I did a few interesting things this past year, experienced some pain and some joy, and changed some of my philosophies on life. Judging by the upcoming year of 2017, many of us may change plenty of our philosophies on many things, but the results will have to come in their own time. As for the year we just survived. . . .
I learned a silly piece of helpful information: if you are in a rental car or are driving a car for somebody else for any reason, and you need to fill the tank but are not sure where the gas cap is, look for the little graphic of a gas pump on your fuel indicator, where an arrow will indicate the side on which you should pull into the service station.
If a game on Facebook is slow to load, scroll up and down the screen two or three times. I think it’s more of a time-waster than an actual fix, but progress seems to take less time when I do that.
When Prince died this past April, the news flashed all over the monitors in the office, but my desk is in an area where no screens are visible (not to me nor to the office manager, strangely enough), and I was plugging away at a project which needed close attention to detail. I didn’t find out until I got home. The tears didn’t come until the next morning, when I bawled to every song on the 1999 album all the way to work. In the days and weeks that followed, I reconnected with old fan friends, and a friend who had never seen Purple Rain got to enjoy it with me. The sad truth about losing Prince is that his musical genius didn’t help him when it came to his health. He damaged his body for his fans by jumping off onstage props and becoming dependent on pain medication which nobody monitored properly for him. If ever there was a cause for stopping our pill solution-based medical ideas, this is it.
Bullying and terrorism look like one and the same to me. When you break down the details of what they both do, they are crimes and should be dealt with harshly. When I read recently about Brandy Vela, a teenager who was bullied into shooting herself while her parents watched, the thought came to me that, had I been a teen in 2016, I probably would have been dead before 2013. Fortunately I forgave everybody who tormented me ages ago. It also occurred to me that the bully or bullies in this case may also be troubled teens capable of suicide. They hid their identities to cyber-terrorize Brandy so they could not be traced. A person who hides such rancor needs an understanding ear and serious professional help. Another case in which a story has two sides. I grieve for Brandy and her family.
Went into a store to look into what was new for my cell phone service. The guy couldn’t help me because he had limited access to account information. He told me to call customer service for help. I did that in 2015, and they didn’t want to sell me anything. I felt as if I was in an opposite skit from “You Can’t Do That on Television.”
The manufacturer of panties labeled “briefs” should have a standardized guideline for what height constitutes a proper brief. I bought two packages from two different companies, and one set was two inches too low and should have been labeled bikinis.
I have vowed that, if I get the stomach virus again, I won’t leave the house until it is completely over. Last March, for the first time in 26 years (yes, I remember it that well), I caught the stomach virus that was going around, but was over the contagious portion when I went to New York to see the Met’s production of Manon Lescaut. Knowing the Puccini opera was a downer, I should have opted out, but I wound up feeling red-eyed and weepy at the young protagonist’s death in a desolate wasteland. Then I suffered the virus’ climactic crescendo of severe bloat, which popped up unexpectedly while I was trying to get a cab. Not one of my favorite moments. I think the cab driver stopped because he saw my general face of fright and thought I was desperate. I was, but not for the ride so much as a way to deflate my poor suffering gut.
The progress I’ve made on my writing has given me a lift. I blog and do side projects like synopses for IMDB.com to keep my creativity going. One of my previous movie synopses got a padding out from another fan. That’s a good thing; the movie gets some more information added to its database, and somebody read my stuff. Doubly cool.
So much for thinking back. The best things in life truly are free all the time, and I couldn’t survive the many chapters in this past year of life without the support of family, friends, co-workers and readers who may not even know me personally but take a second to read anyway.
Bless you all. Here is the hope of a good 2017.
Susan's Scribblings the Blog 