Insect City

So, yesterday morning my bathtub had yet another resident make its way to the surface streets. A very large brown spider was at the very popular non-drain end just hanging out. His furlough didn't last long. That's right; the shoe. There is no photo this time (see artist's rendering left), but trust me he was big.

This is a short post that will end with the following music recommendations; Pink's latest Funhouse is a good record. Snow Patrol also released a new one yesterday as well, but it's marginal at best. I am totally digging Matt Nathanson. He's my new John Mayer.

Hope Springs Eternal

I was challenged to pen a blog on hope and I am struggling to complete the task.

So, let's start with the definition of hope. Our friends at Wikipedia say this...
Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. To hope is to wish for something with the expectation of the wish being fulfilled, a key condition in unrequited love. Hopefulness is somewhat different from optimism in that hope is an emotional state, whereas optimism is a conclusion reached through a deliberate thought pattern that leads to a positive attitude.

People are hoping all the time. They hope for political change, emotional change, physical change (outward and inward); they are really hoping for difference. And yet, different things cause fear and loathing. Change also is fear inducing and full of anxiety. No one likes it and yet these are the things we HOPE for. So, really we are looking for FEAR. I think that is irony. Whose definition I'm much more clear on than I used to be.

I don't know what to say about hope. I know that I have hoped for hopeless things. I know that I have felt hopeless. I know that I have hoped for others more than for myself. I know that if I type or read the word hope one more time I'll...

It's a funny little word and it really gets us into trouble most of the time.

It's really not a real thing. It's like 'try' and we know what Yoda said about that.

I think it causes inaction. It traps us into non-movement. It keeps us stuck and immobilized. And let me assure you, inaction is still a choice and rarely the best one. I guess that is the coma of hope; inaction. After all, that's what a coma is, immobilization and non-movement and those around your bedside are hoping for movement, action, mobilization and their hope keeps them from those very things.

Getting out of a coma is no easy task, as coma patients will surely tell you. But we are all in our own little comas daily. We are trapped and immobilized by the things we refuse to take action on for as many reasons as there are therapists.

I don't like to be trapped and that takes work. That takes unlocking the cages we've put ourselves in. Sometimes they're really gilded and it's harder to leave but I believe it's worth it.

I think that if your heart is truly open and you are willing to be vulnerable, foolish even, you are already in possession of the key to that cage. It may hurt more if your wings are damaged and you don't have a safe place to land when you start to fly out. But every minute of freedom will heal those broken feathers faster.

So there it is, hope; a definition, an analysis and my off-the-cuff theory. Take from it what you will. I am hopeful that you find some truth and resonate on some level and maybe make a phone call that you had hoped the other person would have made first.
You get the idea. Just remember that nothing really changes with hope, it changes with activity in one direction or another.

"The Haunted Blue Tub" or "The Bugs"

I think the crickets read my last post and are planning a revolt with all of their insect friends.

This morning I awoke and wandered into the bathroom later than I'd have liked. So, there was no time to waste whatsoever. I did not have time for insect policy enforcement.

At the same end of the tub as cricket was a centipede. This is much scarier than a cricket or two. These can be poisonous.

I can absolutely, positively NOT have these in my house.

And Why I ask, do these critters keep shimmying out of my bathtub drain? I am disturbed.

I brought out the shoe for round number two and the corpse still sits in my tub for removal by the coroner.

Unless of course it gets carried off by his friends before I return home tonight. Grrrr.