Three Thinky Things

Hey Shorties!
Sorry it's been so long since I dropped in. I fell prey to one of the oldest obstacles on earth and grew afraid to write and speak and sing and play, mostly. I've surrounded myself with people who are so insanely talented, it's made me question the treats I bring to this party. My vintage body waged a war that benched me into submission and forced me to crochet blankets for all my loves (just act surprised when you open your Christmas gift) and while I've imagined a billion things to write, I've banged out none of them.
What.ever.
I'm over it. 

Today's three things are a little more thinky than some others, and I might be using bigger words and more of them, but you're in middle school now and I know you come here. I see everything - like Santa Claus but more digital and less jolly. If I use a word you don't know, click over to your open Google tab (up there, at the top ... it looks like a tab resting on the address bar) and open a dictionary or thesaurus. I'm not writing down to you anymore because you're almost taller than me.

one One of you guys (or two or three) needs to launch an initiative to bring integrity and truth back to informative media. Start here - one of you needs to invent a TIME/DATE stamp that is present on every single page we can find on the internet. For the sake of this paragraph, just please for the love of all things holy, one of you kids needs to write the code for a time/date dealio that is always in red (or whatever your fave and logical, well thought-out color might be) in the upper right hand corner. Of  EVERY single.page indicating the last moment it was touched by the content creator. We put men on the moon way before you got here, I'll bet they'll teach you something in high school that will make this possible. But, just do it. Please. Then make it a law or something. It wouldn't hurt anybody.

(Backstory on this: Papa Z was wildly unique in many ways, but his attention to details, like who what where when why and how, was insane. It was his business to sell data, so it had to be fresh. Fresh hot data. If he found something in his daily stack, which included everything from our report cards to super secret government memos, that was not stamped in exactly the same place on every single page - he freaked the fuck out. He'd start bellowing "STALE DATA! This is DEAD to me NOW!" It was a much larger display than just all caps here can convey, but when Zulu got mad, our whole area code went dark. It was scary. As much as I wish this attention to detail didn't matter, it does. The internet is a dumpster fire and I hope you kids get it cleaned up. I apologize on behalf of all of us who came before you and tore into this technology like a toddler high on coffee cake under a Christmas tree.)

two Vote. Vote anytime voting is an option. Rally and gather and protest and resist and rise up, if you're on the wrong side. Vote in school elections and learn how the current process works. It could go without saying, but it would be verrrrrry unmomolike of me to not say it: I am pretty sure the whole poliltical process is trickery. Sadly, I invested my ten thousand hours in marketing, advertising, researching and entertaining, so I missed way too many memos about how our government really works and... I'm pretty sure capitalism is a scam. You guys have no excuse because I'm telling you now: Learn and research and vote. Study the French Revolution and see how it worked out for those guys. Build beautiful, smart and huge posters to take to marches and protests. Go to YouTube college and learn how to build the sturdiest torches and check amazon for the best deal on pitchforks. Go radical if you have to, just learn how to NOT get arrested. Your parents will teach you. I've seen them. So far - no arrests. Let's keep it that way if possible. And, please vote smart.

three You might not love this one, but I've seen your bedrooms and I would be remiss if I didn't just suggest this: You should consider the 100 Things lifestyle. If you start now, while you're still young and your brains aren't so hard-wired to associate joy with owning stuff, you could be some of the most chill adults in 30 years. Here's the deal - I didn't adopt this minimalistic lifestyle on some wild whim, it was the byproduct of inheriting about seventy kabillion things from dead people who just never threw anything away and kept on buying stuff. When they died, they did not take their stuff with them and I got to deal with it for years. I aged like a mofo in my 40s, it was not pretty. But, it was just stuff and it was eventually all gone. What would you grab if you were being chased by zombies and you could only keep what you could carry? Just pretend like you can carry a lot, because 100 things can weigh a ton if you're thinking you want books or weights. You will be so surprised at how much easier your life becomes when you just own what you need. Your brain will work better, you'll be less stressy (the average American spends 60 hours every year just looking for misplaced stuff) and you'll appreciate what you have way more than your mates who surround themselves with plastic crap from Walmart. 

Just a thought or three. I know you're young, but I'm sure I'll mention all this again. 
I love you and miss you like thunder.
Send mail.
xomomo

Judged by the Company

yo.

I completely forgot about this old thang, over here but have a kinda urgent and compelling need to see if I've got something resolved and I get to go find a new dealio to identify. I know I used to just you three things, but you're growing up so nicely I shall give you more.

Shoutin'out to my posse, today. My small but exceptional group of humans who are most all of the good and none of the bad are the reflection I see of myself, on my best days. I'm defined by the company I keep because I'm tragically empathetic. Like for real tragic and crippling and probably in the DSM with warnings and the support of Big Pharma. 

(Also worth loving is the fact that the reason we get to have cliches is because they are built on truth. My mother's most favorite cliche was "You lay down with the dogs, you get up with fleas" and that is where this has been percolating in me for the last few years. I was accidentally way too nice to a whole bunch of folks who had even less than I do, but I forgot about boundaries and almost without exception, woke up with the fleas who had stolen my money and car.)

Now, I'm sure you're wildly curious about why my posse rocks so hard and I'm gonna do my best to be specific and fast. So hold on.

I love that my loves don't daydrink whiskey or do coke/crack/meth. I'm immensely proud of the contributions they make to our world - they teach and volunteer and use their resources to make the world a better place. They don't abandon their babies with their parents and they accept responsibility like a boss. I get to sit on the porch with giants. They edit books & direct middle school plays, they are full-time caretakers for parents or children or they work 12 hour shifts on the oncology floor. I don't aim to glorify work or define anybody by the career they've worked hard to build (I do know that when they succeed, I always feel like I'm succeeding.) It also allows us a super cool place to vent about our jobs, too... mostly because we have them. I'm sure it's elitist or some other equally horrifying cruel statement about our times or my color, level of entitlement or the country I live in, but I love that I get to hang out with people who use their time well. They've always expected a little more out of themselves and they've actively engaged themselves in finding it. 

They compose and engineer or plan daytrip adventures and they never ever make people they've just met, feel Less Than. Ever. They open doors and offer up chairs. The people I most want to be like are kinda like my grandparents were, in that they understood social grace, boundaries and kindness. They don't consume rooms with narcissistic shocking acts designed to give them stage and OMG how I love that part. They practice or pray and they relax and laugh like their lives depend on it, but they seem to understand that there are times for a little of everything, in a full life. On our best days they make me feel ten feet tall.

I get to love people who give generously. They donate money that they don't really have and time pulled from the thin air of an impossibly overbooked life, to help people and not even make social media posts about their generosity. My world involves a lot of "Please" and "Thank you" and an occasional "Sorry" when it's called for.  I love it when we say "good morning" and "g'night" or "drive careful" and we know it won't be met with silent stares or angry grunts. I'm hopeful that we can bring these little things back into vogue... make them cool again. (Maybe these words are grown in volunteering, because they all do some of that, too.)

One of my most favorite things in the world has become people who can engage in a conversation instead of delivering a soliloquy  Almost none of my hours are spent enduring mansplaining or gaslighting, anymore. This family or posse or tribe or whatever the proper term is, has no trouble communicating. And, I don't mind tellin'you: THIS rocks. It's also made it easier and faster to identify the feelings these tricks produce in me and the volume of their insufferability I've never had so little stomach for foolishness. Nor have I had such a fine-tuned ability to distance myself from the fleas who do this. That part is every kind of cool.

My people are some of the chattiest and most clever idgets on the planet. We can talk from coast to coast and it makes cross-country trips feel like afternoon outings. We pun and have inside jokes that crack us up. We laugh a lot. A.LOT, a lot. We are also world-class cryers and can flood a room with tears for days, when the occassion calls for it. I think I'm just glad to be surrounded by people who get to be in touch with their feelings to both give AND receive love so authentically. They're real and multi-dimensional. 

We've gone through life well enough to listen as well as we talk so my loves actually know things about me and my family of origin or the students I play with and some of my most beloved clients. We all know each other's birthdays and special days that need to be handled with care (sadness anniversaries.) Listening is a lost art, it seems lately, and this part of the party is incredibly awesome.

The thing I speak of most here is that my loves got some mad respect. They hug with meaning, heartbeat to heartbeat for at least a hot second, for maximum pleasure. They are not shallow and duplicituous and they work overtime to not offend anybody. They do what they say they're going to do and they show up mostly ontime. They help babies and old people and they rescue dogs and cats. I am not shitting you when I say that I am surrounded by the most solid group of pioneers I've ever gotten to be near and I'm grateful.

When and if I ever judge you harshly for keeping friends who I don't think are good enough for you, I will hope that you get it and allow me just a slice of judgey mcjudgerton because I think you're better than that. And, you'll know That when it arrives and you'll want better for yourself.  I would give everybody in the world what I've got, if I could - but the best I can do is tell you about it so you can go find it for yourself. 

That is all and I love you and carry on.

xomoe

Yo. Felix.

I miss you, man. I miss the sound of your laughter in my house.

You should tell your dad to come visit soon, and remind him that you have unlimited Momo access and read my blog and I can talk you into things... like, coming down for a quick visit. 
We'll hit Nifty Nut House again and grab a taco or something.

You're Three Things for today are long overdue, but will always be true:

one Don't stop. Always rise up. Never stop rising up. Don't let the bad minutes drive the direction of your days. All days are gonna have rough spots and you are defined by the grace I see you share. You got this.

two Don't be afraid. Fear is a liar. I've been too wrapped up in my own head to sit here and write you three simple things, for months. That's not how this is going to work. We really have nothing to fear and we're kinda unstoppable. It's in our DNA. I'm not going to stop talking (writing.) 

three Build yourself a website. I know you don't think you need it, but I think you might. At the very least, you're gonna need to build some killah skillz to get your hustle on tight, and I think this internet thing is going to catch on. Learn about extensions, add-ons, apps, SEO, metrics, reviews, copy writing, editing, brand management and creating an empire where one didn't exist before. Jus'sayin. When I was your age, I was working full-time as a proof reader. N-numbers of airplanes. For real. Most tedious job ever. It's a new day - you get to do better. Do it. I can't believe you're ten and you don't fill out taxes yet. 

Move along. I love your guts to the moon and back. Tell your dad to call me.

xomomo