Collective Angst and Airplane Gremlins

Posted by Unknown

So I had something else in mind for today, but honestly, I'm exhausted. A late night storming session yesterday with a writer friend to get her book going, my wife's open house tonight that brought me and the little guy out to her school with dinner (and that means entertaining him by chasing him around on the grass for hours), the Novel Crit group started yesterday, I'm helping my wife photograph a wedding on Saturday, my sister's wedding is in less than two weeks out in Colorado and I am performing the ceremony (have NOT practiced), the house is in no way ready for the rains and the cold, a friend is coming to stay the night, the dog kennel needs to be finished or a separate dog house built for the third dog, the garage is decades from completion, money is tight, queries to write, stories to finish, the blog, the house, don't get me started on the house –

And that's what today's post is about. You're not alone. It seems like everyone is going through all kinds of stress right now. Another writer I know just got back from a relaxing two week vacation only to find that her daughter is going in for surgery and another relative had a stroke. She's missing her favorite annual event. And to top it all off, she's got the flu so she can't visit any of her loved ones.

It's everyone right now. You. Me. Everyone.

Forget the Collective Unconscious, this is like Collective Angst.

I mean, what the hell? Is there like some evil gremlin out on the wing of flight 607 nonstop to Happyland and we're all on it or what? (Wanna see something creepy? I picked 607 off the top of my head, wrote that sentence about Happyland and thought, “I wonder if I'm using a flight number from a recent crash and that's why it's stuck in my head. That would be wrong.” So I googled it. No way I could have known ahead of time what I ended up finding. No known cause. Just creepy. Really creepy.)

Really, that's it. No long winded post today. Not because I don't think you deserve the best I can give you, but because I think that everyone is running a mile a minute right now and we all just need to slow down, collect ourselves, take in a deep breathe, and relax. Maybe think back to better times, when life was slower. For me, that's the beginning of the 80's when I was two and you can't possibly have fewer cares.

And you know what always makes me feel a little better when I'm stressed . . . THE MUPPETS!

Just something about it. My folks used to record episodes on a cassette deck so that we could listen to them way back before there were VCR's. Or maybe there were VCR's and we just couldn't afford one. Remember those? Back before they had clear plastic for cassettes? I can still hear that Muppets Star Wars episode they did.

So remember, when life tortures you with gargling Gershwins be ready with a good song and dance number. “You are my lucky star. I saw you from afar.”