CSI has me Worried

Length of Shower: If I didn't shower today, what would people think? --So, I was up late the other night watching a marathon of police detective shows like CSI and Law & Order and Cold Case and The Closer.  It was kinda weird how time just flew by as I watched case after case get solved.  Cool and interesting, but weird how drawn in I was. In each of these shows it is always a murder and then the team of detectives pulls out clues from the victims body and possessions to figure out his/her life and then they make assumptions and deductions based on those clues. Once each of the shows got started I had to see it through to the end.  Anyway, this morning I woke up and got to thinking...what if I was a victim on one of those shows?

I started to analyze my own bedroom and apartment and things in my car.  What do all of those things say about me?  I wondered what would be made of the cigarettes in my car that I use to give patrons at my bar job.  Would they take those and assume I was a smoker and begin making judgements...they probably would.  What about the lack of pictures on the wall in my bedroom?  What would they make about that?  How about the fact that I have pictures of my friends and family, but only a few. Or that I have a few little "reminder" notes on my desk.  Would I leave the fan or A/C on when I die...what would they make of that?  And the left over pizza in the fridge?

As I take all this in, it doesn't make me look very interesting or nearly as cool as I think I am.  Wait!  Maybe I'm not as cool as I think I am.  OK, I can live with that.  But I know I'm more interesting and cleaner and more organized than the simple things in my life project.  But on the other hand, what difference does any of this make?  I mean I'm dead, so what do I care what some low IQ detectives on some local police force think?  My family and close friends know the good guy I really am and they would defend any accusations that were off base.  They would wouldn't they?  I hope they would.  Maybe I should call them all and tell them I love them one more time before this happens.

Wait, wait.  This isn't going to happen in a long time.  And even when it happens there won't be any autopsy done of my body or apartment or life.  So why am I thinking this?  Why did I really watch all those episodes?  Why are there so many of those shows on the air?  Maybe it's because deep down we all want to think of ourselves as living for a while after we die.  Secretly we all want a group of detectives to come through our stuff after we are gone and piece back together our life and call it interesting or cool or even just admirable.  The truth is that we are all pretty awesome.  No matter how many left over pizza boxes we have in the fridge or why we have that old photograph of Marilyn Monroe locked away in our safety deposit box.  We are all mysterious and wonderful beings just because we choose to live and survive in this world.  So, no matter what you have lying around and why...hug someone you love today and tell them that you appreciate them, because after you are gone, they are the one's who really know what your life was worth...and it was probably worth more than even you know.

Long Silence

Length of Shower: Sometimes this is the only true alone time I get  --Today I did something that most Americans rarely ever do.  Actually, I had to force myself to do it and even then it was a tough thing to do.  This is something that generations before us did a lot of, but we rarely do and that may contribute to some of the messes we have ourselves in right now.  Messes like the high divorce rate, and the crime rate, and possibly even the economy.  What I did is slowly fading from society and may someday be completely non-existent.  I actually sat alone, by myself, and did nothing for more than 20 minutes.

Yeah, think about that.  When was the last time you did that?  I mean no text or phone calls.  No game boys.  No TV.  Not even drinking a beer or smoking a cigarette.  Not even a conversation with someone next to you.  None of that.  Just you, by yourself, alone with only your thoughts for more than 20 minutes.  Can't remember the last time you did that can you?  I couldn't.  Not before last night.  Imagine doing it.  Twenty minutes is a longer time than you may think when you are just sitting and doing "nothing."  Go ahead, imagine it.

It's scary isn't it?  I thought it was.  And, in fact, it was at first.  To be alone with only your thoughts.  My hand began to twitch and reach out for my phone or a drink of something, anything...but nothing was there.  My hand was denied.  And so I sat.  At first my thoughts went to panic and tried to find loopholes or radical rationalizations around the challenge I had before myself.  But eventually, I began to ponder my life and where I was and where I was going.  Again the rationalizations came, but then they went away and the truth began to sink in and stay.  There was nothing to chase the truth away.  Never mind what I discovered for myself; think of what you would discover about yourself!  I know, it's scary...but it's also kind of exciting, right?

It doesn't matter where you do it, but I find that being outdoors helps the therapeutic nature of it a little more.  Not the middle of woods, although that would be cool, but even just on your deck or balcony or porch.  In your yard or on the hood of your car at the beach.  Anywhere that you are not inside your work or home...although those are fine consolation places if you have no other choice.  The time of day doesn't really matter either and whatever the weather is doing will have little-to-no hinderance on this process either.  The point is to, as Nike would say, just do it.

See I feel that this is one of the things wrong with our current world.  We have so many distractions to keep us from ourselves that its a rare person who actually knows him/her self.  We have radios or TV or even other people, and now we have the ultimate distraction in the palm of our hands...our phones.  These devices are fully equipped with all sorts of distractions and time spenders from texting to games to maps to up-to-the-minute news and weather.  And I even see some people now-a-days with two or three phones!  But do you really need all of that?  No.  Not every minute of every day anyway.  All that stuff only takes you further away from your true self.  The self that lives in your core.  The one who helps you make those instinctual decisions.  But how can you re-connect with that inner self?  Take away the distractions.

You can start simple.  Turn off the blue tooth and the cell phone ringer and even the radio the next time you drive.  We are a society obsessed with multi-tasking, but that is only another distraction.  So, I will let you multi-task just a little bit on your first exercise...driving in silence.  Choose to turn all distractions off the next time you plan on making that 30 minute drive to work or school or church.  No one else in the car and all other stimulus off.  Then, let your mind wander.  Not away from the driving or the road, but let the part that is normally listening to the radio roam onto thoughts that maybe you haven't thought about in a while.  See what discoveries you make or what emotions and even solutions to problems come to the surface.  Our minds are infinitely wonderful places and they often work out your problems in the backdrop or sub-conscience when you don't realize it.  But you have to let those solutions and thoughts and discoveries come to the surface.  You can't do that while you are talking to one friend and texting another and driving while smoking a cigarette and yelling at your kids in the backseat.

I know it's scary at first, but trust me and yourself, and find sometime this week to sit alone without any distraction for 20 minutes.  Our grandfathers and great-grandmothers had it right: sometimes sitting on a porch doing nothing is more therapeutic than seeing any therapist or avoiding our problems all together.  Trust me, the silence really is golden.

Turn of Expression

Length of Shower: Perhaps "amount of time" would be better rather than "length" of shower.  --We have all heard the expression, “anal retentive" for a person who is very well organized and clean almost to a fault.  The word "anal" in this phrase really has nothing to do with the anus at all.  I know it comes from a person's potty training and blah blah blah that the experts say; but in reality it has little-to-nothing to do with a person's ass.  

Well, I was thinking today about someone who would actually spend an unusually extensive amount of time cleaning their own backside.  Would we call that person an “anal attentive?”  If so, then we could call someone who brushes their teeth to excess an “orally attentive” person.  And someone who spends a lot of time cleaning there fingers and toes a “digitally attentive” person.  Going further we could call someone who washes their face and/or uses lotion and creams to excess a person who is “facially attentive” or perhaps create a new word altogether and call them “maskly attentive.”  If all of those phrases are passable then we could use them in conversation to make excuses for the blemishes of our friends; like my bald friend Arthur, “Oh, don’t worry about him, he’s just a little ‘follically attentive’ if you know what I mean.” 

I wonder if the above makes me come off a little “verbally attentive?”  Nah, probably just makes me “jargonally abusive."

Joining a Gym

Length of Shower:  If I'm showering in a public place with other people nearby, do I get as clean? --So, the time has come to join a gym.  I now live in Los Angeles and I'm not getting any younger, so I've put off the inevitable long enough.  I start my first "Free 7-day pass" in a couple days....but I have doubts.

See I was a part of a gym years ago and had a lot of trouble getting out from the automatic recurring membership.  I basically had to lie and do some heavy manipulating to convince them that there was no gym near my new apartment...which I convinced them I had moved to the middle of nowhere Nebraska.  That process took a couple of months, during which they continued to take money from my credit card.

That experience left a bad taste in my mouth about gyms and their membership fine print.  So, now that I am about to start going again, I am very leery about trusting them.  I don't want to get ripped off, but I do want a gym I feel comfortable in and one that I like going to.  I want to trust them, but letting go of my past experience is tough.

So, for the next few days I will do my best to rid myself of this "anti-trust" issue I have with gyms.  I will try to enjoy my experience and workouts and classes and I will try to really evaluate the gym based on things outside of the contract they will try and get me to sign at the end of my trial period.  Is it clean?  Is it comfortable?  How crowded is it?  Is it full of meatheads?  Are the hours good for my schedule?  Stuff like that.

We will see how it goes and I will keep you posted....especially if I see any hotties while I work out!