We now return you to your regularly scheduled broadcast

Holidays and vacations always throw me for a bit of a loop. There's a certain incongruity about them, a disparity in context between the holiday and the normal day. I feel like someone is flipping the channel on me. I'm in the middle of one show, and then the channel changes and all of a sudden I'm in a different one, and just as I'm getting up to speed on it, the channel changes back to the first show and my brain has to adjust all over again.

Unfortunately, I need the breaks to cope, so I don't really know what to do but endure the channel changes, try to enjoy each show while I'm in it, and sort it all out later. I've enjoyed the latest channel change quite a bit, which makes it trickier to flip back, but in the end, I always have to. So, tomorrow, I'll be back to my regular program (comedy? drama? soap opera? reality TV?! Documentary...or nature show! Not an action flick or a crime drama, thank goodness, and not a sitcom at present. In terms of general interest, it's one of those local programming stations that shows City Council meetings. Yeah. Don't look for it on DVD!) 

Here's to the next episode! 

Yawn

I was walking home from the bus today, enjoying my usual random train of thoughts: "Gotta remember to pick up my packages from the office. Should I go home first or go straight to the office? I should pack tonight. And go to the gym. Do I need to do anything else? Wow, this velcro on the hood of my new coat really forces me to look up. It's like a neck brace! Muddy muddy muddy, I can't believe there is still that much water in the ditch from Sunday." And on and on. And it hit me that I am really bored with life at present.

I should now knock on every piece of wood I come in contact with for the next forever, because that is the kind of statement that invites all sorts of trouble. The Universe hears something like that, and it's going to turn your life upside-down and all around like a snow globe or a kaleidoscope and who knows where you'll end up. When evaluating the level of interestingness of one's life, it is always important to take into consideration both ends of the spectrum. There is good interesting and there is bad interesting, and I really don't want bad interesting. I've had more than enough of that for the last long while, and I expect there is some stressful interesting approaching in the near future, but could it please please please just lead to some good interesting? Non-stressful, enjoyable, happy interesting? That would be really really great.

I suppose I am complaining here, and to clarify, boredom is much better than other phases of life. So much better than being so stressed you feel like you are going to explode from the anguish. In comparison, boredom is kind of relaxing. And there are lots of fun things going on. It's not that there is nothing interesting going on. It's just that overall, on a macro level, life is getting a bit monotonous. It's like driving across Nebraska, you might say.*

Fortunately, Thanksgiving is upon us, which launches the holiday season with accompanying festivities. So it will be a change of pace, hooray!

Plus there's pie. How can you go wrong with pie?!

*Personally, I didn't mind driving across Nebraska. And I have very fond memories of a gas station in Omaha that saved my bacon by ordering me an oil cap. 

Remembering Real Americans

I am not what you might call patriotic. There are several reasons for that: 1) perhaps due to my lack of competitiveness, I just can't get into the "we're the best" mentality, 2) I can't ignore the warts, which also puts a damper on the Rah Rah USA spirit, and 3) have you seen our politicians? Hard to take any kind of pride in that.

But I do have my own brand of 'patrioticness', shall we say. Maybe I don't think we're the best country in the world, or that our way is the only way, but I sure do like living here. And I haven't yet found a perfect country, so this is a pretty darn good one to be in. And, yes, we have our warts, but if we didn't, there wouldn't be much to love or care about. And, again, show me a country without a few warts. (But can we all get over our USA Superiority complex? Please?)

But most important, politicians don't really count. They aren't America, thank goodness. America is everyone else, including veterans. I recently went to a football game during Military Appreciation week, and I tell you what. I don't get teary-eyed about the good ole US of A much, but when I saw all of those veterans being honored, I was a bit weepy. Because these are the people who fought for me. I know, I know--they were fighting for their country. But "America" is a pretty abstract, shallow idea and I don't think it is enough to sustain anyone in a military setting long enough. Maybe it works for some people, but if there isn't something concrete behind it, it's not going to survive the first bullet whizzing by your head.

I think people who join the military are really doing it, not for Uncle Sam, but for a real uncle, aunt, mom and dad, brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors, and so on. They are doing it for the person in the grocery store who lets you go first, or the neighbor who rakes your leaves when they don't have to. They are doing it for the waitress at the diner who has absolutely no reason to be nice to you but is anyway. They do it for the kids who don't even know what war means yet, and the moms who have spent all day chasing 3 year olds and folding laundry and cleaning up messes and the dads who didn't get to see their little kid do that funny thing because they were at work earning money to pay for a house. I don't think people join the military for the politicians. I think they do it for the Ordinaries.

And so, thank you to all the veterans who are fighting for that America, because you are making a huge sacrifice. And thank you to their families, who make that sacrifice with them. Because it's people like you that make America worth something.

In Memoriam - ish

This week I went to a memorial service for a co-worker who died of cancer. Now, to give some background, I was not close to this co-worker even though I worked directly under her for three and a half years. I thought she was a very nice person, a very gentle and optimistic person, but I didn't really know much about her and never did really figure out what made her tick. This could lead to frustration in a work environment, but not because I didn't like her, just because the reality is that when you spend 40 hours/week around people working with them, there's bound to be some friction sometimes.

The second piece of background information that is important is that I have only been to 3 other funerals in my life, all of them L.D.S. funerals and none more recent than 12 years ago. So I don't really have a good foundation to compare this memorial too.

That being said, it felt very hollow and empty. The person presiding (I'm not sure what her official title is) was lacking in conviction in my mind and what little religion she brought to it didn't seem to really offer much hope or comfort, which was strange to me. But the other thing that was odd to me was how little there seemed to be said about the deceased. I had this idea that maybe I would come away knowing her a little better, as someone besides a boss, and was quite disappointed. The first speaker told about their work on a project together, and a lot of it was the history of the project, with very generic statements about my co-worker. The second speaker, another co-worker, sounded like she was presenting at a professional conference, not talking about a human being. The only person who really came across as having had any kind of relationship with the deceased was her brother. And I couldn't help thinking how sad it was, because she was so much more than a project or a career. I don't know what else there was, but there was more than that. She was a human being with interests and frustrations and concerns and idiosyncrasies, but no one seemed to talk about that. It was a resume, not a remembrance.

This got me thinking about what people would say at my funeral. First, I don't know who would even speak at my funeral, but I sure hope they wouldn't see the sum total of my life as the job I held or some project I worked on. I also hope they would have the good sense not to make me a one-dimensional character by only speaking about my positive traits. I want people to know that I was flawed. I want them to know that I wasn't always positive, even though I always wanted to be a positive person. I want them to know I struggled with my temper and felt bad about that. I want them to know that I didn't eat right and didn't get enough sleep and wasn't always as compassionate as I could have been. But I also want people to know that even though I wasn't as good as I wanted to be, I wanted to be good.

I want people to know that I found joy in giving gifts and doing little things for other people, just to see them smile. I want people to know I was a bit snarky and mischievous. That I liked to make people laugh and even though I was really shy, was also a bit of an entertainer in that sense. I want them to know that I loved learning and sharing what I learned. I hope people know that I wanted to make my corner of the world a little better and just wanted people to be happy.

I hope people will know that the most important thing to me was my faith and that it was the only thing I couldn't live without. I hope that there will be enough evidence of that in how I lived.

I hope they will read something I've written, or that my nieces and nephews will remember that I made up stories. And that I loved hugs. I hope they will talk about all of the books I owned. I hope they will have memories of me being with them. I hope that they will say I made some kind of difference, big or small, in their life. I hope they will miss me, and I hope that I will be a real person for them.

So, now that my hypothetical funeral is over, I think I'll get on with living and hopefully managing to be the person I want to be in the process. And maybe someday, I will finally get to know my co-worker for the person she is.

And the Ordinary goes to...

The lady in front of me at the grocery store. It was kind of late, so the store wasn't crowded, and I wasn't in a huge hurry, and she was almost done. But then one of her coupons didn't work, and there were a couple of other things. For once, I wasn't trying to catch a bus or anything, so I didn't really even mind waiting, and she was just a generally nice person. I started scanning my stuff and she was bagging her groceries, and next thing I know, she was bagging mine. "My husband usually bags our groceries while I ring them up, and I figured since you had to wait for me with the coupon thing..." I know bagging may not seem like a big deal, and I don't think I realized until tonight how stressful it is to have to bag all your stuff--especially when other shoppers are trying to ring up their stuff and you feel like you are in the way (I always feel bad about that. Lo, the wonder of the self-scan lane), but that wonderfully ordinary woman made my night so much easier and better. So, thank you woman at the grocery store, for your thoughtful gesture.