"Transportation"

We finally got a new word!  Wipe 3 weeks from the last lateness tally and hope for future Friday reliability.  Let me briefly shift my irritation to Ohio politicians who passed a $100/year fee for hybrids (electric cars $200) because roads are financed with a gas tax.  I spend about $100/year in gas to give you an idea of how harsh this is.  I suspect the main reason for this tax is fuel-efficient cars are driven by Earth-friendly Democrats.  Grrr.

It's one of those days when the last thing I want to blog about is what's heaviest on my mind.  I notice my burdened brain keeps saying negative things.  Even positive things come out negatively.  Nobody wants to read a depressing post so I keep deleting and starting over -- but maybe negative words is the thing to talk about?

I had a boss who was horrible in so many ways she was called in front of the state board of ethics committee.  Even so, she actually taught me something, which goes to show you can learn from anyone.  She told me to only use positive words.  I was standardizing signs for the park system and thought her directive was impossible to achieve.  "Danger!  Don't lean on the fence" is straightforward.  Everyone understands it, but I wasn't allowed to use words like danger, don't, no, not, etc.  You try it.  What words would you use?*

Some people have the knack for this.  They're perpetually sunny and decorate in pinks and yellows.  They get on my nerves after a while, but they're kind of nice to have around too.  It beats being around people who decorate in black anyway.

It took time to get my mind around positive words, especially when I was around the horrible boss.  I kept thinking she was just making my life unnecessarily hard and words are only words.  I grumbled she only used positive words to manipulate people.  I kept tinkering with my signs and eventually managed to solve the positivity Rubik's cube.  I started making an effort to change the way I speak.  They're only words, but words can make a difference.  Thinking in positives makes for a better life.

I had a later job where I worked with very nice women.  When they talked about TV programs of the night before, they remarked how pretty someone looked, how nice someone seemed to be, how talented, how smart, how wonderful!  I'll admit I looked at these pleasant women with some suspicion at first.  I was used to women sniping at the TV women.  "Can you believe she wore that!"

One of the nice women told me she used to be like that because she grew up with a mother who was depressed and nasty.  The whole family talked in negatives and this nice woman spoke like her mom until she caught herself at it.  She was dismayed and decided to change her ways and spread good around instead.  She said it took her quite a while to master, and now she's a ray of sunshine in the world.  Her positive approach is echoed by others.  We need more people like this.  It's a skill we can all learn and use.

As for my burdened mind, I'll try to think more optimistically.  For those of you who pray, please include Chris in your thoughts.

The model train art is Ad #2 of Mensa's membership renewal campaign.

*Answer:  "Please stay on trail"

"Imaginary Friend 2"

I was a painfully shy child.  I was okay with people I knew, but I didn't know how to talk to anyone else.  Dad noticed and took me to a Lake Erie breakwall.

"Ask that man what he's using for bait", he said as he nudged me towards an old man.  I'm sure my face showed panic, so Dad asked the old man himself.  They had a chatty, friendly little conversation before Dad took me to the next old guy.  "Go on", he said.  I nervously asked the man what he was using for bait.  The guy stuck his hand in his coffee can and showed squiggly things that he said were good for perch.  Next guy used minnows.  Next guy used a lure.  I learned what every old man on the lake used for bait.  I learned a lot about fish and fishing.  I wanted to talk to old guys every weekend after that.  I still like old guys.

Learning how to talk with other people is feeling like a lost art.  Everyone is glued to their phones and checking out how many likes they've gotten.  They watch TV shows where even the camera people seem afraid to make eye contact with someone they're filming, shooting them from the side or back while that person talks to an invisible subject off screen.

We need eye contact.  We need real conversations.  We need real human interaction.  We need to communicate that in our work, no matter what kind of work we do.  I think this is obvious for artists, but think about engineers designing products that regular people can't understand even with the engineers' incomprehensible manuals.  The better we understand others, the better we'll be at everything.  We learn to understand others by actually talking with them.

I've learned about Swedish death cleaning from a friend of mine.  That's right up there with Marie Kondo's get rid of everything that doesn't bring you joy.  I know I've mentioned I think this is all crazy, but to each their own.  If pitching your belongings makes you happy, then I'm happy for you.  I'm even happier when I get gifted stuff you don't want.  That's how I ended up with a big bag of wooden balls.

To show my appreciation for craft gifts, I painted one of the balls for my friend.  I made it a blue eyeball since she and her kids are blue-eyed.  She loves it.  She even loves the bloody underside of it (which I somehow neglected to photograph).  Glad to share some giggles over craft balls.  She thanked me and gave me a big bag of corks.  I'm still not sure what to do with those.  Any ideas?

I didn't get a new word last Friday so I decided to wait and see how long it would take for a new word to show up.  Still waiting 2 Saturdays later.  I hate that.  Do what you say you're going to do, or at the very least, tell us why you aren't doing it.  Communicate!  Didn't your father teach you how to talk to fishermen?!!

(If I need to comply with the ancient IF word at all, this is where I say you can practice talking with your imaginary friend.  Or maybe, talk to the hand?)

"Wig"

I live near a lot of Jewish people, extra-concentrated back to Adam Jews where women shave their heads.  They wear wigs, often of human hair, which makes no sense to me on so many levels.  If God gave you the hair in the first place, why is God offended you have it?  I can ask the same question in regards to circumcision too, but I suspect I'm already getting myself in trouble.

There's a yeshiva, a rabbinical  seminary, at the end of my street.  Oddly, it's next to a Catholic seminary.  Cleveland, Ohio has one of largest Jewish populations in the US.  (Wikipedia info here)  Most of these people are unremarkable in the ways of let's say Mormons to Presbyterians.  Okay, you go to temple instead of church.  That's interesting, but it doesn't impact me unless I go to a wedding or funeral.  I keep mostly kosher because my grocery store is Jewish.  I'm told kosher meat is the result of better animal treatment so that makes me happier.

The Jews in my neighborhood stand out in the same kinds of ways as Amish people stand out.  They dress funny.  Amish women have crisp, white bonnets and Jews have those ugly wigs.  They keep to themselves and the mystery of it all makes me want to know what they're keeping from the rest of us.  On Fridays, the Jews walk in a long black line to temple.  Even that's a mystery because I don't know where they go.  It looks like they're walking to the grocery store.  There isn't a building with "Temple" written on it.

I go out of my way to start conversations with them, particularly with the women, but I keep to non-objectionable topics like "Nice day!", "Horrible weather!", "Cute baby!"  One of these days I'm going to break past the facade and get one of them to talk to me for real.  The kids are friendly enough but they're just kids.  I assume they haven't learned all the secrets yet.

I did a DNA test a while ago and found out I'm 2% Jewish (and less than 1% Asian).  It's beyond me where my ancestors found a Jewish Asian in colonial America, but it pleases me to have a little cultural diversity in my genes.  It doesn't give me any insight into my yeshiva neighbors, but it adds to my curiosity about them.

I think, what's the point of all this rambling?  Should I start over and say something else that's worth saying?  Then I think, maybe that is the whole point.  People are different.  We're curious about the differences.  We want to communicate and learn.  Well, quite a few of us do at any rate, but it's hard to have those conversations because there's so much history of wars, prejudices, and so on.  We fear talking because we don't want to offend, but when we don't talk we don't understand each other.  Too many talk about building walls instead.

I've been heavily bothered by the increase of racist activities in the news lately.  Seems to me the best way to get past those issues is to talk without the intention, but risking the possibility, of offending.  Hopefully the spirit of community can help us get past any inadvertent offenses and we all live happily ever after.  We should at least try.