not my typical post

April 13^th, 2008

9:45 pm

Feeling all right today. Slept well, except for early this morning (round 5 or so) when my back started hurting and when Chloe started pacing around the house. From living room to hallway to our bedroom. Again and again. She was restless and rightly so, as she hasn’t been outside much in the past few days. Sad too, since it is Spring and the feeling of Spring is infecting all of us, but yesterday we had cold and rain and today we have cold and snow. Yes, snow. April 13^th and we have snow. Beautiful small globs of ice smacking down onto our world.

Made scrambled eggs and toast. We ate our eggs topped with hot salsa. Drank orange juice. I’ve made a pot of coffee and am enjoying the first cup. S.B. Little Man are painting. Already, Little Man has covered a canvas. Now he’s onto two more.

I’m just happy to be able to be down here and have a little time this morning to write. It’s hard, because it is Sunday—a good family day for us to be together—but if I don’t write and get the brain working, I’ll slowly move toward being a wreck. I’m much happier and function better when I am writing regularly.

But onto a side note: (info highlighted in blue is linked)

Getting these goddamned email forwards from people about illegal aliens, gay marriage, presidential candidates, and the cost of gas. All these pictures, petitions, facts and figures that are rarely true. Emails that could be figured out, disproved, stopped dead in their tracks, if people would only take a few minutes to research and learn.

More often than not, these forwards are hoaxes, untruths, or the twisting of the truth (doctored up pictures, quotes out of context, etc.). Some of them are quite cruel: Missing people that aren’t really missing, or people pretending to have cancer. Lies conjured up just so some unscrupulous dillnut can snatch up personal information (names, email addresses, phone numbers). Others are good old urban legends: Women (of course, it’s always women) beware of the man hiding in your backset. The Glade Plug-In that will burn down your house. And George Carlin yapping on about being a Bad American.

It’s amazing to me that people forward this shit to their friends and family. That people will actually BELIEVE it without checking to see if it’s true. All I can figure is that some people pass it along because they believe that by hitting the SEND button, they are actually participating in society. That what they’ve received in their inbox has confirmed their own thoughts, validated their own fears, so round-and-round the ignorant self-righteousness goes. Reminds me of all the guys I used to work with who voted for George Bush because of the slogan SPORTSMAN FOR BUSH. But that’s another side note. No time for that now.

All I can is this…we, as a society, are getting dumber and dumber every day because we are too lazy to dig a little deeper. Too afraid to go the extra mile and leave our comfort zones. We do not want to get back to the basics of integrity, thinking for ourselves, and being True because it’s so much easier for us to slumber along. Heads tuned toward FOX, the INBOX, and blinders on.

But to hell with it. All I can do is my best. To make sure that I’m running on the straight line. On all cylinders. That I’m reaching for better things. Not materially or monetarily, but spiritually. Mentally. Emotionally.

And now, it’s time to go. S.B. and Little Man are done painting. It’s time for Daddy to get upstairs. Warm up the truck. Drive us out into the big, bad world.

~ K.J.