Youth And All That

Looking tonight at some photos of friends my age, from their younger years. From the 1970's. Young people today (and even ourselves at times) tend to forget that we were young once ...... teenagers and twenty-somethings. Laughing and smiling, seemingly carefree, surrounded by friends, full of energy, hopes and dreams. They might look at an older person and be unable to visualize them at any other point in their life. Like that person has always been older. Like they never experienced a youth.

You look at these photos from forty-five years ago (almost yesterday) and the emotions and memories suddenly flash flood over you. I've always been extremely nostalgic but I'd be surprised to learn that these feelings are unique to just a few of us. Even the most hardened souls must feel it to some degree.

If I was musically talented, I might just write a song. I'm sure others have.

My parents likely had the same thoughts about my generation .... That we needed to remember that they weren't always older. That they had a past. Same goes for my parents, parents .... and likely every preceding generation. Even the pre-photograph technology generations.

There's something in all this that I can't really adequately express that explains why I enjoy movies from the 1940's and 50's. Though if there's a movie or two that really set this off for me it would be films like "Racing With the Moon" or "Almost Famous."

I don't know where this is going. I know there's no great revelation here in my thoughts. Just thinking about the cycle of life and all that. How a lifetime passes by so quickly. How you're just quietly going about your evening then some little trigger (like a half century old photograph) can set off a wave of emotions.

Notes

• Woke up yesterday morning and my first thought ..... "I sure hope it's Saturday (it was) because I've forgotten to go to work."
• Occasionally in the late evening, I'll turn the television to the Catholic channel. Though it's been many years since I've attended mass, I still find a certain comfort in things grown up with.
• Walked through an art museum where in one of the exhibits was a table with five large, differently themed books placed on a table ..... Art, Identity, Politics, etc.. The books were for people to choose a blank page and express their thoughts. There were entries from the different places the exhibit had been. A word or two, a drawing, a paragraph or more lengthy entry .... whatever one felt at that moment. I found the need to participate. Hopefully someone, somewhere will read it and stop and think for a moment.
• Walking through the park looking for photo ops. Squirrels actually following me around and coming within a foot ..... like they wanted their picture taken. 
• Finally sorted through the big box of music that arrived in my mailbox ..... Some gems. Some duplications of discs already owned, a few not cared for. But a lot of keepers!! And maybe a new appreciation found for a specific type of "country" music .... Iris Dement!
• It sure would be more than nice if EVERY device, EVERY square inch of indoors living and breathing space had a self cleaning mode.

More Treasures and An Act of Kindness

.... And today, found in my mailbox, a big box of compact discs, from a friend moving from the east coast to the west coast and looking to downsize and declutter her life. I've yet to make that choice. Some stuff I already have but much new stuff as well. Enough that I feel like I'm browsing through my local record store. It will keep me busy for awhile listening to all these new sounds. Another day with a happy ending!!!

Found Treasure

..... And sometimes you're having an incredibly shitty day, then in the evening, you walk .... (stumble actually because I was exhausted from the shitty day and shouldn't even have left home) .... into the little "Friends Store" inside the public library, selling books and music at a huge discount and there's a treasure there that wasn't on the shelf four or five days ago ..... a hardcover edition in very good shape of Jim Harrison's book of poems, Songs of Unreason. I just had to snatch that up. Had I been without financial means, I likely would have stashed it in another section/genre, behind the tallest books I could find. Or quite possibly pleaded with a total stranger to purchase it for me. This is why you have to come back to these sorts of places often ..... because the inventory changes daily and if another poetry and word loving dork making the rounds gets there before me, then I miss out on adding serious quality to my collection.

So the grade AAA shitty day has a happy ending after-all.

Notes

• Jeez TV news talking face .... the guy is apparently not going to give you the totally biased quote that you are so obviously trying so desperately to get out of him. You don't need to keep rewording your attempts to ask the same question over and over.
• Along the same lines ..... Note to basketball TV play-by-play guy. The jump shooter is technically not "on fire" any longer on his fourth attempt after missing the previous three. Even if he made three or four in a row before that. His fire's been extinguished. He's now considered inconsistent.
• Am I the only one who thinks that each color of M&M's has its own unique flavor?
• Sometimes my pessimism shows. But it seems like everyone at work has some sort of personal angle or agenda that they are working and spinning. Causing me to become cold and aloof. I just don't care for that shit!! I refuse to get drawn in to the drama.
• I love the expanding local food cart scene. And the idea of a fire pit. I'm almost looking forward to the next freezing day so I can stand near the warmth of the fire with my pulled pork sandwich.
• You ever feel like a swirling mass of conflicting acts, words and motions? I do! Quite often in fact.

Bizarro Dream Number 3642

And someone please explain the origin of this one to me ...... or perhaps it's better left unexplained, unread by others and hopefully quickly forgotten.

A dream where it's a warm Summer Sunday late afternoon or early evening. I'm running around on foot in a redish-pink dress across a  crowded shopping mall parking lot full of onlookers, eventually to get into a car (not sure whose car) and speed through the lot looking for my car which isn't where I remembered leaving it.

I'm thinking that perhaps I'll skip using this as a Facebook status update. On the positive side of things, at least it's not one of those conflict with family and friends dreams that truly upsets me. At least I can just laugh this one off and hopefully it's just an isolated incident and not the beginning of a recurring dream. Maybe it all is a lost episode from that early 1980's sitcom, Bosom Buddies?

The Weekend!!!

The weekend is here!! I have trouble waiting these days. It's strange .... I don't want to pass up a chance for extra money if it's a possibility but I yearn for weekends and sleeping without the limits of an alarm clock. And the feeling that I have the time to pursue the dreamed about highlights of my boring life.

So it's now two weeks into another year. What I kinda want to do is hold off for awhile on using up the thirty days of vacation time that I've earned and then take a big chunk of it all at once. To give me an idea of what retirement might be like. I fear at times that I'm going to end up eighty-five years old and still stumbling off to work each day.

Then again, I also have this urge to take a vacation day, every other day until I've burned it all up. And I might just do it if it wasn't for the fact that it would screw up the lives of two or three other people for an extended period.

But besides retirement and vacation time, the weekend is the next best thing!! This weekend!!

Same Thing All Over Again

On the rare occasions these days where I don't fall asleep during the attempted viewing of a televised sporting event, it's becoming increasingly difficult to watch more than one event a day. Like if daily basketball game #2 is tipping off, there's this feeling of same thing just different uniform colors. Or like rewinding and starting all over again, while there's other things that need to be done in life with the available time.

That's why I get so frustrated with watching television news programming. They lead with flashing "BREAKING NEWS" alerts and bold banners scrolling across your field of vision ..... and you are interested in hearing actual "news" and actual updates ...... but then it's the same thing that you've been listening to for the past six hours.

Small Degree of Mourning

The last remaining Skippers Seafood House in the Salem-Keizer area closed up a week or two ago. It was a running  joke that I ate a previous store out of business, now those claims will start up again among those that know me. Not that I'd been a huge fan the last few years ..... too expensive and I always felt uncomfortably stuffed whenever I'd finish eating. Like if some kid ran up behind me and shouted: "BOO!"..... well I might just lose it all right there in the parking lot. I would always wonder why I kept returning. I semi-seriously and only a quarter jokingly suspect that there must be some chemical in the food that created the delayed urge to return every couple of weeks even though you're not really all that crazy about the last experience. Some chemical that erases the memory of how you felt upon your previous departure. It was kinda like the first bite or two were tasty but it went downhill fast after that.

So I'm only in a fraction of a degree of mourning upon hearing the news. I have to admit that I frequented the joint over the years and there will probably be a day in the future where I wish they were still in town but I'm not too terribly upset at the development.