Laugh, Shop, Wander

Move over Liz Gilbert with your sappy story of Eat, Love, Pray but thank you for the idea of giving my past six months three verbs to use to describe it. Unlike Gilbert I do not have an editor willing to support me on a year where my sole focus is on finding my joy while I travel the world. Instead, my verbs come from how I choose to lead my life given the circumstances which have currently presented themselves to me.

These are the three I choose: Laugh, Shop, Wander.

Laugh: I choose to laugh and to find the ability to laugh everywhere. I see humour every day in everything. I choose to surround myself with people who choose to laugh and who remind me to laugh. I seek out laughter - in the films I watch, the songs I listen to, the conversations I have, the stories I tell, the methods I use to teach, the activities in which I participate and the lense in which I choose to view my life. You try to beat me down? I laugh at the ridiculousness that is you. Laughter... with some faith... is my religion.

Shop: My shoe collection has grown exponentially in the past six months. I have chosen to embrace my love of this sport... hahaha. What else can I say? To have shop is my second verb is a much smarter choice than drink or gamble.

Wander: This verb came to me as a byproduct of my circumstance. However, I have chosen to embrace this verb. I have wandered. I have tried out homes, taken a train trip, flown several times, road trips and even tried traveling for work. Wander. While I miss my things and having my own private place in the world, I am learning to embrace the freedom and adventure that this action provides. As a young adult, all I wanted to do is wander and somehow I lost my way. Funny on how letting such an evil person into my life has allowed me to rediscover my desire to wander.

Will my year end in Indonesia with Javier Bardem? Doubtful... that fate is currently left to Penelope Cruz. Will my year end in an adventure? I certainly hope so and if I have my own Javier Bardem to keep me company... even better.

Laugh, Shop, Wander... what will my three verbs be in six months time?

The Family Who Governs Themselves Accordingly...

As I continue to ponder what it means to govern yourself accordingly, my father is now too trying to figure that out as well. As a family, we stand together perplexed. I mean... it is not like there is a self-help or how-to book on how to govern yourself accordingly... particularly when you are being held to the standards of one's who level of morality, common sense, ethics and brains is so far beneath yours that they are like specks of dirt on the floor. However, as we receive an abundance of correspondence letting us know what it means to govern yourself accordingly, we soon hope to be able to publish "Governing Yourself Appropriately... A How-To-Book for the Good People who do not know how to Act like a Morally and Ethically Bankrupt Person." The title is a bit long - but we are working on it.

The one lesson that we keep learning over and over again: when you are wrong, be on the offensive and never, ever tell the truth.

Here is what else we have gathered: when people are bothering you - even when you have asked them repeatedly to leave you alone - you do not govern yourself accordingly by referring to that person as a "jackass." Athough it is a noun listed in the dictionary as a "male donkey" or "a contempibly foolish or stupid person," apparently people with low morals who commit ethically and criminally wrong acts feel that it is not appropriate to refer to them in this fashion. Go figure.

Also... when people call you immature for walking away from someone who has lied to you, conned you, stolen from you and threatened you, you do not govern yourself accordingly by advising them that they have long ago crossed the fine line between maturity and insanity. Lesson learned. Okay to call someone immature. Not okay to point out a person's insanity.

What do these people who do not want to be referred to as a "jackass" or "mental" do? Apparently, the best way to govern yourself accordingly when you are harrassing someone who does not appreciate it and calls you a noun listed in the dictionary - you call the police to report this atrocity... to right the wrong that has been done to you. Because this, of course, is the best way to demonstrate that you are neither a jackass or a mental case.