Category: Words

Karma and the blizzard

How long?
Not long.
‘Cause what you reap
Is what you sow.
–Rage Against The Machine/Wake Up

 

Karma’s a bitch.
Not really.
There’s no such thing as Karma.

But, wait! What goes around comes around, doesn’t it? Sure, to some extent, but that doesn’t mean that Karma exists.

What does exist is cause and effect–it’s human nature.  If you act like a douche, sooner or later people will not like you. Keep being a douche, and you are likely to die alone. If you have money, you can mask your solitude to a certain extent, but if you are even minimally self aware you will know that you are not loved.

It’s not the because the Universe is keeping score, it’s because people do.

It’s not Karma.
It’s you, it’s me, it’s all of us.

We are all Karma.

So does that mean that if you are not a douche, then people will like you? No, not necessarily. People are not particularly consistent. How many people do you know who just don’t seem to have the knack of making friends? There are a lot of people out there who are socially awkward,  or quirky, or shy who are also not loved. They’re not unkind. They don’t do anything to hurt anyone, but for whatever reason people just don’t like them much.

They haven’t really done anything to deserve it, but there they are.

But that’s on us, too, isn’t it?

If we are all Karma, we do kind of a random job of reward and enforcement.

In the last few millenniums we have come up with a lot of different ways to say “be nice, or it will go badly for you.”  If you don’t believe in any kind of deity, where does that leave you? It leaves you in exactly the same place as everyone else. Feet on the ground until you get put under the ground. We all live here until we die here. Do we really need Gods and Philosophers to tell us the obvious?  If we are nice to people, it makes being on this planet a lot more pleasant for all of us.

It’s not rocket science, people:  don’t be a douche. That’s all you need to know. Actually, it’s not even as strict as that. People will make allowances for effort.

Revised rule:  TRY not to be a douche very often. If you ARE a douche, feel bad about it and then apologize sincerely.

If the people you are a douche to are also following the rule, they will  forgive you.

 

 

Yes, I know. A lot of people are fuckwads.  You don’t have to be a doormat. You know what really pisses off a fuckwad? Someone who is unfailingly and sincerely nice to them. Someone who smiles, and who means it.  Someone who continues to not be a douche when faced with douchebaggery.

Not being a douche doesn’t mean having no sense of humor. Go ahead and enjoy pissing them off, but be noble about it.

 

After all, you are not a douche.

 

 

The boys of Summer…I hate them.

Take me out to the ball game
Take me out with the crowd
Buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks
I don’t care if I never get back

–J.Norworth/Take Me Out To The Ballgame

 

Mark has the World Series on, and I’m just going to come right out and say it: I do not like  baseball.  No, not even when the World Series is on. If someone happens to drag me to a baseball game on a warm Summer evening, I don’t mind too much. There’s beer and hotdogs. You can chat with your friends in the sun. Throw peanuts.

But on TV? No. No. No.

What do I find so objectionable about it?

Everything, pretty much.

The spitting. I don’t like spitting in any sport, but it baseball the spitting is out of fucking control. Sitting and watching any closeup shots of the dugout is just unbearable. They must have to put the cleaning crew in hazmat suits. That’s a lot of sputum from a lot of countries where drug resistant TB is rampant. Just. Ewwww.

The slow pace. You can tell me the game is full of nuance and strategy all you want. I’m still bored.

The uniforms. I hear women talk about how sexy they are, and I do NOT get it. They make all of the men wearing them look like fat oafs. I’m pretty sure they aren’t really fat oafs, but those pants sure don’t do them any justice!

The scraggly beards.  Baseball players have got to be the most unattractive of all the professional athletes between the goat beards and the hideous pants.  Make them shave. Or at least trim their beards so they don’t look like they have a bad case of the mange.

The interminable length of some of the games. If it goes past 12 innings, they need to flip a coin or something. I’m going to bed.

An excessive number of games. They play what seems like 95 games a week for about 7 months out of the year.  And the same teams play night after night. Play 2 games a week for 3 or 4 months and call it good. No one will care. ***

The destruction of the 7th inning stretch. They have obviously caused far more serious geo-political havoc, but did you know that Al-Qaeda have ruined the 7th inning stretch, too?   Nothing against “God Bless America,” but the song you are supposed to sing is “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.”  Sing the national anthem at the beginning of the game. You don’t need the entire game to be a continuous salute to America. It’s a sports event.

 

And don’t try to call me a Commie because I don’t like it. That doesn’t work anymore–half the players are Cuban. Commies DO like baseball.

 

The caps are cute though. Who doesn’t like a baseball cap?

 

 

***Note: I was concerned that I might have inadvertently exaggerated the length of the season, so I looked it up and I have not. The regular season is 26 weeks long. For those of you who are as math impaired as I am, that is half the year. Tack on the post season and that is 4 months too much baseball.

 

Memories light the corners of my mind, badly

There’s a stain on my notebook
Where your coffee cup was
And there’s ash in the pages
Now I’ve got myself lost

–Squeeze/Black Coffee In Bed

 

Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? … And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.

–Proust/Remembrance Of Things Past

 

Proust had his madeleines, but it’s different for everyone. A lot of us have memories tied to songs, but sometimes they’re more random. And sometimes, even with a lot of information, the memory just won’t come  to the surface.

My cousin showed me a couple of a pictures that were taken in  the early ’80s. I recognize all of the people. I could tell you where I bought the shirt I’m wearing. One of my friends remembers why she bought the skirt she’s wearing, and the name of her hairdresser at the time. I know it’s at my house…near Christmas-time…

But I can’t remember why we were all there, drinking out of plastic cups! The occasion seems to be totally lost.

Memory is so slippery.

It is so prone to inaccuracy or variances of interpretation. I wonder sometimes if there are really any facts in memories. I already wonder if there are even any facts, so I guess that would be the answer.

It’s fascinating to me,  though, how sometimes you can hear a snippet of a song  and suddenly remember everything about when you heard it– who all was there sitting on a set of  twin beds, what an old boyfriend smelled like, how great someone’s hair looked that day, how the sun looked shining through the curtains, whose voices you heard laughing in the next room. Other times, like with these photographs, you have all the information and none of the memories.

Is it because the occasion was less important somehow, or is there something more random about it?

What makes the memory stick?

 

Brenda Sharon Michelle

 

Clearly, this was the year that Sharon gave me the wild woman perm. Shortly after the wild woman perm,  we  tried to drive the Dutch exchange student across the street to the beach. Flat tire. No spare.  It was also the year that any of us would do pretty much anything.

But I don’t remember why the three of us were sitting on the hearth that night, drinking beer out of plastic cups.

I hope we had a good time…