Yellow Tablet Paper

There is always this guy at the coffee shop the same time I go, who sits in the same spot and wears the same clothes and has the same demeanor about him. He brings stacks of unsorted, loose yellow ledger tablet paper with the ends turned up that bear words written and re-written, some of them highlighted and some crossed out. He sometimes abruptly stops his penned thoughts and crumples up the papers, adding them to a discarded and messy heap in the window sill, even though the trash can is nearby. He writes and writes, sometimes feverishly sometimes leisurely, eyes unwavering from those papers that lay before him, nodding in self-satisfaction from the combination of words he's just written as if each one were a secret epiphany one would be privileged to understand.

He pushes his glasses up on his nose when he finally breaks from his author's stride, reaching for his coffee, yet not taking his focus off of his magnificent stack of papers, uninterested by the ever-changing faces and conversations going on around him. He is left-handed and when he pauses, he rests his chin in his right hand and thus leans a bit that way. He lets out a sigh that no one would hear if one weren't listening for it, because his intent is not to garner attention by doing so. As he begins again, his chin instead rests on his wrist as his nervous fingers stroke the thinning hair on his forehead, across the top of his glasses. 

A sheet of his paper falls to the ground as someone hurriedly passes his table, and as I cautiously watch it fall, I see that on every line there is a perfectly written sentence which has been crossed out. On the line below it is another perfectly destroyed sentence, drawn perfectly straight as if it had closely followed a ruler's edge. I've watched him for days. The stack never seems to grow any larger nor diminish even slightly even though every day certain pages are added and some are thrown away. At some ambiguous or perhaps meticulously calculated point, he, in one pass picks up his paper stack in its entirety and places it into a black bag. He thoughtfully stops, takes another sip of coffee, and walks out the door.

He is not an attractive man, by acceptable standards, and I would most definitely avoid his gaze should it ever rest upon me. I would probably be cordial to him, at best, and might even find myself feeling unnecessarily and unjustifiably sorry for him. Yet, this man, who sits in the coffee shop at noon, captivates me more than anyone I've never known.

DEATH BY VAMPIRES! I mean 'Energy Vampires'...

I hate being tricked. It doesn't happen that often, but after it does I just really hate feeling like an idiot.

Moreso, I hate when I see other people tricked and I am all the wiser. I just want to scream out to these people, "Ugh, come on! You can't be serious!"

This is precisely why I hate Fox's Newscenter. Without getting political, it is unarguably the worst news program on television. Not because the newscasters are incompetent, not necessarily because of the trademark "Newscenter was the first on the scene (seriously, who cares?)" story-openers, but rather because of the absurd and theatrical radio and television spots they place in order to shepherd an audience to watch their program later that evening, out of fear. If you're listening to the radio at work, concentrating on something else (like work, or myspace) and you catch only the tail end of a Newscenter Investigation radio spot ad, you might just think that vampires could be lurking in your home. Of course, if you listen closely, you realize they mean Energy Vampires, and that you really should just remember to turn off your porch light when you leave for work in the morning.

Today's news "Investigation" is about killer peanut butter, and bears the following warning: 

PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY... IT'S A STAPLE OF CHILDHOOD! BUT NOW, ALL TOO OFTEN, IT'S A DEATH THREAT.

Die, astronaut children!

Great. Now I'm going to get an Internet chain letter boycotting peanut butter, or peanut farmers, or Target or something completely unrelated. Which is a shame, you know, since peanut butter is probably the best killer children's snack ever.

Glamour Shots

Although I'm saddened by the heightened realization that several teenagers and twenty-somethings are missing in various parts of the country, I'm glad that myspace bulletins have been used for something more effective than telling us the last time you ate pizza or farted.

While high on my recent enlightenment, I took the opportunity to speak with my parents, since you know, this could happen to anyone. And there was something I just really needed to know. 

"Hey, did you know some girl in Orlando is missing?" I asked my mom.
"That's Florida for you. Those people are crazy down there." (Typical Mom answer)
"Yeah," I paused, "Which kind of brings me to something that I think we need to talk about."
My mom looked at me flatly, unamusingly anticipating my next question.
"So... if this happened to me," I cocked my head to the side, "Which picture would you give the authorities?"

She looked perplexed, and then walked slowly and thoughtfully over to the mantle where she quietly surveyed our impressively horrid collection of florally-posed Sears Portrait Studio family photos.

She brought back a photo between her thumb and index finger and laid it on the table.
I was horrified. 
"You have got to be kidding me."
"What?" She shrugged.

Laying on the table was a picture that had been taken of me when I was fifteen or so at some fake Mary Kay event in a hotel conference room. My mouth was full of braces, surrounded by a very awkward crimson-colored lip creme, my eyebrows colored in too darkly with eyeliner that was perfectly mismatched for my face, and I was sporting a completely embarassed expression that made me uncomfortable just by looking at it again. The background, a curtain which hung on a towel rod in the corner, made me look like I was a guest on some sort of weird copper spaceship and the extra-professional softening "blur" made me look like my skin was made of beige clouds. It was quite possibly the worst picture taken of anyone, ever.

"Are you trying to ensure I remain missing??" I huffed.
"What are you talking about? This is a good picture!" She said, defensively.
"Well, I don't know," I said quickly, "'Cause usually when someone is missing, you kind of want to give them a picture of what they look like within ten years of the time that they went missing, Mom."
She shrugged.

Anyway. All I'm saying is that you might want to consider having this conversation with your parents, also.

The Law of Expectations

Let me let you in on a little bit of insight, called the Law of Expectation.  There are several variations of said law, however, the underlying life principle is the same: Model Success.  Expect the Best.  

Basically, put yourself in the path of greatness; do not set yourself up for failure.  Much like dog trainers will tell you, upon presenting them with a new puppy, do not expect your new dog to understand your commands right away.  A new, untrained puppy clearly does not know how to 'come' or to 'sit' immediately; you must be patient and teach your dog how to do these things before you can come to expect them.  Moreover, do not ask things of your dog that you know he cannot do, and then scold him for such.  This is not following a path of success for either you or your dog.

If there are two things that really turn me off toward a person, they are if that person just seems content being apathetic or drowning themselves in self-pity.  Whether this sounds selfish or not, it is true for everyone; we spend our lives trying to enrich ourselves, to learn new things, and to ultimately become better people as we learn and apply the lessons that life allows us to comprehend.  There are people that will give you energy, and people that will hungrily take it from you, and I don't feel selfish in feeling certain that the latter group are people that should be consistently avoided.  Depending on your personality you may feel a pang of sympathy for these people, and lend your shoulder to listen to them bitch about anything from how much their life isn't going the way they've planned, to how much gas costs 'these days' and how hard it is on them.  

But, face it: our lives are controllable.  Gas may not be, however, we're all going through it.  There are always people that are worse off than ourselves.  Instead of fearfully holding yourself back by not allowing yourself to see the sun shine through your emo clouds, try taking a step forward and getting your head out of your ass.  Seriously.  It feels better.  

A friend of mine told me of something incredibly hurtful that someone said to her once, awhile ago, that has stuck with her since.  My advice to her, was, to say, "Do you feel that way about yourself?" and if the answer is 'no', then realize that you should start asking yourself, "What is wrong with her?" not "What is wrong with me?"  You can only be as hurt from someone else's snake tongue that you allow yourself to be.  Be confident in who you are.

The fact of the matter is, by feeling bad for despondent people, you are just contributing pity to the self-pitying.  You are fueling their miserable fire, and eventually you will find yourself submersed in it.  You may feel that you can help, but that is not what they truly want from you.  Read between the lines.  Back to the dog; your first inclination at his incessant whining is to run to his aid immediately and let him out of his cage so that he will stop crying.  What you are doing is disasterous in the long term, since your dog knows that if he whines you will let him out of this cage.  You are not contributing to a healthy relationship between you and your dog at this point.  Fast forward one year and you're cleaning up piss everyday when you get home from work and spending your weekends putting in laminate flooring to replace the soiled carpet.

Sigh.

So, back to the Law of Expectation.  The key to not becoming one of these types of people is to practice effective visualization and apply it to what you know will happen to you every day.  We have a general idea of the types of adversities we will face on a day-to-day basis and we can choose to ignore them or choose to confront them.  Visualize yourself out of a negative situation.  Think about your options, potential outcomes, and then be ready for all of the above.  Learn from your mistakes.  Personal and professional relationships suffer when people can not learn from or overcome their mistakes.  The balance is to remain positive, while being realistic.  Amazingly, easier said than done.

See yourself succeeding.  I want to punch people when I hear them say self-defeating things like, "It figures," or "I wouldn't have been able to do it anyway".   Similarly, I shake my head when I hear people say things to defend the fact that they want every day to remain exactly the same as the one before it.  "I'm comfortable here," or "That isn't something I generally do..."

This is your life, and it's ending one day at a time.