I remind myself of the good advice I gave myself just yesterday about picking your battles.
It took me from ten to three today to successfully schedule a single appointment, which, coincidently, were the exact odds against my success of dealing with this particular office at all.
So at least I beat the odds, and did so, not so coincidently, right as I felt the urge to beat something.
So there is that.
. . . somehow you inadvertently signed up for an intensive course in “The Importance Of Picking Your Battles Instead Of Them Picking You”?
The good news is I seem to be in the running for at least passing the course this time around. Yes, I’ve passed it in the past, but this seems to be the one course in life I’ve always felt the particular need to take refresher, after refresher . . . after refresher. It’s actually a bit annoying, since it keeps taking time away from me taking that sex addiction course(1) I’ve always wanted to take.
(1) Do I really need to point out the conspicuous absence of the word “curing” in that sentence?
But it’s pretty darn close:
Presented as a public service announcement on behalf of the Prevention Of The Phrase “Why Does It Always Seem Like I Hear About These Things Too Late” Foundation.
Well . . . “interesting” in the loosest sense of the word, I mean.
Because my blog entries are almost always stream of consciousness, even what I’m choosing not to write about frequently comes through, and can unintentionally reveal things like the stress I was under last week. It wasn’t stress directly related to the editing (though it contributed), and it’s still not something I’m going to be writing about at this time (later though, you can bank on it), but glancing over my recent entries again I was struck by just how much they revealed about my fluctuating mood. In fact, it was glancing over them that made me decide the best thing I could do for myself as I approach the end of the editing is to take the pressure off myself yesterday.
And let me tell you, interesting or not, after spending three hours this morning for my car to be serviced, it may have been one of the best decisions I ever made. (For the record, the service was just scheduled maintenance, and given everything that needed to be done, it was actually done sooner than I expected, but it was still a three hour wait.)
“Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer.”
— Leonardo DaVinci
Most of us have probably heard the phrase “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
Well, roughly paraphrasing a question I received earlier today, it was put to me that while the above was pretty good advice, it seems to leave out the idea of sexual potency, and did I know any phrases about sexual potency?
My answer?
“Early to bed and early to rise . . .”
(Think about it.)
When it comes right down to it, the fact is that the Earth remains perpetually uninterested in things that occupy so much of our own interest, things like money or debating who’s right and who’s wrong. I’ve followed the climate change debate for years, and I know what I think the evidence indicates, but I also understand that evidence isn’t strong enough to convince everyone, particularly those with money on the line.
I understand this.
The Earth doesn’t.
The Earth won’t care one way or the other if we chose to mark Earth Day with more jokes about “global warming, hippies, and Al Gore.” The Earth won’t care that if a hundred years down the line or so, we’re all laughing because it turns out it was just a big joke after all; that it turns out there really was nothing to worry about. The Earth won’t laugh with us.
And it won’t cry if it turns out it wasn’t a joking matter after all.
We will.
Happy Earth Day.
(Link Safe-For-Work when I made it, but since it’s Urban Dictionary, status is subject to change. You’ve been warned.)
Because however you define it, I’m probably not going to ask. In fact, the most I’m likely to do is find a roundabout way to let you know that the way I generally figure it, if you wanted me to know more, then you’d have told me. In other words, this is my annoying response to what I find to be an annoying habit; never to be misconstrued as a lack of interest or an unwillingness to listen . . . but you’ll probably have to tell me more directly than that.
(To counterbalance the recent string of cynicism.)
Robert Englund auditioned for the part of Luke Skywalker.
Now, I realize that if Englund had been cast, he probably wouldn’t have been cast as Freddy Krueger, and yet . . .
I can’t help but imagine a world where Luke Skywalker and Freddy Krueger were portrayed by the same actor, and how that might have changed movie history, particularly assuming A Nightmare on Elm Street released before Return of the Jedi. It didn’t in our world, so for the sake of example just assume there were scheduling conflicts that delayed Jedi, and we might have been able to see something like this:
Jabba the Hutt: “Give the creepy Jedi whatever he wants.”
Bib Fortuna (Jabba’s Majordomo): “Sir?”
Jabba the Hutt: “I’m a thousand-pound slug with a glandular condition; except for when I’m eating, I sleep all the time! Give. Him. What. He. WANTS!”
Of course, what “Freddy Skywalker” would want would be to see Jabba dead, Boba Fett shoved down the throat of the Sarlacc (Do I really need all these links?), and Jabba’s pleasure barge destroyed for bad measure, so maybe it wouldn’t have been that different after all.
After some reflection, I very much fear my cynical thought on Friday wasn’t cynical enough. Upon reflection, I suspect that political discourse has not in fact “devolved,” but has remained unchanged since the heydays of Athens and Sparta.
At least.
Candles & Curses 