When you've been banging your head against the same wall for a long time - for years - you can decide to stop banging your head, and there's a bit of relief. For a while. Your skin heals up, and you look better. But the wall is still there.
That sucks.
What I should do instead is invest in a wrecking ball.
6/26/10
6/25/10
the high rates of unintended roadkill
Last weekend I was heading towards Massachusetts on I-88, which is an empty stretch of highway between Albany and Binghamton in the oh-so-beautiful state of New York. -Two relatively straight lanes in each direction, passing through farmland and rolling hills. There is so much of nothing happening on this road that folks often have the chance to read their morning newspapers while commuting to work.
Therefore, when I saw a number of dead deer on the side of the road, and passed over numerous other bloody smears left by the tragic demise of other animals, I thought - how is it that, in all this emptiness, those cars and those animals ended up occupying the same few square inches of space at the same time?! Really, I mean, what are the chances?! It seems so unlikely, and yet....
...and yet I've heard a similar story elsewhere, I think. Pregnancy. Pregnancy, which I've been told is only possible to achieve during a few short hours each month. And I've seen how hard it is - I've watched my friends, with their calendars and their thermometers and their daily testing of cervical mucus, and their months or years of disappointment before success. I've seen some of them plop down thousands of dollars to have it done for them because it just wasn't happening on its own. So how is it that there are so many unplanned babies; how do those eggs and sperm end up occupying those same few square micrometers of space at the same time, at exactly the right time?! Really, I mean, what are the chances? It seems so unlikely, and yet....
Therefore, when I saw a number of dead deer on the side of the road, and passed over numerous other bloody smears left by the tragic demise of other animals, I thought - how is it that, in all this emptiness, those cars and those animals ended up occupying the same few square inches of space at the same time?! Really, I mean, what are the chances?! It seems so unlikely, and yet....
...and yet I've heard a similar story elsewhere, I think. Pregnancy. Pregnancy, which I've been told is only possible to achieve during a few short hours each month. And I've seen how hard it is - I've watched my friends, with their calendars and their thermometers and their daily testing of cervical mucus, and their months or years of disappointment before success. I've seen some of them plop down thousands of dollars to have it done for them because it just wasn't happening on its own. So how is it that there are so many unplanned babies; how do those eggs and sperm end up occupying those same few square micrometers of space at the same time, at exactly the right time?! Really, I mean, what are the chances? It seems so unlikely, and yet....
O iPod! Wherefore art thou 'Shuffle'? Deny thy randomness and come clean!
Ok. Here's the thing:
My iPod has over 5,000 tracks on it. [And here I must say that a) I'm very very lucky to have an iPod and b) I'm very grateful to have one that can hold that much music and c) I'm very lucky to have that much music to put on it!]
...That established, I'll come to my point:
Of those 5,000+ songs, maybe 40-odd tracks are from Prokofiev's ballet of Romeo and Juliet. When I put the iPod on the 'shuffle' setting - which purportedly makes it play an absolutelytotallycompletely random selection of the songs it contains - it inevitably plays tracks from this ballet. Every time. More than once in the same hour.
But the creepy is yet to come: The tracks my iPod randomly decides to play are always a) fight scenes or b) the death of Mercutio or c) the death of Romeo and/or Juliet at the end of the ballet. No love scenes; no pas de deux, no gentle bits of Juliet playing with her doll and teasing her Nurse. Nope, just cold hard steel.
WTF?! iPod - you are either too much of a realist, or too much of a cynic... or maybe just all-around depressing. But don't try to convince me that your 'shuffle' setting is Without-Plan.
My iPod has over 5,000 tracks on it. [And here I must say that a) I'm very very lucky to have an iPod and b) I'm very grateful to have one that can hold that much music and c) I'm very lucky to have that much music to put on it!]
...That established, I'll come to my point:
Of those 5,000+ songs, maybe 40-odd tracks are from Prokofiev's ballet of Romeo and Juliet. When I put the iPod on the 'shuffle' setting - which purportedly makes it play an absolutelytotallycompletely random selection of the songs it contains - it inevitably plays tracks from this ballet. Every time. More than once in the same hour.
But the creepy is yet to come: The tracks my iPod randomly decides to play are always a) fight scenes or b) the death of Mercutio or c) the death of Romeo and/or Juliet at the end of the ballet. No love scenes; no pas de deux, no gentle bits of Juliet playing with her doll and teasing her Nurse. Nope, just cold hard steel.
WTF?! iPod - you are either too much of a realist, or too much of a cynic... or maybe just all-around depressing. But don't try to convince me that your 'shuffle' setting is Without-Plan.
3/16/10
age
It seems like this is what should happen as you get older: you become more and more aware that you know absolutely nothing, while the importance of knowing anything becomes less and less. That way you maintain a comfortable equilibrium.
2/24/10
guesstimati
"Cincinnati" is the sort of word that, when written in cursive, it's easier to just put a ton of dots over it in random places rather than trying to figure out which of the little bumps are i-s.
2/7/10
stuff II
I don't own anything that I don't use or need at least once a year... except my books - they're on more of a three-year rotation. And my two huge iron outdoor butterfly chairs, since I don't have an 'outdoor' to use them in. :-( And my wooden pendulum metronome; I just keep that cause it's hella cool.
1/18/10
stuff
If you don't own anything, then all the stuff that requires maintenance (like dishes, laundry, dusting, organizing, putting songs on your iPod) can't take up your day.
If we all went around naked and ate with our fingers, think of the time we'd save!
If we all went around naked and ate with our fingers, think of the time we'd save!
1/11/10
harmony
You know, sometimes things feel right. And sometimes they don't.
Sometimes they don't feel right and you deliberately ignore that fact, because you are so invested in them feeling... well, right. Sometimes you're hoping they'll feel wrong, and they don't. Often they're a little of both, and then you just go along making the best of it. But sometimes you don't have to think about it at all; you just know they're right, instantly, on-the-spot, and you don't bother to consider any other options.
Examples of the kinds of things in my life that have instantly felt right:
-the college I went to
-what I ordered for dinner at the restaurant last night
-friends, the first time I met them
-the apartment I live in
-moving across the country (the first time)
-certain clothing
-the wording I chose while writing something, or saying something
-adopting a stray cat
-picking up a piece of furniture out of the trash, with an eye to refurbishment
-travel plans
-the extra pinch of something I added to a dish that wasn't in the original recipe
-music
-the earrings I put on yesterday morning
-the idea of getting into bed right now and reading until I fall asleep.
Sometimes they don't feel right and you deliberately ignore that fact, because you are so invested in them feeling... well, right. Sometimes you're hoping they'll feel wrong, and they don't. Often they're a little of both, and then you just go along making the best of it. But sometimes you don't have to think about it at all; you just know they're right, instantly, on-the-spot, and you don't bother to consider any other options.
Examples of the kinds of things in my life that have instantly felt right:
-the college I went to
-what I ordered for dinner at the restaurant last night
-friends, the first time I met them
-the apartment I live in
-moving across the country (the first time)
-certain clothing
-the wording I chose while writing something, or saying something
-adopting a stray cat
-picking up a piece of furniture out of the trash, with an eye to refurbishment
-travel plans
-the extra pinch of something I added to a dish that wasn't in the original recipe
-music
-the earrings I put on yesterday morning
-the idea of getting into bed right now and reading until I fall asleep.
I'll take one of those!
Someone... or more likely, something, keeps posting spammish comments on my last post. They seem to be advertising something - but what that something is, why anyone would want it, or how anyone would get it, I was unable to determine.
I'm thinking that they have not sold very many whatever-they-ares lately.
Call it a hunch.
I'm thinking that they have not sold very many whatever-they-ares lately.
Call it a hunch.
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