Life's Little Tragedies

It's nice to be nice. So be nice. Source

Today's post about Gaster Lumber of Savannah has been postponed. Mr. Gaster was not available to speak today, as his wife is having surgery. I wish her a speedy recovery, and hopefully I'll be interviewing Mr. Gaster later in the week. I spoke to one of his employees who told me that the response the sign within the community has been 90% positive. I don't really have an opinion on it because at the moment I am trying to conscientiously abstain from politics. I think I'm going to write in Penn Jillette because I think he is kind and fair and good. However, I think Mr. Gaster's story will be a good addition to First Person Narrative, if he is willing to provide me with his first person narrative. We will find out in due time. For now though, I am going to tell you all about some things that have happened to me lately. I've try so hard to be positive, even though it is not my natural state of being, and still these little annoyances come along and try to knock my off my course.

• Last Thursday I got up bright and early. I saw in the newspaper that there was a playgroup that met on Monday and Thursday mornings at the Savannah Mall. In the name of making some new friends, I fed and dressed that Sprout and we set out with smiles on our faces and a song in our hearts. (That song is usually "Skin Divers" by Duran Duran - That Sprout's favorite song to dance to in the car-seat!) At the mall, there is a three way intersection. The cars going vertically have stop signs, so the car entering the parking-lot, going vertically in the three way, has the right of way. That was me. There was a woman in an SUV stopped at the sign. I decided that since it was 10 am and there was no traffic other than the two of us, I could wait and let her go. This was partly because I wanted to be nice and let her go and partly because I know that no everyone stops at those stop signs. After being nearly creamed more times than I can remember, I've made it a habit to err on the side of caution. I motioned the woman to go ahead and smiled. She didn't move. I motioned again. Then, I noticed that she was frantically flailing her arms and making very animated gestures with her face. She was cussing me out. I tried one more time to get her to just go, in the spirit of brotherly love. Still she flailed, so I just turned. Maybe I was wrong by the rules of the road, but if someone is going to let you go, why not just go instead of driving your blood pressure through the roof? It's times like these when I want to give up on humanity and crawl into my hidey hole forever.
• Things did not improve in the mall. If you are going to advertise your playgroup in the paper, someone should have the decency to show up. We waited an hour, and the only people to show up were a mother and her son who wanted nothing to do with us, and a busload of daycare kids. The daycare workers were nice, but by this point, the Sprout had had enough, so we left. So much for human connection.
• Yesterday, on my way home from Florida, I hit an egret with my car. It bounced off the windshield. I'm glad it didn't break the windshield, but I am sorry that I didn't hit it hard enough to have killed it. It was bad enough that I hit a bird, but to watch it struggling in the road behind me was even worse. Now I have double guilt: Not only did I kill it, but I killed it in such a way that it had to suffer before it died. I wonder what the Dahli Lama has to say about this sort of thing?
• I had a dream last night that an old friend's mother had to be put in a care facility. He was very broken up about this, and for some reason, I was there to help him through it, forsaking my family in the process. These are the strange things that happen when lack of sleep and a trip to Crescent City are combined. I hope that my dream was not prophetic (that happens to me sometimes). I would love to know how this person's mother is doing, but I'm not going to even open that can of worms to find out. I hope it was just a blot of mustard or a crumb of cheese and that there was more gravy than grave about it. 
•  I've been trying VERY HARD to be a kinder gentler Joyce, and I don't understand how unfriendly and rude people can be. I have recently begun to make a conscious effort to be polite to everyone and to smile at strangers. It does no good to go around looking mad at the world all the time. You would not believe the steely eyed glares I get from the people I smile at! I'm just trying to be polite and friendly. People are so isolated nowadays - it makes me sad. Not too sad though. By being mindful of my attitude and consistently practicing good manners, I find that I'm a little less stressed than I once was. I just have to remember to go about life with a cheerful dose of existentialism: nothing really matters, so why am I letting this bother me? There should be more cheerful existentialists in the world. Then again, maybe there are, but we call them stoners instead.  
• I feel like I am growing a wing from my right shoulder. I don't know what the exact cause of this is, but I imagine that it has something to do with my poor posture. When I sit at the computer, I slouch, and when I sit in the car, I slouch and put my right hand on the top of the steering wheel like I'm Gwen Stefani and I'm living in the music video for "Southside".This cannot be good for my body, but habits are hard to break. Also, I have my street cred to think about. Lately, I think the wing has been getting ready to sprout. What was once an uncanny numbness in my shoulder has evolved into a nagging pain, like a pinched nerve, but not. I have been to see my sanctified chiropractor about this, but have yet to have any relief. I can but hope that some ergonomic adjustments to my driving and computing procedures will alleviate the problem. Either that, or my right arm will die, which may be happening even as we speak, judging from the spreading numbness.

Meanwhile, what ever happened to Moby? I liked him. When Captain Tesla figures out time travel, I want to be the test pilot. I'm going back to 1997 and living the next five years over again. I was truly the best of times, the worst of times. At least back then I couldn't drive, thus eliminating 3 problems off of that list up there. I also had a social life, I knew what was going on with everyone's mother, and people smiled back at me. Let's not forget that Crispy M&Ms were still around. Good times. Good times.

I hope that you are all well and good, and I will be back a little later with VEDA 2012 - Day 8