My Favorite Things

I've been getting the New York Times newsletter emailed to me for the last few years. It's really quite sneaky, because they tease stories in the newsletter, but you have to be a subscriber to the NYT to read more.

Due to a combination of frustration over not being able to read said articles and an offer I couldn't refuse – a yearlong subscription rate of $1 per week – I now have full access to NYT.

One of the articles that piqued my interest provided a list of the likes and dislikes of Susan Sontag. I thought perhaps they put a limit on the number of each – but no, there were 24 likes and 19 dislikes. 

I began thinking how assembling this list might be an interesting exercise, a type of self-awareness. I found it interesting that Sontag's likes outnumbered her dislikes, implying she was happier more often than not. I don't know if this is true or not, but it gave me pause, and I began putting my own list together, with the caveat that I'd stick to 20 per category. Also, rather than ponder and revise, I chose the items that sprung immediately to mind, so I'm sure there are some things I've missed.

Please note, Mr. Ginley, that I am including "things," not "people," so don't get your knickers in a twist because you're not mentioned here.

Here, in no particular order, are my 20 likes and dislikes:

Likes:

1. Long walks in the park
2. Cats
3. Flowers
4. Chocolate
5. Writing
6. Books
7. Lavender
8. Music
9. Romantic comedies
10. Hot baths
11. Puzzles
12. Coffee
13. Vintage clothing
14. Old photographs
15. Crystals
16. Mosaics
17. Birds
18. Antiques
19. Early morning quiet time
20. Exploring other cultures

Dislikes:

1. Wholesale hatred
2. Extremes in weather
3. Groundhogs
4. Stingy tipping
5. Organized religion
6. Arthritis
7. Superhero movies
8. Video games
9. Shoveling snow
10. Gristle
11. Rum (we have a history)
12. Bugs (not the Bunny, he's cool)
13. Poison ivy
14. Yardwork
15. Fox "News"
16. Age bias (old or young)
17. Noisy sporting events
18. Tight clothing
19. Household chores
20. Super spicy foods

As I compiled my lists, the thing I found most interesting about myself is that many of the dislikes were behavior-related, while all of the likes were just things that make me happy. Also, it took me longer to come up with dislikes than likes. Is that a good or a bad thing?

I invite you to create your own lists. You needn't share them, but I think you'll find the exercise worthwhile in any case.

In the meantime, I'm going to take the Colbert Questionert, a quiz Stephen Colbert asks his celebrity guests to take so they will be "known." 

Is that a good or a bad thing? I leave it to you.

All Things Must Pass

I'm borrowing my headline today from two of my favorite people: George Harrison and Axel Hoyer.

George said it first, but Axel used it most recently. 

As many of you know, for a few years, Axel was my lifeline, providing me with steady work to keep me afloat when my unemployment ran out and my prospects were slim. He took me under his wing, and I learned how to convert videotapes to a DVD (or USB) format and scan photos and slides.

Along the way, I also learned how to set up a website – enjoyagain.net – which won't win any design awards, but gets the job done. I did some social media via the FB page. And I got my first lesson in Google analytics. Thanks to Mr. Ginley, I also figured out how to set up spreadsheets to inventory and organize jobs so I could stay on top of them.

While I was working for Axel, I continued to look for employment that more closely matched my professional skills. No one wanted to gamble on someone with this much "experience" – until my current employer, OuterBox, took the time to read my work, look at me as a whole package and took that chance. Thankfully, they did, and I've been very happy there. 

But...it meant leaving the ranch, where I'd helped to bring back so many folks' memories to life. Fortunately, I was able to continue working for Axel as a side gig until last week, when he found my replacement. 

It was a bittersweet moment. On the one hand, it frees me up to do other things. On the other hand, it's the end of an era for me. 

Most people don't share my enthusiasm for the work, but in spite of technical glitches, poor quality tapes and other "pebbles in my shoe," I've enjoyed restoring people's memories. I imagine them sitting down to watch the newly-converted family movies, and seeing images of Grandma and Grandpa or Uncle Luke, who's no longer with us, as they flicker across the screen. To relive their children's early years. To remember that which had been forgotten.

Sorry, I didn't mean to get sentimental there, but oh well. What I really want to get to is to thank Axel for giving me the opportunity to try something totally out of my comfort zone and master it. Things didn't look good that first day when I sat down at one of the machines, went home and burst into tears because it seemed too much for me. Luckily, I didn't get sacked, and I even feel like I contributed in some small way to the success of Enjoy Again for awhile.

So here's to you, Mr. Hoyer, for the opportunity and the memories to enjoy again...and again.

Prost!

Resistance Is Futile

One of two things needs to happen.

1. I need to quit Facebook.

2. I need to stop clicking on cliffhanger stories.

Anyone who's spent any amount of time of FB knows about clickbait. And that it's stupid to fall for it. Hopefully, y'all are smarter than I am, because I've had to learn the lesson more than once. 

Last night was the latest, but I swear, as God is my witness, I'll never click on clickbait again.

I'm sure when you hear my story you'll understand. Or you'll mock me. But I won't be there to hear you cackling, so whatever.

Anyhow, here goes. There was a headline that said something like, "A Mother Is Stunned When She Finds Out What Her Daughter Threw Out of Her Car Window." The accompanying video clip showed a garbage bag in the middle of the road, and it was moving like there was a living creature inside.

Ya, I took the bait. Stupid me.

As Mr. Ginley will attest, I'm not the most patient person in the world. I scrolled and skimmed through the story, which dragged on and on and on (much like this sentence). When I finally reached the end, it turns out the thing in the bag was one of those lifelike baby dolls they use to teach teenagers why they don't want to get pregnant. 

The kicker was, at the very end, it admitted the story was fiction. 

Yep, really, really bad fiction.

So, aside from five minutes of my life that will never come this way again, what's the harm in clicking on it? 

I'm sure that for the foreseeable future, all kinds of weird stories will show up in my FB feed, begging to be clicked. 

But I'm better than that now. I don't care if I see a snippet of video of an eagle being rescued from fishing line. Or a teaser about what happened to child stars of yore. Or how ugly things can get at your local Wal-Mart.

Nope. Nope. Nope. 

Time to read a book instead. At least if it's fiction, I'll know ahead of time.

And if I lose patience, I can always turn to the last page to find out what happens. 

Photo attribution: Hope Hampton Productions / Paramount Pictures, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In Search of Latent Talents

Part of my morning ritual is perusing the New York Times newsletter. It arrives in my email inbox every day, and I take a gander to get a sort of Readers Digest Condensed Version of current events.

photo credit below

On Saturdays, the NYT departs from the usual blood and guts headlines (at least for the opening story) and instead pursues a social media theme.

Today, the topic was returning to something you used to love doing but haven't tried in years.

Many of the people featured in the article were lapsed musicians. There was a clarinet player, a violinist, a pianist. But there were other rediscovered talents, too. A fly fisherman. A skateboarder. A tennis player.

The article made me cast back to my youth and wonder what latent talent I could tap into at this late date.

Hmmm. I never did take up an instrument. My parents didn't have the money to pay for music lessons growing up. And I never showed the kind of aptitude my brother, Gary, has. (He can hear a piece of music and play it back on his guitar. He still plays and also writes music. Blah blah blah. Love you, Gary.) 

My brother, John also played the guitar for awhile. And Diane learned the violin. So they potentially have things to go back to.

As for me? I wanted to learn the piano. Instead, I learned to type, a skill that has served me well given my career choice, but not one that has done much for my soul.

I was never athletic, either. In gym class, I could manage endurance activities quite nicely, and while I liked playing basketball, my height did me no favors. Badminton was the only family sport I engaged in, but I learned when I took it in high school that the way we played it at home was nothing like the cut-throat manner in which you're supposed to play. (My older sisters would chide me if I smashed the birdie into the ground so my younger brother couldn't return it.)

The great outdoors are great, indeed, but in my neck of the woods, they're not accessible year-round. Too often, it's where the ass hits the ice, and my bones ain't getting any younger. Still, I would like to do a little more hiking and such.

So, what's left? I tried birding for awhile. When COVID hit, I stopped meeting with fellow birders. I suppose I could start up again, but standing for long periods has become problematic for me. 

Fishing? I'm not sure I'm ready to invest in the all the gear required for the sport, although I've been doing a lot of writing for a client at work, and I have a better idea of what it's like. And I do like the idea of communing with nature, although I'm not a big fish-eater. 

Kayaking? Maybe. I've been saying for the last several years that I'd like to try it. I'll need to find someone to go with me, though. Mr. Ginley is not a fan, and I'm not keen on trying it alone. 

What about art? I'm useless there. And no, I don't imagine myself a sort of Grandma Moses, taking up the brush in my 80s.

Soul-searching has made me realize that there's not much to go back to. No passion that I've left behind. No bucket list of things to accomplish before I hit the dirt. Also, I'm pretty anti-social, so that takes a lot of options off that table.

Isn't that kind of pathetic?

Perhaps.

But it takes me back to one of my favorite quotes from Matt Groening, which has become something of a mantra for me.

"Keep your expectations tiny, you’ll go through life not so whiney."

Photo credit: FOTO:FORTEPAN / Nagy Zita, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons