YES, I CAN HEAR YOU. ARE YOU LISTENING TODAY?

I’m listening today, like every day, for that special spark of something, something interesting, but I’d settle for less.

Short of that, I hope for something that jumps out from social media, something blog-worthy.

That’s a big deal with a blog, a big deal for writers, finding a topic to expand on.

Too often they look inward and tell of their struggles with what seems like normal, everyday, ordinary, life for the rest of us.

It’s not easy for everyone, and can grow more difficult with time.

While children sleep the sleep of the innocent, adults not so much.

So what’s the problem with adults? Guilty conscience? Worry? Anxiety? Failure? All of it?

How many times do you tell your brain to relax and go to sleep, only to find yourself in the kitchen with pbj on toast instead?

“And there I was, standing in front of the fridge, at 3 A.M.”

 

Or, maybe the big people are locked into a program where food and sleep are the biggest priority?

No food past seven? In bed with the lights out by nine?

That may not sound like grown-up life, more like junior high, or middle school, but it’s a proven health measure when compared to eating and drinking like a hog and passing out at any given time.

Imagine dropping in public. One moment the lights are on, the next, lights out.

An unconscious body laid out on the sidewalk is a reason to call for help, especially if they are with you.

 

That’s the big difference in age groups: The youth go out for a good time, baby boomers do the same, but with an extra emphasis on getting back home in the same shape, if not better, than they left.

It’s a huge contrast with little kids who run and run until they find a place next to grandma or grandpa and they both fall asleep.

When that happens it’s the sleep of the innocent for everyone since you can’t be that big a jack-ass if a kid sleeps on your arm.

Put a baby in my arms in a recliner and I’m out in ten minutes, maybe five. It’s the best nap ever.

 

How To Be A Better Listener

Common sense says the first thing to do in order to be a better listener is shut the f@ck up, but this isn’t that blog, a cussing, common sense, kind of blog.

In here, the boomerpdx rule is run your mouth as much as you want and expect others to listen well enough to understand the message.

“But, BoomerPdx, I don’t have a message, I just want to yack away on whatever comes to mind in my stream of thought.”

To which I say, “Go ahead and give James Joyce a run for his stream of consciousness money.”

Stream Of Consciousness Writing from Oregon State:

 

Stream of consciousness is a narrative style that tries to capture a character’s thought process in a realistic way. It’s an interior monologue, but it’s also more than that.

Because it’s mimicking the non-linear way our brains work, stream-of-consciousness narration includes a lot of free association, looping repetitions, sensory observations, and strange (or even nonexistent) punctuation and syntax—all of which helps us to better understand a character’s psychological state and worldview.

It’s meant to feel like you have dipped into the stream of the character’s consciousness—or like you’re a fly on the wall of their mind.

 

Google these writers and their books.

They are the wall, you are the fly.

 

 

James Joyce’s last chapter in Ulysses: Episode 18 – Penelope:

 

YES BECAUSE HE NEVER DID A THING LIKE THAT BEFORE AS ASK TO get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting to that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all her ailments she had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathing-suits and lownecks of course nobody wanted her to wear I suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice I hope I’ll never be like her a wonder she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was a welleducated woman certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here and Mr Riordan there I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her dog smelling my fur and always edging to get up under my petticoats especially then still I like that in him polite to old women like that and waiters and beggars too hes not proud out of nothing but not always if ever he got anything really serious the matter with him its much better for them go into a hospital where everything is clean but I suppose Id have to dring it into him for a month yes and then wed have a hospital nurse next thing on the carpet have him staying there till they throw him out or a nun maybe like the smutty photo he has shes as much a nun as Im not yes because theyre so weak and puling when theyre sick they want a woman to get well if his nose bleeds youd think it was O tragic

 

Does the Bullshit Ever Get Too Deep

If you’re listening today, or any recent day, you’ve probably reflected on the past.

Reflect on all of the name changes and construction news from D.C. in the past year and a half.

Remember the former Attorney General lady who brought her scowling attack dog to press meetings.

Remember the folks who go from tears of remorse to tears of rage in the blink of an eye.

Remember the face of the cowering puppy-man when its owner yanked the leash.

 

Can you imagine baby boomers reevaluating George Wallace in our contemporary times.

By reflecting on the past, we see a slice of the near future through a different lens.

The clear glass in the National Archives explains how we belong to the worlds’s most exclusive club.

It begins with:

 

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

 

PS:

The times in which we live aren’t defined by a single fuck-up, but it can seem that way with a news cycle that dramatizes the undramatic with urgency, breaking, and my favorite, ‘what you need to know now.’

PSS:

What you need to know? Be the best listener you’ve ever been. Keep working, and talking, and writing, and podcasting, and playing guitar, and singing, and lifting, and moving, and shaking.

In other words, represent.

If you don’t, who will? We’ve already got enough people who need to be de-moroned.