Better Living Through Introspection

Feel My Pain

Woke up. Tossed and turned. Multiple web projects danced through my head. Look at the clock. 5AM. Good time to clean the bathroom. I’m insane. Half an hour of inhaling toxic Lysol, Fantastik, and 409 fumes later, I flip on the tv to catch up on the local news. No news? Oh, look, it’s only 4:30. Damn you, daylight saving time! Damn you to hell!

“I don’t really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves.”

– Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks,
1947, XIX, Sunday.

The Lawyers Said “Not Just No, But Hell No.”

Okay, so no pics. But I now have a rough idea of when the beer hit me. According to the timestamps, I started taking pics around 7:43PM. The last series of pics, snapped between 1:20AM and 2:12AM, I have absolutely no recollection of taking. Happy Halloween.

Only Two Party Fouls Committed? What Kind of Party is That?

Halloween is officially over. I know it’s not until tomorrow, but our Halloween party Saturday night pretty much marked the end of the season for me. I think in general it kicked ass. And by that I mean it took five of us sitting around the table at brunch (It’s not quite breakfast, it’s not quite lunch, but it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end. You don’t get completely what you would at breakfast, but you get a good meal!…bonus points if you get the reference) the following afternoon to piece together the occurences of the previous night.

The highlights, in no particular order:

• the wall projection
• dry ice, albeit short-lived
• apparently, harry potter
• fuzzy math
• party foul 1: sounds like she missed her kegstand dismount
• party foul 2: yes, he brought the keg down with him that time
• you have legs!

Pics coming soon. Heh heh. After I clear them with my team of lawyers.

We’re already planning Halloween 2K1 based on lessons learned from this one. Stay tuned.

Grosse Point Novak

Remember in “Grosse Point Blank” when Minnie Driver tries explaining to John Cusack the concept of shakabuku, which she succinctly describes as “a swift, spiritual kick to the head that alters your reality forever?”

Well, I must say that while reality has not altered itself recently, my perceptions of certain facets of it definitely have. The other night I was trying to explain to Cyndi how one chance encounter the previous week with someone who might as well have been a stranger, one smiling, unexpected glance held longer than usual, had made me reconsider my attitude towards another, completely unrelated situation. I’d rather use another word than spiritual, but I was clocked by a swift boot to the head — a cosmic bitch slap, if you will.

Unfortunately, my explanation fell apart into nervous laughs, self-derisive snorts and muttered “like, ya knows” because I simply couldn’t find a proper way to explain the effect this chance encounter had on me. Cyndi, I assume, thought I was insane.

Popcorn!

Well, Cyn, just as we witness Cusack’s character Martin Blank being deeply effected by the affective gaze of a child (Blank’s own shakabuku if you will), I found myself unexpectedly caught in a look (and I think, reactively, reflexively, mirroring a smiling look of my own) that sort of shook me up (in a pleasant way). I was so hyperaware in those two seconds that I seemed to be witnessing the exchange at the same time I was experiencing it. Some things fell into place. Others seemed inconsequential. In retrospect, I suppose this was less of a boot to the head, and more of a gentle poke on the forehead or tap on the shoulder…

That’s as far as I’m taking you. Just remember: shakabuku.

Whoops.

There it went, sliding on by. How does life improve with one simple observation, one unrelated event, one coincidental encounter? I don’t know, but it does. Thank you.