a long meandering-y post
Well, in between fighting a couple rounds with some really bad chicken and the volunteer work I've been doing, blogging, especially any sort of kind of meaningful blogging has gone completely out the window, along with any kind of meaningful e-mails with actual friends and most of my social life. It's just been very busy and I've been trying to step up and help out in what's turned out to be a very inadvertantly stressful situation.
I'm not burnt out, I'm just really, really tired.
I heard little snippets of news today that got the ol' gerbil in my brain whirling around its wheel, much to the consternation of all the characters in my head that were trying to take a nap. I hate that the vast majority of Americans all seem to belive that the First Amendment only protects THEIR right to free speech and not any one else's. Being a supporter of First Amendment Rights means that you've got to support a lot of free speech that you don't agree with. Personally, I think that Anne Coulter, Tucker Carlson, Rush Limbaugh, Nancy Grace, and Glenn Beck are a bunch of stupid idiots, but they have the right to muster up all the hot air that they can broadcast across the airwaves. I, in turn, have the right to watch Henry Rollins instead and turn my Best of Cat Stevens CD up as loud as it will go. Now, I don't agree with everything Henry says, either, but he's far more eloquent, orderly, and logical than a lot of people on the air these days. See, the thing that Americans forget, so often, as they quibble about the unimportant things is this: The First Amendment guarantees your right to say and write whatever the hell you want to (provided, of course, that you don't necessarily act on everything that you say, like for instance if one person threatened another-that's allowed but not ALWAYS tolerated, it all really depends upon who it is you've threatened) however, it does NOT guarantee that 1) you'll actually be heard or 2) that anyone will listen to you. Apathy and disinterest can be forms of communication when they're handled properly. Sometimes, they can even be wielded effectively. I think that being too passionate about EVERYTHING can, in fact, really damage your effectiveness in communicating. It's wise to pick your battles, and turn off the TV when someone you really detest pretends to know everything and have all the solutions. (Just for the record, I don't like Al Franken either!)
I got a call to day from my favorite used bookstore. It seems their hold tracking system (which consists of index cards with people's names and phone numbers on them) has failed them. So, they left a message for me saying that there was a shelf (um, yes, my favorite used bookstore does, in fact, have a hold shelf just for me and yes, they ARE a vital part of my monthly budget) that had a group of very interesting and cool books (their words, not mine) including a Cirque Du Soleil book that looked very much as if they might be mine. Yes. I am unashamed to admit, that shelf is, in fact, my hold shelf. I might be a little more worried if I hadn't been going into said store regularly for about eight years now. As soon as I moved back to this city, I started going in once a week because it's good for me. It really and truly is good for me.
I've also noticed something a little disturbing about the city I live in. All these people have nice front porches and no one ever uses them. I never see people out on their porch swings or sitting on a chair on the porch. It makes me feel kind of sad and like it's kind of a waste. I grew up on the opposite end of the state and our attitudes towards porches were completely different. The porch is kind of your living room on summer evenings because it's too damn hot to sit in the house and you can look at the sky. I've seen great horned owls out hunting and bats flying and deer walking by so close that you can hear each step in the driveway.
It's amazing what you'll see if you just stop and look a little bit. Last night, my roommates didn't even notice all the lightning bugs flying around on our lawn. I was just enraptured with them. I guess a lot of that comes from the fact that where I grew up, if you wanted to see lightning bugs, you had to drive to this creek over on a back highway. They're all over the place out there and if it's dusk and you turn off your headlights and drive past them, it's just like actually being in the scene from Star Wars where they drop the Millenium Falcon into hyperdrive. (Not a recommended pasttime for those who get motion sick...)We used to do that all the time when I was younger.
I still just don't understand what the hell people are talking about when they say there's "nothing to do." If you can't find anything to do, well, you must be an awfully boring person then, because there's always something to do. This could also be a by-product of my childhood. If I didn't find something to occupy my time on my own then something would be found for me and it would probably involve some kind of major project that would require heavy manual labor. (How hard could it be? I once spent my summer digging trenches for the landscaping timbers my mom wanted to use-they were railroad ties, roughly 10 x 10s and she wanted the timbers to be LEVEL.) So yeah, entertaining myself was ALWAYS a very good option.
I wonder, if I caught a lightning bug and put it in my belly button would that give me a legitimate excuse for navel gazing?
I'm not burnt out, I'm just really, really tired.
I heard little snippets of news today that got the ol' gerbil in my brain whirling around its wheel, much to the consternation of all the characters in my head that were trying to take a nap. I hate that the vast majority of Americans all seem to belive that the First Amendment only protects THEIR right to free speech and not any one else's. Being a supporter of First Amendment Rights means that you've got to support a lot of free speech that you don't agree with. Personally, I think that Anne Coulter, Tucker Carlson, Rush Limbaugh, Nancy Grace, and Glenn Beck are a bunch of stupid idiots, but they have the right to muster up all the hot air that they can broadcast across the airwaves. I, in turn, have the right to watch Henry Rollins instead and turn my Best of Cat Stevens CD up as loud as it will go. Now, I don't agree with everything Henry says, either, but he's far more eloquent, orderly, and logical than a lot of people on the air these days. See, the thing that Americans forget, so often, as they quibble about the unimportant things is this: The First Amendment guarantees your right to say and write whatever the hell you want to (provided, of course, that you don't necessarily act on everything that you say, like for instance if one person threatened another-that's allowed but not ALWAYS tolerated, it all really depends upon who it is you've threatened) however, it does NOT guarantee that 1) you'll actually be heard or 2) that anyone will listen to you. Apathy and disinterest can be forms of communication when they're handled properly. Sometimes, they can even be wielded effectively. I think that being too passionate about EVERYTHING can, in fact, really damage your effectiveness in communicating. It's wise to pick your battles, and turn off the TV when someone you really detest pretends to know everything and have all the solutions. (Just for the record, I don't like Al Franken either!)
I got a call to day from my favorite used bookstore. It seems their hold tracking system (which consists of index cards with people's names and phone numbers on them) has failed them. So, they left a message for me saying that there was a shelf (um, yes, my favorite used bookstore does, in fact, have a hold shelf just for me and yes, they ARE a vital part of my monthly budget) that had a group of very interesting and cool books (their words, not mine) including a Cirque Du Soleil book that looked very much as if they might be mine. Yes. I am unashamed to admit, that shelf is, in fact, my hold shelf. I might be a little more worried if I hadn't been going into said store regularly for about eight years now. As soon as I moved back to this city, I started going in once a week because it's good for me. It really and truly is good for me.
I've also noticed something a little disturbing about the city I live in. All these people have nice front porches and no one ever uses them. I never see people out on their porch swings or sitting on a chair on the porch. It makes me feel kind of sad and like it's kind of a waste. I grew up on the opposite end of the state and our attitudes towards porches were completely different. The porch is kind of your living room on summer evenings because it's too damn hot to sit in the house and you can look at the sky. I've seen great horned owls out hunting and bats flying and deer walking by so close that you can hear each step in the driveway.
It's amazing what you'll see if you just stop and look a little bit. Last night, my roommates didn't even notice all the lightning bugs flying around on our lawn. I was just enraptured with them. I guess a lot of that comes from the fact that where I grew up, if you wanted to see lightning bugs, you had to drive to this creek over on a back highway. They're all over the place out there and if it's dusk and you turn off your headlights and drive past them, it's just like actually being in the scene from Star Wars where they drop the Millenium Falcon into hyperdrive. (Not a recommended pasttime for those who get motion sick...)We used to do that all the time when I was younger.
I still just don't understand what the hell people are talking about when they say there's "nothing to do." If you can't find anything to do, well, you must be an awfully boring person then, because there's always something to do. This could also be a by-product of my childhood. If I didn't find something to occupy my time on my own then something would be found for me and it would probably involve some kind of major project that would require heavy manual labor. (How hard could it be? I once spent my summer digging trenches for the landscaping timbers my mom wanted to use-they were railroad ties, roughly 10 x 10s and she wanted the timbers to be LEVEL.) So yeah, entertaining myself was ALWAYS a very good option.
I wonder, if I caught a lightning bug and put it in my belly button would that give me a legitimate excuse for navel gazing?