Ffolkes,
Well, there’s a switch…. Murphy decided to surprise me today by leaving me alone. As a result, I slept, like the proverbial rock, until after 0700 AM, for perhaps the first time in a decade, if we don’t count those mornings when I did so, but only because I didn’t go to sleep until 3 or 4 AM. I don’t think I’ve slept that much since before my kids were born, 33+ years ago…..
What a treat! Of course, my body feels strange, but, that is just the unusual, and uncommon, feeling of having more than enough energy, for a change. It’s been so long, I wasn’t sure what it was…. thought it was an illusion, at first. It’s actually a good feeling, one I recall having quite often in the distant past, before PTSD and adulthood took away that boon….
Oddly enough, I find that having energy doesn’t necessarily translate into having intelligent thoughts, or brilliant ideas for something to write about, or instantly knowing what phrase will work…. I’m just as fuzzy as if I’d gotten up earlier…. Ah well, I AM a Bozo, so what can I say? And, just because Murphy got me once, by reversing the order of things on me, doesn’t mean he isn’t still out there, waiting to get me again…. the asshole.
Not having any ideas to write about has never stopped me before, and it won’t today, either….. Yesterday, I used the excuse of business out in the BBR to shorten this intro section…. That part worked okay, but, I’m never at my happiest when I have to resort to the archives….. I hate repeating myself, big time. But, then, much of what I end up ranting about is a repeat of one kind or another, so I suppose that’s just a personal quirk that I shouldn’t let affect things as I do. Oops…. there’s that word again….
“Shouldn’t”….. I don’t know about y’all, but a long time ago, I learned a lesson about the word “should”….. It is a truism, and when one thinks it over, it is easy to see that it is a truism right down to the bone, and not really arguable at all; no argument to the contrary of what I am about to relate is valid, because they all veer away from reality and truth….
Simply put, the lesson/truism says, this: whenever you use the word “should” in a sentence, you are relating information that someone else told you. It isn’t something you told yourself, or figured out on your own…. we only do “should” when we learn it from another, and use it as a “guilty” motivation to act a certain way….
In this case, it happens to be something that I DID tell myself, (as seen in the above sentence….)…. but, the need to not let personal quirks affect things is NOT mine…. THAT idea came from someone else, and really isn’t true, when you look at it…. Personal quirks don’t necessarily mean bad writing, but, we’re all taught to not let stuff like that happen, by the myrmidons of society who teach their unwanted and unwieldy code of (im)morality to everyone else with platitudes and lies hidden as metaphors. No matter what it is, if the word “should” shows up, you can bet some busybody told you whatever it was you used it in relation to, and told it to you long ago, before you knew better than to listen to old fools….
Well, between my back pain (moderate), my bemusement at sleeping so long, and my tendency to ramble, I’ve managed to put together quite a hefty opening section…. a little ranting, a bit of advice, some societal wisdom, and an indictment of the iconic asshole who bothers us all…. not bad for a Saturday morning, I’d say… and, if you will note, I just did say…. Which, all things considered, is probably enough, if not too much, so…..
Shall we Pearl?….
_____________________________
It being Saturday, well, it really don’t mean shit, but, we’ll pretend it does…. So, I’ll tell you that this pearl will be old-school, and since school is closed on Saturday, we’re up the creek without paddles or gum. Nonetheless, I think Smart Bee can do this, so, we’ll give it a shot, and hope for, if not the best, something fairly easy on the eye and mind….
“You’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.” — Irish Proverb
“To get anywhere, or even to live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer.” — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
“Nobody can live in society without conventions. The reason why sensible people are as conventional as they can bear to be is that conventionality saves so much time and thought and trouble and social friction of one sort or another that it leaves them much more leisure time for freedom than unconventionality does.” — George Bernard Shaw
“The unnatural, that too is natural.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
“To reach perfection, one must understand the converse is also true; to be fully perfect, one must also be perfectly imperfect.” — gigoid
“Truth is just truth…you can’t have opinions about truth.” — P. Shickele
“I’m having an emotional outburst!!” — Zippy the Pinhead
_____________________________
“Ask a toad what is beauty?…a female with two great round eyes coming out of her little head, a large flat mouth, a yellow belly and a brown back.” — Voltaire (1694-1778)
(No, I can’t explain why this seems appropriate here and now….. but, it does, and it is, so…. don’t fret about it, stranger stuff has happened around here, so, just feel lucky for the time being, and we’ll move on…..)
I find it very difficult to enthuse
Over the current news.
Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens,
And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.
~~ Ogden Nash ~~
Aha…. now I understand the presence, and relevance, of the Voltaire quote…..
_____________________________
The following pearl, of the old-school variety, was originally intended as the beginning of a rant; the first quote, from Jack Kennedy, was so startlingly real, not to mention incredibly arrogant, it stimulated the outrage I need for such treatises….. but, my thoughts on the subject were a bit jumbled at first, then, I saw the next quote, and I realized it would be better to go old-school, as the vitriol and vituperation I would have engendered while writing about such chicanery might have gotten on my clothes, and that stuff NEVER comes out… Any who, here is a group of pearls, all intended, please note, as ironic, or to act as an indictment of those who are mentioned in conjunction with them….
“Private enterprise … makes OK private action which would be considered dishonest in public action.” — John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963)
(This one just enrages me…. It goes to show, though, just how little politicians care about the common man, and how easily they can rationalize and justify their own actions, or those of their cronies, and how easily morality and ethics are tossed out the door in the name of profit and power….)
“If the liberties of the American people are ever destroyed, they will fall by the hands of the Clergy.” — General Marquis de Lafayette, 1789
(Gee, who’d’ve guessed?…. Ah, let’s see…. Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison….. oh, okay….)
“Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation.” — Johnny Hart
(Tongue firmly in cheek….)
“I am not a part of the problem. I am a Republican.” — Dan Quayle
(Blatant ignorance…. not to mention wrong! )
“This just in from a Nicholas Notifier up north. Everyone’s favorite farmer and political commentator off the interstate near Chehalis has just come up with the prize line of his career. “Limit congressmen to two terms. One in office. One in jail.” — Jonathan Nicholas’ column in The Oregonian, Friday, March 29, 1991
“Any excuse will serve a tyrant.” — Aesop (620-560 B.C.)
“A neighbor came to Nasrudin, asking to borrow his donkey. “It is out on loan,” the teacher replied. At that moment, the donkey brayed loudly inside the stable. “But I can hear it bray, over there.” “Whom do you believe,” asked Nasrudin, “me or a donkey?” — Smart Bee
Well, there you have it, a perfectly imperfect old-school pearl of virtual wisdom, chock full of sardonic humor and dry wetness, among other oxymoronic impedimenta…. I like it, and so does Mikey….
_____________________________
I like even better that, not only did I get lots of sleep, this Pearl flowed out smoothly enough to get finished in excellent time. Now, if it doesn’t take too much fixing…..
Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you….
When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.
Which is Why….
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.
gigoid
gigoid 