I've been gone for a couple of weeks, mourning that I now feel older than I did three weeks ago, and my list of questions just keeps getting longer. As we've aged, many of my friends and I talk about how quickly time passes and how little sense it makes. The thing is, time passes one day at a time. So how we fill any specific day is the only thing that determines whether time passing is a good or bad thing. I hope that the things which make us happy are short term memories and not only things from our distant past. And remember to question everything-most of what we see is not what it seems. So, here goes....
1. There is a commercial for my favorite retailer to bitch about in which the hawker has tables of delicious summer fruits, all sliced for a group of "man on the street" taste tests. At the end he reveals to these unsuspecting taste testers that all the produce comes from WalMart. There is one customer who registers great surprise on his face. BEFORE THE HAWKER FINISHES SAYING HIS PIECE! One of the rules I was taught as a young drama student doing plays was, "Never answer the phone before it rings."
2. A friend needed to borrow some syrup recently. When she came to get it, I had an unopened bottle of dark corn syrup that I was going to offer her. As we stood talking, I noticed that the bottle has a disclaimer on it that says, "No high fructose corn syrup." I still can't wrap my head around that one. Corn syrup contains no high fructose corn syrup? Somebody help me-this makes my head hurt.
3. Many people are asking why we no longer talk to each other, but use texting and social media for all of our conversations. Has anyone else observed the reason for that? I've made a couple of actual calls on my mobile phone this week, once in the car and once in a public place, and it is almost impossible to hear on it. My hearing is not bad, so it's not being old and "deef" as some in the south call it. You just can't hear on these things. So text me if you really want to talk. Or send me a tweet or FB message. Because your call is very important to me. :-) I want to savor every word.
4. There is a television program on about lawyers. While that's nothing new, this particular one, called "Suits" is particularly bad. In that it takes every single negative stereotype about lawyers and multiplies them exponentially. Ugly stereotypes about lawyers are not new. Many years ago I read a book of Celtic folk tales, and one of those even made fun of the low morals and questionable honesty of barristers, so this is not new. But "Suits" takes it to such an extreme that I keep asking, why hasn't some lawyer sued?
5. This is not really a question, but a form of journaling a great fear of mine. All my shrinks have said that if one does not journal, it's hard to get feelings under control, and fear is one of the feelings I want to control more than any other...well, except regret. Anyway, historians, pundits, philosophers and analysts tell us that there are cycles in the story of human civilizations. There will be a moderate cycle, that leads to a libertine cycle, and then back to a very conservative cycle. We are probably in the moderate cycle right now, but moving toward the libertine, and I'm afraid. You see, I remember the 80s. I remember the Reagan years. In fact, I voted for Ronald Reagan for president. Please, stifle your gasps, my liberal friends. I was misguided, but found the light, during those self-same days. During the Reagan administration I began to see that "trickle down economics" don't, and the explosion of homelessness made me very sad in that terrible decade. Then let's think about the belligerence of the administration, and its secrecy. But these are not the source of my fear. My fear is going back to that horrible conservatism as a backlash to the current popularity of...TWERKING!!!! For any who don't know, twerking is a dance move, not terribly new, but becoming ubiquitous, with excessively sexual movements, holding most of the body motionless, bent at the knee, legs apart, quickly, repeatedly moving the hips back and forward. (I didn't do that description justice, I'm sure.) Now there are YouTube videos showing many people twerking their dogs...this has got to stop. Kids, you don't want to take us back to the 80s, do you? My dad already complains that the dancing on "Dancing With the Stars" is too overtly sexual. If he ever sees twerking I hope Mom has a home defibrillator handy. Please, young people, can we stop this before it's too late?
1. There is a commercial for my favorite retailer to bitch about in which the hawker has tables of delicious summer fruits, all sliced for a group of "man on the street" taste tests. At the end he reveals to these unsuspecting taste testers that all the produce comes from WalMart. There is one customer who registers great surprise on his face. BEFORE THE HAWKER FINISHES SAYING HIS PIECE! One of the rules I was taught as a young drama student doing plays was, "Never answer the phone before it rings."
2. A friend needed to borrow some syrup recently. When she came to get it, I had an unopened bottle of dark corn syrup that I was going to offer her. As we stood talking, I noticed that the bottle has a disclaimer on it that says, "No high fructose corn syrup." I still can't wrap my head around that one. Corn syrup contains no high fructose corn syrup? Somebody help me-this makes my head hurt.
3. Many people are asking why we no longer talk to each other, but use texting and social media for all of our conversations. Has anyone else observed the reason for that? I've made a couple of actual calls on my mobile phone this week, once in the car and once in a public place, and it is almost impossible to hear on it. My hearing is not bad, so it's not being old and "deef" as some in the south call it. You just can't hear on these things. So text me if you really want to talk. Or send me a tweet or FB message. Because your call is very important to me. :-) I want to savor every word.
4. There is a television program on about lawyers. While that's nothing new, this particular one, called "Suits" is particularly bad. In that it takes every single negative stereotype about lawyers and multiplies them exponentially. Ugly stereotypes about lawyers are not new. Many years ago I read a book of Celtic folk tales, and one of those even made fun of the low morals and questionable honesty of barristers, so this is not new. But "Suits" takes it to such an extreme that I keep asking, why hasn't some lawyer sued?
5. This is not really a question, but a form of journaling a great fear of mine. All my shrinks have said that if one does not journal, it's hard to get feelings under control, and fear is one of the feelings I want to control more than any other...well, except regret. Anyway, historians, pundits, philosophers and analysts tell us that there are cycles in the story of human civilizations. There will be a moderate cycle, that leads to a libertine cycle, and then back to a very conservative cycle. We are probably in the moderate cycle right now, but moving toward the libertine, and I'm afraid. You see, I remember the 80s. I remember the Reagan years. In fact, I voted for Ronald Reagan for president. Please, stifle your gasps, my liberal friends. I was misguided, but found the light, during those self-same days. During the Reagan administration I began to see that "trickle down economics" don't, and the explosion of homelessness made me very sad in that terrible decade. Then let's think about the belligerence of the administration, and its secrecy. But these are not the source of my fear. My fear is going back to that horrible conservatism as a backlash to the current popularity of...TWERKING!!!! For any who don't know, twerking is a dance move, not terribly new, but becoming ubiquitous, with excessively sexual movements, holding most of the body motionless, bent at the knee, legs apart, quickly, repeatedly moving the hips back and forward. (I didn't do that description justice, I'm sure.) Now there are YouTube videos showing many people twerking their dogs...this has got to stop. Kids, you don't want to take us back to the 80s, do you? My dad already complains that the dancing on "Dancing With the Stars" is too overtly sexual. If he ever sees twerking I hope Mom has a home defibrillator handy. Please, young people, can we stop this before it's too late?
1 comment:
I never thought I'd long for the days of disco. Until twerking came along!
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