Procrastinations & Prognostications

 People have asked me to be honest. I had one, two, three requests last Fall, and I had a notion for a post, too, to revisit some prior ruminations on honesty, and humanity, and I did … nothing.

Until now. When I have to admit that I’m: 

1.  a procrastinator. I suppose it could be called laziness, but I prefer to think that I’m preoccupied and … planning. Yeah, that’s it. I’m planning how to pull together the right post as well as possible, without wasted starts, maximizing my effort for the greatest efficiency.

But I wasn’t only putting off the Honest Scrap post. I’ve been putting off :

2. my plans to blog about the best foreign movies. We’ve been Netflixing all these great movies and I’ve had this notion to go back through our list of films rented and pluck out the ones I’ve liked best, then organize them by nationality. There is an advantage to foreign films, wherever you are, once you factor in the Action Flick Exemption.

We don’t see many bad French or Indian or Australian films. Oh, some probably make the trip across the ocean, but, generally, the movies that do well enough in their own country to get noticed and make it over here tend to be pretty good.

Obviously, Hollywood makes a lot of action movies knowing they will get a lot of play abroad, hence the Action Flick Exemption.  Purportedly, American comedies don’t play as well overseas, as there are so many puns and inside references, but blazing guns and bright explosions translate everywhere. So that’s what the world gets from us. (Sigh.) Yet you can find good movies wherever you are, as they’re made pretty much all over the planet (lucky us!) so this item is both a procrastination and a hope for the new year. Maybe I’ll get around to my movie lists.

3.  I don’t always take compliments well. E.g., I’m a home brewer. I’ve been lucky, and use a system that gives me a lot of control over flavor. Beerdrinkers like my beer, well enough that some coworkers suggested I supply beer for our office holiday party, and for the past couple years now I bring in about ten gallons of suds, selecting some of the styles that have turned out well, and it’s served to any of the hundred or so employees, family, and alumni who come to gnosh and socialize. Sometimes, when people gush to me about the beer as the best they’ve ever tasted, my tongue gets tied. Part of my brain wants to point out that craft brewers have far better systems and, as much as I enjoy my beer, I wish I had some of the higher tech toys they have (temperature control, ferinstance) and another part of my brain says just shut up and be gracious, so what really happens is I turn a bit red, then realize I’m reddening, which only increases the flow of blood to my face …

Nevermind.

4. I’m vowing to get past some of my technophobia in the new decade. I’ve never liked cell phones for instance. I’ve taken public transit for years, forcing me to share intimate space with many other souls — thousands, over the years — some of whom have chosen to share intimate details of their lives as we hurtle along toward work together. Loudly. All too often very loudly.

I’ve come to realize that the damned contraptions have worse acoustics than landlines, so people have to bellow at them to be heard. Still. The best cell phone story I ever heard was about an opera singer on a crowded train who, sardined near a loud cell phone jabberer, began singing. Also loudly. Other commuters got it, and began laughing. The jabberer, however, merely covered his ear and hollered into his phone, “What?! I can’t hear you! There’s a guy singing really loud here!”

Still, it’s only fair to my wife that I be available by phone for her, too. (I do want Mrs. O to have a cell phone, especially when she is driving, in case of car trouble.)  So I’m going to try and be better about this freakin’ walkie talkie gadget and its, umm, conveniences.

5. I’m also going to try online banking. For the same reason as 4 above: it’s time to join the 21st century.

6. I also have all these notes for my Fletcher’s idea, which is supposed to be a dialogue exercise, just fictive folks chatting comfortably and boisterously in a bar setting, which I tried a few years ago and then drifted to the wayside. This isn’t high on the list — but I’d like to revive the Fletcher’s concept, too.

7. Honesty is a tricky topic for me, as I essentially believe that words are lies and you have to work hard to get past their inherent dishonesty. Deception is everywhere, especially in our brain’s internal memoranda, and the first step to getting past your own noggin’s safety mechanism is to be bluntly honest with yourself about them.

8. Further, sometimes I think we can have too much fun with this. Guys in particular are perilously fond of pranks.

9.  Still, if you do make the effort, it can open some amazing windows to people and how they work. and I believe that once you have that tool, it’s always handy.

10.  Last, are our dogs’s behaviors an honest reflection of our own? Then I’ll admit the truth:  my Ernie dog has a shoe fetish.  Not like Imelda Marcos’s shoe fetish. Or Maurice’s footwear fetish on the wonderful TV show Northern Exposure.

Ernie knows my shoes. When I get up early in the morning, with insomnia, moving quietly in the darkness so as not to wake my wife, Ernie waits to find out what footwear I select. As I put on my shoes he comes forward to sniff them hopefully.  If I put on slippers or clogs for around the house, he knows the odds of a walk are dim. So he lies down again. But there are sneakers and other shoes he knows mean the odds of a walk are pretty good, and when I put those shoes on, he follows me around the house, waiting for the magic moment when the closet door opens, and I lift the leashes from their hook.

Dawn approaches; it’s time for me to go change shoes and make a pair of dogs very happy.