Clean Sheets and Clean Nightgown = Bliss

I just washed my sheets and put put on a clean nightgown and now I’m sitting in bed feeling all kinds of lovely.

Its these tiny familiar moments – little things that can be savored that make life worthwhile.

There are quite a few of these moments in life, but we tend not to savor them. To take a moment and just luxuriate in their comfort.

I would argue that these moments are very best moments in our life.

The very safe warmth of being cuddled by someone you love.

The feeling of being gifted something precious that is created when a cat curls up and purrs next to you.

The feeling of unbroken love that emanates from a toddler who hugs you.

The feeling of home and nostalgia that comes from a familiar kitchen smell.

The feeling of love from seeing something created for you by your grandmother.

They are everywhere. Look for them. These tiny moments that make you aware of life being rather fine after all.

You can usually find or create at least one per week if not a solid half dozen.

May I make a suggestion?

Put your soul in the front of your post. Blaze the content of your idea in your title. Entice me to keep reading, don’t place a word barrier in front of your thoughts. Sing them to me immediately.

Don’t do the meta part at the top a post. Don’t say that you are now going to write a post about a thing because you are participating in a thing. Don’t repeat the obvious first lines that every other person doing a version of this post also repeated.

Meta is utterly boring. If it is a necessary part of the post in someway – put it at the bottom.

The reader only shows a few lines and if those lines are full of meta, I am not seeing anything that is enticing me to click to see the rest of the post.

Don’t put the meta in the headline except possibly as a tag at the end.

Just put the original content of the post front and center. Its the part that its interesting. Its the part people want to read.

If possible don’t include meta at all.

I realize that I’m more or less telling a great many people to stop doing something that is heavily embedded in the WordPress culture. But its not an attractive part of the culture. Its a thing that gets in the way of showing your creativity and blocks the interesting content.

I don’t think its bad to have things that prompt people to write certain things, in particular if they have a hard time finding things to write about. I don’t think its bad to have things that people participate in as a group writing about similar themes. I think these are all things that promote social community and help writers.

But placing those things as word barrier in front of the part of your post that is interesting and unique to you is hurting you. I for one have skipped people’s posts because of the barrier. And I really don’t think I’m the only one.

Singing in the Car – Weekly Smile

I live on a busy intersection.

Today it is very warm – mid 60s in February. Open window weather.

A few moments ago a car of women were stopped at the stop light singing a song BEAUTIFULLY acapella.

And then they drove away and I listened to it fade.

It was a surprise gift of a smile from people I never saw, people I will never know and people who will never know they gave me a gift.

Fridays mean Fish

fridaynightfishfry

I live in Cincinnati, which is a heavily Catholic town. So every Lent the Greater Cincinnati area has dozens of weekly Friday Fish Frys. Everywhere. Its a sort of unorganized festival of fat and fish.

There are people who make it a sort of pilgrimage to go to a different a Fish Fry each friday with a group of people.

All the restaurants will have fish.

Some Churches even have DRIVE THRU Fish Frys.

Does your city do anything like this?

Should a non believer be baptized?

Crazy question, right? I was just listening to a podcast, where a 20 year old woman was facing the question because her mother wanted her to be baptized when they went to visit a relative who was a minister.

When this person mentioned she didn’t know if she should since she really didn’t think she believed in God, her mother was upset.

On the one hand, if you don’t believe then why not go through the ritual that will make your mother happy. Where is the bad? Its not like you believe the ritual itself will have an impact on you and where is the purpose in making a big deal over something will just hurt someone you love. Especially when doing it will offer comfort to someone you love.

Where is the point or importance in standing up for a NON belief. Making a statement like that for no purpose, that you know will hurt someone, is not kindness or helpful.

On the other hand, there is a respect issue. This is the one I struggle with.

When I was a child I went to mass with my best friend who was catholic. My mother carefully told me not to take the sacrament because it would disrespectful as I was not catholic and it would be considered rude. This sense of respecting another person’s belief was then inoculated into me.

When I was a teenager I spent the night a jewish friend’s house. They were kosher and at breakfast I put salami on my bagel with cream cheese. It caused something of an uproar. It was deeply embarrassing and while I did it in ignorance, it was perceived as disrespect and insolence. It was hurtful to them.

So, now I am very aware of how my lack of belief may be perceived in religious settings. For example, when my friend’s husband died, I went to the funeral mass. It felt somewhat hypocritical and even a bit disrespectful to sit through a ritual that has a great deal of meaning for many people there and I see no point to it. Ultimately I went to because my support was more important to her than any perceived disrespect by people who didn’t mean as much to me.

The girl who is contemplating being baptized hypocritically may very well offend the minister who would consider the ritual of great importance and its importance would stem entirely on the belief of the person being baptized.

Its a hard question, whether it is better to not hurt your mother or to not be disrespectful.

If I have to make an either/or choice, I think I will alway choose the people I love and offering them kindness over any possible disrespect.

Dehumanizing

People have a way of dehumanizing people who have any form of celebrity (for lack of a better word for being well known) There is a sense that once a person is well known they no longer have any feeling, any necessity of kindness. They become a thing, rather than a person.

We think its fine to say cruel and terrible things about them. As though they won’t see it?

We think its fine to say cruel and terrible things TO them on social media. As though this won’t be painful to them?

We think its OK that their privacy is invaded, that people follow them around to take pictures of them, that people interrupt their daily lives just to say hello, get a picture or a photograph, that their love life, their mistakes and their tragedies are written about in gruesome detail.

WHY?

Why do we dehumanize people that are well known? Very often we are doing this to people we claim to love. Some actor or model or singer will lose most of their private life because the people who love them have deemed that it belongs to them now. We think that is OK.

And I just don’t understand WHY we think this is OK. Its wrong. I can’t think of one valid ethical reason why someone who is well known has no right to privacy. No right to emotional well being and general kindness.

When Princess Diana died, I thought we would all have a “oh shit, we did this” moment and we would recognize that this cultural behavior is WRONG. But no. We just keep rolling along removing the human from celebrities.

And I just do NOT understand why.

The Mystery of the Key

Monday evening I got my mail and there was a key in the bottom of my mailbox.

It had a black plastic cover at the top but no markings. It was a cheap feeling key.

key

We don’t have a package box, so it wasn’t that. And I didn’t have any kind of postcard from the mailman indicating a package is down at the post office for me to retrieve. And even if it was, surely it would have some kind of number or reference on it. NONE.

I thought maybe it was the key the mailman uses to open the entire mailbox section so he can put in the mail, but it doesn’t fit there.

So now I have this weird key. And I DON’T KNOW WHY!?

Its a mystery.

Maybe its the key to my future, but I don’t have any idea where to use it!

Have I ever told you about my Mom?

My mom spent most of her life being a bitch. When I was born, she was an alcoholic and my first memories of her are her being cruel to service people and rude to neighbors.

I hear stories of her teenage and young adulthood. She was beautiful. Mostly she had presence. One of those women that everyone looks at. ”They have style, they have flair” kind of thing. Incredibly popular. But she was high strung and often mean. Those are the stories.

Growing up, I was embarrassed that everyone must hate my mother.

When I was 21 my mother sobered up. I met a different person. She wasn’t mean anymore…well, mostly not mean. People gravitated to her. I was astounded, because I thought of her as a not particularly enjoyable human.

But I was wrong. People loved Mom. When she sobered up there wasn’t much trace left of the outer beauty, but all the style was still there. And she still had that elusive allure of charm that made people want to know her. Want to be her friend.

But occasionally, she still got these irrational dislikes of people. People she didn’t trust. To those people she was still not nice.

And she still had these ridiculous expectations. Or so they seemed to me. But now I wonder. She walked out of doctor’s or dentist’s offices who kept her waiting for more than 10 minutes. She walked out on a Nurse Practitioner she didn’t like.

She was quick to tell any service person who was an idiot, that they were indeed an idiot. Although, I admit she did it with such subtlety that its unlikely that they fully realized they had been insulted, but I’m sure felt they were dealing with a bitch.

On the one hand, she irrationally felt the world should work as she expected it. Computer failures and unexpected emergencies be damned. On the other, she NEVER had to wait at the doctor or the dentist after walking out the first time. You get what you demand.

All of this sounds like my mother was horrible. She wasn’t.

She NEVER once demanded, bitched or complained to me in the years I took care of her.

She was always appreciative and often sorry for what she perceived to be the burden of taking care of her.

She never ONCE interfered in my life or my choices. (or my sister’s)

She lent me money many times in my 20s when I was both poor and stupid about money. Never once said no, never once demanded it back, never once berated me about my money management.

I didn’t have an ideal mother growing up. She was neglectful and often cruel. She was, after all, an active alcoholic. I forgave her. And one day she sobered up and I met the different person, the one who was worth knowing.

She wasn’t perfect. And I don’t think I will ever be able to see her the way all of her friends and even my friends do. I feel like they are looking at a different reality than mine.

But, the person I knew, was worth knowing. And perhaps we can only know the part of people that our own lens on reality allows. Sometimes, you can watch and deduce from other people’s reactions that something is happening that you don’t see. But you are not able to see it because your view is blinded by certain experiences, certain beliefs.

I miss her a lot.

If you use the phrase Brutal Honesty to defend a statement – you are probably a Virtuous Asshat.

If you blurt your fact while feeling righteous about being honest, you may want to consider whether the virtuous asshat label fits your head. Telling people things that will hurt them because you consider yourself HONEST is asinine.

Honesty is NOT the greatest virtue. If your information is not going to help a situation but is just going to hurt someone SHUT UP.

Honesty does not necessarily need to come from you. You are even part of this issue? Do you need to say ANYTHING AT ALL? Did anyone ask you? If then answer is no, SHUT UP.

If you just state the bald fact that you know is going to hurt someone, but you recognize it and don’t feel noble about it, then you are not a virtuous asshat. But you are probably an asshat.

There are ways to be honest without being brutal. It takes effort and kindness. It takes longer, it requires being quiet and gentle. It’s hard.

Its easier to either skip the honesty or go with the bald fact. Being “brutally honest” is the lazy asshole’s excuse for being a dick.

People don’t remember what you say nearly as long as they remember how you made them feel.

My one and only marriage proposal

I thought it was a one night, possibly a two night stand. Right before he came, he said “Oh My God. I love you. Will you marry me.”

I didn’t think much of it, because, well, I hardly knew him. But also because that is almost an exact duplicate of what my group of friends said to each when we were really grateful for anything. Sexual Orientation and Current Marital Status did not deter this from being our standard “I really mean it – I appreciate what you did” line. He wasn’t part of that group, but I was just very used to being proposed to when someone was happy with something I did.

So…I was a little caught off guard when, later, he followed up with – I mean it – will you marry me?

I laughed. Which, perhaps, is not a very kind way to handle a proposal. But I don’t think the man loved me. I certainly didn’t love him. And I tend to laugh inappropriately in awkward situations.

I don’t really count it as a marriage proposal. But it does make a story.