Man In The Moon

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is a manifestation of the Observer Effect. The idea is that the act of observation will create changes in the phenomenon being observed. This is already starting to happen to me because of this blog. Let me explain:

The other night as I was sitting behind my wife waiting for her to finish something on the computer so I could get back to it, I got a little bored. I picked up a nearby hair band and started aiming it at the back of her head as if I were going to fire it at her. I know, it’s stupid. My daughter saw me and immediately said, “You are going to slip and have a whole new post to write for your blog.” See what I mean?

Now that I’ve written about a few embarrassing events here, my family has decided to “help me” by giving me ideas for new material. It’s now become their favorite pastime to dredge up every single embarrassing event they can think of and then laugh about it to no end.

• “Remember the time dad was riding the grocery basket out of the store and flipped the whole thing over in the parking lot and we hid from him while he had to pick it all back up in front of everyone?”
• “Remember the time his crown fell out at the swimming pool and he was diving around looking for it and that kid had to help him find his tooth so he could go home and superglue it back into place?”
• “Remember that time we got lost in San Francisco for four hours and finally had to force dad to get directions from the guy at the gas station and it turned out that the guy didn’t speak English?”

Believe me, there’s a lot more, but you get the idea. The very act of writing this blog has changed various aspects of my life. Knowing that nearly any given situation might become the subject of a blog post here makes everyone–myself included–think more about what we say and do. There’s less natural reaction–if that makes any sense at all–and more thought-out reactions. I wonder if this happens to comedians as well.

It creates a kind of unreal home-life wherein everyone seems to be waiting for someone else to do something.  It’s like a game of Jenga where each person tries to pull out the block that will make the next person mess up.  I’m not complaining, mind you.  It just takes some getting used to.

Blogging about my life accomplishes several things for me:

• It relaxes me and puts me in a good mood.
• It allows me to look at things from a different perspective.
• It forces me to see the humor in almost any situation.
• It gives me new people to talk with.
• etc., etc., etc.

By the way,  I want to say a special thank you to all of you that are still coming here even though I haven’t posted anything for the last ten days.  Another recent change in my life is that I got a brand new client with a huge web project that’s taken a lot of my time.  I will really try to make sure that I don’t let those kinds of gaps happen here any more.  It’s that whole real-life thing that I mentioned previously. Now, if you’ve read all the way down here, then you get to know that I have a few videos that I’m working on for some upcoming posts.  One of them will actually show me–just in case you were ever curious about what I look like.  So, stay with me, and I’ll make up for my absence.

Lesson Learned:

If you don’t blog new stuff regularly, people stop coming.

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So, I’m sitting there with my thirteen-year-old daughter watching an action movie the other day. You know the type, right? The hero is chasing the bad guys, pulls himself out of a horrible car wreck, runs through traffic on the freeway, gets hit over the head with a chair, continues the chase into a warehouse, and then gets shot through the left shoulder inches from his heart. Cut to commercial. My daughter and I both look at other and say, “Uh oh, now he’s mad.”

That’s right, we both said it at the same time. Right then and there, it occurs to me to question the kind of father I’ve become. So I open my mouth to say something, and I’m suddenly channeling Will Smith. You know that trademark backpedaling thing he does where he tries to fix something stupid that he’s just said or done and ends up making it worse and worse until someone has to put their hand over his mouth to make him stop. Well, imagine a white guy doing a crappy Will Smith imitation, and you’ll be pretty close to how I actually sounded as I tried to “fix” the situation.

“Cause…uhm…you know…uhm…when they dropped the helicopter on him, that…uhm…it missed him…and the…uhm…building that exploded around him…uhm…just messed up his hair and…uhm…gave him that nasty cut on his forehead…but, when they shot him…that…uhm…uh… Look, you know that this stuff isn’t real, right? Cause that would actually be really bad stuff to happen to someone, and they wouldn’t be able to just–”

“Dad,” she says, interrupting me. “I’m thirteen, and we’re running out of commercials. Can we go get some snacks now?”

“Oh, yeah, right. We gotta hurry!” And thus ended my brief lapse of parental perception. We cheered the guy through the rest of the movie, watched things blow up, watched him single-handedly take out a small army of bad guys, watched as the authorities showed up too late to do anything, and generally went on about our lives.

Now, as much as I would love to delve into the deeper moral implications of all of this–NOT–my family will be back from the video store any minute with the sequel, and I promised to have a few snacks ready.

Lesson Learned:

Commercials aren’t as long as you think; go faster.

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So, I’m sitting here on the computer trying to catch up with some other work (since I do have a life outside this blog) when my wife opens the door and asks me what I think.

“About what?” I ask as I’m looking up. Then I see her face. “What happened?” I ask immediately. “Why have you been crying? Did someone get hurt?”

At this point in time, I have no idea what’s going on. She just turns bright red, gets seething angry, and walks out shutting the door behind her. I’m completely clueless (as usual) and follow her out thinking that someone has died and she can’t bring herself to even say it.

As she goes into the bathroom loudly locking the door behind her, I’m standing in the living room like an idiot counting my children to make sure they’re all still there. I’m about to go ask her what’s going on when my daughter chimes in and tells me that she was trying out a new eye makeup method she found on Pursebuzz.

For those of you that have never heard of it, Pursebuzz is a makeup and cosmetics advice site loaded with YouTube videos explaining how to do all sorts of beauty-related stuff. It’s run by a young, Asian girl who seemingly has no end of enthusiasm for her chosen subject. My wife and oldest daughters love it. They try to show me the stuff, but it’s like watching someone putting pin-striping on a Ferrari; you just sit there wondering why.

Anyway, I now face the onerous task of making up for my lack of perception–not an unusual circumstance for me. Apparently, I was supposed to be impressed by how strikingly beautiful her eyes were after applying this new method.  I was NOT (under any circumstances) supposed to think that she’d been crying.

You’d think that after all these years, I would be exceptionally good at this–or exceptionally good at preventing this from happening–but no. I’m still completely in the dark as to how these things happen and what to do about them. Any ideas out there?

Lesson Learned:

Keep your mouth shut until you know all the facts.

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Have you ever been to one of those really low-quality magic shows? You know the type, the ones they have at kid’s birthday parties and stuff. Have you ever been watching a show like that and turned to the guy next to you to whisper a comment about how bad the show was only to find him mesmerized by the whole thing as if he couldn’t see the card sticking out the magician’s sleeve or the clearly visible string holding the “floating” wand in the air? It may surprise you to learn that I’m that guy.

In the course of my life, I’ve had to deal with many depressing things ranging from the loss of a child from cancer to a life-changing disability–none of which is the subject of this blog. I share laughter because humor shared grows into joy. It lightens the day for all of us. That’s what this blog is about. So what does all this have to do with crappy magic shows? Let me explain:

This post grew out of a recent discussion I had with Stephanie Barr . Stephanie is an incredibly intelligent person, literally a rocket scientist. She is also, however, by her own admission, a “professional wet blanket.” A “wet blanket,” by the way, is an expression describing someone who dampens the enthusiasm or enjoyment of others, generally by pointing out all the things that can go wrong with what they’re doing or all the reasons why they shouldn’t be doing it at all. Picture an actual wet blanket being thrown on a fire to put it out or at least dampen it down.

I suspect that Stephanie’s “wet blanket” tendencies are what drew her to become a scientist/engineer in the first place. A willingness to not accept things at face value, to doubt, and to attempt in every way to disprove a theory or figure out everything that might possibly go wrong is a basic prerequisite to being a good scientist–especially one that deals with rocket and/or space science.

I certainly feel better believing that those multi-ton payloads that keep floating around over our heads are being put there by people who are willing to spend a lot of time figuring out what could go wrong, what might break, and what unexpected circumstances might arise. This type of thinking, however, presents certain problems when it goes beyond the scope of work and starts getting applied in daily life.

There is a certain joy in life that can only be found if you’re willing to “look beyond the strings” to see the magic all around you. There is real magic in the world, not the mystical fantasy kind, but real beauty, joy, and selfless giving. It’s there if we look for it. The moon, for instance, is very romantic and magical…unless you’re the type of person who only sees it as a hunk of lifeless rock stuck in a gravity well.

I’m not espousing gullibility here. I despise blind faith. I believe in thinking carefully and considering as many options as possible before making a decision. But life is full of numerous details that don’t matter, that don’t hurt anyone, that aren’t wrong, and that don’t need to be pointed out to someone who’s enjoying the moment. (I’m not referring to Stephanie here; she just started me thinking along these lines.)

Some think it a small thing to ruin a moment of joy or happiness, but it isn’t. It’s a moment that will never exist again. In killing that moment, you destroy it not only for yourself, but for anyone that listens to you. Words have power. Do you really have such a plethora of moments to throw away? Probably not. And neither do those you take it from.

For what it’s worth, I would encourage everyone to “look beyond the strings,” to find the real magic in life all around them, to really enjoy the moments given to them. As many bad things as there are to go through and deal with in life, there are far more good.

Now, just so you know that I didn’t blind-side Stephanie with this article (sort-of about her,) that she not only knew I was going to write this, but that she even participated in it, I’m going to do something I very rarely do. I’m going to give her the last word.

Stephanie Barr, Rocket Scientist
Just going to add that, I, too, believe in magic and wonder and dreams. Being a rocket scientist or a chemist or a realist doesn’t mean that you can’t believe in magic. And, for the record, my wet-blanketing of him before was a joke. I do do that, though, and there are times it’s necessary. But even the space program wouldn’t have gotten off the ground without dreams and that’s its own magic.

Lesson Learned:

Look for the real magic in life and you’ll find it.

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I have to apologize for my absence the last few days. Believe it or not, it has to do with the snow again–only this time for an entirely different reason. If you look at the picture of the front of my house that I’ve included with this post, then you’ll see my front steps. Those steps tried to eat me. Let me explain:

When I arrived home a few nights ago, I was climbing those steps and took a bad fall. It seems that nature played a little trick on me and hid some ice under that snow. I was about to take the very last step to the top when the whole world suddenly flipped over.

From what I can tell and put together from memory, it seems that both my feet suddenly slid forward through the back of the steps while all of the rest of me flipped over backwards. There I was hanging backwards on the steps with all my weight torquing both feet up under the top step and wedging them in place while I’m screaming bellowing in pain.

By all rights, I should have broken both ankles and at least one arm and possibly my neck while cracking my skull open. Instead, I have two spranged ankles, and my left knee is twisted up and hurting pretty bad. Amazingly, though, nothing’s broken. Obviously, I won’t be walking for a while.

Of all the things I’m most thankful for after surviving that, I’m especially grateful to my closest neighbor. It just so happens that he’s a volunteer firefighter, local EMT, and ambulance driver. He heard me scream cry out and came to my rescue. My wife and daughter couldn’t get me up off the stairs. With his help, I managed to get inside out of the freezing snow and get my legs up. As embarrassing it felt at the time, I can’t imagine how long I would have been stuck out there without his help.

After a quick checkover and my repeated insistence that nothing was broken except my dignity, I was left on the couch to hurt and try and recover. That’s when I suddenly remembered the reason I had been in such a hurry. (Yep, you guessed it.) I needed to go to the bathroom…really bad. I was fifteen feet away and had no chance to make it alone. It required the assistance of both my wife and my oldest daughter to get me in there.

It was an extremely painful experience just getting there and getting myself into a position that allowed me to do what I had to do. However, it seems that once I had finished the necessities that had driven me there, I made a horrible discovery. I wish that I could say that it was something manly like a broken bone or blood gushing out of my leg or something like that. But no…not me. Instead, I discovered that my underwear which had fallen down around my ankles was now far beyond my reach. Anything that required me to bend my legs or body was out of the question.

At this point I began doing what any man in such a situation would do–I mean besides whining–I tried to figure out exactly how my wife was going to use this circumstance against me when I called her in for help. I mean, you gotta figure that I was going to be offering her carte blanche rights to cause me extreme humiliation–and possibly even pain. So I ran through the list:

“Now, let me see, is she currently mad at me? Not that I know of. Okay, not very reassuring.

Is she currently on her period? God help me!!! But, no, I’m okay there.

Is she currently angry at children or anyone else that might result in spillover anger directed at me? Not that I know of. Okay, again, not very reassuring.” At this point in my musings, I was seriously considering calling an ambulance for help, but I kept on.

“Let’s see, have I told her I love her today. Yes. Oh, good, that’s good.

Have I said it more than once? Yes. Oh, very good.

Have I told her she’s beautiful today? Yes. Excellent!

Have I told her more than once? No. Oh, crap. Too late now.” By this time, my legs were thumping, my hands were starting to shake, and I was in extreme pain. I had no choice anymore. I had to call her in to help me.

“Honey, can you come in here?”

Immediately, I heard my daughter in the living room burst out laughing and my wife comes up outside the bathroom door and answers me in an uncharacteristically super-sweet voice, “Yes, dear.”

Oh, God, they know!

To make a long story short–if it’s not too late for that already–she helped me and got me out of there and into bed. Anyway, it’s been a long and embarrassing trip (no pun intended) from that top step the other day to posting this today. I hope that this message finds you in better condition. Take care, and be careful out there.

Lesson Learned:

A few compliments a day goes a heck of a long way.

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If you enjoy the content here, then please subscribe to my feed or subscribe by email if you prefer. It would also be great if you could leave a comment and even Stumble this article if you really like it. By the way, you can also get paid to blog here just like I do.