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January 31 Time Travel 101"Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived".
~ Captain Jean-Luc Picard from the movie "Star Trek: Generations"
"Lost, yesterday, somewhere between Sunrise and Sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever”.
~ Horace Mann
"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana".
~ Groucho Marx
What Is Weird About Me #4
Ever since I was a little kid I have been obsessed by the idea of traveling through time, well that and flying. To this day I still fantasize about it. This is why one of my favorite shows today is ‘Heroes’. It used to be ‘Lost’ until I got lost with the plotline after a couple of misses, but then again, was their ever really a plotline. Now that I think about it, the plotline was about as coherent as the theme song (those of you who watch the show know what I mean). Mostly it seemed we got jerked around from week to week with promises of answers to questions that never materialized, and an extra side helping of more questions was added to our plate. After a while I basically told the show to get Lost. But with ‘Heroes’, a weekly tale of ordinary people suddenly endowed with abilities far beyond those of mere mortals, I get answers, not more riddles. Riddles I got up the yazwho; “WHO USED UP ALL THE GOD DAMNED HOT WATER?”, “Honey what is this green stuff in the fridge and is it still good?”, “I walked into this room for a purpose and now that I am here, I can’t remember what it was I came here for!” and of course the classic: What is the safe answer to “Honey, does this make me look fat?”.
In ‘Heroes’ my favorite characters are Hiro Nakamura the time traveler and Nathan Petrelli who can fly (yeah I know he's a jerk, but he can fly!). I want to do these things and fortunately for me I do fly, through dreams. These are the best dreams. When I fly, it always is a new discovery and it seems so natural to do that I wonder why I never thought of it before. The best part is that I’m the only one who can do it, so once again that makes me special. I wake up disappointed that the dream is over, but by God, for a short time, I was flying and these dreams I always remember.
Time travel on the other hand is something that I can do during the waking hours and without the use of Mr. Peabody’s ‘Way Back’ machine. It is not a journey of the body, but of the mind and the mechanism used is music.
I travel all the time.
We all have experienced the power of a piece of music that acts like a bookmark in our life’s ongoing story and when those musical chords start up, its as if we are transported to that moment when both the music and ourselves were younger. Pictures capture a moment and we get to see how it was. With music we not only see the picture as a fluid reality, but we experience the emotions that went along with it.
The other day I was making my way back home from work when the radio began to play Elton John’s ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight’ and I was instantaneously transported to the year 1994. I found myself in a movie theater that we used to always take the kids to. It was one of those Mom & Pop style movie houses that unlike the monster 127 screen movie chains, had 1 or 2 screens and where the person who sold you the tickets was the daughter of the person selling you popcorn and she, the wife of the gentleman who took your tickets and ran the projector, just like they all were when I was a kid. We took my then 8 year old daughter and 5 year old son to see Disney’s ‘The Lion King’ movie. The moment I was transported to was the very end of the movie. The credits were rolling and we were standing just outside the door to the auditorium where the door to the projection room was located. The layout was in such a way that the projection room was on the same level with the lobby. The door stood open so that we could see the projector running and still see the movie screen at the same time. My daughter stood in front of my wife with my wife’s hands on my daughter’s shoulders and my son was sitting upright in my arms. Both of them were looking at the projector and the screen beyond it as the projectionist explained to them how the movie gets from point ‘A’ to Point ‘B’. They both looked as if they were witnessing the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea. To them it was almost as entertaining as the movie itself was.
There I was driving the car and yet at the same moment, I was standing in that movie theater 13 years previous with my son in my arms. I could feel the weight of him and smell the remnants of the candy that clung to his hands. I could feel my wife and daughter standing next to me and through it all, the ending credits song ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight’, playing in the background.
The song ends and so does the trip back. The fleeting edges of the ‘reality’ are replaced by just the memory, and then comes the eventual side affect of time travel; the sadness.
The memory is a wonderful one, but the reality is that it is the past and gone. My daughter is now 20 and my son is almost 18 and both are no longer amazed by the simple things. They are testing wings for the eventual departure from the nest, to begin lives that for the most part will not have a daily interface or input from us. And this is why a wonderful memory is bittersweet, at least for now. My children are still with us but not for long. To see what I am going to lose makes this type of time trip hard. One day when my wife and I have settled into a life of ‘just us again’, I will be able to repeat this trip and it will be different; it will be a happy moment revisited over and over again.
Just not now.
There are many time periods today that I like to revisit and the music is there to transport me.
For those moments that I cannot visit now, they are musically bookmarked and it is enough to know that they are there when the time comes to revisit them.
I will always hold my children inside my heart, but sometimes even now, no matter how old they get, I still feel the need to hold them up in my arms.
 * Mr Peabody (the dog) and Sherman (for those of you who are cartoonally challenged)© 2007 January 24 STUFF YOU JUST CAN’T MAKE UP… Chapter 1Yesterday I needed a laugh and luckily I got it via an email from my cousin TD. Usually I give them a look over and then toss them without forwarding on. Not because I think that they have no merit, but I try to keep email down to a minimum so as to not clog up the mailboxes of others and only rarely pass them on. But this one was really good and since I was already working on a series of too good to be true stories, this one seemed to fit right in and albeit not by my hand, I think I will make this one exception.
True or not; enjoy.
They're Back! Church Bulletins: Thank God for the church ladies who type them. These sentences actually appeared in church bulletins or were announced in church services:
---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water." The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 PM in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King. --------------------------------------------------------------- ------- Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---- The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say "Hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Miss Charlene Mason sang "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs. ------------------ ---------------------------------------------------- Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing: "Break Forth Into Joy." --------------------------------------------------------------------- Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days. ------------------------------------------------ At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What Is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice. ------------------------------------------------ Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones. ----------------------------------- ---------------------------------- Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility. ------------------------------------------------- -------------------- Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B. S. is done. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- The Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM . The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours January 21 Enemy Mine“Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
~ Winston Churchill
“It's hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.”
~ Sally Kempton
“Enemy fighters at two o’clock”.
“Roger. What should I do until then?”
~ Bill Watterson
What Is Weird About Me #5
In my journey through the valley of shadow I have learned many things when it comes to my enemy and for the most part, it is has nothing to do with another persons acrimonious feelings to you or vice a versa. Oh I know that these types are out there; everything from the fellow office worker who has it out for you to the full blown terrorist, who would love nothing better than to see you dead simply because you are not like them. A watchful eye can and should always be out for these types and if necessary, enjoined in battle with careful steps to ensure we do not become like them in the process. My Enemy are cold and calculating, with no truer purpose to their existence than to make sure that they instill within me an anger that would make Darth Vader truly proud to call me ‘Son’. They are more insidious than the human or animal entity because when wronged by such as these, we can always turn to the law for help. But My Enemy is not of flesh and blood and when it comes to the battle, I cannot turn to the law, because they are the law, and I must battle them alone with nary a Sancho Panza to aid me. No pleading, no begging and no quarter given. I hate them.
Don Quixote had his windmills to slay, Saint George his dragon, Gandalf his Saurman, Captain Ahab against the great heart of the ocean; Moby Dick, and I Rocas, must battle every pre-dawn hour, five days a week with the heart of darkness:
TRAFFIC LIGHTS.
Oh I mean more than just your toss of an expletive deleted at these cruel automatons. What I’m talking about is a full out menu of curses; both the foul language and mystical spell casting kind, with all the crucial hand gesturing that goes with it. I’m talking about heaps of ridicule tossed upon these uncaring drones while I sit there and wait for phantom cars to come out of empty shopping mall parking lots and deserted cross streets at 3:30 in the morning.
Now let me plead my case for those of you who have decided (and rightfully so) that I am a nut job. I live in central New Jersey and commute five days a week to Delaware where I work. That’s 225 miles and 4 ½ hours round trip each day. I used to work 12 miles from my home to a job I absolutely hated. When that facility closed down, I accepted a job with the same company 112 miles from my home. I do the same work I did before with virtually the same people, but this time it’s a job I truly like and yes I know, I am Bass Ackwards. But I have always loved to drive, especially at night and so far so good, the commute really doesn't bother me. When I tell people of my commute however, they look at me as though I had two heads and a heinous booger dangling from my nose (STOP LOOKING AT MY NOSE!). The reason (and not me) is very simple; At the time I took the job, my son still had two years of high school to go and there was no way in hell that I was going to make him basically start all over again with new school and friends simply for my convenience. Once he starts college, momma and I can go wherever we seem fit, including staying put if need be.
Now if you were to know me personally you would find that I am a pretty calm and friendly individual who always tries to find the better nature in everyone I deal with, no matter if they happen to be a rotten son of a bitch. However, if you were to see me in the wee hours of the morning as I verbally combat these assailers of my smooth cruise into work, you would undoubtfully ask yourself one of two things; ‘Do the bars stay open this late into the night?’ Or ‘I wonder if this would be considered a mercy killing?’
Aside from the very beginning and end, the trip is all highway and it is the first hour of local highway that contains this battlefield. Alone in the night, I can see the enemy approaching for some distance off. It is usually green from the first moment I spot it way off yonder and it remains that way until just before I would reach the point of no return, where I would be able to safely and legally cruise thru it.
It doesn’t matter if I speed up or slow down because they watch and wait. There are 28 traffic lights between me and my goal, and I know them all by name. There are the ‘3 witch sisters’ who are clustered very close together and who’s timing is so far off that a person using a walker would beat me through these bitches. There is ‘Mordicai the Night Mechanic’, this one likes to turn from red to green as I get closer to it, only to turn red again just in time for me to have to hit the breaks. And then there is ‘Sidekick Seditious’, a blinking light at this time of the morning with the yield to me. This one has a partner in the way of a truck or car that, if this significant other had not been there, would have allowed me an easy breeze through. Yet as sure as there is a God in Heaven and a bill in my mailbox, I can always count on this lone motorized counterpart to be there and going just slow enough to force me to a complete stop. I mean come on people, does no one else see the hand of Satan here!
Among the others are Wormwood, Zorn - Destroyer of Hope, Ming the Merciless, Romulus the Spiteful and of course Robert (named after a boyhood nemesis that I to this day fantasize about running into). The rest are unpronounceable because by the time I get to them, I am literally speaking in tongues or, they are too foul in nature to put down in print (my mother may be watching).
Eventually I reach the gatekeeper to the smooth flowing interstate highway, and its name is Scorn. Always green, but as I view its retreating image for several miles in my rearview mirror, I can see its glee and hear its fading laughter which promises that tomorrow is another day.
The dark envelop of the highway now comforts me; the soothing refrains of Enya now calm me (stop laughing, I like Enya!). These next 72 miles will restore me to functional human status. I begin my workday in a potentially hostile manufacturing environment knowing that I will be calm and professional because when it comes to stress: Been there, done that.
The ride home in the afternoon is as normal for me as everyone else. The lights behave themselves and appear to have no black soul at all, just simple machines with a pre-programmed, non-prejudicial task and I am treated no worse than the hundreds of other drivers around me. I suspect that this is because there are too many witnesses on the road. Clever Bastards.
Day becomes evening and then night and as I prepare for bed, I think on the morning past and realize that it is a battle waged in my head alone, That there are no demons on the highway and that it is probably stress from the previous day that is finally making its way to the surface.
“Go to bed and get some rest”, I say to myself. “Tomorrow is another day”.
I crawl into bed and read a couple pages from my book (which is currently ‘Murder Most Scottish’), Turn out the light, Kiss my wife goodnight and drift off to sleep.
2:30am
The alarm clock rings.
© 2007
January 14 Through Her Eyes“I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird.”
~ Paul McCartney
“Life isn't weird: it's just the people in it.”
~ Stephen Wright
~ Tom Robbins
My brother challenged me a few weeks back to what appears to me as a bloggers version of chain mail. You know what I mean; you get an email with some message that states that if you send this to 5, 10 or 100 friends within the next 10 minutes you will have amazing luck, your greatest wish will come true, you will get a million dollars or you will get a big penis BUT, if you don’t forward it off in the prescribed time period, your daughter will marry a NASCAR fan with two front teeth, who has several smelly hound dogs that live under the front porch and a family tree that more resembles a telephone pole (and you will get a small penis). I usually just file this stuff away under: ‘Delete’ which is a very useful folder that I put away the items that I will perpetually get to tomorrow.
The challenge was this: to write six weird things about yourself and then to ‘tag’ six other bloggers to do the same. Now I am new to this ‘blogging’ thing and I don't know six other bloggers and even if I did, I'm not in the practice of doing stuff like this even if there is no prize or curse involved. My brother is not in the habit of sending me crap like the afore mentioned Chain Mails and the idea intrigued me, so in my response back I said that I would do it, but I've decided instead to focus on it as a series of stories to describe myself to all .5 of my readers and not to make it a task for someone with a small penis to have to pass on down the line.
But right out of the gate I was faced with a problem; list ONLY six things that were weird about me. It would have been easier for me to list six things that were NOT weird about me. So after careful thought and a couple of beers in me, I present to you the nominees (and winners) for the ‘Six Things That Are Weird About Me’ category. Listed in descending order is ‘What Is Weird About Me Number 6’:
I SEE DEAD PEOPLE
Well in actuality I see and hear dead people, which probably explains it even less and hence the following explanation. What I do in the wild is called ‘Graving’ which is an individual that possesses little social skills who likes to wander the boneyards and catalogs, be it by notation or photographically, the headstones of those filed away in these libraries of life. This information is then uploaded to a database that can be used by people who are tracing their genealogy and the like. In the olden days they used to call this ‘transcribing a cemetery’ where usually a person usually linked to a church or other institution would for posterity sake go around and write down the information that each and every grave stone listed. This information was usually given to the affiliated church or historical society for record to have on hand for the time that the stone was no longer readable. Today it is called ‘Get a Life’. However, this information still can be a diamond for those researching their past but unable to physically visit the last corporeal vestige of a life no longer living and before you sit there and mark my words with “what sappy dribble” I ask you this; why is it that we all go out to cemeteries to acknowledge a loved one who has died, to stand by a stone and grave to remember the person with reflection and flowers. We could easily just remember the person where we are this moment and save ourselves a whole lot of travel time, but there is something in standing beside a grave and speaking to the person as if they were just sitting next to you (and don’t lie, I saw you doing it yourself this past Thursday!). So you see there is great value to what I do and it all stems from something out of my deep dark past.
Creepy kid with a mission:
My father grew up in a small Pennsylvania mining town in a house that had on either end of the street a cemetery. When I was a kid we would go out to see our aunt and her family who lived (and still do) in the house that has been in my family since before my grandmother was born. My dad and I would always set out on a cemetery safari where he would regale me with tales of this one and that one or just tell stories of when he was my age playing in and around the graveyard. His accounts of historical fact were always more entertaining than the actual facts, which were usually boring and as dry as the bones resting mere feet below us. I always felt a connection when traveling through these quiet places, not that I could actually see or hear the dead, but that I could feel the history of them and could somehow, for a brief moment, glimpse into who they were by the dash between ‘Born’ and ‘Died’. This was especially true of those who swung in the branches of our family tree long before me. Was I like them in anyway? What were their thoughts and feelings and desires? Did they ever wonder who I would be as they gazed into their own children’s eyes and imagine into what eyes they in turn would gaze into? Were they good, bad, tall, short, sad, happy, artistic, loving ... did they acknowledge vanilla ice cream as the king of all the flavors?
It is amazing how much a stone can tell you about the one it watches over. Some are great monuments that say ‘I had a lot of money’, but say little more than that, while others are as plain as plain can be and yet speak volumes; The small marker of a child whose parent's anguish can still be felt long after they too have passed. The stone meant for two with only a single name listed or the single stone that cries to the world ‘that the better part of me is gone’. The flat stone that is so obviously homemade out of common cement and traced in by hand or the small craft marker left by a child on the regular stone that simply reads ‘Pop-Pop’.
This one lived a long life and this one was way too short; was one more full than the other? And then there are the graves that are forgotten, where once flowers marked the loss and now only a rusted urn lies on it’s side or the graves that say ‘I am unknown’, where only the curious once visited and then only for a short time.
My father is gone now these past fifteen years and I walk the graves alone and listen to the cicadas of summer as they sing of their short lives, I hear the wind of autumn as it sweeps away at the blazoned trees and of course I acknowledge the stones, left by us who remain behind in this life, to mark the passage of one who has journeyed ahead of us into the next.
And although I say I am alone, I know this not to be true. I remember back when I was a young father and my daughter was an infant. My father and I with baby in tow would set off on our continuing adventure to visit the ancestors. My father would hold her very close to him as we walked the quiet paths and I could hear him telling her the same tales that he told me. It was almost like he was introducing her to old friends and family who although long gone, were still very much a part of our lives. She couldn’t of course understand anything he was saying to her then, but he must have felt his time was short and wanted to pass on a piece of himself to her.
It might sound strange to you that this could be a cherished memory, but you would understand if you could have seen him, holding his granddaughter protectively close to him as if to say to the departed “She is my granddaughter, and I will live on as will we all, through her eyes”.
© 2007 January 05 Episode 4 - A New HopeThe entire sum of existence is the magic of being needed by just one person.
~ Vi Putnam To the world you might be one person, but to one person you might be the world.
~ Anonymous I am incomplete without her. If I were to see the most amazing sight to be seen and she were not by my side, then it wasn’t really worth the seeing.
~ Mark Alexander Oliver
New Years Eve day found my wife and I with a day all to ourselves with no obligations until later in the evening when our friends J & J would be over for our annual low key but always good fun get together. One of our favorite places to tool around is New Hope PA which is an artisan community that boarders the Delaware River. Niche shops, quaint restaurants, charming B & B’s and art galleries are nicely laid out in this country setting. The tastes here run the spectrum from elegant to biker dude and dudets, with a smattering of New Age, Wicken and the just plain weird to fill out the cast.
The day was sunny but on the chilly side (even for me). I'm very comfortable with the colder temps while my wife, who is not, can find a cold breeze on the Sahara desert at high noon, but that never stops her from doing what she likes to do. When we go to New Hope I like the day to be heavily overcast, not because there is no shade – Scads ‘O shade to be had, but it’s the kind of area that seems to go well with the gloomy canopy above. Perhaps it was because of the colder day or that it was New Years Eve or both, that found the town busy but not as crowded as it usually can be found to be an a sunny Sunday. This always makes for a better visit anyway. As you can see from the pictures in the New Hope Album, Turkey vultures like to make the rooftops their own and the leaden skies give this a rather creepy look as these rather large birds amble their way across the rooftops looking down at you (perhaps dreaming of a magnificent meal). New Hope is also one of, if not actually the most haunted place in PA. A plethora of ghostly haunts to choose from; the haunted church, the haunted inn, the haunted restaurant, the haunted covered bridge, the haunted playhouse, the haunted ash tray etc... So you see, overcast skies and the haunted area go hand in hand and, if you are lucky enough to be there relaxing at one of the quaint restaurants enjoying a brew or other adult beverage when a Thunder storm moves in, then Oulalla. I did get my wish shortly after arriving there as the skies took on a nice brooding grey. With ‘FourBucks’ coffee in one hand and my wife’s hand in the other we were set for a pretty good day.
As I stated before, New Hope is an artisan community that likes to show off many of its artwork sculptures around the town. Most of the time it is freeform stuff that looks nice but can easily fall into the ‘What the hell is that!’ category. This time they had something new in the small river below the bridge that bisects the town. Two deer made of metal strapping, prepared to look as if they were crossing the river. I actually got it. Very Cool.
Usually my mission on going there is to look for a Greenman or Gargoyle sculpture to adopt and take home. I have always had an affinity for these medieval subjects and Ernie (our chimney top Gargoyle) always likes it when we bring home a new playmate for him. The last time we were there in October for our anniversary, we spotted a Greenman sculpture that we liked and decided to pick it up on our next visit. True to our word, we found him just where we left him and brought him back with us. His name is Norman.
After a couple of hours, we settled down to dine at a restaurant called Mothers that sits right along the main street. It was a place that we had never tried before and we were happy to find the atmosphere, service and food much to our liking. It was about 5:30 pm when were left the restaurant and found the town all lit up with Christmas lights; we realized that this was first time that we had ever been there during the holiday season to have witnessed this before. It was a really nice way to end our ‘all to ourselves’ day together. We actually could have spent all that time just roaming the supermarket and it would have been a great day, just so long as I am holding my wife’s hand.
© 2007
January 03 ResolutionsMany people look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits.
~Author Unknown
A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.
~Author Unknown
Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.
~Oprah Winfrey
Once again we found ourselves passing the last hours of the old year with our best of friends J&J. Our days of making big plans for an all night New Years Eve celebration went out with the year 1986 just after the birth of our first kid, Daughter of Darkness. It’s not that we were too old at the time, hell we were a mere twenty eight years old, but going out with a new born (albeit in the hands of capable grandparents) was more than a new mother could stand. My son, Captain Adventure, followed a couple years later so that by the time we thought about getting out for the New Years festivities, we had found that we liked the convenience of staying home and leaving the streets free for the maniacs and the police.
For the better part of fifteen years now, my oldest friend J and his wife J, have joined us for the passing of the old year into the new. 2006 was a trying year for both of us and we found ourselves this year on deck not so much to ring in the New Year but to make sure that the old one left. My daughter was out with her boyfriend (God I love that boy) and my son had several friends over who sequestered themselves away into the war room where they each had a Play Station and TV monitor hooked up to the internet so that they could celebrate with friends around the word by blowing each other up. A room away found the old farticles waiting for the execution of the old year by playing cards. New tech versus old, but that’s the way I like it. Although I revel out loud about the day we become empty nesters, I know in my heart that these are the days to savor. When I was young and immortal, I had no fear that ‘these days’ would last forever. Now I find immortality waning and the thought of loss is always with me.
I have learned over the years that the easiest way to fall from resolutions made in the New Year is to tell no one else what they are. I have also found that if you have to make a list of your resolutions that you are also doomed to failure. If you fail at one, they all suffer. One list, one destiny. And so with that said, here is my resolution for the year of our Lord two thousand and seven:
Rematerialize.
In the last year I have allowed work and home improvement needs to fully occupy my twenty four hours a day. I have become a ghost at home and have lost touch with family and friends. So my resolution is to re-organize the importance of the things that need tending to. Unfortunately work is work and like the finite hours assigned to each day by God, there is a fixed amount of time assigned to our jobs that is for the greater majority of us inflexible, but it isn’t really the time but the focus that needs adjustment. I can still do the things that I am doing now; I just need to put them in proper order with the time I have each day. If I have learned anything from my Home Depot maneuvers its that the fixings here and there will always be around, the people in my life may not.
Now while I said I do not believe in a resolutions list, I have, like stocking stuffers on Christmas morning, several aside resolutions that seem to ride with me from year to year:
Lose weight (it's not so much what I eat between Chrstmas and New Years, but what I eat between New Years and Christmas).
Clean up my act (if you saw my desk you would understand this one).
Stop procrastinating (I’ll look into this one later)
If I fail at any of the above, get up, dust off and try again. No need to wait for Dick Clark to give the go ahead.
Good luck to all of you in this new year with whatever resolutions you may have made. If you are succesful, may your life and those around you be all the more blessed. If you fail and leave it at that, may your pains be as short lived as your resolutions.
© 2007 |
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