Doors.
The most difficult thing I find about life —
I Worry About The Role Models Of The Kids I Don’t Have.
Kids today.
More and more, it seems as though kids in the U.S. want their struggles known. Read the rest of this gem…
There’s Nothing Fun About Exploding Sperm.
Is it just me, or does it not even really feel like the Fourth of July?
I mean — it’s the 4th. Of July. Literally. But does it feel like a holiday? Probably not, if you’re not in the U.S. And probably not if, like me, you are in the U.S. but aren’t planning any grilling/feasting/playing-with-explosives-while-consuming-large-quantities-of-fermented-beverages activities.
Fireworks make me nervous.
They’ve always made me nervous. Even as a kid. So while I won’t hesitate to rappel waterfalls in Costa Rica or jump from a Cessna Caravan soaring high above the Hawaiian Islands, the thought of setting off Black Cats and Roman Candles and spinners and even “harmless” sparklers and those little popping sperm-like things you throw on the ground that explode with a mini-fierce CRACK that really probably aren’t harmless at all because seriously — what’s “harmless” about exploding sperm? — the thought of all that makes me twitchy and paranoid and inclined to repeatedly shout things like, “Be careful!” and, “Run!” and, “I once heard about a kid who lost his entire hand from an errant Black Cat — his hand!” and other general phrases that make people who are actually enjoying the dangerous, drunken festivities want to tie my leg to a rocket bomb and set it alight, just to see what happens.
Take my word for it — there’s nothing fun about exploding sperm.
So.
I’m So Cool — Too Bad I’m A Loser.
A couple of days ago, I found myself slipping. Bemoaning the lot in our military life that’s landed us in the same place for so long. I was doing something meaningless — dropping flyers and a lockbox off at a new listing, driving through the usual drudgery of pawn shops and Asian markets and the suffocating stench of fried food and giant southern truck exhaust. I was headed west, and I knew that if I kept going, I would eventually race along the south side of the military training lands, where they shoot stuff and drop stuff and fall from the sky like little turds from a bird only they never land on anyone’s head.
Unless, of course, they plan it that way.
But I didn’t keep going, because I had things to do. A right turn to make, into a tiny pocket of suburbia tucked just off of the main road and into a deluded fog of quiet seclusion and community togetherness. I tapped my brakes, and that’s when I saw it. Due west, straight ahead, the biggest bird in my sky at that moment — probably a C-17 with a 170 foot wingspan and 4 bulky engines carrying its unlikely hulk above the tree line over the rise ahead. And then they started dropping, the turds from the bird, only way, way cooler. They seemed random and graceful the way they fell, one after another after another, then pop pop pop went their parachutes almost immediately, seeming precariously close to one another and then falling, falling and from this distance looking like so many tiny Mary Poppins silhouettes gliding down across the setting sun and over the London skyline comprised, in this case, of the tallest Longleaf Pines.
I can’t find a credit for this photo. If it’s yours, please let me know.
It was stunning.
And, no matter how many times I witness this surprise display of Paratrooping prowess, it will never get old. Never.
It will never not be cool to me.
Which is comforting, because in this life, it’s so easy for things to fall off of our radars, whether because someone tells us it’s no longer cool to like these things, or we outgrow them ourselves. And sometimes it feels like this race — like we drop one trend, clear the overalls and jean skirts from our wardrobes, and just a short 10 years later, we’re filling it up again. Denim, denim everywhere!
Doesn’t it get tiring? This constant struggle to look the right way, say the right thing, be the right person?
I mean, really. If we all loved the same things, there would never be anything new to discover. And stores would constantly be sold out of yoga pants. And we wouldn’t procreate because Scott Bairstow is taken.
And I realized that day that to me, no matter what anyone else tries to say, these things will never stop being cool:
The Toadies.
Absolut Vodka ads.
Harry Potter books.
Bangs.
Geography.
Billy Joel.
(Every voice heard in this song is his. The only instrumental accompaniment is a bass guitar. Tell me that’s not awesome.)
The Tracker.
So. What’s your list?
*Thanks once again to the Barenaked Ladies for providing the post title. I couldn’t do it without you.
Is Life Not A Thousand Times Too Short For Us To Bore Ourselves (By Going On Strike)?
Nietzsche said that. The fist part, about life and boring ourselves. Not the second part, about going on strike. I added that to make a point.
So I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I guess the internet is joining up in protest today to go on strike.
You heard me.
The internet is going on strike.
This would’ve been a great thing to know… I don’t know… yesterday, like before I got up at 6:30 this morning so I could write a blog post before heading off to my job that actually pays. I mean, the sponsors aren’t exactly banging down my door over here. I don’t know why companies wouldn’t want to attach their names to my drinkin’, swearin’, sex-obsessed self. It’s mind-boggling, to say the least.
So. I’m up. I’m here. And I won’t get paid for several hours. In light of that fact and in the spirit of adventure capitalism, I think I’ll take advantage of all of the downed sites and hopefully benefit from the fact that apparently I’m the only site online right now.
That’s right.
You’re stuck with me.
It’s not that I don’t back the cause, ’cause I do. It’s just that if I only have but a short time left to express my uncensored thoughts and opinions to the world, I kind of want to take advantage of them, you know? Plus, I didn’t buy gas on that one day they said we shouldn’t buy gas a couple of years ago, and we all know how that turned out. Oil companies still turned record profits, and I never bought that Prius.
Moving on.
Lately I’ve been distracted. Like, crazy distracted, soaking up someone’s blog like it’s a Harry Potter novel, only even better because the adventures are real. Her name is Brenna, and I’ve been working my way back from the very beginning of her blog, This Battered Suitcase, like some crazy internet stalker obsessed with setting up shop in someone else’s life. Vicariously, of course.
For someone like me, it’s hard to not envy the nomadic life she’s made for herself, and she’s only in her mid-20’s. Of course, on the flip-side, true wanderers occasionally get lonely and ache for the type of companionship and comfort that only comes with homesteading for a while, but if this is one of those “grass is always greener” situations, the other grass is the seasonal stuff that turns brown in winter climates, while her grass is like a golf course in southern California — that bitch (the golf course, not Brenna) ain’t ever gettin’ brown. She’s alluded to as much in one of her short, photo-filled, thought-provoking posts — she wouldn’t trade the life she sometimes thinks she might envy a little on occasion for the world she knows she loves to experience.
I have to be careful here, because I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I love my husband. I love my pups. I love my friends, and my house, and the little niche we’ve created for ourselves in this place I’m far from calling home.
But.
Do any of you ever get the feeling that you’re still not doing what you’re supposed to be doing? That, somehow, there’s more to be done, and you just need to figure out what it is and how to get there? I’ve talked before about trying to live life in the moment and not wasting time looking for the next thing on the horizon that’s going to “complete” you, but this is different. I’m talking about a sense of purpose. Of making a difference. At least to yourself, if no one else.
I read a quote by Mark Twain, who supposedly said,
Photo by Blunt Delivery. I think. At least, I found it on her Pinterest and it said it was uploaded by her, so it’s hers until I hear otherwise.
I don’t know how to make this travel bug blend with the life I’ve already created for myself. But I also know that it’s not going away. Once infected, the symptoms are life-long, my friends, and it’s a little bit torturous if you don’t give it the drug that it needs to subside. Unfortunately, that drug can be expensive — not just monetarily, but also when it comes to time and relationships. Current jobs and responsibilities. This grind of debt and home ownership and 9-5’s we call The American Dream. Some of those things I care about deeply. But others, not so much.
If I’m going to be honest, and you know I’m never anything but, I have a current lack of stimulation that’s not filled from showing people houses or watching How I Met Your Mother. And I know, if I have time to think on my bed of death, that I won’t be wondering who the mother really is or whether the writers of that show ever plan on telling us. I will be wondering if I experienced enough — if I met enough people, heard enough stories, tasted enough food, read enough books, loved enough worlds.
Am I the only one who feels like this?
They tell us, as writers, to write what we know. And all I know is, I need to know more. What the food tastes like in Myanmar. How the locals dress in Laos. How difficult it is to buy camera batteries in Croatia.
I’m pretty sure I can make this happen, and that I can make it blend with what I already have.
Now.
Does anyone want to send me some money?