Let's Laugh Alone Together

The sun is shining again, finally (or at least it was yesterday), and my batteries are recharged. I want to laugh. I want the world to laugh with me. Click on the title to my previous post (the one about habits). Watch the video and tell me what makes you laugh the most. I can't decide if it's Peter Cetera pretending to know how to play the bass, or the fact that "the Habit" appears to be played by about 10 different women. And then there's the card tower karate chop. If you need a good laugh, taking 4 minutes to relive some dark corner of the 80's will be a good use of your time. Enjoy!

This is Not a Habit

Regardless of what CHICAGO has to say about it, habits are much harder to make than they are to break. Take this blog for example: after my last post (which I had so much fun crafting and posting, thank you very much), I quickly mapped out a plan to craft the blog into a habit. This is something I've been trying my hand at recently, growing habits. Unlike most vegetable seeds, habits have a long germination window. While my tomato seedlings sprouted in under 10 days, habits take a minimum of 21 to rear their pretty little heads (or ugly depending on what you have planted in that fertile soil of the soul). Since I'm not all that fond of weeds--even though they do give me an outlet for my compulsive behaviors--I'm attempting to grow only pretty habits, or at the very least, useful ones.

For example, I've tried to nurture the habit of hanging my clothes (or folding them or putting them in the laundry basket) at the end of each day. The most consecutive days I've managed to do this is eight...and maybe I'm exaggerating that number. At any rate, this habit isn't happening. I've tried it in various locales and different seasons on and off for most of my life. It just won't grow for me.

Also, it was brought to my attention by a well-meaning and extremely efficient friend that clearing the dishwasher immediately after each load is washed is the key to keeping the kitchen neat and tidy at all times. What a simple idea. Unload the dishwasher after each clean load so you'll have ample room to hide the dirty stuff as it accumulates! What could be easier? This one I managed for 17 straight days...then I just couldn't.

Now it's this blog. My romantic ideals told me that if I could just post a simple something each day for 21 days straight, I'd be back to my original blogging glory. I was so determined and inspired by the idea that I mapped out the carrot on the stick: this very post about building habits in 21 days! I even searched the web for the perfect picture of a running nun. The problem is that external motivations hold no weight with me. True grit comes from the inside...not from some silly picture of Sally Fields flying around in a nun's habit.

So...here I am, giving into this habit post. What I discovered is that it won't go away, and I can't get that song by Chicago out of my head. I'm posting, and it's not 21 days or 21 posts later, it's just a catharsis of sounds and images. Not a habit at all.

This is Not a Blog

Right? This is totally NOT a blog because if it was a blog, I would actually blog. Blah, blah, blahg. So, if it's not a blog, then what is it?

UnKnownSideEffect was born out of pangs of anonymity. I brought this blog to life in response to another, much more WELL-KNOWN blog, "KnownSideEffects" which was published by my husband. Don't start forecasting that this blogging business had something to do with my competitive side. I'll admit to being competitive, but I know there is no point in competing with my husband. He has his talents; I have mine, and our respective skills are on somewhat opposite ends of the talent spectrum. His talents just happen to be of the sort that put him out in the limelight. Google him and you'll see what I mean. Google me, and you'll see him. This doesn't bother me, really. What does bother me, the thing that propelled me to make my voice heard in the form of this blog was something I overheard one day at the height of KnownSideEffects popularity: "He's married?!" (This person was asking this about MY husband of 15 YEARS.) "I didn't know he was married. When did that happen?"

So, this is how the unknownsideeffect was born. Initially, it was going to be my clever way of anonymously responding to posts by knownsideeffects. My intention was to be the alter-ego of knownsideeffects. His background was all black. Mine would be all white. When he wrote about racing or about being on the road, I would write about spectating from the sidelines or about life on the homefront. This singular focus turned out to be utterly impossible for me. I'm not the shadow of my husband. And I'm no good at writing about the exterior life. The interior life is much more interesting, to me anyway. Of course, it's my own interior life about which I write, so I'm biased there.

This brings me to this post. What is the point of it? I don't know. But it's not a blog.

Greenhouse Gasses

So I’ve been thinking (and not writing) that this blog space of mine might be contributing on a small scale to an increase in carbons in our ever-more fragile ecosystem. My reasoning has something to do with me allowing this space to sit idle much like a car pool mom sits alone outside the karate studio in her idling Cadillac Escalade reading teen romance novels; meanwhile, her little Kimberly is inside chopping away at the air and other little Kimberlies in an attempt to earn a belt of a new and more prestigious color. One day, Kimberly might actually use this defense skill to protect herself from the growing numbers of criminal types walking the streets waiting to pounce on seemingly defenseless Kimberlies; for now, though, it’s all about the accessories.

But here's the thing: I haven't been reading any romance novels--teen or otherwise. I've been reading really scary stuff about the demise of our planet and politics, and about how politics are contributing to the demise of our planet. At the heart of this war is our food supply. It's not safe. A trip to the grocery store may just as well be a stroll through a park planted with landmines. One night I actually found myself standing in the middle of the expansive produce section at my local Dan's not daring to pick out a single piece of produce for the poisons it could be harboring. Sure, I can use veggie wash to clean off the waxes and pesticides on the outside of the food, but there's nothing I can use to wash away the poison that was injected into the soil where this stuff grew up. This poison is now part of the plant's genetic code, and if I eat it, it will worm its way into my own.

And all this time, this blog space is sitting here idle, breathing precious cyber air. Right now, it seems that this new, paperless world we've created is safer for us than that carbon emitting world of processed trees and land lines, but are we sure? In 1973, the year I was born, the U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture was sure that their new and improved ways of growing and subsidizing corn would result in our country never again having to face food shortages driven by high cost and limited supply. They were right. But what they made certainly hasn't turned out to be better. What if a similar danger lurks here in cyberspace? What if it isn't limitless after all and my idle corner is slowly eating away a precious and non-renewable resource?

What if? I guess I better start using it--even if only to type useless blather. Kimberly needs to hurry on out of karate so I can rush off to another parking lot--piano, tutoring, ballet, soccer, harp--anything to keep my mind off this seemingly futile fight to win back the planet.

In the Forests of the Night

Three months pass quickly! I would like to say that it goes by more quickly now than it did when I was ten, but that wouldn't be entirely true. My dad is an accountant, so I've always been innately aware of the short spanse of time that is three months. I remember thinking, "Didn't he just DO quarterlies? Why is he doing it again?" Clearly, this was before I could tolerate the joy of relentless repetition the way I do now. Now, the routine is comfortable. It's when routine is suddenly disrupted that I fall apart.

Today, I accidentally hit "blogger" when I logged onto my google account. It's been EXACTLY three months since my last post. This must be some sort of a sign, right? Sign or no, I can't pass up the opportunity to post another chain of silly words today--I like to think of it as my personal Quarterly Report. Plus it makes the random act of clicking on "blogger" less disruptive to my senses.

Only, it doesn't make typing this post any easier. I really have nothing TO report. Ho Hum. Hum.... Ho. oH. Palindrome. Huh. Look, another one! Crazy.

What fearful symmetry. The radio whispering in the background has something to report: "It's all about Tiger Woods tonight." Poor, poor...

Tyger, tyger burning bright...

Misplaced Modifiers

Today, from my "personalized" horoscope, comes an example of a sentence with a misplaced modifier. See if you can spot the error:

You may meet someone who lives far away at a party, and be invited to visit them at a later date.

When you've got it, type a corrected version of the sentence in my comments. You may also include explanations in your comments as to why you agree or disagree with this prediction as one suitable for my personality and lifestyle (please site reasons beyond the scope of the grammatical error).

Guess Not!

Recently, it came to my attention that I still have this blog out here in cyberspace. Two months ago I momentarily thought I was ready to get back at it. You can see how that actually turned out. I'm stopping in to say hello before I head out the door for yet another incredibly short run.

What seems like a long time ago, I posted an update on Facebook that had something to do with two miles hardly being worth the effort of lacing up the shoes. With the passing of time comes the advantage of wisdom: Two miles is better than none, and one must ALWAYS lace the shoes to avoid tripping.

Tripping. I must make a better effort to avoid doing that. Which reminds me...

Back In

So I made it back inside safe and sound and dry...except for the sweat. The wind challenged me to a battle on the way home. I won! All in all, it was a good run. Glad I got outside, and getting out made me realize that where running is concerned, it's easier to stay out once you get out. Kind of like blogging, I guess. It's easier to not blog, and the longer between bouts of blogging, the easier it is to avoid it all together. On the flip side, once you start, well...

Advice: If You're Going to Get Out, Get Out Now

My therapist friend likes to say, "It's easier to stay out than to get out." This might be true this morning. I hope not. I don't like being cold and wet.

9:31 a.m. severe storm warning. On and off bouts of rain drops.

I had it set in my mind to run outside this morning, and I just can't shake it, so I'm off! I'll report back in about an hour. If I don't, that means I've been struck by lightning or stranded in some neighborhood by flying and falling trees. I'm thinking Dan Pope doesn't know his weather like Mark Eubank. I miss that old Eubank.

Tomato, Tomahto...

Several weeks ago, I decided to call the whole thing off, this tomato planting bit.  Sure, there's nothing like tomatoes fresh from the garden, but there's also nothing like tending to a garden all summer either.  Plus, with all the rain and my running project, I haven't really had time to prep the soil, buy the plants, dig the holes, stake the stems....excuses, excuses.

So, I was resolved that there would be no home grown tomatoes for me this season.  But then I went off and bought decoy tomatoes at the grocery store.  You know, the tomatoes that look like they are vine ripened because they are still on the vine, and because they are still on the vine, they smell like tomatoes fresh from the vine?  Of course, when I brought these decoy tomatoes home and cut into them, I discovered their true nature:  grocery store tomatoes.  I suspect they were refrigerated at some point on their journey from hard green lumps on a vine in a vat in the back of a van to hard red clumps on a vine on my kitchen counter awaiting slicing.  Nothing disappoints like a bad tomato.

On the bright side, this bad tomato was a reality check for me and my garden.  I realized the work and water are worth the reward.  Plus, if I didn't plant tomatoes, I would have an utterly empty garden bed nagging at me every time I glanced out my kitchen window, and I don't respond well to nagging.  Yesterday, I finally got the tomatoes in...staked and all!  Summer has officially begun.

Still Small Voices

I'm posting this tiny thought 

to reassure myself that I'm still out here.  

I need the reminder 

because the blogging voices 

that sometimes run around in my mind 

like children on a sugar high 

have all suddenly become 

very still and silent.

Smiles

Mother Teresa said, "Peace begins with a smile."  

Siddhartha finally found that a smile is the manifestation of nirvana.  

I didn't know Mother Teresa or Siddhartha, but I knew a woman who was a nurse--both by nature and profession, and she spent at least the last 12 years of her life practicing patience, being present, finding beauty in absolutely everything, and trusting in the order of the Universe. Yesterday, I learned that one month ago today, she lost her fight with cancer and died peacefully with a smile on her face.  

...Cause He's the Tax Man!

In the first grade, my teacher posed a question to the class about what each of our parents did for work:  Doctor, plumber, farmer...when it was my turn I said, "My dad does taxes."  The teacher laughed.  I didn't understand.  I still don't understand.  Taxes aren't funny, and my dad IS an accountant.

 Two days ago he called concerned that he hadn't yet seen our tax documents for 2008.  He wondered if we had used someone else.  What?  That's crazy!  My dad is an accountant.  I would never dream of trusting this delicate issue to the mind of another number cruncher.  Since my first grade career day experience, as far as I'm concerned, my father is the only accountant in the entire world who matters.  He's absolutely the best, most honest, meticulous, intelligent man in the accounting world.  Today is his super bowl, and I know he'll be running that adding maching until the clock strikes midnight.  

Good luck, Dad, and don't worry...ever the procastinator, I've filed an extension.  Our government is democratic afterall.

A Work in Progress

Quote of the Day

Discontent is the first necessity of progress.

Thomas A. Edison 

"First" being the key word here.  Before there were 30 flats (900 individual plants) of thyme sitting in my front yard, there was discontent.  Of course, the discontent happened long before the thyme.  Discontent happened about two years ago when I realized I was breaking up with the lawn.  I didn't love it.  It didn't love me.  We really had nothing in common.  When we first got together, the lawn was a novelty to me, and I was determined to make this work.  

Other homeowners--people who have a deep and lasting love for their own lawns--tried to warn me that this relationship was futile.  Outsiders could see that we were just too different from each other, the lawn and me.  The most glaring difference is my concern for water conservation.  I'm stingy with the water.   Running the sprinklers feels like a sin, and I become overwhelmed with pangs of guilt when I hear the system kick on after the sun sets on warm summer evenings.  The lawn...well, it doesn't really care that we live in a desert.  It's thirsty all the time--a habit I couldn't convince it to break.  That's what tore us apart--that and it's need for synthetic treatments to keep the bugs and weeds at bay. I like birds and clean ground water too much to abide by these filthy habits. 

The old bitter, lawn, was too crippled to pick itself up and walk away on its own, so I tried killing it...softly...with words, and song, and lack of water, and that's when I discovered just how tenacious this thing is.  For all it's weaknesses, it really has a will to survive. It doesn't want to work in my yard on my terms, but it also doesn't want to go away.  It's like Bartelby the Scrivener.   I ask it to please stop growing, please stop taking up space on my property, please pick up your old useless roots and vacate the premises.  It replies, "I'd prefer not to." 

Well, I had to move on.  I couldn't lie to myself anymore, and I stopped pretending with the lawn a long time before I boxed up most of his stuff and sent it to the landfill.  He's still trying to come around.  It's ridiculous!  Can't he see I love thyme now?  I've always loved thyme.  We're soul mates, I believe.  This is why there are 30 flats of red flowering thyme waiting to move into the earth around my house.  It's progress.  Progress born from discontent.  

Comment to the Comment

I was going to post this as a comment to the comment to "Life's Not Fair", but I realized my comment was turning in to more of a rant, so I'm posting it here:

People have ALWAYS wanted fairness. It's true, things have never been fair; but that doesn't stop us from longing. Mostly I was lamenting here that I'm human and have a need to do human things such as sleep and eat. But I have an equally human need to do the things that feed my soul. Sometimes I have to choose between the two.  Those are the choices that don't SEEM fair. I know too that "seem" is mostly a useless word--it's one of those intransitive verbs that doesn't really show the reader anything concrete. Perhaps I should have used a more definitive word? That's the difficulty in talking about fairness; since it doesn't exist, I can't exactly talk about it in terms of action or even a state of being. I can only talk about it in terms of what it is not and in terms of what it gives the impression of being.

Life's Not Fair

Late at night, like right now, it doesn't seem fair to have to choose between sleep and writing.  In the mornings it doesn't seem fair to have to choose between sleep and running.  Or between running and eating.  Or between eating and getting to work on time.  

But life's not fair...so.

Week Subsides to Week

...So Eden sank to grief.

So Dawn goes down to day.

My words won't come out to play. 

This is all I can do.  But it is Friday after all.  Maybe next week will be better. Maybe it will stop snowing.  Maybe the economy will rebound.  Maybe my house will learn to clean itself.  

Eyes Wide Shut

It took ten years and an accidental dose of the wrong sort of eye drop, but I think I finally get it, Stanley Kubrick!

I'm on day three +3 hours of extreme eye dilation.  The iris is wide open, but my visual accuity is WAY off.  

This sort of condition does little to assuage my paranoia.  The eye doctor and my brother doctor both assure me this will not cause permanent damage.  Two days ago, I believed them.  Now, I'm not so confident in their knowledge.  That's why I've been googling it again.  

Google agrees with them, so I should stop worrying.  Worry won't restore my vision.  

The eye doctor says I'm lucky to be so naturally myopic.  If I wasn't, he tells me, I could be completely incapacitated by my careless use of unfamiliar eye drops.  That's reassurring.  

He also tells me this is good practice for what's to come in 5 years or so, when my eye muscles get too old to accommodate on their own.  I don't appreciate knowing in advance how it feels to turn 40.  I wonder, will it happen suddenly, like it did with the Atropine Sulphate Solution?  Will I wake up one morning five years from now with my eyes wide shut, too dilated to read the fine print?

Creepy, Quirky, Crawly

Last night I had dinner with a friend who confided to conversing with spiders.  Something happened to her during childhood that made her realize spiders have needs too.  Spiders are more than household menaces lurking in corners.  The way she sees it, Spiders have personalities and a certain sense of intelligence.  They can, after all, determine that we humans are something quite different from pieces of furniture.  

She sites one incident in particular:  she and her husband rented an apartment on a property with a lush, dense tropical garden.  The apartment and gardens were absolutely lovely, but once they moved in, they found the downside to living in the tropics:  spiders. The property was covered with spiders.  Most of them were harmless as most spiders are wont to be, but some of them were vicious.  Soon enough, she and her husband started finding themselves covered in big red itchy splotches.  Spider bites.

Still, she was not deterred.  Spiders have a right to life as much as any other creature.  She had especially grown attached to a spider who lived in the corner of thier bathroom and would silently admire her as she went about the business of primping up for the day.  He didn't try to frighten her with bold and sudden moves, and she didn't try to scare him with the old hairspray and match trick.  They respected one another's space and admired one another from afar.

Then, one morning, she nearly walked right into the spider's  newly made home in her bathroom. She didn't see it because it was perfectly placed in her line of sight.  Spider webs are not something you see or sense head on.  Not wanting to needlessly take the life of this clever one, she asked her husband to scoop it up and usher it outside.  (She would have done this herself, but she couldn't risk having the spider crawl off the scooping devise and creep up her arm.)  The next day,  same thing:  new web, same spider (she's quite certain of this), same spot in the bathroom.  So, the spider was politely ushered outside a second time.  The third morning, kid you not,  same spider, new web, same place in the bathroom.  

What's a girl to do?  My friend said all she could do at this show of intelligence was to reason with the spider.  She leaned in close to the web and said, "Spider, listen.  You can stay.  But if you so much as even THINK about biting my husband or me, you are down the toilet."

This morning, a therapist acqaintance of mine informed me that she'd been to this blog. She read that post...or rather, she tried to read that post.  She had to stop reading.  It was too much for her.  Do I really watch my neighbors at night?  It all was a bit odd, she tells me.  And she hears it all, so she should know.   

My apologies if my sudden drop from the web in the dark corner has frightened any of you.  I'll try to keep my quirks in check from here on out.

An Easy 8 or 9

I'm off to do the first 8 or 9 miles of the season.  The training plan says "easy".  The first 8 or 9 are never easy, but I'll try.