10 Random Thoughts I’ve Had While Waiting for a Phone Call

1. When I experience kindness and affirmations from others, I feel humble. There’s something sacred in the piece of humanity that reaches out, warms, accepts and encourages. I never take this for granted and sometimes even feel superstitious about it — like if I don’t stop to truly appreciate a kind word or good deed, I might never know another. I feel the same way about every success, overcome obstacle, good fortune, or really great day I’ve ever known, even the really minor ones.

2. My pride tends to come in through the back door and stems more from a self-defense mechanism than a feeling of achievement. Any variation of someone telling me “you’re a no-good, terrible, rotten person” hurts of course, but it also calls up the reasons I have to not hate myself. I wish I could say this kind of pride feels good, but it doesn’t. It feels, instead, kind of desperate and unhappy.

3. I hold hipsters responsible for the internet popularity of bacon, Justin Bieber, ADD, and jeggings. The power of hipsters scares me. I wish I had a hipster friend.

4. There’s a contingent of people on the interwebz who just make stuff up or grow their own conspiracy theories and then spread their stories around until at least a few other people believe them — even if Snopes, common sense, or even a tiny bit of exploration would prove them wrong. I think Rupert Murdoch would approve.

5. This guy, Danny Miller, is like a movie savant. Seriously. Check out his personal website, Jew Eat Yet, where he also shares his love of film and his quirky penchant for writing celebrity obituaries. I think he’d make a great edition to entertainment television.

6. Just because thousands of people believe something doesn’t make it true, ethical, good, or right. Michael and Debi Pearl are hardline Christian fundies who are best known for promoting the corporal punishment of children, including infants. Their most infamous tome, How to Train Up a Child, has sold thousands of copies and ranks consistently high in Amazon’s ratings for child development books. The Pearl’s believe that children should be trained to obey authority instantaneously, without question and on command, and that any hesitation to do so should be met with swift and immediate physical punishment. They also believe that children should not be allowed to express any emotion outside of happiness or gratitude. This sentiment falls in line with the corruption of the “Be Sweet” element of Mormonism by its fundamentalists. Can parents brainwash their children from birth? You decide. This article on potty training infants was written by Shalom Pearl, Michael and Debi’s grown daughter. Personally, I found it disturbing.

To have a five-month-old wait to be put on the potty and then obey Mama’s voice when you say that special word to him and see him go potty for you, then you are not only beginning to train your baby in self-control, but obedience — almost from the womb. How cool is that?!

7. Through a Kindle forum, I learned that this author makes five figures a month from books like “Daddy’s Dirty Little Angel” and “Sex With the Sitter”.  I think if I tried to write porn, all my characters would end up falling in love, being monogamous, and getting comfortable enough with each other to wear their favorite sweatpants and go without makeup. The older I get, the sexier I find things like being at ease and unpretentious. A partner who helps change the sheets? Who sees your vulnerabilities and flaws, but loves you anyway? That’s pure erotica to me.

8. This makes me feel very humble.

 

It’s the by-product of a recent Kindle promotion, with word spread by readers on Twitter and Facebook, and may not last, but while it does I am profoundly grateful and touched by the support of those who believed in this story.

9. To pay the rent, I’ve been working in the warehouse of a used book store. I am reminded everyday of just how never-ending and pervasive the search is for answers to human problems and frailties.

The shelves are stocked with bibles, tarot cards, runes, ancient Chinese secrets, affirmation journals and books that promise healing through self-reflection, religion, crystals, meditation, mysticism, diet, prayer, magic singing bowls, gaining or losing ego . . . It’s sobering to realize that so much of this stems not just from curiosity, but from pain and the desire to heal something that feels broken, or to fill up a space that feels empty.

10. I wonder what we would go in search of if we all truly felt well, good, and whole.