It's Coming...

One of the advantages to living in the area that I do is that winter comes in late and leaves early. I have always been slightly skeptical of people who claim that they suffer from SAD, a clever little acronym made up of the following words: Seasonal Affective Disorder. This "disorder" is basically just cabin fever; the frustration and depression that people feel during the winter months. The days are shorter and darker, the weather is cold and unforgiving, and people tend to gain weight because there's nothing to do but sit curled up in a blanket with some comfort food. Married couples also tend to have a lot of children with birthdays in the fall.

Lots of people go through this, myself included. I know that it happens, but in my opinion, claiming to have an actual disorder is just going to perpetuate the depression - "I'm so sad and depressed that I must have a disorder, which makes me even sadder and more depressed." The people who don't claim to have this "disorder" are either winter people (who I really don't understand), or people like me. I get through the winter by thinking about what always comes after it: spring. Summer is my favorite season, but spring is the season that makes you believe in summer. Once the days start getting longer, once the weather starts to turn, I can believe that summer is coming. Not only that, but spring is a pleasant in-between season. The plants start to wake up and remember that they're alive and they're supposed to flower and be green. Spring is a season of recovery. The natural cycle of life is visible everywhere - animals are having their babies, fruit trees blossom - a brief sort of spring formal for them.

The days are warming up. It was sixty-two degrees yesterday, and today it might get up to seventy. The sun doesn't seem so cold and distant anymore. The dreaded winter coat takes up long-term residence in the closet. Scraping ice from the windows of your car becomes a memory, as does shivering in the driver's seat while waiting for the hot air to come out of the heater. Wearing sandals becomes possible. Leaving home with a light jacket or no jacket at all - a thing of beauty. Anticipating the re-opening of the apartment swimming pool. The sublime experience of lingering outside, motionless, eyes closed and basking in the sun. This is the kind of season that gives me hope for the future. However dismal things may seem during the winter, the simple yet subtle boost that warmer weather gives me is amazing. For any of you who may still be trapped in the seasonal depression known more commonly as "winter," feel free to breeze on down. We can enjoy it together.

Game of Inches

Recent events have reminded me about the fragile nature of life. It's something that I usually don't think about until I'm faced with death. Death is the reason that people are religious, why religion came about in the first place. Whatever it is about humanity's "higher consciousness" caused people to ask questions: Why do people die? Is that it? Are they gone forever - at least, the part of them that is uniquely "them"? If they're not gone forever, then where is it that they go? What happens to them when they get there? Somehow, people came up with answers for these questions, because the alternative - no answers at all - was too horrifying for people to live with. It's all a matter of comfort. It is comforting to believe that death isn't simply the end of someone - of everyone. It is comforting to believe that death isn't simply random sequences of events, that there might be some greater purpose behind it all. I suppose that it might be comforting, regardless of any "heaven" or "hell" that a person may end up in after they die, to know that they still exist.

I'm not saying that all religion is meaningless and that there is no God (or whoever). I just believe that if there is an omniscient being (beings?) keeping tabs on us, then I think it very presumptuous of us to believe that we know how this being works, thinks, or exercises whatever supreme power it might possess. I cannot make a definitive statement either way (and who would accept it if I did? I'm not an authority on the subject). I think that people (over very long periods of time) have projected human characteristics on this being because they want to think that they know this being, or at least that it knows them (and I'm not saying that it doesn't - it's impossible to know).

A discussion on religion and the existence is God was not really the course that I wanted this posting to take. I haven't been thinking so much about religion and death, but rather about life. A gun barrel tilted just a few degrees to the right or the left would have missed the femoral artery completely. The same barrel turned 180 degress would have seriously wounded or killed another person I know. A car five more miles to the east would have been closer to the hospital. The same car five miles to the west wouldn't have had a chance of getting to the hospital in time. How many times a day are we inches away from death without even realizing it? Leaving 30 minutes early from work would have put a car right in the middle of a deadly freeway accident. If a person had been looking in a different direction at a certain moment, they would have stepped into the path of a vehicle. Life is a game of inches, and we don't even know when we're playing for our lives.

Observations

The littlest things are the most interesting. It's all about noticing things. That's what stand-up comics do for a living. The reason why the really good comics are so funny is because they are speaking the truth - or at least a part of it, anyway. It's a fact that the things that make you feel the most - the angriest, the happiest, the saddest - are the things you know are true. Here are some small observations that I have found to be true:

There is an inverse relationship between penis/brain size and how "pimped" his ride is.

No matter how weird you think your family is, they can always get weirder.

Futons may sound like a good idea, but your butt wears out long before you get your money's worth. In a related observation, leather or vinyl furniture is never a good idea! They are cold to the touch during the winter, and act like an adhesive during the summer.

Time is relative. An entire lunch hour may seem to go by in 20 minutes, while the span of time between 4:40 pm and 5:00 pm seems like an hour.

A car is not a cloak of invisibility. Even though you may be alone in your car, people can still see you when you pick your nose.

Hot dogs are not food. If you don't know for sure what it's made of, DON'T EAT IT! (Neither is baloney.) (You may know what Sloppy Joes are made of, but don't eat them either. They're just gross.)

There is never a good time to do laundry.

Always chew tortilla chips thoroughly. They have sharp edges.

There is nothing amusing about people bringing out the worst in themselves and others. I'm looking at you, reality TV!

Nothing looks so appetizing as when you tell yourself you can't have it.

At 3:00 am, the Wonder Broom really is amazing.

There is always something that you don't know. Never assume anything.

Speaking loudly will not help a non-English speaker to understand you. Saying "el" and adding "-o" to the end of every word does not mean you're speaking Spanish.

So those are some random observations. I invite you to make your own - why are things the way they are? Find out!