10/30 – NaBloPoMo09 – The Fabric of Time, or Why Not To Bother Setting People Up

When you hear phrases like “Time marches on” or ‘Time waits for no man,” you might begin to think that time flows on irregardless of your needs or wants in life.

Time, though, has a mind of its own.  I can’t wait for the day that a Nobel-level physicist discovers and proves scientifically that which I know intuitively – Time is a bitchy seventh grade girl who runs the universe like Stacy F. used to run the junior high.  The question is, now that I’ve been out of 7th grade for 25 years, and have escaped the influence of that sphere, (Well, can we ever truly escape?  That’s another blog…) is it possible to escape the random and cruel influence of time on our lives?  Time doesn’t work irregardless of your needs – time figures out your individual needs and runs at a different rate just for you to mess you up.  The it sits in the back of the social studies class with the other cool kids laughs while you try to pick up the shards of your shattered aspirations.

These thoughts flow from a simple fact – I was granted an extra day today.  Time must have been looking the other way or torturing someone else for a change, because I thought today was going to be tomorrow, and boy was I surprised to find that it isn’t.  It’s Wednesday today.  If it had been Thrusday, like it will be tomorrow, I would be finishing packing for the beautiful Sawyer MN, Bill would be heading off to Camp Courage, and I would be wondering how time can go so fast.

I know I should make use of this found time, but I will probably whittle it away wondering what to do…and this is where Not Bothering To Set People Up comes in.  It takes forever to orchestrate two people meeting each other, and it never seems to be worth the effort.  I have had one, count it, one, time that I introduced a couple and it worked. So I know I can put that on my list of things not to do today.

I guess I had beginners luck that time.  Usually what happens when you set someone up is that suddenly your eyes are opened to the unattractive aspects of your friends.  And who wants to have that realization?  I don’t care if my friends are attractive or not.  I just want them to be fun to hang out with and laugh with.  Even with my found day today, there isn’t enough time to sit and pick everyone apart.

Well, that’s all I’ve got.  I hope you have a nice day and that Time doesn’t steal your lunch money.

8/30 – NaBloPoMo – Emotional Vertigo

I have been a do-gooder all my life.  Always wanting the best, the ideal.  Not materially, but spiritually.  I revel in good deeds, in participating in a successful endeavor that will do no less than change the world.  The next right thing is my mantra.  Joy is being useful, helping people.  I want to do good and seek out the good in others.  I want to be the first to catch a glimpse see it, coerce it out if it’s latent.  Maybe this is why I am a teacher.

Lately, I have been experiencing something strange – a confusion, a dizzying mental drag causing me to sway in my belief in humankind.  It’s as debilitating as the vertigo I used to occasionally suffer, but again, it’s spiritual and emotional.  A doctor once explained vertigo to me as a brain’s confusion between reality and its perception of reality.  If the muscles in my neck are too tense and a breeze caresses them in just the right way, my brain will believe that I am falling although I am simply standing or sitting.

Emotional vertigo, I posit, is the confusion in my brain that arises when my ideals are brushed by even the lightest hushed wind of a disappointing human reality.  When my expectations of something or someone I’ve idealized are met with non-ideal reality, my emotions swoon inside.  My elbows tingle, I mix up words as I try to speak, I weep without direct cause.

The cure for physical vertigo that has worked for me is to stretch my neck and to ice those muscles.  I am still seeking the cure for ’emotigo’ – I know that the disillusionment will not last.  Reality may not be ideal, but it’s not bad either – somehow to stretch my mental muscles and reset back to reality.  Perhaps vacation will do the trick.