July 08, 2011
July 07, 2011
The Ten Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships
from Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships, Dr. Temple Grandin & Sean Barron (2005)
Rule #1 Rules are not absolute. They are situation-based and people-based.
Rule #2 Not everything is equally important in the grand scheme of things.
Rule #3 Everyone in the world makes mistakes. It doesn’t have to ruin your day.
Rule #4 Honesty is different than diplomacy.
Rule #5 Being polite is appropriate in any situation.
Rule #6 Not everyone who is nice to me is my friend.
Rule #7 People act differently in public than they do in private.
Rule #8 Know when you are turning people off.
Rule #9 “Fitting In” is often tied to looking and sounding like you fit in.
Rule #10 People are responsible for their own behaviors.
ramblings of the mental mind (ii)
so blather and blither and blither and blather allowing the years of pent up inflection to turn itself into unconstrained reflection playing hide and now seek ready or not here I come from my shell into this cruel world to discover my welcome unwelcome in sides they are churning I cannot do right I have so much new learning the label wants comeback the headaches unbearable emotes my new wealth doth say it is manageable so long as you stay the course and do sing the praises to those whose lives you wish bring much happiness and comfort and joy and fair share on equal foot basis continue soul bare so do so I dare
Rumpus Désordre
Patrick was drunk, a thing he rarely did. He had been having such a good time. The girl he had been chatting all night wanted to go back to his room with him but he was a gentleman and instead he offered to drive her home. He knew he shouldn’t have been out driving but he felt duty bound. And he made it to her home and back to his hotel without incident, meaning he wasn’t pulled over nor did he get in an accident. Stupid he knew.
Patrick stumbled to his room, fumbled the lock open, noted how warm the room felt, removed his clothing, and fell into bed naked, exhausted, happy, and proud of himself. His had been a good week so far and he was pleased. Just a couple more days, a few more clients, and home. He fell into a deep relaxed sleep.
Now as is apt to happen to a drunk man Patrick’s bladder decided it could no longer contain the fluids of last evening and it woke him a couple hours into his slumber. Patrick, still inebriated took a few moments to orient. His eyes focused, he was aware of his bladder calling to him. And he did not feel particularly bright. As he took stock of each of his body functions and sensations he was horrified at one.
Beneath his bum was a warm and pasty mess. Could he… nah he couldn’t have. In his sleep? Patrick was embarrassed. Tentatively he reached down and touched that which he feared he had done. He stared at his fingers. And his sight confirmed that which he feared. One more test, the olfactory test, was all he needed for his final confirmation. “Me shite smells like mint”, he thought to himself.
He jumped from the bed, embarrassed and ashamed. He stared with horror at the mess he had made. There in the middle of the bed, just above the fold in the drawn sheets, a pasty chocolate brown mess, that smelled of mint. In the middle of the mess a cheerful little note: “Our Guests are Worth a Mint”.
July 06, 2011
Pusillanimous
Pick me, oh pick me
Or don’t
I’m never really sure
The pride of choice
Or the loath of chosen
Oft chosen the admiration
Of the girls front of line
Then the shy boys middle
Given to derision of the angry
And the bullies.
Doyle a plexis punch
Armstrong a testicular kick
Doubled over the door closes upon the line
Doubled over time and again
The last but am chosen
ramblings of the mental mind (i)
embracing is not possessive though possession can seem engrossing to those who freedom is illusory where allegory demotes or is it denotes embarrassment of misunderstanding in receiver furthering the miscalculation returned to dispatcher spiraling uncontrollably to furtive frustration and words they be misspoken opening delayed reaction offending one or both or all reducing chance of embracing exponentially till breaking before braking is become the necessity
Comes Around
William was a very useful man to have about. This Nunavut village was full of specialists and people around to labour, but to have someone who could puzzle his way through the mechanics of machinery and devices and electronic gadgetry successfully was a rare person indeed. His reputation spread far and wide and being a single man with no commitments other than a part time gig as a deacon to the local Anglican Parish, his talents soon came into demand.
William was also generous to a fault. Very few of his inventive solutions rarely ever resulted in payment. It sometimes, especially from the local Inuit population, would give him local food fare and invitations to participate in cultural adventures. These William always partook in; he was fascinated by northern peoples and their culture. He admired their connection to this vast and desolate land and took heart in the simple truth these people lived in cooperation with each other to thrive in this unforgiving place.
As a deacon William was automatically considered a good man. He landed the deacon job only because a) he was British and spoke with a quiet, even, and commanding Brit presence. That he was also 6’-4” in a 4”-10” culture might also have leant to his stature. And b) William was a wizard with language and he quite easily picked up the local Inuktitut dialect with ease. William was not a Christian. In fact he abhorred all the Christian church stood for. His deaconate was not one of faith but of delivering a practical message about charity and goodness and cooperation. Rarely would he crack open a bible or even a hymnal, preferring to dissertate about good and culture and his observations of life, and also to sing show tunes and feel good tunes. He never allowed love songs. William disliked love songs.
Of course when the travelling Priest came by William stuck to the company line and his neglected good books would get a work out. That this deception was never discovered by the Church was simply a tribute to his rugged handsome good looks. The local women would swoon over him, married and unmarried alike. They flocked to his mass and would hang on his every word and every message. They would hide his indiscretion and the Church, happy to have full plates every mass, was not found to want to investigate Williams method.
It was late May and William was mucking about the machine shop cobbling together parts he needed to manufacture a boiler pump. The door to the shop was wide open and the spring sun had melted the ramp leading to the rudimentary dirt road. The high snow banks either side of the ramp delivered a steady trickle of water down the incline that at night would make for a dangerously slippery slide. The snow melt had begun but it was still cold at night so much lay about. It would be at least 5 weeks before the snow would finally disappear. Much later for the pack ice.
The sound of a bombardier snow machine pulling up beside the machine shop stopped William’s search efforts. A man he knew only from the Church came in. Agloolik was frustrated. “Aglakti”, the local name for William, “I am unable to hunt and come to you for your help.”
Agloolik had been hunting on the pack ice now for several days. He was known as the community’s best provider and when food became scarce could always be counted upon to collect seal and fish and if feeding near by, Caribou. This was the time of year for seal and he had nothing to show for it.
His problem lay in his approach. The community’s steadfast reliance on Agloolik meant few others had learned his skills. Traditionally Agloolik would position himself near a hole in the pack ice knowing in due time a seal would pop through. When this happened a simple shot, spear at one time, rifle today, was all he needed to dispense of the creature. But fewer hunters meant more hunting for Agloolik and he moved from a patient waiting for seal to aggressively hunting them as they popped from their holes.
His aggressive hunting style had evolved into having his snow machine idling, waiting to go, and when noticing the appearance of a seal throttling the machine hard toward the hole, releasing the throttle short of the hole and then jumping from the slowing vehicle running full tilt toward the seal hole while raising his rifle to shoulder and shooting wildly in hopes of hitting the creature before it slipped back to safety beneath the ice.
This rarely worked. In fact from the seals vantage it was an oddity that held them spell bound momentarily before they would realize they might actually be in danger. A specter of a man, short in stature, legs churning furiously while trying to regain his balance after jumping from a moving thing, dressed in furs, making loud popping noises while running toward the hole. A curiosity and then realization this was not something to trifle with, the seal would drop under the ice.
Agloolik wanted a fix to his machine. He reasoned the noise of the machine was not something the seals were too concerned about. His running and shooting was another matter. If he were able to get near the seals and be able to shoot from the machine Agloolik would once again be a successful hunter. The problem lay in the throttle. As soon as he removed his hand from the throttle so he could raise and aim his rifle the machine slowed too rapidly.
William devised a fix for Agloolik. A simple little clip that slipped nicely onto the throttle, holding it open, allowing the bombardier to continue its forward momentum unimpeded and allowing Agloolik to use two hands to raise and fire his rifle. He was pleased and set out right away to the ice with a full tank of gas, a full chamber of bullets, and the renewed confidence of a hunter.
He was soon rewarded. The ice had several seal, a few with pups, sunning themselves in the warm spring sun. Agloolik, pleased in his find, and excited about his newly rigged machine, gunned the sled toward the first of the holes, a hole where two seals sunned. He flipped the clip in place and pulled his rifle to his shoulder. The sunning seals, sensing danger, began their folding slither hop toward the hole. Agloolik stood, aimed, and fired.
With a mighty roar the forward momentum of Agloolik standing on his snow machine met the backward propulsion kick of his rifle. The kick lifted him from the sled and he landed unceremoniously on his posterior sliding toward the now vacant seal hole braking by friction and stopping just short of the inky water several feet below the ice edge. His rifle, ripped from his hands, had landed muzzle end down in an ice bank and the barrel bent slightly as it impaled itself butt upwards.
The snow machine, throttle clipped full open, and now lighter sans rider, filled with gasoline, merrily continued its journey, skipping over ice and banks, threatening to tip, but never stopping.
Agloolik, not wanting to lose his machine followed the trail left by the belt. His machine had a slight bend in its left sled causing it to slightly pull constantly to that side. Without a passenger to correct this defect the snow machine meandered in a wide arc, nearly 20 kilometers long, until it circled back to the village, riderless, a ghostly full throttled whining wee beast, to impale itself into a high snow bank, and tip, next to the ramp, leading to Williams machine shop.
William, wondering about the noise, immediately sized up the situation, turned off the machine, and set about removing the clip from Agloolik’s transportation. Agloolik arrived several hours later, hot, tired and angry. “Aglakti,” he said, “I am still unable to hunt and this snow machine is the fault. Please do away with it.”
At Mass, William provided council to the community. “Friends”, he would say, “let us give thanks to the safe return of our good friend Agloolik. Let us also give thanks to his abilities to provide us life-giving sustenance. May we also remember the traditional ways, patient and true, void of noise and smoke, that allowed us to connect to these lands and this ice, to listen to the wind and the waves, to hear our food as it came to us by nature’s will. Let us give thanks to Agloolik, who in learning the old ways anew, will teach us all to connect to our earth, and be patient to it’s provide. Amen.”
July 05, 2011
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