Puzzles

I love puzzles, it exercises my brain in a way that I like. I enjoy mysteries too, whether they are movies or plays or a book I enjoy them, I guess they could be considered a kind of puzzle. But even if the plot is predictable to me, I still enjoy guessing how exactly it's all going to go down.

My favorite puzzles are not so much what the end picture looks like than the puzzles that are cut in an unusual shape. Although a cute picture is a good motivator when I get stumped and feel like throwing the puzzle out in frustration. The most difficult puzzle I ever did was a puzzle with a ugly, ugly picture, but I wouldn't let is beat me. The puzzle pieces were all cut the same shape and the picture was a bunch of corn ears, (weird huh?) I'll be the first to admit that out of frustration, the puzzle ended up spending several months under the coffee table on several different occasions. But at last the puzzle was solved with some help from my family. The puzzle stayed on the coffee table in it's completed form for a few months before it was taken apart and thrown away. (We showed it whose boss.)

Nothing

Life can be very fruitful and fun, you just have to learn the trick of making time for doing nothing:

Time in the car is a great time to do nothing. If you need to call someone, call before you get in the car, so you won't have to call anyone while you're driving. And if your phone rings while you're in the car, don't answer it. And don't be nervous about explaining when you call them back, just say you were driving; they won't ask for anymore details. And if they do well...you don't really want to spend time with that person anyway, in fact you didn't like them in the first place. While you're in the car, turn on the radio, or pop in a CD, or tape, or whatever you've got. You'll be in a whole lot better mood when you get where you're going, and your chances of being alive when you get to where your going is a whole lot higher if you commit yourself to listening to the radio than trying to find your cell phone to answer a call or to call someone, or to text message. What in the world is up with that anyway? I don't get it. Dial their number and talk to them!

So another way to make time do to nothing is make a date with your bathtub, I'm sure it misses you. Get the bubbles and the rose petals, or floating candles with bath salts; whatever it is that makes you relax. And remember to turn off your phone. When you call people back just say you were in the bath, don't be shy, they won't ask any questions! And if they do well....you don't want anything to do with that person anyway. Another thing about the phone thing, if you don't answer, and they don't leave a message, don't even bother calling them back. It's bogus!! If it was important, the least people could say is "It's Bob call me back."

So, make time to relax, and do nothing. Go to the park, take a breath of air, read a book. Whatever makes you happy, qualifies as nothing. But if someone does call you and you pick up, by all means don't tell them you're doing nothing, it's almost guaranteed they'll give you something to do, and it may be fun and something you want to do that will still qualify as nothing, but you can't assume that; because their advise might be something that you don't enjoy, which equals work. But by then you would have already told them that you aren't doing anything, so you'll have to lie to get out of it, and they'll know you're lying and that's always awkward. Lots of people don't understand the value of doing nothing.

Control

Timothy hurried down the empty hallway, in the back of his mind he knew that there really wasn't any point to hurry. He was already tardy for his first class, so why bother? He couldn't help it though, he at least wanted to give the impression that he had tried to get to class, that he had tried to avoid getting caught by Mr. Principle, but he knew the chances of that were slim. Nigh on impossible in fact.

Sure enough:

"Mr. Garrison!"

Timothy turned reluctantly to face his fate.

"Mr. Garrison," Mr. Principle said in a triumphant voice that would have been appropriate for a spider that had just caught a particularly juicy fly. "Mr. Garrison-"

"I heard you the first two times," Timothy said staring Mr. Principle dead in the face.

"Well, then I won't have to tell you twice to go report to my office immediately."

"What's the point?" Timothy muttered as he turned away.

"What did you say Garrison?" Mr. Principal asked.

"I said what's the point?" Timothy turned around. "I'm here, you're here, why not give me the time of my Detention and I'll see you then?"

"Because it's not Detention that I had in mind," Mr. Principle snapped. "It's a lecture. As an educator I have to instill in you the discipline of follow the rules."

"Well, as an educator, who is concerned for my education, wouldn't it be more appropriate to let me go to class and then lecture me in a time that wouldn't conflict with my curricular studies?" Timothy retaliated.

"Oh, no," Mr. Principle snickered, "It has to be now."

"Why not wait until gym class, that way it will lower my chance of landing the basketball team?" Timothy wasn't giving in. "That way I can still get to class, so that I won't flunk, and after all the tests are the most important thing." Timothy said this sarcastically. "It doesn't only reflect on the progress of the student, but the educators, and the school as a whole. So, by keeping me out of class you are jeopardizing your job. Why not let me slip into class and postpone the obedience lecture to another time?"

"No, it has to be now," Mr. Principal said.

"And I thought that you cared about my education." Timothy said. "You just won't admit that I'm smarter than you are, so you take it out on me by overstepping your authority. I'll go along with though, it after all, you are the 'educated' one." And Timothy went to the principals office.

Memories

I can recall when I was four and five years old, before going to sleep at night I would watch the ghosts glide across the walls in my bedroom. I wasn't frightened, I had always be able to see them.
My brother slept across the hall from me and the way our beds were positioned we could see through our doors and into the other's room. Even though we could not see each other, we would watch the ghosts go from his room to mine and mine to his.
Perhaps it was simply because of our child-like innocents that we weren't afraid of them, or maybe something, or someone told us that there was nothing to fear from them, that I do not recall.



I can also remember when I was in trouble, sometimes I would look beyond the parent who was lecturing me and see a shield of light that encircled the lecturer's body. I was not sure whether what I was seeing was really there, or whether I was just tricking my self into believing that there was something there, because I knew even at that age that I had a wild imagination, and it would get away from me sometimes. I did not find out until recently that what I was seeing was an aura. The electrical bubble that surrounds every one's body.



It amuses me that the longer that I live the more I find out about things I experienced years ago, I guess that it's all just apart of life.