Nonsense

How not to watch the game (Part I)

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kibbie_dome copyI had a college boyfriend who lived by the principle that if one expects the worst from life, he’ll never be disappointed. I told myself he was a philosopher.

Not surprisingly, this guy was kind of a bummer to be around. I cannot fathom why I didn’t tell him to shine on after our first date. For some reason, I was terribly worried that, with as little as he had going for him, he’d find me lacking.

Anyway, this isn’t about him, or where my head was while I was dating him.

This piece actually started to be about making decisions based on love rather than on fear, and expecting the best. I was inspired by a clip from a commencement address Jim Carrey gave at some school for existential transcendental meditators or something.

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Nonsense

The one that (should have) got away

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fish_storyShe balances on a weathered, half submerged snag. The water runs cold and clear over a carpet of undulating crimson – hundreds of the river’s namesake fish.

I wonder, she thinks, dipping in one foot, then another. The cold stings, then numbs in seconds. She holds still as the bodies scatter and return to the shade of the snag. She bends, sliding her hand over one, feeling it writhe from her grasp, trying another. She finds no purchase on the slippery scales until the scars of a third provide traction. She straightens, holding a writhing trophy by the tail.

“Dad,” she yells.

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Nonsense

This is why I need help

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maidTuesday night we had a dinner party for ten.

I borrowed silverware from mom. We have exactly five complete sets that were wedding presents, some mismatched stuff from college, pieces other have people must have left here, and silverware I brought in to wash after last summer’s camping season, and forgot to put back with the gear I stowed for winter.

I’m not sure how I’ve gone so long without more complete sets of silverware. I could find ten matching dinner plates and desert plates and glasses and cloth napkins. But if mom hadn’t come over with silverware, we’d have used plastic cutlery.

Dinner for ten on Tuesday meant the prior weekend was dedicated to making this place look less like a bunch of marauding baboons live here.

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Nonsense

By the way, Namaste

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flagsA little while ago, Mike and I spent the morning with a group of emotional teenagers.

… Sorry, that’s redundant. I meant “more emotional than usual, even given the teen thing.”

We were chaperoning a group of kids on year-long exchanges from all corners of the globe. On a regular basis during the year, these kids would leave their various host homes scattered across Idaho to gather in a central location. They bonded, comparing notes on their new lives in mostly rural places they may previously believed were only contrived as a setting for Napoleon Dynamite.

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Nonsense

Maturity is overrated

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storm_troopersThis weekend we were at a conference with a bunch of people I sincerely enjoy being around, and one person in particular I’m trying to avoid. Because apparently I lack the maturity God gave a fifth grader. He ticked me off earlier this year and owes me a conversation.

I know he knows.

I know he knows I know.

Instead of talking about this thing, we passed each other, again and again, with a quick “hey you, how the heck are you?” and kept moving. We’re both really very busy people.

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Nonsense

Papa’s got a brand new bag

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cowboy_upMike has a picture somewhere of himself standing with his sister, mom, and dad next to a sign shaped like Idaho. He is five years old and wearing the same wide grin we get from Colin when he poses for a picture. His sister is wearing short shorts and his dad has the most awesome moustache ever. His brother isn’t in the shot. He was holding the camera.

It is unofficial documentation of their emigration, forty years ago, to the place most of them have continued to live since.  Not long after, Mike’s two oldest brothers and their wives came out to join them.

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Nonsense

Take this job …

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This month Jack is schlepping around, looking for someone who will hire a fifteen year old with no experience. He has very high standards. Nothing in food service, or with pets, kids or yardwork. He’d like full time with a little more than minimum wage.

Something having to do with playing video games all day would be ideal.

Remember your first job? How about your first few? At Jack’s age, I was still babysitting people’s horribly behaved children for about a buck an hour and pilfering whatever goodies they stocked in their cupboards. I also walked dogs and cleaned pools.

There were okay jobs and there were less than okay jobs.

Then there were the truly extraordinary …

Suckiest Jobs Of All Time.

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Nonsense

It’s either this or interpretive dance

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why_writeLast week I spent a couple days at a conference for writers, the same conference which last year inspired me to quit neglecting this poor blog.

There was plenty of inspiration this year too.

What’s rather uninspiring is how the craft of writing raises the question of publishing, and a need to understand an industry that grants commercial success in seemingly equal measure to the Hemingways of this world as it does to the folks who continue to bring us vampire lit.

So, you know, there were moments at that conference that were less uplifting than others.

I blame all the schmoes who are supposed to be buying books, but are more interested in celebrity fat-shaming tabloid photos, or reality television.

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Nonsense

The Tree I Be

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERALater this month I have a retreat with a group of ladies who serve on a board with me. We’re supposed to take a personality quiz beforehand and bring the results with us.

I love these things. I don’t know why. I take them and then read over the results and think “yup, that about sums it up,” and then I wonder if other results might also sound exactly like me, depending upon my mood, and if I’ve skewed the test by just answering stuff the way I want to be rather than the way I am. Then I forget what I was doing and go do something else. Eventually I forget what the results were altogether.

Never mind using these test results to make me a better person. I can never remember if I’m an ENTP, or Vermillion/Periwinkle, or an aspen versus a douglas fir, Yoda or Princes Leah, or what any of it means.

I do know I’m a Virgo, but I think I’m supposed to be a Leo who was too lazy to be born on time. Leo’s horoscopes are always the most interesting. Virgo is supposed to be systematically checking stuff off her list, earthy and patient.

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Nonsense

DIY or Don’t You Dare

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ceiling_tinA few weeks ago, Mike and I were shopping for an office desk. Actually, what we wanted wasn’t a desk, per se, but more of a cocktail table, for standing at the computer (with or without said cocktail), with room underneath for storage. We found one at a consignment shop. It was a shade darker than the cabinets in the room. There were a couple of dings in the finish.

“You know, we could paint the legs one color, and kind of sand it, to distress the paint,” I said. “And then paint the top a glossy black or brown, and then cover it with maps and postcards and stuff, and then top that with a glass dust cover.”

“That would look great,” Mike said.

Then we looked at each other with those excited smiles and raised eyebrows that say, yup, that’s certainly a great idea. What would make it even greater is if someone would come and actually do it for us. And by “even greater” I mean, “actually happen…”

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