I’d have the world in the palm of my hand right now if it weren’t so wet. I don’t like wet hands. I never did. Many people have strange neurotic conditions and quirks. I don’t know why anyone would ever consider themselves normal or would want to be normal if it existed. My quirks made me who I am today – an immature, self-centered jerk (I also have low self-esteem). With all these things, I still like myself. The rest of the world is just a bunch of weirdoes, though.
I used to love to swim. I took swimming and scuba in high school (yes, I went to a pretty rich high school). We had a swimming pool at my parents’ house from the time I was little. We had an adobe pool, but my dad dug it into the ground to make it more like a cement pool. I would swim for hours. I could hold my breath longer than everyone I knew (which comprised my parents, my sister, and, probably, one friend). I would sometimes just sit under the water, holding my breath and think about life (one of my favorite hobbies). Many people have a hard time finding even one hobby. I had a hard time only practicing one hobby. Between music, painting, drawing, juggling, Lego building (hey, Lego building is serious business), bicycling, skateboarding, swimming, sculpting, computer programming, writing, moviemaking, and cooking, I had an idea or two of how to occupy myself.
I always heard other kids (my sister being one of them) complaining they had nothing to do. I never really understood this. I always had things to do – not because I had all the toys, etc., in the world (though I did), but because I had creativity. I could have a pencil and a piece of paper and be entertained for hours, if not all day. I would draw, write, invent a new game, or build a paper town. I always liked toys that were the least suggestive. Not to pick on girls, but Barbies were quite suggestive toys (though not in the way you’re thinking, you sicko). You might have a house for your Barbie, a car, a boyfriend, or whatever, but they are all real things with very little creativity involved. You create situations based on the real world, not a created world. When I played with Lego, the buildings, caves, people, creatures, and other things were all created from scratch. Situations were improvised in my head. When I hear about the things my wife did with Barbies, I know there was more than creative stimulation going on in Barbie’s house.
Speaking of playing house, I got married recently. We had a not too big, not too small service that only lasted about 15 minutes before we sat down for food, dancing, and fun. It was the first wedding I didn’t get bored out of my mind at. I made one large mistake during the wedding. Apparently, everyone who’s involved with the wedding (groomsman, parents, etc.) are supposed to have flowers on before the wedding. I was mistakenly put in charge of this task. I say “mistakenly” because I have no idea how these flowers are supposed to be put on, when they’re supposed to be put on, or why I was put in charge of putting these things on. I figure it is a tradition for the groom to make a mistake during the ceremony. Everyone knew I was perfect, so they had to set me up to make a mistake. They knew I would not understand what to do with these flowers. They gave them to me through someone who gave me no sign what to do with them other than to get them on the proper people. How was I supposed to know who are the proper people? Oh, they’re marked. Well, how am I supposed to know when I’m supposed to do it? I’m damned if I put the flowers on at the wrong time, damned if I put the flowers on wrong, and damned, regardless, because no one who needed a flower was around when I was given the flowers. For a long time, I walked around with the box of flowers, not knowing if I should set them down. Finally, I set them down – the beginning of the end.
By the time the ceremony started, those flowers were in a different area than I was standing. I just wanted to see Patti (the wife of all wives – then, the fiancée of all fiancées). As dictated by law, I didn’t see her all day (I won’t mention Patti closing the door still in curlers just before the wedding incident), hadn’t seen the dress she was wearing (again stated in the law books as a “no go”) and wanted to be with her again soon (for the rest of our lives). I did not have flowers on my mind. I had something far more important. Forgive me if I don’t have flowers constantly on my mind. Okay, the paragraph is over. The women who are reading it can quit mumbling things about how I had one job and couldn’t even do that right.
I’m not a bargain shopper. If I have to go through any more effort to buy something than just going to the store of my choice on the day of my choice and picking it up, I’d rather just miss the bargain. When I get something home and I paid $7.89 instead of $7.59 with a coupon, the financial loss does not weigh on my mind. If, on the other foot, I paid $600 for something and could have paid $450 when it was on sale, I would probably be disturbed if it was too late to take advantage of the sale. For these more expensive items, I actually invest time in research before I make a purchase. I have researched for weeks on some of the musical equipment purchases I have made. I care much more about getting something that works for me than getting something cheaper.
My uncle will always search for the bargain, sometimes lying to get it. He’ll find a store with a liberal return policy, buy something new, put an older version of that same product back in the box, and get his money back. Most of the time, he gets quite good bargains, but I could never handle the lying and bargaining needed to get the lower price. I get my lack of bargaining ability from my dad. My uncle quite often asks what my dad paid for something so he can point out how much less he paid for the same thing. It’s a salesman mentality and my uncle is a salesman. I try to avoid stressful situations and bargaining with a salesman is definitely stressful.
Jobs are funny things. People who have a job they enjoy are usually philosophical about how they got it. The enjoyable jobs seem to come into people’s lives when they aren’t looking for them. This is not exactly encouraging to those who are actively seeking a job they will enjoy. I have sent out resumes and applications to Disney for years. I have the largest collection of nice Disney rejection letters with Mickey smiling on them of anyone I know (which isn’t saying much because I don’t know that many people). I actually got a call from them one time, but wasn’t qualified. I’d still like to work for Disney someday in some capacity, but it will probably happen in a sideways manner. By “sideways manner,” I mean I’ll probably write music or a screenplay for someone else and Disney will ask me to do something on one of their projects.
I’ve noticed one thing about this paper. Instead of Thoughts from Life 4, it should be entitled Brian’s Thoughts from Brian’s Life 4 because it is very much centered on me personally. For the following paragraphs, I will attempt to make the subject matters more general. Thank you for your time, patients, and donations.
My first official act as the Mayor of General Subject Matter-ville will be to talk about food. I have said before I wish there were a way I could never eat again. This isn’t exactly true. If I didn’t eat, I would miss out on many pleasures. People dedicate their whole lives to food. Chefs go to culinary schools for years to discover the fine art of preparing food. Other people throw a frozen meal into a microwave for 5 minutes and are just happy with their machine prepared meal. I’m sure some chefs will actually throw a frozen meal into a microwave every once in a while if they don’t have time to prepare a meal. I just had lunch and … (Oops, sorry. It won’t happen again. Now back to the general subject matter already in progress.) A meal means different things to different people. If you get enough food to nutritionalize yourself, it’s a meal. Some seem to need a table, a chair, side dishes, utensils, a drink, and a server to have a “meal,” but those people need to get a clue. Reality does not always have time for utensils.
When I was growing up, our family rarely ate at the dinner table. My parents both worked and didn’t always have time to cook a meal that we could all sit at the dinner table and eat. I will admit, this is something that was missing in my life. I have a hard time to this day with eating in a restaurant and having a real or metaphorical round table discussion. Many times, I would come home and not really be able to talk about my day because everyone I could talk to was sitting in front of the television and eating dinner. This happens in many households across America, so I wasn’t alone. I know what you’re thinking. Why don’t I pull out my Dan Quail fan club card? I am not a member of the conservative party or republican party and I don’t own and have never used a gun. The word “family values” will not be imprinted on your forehead after talking to me. I just realize some things are important to a growing child like talking with family and finding out what is going on in their lives. It will be awhile before I start the next paragraph because I have to step off my high horse.
Where do you call when you have nothing to question? People who have no opinions on anything are not interesting people to talk to. I have several strong opinions on several subjects. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be writing these papers. My thoughts in Thoughts from Life (the title of the paper you’re reading or hearing right now) are just the tips of my mental iceberg for my opinions about the world (which means I try to keep things light and fluffy in these papers). A person who says, “I don’t know,” when confronted with any subject is not a good conversationalist and should be avoided around dinner tables at all costs. My opinion on abortion, religion, and sex may anger some people, but that’s okay. I can live with that if they can.
Admittedly, if you ask a person what their opinion on a recent news item is, they shouldn’t give an opinion about it if they don’t know anything about it. On the side of the road that I didn’t just write on, an opinion regarding abortion, sex, drugs, religion, and politics in general should always be ready for conversation. At times, people don’t give an opinion regarding these issues because they don’t want people forming an opinion on them merely based on their opinions. It’s quite helpful if on the first day of a new job or on a first date, you hold back from saying, “I think abortions should be as widely available as buying a carton of milk, don’t you? Euthanasia is pretty cool, don’t you think?” You might need to spend time with people before you bring out the big opinions. But that’s just my opinion.
I need to ride share. The only thing is, I live about 10 minutes from where I work. The only one I could ride share with would be my wife and she works different hours than I do. The reason I say I need to ride share is because I need to have that forced care conversation that takes place when you ride share with fellow employees. Besides, Drew Carey ride shares (at least his character on his television show does). I would want to ride share with just one person because a third person might monopolize the conversation (remember, I have round table conversation deficit syndrome). I enjoy conversation monopolizers, unless I have something to say. I used to work with my wife in the same department. She was actually my employee at the time (we weren’t married then – we were working in sin). I enjoyed working with her and being able to talk to her throughout the day. The only thing was, when we would go home at night to “live in sin,” we couldn’t talk about our days because we were with each other all day. We could, however, say the things we couldn’t say at work.
Now that Patti and I have separate jobs, we can again talk about work, but we don’t work together so the people she gossips about only mean so much to me. They were people I only met once, twice, or not at all. At work, I can’t really talk with other employees about work because we are at work. We can have surface level conversations, but can’t really say the things we truly want to say. We see each other every day, but we are still conversational strangers. If we ride shared, we could have these open conversations. I could turn to my fellow employee and say, “So, do you think abortion is good like euthanasia?”
Thoughts from Life 
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