Anniversaries and the Implications of Time

Recently a friend of mine from the old country, Nebraska, became my friend of Facebook. I am not sure if this makes him an old friend, a new friend, or some sort of hybrid, a rediscovered friend. Internet networking sites have altered the meaning of things. I could write a book about the way that bothers me, but I will spare you, dear reader.

Anyway, we are friends, again. A short time ago he posted a photo of his wedding day. A day that happened thirty five years ago and he was preparing to celebrate the occasion.

I was dumbfounded. For one thing it forced me to realize that I am getting old. I forget to remember how age is creeping up on me. Even on days when things ache so bad it is a toss-up which leg to limp on. Secondly, I couldn’t believe how long it had been since we had last talked, more than thirty five years. I didn’t know he was married, I didn’t even know he was seeing anybody. I didn’t even know he was alive.

Then it struck me, thirty five years is a long time, an impressively long time. But, it isn’t the years. It is the minutes that make a marriage, any relationship. Those brief instances where love is built, reinforced, transformed from the lusty, irrepressible, hedonistic early days to the comfort of soft sighs and gentle embraces. When holding hands is enough to make you believe in heaven.

All of those seconds when you laughed at private jokes that nobody else understood. And if they did they wouldn’t have been nearly so amused. Couples, possibly in self-defense start to assimilate characteristics from each other. Shared feelings are the bonds that last forever.

Times when you are so sick you think you might die. Lying in bed, dozing in and out of sweaty, restless sleep. Then, an angel wakes you, presses a cold cloth on your fevered, pasty forehead and gives you a glass of ice-cold green Kool-aid. It may have been the only thing that kept you from going to the light. Or when she has the flu so bad she is helpless and all she wants to eat is macaroni and cheese. The cheap kind, so you stop every night on the way home and buy a box, cook it up, and serve it to her on the couch. Gently you help her back to bed. Kiss her cheek and pray that she outlives you.

Marriages are built around those times, seconds of pain and fear. Flashes of happiness so blinding they seem impossible. And those seconds that take hours. Those times you are so mad you could just walk away, never look back. Anger and loathing cloud your vision, you lash out, and she lashes out, and you think “if I never see you again it will be too soon.” But, you don’t give up because you know the term my better half is not just a meaningless cliché. It is the truth.  Those minutes, interminable, terrible, regrettable, make a relationship stronger, because afterwards love heals the wounds, and the scars serve to remind of the pain caused by emotions so strong.

So, I salute your thirty five years, we are still rookies, only twenty eight, and I applaud your time management skills. You are both shining examples of the possibilities. And I am grateful. 

Apple, Apple, everywhere,

Today we are celebrating.  Our good friend has joined the happy ranks of iPhone owners.  That's right, Shirley from "upstairs" has taken the sleeping pill of modernity and is now free to experience the technological nightmare of the 21st century.  Just kidding, we here at Life Explained think our iPhone is great, and we are so happy Shirley has joined our club.

Of course, introductions are not necessary, everybody remembers Shirley from http://tim-thingsastheyare.blogspot.com/2013/06/behind-scenes-and-people.html.  A true classic of investigative journalism, along the lines of Woodward and Best..., Berst..., the Watergate people.  If you were absent that day we will reproduce Shirley's part of the post.

If you were very short, and, stood on top of Shirley's head, while she was working, and, if you turned around and looked behind Shirley, this is what you would see.  As you can see Shirley used to need a lot of office supplies.  Things have changed, dramatically, since she joined the iPhone revolution.  Her life is a streamlined, bustling train ride to efficiency and she has assumed the role of conductor, and you better have a ticket.

Now, Shirley spits in the eye of the old fashioned, notepads are just coasters to her.  She scoffs at post it notes, and not just the freebies given by companies desperate for a little business.  She won't even use the "store bought" real Post It Notes, (a registered trademark of 3M).  Shirley is constantly taking notes, snapping pictures, sending emails, calling suppliers, vendors, customers.   She has become a machine, tackling assignments, always on the run from coffee, to iced tea, to straight bourbon, iPhone firmly in hand.


 At first she was so cute, "look at these kitty pictures my Grand Daughter just texted me."  Now, she is complaining about the relative speed of various wifi hotspots and the need for more 3G LTE because her twitter feed is sluggish, and Facebook is "slow as spit."

We were all a little shocked when she got a new tattoo that said "If you can't take the heat stay off of the World Wide Web, Wimp!"  Funny how technology has shaped our world, isn't it?

So, if you are going for a casual cruise down the information super highway and somebody flies past, you cursing your slowness, in a spiffy new iPhone, don't be offended, and say hello, it is probably our friend, Shirley.

Say hello to Frank, a new friend.

I warned you that this month was going to be a long, sometimes terrible, sometimes boring tribute to me, all because I quit smoking.  Here is the first post, it is about a man I admire, a lot.

There are many reasons people smoke, none of them justify the prohibitive cost, or, the enormous risk.  Yes, there are people who live long, more or less healthy lives smoking.  And there are people who survive train wrecks, plane crashes and gunshot wounds, who wants to roll those dice?

Smoking was a friend, to me, an old, dear friend, who was always there, as long as I had the money, and a light, and a place to smoke, that was all that was needed.  There are people who would dispute this, and say, "well, it was only a chemical reaction triggered by the addictive toxins in the smoke."  Maybe, but, hey, they should get their own blog.

Anyway, if I wanted to quit, one key would be to replace an old friend, with some new friends.  I did this by joining a smoking cessation forum.  It was a great place, and offered unlimited support, and sound, researched advice and methods all designed to help you succeed.

In the forum, you join a group of people who quit the same month as you, and that becomes your main line of help, though there are plenty of other options, and most people take advantage of more than one.  In my group, there was a gentleman, named Frank, he was like the guardian angel of our little family.

Frank seemed to be omnipresent, when somebody was going through difficulty here came Frank.  A few kind words, a small bit of advice, and a breath of fresh air, delivered with the compassion of Alan Alda, with the brevity of John Wayne.  We all admired Frank.  He was the man.

I had to know more, so I read his first post, and looked into his forum past a little.  It turns out smoking has cost Frank almost everything.  But, you couldn't tell.  I will not go into his health, mostly out of respect for the man.  But, I will say, with all he has been through and goes through his offers of friendly support and advice are even more amazing.

Some time ago Frank started a journal on the forum, where he talks about the costs associated with smoking, costs he understands so well.  His posts are powerful, and his pain comes through in elegant, short sentences, delivering reason after reason after reason to quit smoking.  There is no end to the dangers of smoking, and most of them have visited Frank, and when he details them, people listen.  His suffering and pain, offered as incentive.

He shares his agony, and his fears so freely to help others.  And then he apologizes, he does not want to sound like a complainer.  But, people respond to Frank, he is an icon on the forum now, and I consider him a friend and an inspiration.

Welcome, Friend, Iss. 1, Vol. 2

My friend Bil has a new iPhone, his first.  Bil is very technically sophisticated, one time he broke the screen on his iPod Touch, and replaced it himself, and it worked!  He never needed to prove his electronic prowess to any of us ever again.  Why it took him this long to get an iPhone lies somewhere beyond the scope of reason.  He had an iPod, and an iPod Touch before any of us, and he had the first iPad in the warehouse.  Further, to make maximum use of his time, he had the device constantly at the ready.  If he was waiting for the elevator he would have iPod in hand performing some small screen gaming miracle, saving or obliterating entire communities, playing chess with people from across the world, making words where there were only tiles, or moving cargo from point A to point B in a speedy, efficient, point producing manner, all with a casual gesture of his thumb, while firmly holding a coffee cup in his other hand.  Honestly it is poetry in motion.

Bil is the person who really impressed upon me the power of the iPod.  He showed me a slide show he had assembled using pictures of his son on a carousel, deftly adding speech bubbles and musical accompaniment, taking simple pictures and turning them into a powerful, moving presentation where fantasy and reality combine to make magic.  It changed my iPod touch from a simple game playing, music listening wonder into a trans-formative electronic machine with supernatural powers of transmogrification   An act for which my wife has never forgiven him.  Since they don't often see each other it is not a big deal for either.

As is plain to see Bil and the iPhone are made to be together, it was inevitable.  In many ways it was like a heavyweight boxing match, (incidentally, Bil is the only person I know who has ever participated in chess boxing, not that it has anything to do with this, but it is another interesting fact about Bil), where Bil and the iPhone were circling, waiting, feinting, jabbing, counter jabbing, (not unlike a date, really) until they could no longer stay apart.  And in a mad rush to the center of the ring they opened on each other with a flurry of lefts, rights, hay-makers, and round houses, punch after brutal punch, locked in a death match, pounding away at each other until they were both lying, flat on their backs, unable to move in the center of the ring, as the referee counted them both out. Well, maybe not quite like that.

Let's just say it was long overdue.  So, wherever you may be reading this, whatever else you may be doing, please put that aside and join me in giving Bil a round of applause.  He may only have one L but he has an iPhone, plus, he is a pretty cool guy.

Welcome Friend.

Today, we are going in a little different direction.  We are going to talk about my friend, John.  John is ancient, almost as old as me, and yesterday he joined Twitter.

Twitter should be perfect for John.  He is a man of few words, and that makes for a very strong friendship, as I am overrun with words.  So, I tell him all sorts of things and he pretends to listen, which is very nice.

Another key difference, is John's ability to do things with his hands, he is amazing.  He can, weld and solder, and drill and hammer and measure and saw and assemble and finish projects and they look like what he intended.  He can handle plumbing, electrical and carpentry projects.  All without swearing or beer.  Amazing!

His tool chest is orderly and neat, his wrenches and sockets are sequential, and clean, and he keeps a can of de-greasing hand cleaner sitting neatly and elegantly within reach.

He understands the internal combustion engine, and how one works.  And how to make it start working again when it stops.  Plus, he can repair the brakes that are so important while driving around in a vehicle powered by an internal combustion engines.

He is completely unafraid of that dreadful, fearful, intimidating phrase "some assembly required."  He actually reads and understands the instructions before he starts.  Then refers to them during assembly.  And when he is finished he doesn't have any left over parts unless the manufacturer sent too many.

John can sand and finish a hardwood floor, correctly.  He can paint walls and in colors that actually complement each other without consulting a woman.  When people talk to him about their home repair problems he guides them with sage wisdom and kindness.  He is an oracle of home repair and improvement instruction, and we are awed by his knowledge.

And now he is on Twitter, a true renaissance man.  If you run across him while tweeting, please say "hey, John, welcome, friend, oh, what is the best way to patch a gutter?"