Weekend stories...

I heard the funniest story this weekend and I just have to share it with as many people as possible. My former employer’s son now works for the company and, apparently, while at a happy hour, the owner of the company told this story about his son. They were in Portugal (they think) with a hockey league and it was the kid’s turn to be hazed so the guys stripped him down, made him dress in women’s panties and a bra, tied him to a chair and set him up in the elevator for a ride to the lobby. So here this kid is, in panties and a bra, tied to a chair and stuck in the elevator. He manages to get his hands free and hops off the elevator before it gets to the lobby. Then he decides he’ll just take the stairs back up to his floor but he discovers that the doors on the stairwell are locked from the inside and the only way he can get out is to go all the way down the stairs and outside. So, here’s this kid, in panties and a bra, running around outside the hotel, trying to get back in and back to his floor w/o anyone the wiser but it’s the middle of the night and the lobby doors are locked and the only way to get in is w/a room key and, failing that, id…neither of which he has…he, he, he. Can’t you just see it? He had to get the desk clerk to call his room so someone could come down and identify him so he could get back into the hotel.

It's hot!!

Some people lead lives that seem so much more interesting than I ever dream of mine being. This is not to say I long for interesting things in my life…at least not interesting things that scream interesting…you know? Interesting, to me – is a new idea, a different take on something I’ve experienced before, a great book, PBS…you know…that sort of thing. Actual experience doesn’t seem so overtly desirable until some one asks me what I’ve been up to and I’m forced to say…um, not much. The answer works but it’s not actually true, in as far as I’m concerned. I just haven’t been up to much outside my head. Is that strange? My head is a fascinating place…at least to me and, really – isn’t that all that matters? I wouldn’t mind if some one else found it interesting too but there, I run into a pretty basic level resistance to sharing too much of what goes on in here w/the outside world. I don’t know why except that, so often, it feels like more trouble to explain myself than it could possibly be worth. I don’t think I have a mind that’s all that more active than anyone else’s…or maybe I do but the act of trying to explain myself to another person tends to just exhaust me and frustrate them…am I talking about people here or pigs?

Last year I developed a friendship with a co-worker that, despite its brevity, was easily the most satisfying new friendship I’ve run across in a long time. For whatever reason, and I don’t think I’m terribly unique in this, most people just don’t interest me much…except sometimes as curiosities. He moved to San Francisco not long after we met and, after a couple emails back and forth, we stopped talking. I always meant to write to him, I just…didn’t for some reason I can’t pinpoint and really isn’t relevant at this point. He emailed me out of the blue a couple weeks ago at an email address that wasn’t even remotely my name and it gave me the greatest charge. I smiled about it for the rest of day and several days after every time it crossed my mind. I’m a strong believer in the idea that the people in your life are there for a reason – if they’re meant to stay, they’ll stay and if they’re not, they’re not. The ones that keep coming back…well, I’ve yet to be unhappy when it happens. Finding a way to be okay with the comings and goings of things is part of accepting that they will…be coming and going…thus says my experience so far. Not just people but jobs and apartments and cars and money and ideas and great books or movies or plays or whatever it is. The experience of running into those things, the delight in the unexpected pleasures…as well as the disappointments, is what keeps me interested in this whole living life thing. Knowing when to let go of the experience is at least as important as appreciating it in the first place. Good philosophy…not always easy to remember it. But that’s the point, no?