You might not know this, but I’m one of Reverend Moon’s closest friends. I mean, I’ve never actually met the guy…and it so happens that I disagree with basically everything he says…but all that aside, it’s the truth. We’re tight. Here’s the story.
Several years ago, I was sent to D.C. on behalf of my job in order to attend a big celebration of the Washington Times’ 20th anniversary. You are likely familiar with the Washington Times. Large circulation. Well known and reasonably respected. An unusual “right-leaning” (for whatever that phrase is worth…I use it loosely) newspaper in the metro D.C. area.
And it’s owned by none other than the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
Now, before I progress further, let’s make sure of one thing. Do you know who Rev. Moon is?
Rev. Moon is the head of the unification movement, or “church,” as he’s fond of calling it. He refers to himself and his wife as the “True Parents” – the ones sent by God to pick up where Jesus left off. He says that all people should believe he is the second coming of the Christ because he’s Korean but has invested all his resources in America. He is constantly giving to this country, and we never give back. This (so he says) is a perfect example of God’s love, like how Jesus gave to the world and they couldn’t return his gift. He then goes on to say that Americans are the chosen people, and as such, all other nations should intermarry with Americans so that they can be “sanctified” by intermarriage, and so that their children will become part of the chosen people. If you google his name, you’ll find a whole host of other teachings. A rather infamous message of Rev. Moon’s was the one in which he advocated on behalf of total world nudity – an action he claimed was necessary if we are ever to attain complete purity.
This, my friends, is but a taste of the Unification movement and the teachings of Rev. Moon. With that knowledge, you will never again look at the Washington Times in the same light…
But I digress.
So I’m in D.C. for a couple of days, specifically to attend this big 20th anniversary celebration of the Washington Times, but simultaneously to take part in a corresponding conference.
During the last day of the conference, I heard Rev. Moon speak. Twice. The first was in an intimate setting of approximately 250 people. We were all given earpieces to hear the Korean to English translation of his presentation. He was scheduled for 15 minutes. Two and a half hours later, I got up and walked out. (What kept me in my seat for that long should be seriously questioned…) Over the course of that unbelievably torturous timeframe, I heard the same fifteen minutes worth of information approximately ten times over. I was seriously ready to scream…or at minimum pound my head against the wall in quick, rapid succession. I made it outside the door and breathed a very audible sigh of relief – only to be greeted by one of the conference representatives from my home state. Having heard my sigh, he responded sympathetically.
Guy: It’s a lot to digest, isn’t it?
Me, completely exasperated: Oh, gosh, YES.
Guy: I know. He is soooo inspirational. I don’t know how he manages to keep his messages so short.
???????????????????????
Guy: I mean, this is the guy who owns the Washington Times! He’s so powerful! And yet he cares enough to take time to bring people together like this to share his message and passion.
Again - ?????????????????????????????
Guy: This is actually a really short message for him.
???????????
Guy: His record is sixteen and a half hours. With no bathroom break.
You think I lie. I assure you, I do not. The guy was dead serious. He was in awe. Literal awe. Of a maniac. It was one of the saddest, most please-let-me-shoot-myself-in-the-head moments I have ever experienced.
I don’t really remembered how I responded…only that I managed to not return to the session room. I’m told Rev. Moon wrapped up about twenty minutes later and received a standing ovation. Yet again…????????????????? It was all I could do to keep from stalking up on stage and giving the entire audience a piece of my mind.
That night, I went to the 20th anniversary celebration dinner. Rev. Moon’s comments were a bit more…well, short. The press folks made sure he wasn’t on stage for more than thirty minutes. But I assure you that thirty seconds would have been too long for me.
The dinner had its amusing touches, however. One was a handout that was distributed to all the tables. I wish I could remember the title they gave this document, cuz it was pretty good…but the content was better. It was a manifesto of sorts, the transcription of one of Rev. Moon’s visions – a vision that supposedly provided all the proof the world would need to believe in his claim of being the second messiah (because apparently, y’know, the first Messiah wasn’t enough…). In this dream, Rev. Moon was in heaven, and he had conversations with many “great leaders” – Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, to name a few. Why were they in heaven, you ask? Oh, let him tell you. It was because God wanted to show them the truth, and in turn have them share the truth with the world. In the transcription of Rev. Moon’s conversations with each “great leader” (his words – not mine), each of the men and woman (forty in all) explained how they had been deceived in life, but had since repented, come to know the truth, and were now proclaiming for all the world to hear that Rev. Moon and his wife are the True Parents and the ones in whom the world should trust forever.
Do you get the significance of this? I mean, other than the totally wacked, I’m-so-thoroughly-conceited-that-I-believe-myself-to-be-God mentality. This statement was handed out to several thousand people at a press event for the Washington Times!!!
Lesson to the learned: When you get cocky, it’s only a matter of time before the completely idiotic seems not only normal but prudent.
And then the comment that topped off my trip and resulted in me bursting into very audible laughter…to the dismay of several of Rev. Moon’s followers who were strategically placed throughout the crowd.
“My dear friends,” Rev. Moon concluded, wrapping up his thirty minute speech. “My dear friends, I am so glad you came here today to join me in this celebration. I can’t imagine being here without you. My friends at the press, look around – here are my dearest and closest friends.”
That’s right. His dearest and closest friends. All several thousand of us who had never met him and – at least speaking for myself - would never want to.
And all of this, my friends, is why I could never run for public office. Because somewhere out there, someone has a picture of me at that dinner, and if I ran for office, it would surface, along with a caption that says, “One of Reverend Moon’s closest friends – he said so personally.” And then someone else would get a hold of this blog and use only the opening sentence, which of course shows that I agree wholeheartedly with Rev. Moon’s statement and likewise consider him a close personal friend.
Cuz that’s how we play it in politics....
I spent the weekend in North Carolina with two chics who embody all that I'm told makes the female species great. They're cute, fun, smart sense of fashion, and they like to shop. At malls.
Then there's me. I've been told that I'm a shame to my fellow females. I hate rings, I think diamonds are a waste of money (from crying out loud, who pays that much money for a rock??), I hate malls, and I’d take a Red Wings game (or any game for that matter) over shoe shopping any day of the week. For the sake of my friends, I’ve tried to be more fashion conscientious. But we all know I’m pretty much a lost cause.
So it should come as no surprise that, while we all get along wonderfully well, the mall finds us heading in different directions. When the girls are feeling generous, they point me in the direction of the closest Barnes & Noble and let me amuse myself there while they spend hours hitting something like every store on every floor of the entire mall. And they were generous...for the most part.
Except this once. We walked into this department store and simultaneously there's this "Oooooooooooo!!!! This is it!!! This is the place for the purses!!!" Maybe it was the deer-in-the-headlights look that gave me away, but Moose immediately latched onto my arm and said ever so sweetly, "C'mon Tiff, you'll like it. You can't always just look at books."
And, as all good friends (fools?) must do from time to time, I indulged their intense need to shop for purses and wandered after them.
Holy freakin' heck. Inside the four walls of this prison they call a "department store" is a cell dedicated strictly to the display of bags. Big ones, little ones, black ones, blue ones, fuzzy ones, smooth ones - anyone else feeling nostolgic for Dr. Seuss? Never mind. So there are rows upon rows upon rows of these...things...that apparently I'm supposed to be drooling over. And a conversation begins that goes like this:
Moose: "Ooooo....look at this one! No, look at this one. OH! Oh! Wait....look at this one. I like this one."
Me: "Okay."
Moose: "Which one do you like?"
Me: "I have a purse."
Moose: "Ummm....yeah. One. It's black. You can't wear it with everything."
Me: "Why not?"
Moose, sighing deeply: "Tiffany!!!"
Me: "What?!"
Moose: "I have two deep rows of purses in my closet, and I still need more. You cannot survive with only one purse."
Me: "Huh?"
Moose: "I'm serious. We're finding you another purse."
Me: "No."
Moose: "Yes."
Me: "I don't want one."
Moose: "But you need one."
Me: "I have one."
Moose: "More. You need one more."
I continue wandering. In the time that Jayme and Moose have each looked through about 4 shelves, I have managed to peruse the entire purse section four times. Well, peruse might be too strong of a word. Wander aimlessly with a blank, forsaken look on my face is probably a little closer to reality.
And so it is that I feel compelled to offer this heartfelt apology:
*clears throat*
To all the men of this world:
Those poor souls who must put up with their wives, girlfriends, sisters, mothers and (insert other group names here) shopping for hours on end in malls and department stores, laboring over whether the brown or the green or the floral patterned bag would best match whichever outfit they have in their heads at that moment (an outfit they may very well not even own yet) --
Those indulgent spirits who allow themselves to be dragged around for hours while (insert name of your significant other here) tries on half the shoes in a 20-mile radius of your house --
Those men who are more sympathetic and humoring that I, who find it in their hearts to try and enjoy themselves during this most excruciating form of self-torture --
To all you men, I offer this heartfelt apology:
I. Am. Sorry. I am so, so, so sorry. Sorry for what women have become. Sorry for their addiction to the malls. Sorry for their fetish over purses. Sorry for their need to have more shoes than outfits. Sorry for their need to buy it because, after all, "It's on SALE!"
It's all I can say. I'm sorry.
The greatest tragedy of the most recent airline carry-on restrictions isn't the added time required for security and checking baggage, or the general ban on liquids and gels, or even the prohibition on water (when have you seen those two words in a sentence together?). No, my friends. The greatest tragedy of the recent restrictions is the ban on lip gloss.
You think I kid. I assure you, I do not. Yes, I realize lipstick and chapstick are allowed - but they represent absolutely no comparison. It is a sin - I repeat, a sin - to disallow me to carry lip gloss on a plane. Ask anyone who has traveled with me since the recent ban. The complaint "UH! I need my lip gloss!" escapes my mouth at least once every 5 minutes.
As much of a tragedy as this phenomenon is, my trip to D.C. last week presents another one...
I was standing in the security line to get on the plane leaving Reagan National, all ready to get pulled for a bag check-through and pat-down, which, incidentally, happens to me every time. I'm getting used to it. Almost. Anyway...in front of me stands another member of the group from Michigan, I'll call her Candy. So Candy's in front of me, and our bags go through the x-ray machine at the same time. I see the face of the man watching the x-ray screen look somewhat startled. He pauses the machine, pulls the bags back, then calls over another security guard. That man's eyebrows raise not-so-slightly, and he pulls Candy's bag from the machine. "Whose bag is this?" he asks. Candy waves her hand. "Ma'am, please step over here. We have got to have a look in this thing."
Amused, I continue through, get pulled aside as always, and as I'm waiting for the man who's going through my bag, I hear the security guard with Candy abruptly burst into laughter. A moment later, I get my bag and head down the terminal toward the gate. Candy catches up with me a couple minutes later.
Me: "What was that all about?"
Candy: "You would never believe it!"
Me: "What??"
Candy: "He took my lip plumper!!!!"
Me, sputtering: "HUH??"
Candy: "He took my LIP PLUMPER!"
Me: "Your...what??"
Candy, staring at me like I'm an idiot: "My Lip. Plumper. He took it. It's gone. Forever. Gone forever. He stole my lip plumper." Pause. ""Betcha he really just wanted to try it out for himself."
Me: "What the heck is a lip plumper?!"
Candy: "What?? How do you know what that is? It plumps your lips, just like it says."
Me: eyebrows up.
Candy: "Oh, it's all-natural. Just feels like a bee sting but it works like a charm."
Me: "It's all-a-naturale and feels like a bee sting? Girl, you got issues."
Candy, laughing: "I'm telling you, that man wanted to try it out for himself. He knows it isn't a weapon."
Me: "What did it look like?"
Candy: "Oh, kinda like scissors with a bunch of pointed, jagged edges."
Me: "And you tried to put that on your CARRY-ON?"
Candy: "Umm...yeah.... Oh. Yeah, I guess that kinda does sound like a weapon, huh?"
Now I must admit...I still don't view dear Candy's dilemma as a tragedy as horrible as my own forced fast from lip gloss, but y'know...I found a friend that day. She spent the next 2 hours lamenting her lost lip plumper. I spent the next 2 hours beleaguering the airline industry for forcing lip-gloss-absent-torturous existence upon me. In the end, we were sisters.
And that's the end of my story.
This world traveler is back from the craziness of two weeks abroad that included visits to Italy, Israel and Palestine (with a few hours spent in Prague during a layover). Italy was the first place in Europe I've visited where I could say without hesitation, "I could live here." I could also say that about a geographic region in the Middle East...the more likely place for me to end up...though my love of that place was of a different kind.
As I was sitting at work today, a memo came across my desk announcing the promotion of a certain co-worker. After my moment of excitement on her behalf, the thought sparked in my head that I was pretty much unmoved by the whole thing. Unmoved as in realizing that I simply don't have a desire to "move up the ladder." My "vocational ambitions" are to pour my heart and energy into the work I care most deeply about, but the idea of position and bonus pay really holds no appeal to me. What is enticing? The thought of devoting my life to the places and people who are in most desperate need.
All said and done, I stand alone
Amongst remains of a life I should not own
I suppose you can't really quantify who has the "most desperate need." All needs are real, each has its own effect on life and the world. But I am drawn...no, under compulsion...to visit places that are in the midst of war, after affects of war, or under intense human and civil rights oppression. I realized all this when I started thinking of all the places I still want to visit, when the names Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq and Vietnam kept resurfacing. I'm told this isn't normal, but hey, I admitted to being abnormal a long time ago.
It takes all I have to believe
In the mercy that covers me
The Palestinian people are a bundle of paradoxes, and truly beautiful. I gained a much deeper understanding of the whole Israeli/Palestinian conflict while spending time in both countries, and I was struck again by how the United States seems to have taken the smallest issues on both sides and made them the greatest points of contention.
And did you really have to die for me?
All I am for all you are?
Cuz what I need and what I believe are worlds apart
I'm not bashing the U.S. government or its people. I love this country, and you only have to spend time in a country under foreign occupation to catch a glimpse of the extraordinary freedom that truly is ours. But freedom has a way of causing its people to become completely inward focused...to make their world only the drama of their own lives...to allow them the ability to abuse freedom and make it into an excuse for ignorance, a freedom that is theirs but does them no favors.
Take my world apart
I am on my knees
Take my world apart
Broken on my knees
Most of the things in life that beg the deepest answers can't be explained with words. Looking at the conflict in the Middle East, I see the struggles of both sides, I see their blindnesses, I see what makes them tick, I see a cycle of violence. And it breaks my heart.
I look beyond the empty cross
Forgetting what my life has cost
And wipe away the crimson stains
And all the nails that still remain
To really live life, I believe you have to embrace the philosophy that there are some things for which you will never have the answers. It doesn't always "work out." You can do everything you're supposed to, and the result might not be the right one.
More and more I need you now
I owe you more each passing hour
The battles between grace and pride
I gave up not so long ago
So the question becomes...what do you do? When faced with a situation where, even if you make every decision wisely and follow through with each needed action, the end could just as easily see no improvement (or be more detrimental) as become better...and what do you do?
So steal my heart, take the pain
Wash my fear, cleanse my pride
Take the selfish, take the weak,
And all the things I cannot hide
What do you do? You move forward. You don't give up. You keep loving. Love doesn't mean being blind to another's faults or putting yourself in a position to be hurt by them, but it's simply the understanding and knowledge that at any moment, you may be betrayed, and you're making the conscientious decision to love anyway. It doesn't mean the relationship won't change...if anything, it ensures it, for love is too easily confused with unhealthy obsession these days...but it guarantees that you will be "wise as serpents, harmless as doves" and that conflict, hatred, and betrayal won't change your character.
Take my beauty, take my tears
My sin and soiled heart, make me yours
Take my world all apart
Take it now, take it now
For you see, beloved, trust isn't a result of having the answers. Trust comes from having seen God's face.
Serve the ones that I despise
Speak the words I can't deny
Watch the world I used to love
Fall to dust and blow away
It saddens me to see so much hopelessness in the world...so much conflict...so much hatred...so much anger...and it kills me to know that most of the world doesn't care. They don't want to care. If they cared, they would have to change.
I look beyond the empty cross
Forgetting what my life has cost
My life is short and it's here for a purpose, and that purpose isn't going to be what most people in this world will admire, consider useful, or stand in line to get an autograph for.
And wipe away the crimson stains
And all the nails that still remain
And that's okay. I don't crave the approval of friends and family.
Take my beauty, take my tears
My sin and soiled heart, make me yours
But I do crave that words like these would make a difference. In the way you act. In what you consider most important in your life. In the way you talk. In what you're willing to let become the obsessions of your life.
And all the things I cannot hide
Take my beauty, take my tears
My greatest prayer in the world is for God to take my world apart. I pray the same for you.
Why? Because it's worth it.
Don't feel like you always have to have the answers. Allow the world to be confusing. Life is tragic. But it's also glorious. You just have to let it be what it is.
Lyrics from "Worlds Apart" by Jars of Clay
Voter apathy. We hear about it every election cycle. We - referring to strange people like me who are drawn to policy and politics - preach against it. What's the cause? Some say lack of knowledge or education, others the prevalent feeling that one vote doesn't count, still others good ole plain disinterest.
But, as of today, I say there is a whole different reason for voter apathy: Precinct workers.
Here's my story:
I walk into my local polling station around 8:00 a.m. This being the primary election, on a year and in a district where there isn't much of a primary race for anything on either side of the aisle, I knew I wouldn't have to wait long. Sure enough, I walk in and there are plenty of empty booths. I head toward my precinct's table when the woman near the door stops me.
Woman: "Excuse me, but do you know what Precinct you're in?"
Me: "Precinct 9 I think."
Woman at the door: "Well how about I check that for you."
Me, Okay, but I'm pretty sure of my precinct: "Oh....kay..." and give her my name.
Woman, several long moments later and after going through several possible first names that weren't mine and simultaneously exclaiming, "Oh wait! That's not your last name" after each: "Oh, yes, here you are. You," looking up at me over her spectacles, "should be voting in Precinct 9."
Imagine that.
Woman, reaching forward to grab my arm as I begin walking away: "Hold on!! Your table is....." and, scanning the room by beginning at the farthest point away from her, finally lands her eyes on the table directly next to her and waves her hand to indicate that I should proceed about 6 inches to my left, "Here!" She looks at me triumphantly, as though I should be impressed by her ability to scan the entire room in a mere minute and a half and direct my blonde head to the same place I had headed nearly 3 minutes before. Not that I was counting.
So I move to the Precinct 9 table, where I must again give my name because, apparently, the fact that the two people at that table had been watching and listening to that entire conversation didn't mean they knew my name. The woman at the desk begins scanning down her list of pages, using a ruler that is intended to help her highlight in a straight line, but is instead serving to keep her from quickly scanning the page. After tediously examining two full pages, she gets to the third page which holds my name. As she begins to draw the highlighter across the page, she stops in midstream:
Woman: "We don't see many people your age here. Is this your first time voting?"
Me: "No ma'am, I vote on a regular basis."
Woman: "Well, you just can't tell nowadays. So many young people don't vote. Why, you could be 30 and this could be the first time for you voting. You just never can tell. Why, I remember the first time I voted. Voted in every election since then." By now the highlighter is waving around in her hand as she accents her words with flourishes of the writing utensil. "But you young people," pointing at me, "you people just don't vote."
Me: Do I bite my tongue, repeat what I already said, or reach across the table and highlight my name for her?
Woman: "I'm so glad YOU came out to vote! You're supposed to. Why, I remember the first time I voted. So long ago. Harold," leaning across to the man next to her, the man I really wanted to be working with....the man who actually had the ballots..."Harold, do you remember the first time you voted?"
Harold: "I most certainly do! It was my greatest moment as an American citizen! Voted every election since then. Every American should vote. It's our responsibility!"
Me, eyes getting wider (implication: drastic impatience bordering on the intense desire to hit someone): "Ummmm...my name?"
Woman: "Hmmm....I forgot where I was." She begins at the top of the 3rd page and scans down to my name, highlights it, then hands me a card to sign. I sign it as the conversation continues about how these exorbitantly patriotic citizens have been voting in the all-American way since the first time they were old enough to, and it only takes about a minute and a half for the card to change hands between the woman and Harold.
Harold: "Here's the ballot. Do you know how to fill out a ballot?"
Me: "Yes!"
Harold: "Okay, well, you have to connect these arrows like this..." indicates connection motion with his marker, "and remember that this is a primary election, which means you can only vote for one party. That means only this side of the ballot, or that side. Does that make sense?"
Me: HOLY HECK, do I have RIDICULOUSLY RETARDED BLONDE written across my forehead in big bold black letters?!?!?!? Don't answer that.
Me, seething: "Yyyyyesssssssssssssssssssssssssssss."
Harold: "Very good. The voting booths are over here," motioning to the chairs and booths less than a foot to our left, the very booths I'd been longingly staring at for the last 8 minutes, and finally he hands me the ballot.
Freedom. It takes me a rockin’ sixty seconds to complete the ballot.
Which means this: It took me eight times longer to get through the line of....how many people again?...oh yeah....ZERO....then it did to fill out the ballot.
And this is why, my friends, I have decided that maybe, just maybe, voter apathy is due to something other than the typically blamed attributes. Maybe it's not voter apathy at all. Maybe it's freakin' voter frustration.
But I'm not bitter.
If you knew that sorrow could bring life to your soul;
that undisguised truth could tear you apart
and demand a response that requires your life;
that beauty in its greatest sense is only the result
of souls and nations laid bare before God;
that only by giving everything you have will you ever have enough;
if you knew all this, would you surrender?
Would you surrender to the God who demands everything and stops at nothing?
Would you surrender to the Love that demands your love cover over a multitude of sins?
Would you surrender to the life that is not now nor ever was your own?
Would you let God be God?
When the heart is touched by such sorrow as words cannot express,
from shattered misperceptions arises the hope of opportunity.
I took my high school girls to the beach on Wednesday. It was a great time, and I, white child that I am, got way freakin' sunburned. (Sunscreen is such a scam...that stuff never works...) Since I have absolutely no tolerance for pain, I went to Meijer that night to get some aloe and pain killers. I'm walking stick-figure style (i.e., very stiffly) in jeans, a cut-off wife-beater type t-shirt, my hair up and totally disheveled. Quite the vision of beauty, let me tell ya. So I'm shuffling toward the back of the store when I'm forced to stop because this person is standing in front of me and isn't moving. I look up and there's this guy just standing there. He cocks his head and says in what I think was supposed to be a seductive voice: "How ya doin', gorgeous?" I stare back at him and without missing a beat reply, "I am not gorgeous. I. Am. Sunburned!" and brush past him without another word.
Only I would do that. And only I would not think another thing of it until about 10 minutes later when my brain finally caught up with me and I started laughing at myself, wondering what the heck I was thinking.
My friends who have heard this story have all been very sympathetic. Josh informed me that it's okay, that was just the one perfect man I ever met in my life -- doubtlessly a guy who loves kids and politics and wants to work in war-stricken countries and never normally uses pick up lines at the grocery store. Moose informed me that she now knows why I'm not married...because I don't immediately fall for the guys in the frozen food section. All in all, very understanding comments. I love my friends.
I'm gonna go walk into a door now.
When I think of the greater Lansing area, one thing comes to mind: idiot drivers. No joke. Who teaches these people to drive?? Is there some county-wide "driving school to make sure you tick off every person who passes you" place that I don't know about?
Take the lady I was stuck behind at a red light yesterday. You know that not-so-well-kept secret about how you can turn right on red? Apparently she didn't know about it. Of course, the fact that I had tailed her all the way to the light (did she have to drive 15 mph in a 25 zone?) probably didn't help. Or the fact that I was making extremely over-sized hand motions indicating that she could turn the corner. (I was trying to encourage a little pro-active movement!)
Or take the group of commuters on Cedar Street who routinely drive from the south side of Lansing to downtown. Have they never figured out that if you just drive 50 instead of 35, you can actually make it through more than 2 lights?
Or the people who insist on jumping in the left lane to pass, all the while driving approximately 0.0002 miles an hour faster than their right-lane nemesis.
What is WRONG with these people?!?
Maybe it's the Ann Arborite in me. I'm told I tend towards aggressive driving (okay, succumb to it completely); that I speed too fast (honestly, I've tried to slow down, but don't you realize how much better 85 is?); that I probably shouldn't "encourage" other drivers (a.k.a. yell suggestions to them). But y'know, I fit right in on the east side of the state. And it's things like this that make me miss the road-rage-aholics of greater Detroit. Their driving style is so...comforting. Yes, I'm sick. But I'm okay with that.
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So there's this door at the office where I work. Crazy, I know. It's always been there. In order to walk through, you must turn the knob, push open the door, then proceed.
I know all this. Yet, somehow, I managed to completely body slam the dang thing while walking out for lunch yesterday. I'm not talking, sorta-run-into-it. I mean I full out walked headlong into the door. From the top of my head to my shoes, I completely slammed into the block of wood that has since left me with a pounding headache.
No, there's no good explanation for what happened. I guess I just forgot the door was there. My hand made no movement toward finding the knob and pushing it open. My feet didn't slow me down as I approached. All five feet six and a half inches of me propelled myself at the door like it didn't exist.
Except...it did. Which you would have known. And I should have.
And it makes me wonder: what is it about objects that can hurt that I just don't get?
I routinely walk into my cubicle wall. Happens at least once a week. Never changes locations, it's always in the exact same spot, and yet, every week, I walk into it and inevitably bounce back with a surprised look, like for some reason this time I thought it wouldn't be there. Can you imagine the damage I could do to myself if I had an actual office with walls?
But, in the attitude of all that makes 21st century America great, I have decided that none of this is my fault. I've decided that I suffer from a very serious ailment. Are you ready?
I suffer from a lack of depth perception.
Dead serious. How else can my ability to walk into walls, trip over my own feet, and stumble across massive stationary objects obviously in my line of walking be explained? Doesn't this sound like a serious handicap??
Stay tuned. I'm taking this places.
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There was a time when a group of people told me I had a very high IQ. Putting forth the evidence of the last several paragraphs, I resolutely disagree. The only chance that I have a high IQ is if one's IQ is directly, inversely proportional to the amount of common sense that same person possesses. If that's the case, then it's possible that this blonde head contains some coherent and life-benefiting ideas that could better society as we know it. The biggest challenge remains me not killing myself before any good can come of it.
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Here's another thing about Lansing drivers that causes intense frustration (to put it graciously): the need to completely stop before turning the corner. You know how you can touch your brakes just enough while rounding a curve to keep your car from flipping? Oh no, Lansing-ites (as I shall heretofore refer to them) are by some freak force of nature compelled to bring their vehicles to a complete stop before even beginning to change direction. Then, only after they start turning the steering wheel do they remember that they have to add a little gas in order to propel themselves forward. Inevitably, I am stuck behind them, voicing the annoyance of every driver behind me who thinks I've decided to bring traffic to a dead-stop for no reason. Ahhh, Lansing.
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I was in Barnes & Noble this afternoon, looking for a card for a friend of mine, when I found a card with the best tagline ever. I actually paid $2.50 for this card, with no intention of ever giving it to anyone. I bought it to remember the quote: Ever notice that "What the hell?" is always the best decision? Words of wisdom.
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That's all I got.
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