Jeremiah's School of Levitation

Yesterday, a cashier asked me if I had made any new year's resolutions. Before I learned that I was just part of her experiment, I went ahead and answered her. I told her that, yeah, I had one thing I was going to work on, but that it was a slippery slope sort of thing. I was going to work on being more honest this year. Not that I go around telling lies, but that I do go around hiding how I really feel or what I really think, just so the conversation won't turn into wet cats or bad weather. I tend to just either keep my mouth shut, or agree, or go along, just to keep the peace. If someone disturbs me at my work, I tend to flow with the disturbance, because, who wants to offend? I told the cashier that this is a slippery slope, however, because the line between "I'm just being honest" and "I'm a real a*hole" is very thin. You gotta watch that or, by Jan. '10, you may find that your list of friends has dwindled down to radio talk show hosts and pets.

But, really, I do plan to be more honest, not to detriment of anyone, but rather, to benefit of myself. As I grow older, and admittedly more cynical, I have to be aware of what I decide to involve my time in. I got an upturned nose from a coworker when I told him that my iPod does not contain a single song that I can't listen to, which seems like a no-brainer, but he was arguing that I should just fill it with albums and, later, comb through the diamonds and the dross. I say, don't let the dross on there. In my youth, I could have wasted three or four minutes listening to a song that I really didn't like because, well, the one after it was great. Now, with my time running out, I don't have three or four minutes to waste on a passable tune. iPods eliminate the requirement to slog through filler, unlike cassettes or lp's, so, why not invoke the power of "delete" and leave the filler on the floor, to be vacuumed up later? Oh, how that elicited a gasp.

Anyway, that being a weak, but representative example, this year I do plan to eliminate the dross from my days. The dross interruptions, the dross music, the dross moments, the dross pleasantries, the dross sentimentalities, and the dross agreements. By the end of the year, I may only be able to clutch the voice of Randi Rhodes and the puffiness of my teddy bear as my "only real friends" OR I may, myself, become somebody else's "only REAL friend." Who knows?

By the way, after my speech, the cashier informed me that she'd asked everyone that day what their new year's resolutions would be and an overwhelming majority said that they don't do resolutions. I was one of only three people who said they did. So, I was just, in the end, proof of her theory that resolutions are passe and useless. So, I begin 2009 already in the distinct, chronic minority!

Labels: revelations

ah yes, but better to be in the minority, than what makes up the majority these days.

or maybe I just don't understand the merits of reality TV....