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| Dispensing with lame self-empowerment cliches, it's clear that I'm older now. So perhaps it's just my fading memory, but I don't recall ever having received advice from a company about how I should do business with them. How considerate of you! The subject heading was something about "tips for successful bidding in new york city." I had, of course, bid an absurdly low, barely-triple-digit number for a hotel room in Manhattan. But is this absurdity not the entire point of your business? If I had wanted to pay an eminently reasonable price for a nonexciting, midpriced chain in nonexciting Midtown, would I not have gone directly to that hotel's website, entered a standard, easily available discount, and reserved a room? Oddly enough, this is exactly what seems to have happened. | | |
| Two white petals fell.
It was the perfect metaphor, really. In the idealized versions of life we create for ourselves, it would have been poetic. They would have floated in slow motion. Angels, or at least angelic-sounding boys, would sing. Blank-eyed white doves would flutter their wings. Gradually, and then finally, they would settle gently, effortlessly, to the ground.
Real life isn't as pretty, of course, but we had done what we could. Tall wreaths draped in ribbons of meaning stood grimly, scions of society flanking the coffin. But they just couldn't hold on any longer, releasing their grasp suddenly and unexpectedly, falling to the ground with a heavy sigh.
I stared at them for a while. Presently a white-haired old man came. He dropped to one knee, picked them up, and disappeared.
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| People are assholes.
Been kind of stressed this week, but I felt better almost immediately after I stepped out into the alley and took a deep breath of fresh ocean air. And I just as quickly realized the irony in this thought coming less than two feet from the bright blue dumpster.
Two minutes later, I was walking along the beach. I heard a bike approaching from behind, so I moved over a bit to the right to allow him to pass. However, a pair of bikers split around me, and one turned and looked at me while addressing his friend, "Looks like we got ourselves a cricket walker here!"
I love it when people try to throw out overly clever insults. At some point I just don't know what the hell you're talking about, and then isn't the whole thing kind of meaningless? His friend was just as confused as I was, so the guy was forced to explain: "You know...like walking all crooked..." He proceeded to mimic the motion with his hand, curving it dramatically to the right. I didn't catch his friend's response, but that's just how noncommittal it was.
And then they were gone, denying me even the opportunity of righteously, indignantly informing them that I had merely moved to the right to allow them to pass. Nor would I have the pleasure of explaining to them that, in America, we pass on the left. Even when in groups. We don't ooze around the obstacle, like some hideous amoeba.
One year and three thousand miles ago, I would have dismissed them as smug, overfed bankers. Today I was thinking more along the lines of smug entertainment executives.
The moral of the story could have made us return to where we began, concluding that people are assholes. But that might be a little too cynical even for me. Instead, I think the proper conclusion is that being two minutes away from the beach is awesome.
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| Today I read a nugget of profundity that I couldn't help thinking was wasted in a book review: "Wisdom...is the understanding that absolutes are for dictators and fools." Whenever I read stuff like that that happens to support my personal beliefs or bolster an argument, I mean, debate that I've been having, I feel like I want to send it to "the other" to say "Look! Someone agrees with me!" as if this will cause that person to magically agree with me. (In the preceding sentence, the phrase "the other" was used as a too-subtle reference to the book review, which is why it was quoted. Points for figuring it out.)
Anyway it is a patently stupid thought that runs through my head, that I can just forward internet articles to people, thinking that they will be swayed in any way. It's the only thought I've got right now though, apparently. Usually I like writing multiple thoughts in these posts, because they're so infrequent and so I don't have to fully form any of them. But right now I've got nothing.
Oh. Here's one. This new homepage Xanga has designed has made it nearly impossible (for me, anyway) to locate what should be the easiest thing to find - writing a new weblog entry. I had to go back to the old page to find out where to write this one. Incidentally, I find it interesting that they still refer to them as "weblogs" when I haven't seen that word anywhere else in a million years. Even weirder, perhaps they are just using a standard dictionary, but their inline spell checker tells me that "weblog" is incorrectly spelled! Why wouldn't you even add this (and "Xanga") to your dictionary? | | |
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