I’m a stickler for certain social graces. I am a sucker for the romantic times where people were more reserved and the written word was a more important form of communication. I, like many have fallen into this digital cloddishness where the simplicity of technology. Email, desktop publishing, and digital video have certainly managed to make the world smaller which is fine in some certain implementations. However convenient, this has ruined my ability to do things the old fashioned way.

Writing a thank you note was excruciating. I enjoyed choosing my words and selecting the pen however, I skimped out on the card. I didn’t give myself much time to write it out so it was going to be a crap job from the get-go. Putting pen to paper, I flailed but managed to get my glyphs down. Stepping back… it looked like the handwriting of a psychopath. As a global thinker who is easily distracted, I have no control over my hand to consistently write script. Hopefully the recipients will be more touched with the fact that I wrote a thank you note and overlook that I completely failed 4th grade writing.

Back to the oversized 4-partition lined cursive paper for me…

Readers, I’m off to go see the lovely macboyX and the SuperRoboGomo
this weekend. I’m terribly excited despite the scowl on my face.
Last night I packed my clothes into a standard rolling suitcase, but
had to make extra room for my toiletries. I’m all for national
security, but a boy needs moisturizer, lip balm, and cologne… you
never know who you’re going to meet in the airport terminal nor can
one plan on being daisy fresh after a plane ride. Resigned to having
a severe haberdashery handicap, I managed to edit the wardrobe down to
simple pieces. No, happi coat, no geta sandals, no hand fan, no
sarong, and no fundoshi (wink wink)… fine.

I awoke this morning with everything sorted and was headed out the
door. The last thing to put on were my shoes and glasses. Shoes,
check. Glasses… not so much. After tearing up the apartment and
succumbing to the fear of being late for work, I ran out the door with
an old pair, which I’m not terribly fond of and doesn’t really jive
with the current state of mon coiffure.

With this major (trust me, missing accessories merit civil defense air
missiles and elite task forces to be deployed) trauma this morning,
I’m here at work, to stock up wood to keep the home-fires burning.
Hopefully this inauspicious morning isn’t a harbinger of things to
come. Ooh, maybe it’s an excuse to get new frames… retail therapy!

What is it about those tiny bubbles that make us happy? I was pondering this sitting in the tub today, trying to sublimate my worries with a bath of raspberry scented bubbles. Don Ho sung about it, we enjoy the leopard pattern of crema on espresso, surfactants are added to shampoos for that luxurious lather (though it is the ingredient that stings our eyes), and it was a food craze for avant-garde science chefs. The bubble is the perfect (most efficient and smallest) form of a solution to enclose a given volume. It’s a happy thought to think about when you’re splashing in the warm water.

Archimedes pondered the very same thing, I wonder if raspberry bubble bath got him to think about it too.

I bought a coffee, spring water, a pack of cigarettes and caught myself saying “that was all pretty cheap. There were times in my past where I didn’t make enough in an hour to cover the price of my afternoon refreshment, and when I indulged, I felt satisfied… almost sophisticated. I am not complaining that my earning power isn’t well justified, but I miss that feeling of satisfaction elicited by what has now become mundane or easily accessable.

Perhaps the apothecaries of the old world were right, maybe I do have animbalabce of bodily humors. Scorn, happiness, humility, pleasure… set off kilter with our modern coping chemicals of caffeine, nicotine, refined sugar, and distilled spirits are throwing things off kilter. Pop psychology isn’t helping me. This critical thinking and self-reflection is becoming as much as a burden as tools to better one’s self.

It’s times like these I wish I were a good fiction writer. This would be good fodder for a tortured protagonist…