perpetual Goofus
Jul. 26th, 2007 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanpaku_backupThe other day I was masticating a heavily blackened piece of salmon from the backyard grill. Blackened because the grill is a $10 cheapo from Shaw's that easily overcooks with too much charcoal, but by that point you don't care because you're starving. And it occurred to me that this is stupid. You get cancer from burned food. Everyone knows this.
I find myself doing many things like this these days. I bought $400 prescription sunglasses because![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
librarygrrl convinced me I would get eye cancer without them, but the Mrs. tells me something horrible happened to them involving the baby such that they have vanished from the face of the earth, and now I am driving around all summer squinting into the glare. I Really should get those dorky flip-overs to put on your glasses. But that would entail a trip to the drugstore to find the things, which probably aren't even made anymore... etc.
I am working on this shed in the backyard that is covered in old paint. What can't be pulled off gets scraped off. I won't let the kids play near it, have them treat the shed's environs as though it was the site of a nuclear accident and they must keep 100 yards away from it at all times. But for me? Well, how much can stupider can lead make me? Etc.
And that's not even getting into the realm of my non-exercising, non-blood test for cholesterol ways. I who should probably be on Lipitor.
Perhaps I am just too boring of a person, and living stupidly is just the same as living dangerously. But more likely it is laziness combined with lack of time to really do things the right way. It seems like an accomplishment just to get the kids through the day in one piece, let alone other things that take time and effort and are not much fun to begin with.
There are so many other illustrations of simply not having, or not feeling able to take, the time to do things the way they are supposed to be done. For example, cutting the lawn, although Al Gore has certainly made me feel guilty about that. Due to Al I am not buying a gas powered lawn mower, so I never get to Sears to buy an electric one, and we don't really have an extra $200 to buy a lawn mower anyway, so after 4 weeks of not mowing it I have to sheepishly borrow the neighbor's mower because that's the only sucker that can cut the grass so high. And can I just say that cutting the lawn with a self-propelled and powerful $900 mower is a nearly religious experience? After you have spent your whole life pushing rusty goddam reel mowers around through duck grass? Of course, you would be able to push the reel mower if you mowed the lawn more often... But my point is that now mowing the lawn with this exquisite machine is a morally agonizing act, thus leading me to try not to think about it... meanwhile the grass grows back.
And in the end it never accomplishes what you want. You don't spray your yard with weed killer because you are Concerned about heavy metals in the water table, but you don't have time to weed, and then after two months you have a bona fide Triffid patch in your backyard, and what to you do? Agent Orange. Laziness plus liberal guilt will get you every time.
So it's like a ball of exhaustion, penury, and carelessness all thrown into one, with a little laziness put in for good measure, and everything goes down the tubes. Good intentions just never get there because of the lack of time. I really should do something about that...
I find myself doing many things like this these days. I bought $400 prescription sunglasses because
librarygrrl convinced me I would get eye cancer without them, but the Mrs. tells me something horrible happened to them involving the baby such that they have vanished from the face of the earth, and now I am driving around all summer squinting into the glare. I Really should get those dorky flip-overs to put on your glasses. But that would entail a trip to the drugstore to find the things, which probably aren't even made anymore... etc.I am working on this shed in the backyard that is covered in old paint. What can't be pulled off gets scraped off. I won't let the kids play near it, have them treat the shed's environs as though it was the site of a nuclear accident and they must keep 100 yards away from it at all times. But for me? Well, how much can stupider can lead make me? Etc.
And that's not even getting into the realm of my non-exercising, non-blood test for cholesterol ways. I who should probably be on Lipitor.
Perhaps I am just too boring of a person, and living stupidly is just the same as living dangerously. But more likely it is laziness combined with lack of time to really do things the right way. It seems like an accomplishment just to get the kids through the day in one piece, let alone other things that take time and effort and are not much fun to begin with.
There are so many other illustrations of simply not having, or not feeling able to take, the time to do things the way they are supposed to be done. For example, cutting the lawn, although Al Gore has certainly made me feel guilty about that. Due to Al I am not buying a gas powered lawn mower, so I never get to Sears to buy an electric one, and we don't really have an extra $200 to buy a lawn mower anyway, so after 4 weeks of not mowing it I have to sheepishly borrow the neighbor's mower because that's the only sucker that can cut the grass so high. And can I just say that cutting the lawn with a self-propelled and powerful $900 mower is a nearly religious experience? After you have spent your whole life pushing rusty goddam reel mowers around through duck grass? Of course, you would be able to push the reel mower if you mowed the lawn more often... But my point is that now mowing the lawn with this exquisite machine is a morally agonizing act, thus leading me to try not to think about it... meanwhile the grass grows back.
And in the end it never accomplishes what you want. You don't spray your yard with weed killer because you are Concerned about heavy metals in the water table, but you don't have time to weed, and then after two months you have a bona fide Triffid patch in your backyard, and what to you do? Agent Orange. Laziness plus liberal guilt will get you every time.
So it's like a ball of exhaustion, penury, and carelessness all thrown into one, with a little laziness put in for good measure, and everything goes down the tubes. Good intentions just never get there because of the lack of time. I really should do something about that...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-03 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 11:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 02:35 pm (UTC)squinting right back at ya!
Date: 2007-07-27 07:04 pm (UTC)"A...B...or about the same?" Hell, they are ALL about the same. What happens if I pick the wrong one?
Re: squinting right back at ya!
Date: 2007-07-27 07:49 pm (UTC)lead...duh!
Date: 2007-07-27 07:11 pm (UTC)Our 100-year-old ladderback dining room chipped paint shabby-chic chairs are kind of a problem. Suddenly, everything is dangerous. There's a penny on the floor! Holy shit! It's all so exhausting, ya know?
variations on a theme
Date: 2007-07-27 07:56 pm (UTC)Plans:
Age 2: I'm going to stop shitting my pants someday!
Age 10: I'm gonna play baseball!
Age 16: I'm going to write novels in my house on the moon where I live with five Miss America winners. I have sex with them constantly as we are trying to repopulate the Earth after a disastrous war with Russia. I am a Doctor and a Lawyer and a Scientist. I cure cancer and play violin in the Luna One Symphony Orchestra. At some point I will probably be the Ambassador from Earth in some sort of Interstellar Interspecies peace negotiations. Flying cars are a given. I invented anti-gravity after all.
Age 21: I am going to drink you under the table.
Age 24: I am going to be VP by 30!
Age 30: I didn't want to be VP.
Age 35: I am going to get this paint off the shed.
Age 50: I am going to get that kid into Harvard if I have to kill her!
Age 65: I am going to play baseball.
Age 75: I am going to stop shitting my pants.
Re: variations on a theme
Date: 2007-07-31 11:59 am (UTC)