In Your Spare Time

Every spare minute ask yourself:
Are you okay with dying soon? Is this what you want to be doing, is this how you want to be spending your time?

[It’s okay to ask other people for advice when you already know what you want them to say. You are not looking for a second opinion, you just want to hear your own one out loud. You want the universe to hear it too. The only thing to be careful about is they may not give you what you're looking for. Plus, did you ever notice how people who are the most eager and forceful with their advice are usually the most unfulfilled in their own lives? Someone who is on the right path doesn't need to convince anyone else of anything. Thank them, and move on. There are so many other things you need to put energy into, in all that spare time that you have.]

The hill behind the house where you grew up echoed, and now you live in Manhattan and nothing echoes. Even if it did, the noise of everything else would drown it out.

Every spare minute ask yourself: Do you want to write or don’t you?

I agree these are not things that should irritate me to such an intense degree.

1. When people say “What?” or “Huh?” the minute you start to say something. Up until that point they had only missed like two words at most, so if they had just kept quiet they would have heard everything they needed to hear without asking you to repeat what you hadn't even said yet.

2. Public nail clipping.

3. Hinty-hinty type sensationalist stories where you can never figure out the crux of what actually happened. Like, did the person die, or not?

4. The expression “It is what it is.”

5. When you just need to buy one thing in the supermarket at midnight on your way home and there’s literally like one other person in the entire store and they are just hovering around the only section you need to get to. (Similar to the adjacent locker terror at the gym or the person who sits next to you in an empty movie theater.)

6. When you tell someone something that's been bothering you at work or home or in your social life and their response is, “Oh.” Or “Hmmmm.”

7. People who urinate too frequently, especially in the middle of a good conversation. The worst is the sort of gleeful, “Gotta pee.” Like they feel almost proud of themselves.

8. People who are so busy they can’t possibly respond to email but always have time to read their emails. Only once did I have the balls to call someone on this and he agreed that it was an absurd practice but said he'd continue to do it because he likes the little break.

9. Women with long hair who cut it one inch and keep saying “It’s sooooooooo short”.

10. People who don't understand that when I hesitate and sound suddenly distant that means I don't want to do what you're asking me to do but I don't feel comfortable saying that.

(For some reason the use of “they” instead of he or she does not annoy me. It sounds more appropriately anonymous and like just this grating, faceless presence in your life.)

Haiku 5/7/08

Peaches in winter,

Not very tasty. Warning:

Men should not buy fruit.