Vagrant

A few weeks ago I did something that normally I would have not taken into account as an important event, except that one very small detail transformed it, for me, into such a thing. I am normally not inclined to speak of these things because I have seen others do so as a means to attain their own glory, and for another thing, God advises us not to do so, and for another thing, the glory is only in our own minds, and for another thing, I have other ways of seeking my own glory.

There may come a time, if it has not come already, when you hear someone promote their own goodliness. They may say something to the effect of, “Some people really need to give more. I mean, I give such and such an amount of money to such and such a charity, but most people don’t even give anything. Not that I’m bragging or anything.” Comments such as these are often spoken under the guise of humility: “I donate $100 every month to starving children, but it’s just not enough.” But self-righteousness is very clearly at the core of it.

I, however, could not brag even if I wanted to, because even if I do give money to a homeless person, it is never more than a couple bucks, and always less than I could afford. But now the question becomes, am I bragging about not bragging? Regardless, I do feel inclined to recount the following instance of when I nobly and heroically gave some food to a homeless man because I feel as though it may have some practical value.

Often, when the subject of giving to the homeless is being discussed, the argument arises that many homeless folks are addicts and if you give them money, you will only be fueling their vice. It is true that it is risky to give money, therefore, we determine that to give food is a more appropriate course of action. Another argument is that they are there because of the bad choices they have made and giving them handouts won’t help motivate them to change. Maybe this is true as well, but even people who make mistakes – even very significant and consistent mistakes – need to eat.

So when I pulled into the Coborn’s parking lot and saw a middle-aged man with a sign sitting on the grass beside the road, these things went through my mind. I thought, “Maybe I should help him out”. Then, “Well I can’t give him money, he’ll only drink it”. Then, “Well I could just buy some groceries for him and then take them out to him as I am leaving”. But what if he doesn’t take them? You will have wasted you r money. I could ask him if he would accept food instead of money. You don’t approach strangers and begin conversations. You’re not gregarious. It would be very out of character. Well now I have to do it just to prove to myself that I am not THAT introverted. Let’s just do it.

So I got out of my car and went over to the man. His face appeared weathered by alcohol and his clothes were dirty, as I would expect of the condition of any vagrant. I asked – probably not so politely (not to be intentionally rude, but I am just not always good with people) – him if he needed some food or what. He mumbled something that sounded affirmative, seeming to me to be agitated that it was not money that I was offering him. I said, “Okay, I’ll be back in a bit”. He seemed not to believe me.

I walked into the store and picked up the cold medicine that I had come for, and then went to the deli and scrounged together some random foods that I thought homeless people might like, as if they did not have distinct personalities or tastes. I was thinking what a waste this all was. The guy didn’t even want food, he wanted cash. But I said I would do it and because I am flippant with my money, it was no big deal anyway.

I emerged from the store with a bag of food for the guy and made my way toward him. A good thing to do would have been to converse with him in order to make him feel welcome as a part of humanity, and not so perpetually frowned upon, but I am no conversationalist and was not willing to do that. I was going to hand him the bag of food, shrug at his indifferent and thankless response, and go back home.

He was still there when I rounded the corner. I walked up to him and set the bag in front of him. He said “Thanks”, I said, “No problem” and I turned to walk away, and as I did, from the corner of my eye, I saw him smile.

A New Friend - Very Drunk and Delirious

I had a nice little ride with a new friend today. I was getting into my car after putting my laundry into one of the dryers at the Laundromat when a city bus dropped a woman off across the street. She came up to me and asked if I could give her a ride. At least I assumed that’s what she said, she was slurring her speech dramatically. I had nowhere to be so I said, “Hop in” and we left.

From what I ascertained, she wanted a ride to McDonald’s, or to an apartment building near McDonald’s. I could only understand about 25% of her speech. She asked me my name 5 times and told me I was a fine-looking man, movie star fine. That part I heard – I have an ear for compliments. I also made out the sentence, “Ok, I’m not gonna lie… I’m a little tipsy”. This was humorous. She was not “I had one too many” drunk, or even “oops, that wasn’t a liter of water I just drank” drunk, she was “if I have one more sip I am going to die of alcohol poisoning in your car and you are going to have a lot of explaining to do” drunk.

When I again told her my name was Bill after one of the times she asked, she said, “You lyin’”. I said, “No, really. What, I don’t look like a Bill?” She said that I did not. I asked her what I looked like then. She thought for a moment and then said, “Dean”. This is odd for a few reasons: A) There aren’t many people my age named Dean, and B) my dad’s name is Dean. I told her so and then she began saying some more things that I could not comprehend.

After she pointed me in about twelve different directions, we arrived at some apartments near McDonald’s. She hauled out a grocery bag of used DVDs and asked me if I wanted to buy some. I said no, but I gave her two dollars anyway. She wanted more than that, but I assured her that I was not a rich movie star. Eventually, she got out of the car. I said it was nice meeting her and then she wandered off toward McDonald’s or perhaps toward the liquor store that was just across the street in the same direction. It was a good way to kill a few minutes while waiting for my laundry to dry.

Smashed

I found the driver’s side window smashed on my car yesterday. At first I wondered if I had made anyone extremely angry recently. This, however, is unlikely. Just the other day I was speaking to Jon about a former roommate of ours who had a problem with me. Yet another mutual former  roommate of ours had said to Jon, “You know if you have a problem with Bill, there’s something wrong with you”, speaking of my general good nature. And I thought, Yes I suppose that’s true. I am terribly likable. But still the thought occurred to me that I may have offended someone.

The neighbors I threatened for their obnoxious sex came to mind. Later, I discounted that possibility for reasons I will soon disclose. Briefly I thought that somebody from the bad neighborhood a block down had robbed me but then I noted the obvious fact that the window was not smashed all the way through but rather still held in place, although with a fly-wing pattern fracture throughout. And finally, I reasoned that karma had finally caught up with me. It must have just been some clumsy drunk stumbling into my window, or perhaps a random act of vandalism.

I did not react with anger. I pushed the small shards out onto the parking lot pavement and swept them up and then called dad to see if he could do something to fix the problem for cheaper than an auto body repair business would. He said he would see what he could do and will be here to visit Manna in a couple days at which point I have no doubt he will come through with a new window. I am unlucky to have my window destroyed, but lucky to have someone in my life with auto body skills, which I still regret I did not bother to learn from him all the while I was growing up.

One thing I have learned from this: Throughout adversity, I am ridiculously cool headed, and for that, I do rock.

Except for when it comes to pet peeves. Then my cool vanishes.

Later that day – yesterday – I was returning to my car – now with a packaging tape patchwork window -- after walking through Munsinger Gardens, which is not an abnormal thing for us solitary people to do, and this girl on a bike approached me.

I have recently been playing around on the internet, looking at dating sites – I AM NOT ASHAMED – and sometimes I come across a girl who catches my interest. More often than not, she is not interested in me. Recently, I arranged a meeting with one in Sartell, about ten minutes north. I’m not sure that she is right for me, but she may not feel the same. Isn’t that the way it always goes? So, despite knowing that I sound like a lovesick teenage boy, I have to say that girls had been on my mind while visiting the gardens.

So when an attractive blond approached me in the park, I was briefly optimistic. She pulled up to me and said, “Don’t you live at my apartments?” I was not entirely sure who she was, but as I said, “I don’t know” I figured it out.

She asked if I lived in 1811, I said “yes”, and from there we established that she lived directly below me – potentially the wayward raucous love-maker whose life I may have threatened. I learned that she lived with her brother, who I had previously pegged as her boyfriend. From here, I ascertained that it was either she who was the offender or it was her brother and his harlot, and that I would give this blond the benefit of the doubt. She certainly seemed unaware that I had ever come pounding on their door.

However, my hopes did not get a chance to soar too high before I realized that even if she was not the offender, she was no Mother Theresa. She gave several clues, whether or not she was aware of them, of her licentious behavior. I learned that she was a banker, fond of beer, tobacco, and probably promiscuity. She was nice girl so I won’t put her down too much, but definitely not my type.

She asked me what I was doing around there and I told her I was just out for a walk. She said, “Well you must not have a wife or girlfriend then, walking out here all alone”. I answered affirmatively. She then said, “Can I ask how old you are?” I told her. We chit chatted for a while, about our jobs, future prospects, about my tattoos, where she was thinking about getting some (around her “bikini area”), and whether I had any hidden under my clothing.

She told me she was there waiting for a guy named Miguel who had asked her out at the bank in which she worked. He was late, and I hated to leave her there, waiting alone, but because I knew we had no future together, I said I had to leave. I’m glad she didn’t ask why, because I had devised no escape excuse. She told me not to be a stranger and I left intending to be exactly that.

Unfortunately, although I know it would be unwise, I am left with the knowledge that if ever I am feeling especially lonely, willing company lives just nine feet below me. What a backwards universe. If they have good hearts, they aren’t very attractive, if they are attractive, they are disloyal and self-indulgent. My problem is my own fault. If only I could learn to be less shallow…

Fat chance.

Bad Joke

WHEN JOKES FAIL... There really needs to be a television series about this, it’s such good fun. I enjoy the failure of jokes because it leaves open the opportunity for the failure of the joke to be openly acknowledged, which is itself often humorous.

For example; this going away party I went to last night. People look for reasons to converse and inevitably someone will mention the tattoos. So in one of my conversations about tattoos we began talking about how some people went as far as to get the whites of their eyes inked. The TV show that informed one of us of this had also said that it was a procedure often practiced by inmates in prison. Another of us said, “Isn’t that dangerous? Couldn’t you go blind?” To which I responded, “Yes, and then you wouldn’t even know who raped you.”

…Silence…

It wasn’t that funny, I know. I thought maybe I would get a courtesy laugh at the very least. At first I thought I had offended the three of them, but after a short silence I said, “I guess I shouldn’t have gone there” and then they smiled and chuckled and said something or other that I forgot. They didn’t seem offended anyway.

Soon after that, the mosquitoes began to swarm (it was an outdoor event) and the bats were not plentiful enough to destroy their wicked, blood-sucking, insectile ranks and neither were we, so the mosquitoes won again as they always do and we left.

The Phantom Arachnid Phenomenon

A few nights ago I fled from bed in fear of phantom arachnids. This is a phenomenon that has been plaguing me for roughly a year now. For some reason it is always spiders or insects, usually spiders, which is unusual because I am not particularly arachnophobic. This happens to my sister as well but she is one of those people who may actually have arachnophobia. For her, it makes sense. Maybe we share some kind of psychic link and I am experiencing her fear vicariously and this is all HER fault. I think I will have a talk with her. I mean, I don’t like spiders and if I had one crawling up my back I would probably freak out a little bit but I am not so terrified by them that I would have recurring nightmares. So, I blame my sister. This is somehow her fault. Everything always is. Dammit Steph.

I can recall a time when she and I returned home from some excursion or other and we were walking in to the house, she ahead of me. As she opened the door she unwittingly disturbed a sizable spider which then repelled down its silken ass-rope, landing directly on her back. Witnessing this, and knowing her fear I said something like, “Oh god, Steph…”, and from that, she immediately knew the situation and froze in horror.

Mewling sounds of terror began to escape from her which elicited a great deal of laughter from me, or maybe I was already laughing, I can’t remember. At any rate, she lived through the terrible ordeal whether by flailing and screaming or by her heroic brother flicking the thing off of her. If my memory is accurate, and it usually is not, I think I did flick it off of her after she began chanting, “Get it off, get it off, get it off…”.

Anyway, this phantom arachnid phenomenon is something that I believe many people experience. There are other widespread phenomena of this nature. There’s the demon thing sitting on your chest and suffocating you phenomenon (never had the pleasure), sleepwalking (that one, yes), sleep-pissing (…maybe…) and more that I can’t think of.

If you haven’t been fortunate enough to experience this, I’ll explain. It usually happens when you are nearly fully asleep but still some remote consciousness remains. The spiders come in different ways. They have been under my sheets, at which point I throw off my covers and stand there in the darkness next to my bed for a minute or two, waiting for the line between dreams and reality to thicken. They have come repelling down from the ceiling, heading toward my face at which point I jerk my head to the side and roll out of bed like I was thoroughly trained in military combat, and again I stand there waiting for my brain to become properly oriented once again.

Keep in mind, these are always huge spiders. About hand sized and quicker than tarantulas. I wouldn’t flee in fear from a daddy long leg… well, yes I would if it was coming at my face while I lay half-conscious in bed – but these suckers are formidable.

At first, they came in my bed and down from the ceiling. But this most recent episode was worse. They were all over the floor of my room. Not one or two, but dozens. Because they were also in my bed, I threw the comforter off and ran out of the room and into the bathroom. The light was on in the bathroom and this helped bring me to full consciousness as I caught my breath, realized what had happened, and still not fully awake, began trying to explain to my roommate what he had just witnessed.

Back in reality, I returned to my room and found that I had thrown the comforter across it; evidence of my terror. I picked up my cozy blanket and fell back into bed, hoping for no more recurrences, no phantom spider aftershocks, no more episodes, and there were none.

Art

I have a piece of art on my shelf, at least I call it art. I sometimes do sketches and second rate portraits and things of the like and sometimes also try some stuff with photography. The four-part picture frame that sits atop my bookcase is the manifestation of one of my ideas involving photographs. It’s incredibly bland and people seem not to get it. Maybe there is nothing to get. I like it anyway.

It’s just a picture frame divided into four parts. In the first two sub-frames there are shots of the same corner of the room, each at slightly different angles. In the next one, there is a humanoid shadow, and in the final one, there is the empty corner again. It’s supposed to be like a fleeting specter, an apparition that is not there one moment, is there the next, and is gone again the next.

It’s one of those things that not many people can appreciate. However, whereas I often need some approval from others for the things I come up with, with this thing, I do not. The whole world could hate it but I would still love it, appreciating all the craftsmanship and genius involved in its rendering. It’s a hard life being your own biggest fan but somebody has to fill the role, and being such a connoisseur of taste itself, I am the perfect man for the job.

And speaking of being a connoisseur of taste, who critiques the critics? Who decided that seven year old wine is better than seven month old wine? You know what I like? Seven minute old wine. That’s right, grape juice. I don’t need people to tell me what I ought to like. Nobody does. If we ever ended up actually taking the advice of these freaks, we would all be eating snails and squids and the eggs of fish. Sure, we would delude ourselves into thinking that we were refined by using the French language to describe the atrocities we ingested – we would say no, it’s not gross, it’s suave, it’s escargot, calamari, and caviar, the food of the elite – but it would still be the guts of slimy creatures that under normal circumstances we would be reluctant to even touch.

The best advice I could ever give anyone is this; Don’t let anyone tell you that a smudge of paint on a large canvas is art and that if you can’t see it, then you have no natural taste. Because we all know the truth: A smudge of paint is just a smudge of paint, and we have all taken dumps that were more pleasing to the eye than much of the abstract nonsense that is paraded around as the work of true genius.

Speaking of art, I just got a tattoo on my back. I have had tattoos before and all of them hurt, although some more than others. This one was particularly painful. I was lied to. I was told that the back won’t hurt as much as the stomach, but it was every bit as hellish an experience as my stomach tattoo. It was a very teeth-gritting, hand-wringing, horrible two hours.

At the end of it, after thanking God that it was all over, I told the artist that I was concentrating so hard on not crying and she said she could tell I was in pain, as I’m sure my agonized squirming was not discreet. Now, having made myself out to be a sissy, I will say that usually I am quite cool about it and have even been told by someone that he was surprised at how well I was taking it – that was my stomach tattoo. I assured him that I was crying like a little girl on the inside.

Although I realize it is completely random, I feel I should also note that I saw a shooting star – celestial art -- the other night. It was not high up in space but right in the earth’s immediate atmosphere so it appeared pretty large. It was a head of bright glowing green light followed by a tail of yellow embers. My guess would be that it probably hit earth – if it hadn’t dissolved by then – about an hour east of St. Cloud.

It was lucky that I was looking in exactly the right direction at the right time to see it. It makes me wonder how many of these dazzling spectacles go shooting by right behind our heads, unbeknownst to us.

The Hedonist Army

These girls have been instant messaging me. They start conversing normally but very soon they reveal their true motives. They inform you that they are “models” for some website -- webcam.com or something -- where you get to watch them do things for the low low price of just five dollars for twenty-four hours of viewing time.

Soon after talking with the first webcam girl – seriously, how many of these girls are out there? – I grasped the situation and wrote, “This is the part where you ask for my credit card number, isn’t it?” She said that she wasn’t asking for it, the company was. Anyone who gives out their information to a site like this deserves to be ripped off. The horrible stupidity of it all…

I know how to get rid of these worldly types. It is startlingly simple and even pathetically humorous. These are the kinds of people who live for stimulation of one kind or another – drugs, sex, money. They are hedonists and the one thing they can’t stand is to have to think about something REAL or MEANINGFUL. If you want to test your hedonism, just note how uncomfortable you get when thinking about anything that actually means something. Also, if you listen to rap, there’s a good chance you are hedonistic.

All I had to do was start talking about the comparison between fleeting satisfaction and lasting fulfillment and it was enough to scare her off. She did not want to think about that at all. They never do. They live for gratification, which we all do to some extent so I guess I shouldn’t be getting too self-righteous.  

I told the next girl that tried to get me to sign up for webcam.com that I started talking about deep things and it scared off the last “model” and she gave me an LOL. She seemed less shallow, but still shallow because she did leave shortly thereafter, which I suppose was my intention for her. Although I wouldn’t have minded having a normal conversation, these girls had money to make. I understood.

So remember: deep thinking scares shallow people. If you need to rid yourself of these pests, just fumigate them with a cloud of topics like; “Who am I on the inside”, “Where did I come from”, or maybe “What really is right and wrong”. They will flee from you, fearing the idea of having to examine some important aspect of life rather than just riding through it in a flurry of sensations, stimulations and self gratification. Start talking to them about Jesus, they will run like hell. It’s very simple. Now you know. You’re welcome.

Fight the Power

I have been a naughty spendthrift. I just purchased three Toadies mp3 albums online. But I feel that it is for a good cause. Good music has become an endangered species. Rap, hip hop and emo thrive like mosquitoes but grunge is dwindling like bald eagles once did, and I desperately hope that as the bald eagle has done, grunge begins to make a comeback. In the meantime I will be doing my small part to coax it back into popularity.

Toadies are one of the most underrated grunge bands ever to have graced our musically challenged planet. Currently listening to their No Deliverance album, I have to say that the lead vocalist is one of the best I’ve heard. Not every song is a hit, but it sure beats the hell out of the more modern nonsense that the radio stations are spewing forth. I can think of no genre that has managed to capture emotion like grunge has done, but then, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

But it seems that the eyes of music fans have developed cataracts. In a world of Justin Biebers – or whatever the hell his name is – and Lady Gagas and Dr. Dres, rock, the most powerful music that has ever been, has been pushed back and repressed and the rock that has managed to stay afloat is not so much rock but more often an affront to the genre of its origin. We are now calling bands like Saving Abel and Fallout Boy “rock” and this is how I know the end is near. God is surely planning our destruction for the horrible tastes we have developed.

I, standing tall and self-righteous, will be among the raptured. Burn your hip hop albums and boycott MTV and you may just redeem yourself enough to join me on that fine day. Please do the responsible thing; stop buying albums from artists that made their debut on American Idol and together we can bring back the music of the 90’s, back when rock was still rock and everybody still made fun of country music and rap. Fight the power. Woot.

More of Nothing

When I have some downtime, which is 90% of the time, I take a walk and burn a cigar. Today I chose the gardens again because there is no better place and the only reason I ever walk anywhere else is to provide some variety. Last night a violent storm visited St. Cloud and on my walk I observed its aftermath which amounted only to a few scattered fallen branches, one of which could have killed a man if he had been drunk enough to stand beneath it during the tempest.

I sat on a swinging bench and watched the ducks chase after scraps of bread thrown by a mentally challenged girl and her astoundingly beautiful caretaker. I often see mentally challenged people at the gardens, mostly folks with Down syndrome. Their caretakers bring them to the gardens because they, like myself, have realized that it is the perfect place to kill some time, although they have not yet realized that a cigar goes well with the scenery.

Feeling that the handicapped probably receive more curious or even disapproving looks than friendly ones, I try to smile at them to remind them that they are a part of the human race. However, I can only maintain a smile for a maximum of two seconds, being that it comes so unnaturally to me, so I wait to make eye contact before I send my happy face to them, but they seem to dislike eye contact as much as I do and they glance only for a split second, seeing only my unsmiling, unwelcoming face before they again look away, nullifying my opportunity to smile at them, which leaves me feeling like a dick. I really need to work on my affability.

Sitting on the swing, ducks began to gather around me and I felt like St. Francis or perhaps the Beastmaster. I was careful to remain perfectly still, fearing that if I moved I would frighten my small winged minions. I became confident that I was all but invisible to them when one nearly waddled right over my feet. I then looked down and noticed a spider on my belt. Not content with letting it be and seeing where it would end up, I was forced to break my statue impression and flick it off of me. Simultaneously, the caretaker and her caretakee began throwing unwanted morsels of their meal to the ducks and they raced to their free meal like bums to a soup kitchen. You would think they were starving to death.

A few times, large fish thrashed at the surface of the great Mississippi in which the ducks had been bathing. I thought how terrified my sister would have been if she had been in those waters at the moment, being that she is so fishophobic. It’s a real word.

Soon, last night’s storm began to make a comeback. Thunder rolled in the distance and people began to pack their belongings. The impervious ducks remained indifferent. I made my way to my car in case I had to roll up the windows. By the time I got there a good third of my cigar remained. I took a seat at a nearby picnic table. With nothing to do, I began to think.

My thinking resulted in the posing of a question about a question; What is the most important question in the world? I decided that it was, “Where do we go when we die?” All other questions relate to our immediate life. It is tantamount to weighing the finite against the infinite. Although “What should I do with my life?” is an important question, it does not supersede the previous one. “Where do we go when we die” encompasses all, at least mostly. It has the power to direct the action that follows “What should I do with my life”.

There are other important questions. Maybe there isn’t an ultimate question, maybe there are several questions of equal importance all related to each other, but “What happens after we die” is up there. And if our answer is that we fade into nothingness, we best be damn sure of it, because if there is even the slightest threat of divine justice, the consequences of a belief to the contrary may be unfathomably severe. Don’t ask me how it works. I’m great at posing questions, not so much answering them.

I didn’t have long to contemplate these things. Being the important person that I am, the rain had been waiting for me, and when I finished my cigar it loosed itself upon the land and I fled to my cozy dry home.

Here, now, at three in the afternoon, it is dark outside and a new storm is under way, so far nearly rivaling the violence of the first. The wind may be less severe but there seems to be even more rain now than there was the previous night.

It is difficult to imagine, impossible to physically see, but I know that beyond the dark and wicked storm clouds, there is a clear, bright, heavenly realm, sun reflecting off the clouds, an entirely different world just beyond my sight.

Gullible

This little rant of mine has to prefaced with this; I am really, really… really gullible sometimes. Instantaneously I believed in, and was astounded by, the tree-climbing octopus when I read of it in the pages of Terry Pratchett’s (the lying bastard) book, Nation. If somebody had brought up octopi while I was reading this I would have said, “Did you know that there are octopi that live in trees? It’s true, I know it for a fact. It’s in this book I’m reading.” 

                I have always hoped that I wasn’t one of those people who believe in things just because they want to believe in them. I have even convinced myself that I was not one of those people. But I really wanted to believe in an intelligent species of arboreal octopi that hunted small birds and did other slimy, many-armed things while up in the canopy of a woods. I am humbled to have found that I am just another person who believes what he wants to believe.

                It did strike me as odd that an octopus could be a land-dwelling animal. The nature of its hide, all moist and glistening with slime, seems to suggest that it could at the very best be amphibious, but not entirely land-dwelling. So I researched the tree-climbing octopus and after viewing some amateur youtube videos that were more embarrassing than anything, I found an article that discussed this legend.

                From the article, I have arrive at this conclusion: At some point an octopus was seen on land, and maybe even in a tree, and from that, the tale of the tree-climbing octopus was formed. I am sure they don’t dwell anywhere past the surface of the water because among many other reasons, their hide would not be slick and smooth, but more reptilian I think. And they would have no need for a siphon. Or suction cups. They wouldn’t even really be octopi at all. They would be quivering, gelatinous, awkward creatures, ill-equipped for a life on land, and probably suicidal.

                The article I found has provided me with enough evidence to arrive at the conclusion that Terry Pratchett’s (the lying liar) tree-climbing octopus is an embellishment of the existing animal. I believe in the accounts of octopi climbing mangrove trees (why would anyone make something like that up?) but I doubt that they made little nests and lived up there snatching birds from the air. That’s just dumb. Who would believe something like that…

Demon Rodents

All the walking I’ve been doing is not completely without benefit. For one thing, I get some good thinking done during my walks. I forget everything I thought about the second I return, but at least I bothered to think to begin with, which I suppose I do enough of as it is. However, when I’m outside doing nothing, there are less distractions and this facilitates clearer and uninterrupted thinking, or at least less interrupted thinking.

At times, nature itself interrupts me. Take today for example. I was standing in place enjoying the weather in a very secluded area. The surrounding environment had been fairly silent until a bird came flying at full speed across the trail. I figure I must have startled it and to get back at me, it terrified me by letting out an ear piercing squawk before I even saw it. Now a bird squawk is not in itself terrifying, but making the transition from peaceful silence to sudden screeching clamor is at least briefly terrifying, and I was briefly terrified. The immediate response of my brain was “DANGER!” and I am chagrined to say I jumped a little.

Aside from being terrified by animals, there are other benefits to romping about in the wilderness. For one, I now know the sound that a chipmunk makes. I saw one the other day, looking as if it had the dry heaves and jutting out a forceful, hollow chucking sound. Determined to observe this chattering creature until it stopped, I stood there staring at it dumbly, locking eyes with it as it continued on just to spite me. Dry heaving and squeaking, all the while drilling into me with its unwavering, belligerent eyes, the thing began to intimidate me. I could not conquer this tenacious beast, and losing the staring contest, I retreated in shame. I suspect that as soon as I was out of ear shot of it, with no one left to spite, it ceased its chatter. I think it was perturbed by my presence. Maybe I’m anthropomorphizing, but deep in my heart, I do believe it wanted to devour me.

At any rate, now if I am ever walking with someone and we hear that strange noise I can say, “Hey, I know what that is. It’s a chipmunk.”  To which my companion will reply, “Really Bill. That’s fantastic.” And I will smile a little, maybe even nod my head in self-satisfaction, my partner’s sarcasm completely lost on me. And I will continue on my walks, being terrified by small animals, getting into staring contests with them and losing, irrationally mistaking large squished mushrooms for puddles of vomit in the middle of nowhere, briefly fearing for my life when a gust of wind motivates the surrounding foliage and my brain makes of it a phantom rabid bear – heroically I will continue my little afternoon walks, even in the midst of such peril. At least until school starts and I have something genuinely productive to do.

Exercise: Spirit/Body

After the end of my years of enthusiastic, excessive consumption of alcohol and miscellaneous substances, I found hidden within myself a wealth of motivation that had been stifled and untapped for an unnecessary length of time. One of the things I have endeavored to do with that motivation is build up my body to the healthy and acceptable physique that I had always desired but had heretofore been unable or ill-equipped to obtain and sustain. This relatively new hobby of mine coupled with my spiritual-oriented mind has led me to draw several parallels between spiritual and physical growth.

First of all, it does not happen overnight. A person cannot peruse a chapter or two of the Bible and expect some enlightening epiphany that will change their lives from that day forward. To build your virtues and enhance your peace you need to make a lifestyle of spiritual strengthening just as to really gain physical results that you are able to see in the mirror, you cannot expect to go for a jog once in a while and one day wake up forty pounds lighter. It is imperative that you make a lifestyle of exercise if you wish to transform your body. It must become your daily routine, a part of who you are.

Secondly, if it is muscle you are attempting to put on, you are going to need to suffer a little. The point of strength training is to push yourself through as many repetitions as physically possible – until it hurts. After a good bicep exercise, you ought to be barely able to lift your arms to wash your hair. No pain, no gain, we all know that. I can’t imagine that we could become better people by simply passively hoping that one day we will be different without really going out of our way and making a conscious, pain-staking effort to change.

Results are slow. You can aggressively lift weights for months and see nothing. There can be a temptation to give up, it’s not working after all. But one day you look in the mirror and notice some bulk where there had previously been none, or a vein that has emerged that had previously been buried under a thin layer of fat. You will never be able to consciously follow your progress. It’s like trying to see the hour hand move on a clock. You don’t actually see it move, you just eventually notice that it is father along now than it was then. Spiritual growth may be even slower than physical growth in this respect.

It is uncomfortable at first. I felt very awkward moving my limbs on an elliptical in an act of mobility that had previously been entirely foreign to me. To make matters worse, there was a giant mirror in front of me so I could do nothing but look at this goofy-feeling motion I had to go through to accomplish my goals. But now, after jumping on the elliptical on a regular basis for well over a year, it feels and looks (to me) as natural as brushing my teeth. We only feel uncomfortable doing unfamiliar things so long as we are seeing ourselves as outsiders acting as insiders. As soon as we become familiar with the exercises and the heretofore unworn fitness attire and we begin seeing ourselves as one of the “fitness people” the uncomfortability goes away. You no longer feel like a poser.

You will not always feel like working out, but you do it anyway because that’s just what you do now. Once you begin doing it, as tired as you may be on that particular day, you will find a new rush of energy to see you through it and you realize there was nothing to complain about to begin with. So, if you really don’t feel like going to church, do it anyway. Once you’re there, it’s easy and you may even enjoy it. I really ought to start following my own advice.

It makes you more attractive. A spiritually mature and emotionally stable person is attractive just as a leaner, healthier body is generally more attractive. I don’t want to sound shallow, but some things are the way they are whether we like them or not. That’s just the way it is.

You will hit plateaus. When strength training, you will not see any immediate results, but within a couple months, most people notice some changes. After a while, your body becomes very noticeably different and you think that if you keep this up, you will be the strongest man alive. Then comes a time when you realize you have made no noticeable progress within the last several months. You have reached your peak and it seems you cannot become any stronger. When making emotional and spiritual progress (building a relationship with God Himself), we will inevitably encounter dry spells where no amount of effort we put forth is enough to bring us to a higher level of strength, but if we keep plugging away, we find that one day, out of the blue, we are once again gaining strength.

For: Floods and Rain

It has been raining nonstop all day. It brings to mind the time this past summer when my sister and I took a road trip to Fond du Lac during a storm – at her relentless insistence. During the trip there, lightning frequented the skies but the storm had for the most part abated. Upon arrival we found many streets flooded. I was wound tightly as we drove through a swimming pool of a street. The water was up to the bumper and I feared the engine would be drowned and we would be stranded in Fond du Lac or I would severely misjudge the depth and we would be swept away and some badly parented child excited by the storm would be running around video-taping everything and we would drift right past him and he would capture us on film and sell it to the news and my face would be seen by millions as I sat helplessly in my car, floating down the street, and I would join the ranks of all those people on TV who from their viewers evoke the response; “What a moron”.  But that did not happen.

My sister assured me that Lakeside Park was the cool place to go during storms or during their recent aftermath and so to Lakeside we went. We parked just off shore by the lighthouse and noticed a wavy line of seaweed and trash spanning the length of the parking lot, a sign of the abnormally high waves that had just crashed over the bulwark boulders between the park and the large lake. It is not a usual thing for the water of Lake Winnebago to thrash so violently as to cascade over the rocky shore. It was the summer Wisconsin version of our winter Duluth escapade in which a very agitated Lake Superior churned so dramatically. Forces of nature can be intriguing.

Speaking of my sister, I cashed a check that she sent me recently. I had lent her some money and she was paying me back. The memo on the check said, “For: Being my hero”, on which the banker commented. I told her that anyone who gives my sister money is her hero.

The reason this is funny to me is that I had previously thought that nobody ever read what was written in the memo. I didn’t think bankers would ever give it even a passive glance. It’s irrelevant information. So, under this assumption, when I was writing out a check to my sister-in-law, I put in the memo, “Drugs” which is immature, but I thought it was funny because Anna could never be suspected as a drug user. Maybe I’m easily entertained. Anyway, she hasn’t said anything about it so she may not have noticed or she may be wondering why that banker was eyeballing her so harshly that one time at the bank. I thought the worst thing that could happen is that she and the banker would have something to talk about. But maybe nobody noticed. Perhaps I will try “pornography” next time.

Insomnia

I am sitting here trying to manufacture inspiration within myself, trying to muster up some great, fun topic I can write about but no enlightening epiphany strikes me. I do this because I can feel that sleep, once again, will avoid me tonight as it has done so regularly in my relatively distant past. So I write, or aspire to, in order to consume time until weariness consumes me. Until recently, I had been finding sleep coming easily to me these past two years and nine months.

I understand these daytime naps I take only exacerbate the situation but during daylight hours fatigue weighs heavily on me, multiplying the force of gravity, and I inevitably succumb, often only briefly, to slumber. I require rejuvenation several times a day. I burn out like a malnourished, emaciated sloth climbing the tallest tree in the known universe.

Maybe I have hypoglycemia. Maybe I have grown weary of life itself. Either way, I am finding with more frequency that when the time comes for sleep – at night when it is natural -- gravity does not multiply, but divides, and I am too weightless to fall into my bed with any measure of comfortability.

It has not become a life-changing issue as of yet. I am getting plenty of sleep regardless of when it comes to me and most of the time it is within the parameters of my circadian rhythm. I am merely stating my concern that it could flower into a consuming and maddening issue once again, a brand new destroyer of peace that will, against my will, require my attention and effort.

I have mentioned earlier (not in the facebook note, but in this lengthy manuscript that encompasses all the segments of my musings which I occasionally post to facebook) that the Bible states, “Much study wearies the body”, and the Bible has never been wrong. I know from experience that this is true. Perhaps the proactive remedy is to study something an hour or so before bed. That is what I will do if this gets out of hand.

As for the time being, gravity has pressed itself upon me earlier than I had anticipated. My mind has slowed, or retarded if you will, and my typing errors have become even more frequent than they normally are. I fear my grammar has taken a dive as well but I can’t be sure, and I can’t trust myself to make the proper revisions. I am in a very different state of mind than I was when I began this segment a mere several minutes ago. Writing wearies the body. That is probably in the Bible as well. Another tactic I may employ. Goodnight.

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzz z zz   zzz     z z    zz z     z   z………….

Or so I thought. It has been about an hour since I wrote the last paragraph. Within that hour I tossed and turned from side to side, hallucinated little red bugs on my pillow, turned the lights on to see the bugs, realized I was hallucinating – or half dreaming rather – fairly soon because it has become standard, almost nightly routine, and woke up and got back on the computer. This blows.

Before, I had attributed lack of sleep to lack of physical action during the day. When I was sitting around all day I could not sleep at night because my body was not in need of recovery. But today I went to class, studied, ran an errand or two, worked out, and did my laundry. I was busy the whole day. There wasn’t much sitting around time. So I am not sure what else I can do. Sometimes after I rise from my bed after laying awake in it, I just keep busy for a while watching youtube videos or something non productive as such. Often times it doesn’t take much time before I am able to fall back into bed and find sleep, this time successfully. So I’ll give it another shot here. It better work. There is nothing more infuriating than not being able to sleep.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…………….

It worked. Not right away, but eventually I fell asleep. It is the following morning now. I did not suffer any further insectile hallucinations. I think I fell asleep around 2:00, woke up at around 3:30 for a minute or two and then fell back asleep, waking up for good at 8:00. Not bad, but I can do better. Any tricks anyone has for falling asleep, any advice at all, will be welcome. Jon says melatonin works well. I may pick some of that up if my insomniac trend continues. I can’t drink myself to sleep. It’s too expensive and I would probably wet the bed. Sometimes I dream of peeing in a giant bathroom full of urinals and when I wake up I AM peeing, but in my bed rather than in a giant bathroom full of urinals. This is actually fairly rare, thank goodness.

Strange

There are not enough places to park on campus. They must have realized this at some point because they recently decided to build a parking ramp. However, whereas they could have made it twice as tall, they opted for a measly two story ramp. Since I am not as rich as I tell women I am, I refuse to pay to park twice every weekday, therefore, I take the bus.

Usually class lets out about ten minutes before my bus arrives at the Miller Center to take me home (as if it commutes to and fro exclusively for my sake), so instead of standing around outside for ten minutes, I sit around inside for ten minutes. In a comfy chair that rests before a great window, I await my ride, and in the meantime I look at all the people walking into the Miller Center and I make various judgments about them.

Today, while I was judging people, there was a guy helping a girl with her homework just a few comfy chairs away from me. His intellectual aptitude far outweighed his social aptitude, but he was a courageous bugger. He asked the girl if she wanted to go to some kind of campus function – the name eludes me. She said, “Ummm…” while she thought of a polite way to decline. I think she settled on something like, “Na”.

He did not seem discouraged. They continued to study for another five minutes before he asked her a little more bluntly if she would like to go out with him for coffee or dinner sometime. She must have been a little embarrassed about it because her voice grew quieter and I could not entirely make out her response. It sounded like she may have possibly said something to the effect of, “I’m not really looking for that kind of thing right now” which is the typical way one is rejected by someone who is trying to make it easier on his or her unsecret admirer.

I’m not sure how he received this. I am loath to be a rubbernecker. I get angry at people who stare or gawk and I am disinclined to do it myself (unless they are unaware of me), no matter how interesting the situation, so I did not look over at them. I did not want them to notice that I noticed them. The guy was gathering his things to leave for another class when he asked her out the second time, so he left with a “take care” after being rejected and that was the end of it. It’s nothing to call the newspapers about but I found it amusing, probably because it reminded me that there are people out there who get shot down probably even more regularly than myself, which is an occurrence that absolutely baffles me. As perfect a man as I am, complete with general superiority and humility, I am stricken with befuddlement that ANY woman could possibly find the nerve to turn me down. But then, life has always been so strange.

Full of Crap

This morning, while I was pooping, a fecal epiphany struck me. It was not entirely fecal, but also concerned food and the gloriousness of the human being.

 It could be postulated that we as humans are rather disgusting creatures. We drip snot, accumulate ear wax, release gasses and stenches, and then of course the big one: poop. But this morning amidst my daily post-coffee pooping ritual, I realized that pooping doesn’t make us more hideous, but more beautiful.

Now, poop is nothing more than a loaf of food that has been sapped of its glory. Think of the vitality and richness of food before it is consumed. Apples are brilliant red, crispy, yet juicy. Meat is weighty and substantial, also juicy. A colorful salad is the epitome of health. Breads are fluffy and delightful. But when our bodies are through with these, they share the same fate; they all become a horrible, fetid mess, expelled in an unmentionable – yet for me, highly pleasurable – process.  

Although this seems to validate the claim that humans are revolting animals, I believe it argues to the contrary. You see, our human bodies are too glorious to hold on to food after we have absorbed its magnificent life force, so we expel it, keeping only its nutritious and marvelous elements. We are products of the crispiness of apples. We are the beefiness of meat, the vitality of fresh produce, the ripe sweetness of melons and berries – without all the extra crap, which we excrete. You see? In with the good, out with the bad. We are all that is good about food, poop is the remainder – all that is bad about it. So in a manner of speaking, poop is the opposite of humanity.

We do not poop because we are grotesque, we poop because we are glorious beings, and we cannot coexist with such filth, so we rid ourselves of it. This epiphany struck me with such force that I had to write it down immediately, lest my faulty memory deprive me of yet another parcel of wisdom. I barely had time to wipe, I was so excited. It is an amazing thing, isn’t it?

Shut Your Mouth

My previous rant about malodorous breath has not alleviated my agitation, but instead has reminded me of further causes of annoyance in my life. This other one is far worse, as it can most definitely be helped and is merely the product of absent-mindedness and bad manners. I call this atrocity, this affront to all that is proper, this Satanic practice: Open-mouth chewing.

Do you recall when in your childhood, other children, and perhaps yourself as well, would open their mouths and expose their thoroughly chewed food to you just to fill you with disgust? And did it not work? Ofcourse it did. Seeing food masticated and blended with saliva is repulsive, abnormal, and not meant for human eyes. If it was meant for us to see, we would have transparent cheeks. Now, if we didn’t want to see it then, why would we want to see it now? And why in the name of all that is holy would we want to hear it?

As mentioned earlier, this can be helped, which I believe contributes greatly to the annoyance it engenders in me. As open-mouth chewing is taking place, I am exasperatedly asking myself, “Why, oh why, can’t you just HEAR yourself chew and understand that this is inappropriate? What is so difficult to understand about this? Why don’t you do something about it?” But they go on, seeming to be absolutely oblivious to their own terrible, disgusting chewing practices.

It has occurred to me that some of them may recognize that they are being repulsive, but are just simply apathetic about it, which would be all the more offensive. Where is the dignity? The respect? The self-respect?

I have witnessed other people’s uncomfortability around open-mouth chewing and I know I do not stand alone here. I have witnessed some of these people attempt to bring it to the attention of the open-mouth chewer that he ought to shut his lips when he is noshing. The offender simply replies, “My lips are shut”, which is obviously not true, but to him it is. He literally doesn’t understand. He doesn’t get it. I suppose it is better to be ignorant than to intentionally aggravate those around you.

If you are an open-mouth masticator of food, do not be offended by this. Use it as a tidbit of the best advice you have ever heard and just shut your lips. The human body is a great thing, your mandible and teeth can move up and down all while your lips remain shut. Try it. With a little practice, you’ll get the hang of it. And TAKE NOTE of your habits. I think people often think they don’t have a problem with this because their lips are usually shut when they chew, but they don’t notice the times when they let their guard down and their mouth falls open and everyone within range is afflicted by the grotesque smacking, sucking, mushing sound of chewed food being stirred about inside a human mouth. Be wary, lest I snap one day and kill you to death.

Muslim and Confused

I was outside the Miller Center waiting for the Southeast Clipper to come take me home when I noticed two people. First, there was the guy with dreadlocks who lives in my apartment complex. I have never spoken with him, but he seems to be fairly normal. The other person I noticed was a white girl wearing one of those Muslim head wraps, whatever they’re called. I figured she was jumping on the Islam bandwagon, which Universities so ardently promote. It’s in style after all.  

After a while this girl approached the guy with dreadlocks and said something to the effect that she was bored so she was going to talk to him now. Dreadlocks, I’m sure thinking her as odd as I did, responded as concisely as possible. He was not eager to make a new friend. She asked him if he was bored and what he was doing. In a mumble, he said he was waiting for his ride home. He must have asked her where she was from or why she was wearing a head wrap thing because I heard her tell him that she was Somalian.

I think what I witnessed was just a case of a very confused girl. Yes, white people can originate from Somalia, but not white people who speak perfect English. And my suspicion of her confusion was confirmed a day or two later when I saw her donning a pink tutu (in addition to the Muslim getup).The abundant population of Somalians in St. Cloud must have intrigued her and ultimately influenced her to adopt their manner of dress. I feel for people who cannot socially function, people whose social skills are even less adequate than my own. She certainly was odd, but at least seemed to be mercifully oblivious to it.

The bus came fairly quickly after she initiated the conversation and I think Dreadlocks was happy to leave. I’m glad that I got to see that little exchange though. I have been witness to a few awkward situations between people lately. Yesterday I think I saw, yet again, a guy hit on a girl at Caribou on campus. He was more socially apt than the last flirtatious guy I saw, but still it seemed as though his intentions came to nothing. I didn’t hear the actual conversation, but they went their separate ways without any apparent significant connection having been made.

A few years ago, I worked in a grocery store. There came a time when management hired some new employees. One of these approached me one day and asked me what my name was. I said, “Bill”. She told me she didn’t like that name and that from that day forward, my name would no longer be Bill, but Rex. Humoring her, I smiled and went along with it as I am loath to reject or alienate anyone, but it did occur to me that she was a bit unusual. 

I typically do not initiate conversation with anyone, but in the Performing Arts Center where I was waiting in the hallway for my introductory piano instructor to arrive and unlock the door to the classroom, a guy waiting for the same class noticed the white patch on my beard and wondered how it “happened”. People seem to think it is the result of an injury. A guy at the grocery store said it looked “painful”. This baffles me. How does white hair look painful? Still, I prefer this to being told that I look like Justin Timberlake, which has also happened in a grocery store on more than one occasion.

I told the guy waiting for class with me that it was just genetic, but that I tell people it’s an acid burn. He said, “Oookaaaaaay” as if I was an idiot. I did not take offense to this as he was one of those loner types (as I am, but with me it’s cool) and was as socially inept as the white Somalian bus stop girl, which is what brought him to mind to begin with. I mention these things because sometimes we feel socially inadequate, but compared to a lot of people, we are gregarious people persons. Not that I would refer to myself as a people person, but at least I have not decided to claim to be Somalian in some fit of mental instability (God bless her). And that makes me happy. 

To My Horror

I have a habit of patting my pocket to confirm that my keys are nestled safely within before I leave anywhere, even if I know they are in there. Today, as I was leaving Wal-Mart (God’s gift to mankind) I was stricken with horror upon finding my pocket flat and empty, meaning that I had loc ked my keys in my car. I checked the other pocket as well, finding it in the same condition – devoid of anything metallic and practical. This maddening discovery facilitated a wicked strand of curse words from my mouth, and although they were under my breath, I’m fairly certain that my lips were moving a little, possibly drawing apprehensive concern from passersby.

Hope rushed in to combat my anxiety. Maybe I forgot to lock the doors. Maybe one of the wires was loose and the corresponding door didn’t lock. Maybe I could just yank it really hard and tear it open with my uncommon strength. Maybe grandpa kept a spare key hidden under his bumper (it’s his old car).

                When I arrived at my car my fears were confirmed. The doors were all locked, holding my keys captive within. I got down on my back and searched beneath the bumper for a spare key and found none. I did, however, get a good sized flake of rust in my eye. After squinting it out, I resorted to my more irrational hopes. I tried to jerk the door open in hopes that the locking mechanism was shoddy. Obviously, that did not work. It occurred to me to put my fist through one of the more inexpensive windows like I had done to my brother’s car at his suggestion. But I thought it would be cheaper to call a locksmith.

An epiphany struck me then. I could just go into Wal-Mart and buy a set of wire clothes hangers and some door stops to wedge the door open a crack and then use a hanger to pull the lock up into its unlocked position. Luckily, this incident occurred at Wal-Mart where everything on Earth is sold. I went back in, found my tools, returned to my car, and got started.

The door stop wedged the door open enough to afford the hanger some space to worm its way in. At first, the hanger would not push past that rubber thing between the door and frame and so I cursed some more. Eventually I found the correct angle and was able to push it through. The next step was to slide it toward the front of the door where the lock was. Because the door stops I had so recently purchased were inadequate for this step, I found myself struggling quite a bit with little progress to show for it, and so I cursed some more.

When I finally got the hanger – the end of which I had fashioned into a hook to catch the lock – to where it had to be, I discovered that it was nearly impossible to maneuver. I struggled with this for a while. The sun was setting and even though it’s October, mosquitoes had sniffed me out and buzzed around my head, sucking my blood when my guard was down.

I wish I could describe the irrationally frenetic manner in which I attacked this stubborn door. I was sincerely losing my cool and perhaps even went temporarily and subtly insane. A thin sheen of sweat beaded all over me and I cursed some more, and some more, and some more.

I caught a girl’s reflection in the window. Unaware that I had noticed her reflected image in my window, she stared for quite some time. It had previously occurred to me that breaking into a car – even my own – may look a little suspicious. She certainly seemed to think so. Most people knew what was up. A man said, “That sucks” to which I replied, “Yes it does”. He inquired as to where I had gotten the wire and I told him that I went in and bought it, which made him giggle a manly giggle.

After several attempts and several failures, running into new problems with regularity, I began to succumb to hopelessness and said a little prayer requesting some divine intervention. A few minutes and several curses later, a woman and her husband came by and offered to lend me their phone if I needed to call someone. I figured there wouldn’t be anyone that could help me seeing as how the only spare key I had was locked inside the car. I thanked them but said that I almost had it, which was almost true. After they left, I thought, “Damn, maybe that was an answered prayer that I disregarded”. I thought maybe it was time to call a locksmith.

Several times when I had the hook of the wire on the lock, it would flail off in some unlikely direction. Eventually I learned that once the hook was near the lock, I had to be very careful, volatile as the warped, wobbly and twisted hanger was. The next time I got the hook near the lock, I acted as though I was dealing with sensitive explosives. The hook would find its place and I would freeze and stifle my curses and pray to God that He would just latch it on there for me and that would be that. And then when I attempted to pull the hanger up, and the lock with it, it would slip off the lock and I would not be able to stuff the thing back down.

Eventually a guy in his thirties with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth came strolling by and asked if I needed help. Because I had learned from my last mistake not to refuse help, I took him up on his offer. He noted that the door stops were not wedging the door open enough for smoother maneuvering of the hanger and he went to get a crow bar from his car. Not finding it, he returned with a screw driver, with which we made due. He wedged it between the door and its frame and with that added space I found some dexterity with the hanger and within seconds the lock popped up.

I thanked the guy and wept tears of great relief. Not really, but I was very relieved. I would not have been surprised if he had sprouted wings and flown up into the clouds, strumming a harp with a halo around his head. I’m never too keen on working with other people, but as it turns out, all I needed was someone to pry the door open further so that I could get at that freaking lock. I’m glad it’s over, now that I have unnecessarily cursed myself into damnation.

God's Will

It seems to me that to adopt God’s will and stifle our own is nothing more than to acknowledge that He knows what is the best course of action to be taken, what will ultimately bring about the highest degree of happiness and goodness. I so often hear the importance of denying ourselves and submitting to His will being stressed and it fills me with apprehension. I never thought I could do it. What will He require of me? What is His terrible will? I will not be a puppet! I am my own man!

All this reluctance to conform to the desires of God has been in vain. To submit to His will is no different and no more daunting than to take good advice. It may be difficult when dealing with more severe issues. Surely, the less we trust Him, the more difficult it may be. But in general, it is a simple and pleasurable thing to do. Unfortunately, sometimes this becomes apparent only in retrospect.

What is the worst thing that could result from conforming to His will? You get a job and find financial security? You donate to the poor and find some respect for yourself? You don’t have promiscuous sex with that person and avoid getting syphilis? Sure, you didn’t get to relieve yourself of some sexual tension. What a bummer. But you will never see the huge consequence that you avoided by following the will of God. Had you refused to do so, you would have been afflicted with a very nasty STD. I do not speak from experience.

THAT is the reason for trust. We are ignorant of the horrors we are avoiding in our submission to His will. We need to entirely eradicate from our minds the concept that He lords these rules over us just to control us like a tyrant. If absolute control is what He wanted, we would have no free will. He is only looking out for us. We are dumb. Few would deny it. We need guidance. In obedience – as unattractive as it may seem to us – we have it.  

Texting

My bus arrives at school fifteen minutes before I need it to and I am left waiting for class to start for the duration of those fifteen minutes on a daily basis. I often sit on a bench in the hallway waiting for my music class to start. Today, the benches were occupied, so I stood next to them and stared at the wall with the intention of doing so until the current class in session let out and we could enter the auditorium and take our seats, but a girl came and stood right in front of the spot I was staring at. I could not very well stand there glaring into her face for fifteen minutes, so I pretended to be interested in other areas of the hallway. Eventually, this became a tiresome task and rather than pretend to be interested in the little knick knacks on the walls and behind the display case, I pretended that I had some pressing matter to tend to and I went outside where I found a spot in the sun to sit and wait for class to begin.

Campus is without fail exceedingly busy at this time of day and there was an infinite river of human bodies flowing in a multidirectional current, much of which came my way. Something in us is opposed to the idea of sitting and staring into oblivion in front of people. Perhaps it makes us feel stupid. I really can’t identify any reason it should be an issue, but I know I am not the only one who feels this way.

I used a very popular method to remedy this uncomfortability. I pulled my cell phone out of my backpack and texted people out of boredom. I could have used the keyboard to accelerate the process of texting, but I opted to use the much slower, alphabetized numeric keypad on the face of my phone. I had time to kill. As slowly as possible, I formed some meaningless message and then sent it to my sister, who often exploits me in the same manner.  

I’ve seen others do this as well. They don’t know what else to do. They do not want to sit and stare, because for some reason that is lame, so they haul out their cell phones and maybe fumble around with them a little before finally texting somebody just because. I do not think it’s an attention deficit because I personally could sit and stare for hours, thinking about any number of things, without becoming anxious. I think that a possibility is that even the best of us feel some measure of anxiety in public – even if it be subconscious and unnoticed anxiety – and being fidgety, we feel as though we must do something.

Doesn’t matter anyway. Just some speculation.

Public Speakers

Have you ever encountered a speaker who treated the audience like they were kindergarteners? And did they, in return, respond like kindergarteners? I feel as though I am the only one who is annoyed by this practice and am the sole person in any given crowd who refuses to participate. I will explain.

I have been to different meetings that have featured speakers. Sometimes these speakers seem to be on power trips. For example, they may say, “Did you know that every year over forty billion square miles of rainforest are bulldozed?” And they will then force your participation by saying something like, “Say it with me now: Forty billion square miles”. Other times, they will make their audience repeat certain individual key words. “Now, the process of water vapor molecules condensing onto aerosols is called condensation. Everybody say “condensation”.  And what is surprising to me is that almost everybody does say “condensation” like a bunch of developmentally stunted children trapped in the bodies of adults.

Why encourage these control-freak speakers? Am I the only one who sits there silently with my arms crossed wondering what in God’s name the benefit of repeating a word could be? This is acceptable in second grade. In adulthood, it is not. The only logical conclusion I can arrive at as to the motivation of these speakers to evoke a response in unison from the crowd is that they – although most likely unintentionally – enjoy the feeling of power that is derived from controlling the masses, in even the most insignificant way. It also may instill within them a feeling of confidence that they are not being boring speakers. They may feel that as long as the audience is participating – albeit forced participation – they are doing a good job.

Whatever their motivation, I find it unacceptably annoying. The unacceptability of it lies within the sheer pointlessness of the practice. An audience repeating a word or phrase they have just heard serves no practical purpose and is entirely unnecessary. So, if you are a speaker, please stop doing this. I am only a man. I can only take so much. One day I will snap, and on that day it would be in your best interest not to be the speaker who through verbal controlling mechanisms attempted to force my participation. I will lose control and succumb to an insane fury, unleashing my wrath by saying something terrible like, “Golly dang it, I have had just about enough!” And that’ll learn you good.

Three varieties of stinkmouth

I wonder if I have bad breath. I do not think that I typically do, although everybody does at least once in a while. I take great pains to avoid this condition as it is extremely bothersome to me when I am the victim of someone else’s breathing.

I have been able to identify at least three categories of stinkmouth. There is sour breath, cat food breath, and poo breath. Cat food breath is the most common that I am bombarded by. It sometimes slithers from someone’s mouth into my nostrils when I am on the bus, sometimes when I am sitting in class. At least when I’m on the bus I know that it will end soon, but class is a much longer ride. I am left inhaling through my mouth, which I also don’t relish because although I can’t taste it, I don’t want other people’s bad breath in my mouth.

Poo breath is a rarer variety, but arguably the most potent. At the beginning of last semester I sat next to a guy with poo breath – and he was a chronic yawner. After a week I realized he was in that seat to stay, with no prospects of relocating. So the following Tuesday I took a new seat on the other side of the room. Not to be mean, but this was a mathematics course and I had to be able to concentrate. And breathe.

Cat food breath is no fun, but it is not as intolerable as poo breath or sour breath. Sour breath is an odor similar to vomit. People with these breath problems have not figured out that they can do a massive service to their fellow humans by simply ceasing to be mouth breathers, and instead breathe through their noses. Bad breath doesn’t escape through the nose, it is a product of the mouth. So be wary of yawning, whispering, or talking within a close proximity to your neighbor. Chew gum often and for God’s sake, brush your teeth AND tongue on a bi-daily basis. Get way back there. Gargle too. Swallow it if you have to. Spare us. Minimize the damage. Please.