FACEBOOK

His eyes are open but unseeing, his jaw hangs limply, mouth agape while a fog of nothingness fills the cavity where his brain should reside.  Is this a man in a coma?  A Buddhist trance perhaps?  Or is this Macho Comacho waiting for his mother to pull the plug?  (A sick reference that last one but an apt one nevertheless.) No, I tell you, this is none of the above, but rather a still sleepy Zendoc barely astir on a Saturday morn in search of an idea.  Wait! That last is too grand. In search of a mere thought more accurately describes the quest.  A thought, a thought, my kingdom for a thought.  

Hmmm. It comes to me that "thought" is both a noun and a verb's past tense, and if THAT is a thought why of all the thought joints in all the world would this one walk into mine, Schweetheart? I don't know but I guess we will always have Paris.  If not Paris, then Bayonne.

I'm sorry, I wasn't listening.  Did I say something?  

You see, I've found Facebook both stimulating and depressing of late.  I have two new "friends" who post minimally a half dozen times a day which invites my comments, asides really, that I generally have at hand. Not to worry.  It's up there at the top of the page where it says, "What's on your mind?" that baffles and saddens me.  I wonder around looking for my mind to see what's on it and even on those days when I find it, the contents rarely seem Facebook worthy. I mean, there is football and golf there, and something Fareid said and what are my breakfast choices and why is my dog looking at me like that, but things pithy and pertinent or even personal? Nary to be found in my gray matter storage units. Hence I tell you, hence, the condition you find me in at the top of this blog. I fear, alas, I fear, that I am a FACEBOOK FAILURE. 

I have not, however, given up all hope.  I have pad and pen at the ready.  Pad and pen once used to note and outline story ideas and critical things I needed to remember are now poised solely to capture a Facebook worthy thought; a thought that will garner "likes" and maybe a comment or two, an important thought, a deep thought. Oh wherefore art thou thought?  Facebook is calling. 

  




  







 


 

CLOSING IN ON 700 FOR NO GOOD REASON

This is my 698th post.  Yeah, I know, I'm not impressed either.  About half of them are just bluffs, lame attempts to make the ordinary entertaining. But I mean, c'mon, ordinary is what I have to work with and once in awhile - if I don't mind saying so myself, and I don't - a modicum of entertainment is achieved.  (A modicum of entertainment being herein defined as a chuckle or when lacking that, a smile. You can call the smile a mini modicum, because mini modicum is fun to say.)) 

You see, I'm not really a philosopher but...scratch that, I am a philosopher. My philosophy, however, of "Don't worry, Be happy" has been realized only by stoned Jamaicans, the Dali Lama and a Tibetan Buddhist named Carl who lives in a cave somewhere in the Him/Heralaya Mountains and tries to stay warm while chanting "I AM happy, I AM happy, really I AM" but - my philosophy I'm still talking about - is essentially ignored by the rest of the world's populace who are often quoted as saying, "Get a life Doc."  

Well, I have a life.  It's just, you know, ordinary.  And, as I've been trying to tell you, ordinary is fun to live, but hard to write about.  My cast of character, me, is not all that interesting but I do get to jump from one brain cell to another in search of an untapped idea that I might be harboring, hidden amongst the debris that clutters up the monkeymind and, when discovered, spit it out here in Cyberspace.  For me, this is a fun thing to do.  For you, probably, not so much.

I could write about others and I do, once in awhile.  I find, though, that it is easy to be self deprecating in an attempt to be funny, but it is hard to be other deprecating in the same attempt, because, well, most people have egos and are thus sensitive to being poked fun of or at, whatever.  I tend, for the most part, to just let them be.

I could also write about politics, sports, current events. movies, fashion, etc. and I do occasionally, but you know, I look around and there are reams of writing everywhere about those things. Reams, I tell ya, reams!  What could I possibly add?  My own skewed perspective? Sure, but as I said, only once in a while.

So, what am I left with? My ordinary self and my ordinary life.  On the blog, anyway.  Off the blog I get to go totally fictive. (Is that a word, fictive?) I hope you millions of readers, okay thousands, okay four, aren't too bored, because, well, I don't know why... but...I am unlikely to stop. 

So,  Don't worry, Be happy, if, you know, you feel like it.        

 

  

DIET AND EXERCISE, DAMN!

Diet and exercise, they say, are the key to maintaining a slender, healthy body.  The problem is they aren't around to clamp a hand over your mouth when the pizza comes your way or there to jerk you out of the chair when your butt has achieved reclined nirvana.  They are noticeably absent when the choice is a "Lord of the Rings" marathon or a long walk or when someone says, "Let's do Mexican" and your mind flashes CHIMICHANGA in neon caps.  They, the bastards, leave the choices up to us.

"A body in motion tends to stay in motion and a body at rest tends to stay at rest" they repeat ad infinitum, which is a Latin phrase that means "annoyingly," and to which I say, what's your point?  You want to see a man in MOTION just put a lasagna in front of me and behold the blur of activity!  I won't REST until it's gone! 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, discipline, self discipline, the only kind of discipline that's worth a damn or, at least, that's what I've always said, must be part of the equation.  Discipline/diet/exercise = slender/healthy being the equation I just alluded to and, uh, actually, just made up...sort of.  But now, alas, - I love the word alas. It signals something of great finality is about to follow - I must a confession make: I've never really adhered to that equation.  I've always, in the past, eaten whatever I've felt like and if the pounds began to gather about my gluttonous self, I merely exercised MORE.  Hey, no problem! Another set of push-ups, another jog around the park.  They can say what they want, it worked for me.

But alas, (I told you I loved it) my plan no longer has merit; hasn't, in fact, for several years.  Oh, I still exercise, most of the time, but not enough to compensate for my atrocious diet which includes the two main food groups, (1) foods that taste good and (2) foods that don't, but are within arm's reach, and I am left with the hard choice of changing my habits of a lifetime if I want to remain looking only slightly pregnant and not five or six months gone. I need to lose ten pounds right away and maybe another five for good measure; a good measure being defined as I can latch the top button of my 32 inch waist jeans, a thing that hasn't happened in cough cough years. 

And, Oh Damn!, wouldn't you know it?  Here come the holidays!

Wish me luck. Really, lots of luck. And discipline. Wish me that too.




 

IT'S ALL IN THE GENES

I've grown a beard.  I call it my beard for Obama.  I'm not sure why, but then the why's of a lot of things escape me.  For instance, why am I a liberal.  Oh sure, I have done the research, read U.S. history, didn't ditch my Civics classes and found liberal women more, well, liberal, but, I could now probably, no actually, make a case for an opposite point-of-view, except for...  For what?  That's what I'm trying to grasp. I can see the merits of both major political parties and, although I would like to say that it was after I had carefully considered same, that I chose my left-of-center, democratic mind-set, but that is just not the case.  The truth seems to be that it was there all the time.

Scientists have recently noted differences between Republicans and Democrats in the amygdalia part of the human brain. The part that is fear based is enlarged in the Pub brains and the part that determines curiosity is enlarged in the Dem brains.  Or so they say.  I'm not curious enough to look up the correct spelling of amygdalia so I'm inclined to doubt the hypothesis.  (Of course, there is also the possibility that laziness can sometimes trump curiosity.)

But, and here is the question that is down on its knees and begging an answer, are we genetically predisposed to one political position or another or are we truly creatures of free will and thought?

I'm giving odds it's genetics.  I mean, isn't everything?  Deep down in our DNA, which stands for Danged Natural Attitude, in our very chromosomes, atoms and sub-atomic particles, I'm betting there are little bitty elephants and donkeys mapping out our political beliefs.  I know that as a little kid surrounded by Republicans otherwise known as my family, I did not buy the program.  There was a tolerance for difference and change completely lacking in their demeanor.  Add to that the, All Are Subservient To The Strict Father, household child rearing model common to Pub families at the time, and it was little wonder I was off-put on what had to be a cellular level.  

If I'm right, a thing that occurs once in awhile almost as if by chance which is probably the best explanation, then why are we spending billions of dollars to convince a populace to Vote For Me when the votes are already determined by genetics? Maybe there are people who have exactly the same number of little elephants and donkeys in their genetic make-up and are thus perfectly neutral.  Maybe we should isolate them, all five of them - there has to be an odd number like the Supreme court or it won't work - and let them determine the outcome of the elections. Think of all the money we would save! We could buy more tanks and Pell Grants!

I am completely facetiously serious about this, so come on scientists.  Get those microscopes busy.  Find those little red and blue animals and find them soon. 

 I am really tired of politics.