do not bend, part 3

So here we are.

I remember a segment of some afternoon talk show from many years ago... it was probably Oprah, or maybe Ellen... where a hidden camera experiment revealed just how much people crave free things, no matter what those free things are. A bowl of rocks - plain, ordinary rocks - were placed in a bowl marked “FREE” and displayed on a sidewalk table. And every person who passed by that bowl grabbed a rock. Some grabbed several. Again, the rocks were not special, unique, or even pretty. They were just rocks. But they were free. And even if those people didn’t really want or need rocks, they grabbed anyway. That’s the power of “free.”

It would seem that I am a rock. (But not in the good way.)

my gift

So here we are.

In our first Christmas together, back at the turn of the decade in 2010, I gave you a little poem:

holiday warning

If your meat’s in a mound

And your french fries are drowned

And your chocolate fudge sundaes

Are whipped cream crowned

Then it shouldn’t astound

If you gain a pound

And a pound and a pound

Until you are round

Last year, I gave you an external YouTube link to the timeless Jack Benny Program’s Christmas shopping episode, but it has since been removed. I’m sorry about that. 

This year, I am giving you a true story about a Christmas gift I once gave, exactly seven years ago today. Enjoy...

end of days

So here we are.

I figured I’d better get a post in before the world is supposed to end on the 21st. I personally don’t buy into doomsday predictions, but one never knows. (The Pope is on Twitter, after all...)

filmy

So here we are.

One of my favorite movies is Broadcast News, written and directed by James L. Brooks. There are so many things to love about it: the actors, the oh-so-quotable dialogue, the moments (with and without Joan Cusack, in the meat of her scene-stealing moments era), the unconventional ending, and all of the truisms, especially in this scene, where Bill (William Hurt) is chatting with Jane (Holly Hunter) at a party:

Bill: That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you dressed like this. You look so clean and pretty.

Jane: What do you mean? ... Clean?

Bill: Well, at the office you always have this sort of film over you.

mid-life

So here we are.

As I turn 41 today, it all starts to make sense: I am currently having a mid-life crisis. 

There is no other reason for my behavior. I’m not talking about the fist-shaking. That’s just my cynical nougat center whose flavor has deepened and intensified with time. And while lately I have looked at every young person under the age of 25 and thought, sigh... you have your whole life ahead of you, that’s not a mid-life crisis. That’s just the truth.

cutting-room floor

So here we are.

Whenever you’re writing poor poems for something you made up called Horribly Local Poor Poetry Month (or HoLoPoPoMo), you’re bound to come up with some haikus that don’t make the cut. (I know what you’re thinking: wait, HoLoPoPoMo has standards?)

What to do with these dregs? Let them fester in your hard drive? Let them rot in the cloud? Throw them out completely?

Not here, you don’t.