called “high end” food products’ origins and quality. Our own U.S. Dept of Agriculture and FDA are so full of inspection and food safety shortfalls, that it is not to hard to imagine that other countries suffer from the same oversights, corruption, graft, and deeply rooted criminal enterprise. Sometimes I think those of use who live through food poisonings, tainted food, and allergens, are just plain lucky.
The story put forth here shows some poetic justice of sorts, but really, controlling the quality of imported olive oil, let alone all the other foods we ingest every day, is just the tip of a huge iceberg of risk we face as trusting consumers when we go grocery shopping.
Article Link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/01/24/opinion/food-chains-extra-virgin-suicide.html
