MY WATCH

What a pleasure to look at my watch!  It is simple.  It displays the time.  That is all it does.  That is its only function.  It is not a computer, calculator, calendar, camera or toilet.  I have only to look at it to see the time.  No logon I.D.  No password.  No application.  No keypad.  

How refeshing seeing such simplicity!  We live in a time when our lives are complicated with the Internet, e-mail, text messages, cell phones, computers, etc.  I am not against this technology, but how hard to get away from it.  We are surrounded by it.

For the few seconds I look at my watch, I am transported away from the chaotic digital circus.  I am taken to Simple -- a place of silence, peace and quiet.  I return restored and rejuvenated.  I go on vacation every time I look at my watch!

FRANKENSTEIN WRITES?

Frankenstein has to have a few shocks before he sits down to write.   That's right, Frankenstein is a writer.  He relies on electricity to get him through.  You might say Frankenstein is a shockaholic.

What has Frankenstein written?

 
To Kill A Shocking Bird

The Electrodes of Wrath

The Catcher In The Fusebox

Gone With The Current

Lord of the Electrons

Electrical Farm

A Portrait of Lightning as a Young Shock

Benjamin and the Kite

Watt and Peace

Of Mice and Plugs

Little Electrons

Great Electrations

The Sun Also Circuits

David Copperwire

Capacitor and Punishment

The Adventures of Huckleberry Circuit Board


Quite a prolific writer that Frankenstein.  And like all writers, he tries to write everyday.  But . . . 

MERRY MADNESS!

Instead of saying "Merry Christmas," my good friend Kinga Burjan wishes people "Merry Madness."

Madness!  What a wonderful word to describe this time of the year!  Stores full of people rushing about spending money they don't have.  People going to places they do not want to go to to be with people they do not want to be with.  Madness, indeed!

What causes this madness?  Guilt-ridden obligations.  People are anxious and stressed over following their guilt-ridden obligations -- things they think they should do because it is Christmas.

One of the things people feel they are supposed to do is be happy and joyful.  They do not feel happy and joyful.  They feel anxious and stressed out.  But because it is Christmas they think they should feel happy and joyful.   So anxious and stressed-out people pretend to be happy and joyful.  No wonder liquor flows more freely at Christmas.

I stopped the madness this year.  I only bought gifts for people I wanted to buy gifts for.  I did not go to any places I did not want to go to.  I chose to spend Christmas Day alone.  I sat on a park bench and stared at the sky.  How wonderful that I did not have to do anything I did not want to do!

I will be asked, in the coming days, "How was your Christmas?"

"Fantastic!  It was the best Christmas I've ever had!"

"Really?  Where did you go?"

"On Christmas Day I went to a park and sat on a bench and stared at the sky."

"You what?"

"I sat on a park bench and stared at the sky."

"Alone?"

"No, the voices in my head were with me."

"Have you lost your marbles?"

"Yes I have.  And that makes me marbleless."


A Merry Madness to all!