Wednesday, August 08, 2007

8/8/07 - Death, Witches and Masons

Today's big event was a funeral for my wife's Uncle John. Funerals always strike me as a real shame. It's a pity that we get together with each other and talk about how nice someone is after they're no longer around to appreciate it. It makes me really think we should have more birthday parties as adults to celebrate ourselves a bit more.

Many things about Uncle John fascinate me but the one that stuck out was his membership in the Masons. For some reason I'm utterly unable to explain Freemasonry has always been somehow attractive to me. Now, that's not to say that I know even the first thing about it. I imagine something equivalent to the Royal Order of Water Buffaloes but really have no clue. I'm sure in many ways it would be a disappointment if I actually bothered to join but it would be a group of people with a noble purpose to hang out with in any case. Kathy has suggested the Beech Grove Lions club as a substitute but chances are good that I'll just get over this temporary fad and go back to my usual ignoble existence.

Work... work work work... I should say something about work. It's funny, after taking forced time off traveling all they way to Mount Vernon for a funeral I actually came back somewhat motivated to actually do some work. It seems as if the tension level at work is rising exponentially and I'm amused to discover how much higher that level rises next week when the whole company is sitting in conference rooms for two days. I can tell you with absolute assurance that I'm *NOT* going to be at all motivated to try to come home and clean up the mess created in my absence after I've had to sit in 'team building' activities all day and into the evening.

All that said, the situation at work seems to be becoming increasingly heated. I find it hard to imagine that things can go on as-is for much longer. Sometime soon something is going to snap violently and cause a pretty significant earthquake in the department. I'm confident that I can maintain my aplomb.

On a personal note, I have recently realized a few things in the 'vein' of my own friendly relationships with humans.

Thing the first: By setting my criteria for 'friend' status so high, I'm inadvertently insulting people. See, I tend not to call people friends because I don't want to force them into reciprocating something they're not ready to. But by doing so, I risk the reverse. That they consider me a friend and I'm failing to reciprocate. This tends to piss people off and they take it as a personal affront. So I think the best thing here is to actually reverse this utterly and consider everyone a friend with whom I have even the slightest acquaintance. So, be warned that you might be getting a call at 4am to bail me out of jail.

Thing the second: I'm a shitty friend. Not, of course, because I intend to be but because I tend to get stuck in my own doings since for so long that's all there was. I really need to concentrate more on actually DOING things with other people. I've been cooped up in this house for a dangerously long time and need to find some sort of not-in-here activity.

OK... lastly and most embarrassingly... So I wondered what all the hubbub was about. I mean they have all these books and all these movies that I get dragged to so I finally broke down and read those Harry Potter books. Alright, alright, stop laughing. I'll be back to the Oxford World's Classics soon enough. Anyway, after the first 5 books and over 2,000 pages of text I have to say they're entertaining but not at all original. There's not really ANYTHING new here but it performs it's function of entertaining people. Not great literature by any means. But did anyone really expect it to be? Time to plod onward I guess.

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