live every day as if it were your last

I can only assume that doesn't mean hooking yourself to an iron lung and having "Do Not Resuscitate"  tattooed on your chest.

I think it means "Don't sweat the small stuff". Is that practical? Really? Can we go through a day, a week, a lifetime, not sweating any small stuff? I decided to have a go at it because I get driven to murder(ishness) by seemingly trivial things on a regular basis. People using regular when they mean frequent for example (That's another one). I am affected and stressed by what other people think of me and I am not alone in being destroyed (hyperbolically) by other people having control of me.

So before I try it, I need to know why I should try it. Is it really that we shouldn't sweat the small stuff? Or is it that we should think about why we are affected by things at all? All things. It's the control we sweat about, not the stuff itself.

This more or less boils down to control right? I have a long-time friend and female powerhouse who simply doesn't let herself be controlled. It's an awesome sight to see people trying. Whether its job-related criticism, public disagreement or social convention. I remember a middle-aged "comedy-bore" forcing people to "guess" about something or other (I forget what it was, presumably a thrillingly hilarious thing). The best response I saw was this friend/she-devil reply "I don't want to guess". The man pressed the issue. "OK..." she said, "...is it a million? Can I guess again? Is it one?".

You can't do anything about that. It's glorious.

One Word Meme from TheJules at "The Gravel Farm"

Thanks http://gravelfarm.blogspot.com/




1. Where is your cell phone? Germany
2. Where is your significant other? Unknown
3. Your hair color? Browny.
4. Your mother? Me.
5. Your father? Brother.
6. Your favorite thing? Smartphone.
7. Your dream last night? death.
8. Your dream/goal? singularity.
9. The room you’re in? wohnzimmer.
11. Your fear? inevitability.
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Home.
13. Where were you last night? Bavaria.
14. What you’re not? Calm.
15. One of your wish-list items? Crackpipe.
16. Where you grew up? Rurality.
17. The last thing you did? Cofffffffee.
18. What are you wearing? Crotchless.
19. Your TV? Applemac.
20. Your pet? Coming!
21. Your computer? TV.
22. Your mood? Bipolar.
23. Missing someone? Yes.
24. Your car? Diesel.
25. Something you’re not wearing? Cockring.
26. Favorite store? Library.
27. Your summer? Muslim.
28. Love someone? OYAY.
29. Your favorite color? Black.
30. When is the last time you laughed? Yesterday.
31. Last time you cried? month.

Your so stupid

Language, just like society, evolves and in some cases improves as time marches. I get that. I don't stand on the corner in Victorian clothes, putting an f where an s should be. For some reason, and I'm sure your going to call me a pedant with priority issues, I instinctively dismiss people who don't care about grammar. I don't know why, although I feel I should add I am not complaining feverishly about typos and occasional mistakes.

Having said that, the difference between "your and you're" bring me to almost apocalyptic levels of British tuttage that my head literally explodes.

That's another one.

Adding the word "literally" is a choice. It could be left out but it gets added to a metaphor. "I'm literally hanging about the house today". Holy shit really? Like a bat? I'm too old for it but Radio 1 presenters can't open their mouths without "literally exploding". It's so ubiquitous I'm bored of it.

That's another one.

Unlike the "literally" thing, anger at people using "bored of" instead of "bored with" doesn't make any sense. I am fine with "tired of" so really, this might be time to let go and worry about the state of the economy. Their are many more things to get angry about.

That's another one.

Their, there and they're. It just requires a bit of thought. But less people seem to care these days.

That's another one.

Fewer and fewer people distinguish between less (for example water) and fewer (for example buckets of water) that the dictionary is going to have to change to accommodate it. Over my cold, dead, pedantic, OCD body. Just to check it isn't me, I've asked for some friends thought's on the matter.

There's another one.

Possessive apostrophe. I've been known to literally mention this out loud. I sometimes teach at students and about once a year I get asked why they should care. "Isn't language flexible, aren't we just breaking the rules and freeing ourselves of the shackles of your own linguistic restriction?" They ask. Actually I assume that's what they've said, it mostly sounds like "ugh ugh blugh brugher ugh".

I reply anyway..."NO! I bark insanely. NOOOOOOO! You have to know the rules to break them." I argue trendily. It is so bad, I have to use the H-bomb. The ace. The deuce........

"Your cakes taste like Grannies"

Sage advice

"Never regret things you did, only things you didn't do".

[Nods wisely; resolves to take more risks, to stop worrying, to feel and live and love more]

I don't want to be an empirical stick in the mud here...but that only really works if you're talking about running through the deserted Paris streets at sun-rise. It loses a certain "jenny say pah" when you've got so angry because your towel fell off the hanger thing three times even though you tried to hang it on properly that you threw it out of the window and shouted and kicked the bath with bare feet and the bath panel sidey bit fell off. And you broke your toe.

Also people that do gang-rapes. It doesn't work there either.

"Everything happens for a reason".

Yeah, the reason being that you chose to be involved in a serious sexual assault/bath rage incident.

Is there a bin for these sayings?

Punchline

I would like to finish all conversations the same way that most articles/blogs are finished. I would like to end them all with a single line which sums up and self-references the whole conversation.

Me:           "Excuse me do you have the time?"
Him:         "Sorry mate, I don't have a watch"
Me:           "No problem thanks"

Me:           "Next time we meet, perhaps we'll have.......More Time!?!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Him:         "What?"

Me:          "Oh nothing, I was self-referencing for structural closure".

Him:       "You're a queer".

Me:         "How are you still doing this? I was writing a hypothetical example of an unusual conversation and you're still here".

Him:        "You don't know how to even use tabs. Look, that last line doesn't line up with the rest of it".

Me:         "What The Hell man?"


I think it's because conversations never go exactly how you want them to. So many deeply planned arguments go astray because the bastard on the other side won't say exactly the lines I've rehearsed. It's almost as if the world isn't a deep, well-structured figment of my importance. I have literally never, ever won an argument where the other side has nodded sagely with a sort of "well-played sir" bonhomie. It's almost as if all arguments are unwinnable. I think I'll stick to blogging and arguing points on my own.

Those are arguments I can definitely win.





Him:            "Prick".

Evolution Schmevolution.

I am very uncomfortable and really a bit embarrassed admitting that any of my clothes are new.
"Is that a new shirt?" I'm asked, from nowhere.
"....er.....no, no I just don't. Wear. It. Much." I counter.

I feel slightly angry that my day has been attacked, unprovoked.

That's a weird survival trait evolved from years of success over weaker Hobbesian losers isn't it? Pretending my clothes were new once but not in the relatively very recent past, rather, a bit less recently purchased? How can that possibly benefit the species?

I had a college professor once expound the theory that evolution had stopped for the human race. He went on to explain that everyone now broadly has a partner and procreates (my brain translating effortlessly into "even fatties are getting some"). I went away and read and realised that no, we have not stopped evolving. Evolution just doesn't work on the timescales of a few generations and the process is not a movement "toward" something. I spent a lot of time learning from the world's best that evolution happens simply "BECAUSE IT HAPPENS". That's it, done and dusted. Inna nutshell. And the fact that we have evolved to feel nervously embarrassed about new clothes is more likely part of a more complex system of social norms which allow us to exist as a very successful gregarious predator.

I took this to the college professor. Well I tried to but by then it was 13 years later, I couldn't remember his name and I realised that he didn't really understand the most basic concepts of evolution. I didn't even try to.

I did see someone who looked just like him though and I shouted his name really loudly across the street "HEY DR FINKELMADEUPSTORYSON" but it wasn't him. I was so embarrassed.

Clear, evolutionary advantage.