Several things, including wallpaper.

So you visit the internet, peck around in various different places, and usually, read something.  Invariably, that "thing" you've just read has some space for some sort of commenting.  Some fancy rating scale such as "Golly That's A Neat Article!" or "Jeepers I Don't Agree With That And You Get a Thumbs Down!"  Or, an empty comment awaiting the words of its readership to pile in.  My question:  Why are people so damn angry about everything?  And why do the well-known, fancy news organizations even allow people to comment?

It seems that disagreement breeds contempt in those places.  They all usually start the same way, with people thanking the author, agreeing with or conceding the point, adding their own unnecessary and unrequested anecdotes, or auditioning their god-awful stand-up material. 

Then, someone disagrees.

Rather than offering counterpoints, everyone gets defensive or clever, the patience vanishes, things are thrown and broken while screaming, and the entire thread becomes a therapy session.  The anonymous nature of the commenting allows the anger to blossom and if you're unlucky, you may even forget what the original article was about.  It's frustrating.

Maybe that pink river of anger-inducing slime from Ghostbusters 2 is for real.  Someone should check on that.

==========
Wallpaper is a terrible idea.

Please stop.

It won't make the room look cute or "different."  Actually, it makes the room look ugly.  It's a huge pain in the ass.  And really, it just ruins everything.  So, please stop.

==========
Something discussed at work yesterday:

Isn't it time someone redesigned the tissue box?  On the one hand, those massive extra-sized boxes are a comforting sight when you're sick, but when the box is half empty, and you reach for one, it has the potential to completely destroy the next several minutes of your life.

Because you want one.  Your fingers scrabble on the top of the soft white pile of tissue for the seam.  That's not working, so you look into the box, and either you don't see the seam, or it's at the far edge.  So, you lift your eyes with this new knowledge and try again, and it still isn't working as you'd hoped.  Now you're pissed, you grab an entire pile and rip them out of them box, take your one, and leave the rest sitting on top of the box, which looks tacky.

So, you important thinkers and planners out there reading this, please send some unsolicited ideas to Kleenex to help them remain on the cutting edge of snot removal.

Memories and McFly

A brief, but interesting conversation occurred this week after I threw something away.  It went something like this:

HER: You threw them away???
ME:  ...Yeah.
HER:  What?  Seriously?
ME:  ...Yeah.
HER:  But what if you want to look at them again?  To see what people wrote?  To show the boys?  You threw them away???
ME:  ...Yeah.
HER:  Silent, flabbergasted.
ME:  Beginning to wonder if I should go dig them back out of the trash.  But...I never really looked at them.  And, well, they were heavy.  And I was sick of carrying heavy things.
HER:  You're crazy.  I don't get it.  Seriously?
ME:  Yup.  It'll be okay.  Now wondering if it really will be okay...

I'm sure many of us have a "childhood memory" stash somewhere.  In the crawlspace, attic, basement, garage, storage facility, mom and dad's house, wherever.  Massive plastic containers or bags with grade school report cards, baseball cards, letters written, scattered pictures, stuffed animals, youth sports jerseys, baby clothes, blankets, toys, and the like.  And I'm sure that you don't look through those containers too often.  Or ever.  But you just can't part with them because they're pieces of you, somehow.

Or perhaps you do look through them.  Several times a year, you sift through everything, smile, laugh at it, and organize it.  Clean it up.  Fossilize them in a scrapbook or photo album, maybe scan them and upload them onto your computer.  However, I'll bet the larger the pile of boxes and books and papers, the less you actually look through the thing, and the more it becomes an actual piece of unused, dusty furniture.

So, this week, as I was cleaning and finding places for things, I threw my yearbooks away.  All of them.  Seriously, they were heavy.  I kept all of the other lightweight memory "stuff" that looked interesting, but only later did the Culling of the Books make me think.

I wonder how much of our personal memory is tied to, or rekindled by, physical objects.  Will I remember some classmates and friend's faces forever due to the place they have in the development of who I am?  Or does it naturally fade away in time?  And if it does, is it okay that they fade because they're making room for newer, equally important memories?  I don't have an answer yet.  And I figure that I won't have the answer until I search for that face in the yearbook, only to remember that I threw the damned thing away.

==========

No happy updates on the multiple short stories that are floating around out there in the ether and whether or not they'll make it into a publication any time soon.  I'll continue to keep my head down and keep writing and keep sending, and hopefully, someone somewhere will give one of them a shot.  I don't really worry about getting discouraged, but rather becoming a cliche.  You know that guy.  The one who writes strange stories that nobody reads and eventually becomes a caricature of George McFly, stumbling around with greasy hair, poor social skills, worrying that someone from planet Vulcan will melt their brain.