November Blog A Day 18: 
18. Do you drive? What’s your primary mode of transportation? Do you enjoy driving?

I’m a driver (I’m a winner things are gonna change I can feel it)  (artist: Beck, single: Loser,  album: Mellow Gold, 1994)

I drive C. to and from work every day, which is about a 30 minute trip.  I’ve never owned a new car, and distrust the idea of leasing. I drive ‘em ‘til the wheels come off. (Literally, in one case).

I support the idea of good public transit, but driving is my primary means of getting around. I like a manual transmission, because it feels I’m more a part of the experience. I enjoy long road trips.

There are some cars that I’m too big for. Too tall, especially. I once drove a rental Hyundai which necessitated craning my head forward and around the steering wheel to see stoplights.

November Blog A Day 17: 
17. What have you done recently to improve someone else’s life? 

How does one answer this without sounding sanctimonious?   Do I improve the lives of others?  I hope so.  I try to be helpful.  I try to be kind.  I helped a person in a wheelchair obtain a bag of shredded cheese that was out of reach  in the grocery store this morning. Does that qualify?   I’ve been reaching the unreachable for years.

In truth, I spend a lot of time debating whether I do any good at all. Some days it seems like every boon to existence I create has an equal helping of detriment that comes along with it.

November Blog a Day 15. Forgiveness

-If we are friends, I’m probably one of the more forgiving people you know, and there have been times when I was too forgiving by any logical standard. I understand the human condition and, well, people are people. There’s a threshold though, and this really only works with the ones I connect with and consider worth my time.

I don’t suffer fools lightly, and I’m just as likely to cut someone out completely rather than give them the opportunity to continue hurting or endangering me, especially if they seem oblivious.

November Blog A Day 13. What’s your Myers Briggs personality? Do you feel it’s accurate?

   INTJ Personality (“The Architect”)

                       

It’s lonely at the top, and being one of the
rarest and most strategically capable personality types, INTJs know this
all too well. INTJs form just two percent of the population, and women
of this personality type are especially rare, forming just 0.8% of the
population – it is often a challenge for them to find like-minded
individuals who are able to keep up with their relentless
intellectualism and chess-like maneuvering. People with the INTJ
personality type are imaginative yet decisive, ambitious yet private,
amazingly curious, but they do not squander their energy.

I’ve taken the test twice with several years between tries, and both times I’ve come up with Architect. In my case it’s very accurate.  If anyone really wanted to understand me, it would be hard to beat this introductory page: https://www.16personalities.com/intj-personality

“For example, INTJs are simultaneously the most starry-eyed idealists and
the bitterest of cynics, a seemingly impossible conflict.

“

November Blog A Day 11: Love is…

It’s difficult to write about love. My perception of love as a concept has changed a lot over the years. I think in terms of idyllic love and functional love.

I’m reminded of the forest of northern white cedar trees where I used to camp and work as a teen.  They grew so close together, and this dense tangle of living things protected each other from wind and dryness. If you came across an undisturbed stand off the trail hiking became a painful experience, because the thick canopy and slow growth would cause the thin lower branches to die off and they’d remain sticking out from the trunks for decades, from forest floor to ten or twelve feet, needle-sharp and dry as bones.

There’s a lot of pain in love, as there is in all experience.  Competition, injury, broken branches, dry seasons and all this living are carried up with us toward the sky. At the top of the forest there is a green carpet of fresh, verdant growth, and we sway back and forth. 

Idyllic love is a Bob Ross picture. Functional love is messy and complex, and takes into account the dead branches on those happy little trees and the ecosystem of which they’re a part.

-I refuse to abbreviate.  To me it’s “manicure-pedicure” or nothin’.

-You know what’s bad about dealing with a clogged and overflowing laundry sink?  You’ll instinctively grab your freshly washed towels to soak up the mess and enter into a cruel cause-and-effect vortex.

-Let’s all sing Tom Petty songs real loud and overemphasize the characteristic Tom Petty sneering sound he makes.