but we did not go to it anymore
— Hemingway, Men Without Women (1927)
Some days have a touch of fun, a splash of strange and a dash of nuts. Today is one of those days. Although the work day, I worked at home today, was long and typical, typical in that I achieved no goals which were well planned yesterday, it was the final teleconference call which set the finale. You would think that one hundred people who are on a call every day from two pm to three pm might take to heart the message “mute your phone”, you would think wrong. Today was worse.
On the daily calls is a person who is adamant about muting phones. Today was different. She held several other telephone calls while on the daily call, conversing in a language that all though common, was not English. For some reason she was not listening to the daily call. Others were doing their voice mail, and with a phone on hold music is played, we were treated to Kenny G. The daily call ended early.
After finishing my day I smashed the lid of the laptop computer closed and looked about at my room. I had placed my A/V on mute so I could be on the phone, doing so I had forgotten about it. You cannot multitask no matter how many times you were told you could. After shutting down the computer, I run a media computer for the main television, several other inputs, my mind told my legs “move quickly and hit the head”. When I was twenty, that was easy. Now it takes time, and I tend to be a little easy to distract when walking ten feet. At least I remembered my goal before any splash took place.
A few minutes later I was outside planting a few tulip bulbs which had hidden from me last year in a box holding diesel timing tools. It was fun, and a wonderful way to spend thirty minutes outside in the crisp February air. Little did I know, see multitasking above, the mail carrier had come by while I was on the phone. Hmm, now that I think about it, I had the noise reduction ear buds in my ears so I could not hear anything except the phone call.
On sitting down with my new book, fresh out of the mailbox, I could not be more ready for the touch of fun. Philip Greene’s To Have and Have Another. Hemingway’s drink recipes! Reading a few pages I happened to glance up and see a most disgusting image – a fat, little person, covered in body paint and wearing a loin cloth wiggling on the television to some dance music. That has been the weirdest thing I have seen since clips of the clowns on the morning show at seven this morning.
The constant beat of the Republican war drums is stupid. They need to take a trip to the war that never ends in Afghanistan. They want blood, they should go see it, feel it and smell it. They want bombs, they should go sit around in a bomb run. They want the U.S. to fight, they should clean and oil their M-16’s and lead us in. I will not say Obama is right in his policy, however, we may never have the right policy anymore. I do know the Republicans will never have a chance of the best policy because they are not capable of designing it.
One of the best movies for teens is To Kill A Mockingbird. The movie puts some thoughts into fertile brains. Less fertile brains do not understand. It was a shame that Harper Lee burned out on that one book. I will assume that all you have written something for class, perhaps for your work or volunteer activity. You may have struggled with the “write a one hundred word summary of your work” on the job. I will not assume more than a handful of you have written a ninety thousand word book. Most of us find it rather difficult. I know writers who can knock out that many words for a political book, but not a novel unless they spent a year planning it. For Harper Lee and her writings, I hold my glass high.
Cross posted on Craig Crawford Trail Mix
Italo Calvino