Entanglement

If you are the parent of a little girl I think...no, I know you will understand me when I say I'd like to slap the sadistic bastard who designed the packaging concept for Barbie. Even if you're not the parent of a little girl, I'm sure at one point or another you've either heard someone bitching about how ridiculously hard it is to open, or maybe you've had the joy of having opened one yourself. It's a Barbie for crying out loud, not an explosive device—although at times I've felt like I'm deactivating a bomb... scissors ... should I cut the twisty wire ... no, the straight wire ... maybe I should un-twist the twisty wire instead of cutting through ...Forget using scissors! You actually need a small explosive just to open the box. At this point, your knuckles are scraped and bleeding from blindingly slashing through the outer layer of box only to reveal the tangled mess of wires, strings, tape and plastic that bind Barbie mercilessly to cardboard confin...

It's quiet here—out walking my dogs this morning I was filled with an overwhelming sense of serenity and calm that has been absent from my spirit in recent days. The morning was overcast, breezy, and there was the faintest smell of rain approaching far off in the distance. Birds, perhaps sensing the urgency of time, soared high, dove fast and sang to one another, their melodies a symphony rising to the heavens on that same wind that will eventually bring the rain. I stood there for a long time...lost in the moment, and the beauty of it all. I realized something then... life goes on ...a cliché' to be certain, but never more true for me than today, this moment. Sometimes things happen in your life that bring you to your knees. You feel as if you'll never be able to get up and get moving again. You make mistakes, you say things that shouldn't be said, you lash out for no good reason at the people you care most about, you lose yourself in want and selfishness, you sabotage...

There is a serious component to driver's ed that is not being implemented, or at the very least it has been forgotten. It is so simple, and yet people refuse to learn to do it properly—parking. It doesn't matter if the lines are slanted on a diagonal, straight, narrow, or wide. I rarely find a vehicle large, or small that falls in between the stripes on the ground. Why even bother painting the stripes in the first place? Chances are, when I return from whatever store I have been in to run whatever errand is on my to do list, there will be a super sized Suburban, or jacked up truck with a swinging steel scrotum sac parked next to me that has haphazardly pulled into the space next to mine. The wheels are always chalked sideways, never forward. The ass end is sometimes over the line, and in my space leaving a gap so small that my nine year old wouldn't be able to open her door much less me open mine. It is at this moment that I wish I drove a piece of crap car, so that I coul...

Friday night in America. Somewhere a family is gathering up towels, flip-flops and water wings after a long day at the pool. Another family is headed out to dinner and a movie, yet another will throw hamburgers on the grill with neighborhood friends...talk, laugh and listen to good music. Someone is driving the family Suburban home after one last beach vacation before school starts on Monday. The sound of the tires rolling down the highway lulls the kids to sleep, and the inside of the SUV smells like old leather, sunscreen, and wet towels. As the sun dips below the horizon, fireflies begin their hypnotic dance, avoiding the little girl in pigtails trying to catch them...bats come out of hiding to feast on pesky mosquitoes...honking geese are heard from overhead...a train blows its whistle somewhere down the tracks.  Somewhere there is a woman who longs for some normalcy in her life. These idyllic musings are what define normal for her. She thinks about her life....her whole life, ...