Category Archives: Deep Thoughts

No, not the ones in Game of Thrones. (I know, Aria getting what she wants, if you know what I mean, right?)

I’ve occasionally bemoaned missing a day’s post – let’s take it as a given that I’m ever so slightly psychotic and anal and go from there, shall we? And I’m trying to to bitch about it, it only happens once a year or so on average, so quit being slightly psychotic and anal, all right? An excellent plan!

I knew that I had missed posting on the 24th, but I let it slide. No elevated blood pressure. No angst.

I – am – a – calm – pool…

Then something caught my eye today. I apparently missed posting on the 12th and the 18th as well, and I was 100% blissfully ignorant of it?!

I  –  AM  –  A  –  FREAKIN’  –  CALM  –  POOL  –  DAMN  –  IT!!

At this point it’s not really that I missed posting three times in a two-week period (gee, phrasing it that way doesn’t help, does it?), it’s that I missed the first warning sign, and the second. Which immediately begs the point…

How many other warning signs am I missing?

Breathe. In. Out. Use that Apple Watch thingie to focus on my breathing and while I’m at it, please stop cussing out the Apple Watch thingie. Besides, I doubt it’s physically possible for it to do that since it doesn’t have that orifice. Just sayin’…

Be calm. Listen to some music. What do I like? What’s my go-to music for being calm. What do I listen to about twice a week just to make me happy and calm me down?

“Hamilton.”

Wait, it’s been how many weeks since I listened to “Hamilton”?

I  –  AM  –  A  –  FREAKIN’  –  CALM  –  POOL  –  DAMN  –  IT!! (“Calm pool” bursts into flames…)

“The world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self-awareness.” – Annie Savoy, “Bull Durham”

There are so, so, SO many excellent quotes from this movie, quotes for every occasion. In trying to put my finger on my current mood (and sort out the mood from the exhaustion) being in the midst of this week/month/year, this one came to mind.

I have a great deal of admiration for those who can be at the center of the whirlwind, a hundred bazillion crises flying around them like bullets in the biggest firefight in history, and they remain focused, calm (or at least, not panicked, which may be the same thing), and functional.

I have very little admiration but a fair amount of envy (which is a sin, and not one I’m proud of in this moment) for those in the center of the whirlwind who remain “calm” because they have no freaking idea what’s going on.

There was an old cartoon (Loony Tunes? I can’t find it now) where a bulldog is babysitting a toddler. The crawling toddler goes from one dangerous, life-threatening, ludicrous situation after another while the dog desperately tries to keep up and keep the baby safe, all the while being pummeled and smashed himself. Through traffic. Onto girders being hoisted up onto a skyscraper construction site. And so on.

That’s what I’m talking about. Maybe those people are lucky, maybe they’re truly clueless, maybe they’re “blessed.” Whatever. They wander through the whirlwind and come out the other side without a scratch or a hair out of place and probably an extra $20 bill stuffed into a loose pocket for good measure. Meanwhile, I’m fighting to get through and find shelter, dodging every bit of SPFX debris from “Twister” – yes, including the cow.

It is who I am.

It still sucks some times.

How’s your week going?

While droozling along behind a student driver this evening at 15 mph in a 45 mph zone, it occurred to me that we can do better in letting the normal drivers of the world know about the experience level of the young adults in our midst.

I understand the need for novice drivers to learn out there in the real world. I taught three kids to drive. I know what it’s like to be in the passenger seat, my head on a swivel, reeking of wisdom and experience, desperately trying to keep the flop sweat from drowning me.

The problem for the experienced driver is that a simple “STUDENT DRIVER” sign on the back of that car doesn’t tell you nearly enough. I need more information!

Is this a kid who just finished their written exam, doesn’t have parents who have taken them out to a big, empty, relatively obstruction free shopping mall parking lot for a little bit of practice before hitting the road, and they’re on their first five miles on real streets, terrified, seeing their (short) life passing before them?

Or is it a kid who’s already got several hundred hours from parking lot to surface streets to stop-and-go traffic to cross-country interstate and they’re ready for the Indy 500, just taking the stupid driver’s ed hours because they can’t get their license without that certificate?

In other words, is our student driver a “1” or an “11”?

Their instructor should know that. So put an electronic sign on the top of the vehicle where the instructor can let the rest of us in on the secret! On a bad day, maybe the kid starts out as a “6,” but they’re not on their game and they’re thinking about how they broke up with their girlfriend, so the instructor’s going to let the rest of us know by knocking them down to a “4.” Maybe they finally “get it” and they’re keeping in their lane and they’ve figured out how that little stick thingie can make the clicking noises and made those little lights on the four corners of the vehicle flash, so while they started out a “5,” today they’re driving like an “8.”

If you’re going to do this, don’t be skimpy on that electronic sign. Don’t limit it to just one digit, or even two. Make it three. And give the instructor an option to have it display “SOS.”

Or better yet, for those extra special days, “9-1-1!!”