Thursday, April 24, 2014

Reflections on Reflecting

I have always admired people who had such strong beliefs that  they never questioned them; life would be so much simpler that way.  But, in the words of the great Charles Busch, "Ira, you are what you are!".  And I am not not one of those aforementioned folk.
 
My spiritual credo is nebulous, best summed up as, "I can't explain what I believe, but I'll know it when I feel it."  There are, however, a few truths I hold self-evident:
 
1.  That whole "Do Unto Others" thing makes sense.  If you don't want people to shit on you, don't shit on them.  If you do want people to shit on you, please move along...
 
2.  The whole "God wrote the Bible" thing does not make sense.  Unless he's Harper Lee (hmmm....), you think he'd want to cash in on the royalites of Bible II, Eclectic Boogaloo, with all kinds of modern-day rules we should follow.  "Thou Shalt Slaughter the Trans-fatted Calf and Fry Potatoes in it's Glorious Oil", stuff like that.  And maybe put a qualifier on the cloven-hooves ban.  "Oh, except for bacon, that shit's amazing." 
 
3.  I don't like guns. I'll go so far as to say I Hate Guns.   However, you have every right to own one... (*arches eyebrow*) Responsibly... and I won't give you a hard time about it.  So shut the fuck up about abortions and gay people.
 
4.  I sometimes only make sense in my own head.   (See #3, above).
 
5.  Most of life is spent treading water, with the occasional jump off the high dive and a rainbow through a waterfall.   It can be hard to accept that treading water is as good as it gets, but you should try, cause then it's easier. 
 
Obviously, the above does not constitute the Greatest Story Ever Told.  But, honestly, I don't think the Bible does either.  I enjoyed "To Kill A Mockingbird" a lot more.
 
 
 
 
 


Friday, April 11, 2014

Learn On Me

One of the interesting things about getting older is seeing how things have changed during your lifetime.  And for your timewaster today, I will use the example of education.
 
When I was a lass, we did not have Middle School, we had Junior High. I don't know why they did away with that nomenclature, maybe the thought was that Junior High sounded like a 7th grade pot party, instead of an institution of learning. To quote Blazing Saddles, "And they was right!"  In the future, kids will attend Ozone Enriched Brain Enlightenment Centers.  Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. (Which I learned in "Junior High", so there.)
 
In this antiquated Junior High, girls were required to take Home Ec.  (That's short for Economics.  I know.  It made no sense back then, either.)  In this class you learned two essential feminine life skills--asserting your independence and  making it on your own.  Ha! Ha!  Just kidding, girls can't do those things, we don't have a penis.  No, we learned to cook and sew. The first thing we learned to "cook" was a Grapefruit Basket. You slice a grapefruit in half, slice the peel around the edges and pull these cut edges up and tie with dental floss to make a "handle". Then sprinkle the grapefruit with brown sugar and broil it. Thereby ruining an otherwise perfectly good grapefruit. We also made a Doris Day-like apron and an ugly blouse. Mission accomplished.   To show you how affective (or effective, your choice),  Junior High was, I am today extremely independent and just fine on my own, but I can't cook or sew for shit.  Thanks, Junior Higher Education! 
 
I actually have a point here, other than bitching about my puberty, which is:  what is valued as necessary education changes through time.  All right, I get that.  But I confess to being stymied at the current trend to not teach cursive handwriting.  How are these future-adults supposed to sign legal documents?   Or accept Fedex packages of pot?  Maybe the Brilliant Educators of Today treat cursive the same way the Brilliant Educators of Yesteryear treated sex ed...eh, you'll figure it out.  But, in my dotage, it concerns me.
 
I guess I could broil a grapefruit to calm myself down, but I think I'll just wait for the Fedex guy.