802.11me

Don't be Bad if you're Sad, just See and be Glad

I was in the bookstore the other day, looking for some short stories by someone or other. In most bookstores today, you have to stumble through the cooking section, the latino issues section, and the latino cooking section before you get to "literature" or "fiction", and sure enough, i walked past this big display case of Business slash Self-Help books. You know, the cheese mover guy and the my two dads guy; those types of things. Now, I don't go in much for the business book or the self-help book. I had to read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People once and found it to be both ponderous and horrifying at the same time - a unique combination. That cheese mover guy, however, has gotten all sorts of play over the last couple years, so i picked up a copy of his latest book, titled, i think, "who moved my cheese 2.0". Whatever. Anyway, I opened this book up to page 87 and just started reading. The story was about a very successful businesswoman (the stories are always about a very successful somebody. nobody wants to learn life lessons from a housewife or penniless wanderer, regardless of what they could tell you....god forbid you try to write a self-help book with lessons from a nun working the slums of Rio. Help the suffering? what the fuck? ), and this successful businesswoman had a hard time coming home and adjusting to being a good mom. She was very stressed from her successful day, and she would come home and get distracted by the tv or newspaper or get mad at the kids when she didn't mean to because of some stress at work. Well, the cheese guy goes about telling her she needs to meditate. He doesn't say meditate, because that ain't gonna move books. He says "visualize". he tells the successful businesswoman she should visualize what being a good mother should be like when she gets home. How she's supposed to do this and navigate traffic will be related to us in "Cheese 3! - The Saga Continues" (get it? saga is a kind of cheese?...hello? is this thing on?). Anyway, where was I...oh yes, so she starts visualizing her car not getting hit while she's visualizing what being a good mother should be like when she gets home, and in the VERY NEXT PARAGRAPH, she is one happy momma. This successful businesswoman is now a successful and happy mother, because she thinks about what she's going to do and how she's going to focus with the kids and family in her car ride home! and they she does it! NEAT!

Well, so, at this point, I'm thinking...i gotta get to visualizin! Lord knows there are days i mean to come home and be a good dad, but around 7pm i find myself knee deep in Gin thinking "how did we get HERE?". Time to start visualizing. I tried this for one day. My lovely bride was out one evening, so i was going to be alone with the kids that night. Fine. On the train ride home, i shut my eyes and visualized what i was going to do: come in the door, big hugs for the kids, play a game upstairs with them, then cook dinner, cetera cetera cetera, happy times are just around the corner. So, of course, i walk in the door, and my daughter says "michael pooped on the carpet". I think you know how this story ends. There are never any "poop on the carpet" stories in these business slash self-improvement books. there are only happy and malleable bystanders waiting to accomodate the new you. My self-help book will be titled "who's going to clean the poop on the carpet".