Gerbils and guilt

Oh, the mind is fascinating (or human awareness, or spirits, or angels or demons, or gerbils on their little wheels). Today the gerbils have been mercifully still, allowing me to work, for it's a no-time-to-spare type situation here. But as is so often the case, the shower rouses them from their snooze and sends them scurrying back to their labors.

Today's theme: guilt.

It goes something like this:

1. Guilt.
2. Guilt-and-guilt-and-guilt-and-guilt, round and round.
3. "Nedra, stop being a damn fool. You're only a very small animal like piglet and cannot turn back time, change how people are, make others happy if they do not choose to be, alter your own personality overnight, cure cancer, always respond perfectly to every situation, and so on."
4. Yeah, but. If only...
5. See number 3.
6. "OK, yeah, I guess you're right. Guilt's a pretty useless emotion anyway, except as a marker which tells you that there is something to be acknowledged and dealt with. It is not so good if you just feel it running around and around at a gerbil pace."
7.
8. Whatever song is currently being piped into the habitrail.
9.
10. Guilt.
11.
12. More song.
13.
14. Blog post about guilt!

Cool expressions

Expressions heard today in complete unrelated situations, but which I immediately fell in love with:

renegade piety
vibe curator

Angels cards of the day

These were the angel cards that leapt out of the pack for me today.

Flexibilidad - Flexibility
Fuerza - Strength
Claridad - Clarity
Juego - Play
Perdón - Forgiveness
Equilibrio - Balance

Spam o' the day

Call me silly, but spam email never fails to amuse the dickens out of my. Here is today's favorite (I am especially pleased with the use of the word "gazzeted"):

Federal Reserve Bank of New York

33 Liberty Street New York,NY 10045-0001, United States

Fax: 772 619 7798

Our Ref: FRB/NYUS010

Your kind Attention Beneficiary,

My Name Is William C.Dudley I am the President Federal Reserve Bank New York.This Is To Notify You That Your Over Due Inheritance,lottery,contract Funds Has Been Gazzeted To Be Released To You Via The Foreign Remmitance Department Of Our Bank.

Meanwhile,A Woman Came To My Office Few Days Ago With A Letter,Claiming To Be Your Representative And Sent By You.If she is not your reprsentative or sent by you,kindly respond immediately reconfirming to me the following details to avoid any mistake.Full name;Full residential contact address;Direct telephone number number;Age and current occupation;your full banking details,Copy of your identificationi favailable.

However,We Shall Proceed To Issue All Payments Details To The Said Mrs.Barbara Kleihans If We Do Not Hear From You Within The Next Seven(7)Working Days From Today.

Await for your prompt response You.Contact me at (williamsdudley@presidency.com/williamsdudley@usa.com) My Name Is William C.Dudley,President and chief executive officer Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Regards,

Mr William C.Dudley

President and chief executive officer

Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Significance

Meaning and importance. I find it interesting that in English we most commonly use significance to express the latter idea, whereas in Spanish, it's generally the former. Yet it continues to carry with it both concepts in the two languages. There's something to that. Something to the idea that what something means is an indicator of how important, how worthy, how consequential it is. And how important something is considered to be irrevocably alters its meaning. Yet even meaning at the very simplest level, if that is even possible, is not fixed, is it? And the relative importance given to that meaning is, well, just that, relative. Take just two people interacting. One word, utterance, phrase, sentence, conversation, or event may have such profound meaning to one, such core-shaking significance, while to the other it is something so inconsequential as to be forgotten almost sooner than it occurs.

As I look back on those words and actions that haunt me -- those of others, not my own, although these haunt me in their own, very different, way -- I think it safe to say with little hesitation that they are utterly and completely forgotten by the other person concerned.

Jamón

It's a cured ham kind of day. As if Vicky Cristina Barcelona hadn't already made me homesick enough for Spain, jamón serrano, jamón ibérico, jamón curado, they keep coming up today. Such a craving have I!

Lost and found

As I was heading back towards West Seattle this morning, I saw an open box on the highway which had obviously fallen off a truck or something. Some of the gloves it contained had spilled out onto the road and lay there in various states of ordered disarray. By ordered I mean that because they were made of thick rubber or canvas, they weren't twisted or mangled, but sat there like dismembered hands abandoned by their owners. I thought that if this were a movie, a shot of the gloves would be imbued with some sort of melancholy significance.

Too much stuff

From the Sierra Club magazine.