Freud vs. Jung

You know, if someone wants to write a catchy tune about Jung I will post that as well.  

Until then: I cannot stop watching this.

Enjoy.

Much affection,

~ Bernard

...What Did You Say?

As I walked down the street today, I passed a young lady who was carrying some shopping bags.  She was white.  On the opposite side of the walk, there were two men, walking the opposite direction.  One of them yelled to the woman who had just passed me by: "Hey, white girl!", and kept repeating versions of this greeting.  I turned to watch the woman walk away, ignoring them, and I saw the men waving their arms at her and making kissing noises.  The men were Dominican.  Had I screamed, "Hey, Dominicans!" at the men across the street, as I wanted to, this would have made me look like an asshole.

My love for yelling observations is huge.  I like greeting things that are really, really obvious.  It really makes me happy: "Greetings pigeon!  Hello small man wearing the tiny hat!  Good afternoon very large rat sitting inside the cheetos bag!"  I enjoy obvious greetings.  By these examples, I should have really loved "Hey, White Girl!" as the possible best thing I'd heard all day.  I mean, she was white.  Hello.  Specificity is important.  They taught us that in school.

I failed to mention above that the more the woman ignored the men the more insistent, and more graphic they became.  This is not the first time I've seen this happen, regardless of who's yelling and at whom they're yelling.  I've never yelled at a woman before.  I notice women every day, but I don't yell at them.  My mother would have definitely disapproved.  The pigeons and the small men and the rats in cheetos bags don't usually respond to my greetings either.  It's an understood that I am just acknowledging their existence.  I'm specific, but I'm not really endearing.

I mean maybe that's exactly what men are doing.  Other than being pigs, they're acknowledging a beautiful woman's existence in the only way they know how.  They tell it like it is.  It's a nice thing to do.  Maybe women need to be reminded how beautiful they are all the time and that's why men are usually so obvious about it.  Maybe if women were more confident, men wouldn't yell at them so much.  Wait...no, no the more confident a woman is the more men yell at them.  Beautiful women give men tourretts.  We get short-circuited.  It happens.

Men: when next you are out and you wish to acknowledge something you enjoy or even find attractive, like a beautiful woman of any particular color or build maybe try "good morning" or "How do you do?".  I would suggest this, rather than naming ethnicities across the street.  If the feeling rises, why not try "Hey, Accountant!" or "Hey, Front Desk Manager!"  This will break the ice in your favor.  If you don't seem to be garnering a response, why not add on small bits of information, like: "Hey, horn-rimmed glasses Accountant lady with the kickin' boots" or "Hey, Front Desk Manager of the company with the shiny windows and the free candy bowl!".  See?  There are variations to employ.

Good Luck,
~ Bernard

Pansy

I made a call this week to a dear friend of mine.  It went something like this:

Me: I've got a bad feeling about this.
S: About what?
Me: Is it possible to have a bad feeling about everything and still be a positive person?
S: I don't think so.  What do you mean everything?
Me: I mean I have a very distinct feeling of...if I don't do something--a drastic--a BIG something to change the path I'm on everything might explode.
S: Well, then I guess you should change something drastically.
Me: Totally.  Can you do me a favor?
S: Sure man.
Me: Get a green apple.  Draw a face on it.  Pretend I'm sitting in your office.  I miss you.
S: I will do that.
Me: Thanks.
S: Word.

I got the above picture later in the day.  I somehow knew this would happen.  Looking at the apple (I named him Pansy) and his jaunty eyebrow, I felt that I had been spending time with my friend, in his office, shooting the breeze.  He's the kind of person that radiates good.  I miss being around that.  He took a job out of state.  He'll be back, he swears.  I believe him, and that the return of his goodness will rebalance my life.

Then I thought of something.

There's that way of thinking that states you surround yourself with exactly that which is an outward manifestation of your inward universe.  What occurred to me is that my inner universe is full of stale circus peanuts and mean bouncers.  It's filled with that CD that got stuck in your car stereo that you keep listening to over and over and would rather die than listen to it again but prefer it to the silence.

All I have to do is fix the stereo.  This is where Pansy is incredibly helpful.

I am not the type of person who asks for help very often or very well.  I'm bashful about it.  It's a stupid thing to be bashful about, as a reaction to a sense of my own need.  I love helping other people.  In some way it's more egotistical to deny help from others because the person who only does favors for his surrounding people creates an environment of constant, outward exhaustion, and people don't survive this way.  They don't survive well, at any rate.  My well has run dry.  I feel like sweeping up the sawdust on the floor and packing up and moving out of town.  To where?  No idea.  But it's that time.

Do you know that song lyric?  The one from the Avett Brothers--"When you run make sure you run/to something and not away from".  Plenty of times throughout my life I have cleaned the slate and run simply because I don't want to deal with current circumstances anymore.  As in the surrounding zombie outbreak surely won't be a problem in the adjacent town, and if I just hit the gas hard enough in my tractor trailer and make the overnight passage, I will outrun the zombies and find a nice girl close by and settle the hell down.  In harmony.

It's frightening to realize that no one actually makes you do anything.  You only do what you want to do.  I have been trapped in a job with an overbearing boss (standard), someone who is ridiculously unpleasant to be around, approaching poison.  I know I need to eat, but I don't have to work where I work.  The feeling of being in prison is, at times, more comforting that a feeling of absolute complete freefall.  I am entering freefall and I'm honestly pretty excited about it.

More later.

~B