Ladies and Gentlemen….may I present….the incredibly optimistic, scintillatingly original, unusually attractive TWO-HEADED CHICKEN!!!

Posted on by April 28, 2014

The latest issue of Bloomberg Business Week has an article about a guy who’s making millions reposting videos that he finds all over the web.

He has his own website that they described as being an “aggregate” website called Viral Nova that collects videos and pictures that he finds on other people’s sites…and then reposts on his own site.

He is making a ton of money doing this.

Millions might have been an overstatement…but maybe not.

I know that he gets millions of visitors to his website.

I know that my needs are simple…I don’t need a million yet…just a couple of hundred thousand…so we’ll see if this two-headed chicken pushes me over into the wealth zone.

bloomberg success 2The thing that was eye-opening to me this morning….more than the huge amount of money this guy is making just reposting weird stuff from all over…is what you come up with if you start looking for videos of freaks on YouTube.

I guess that “freaks” isn’t really a politically correct or kind term.

Maybe “visually challenging” or “excitingly unusual” are kinder?

I don’t really know what the right way to say something like that would be.

What I do know is that I’ve “googled” myself in the past…I think that most really normal people have google themselves at some point in their lives…it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.

Of course, I didn’t come up with anything all that interesting. I didn’t learn anything new.

I guess the only thing that I learned was that I can be reasonably self-obsessed when I don’t have anything constructive going on to fill the minutes.

I’ve googled myself….but I’ve never “YouTubed” myself.

It’s never gotten that weird….and besides, why would there be a video of me on the internet? I didn’t sign any wavers…I didn’t give my permission for anyone to do that…

Hmmmmmmmm.

That would be a major drag to look up “freaks”…all the while laughing and playing, excited to see all the internet weirdness…and find a video of myself sitting at a desktop at 5:16 in the morning…type, type, typing away.

A video of myself in the “freak” category.

I’d rather not know…and that’s why I don’t want to search for myself on YouTube.

It would break my heart to think that someone in the world thought of me as a “freak”.

But I guess it would be kind of flattering that someone took the time to make a video of me…and then post it for millions to see.

Millions of people watching me do something embarrassing! Imagine how that would feel?

I remember that when I started high school, I dropped my tray in the lunch room coming out of the line.

I think we were having chili or spaghetti or something equally as messy if you dropped your tray on the new carpet.

When the yearbook came out, there was my picture…me, on my knees, trying to act like scraping up a tray of food in a crowded lunchroom was the most normal thing anyone ever did.

A quarter page picture of me…with the caption that was something like “Peter Rorvig tries to pick up the tray of food that he dropped…but the bell rings”.

At least it wasn’t a video.

At least it wasn’t a video that said something like “Lunchroom Freak”.

That would have really stunk.

That might have left a scar.

“give yourself a chance”

Posted on by April 27, 2014

bob mavis

I have too many reasons to be satisfied.

That’s a funny thing to realize early on a Sunday morning…or maybe that’s the only thing to realize on a Sunday morning?

I’ve been on the other side of the equation…lonely and full of “angst”…full of drummed up discontent because somewhere I must have read that an artist feels all the pain or something.

I must have read that if you weren’t passionate about something (and, of course, passion equals pain) , that you were missing out on something really deep…and “deep” was what you were supposed to shoot for….if you thought you might want to be an artist.

And if I couldn’t figure out how to be a great artist, I could at least figure out how to feel sad….really sad…sad just a little short of cutting off an ear.

That’s kind of romantic.

What a crock.

That’s a young man’s game….that “grief as an activity”…that’s something that hopefully circumstance allows you to outgrow.

“Every day you’ve got to pray for guidance…every day you’ve got to give yourself a chance”

Gonna Change My Way of Thinking Bob Dylan Mavis Staples

I heard this song on the radio….on satellite radio…yesterday and it made me happy.

I guess that it’s from Dylan’s first gospel album….but this version is a new one with Mavis Staples.

I loved the part about catching the chicken…getting ready to eat some lunch.

That line “everyday you’ve got to give yourself a chance”…..

Man, I love that. Loooooove it. Love.

“Bad circumstances” or something blows a seed of grief into our lives…and then a “sad plant” grows in the middle of our driveway…and we notice it every day…trip over it….drive around it.

It irritates and infects and makes us realize that this “thing” is with us forever….and then we go out and water it everyday…and soon it’s the healthiest plant in our lives.

Before we know it, that little plant that’s grown so healthy… because of the attention we pay to it… has turned into a jungle.

We can’t even find the driveway anymore….can’t get the car down to the road….can’t go anywhere where the sun still shines through the leaves.

And that becomes our new norm.

“We live in a jungle” is what we tell ourselves…or maybe it’s something like “it’s the economy” or even “I never catch a break”.

I don’t really know how that works…things that I can’t figure out how to fix, I think about.  I think about stuff like that a lot.

Knowing the world is big shouldn’t ever be something that makes your own little corner feel small.

This life is not a contest…not really, at least. It’s a funny game…but maybe it’s not a contest.

So when I’m driving the mail around on a sunny day…and a song like this comes on the radio…and I can turn it way up without offending anyone…it makes me happy.

It makes me happy to know that sadness doesn’t have to be a permanent house guest in my brain.

Just because I open the door and invite sadness in for a while doesn’t mean that I can’t kick it to the curb when it outstays its welcome.

give me the money…why you gotta be like that?

Posted on by April 26, 2014

P1000522

Bankers are such freaking realists.

I don’t think that they have a romantic bone in their bodies.

Nahhhhhh….that’s not fair. They just need to be careful after giving money away to everyone with a pulse for so long.

I had a friend who used to tell me, “If you don’t ask, the answer’s already no.”

I think that my revision would be, after never having a need to go to anyone for money, that “if you don’t ask, you never get a chance to learn that the answer is already no.”

So the reality is, no matter how much money you want to give them to “sweeten the pot”, that these guys don’t want to give money away.

Who would have figured that it would be so hard to get some expensive money?

I haven’t given up after 3 tries.

All the success stories that I’m aware of mention more effort than three tries.

“Three tries” isn’t a model of perseverance.

You would think that people who have a lot of money at their disposal would be freer with it, though.

I don’t want to be in debt, anyway.

Not even for a nice chunk of potential paradise….gardens, goats, chickens….maybe a couple of Great Pyrenees or Border Collies running around, the kids playing in the stream or fishing in the pond….big metal shop with a level concrete floor up on the hill, or a studio?!…big farmhouse…..lots of good stuff on this piece of ground.

And, you know what? Those realists at the bank don’t see any of that? All they seem to look at is what they can call collateral.

You can’t call dreams collateral, you bankers! You can’t put a price on blind optimism!!!

Maybe I should change my “law of attraction” tactics to include the phrase “I can handle what I’m given…debt is not an obstacle…” instead of “I don’t want to be in debt”.

Maybe the bankers are just helping me fulfill that wish by dragging their heels with giving me the money?

They’re protecting me from being in debt?

They’re just helping me manifest my wish to avoid debt.

We’ll get the money if we’re supposed to realize the desire.

And if we don’t get the money….well, that is certainly not the end of the world.

Maybe it’s just a way to get us to look at what we already have with some fresh eyes?

Maybe it’s just something to nudge us into realizing what we already knew…that we’re blessed and can do more where we are to make our lives even better?

But, really….who would have thought that you couldn’t just walk into the place where they keep all the money and get some when you needed it?

I must be living under a thrifty financial rock.

I didn’t know that you couldn’t get money when you finally asked for it.

 

 

red licorice and the rat

Posted on by April 25, 2014

red vines

Jenny told me last night that red licorice would give me cancer.

dangit.

DANGITDANGITDANGITDANGIT.

That must be what it feels like for a smoker, happily puffing away, really enjoying his or her vice, only to be told that the habit is going to damage them.

I was on the last half of a fresh container of red licorice, purchased at the “liquidation center” for two thin dimes, of course, and she told me that there was something about the red dye number 40 that had been proven to cause cancer.

wtf.

WTFWTFWTFWTF?!!!!!

Now they tell me….after I’m hooked?

IT’S A FAT FREE FOOD….CHECK THE LABEL ON THE PACKAGE…HOW COULD IT BE BAD?!!

So now I’ve got that to worry about.

I bought so many dimes worth of licorice, though…I’ll stop when I stop buying it.

I’ll stop someday.

I’ve got to google that red dye thing right now….I’ll be back….

(googling away….)

Awwwwwww….it causes cancer in ANIMALS!!!

ANIMALS!!!!

What do I have to worry about? It’s the animals who should cut back on the red licorice.

I think that I’m exempt from that.

Like the guy in the Elephant Man said….well, the actual “elephant man” said….

Red licorice is so good.

So good and so strange.

On the label, it says, “A fat-free food”.

It really should say something like “not a food”.

It’s some strange stuff.

I’ll chew it up….hold it in my cheek for a while to absorb some of the “red goodness” (I don’t know what flavor it is…strawberry? cherry? RED?)…but I never feel like it’s really breaking down like a normal food would.

I don’t know what happens to it when it’s in my mouth.

I don’t know what happens to it when it’s in my stomach.

It’s like eating a pound of gum…I don’t know what it does after I’ve let it enter my body.

But I’ll do it again and again.

I love red licorice.

Jenny really took the bloom off the rose though with her red dye comment.

Now I’ll always have that in the back of my mind while I’m chowing down on a new stale bag of cheap red licorice.

I’ll always try not to think of that while I’m stuffing my face with a new piece of red licorice.

I’ll think about all those animals getting sick because they don’t have any impulse control.

Who can blame them? It is an amazing “non-food”.

While I was googling the red dye question, I read that yellow number 4 causes hyperactivity.

Dnnnnnnnannnnnnnannnnnnnngggggggggggggitttttttttttttt.

Guess what I bought for my four-year-old last visit to the liquidation center?

A FAMILY SIZE BOX OF KRAFT MACARONI AND CHEESE (that was only days out of date).

You better call DSS. They’ll try and take him away from his bad daddy if they can catch him after he ingests all that macaroni food dye.

So what is safe?

Chilean grapes? Mexican lettuce? Chinese cherries?

I think I’ll keep my enemies close….and just keep chowing down on the beautiful non-food that they call red licorice.

Maybe I should just eat all my meals in the dark and not worry about it?

 

I don’t want to hear your dream

Posted on by April 24, 2014

snail dreaming

I had another weird dream last night.

We were at the hospital and Jenny was having another baby.

Or maybe she was having one of the other babies.

She just has each of the babies once…so it was confusing….but dreams flip back and forth some, so there’s no telling what was really going on.

In the dream, the staff was hurrying us out of the hospital….like they’d do at the Chinese Buffet when they were getting ready to switch over to the dinner menu.

They kept saying, “You better hurry…you’ll be charged for another day if you don’t get out of here in half an hour…”

We were hurrying.

In the meantime, I heard a skuffle and went out into the hall.

In the hallway, there was the older man with the shaky hands and the bad attitude who’d given Jenny her epidural, and he was fighting off this “secret agenty” looking guy who was pulling a big knife out of his sock.

I yelled, “HEY!!! YOU CAN’T DO THAT!!! THIS IS A HOSPITAL!!!”….and I grabbed the assassin and started swinging him against the wall until he stopped attacking.

Then I made the mistake of asking the crotchety old dude, “Where’s the best place to get a vasectomy?”

I don’t know why that was on my mind.

He said, “come on….” and soon we were on a bus to Columbia, SC.

“This doesn’t seem right…” I said. “We shouldn’t leave Jenny so soon…we need to go back…”

“She won’t miss you” he said…and then went back to trimming his fingernails.

When we got to Columbia, we all got off the full bus and shuffled into a clinic that looked like something out of a science fiction movie, all white and brightly lit, the staff all in brilliant white, endless rooms and total silence.

“I would have taken a better shower if I knew that I was going to…” I said.

“Shhhhhhhh.” said the staff “There will be time for questions later…”

They began hooking us up to a bunch of sensors that came down out of the ceiling like tentacles from the bottom of an octopus….and started getting us ready for the procedure.

“You know why I’m here, right!??!” I asked.

“Shhhhhhhh…there’ll be a time for that later…for now, just relax…you’re in good hands…”

“I really do need to get back to Jenny…I think that this was a mistake…”

“Shhhhhhhh…there’ll be a time for that later…for now, just relax…you’re in good hands…” they said again.

This was feeling more and more like a mistake. I wished that I’d never talked to that old dude. This was a lot scarier than I ever imagined the “V” word being…even in my wildest dreams.

I woke up before they started really getting into the meat of the situation.

Thank goodness that I can wake up from some of this weirdness.

No wonder Jenny tries to avoid hearing my weird dreams if she can.

I must have some anxieties somewhere deep in my psyche that come out in my dreams?

Who am I kidding? It’s all a pretty shallow pond…anxiety scum just floating on top….ready to skim off if I need some good material next time I fall asleep and feel like dreaming.

I still don’t know about these brightly lit clinics…that seemed pretty scary.

Maybe that’s how the aliens take over?!!! Mass “V” clinics?!!! Maybe that’s what the “V” stood for in that scary old miniseries about the aliens?!!!

vminiseries

Maybe I should dream less?

 

all these ducks

Posted on by April 23, 2014

ducks

I’ve just pulled up to the pond and I’m already worried that I can’t get these ducks to swim in a row.

I couldn’t sleep last night for worry.

Worry….worry….worry.

And when you get down to it, what’s to worry?

I made an offer on some property last night…7 acres with two streams and a pond, old house (that’s more of a stumbling block than a benefit, probably)…a barn…some good buildable flat places….and the offer was accepted.

I was afraid to make the offer.

I’d never dealt with such a big purchase before…so I was nervous.

I’ve bought bunches of guitars in pawn shops…so “What’s the best you could do for cash?” falls easily off my lips…but I don’t know how to say, “Would you consider X amount, and then expect to be paid after voluminous legal wrangling and bank manipulation?”

Settling on a price was the easy part.

All the stuff that’s floating up in my brain…the things that I don’t know how to do…all the things that “might happen”…that’s what keeps me up at night.

And then I start wondering, “What have I done?!!”

Maybe I should have left well enough alone? Our roof doesn’t leak.

What was I thinking?

What if there’s a giant sinkhole on the property?!

What if it’s all a big MONEYPIT?!!

What if there’s nothing to worry about?

What’s the absolute worst that could happen? The bank won’t give me the money? That’s a bad thing?! I won’t be in debt…I kind of like that part of the failure….

One thing that I can comfort myself with is the thought that I really can’t physically support this kind of worry forever. At some point I know that I’ll drop into an exhausted bundle of previously nervous energy…and I’ll sleep it off.  I’ll sleep it off….

BUT FOR NOW THESE DARN DUCKS ARE JUST MILLING ABOUT ON THIS NEW POND AND NO MATTER HOW MUCH I YELL OR PUSH AT THEM WITH THAT LONG STICK THAT I FOUND ON THE BANK….I CAN’T GET THEM TO SWIM IN A ROW…..

I have no control over these “metaphors for worry”.

Best case scenario, we get the place….people are falling over themselves to just GIVE US THE MONEY ( I should go all Cuba Gooding Jr in the bank office and start yelling his tagline from Jerry McGuire…)…we find buried treasure down by the pond and pay off the loan early so that I don’t have to work at the Post Office the rest of my breathing days….lots of stuff could happen.

Lots of stuff could happen…lots of stuff….like….OH, NO!!!! WHAT IF THEY DECIDE TO SHUT THE POST OFFICE DOWN? WHAT IF ROBOTS (OR MONKEYS!!) START DOING WHAT I DO AND THEY TAKE MY JOB AWAY?!!! WHAT IF I GET IN A FIGHT WITH A ROBOT TRYING TO SAVE MY JOB SO I CAN PAY THE BANK FOR THIS PROPERTY WE’RE GOING TO BUY?!! WHAT IF ONE OF THE MONKEYS HAS RABIES OR SOMETHING AND THEY BITE ME WHEN I TRY AND GET MY JOB BACK?!!!

You see why I can’t sleep?

There’s a lot of things to worry about….

Michael Hurley “I’m Worried, I’m Worried”

Cheap Costco Shoes

Posted on by April 22, 2014

 

worn out shoes_001Jenny took Nate to the doctor yesterday.

She’d taken him to the “doctor” doctor last week for a checkup….but they apparently didn’t have time to check his ears after making her wait for 1 1/2 hours…..so she took him to the doctor at the CVS clinic this time.

We’d never gone to the CVS clinic before…so we didn’t know what to expect.

It was a young doctor…fresh out of Yale Medical School…wearing, what Jenny described as being, “the nicest shoes I’ve ever seen anyone wear”.

A young doctor, fresh out of Yale Medical School….working at the CVS clinic.

That’s not what they show you on the medical dramas…high powered doctors running around the clinic, helping people find the aisle with the root beer barrel candy in between patients.

But you know…that was one of the most satisfying doctor’s visits Jenny has had with Nate.

At the pediatrician’s office, she makes appointments that take 2 hours because they never honor the appointment time.

When you have a new baby along for the ride when you make an appointment for your 4-year-old with a bad ear infection, 2 hours is too long to wait.

When the doctor finally does come in, he or she is usually so far behind that they make you feel like they’re playing catch-up…and you don’t get the “service” you probably deserve.

This guy was different.

Maybe it was that he was so young and fresh out of Medical School.

Jenny said, “Do you ever see that show ‘The Doctors’? Remember that young male doctor on that show? That’s what this guy looked like…”

“Oh…the good looking one…I remember….”

So…it was a young doctor fresh out of Yale Medical School….a good looking young doctor fresh out of Yale Medical School…who was working at the CVS clinic…and doing a really good job.

No wonder it was a pleasant experience.

I don’t know what we expected when she said she was taking Nate to the clinic….maybe some retired Nurse Practitioner in bad Costco shoes.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Costco shoes. I looked at them and thought, “Man…19.98 for a pair of shoes!!! I’m getting some of those next time I need shoes!! That’s so cheap!!!”

But this guy had some really expensive nice shoes…and he was working at the CVS.

I guess that there must be a glut of doctors…or maybe I should stop making judgements about what it means to be working at a CVS.

It’s not a bad thing to be working at a CVS…it’s just that I’d suspect that a dude like that might be working in some kind of big fancy practice somewhere…seeing patients in a beautiful office…raking in the big bucks, living the life of Reilly.

I guess it must go to show you that maybe all my “man grooming” might not be worth the time after all….

(That’s a joke….sometimes I feel like the dog who’s a little too proud of himself for rolling in the roadkill…scruffy to the max.  I’m not really into much of the metro sexual lifestyle…I don’t do a lot of grooming or preening. I’d be the one with the worn out Costco shoes…)

Nate got his ears checked out, got some amoxicillin…and feels a lot better already.

That guy at the CVS really was a well dressed, highly educated….ANGEL!!

Hooray for CVS!!! Hooray for a glut of doctors in a pretty mountain town!!

Another Easter

Posted on by April 20, 2014

We went yesterday and looked at some land we might buy that’s a couple of miles from our current home.

We took the whole family this time…our daughter, home from college…our two boys and the new baby, Sparrow.

It was raining some…and may not have been the best day to walk around 7 acres.

It’s a big project to buy a piece of property and remodel an old farmhouse.

I don’t know if we’re really willing to take on another project like that.

Thinking about any changes in our lives takes up a lot of our energy and attention.  When you’re not used to borrowing money, it’s stressful to think about taking on a big loan.

I guess that we’re on a roll, though…new baby and all. Why not really shake it up and buy a big chunk of land with a couple of derelict buildings needing refurbishment? That would help maintain the momentum we seem to be working up….

But today it’s Easter…and all of the small concerns should feel even smaller in the perspective of this miracle and gift.

Thinking about resurrection should be a little more captivating than wondering why the furnace was up in the attic in this old house we looked at.

A miracle is more thought provoking than holes in the roof.

We are distractible. There are things that draw our attention…that hold our attention..that might not be worthy of a second thought.

It’s Easter.

That’s something worth concentrating on…for a while, at least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuz3CNCgDQA

going somewhere

Posted on by April 19, 2014

P1080546

Driving home from Asheville last night, Sparrow crying in the back of the minivan towards the end of the trip, rain coming down hard, I could not help but think of all the wet miles I’ve driven in my life.

I’m no sailor.

I haven’t lived a life on the sea.

But I’ve spent a fair share of my time hydroplaning in different areas of the country…driving through the unfamiliar…sheets of water trying to drive me down into a more stationary orbit.

And a good bit of it was done before I had my family with me.

That’s a different type of feeling, to be driving by yourself in bad weather.

When I was alone, I was always going somewhere,though.  I was going to be somewhere soon if I just kept enough gas in the car and could stay awake.

I was in between the place that I wanted to be and the place where I was.

I had a destination in mind but no good maps.

I remember one trip back from Alabama in an old fastback Dodge.

The car had a slant six and a three speed transmission with the gear shift on the column.

It was a brown car.

It started pouring rain…and when I turned on the wipers, one of the little greased plastic pieces in the wiper linkage broke…and the wipers wouldn’t go.

I remember crossing the state line into Georgia with my head out the window, rain stinging my face…trying to get home in bad weather….trying to see what lay ahead for a young man driving a bad car.

I think that your choices set the tone for your adventures…I chose cheap old cars…so my adventures were often of a comically mechanical nature.

I broke down sometimes.

Now, I travel with my family…and my choices have to be different.

It’s hard to break down with a family. It’s the “communal discomfort” that gets to you…agony and confusion compounded when things go bad out on the road.

So now I make an effort to drive vehicles that hold together a little better.

My family doesn’t need that kind of excitement…and neither do I.

I think that I read the phrase “Wherever You Go…There You Are” on a t-shirt or a bumper sticker somewhere.

I know that’s true….but it’s a truth that I tend to forget sometimes.

I love road trips still. If I could do anything, it would be travelling. I love to travel.

I love it when the “going” isn’t just in service to the “getting there”…when the miles aren’t something to be tolerated until I arrive at the final destination.

I love it when I don’t have to “push through” to get somewhere in a hurry.

I love it when I notice that sometimes the vehicle that I use to get somewhere else is just as important as the place that I hope to arrive at someday.

Maybe it’s the “journey” that’s the life? More important than the place I’m going to? Maybe the “getting to” is the part that I need to wake up and pay attention to?

“(You Were) Going Somewhere” David Wilcox

 

photo by Zoe Rorvig