Who's In Charge Here?

If I don't write something here soon, my son will tell me that I'm not writing. I don't even have the excuse that I've been working on my essays. I have been playing. Shamelessly playing. A friend introduced me to My Writers Circle and I have far more fun with that than I do with actually working.

I'm working on a third year of essays. I've figured out many things while working on the first two years. I have to keep track of what I'm doing or I might write up the same event twice. That's not really horrifying, but I don't want to make a practice of it.

I've been printing out calendars and writing my topics in the box provided for each day. On the second year, I had to put in the years I've already used in order to make it easier to not repeat topics. The third year mean two dates. I barely have room to write what my topic is any more.

Luckily for me, the year 2008 is a leap year. I write an essay for February 29 and need a space to track that date as well. So I bought a small book with enough lines to keep this up for 14 years. But that meant that I had to fill in two years worth of topics. That took me all day. I had writer's cramp – something that doesn't happen with a keyboard.

So I got back to work with actual writing. But it was more fun to play on MWC and I did quite a bit of that. Eventually, more through guilt than desire, I wrote an essay for my day not-job. Then I realized why I need an accurate 2008 calendar.

I only write up the topics for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday because those days my abbreviated essay is published in RGQ. I've been doing this for almost two years now and filling in off days in the hope of creating a book gives me some structure to my days. But the only essays I NEED to write are for three days a week. I need to know which numbers fall on which days. So I need a calendar.

In order to waste more time, I found a calendar all on one page in the Microsoft template section. But I wanted to highlight the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday columns. So I played with that, found that the template had some odd shading in the Friday columns, fixed that, printed it out, only had nine months done and finished the last three, printed it again, and was too tired to continue writing.

Except that I went back to MWC and wrote up a short story thing there. I enjoyed myself. It is still a creative outlet. I'm more than two months ahead on RGQ essays. I feel guilty. I don't know why I keep pushing myself to write ahead. A month would be sufficient. What I should be doing with my time is polishing a query letter and seeing if I can get Little Bits of History, Vol. 1 published. I've reworked the thing twice now. I know I could continue to polish. I could be Leonardo da Vinci with the Mona Lisa and never finish.

So I'm filled with shoulds. I should write my essays. I should write on my blog. I should work on a query letter. I should clean the house and do laundry. I should walk the dog. I should choose a book for the Reading Club. Instead, I will post this and nip on over to MWC and see what's new there. But I will throw in a load of laundry, too.

An Open Letter to My Son

The hauntings of late night angst can be debilitating. The light of day usually casts a different shadow and allows for clearer thinking. That doesn't mean that the dark thoughts of the night were wrong, only that they were perhaps transient.

What does it take to be happy? For an infant, fed and warm with Mommy close by is pretty much the sum total of happiness. As we move forward from this too brief time, it changes. The requirements get ever more complicated.

Happiness may be found in the moment or may take years of special planning and execution in order to gain access to the bolted doors of the Castle of Happiness. But the entire mystery is that the doors open on to nothing.

Happiness is a journey, not a destination. People who win the lottery are momentarily exhilarated. And then it all disappears. Maybe the money disappears as well, but the brief moment of total joy is gone even when the money remains.

That is because like all good things, joy is brief. Lasting happiness is in finding moments of joy on a regular and frequent basis. No one is giddily happy all the time. If they were, they would be either a lunatic or have very low standards. Or else, they are lying.

Being able to enjoy the sunshine, or the thunderstorm, is a gift. Finding the good in the moment is a gift. Everyone can find joy in a baby's smile, but the glimmer of glory days past in an old man's eyes is also cause for joy – if you have the right perspective.

Happiness and success are not the same thing. One does not guarantee the other. They are not at all connected. To be happy, one does not need success unless success is defined as finding happiness in the moment. Success does not guarantee happiness, either.

While both of these – happiness and success – can be goals, they are not the only possible means to a glorified end. Living a moral life, living so that the world is better for your having passed through, is a more noble goal.

What with all these goals, one might be inclined to think that busy, busy, busy is a way of life. But all these things can be achieved in stillness as well as in activity. Stillness does not necessarily mean idleness.

I spend time staring at nothing, gathering my thoughts, planning my work. Without a plan, I won't know what I'm aiming at and if I've hit the mark. Revitalizing the soul happens in the quiet moments. There is no glory in constant movement if the movement doesn't create a consistent whole at some point.

It is okay to sit and think. It is okay to sit and idle. It is okay to move only when you have a plan for the movement. We need not force ourselves into activity just for the sake of appearing busy – unless the boss walks into the room. Not every moment is made for activity. Some moments are simply made for the moment. Entire in itself.

Deep thoughts in the night can lead to all sorts of things. Good and bad things. A call to a better day or a call to disillusionment. If you find disillusionment in the nights, perhaps it means you should change the ways you spend your days. Seeking only happiness is a shallow life. Success may be defined as a million dollars or more in the United States, but that is another shallow measure.

Success is liking what you have. Simple. In a complicated way.

Hospitals for Health

I volunteer at a hospital one day a week. I am not a smoker and I have never been a smoker. I tried once, but got too sick for more than two puffs on the cigarette. Therefore, my smoking days are clocked in at zero.

The hospital system has instituted a policy that becomes effective on November 15, 2007 where the entire grounds will be smoke free. Not just the building, but the entire place – parking lot, outdoor picnic tables, every square inch of the place. They are concerned about health.

Or image.

You see, the cafeteria is filled with horrible food choices. There are vending machines with high fructose drinks in one, candy bars and salty snacks in the second, and high fat processed lunchmeats and cheese on white bread with a side of mayo in the third. The foods they offer at meal times are grease on a plate with a rare overcooked vegetable.

The staff is mostly overweight with some huge-ass (literally) people waddling through the hallways. They have thighs that are of greater circumference than my waist – and I'm not as svelte as I used to be.

At least 75% of surgical patients are overweight with a great many of them at obese or morbidly obese weights.

Smoking "causes" cancer, heart disease, strokes.
Obesity causes cancer, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, joint disease, gallbladder disease, and breathing irregularities.

So which one does the hospital choose to attack? Why smoking because it is the thing to do. And it is easier to attack. And thee is a certain cachet to picking on smokers. And it is not affecting as many of the employees and patients since there are far more fat people than smokers so they are ticking off fewer people.

Now people who are under stress (perhaps your surgeon) and in need of a nicotine fix will either be standing on the sidewalk outside the property lines and looking like a bunch of strikers who forgot their picket signs, or they will simply be jittery (while performing your surgery, maybe). What could go wrong there?

Or patients who smoke will be standing on the sidewalk, leaning on their IV poles and waving to passing cars – if they have the strength. Perhaps the nursing staff that smokes will volunteer to take the smoking patients out to the sidewalk to smoke with them. This will be especially handy in the rain as the staff can shelter them under a shared umbrella.

Visitors may wish to help the infirm out on the sidewalk. It could be a bonding experience. Nothing like waiting for Mom to get out of surgery and being nervous as a hell and being told to not smoke today. So they can go out to the sidewalk and perhaps we can get beepers for them so they can be contacted when the jittery doctor is ready to speak with them. Or perhaps the doctor can meet them out on the sidewalk.

Smoking is not healthy. It never has been. But it is far less deleterious to your health than carrying around an extra load of fat, especially around the waist. So, please, let's pick on the smokers to prove that hospitals are healthy places. Just don't notice the whales walking through the halls – they are increasing income for the place.

Who is a Friend?

I write for an ezine called ReallyGoodQuotes or RGQ. Bruce, the owner, designed the thing with a section for comments. There are quotes, a joke, a visual thing. In addition to the main article, Sied, Kirsten, Tim, and I write pieces on various topics. Then there are sections not always filled, like 15 Minutes of Fame, or First Date, or Most Embarrassing Moment.

There are close to 2,000 subscribers. Many of them are vocal participants in the world of RGQ. Menudo was one of those people. He died, suddenly, this past week. It made me think. I wrote this for the 15 Minute section. I don't know if it will be published there, but I thought that the sentiment is true everywhere.

Friends, RGQers, Countrymen, lend me your ears. We are all citizens of the world. With globalization we are one country – Earth. We are RGQers by virtue of subscribing and hopefully reading this ezine. What amazes me is that we are friends. We haven’t seen each other. We barely interact. We are surface only.

Except that we aren’t.

There isn’t much face-to-face interaction. But there is heart-to-heart and soul-to-soul interaction here. Bruce wisely included a Comments section and there we reveal ourselves. Not our faces, but our minds, our thought, our feelings. This is wrong. No, the response comes, you didn’t consider this aspect. That is right, someone claims. No, replies another, you didn’t think of this particular.

I have been online for over a decade. I keep in touch with my Real Time friends and all of my family via emails, websites, and phone calls. Technology is what is making the world smaller and keeps shrinking the planet so that we can all be one big dysfunctional family. I truly appreciate that. My family is spread across the US from Arizona to South Carolina and from Ohio to Florida.

But I have increased my scope of friends. In email and chat rooms, in IM and ezines, I’ve broadened my scope of acquaintances, but also – amazingly – friends. There are people that I have never met, who I wouldn’t recognize if they were standing in front of me – but who are my friends. Show me a nick and a font and I would know them anywhere. I’ve not-met people who were genuinely wonderful – funny, bright, encouraging, ennobling.

I’ve moved and left my family and established real time friends and felt lonely – until I checked my email. And then right there, in my new home, my friends reappeared. I used to think that I was shallow or superficial for this. But I don’t think that anymore. I can share my heart, my inspiration, my friendship. I can lend support or give advice. I can cheer on or cheer up. All without my presence. Just my words.

Sticks and stones may break my bones
But words can never hurt me.

We have come to know the lie in that. We know that words can hurt, sometimes with a more lasting hurt than a physical bruise. The opposite is true. Words can ease and heal. They can help. And for over a decade I have had at my disposal a medium that allows me to spread my words. I’ve lost friends I’ve never met and been as bereft as when I’ve lost a Real Time friend. Sometimes friends are lost through mean spirited words or fights and acrimony. Sometimes friends are lost through separation if they lose their computer. And sometimes friends are lost through death, a final loss.

Except they aren’t.

When someone has entered my heart, either by being related to me or becoming my friend, I keep them. Always. I cherish them in my head and heart. I talk to them even if still alive and certainly if passed on. I’ve never been much for the “What would Jesus do” thing but “What would Mom do” frequently crops up and we discuss the issue – inside my head since she died two and a half years ago.

And so it is here. This amazing medium that permits me to widen my circle of friends. I’ve shared stuff with my online friends that is too risky to say to a RT friend looking into my wounded eyes. I’ve asked for help and guidance from a wider circle because I trust ALL my friends. And I miss all my friends when they move on.

Peace on earth.