Is There Anybody Going to Listen to My Story?

Do you ever get the feeling that everyone has stopped listening?

A Bullet With Butterfly Wings

I am finally back from the week of hell. I don't think any of us really expected what we were walking into, but the next time I will know a trap when I see it.

I just felt shot. I had my typical 2 hours sleep a night I always have there and the days seemed to drag on forever. Throw on top the fact that I managed to blow out my shoulder again on the second day playing golf...which I knew I shouldn't have been doing. So now I will get to go through the winter with a shoulder that basically consists of spaghetti.

I won't go on about the negatives of the trip, alas there were just too many. Why break the tempo now haha. This summer has been nothing if not consistent.

But there is a couple things I will comment on that I found in that Ontario autumn, or the beginning thereof. Number one was the crickets. It has been soooo long since I have heard that harmonious sound. I never really realized how much I have missed it. (Still not worth Ontario though). Next was the cicadas with their primal scream, something I had blogged about last year and a sound I really never thought I would hear again. But there they were in collective angst just past the tree line. And last the flight of the Monarch Butterflies, another thing I had simple forgotten over time. I used to lie in the fields this time of year as the Monarchs covered the meadows like some alien armada. I didn't get to see many while I was there, but one swath did come through.

Now I am safe at home, still locked up from the stress but more than ready for an NFL Sunday. As so my favorite time of year begins....

Heavens to Murgatroyd...Exit Stage Right...Through the Airport Even

September has always been my favorite month. Long weekend at the beginning, warm days, cool nights, the colours of autumn starting to come ablaze, and the promise of Thanksgiving right around the corner. Hell, I even liked going back to school. For a couple hours anyhow.

We had a bit of a rough start this year, but I didn't mind. The rains last weekend were incredible, but so was my stack of movies so I was well prepared.

My September carpet is being pulled out from under me this year. I have to leave for Toronto first thing in the morning. Probably good for me to get outta Dodge for a few days. I can cast drama and boredom behind me for a spell, although I will surely get my usual sleepless Toronto nights in return. Like I haven't spent enough nights lying in bed staring at the ceiling lately haha.

Philly gets back the same day as me after spending 5 weeks in Jolly Old laying his mother to rest. It's funny, when you spend part of nearly every day for 11 years with someone, you tend to notice when they aren't around especially when they are the Abbott to your Costello.

I will try to throw something up here while I'm gone, but hmmm, I doubt it.

Click (Inter-Personal Conflict in the 21st Century)

It's been a fairly reflective year for me. What with the damn 40th birthday, and trying to figure out where I actually want to be in my life. It's like sitting on a cusp, there are so many directions I could go, but ultimately there can be only one. And right now I not on zee left, not on zee right, but right in zee middle.

When I get reflective, I tend to get a little aggressive, but I always see things as they actually are in my little black and white world.

One lesson I've learned the last couple of years is that things don't get resolved as they used to. We are now in the age of Facebook, Bebo, and Twitter. People are losing social skills like they were a passe' religion, and the future as we currently know it could be very scary.

What really makes me giggle is the friend punt. It's a whole new phenomenon. We as a people no longer have to be accountable to our friends. If we don't like what they have to say, no matter what we did to them....we just have to click "remove friend", and that's it. Could you imagine having that conversation back in the '60's or '70's?? "In the future not only will we drive cars through the sky, but we will also simply have to click a button to remove someone from our life." It's quite funny when you think about it. I'm not the biggest fan of Facebook, sort of a fancy photo album for me that's about it. I can't even fathom the people that have more than say 500 friends. Hell, I dunno if I've ever even known 500 people, at least not enough that I wanted them in my daily life.

In the last 2 years I've had 2 people punt me from their list (3 if you count that Heather Graham stalking thing...I keed, I keed). In both cases I had recent conversations (somewhat heated) with the punters. I had them dead to rights, I had done zero, zip, nothing wrong, but I had pointed out what they had done to me. We aren't talking a first strike thing, this is something that in both cases I had told the individuals numerous times "you know....I would prefer if you didn't do that to me." But they did it again, and again, and again. You get the point. They didn't. PUNT. "John Christopher Hartwick with this finger I let you know that I am not accountable for our friendship whatsoever, how dare you say that I can't treat you the way I want no matter how it makes you feel." CLICK!!

It almost makes you wonder if at the time they are performing the actual "click", if they have a twitching eye and bulging temple like Chief Inspector Dreyfus in the old Pink Panther movies, or if they come up with some line for the soon to be departed like maybe Captain Ahab in Moby Dick "From hell's heart I stab at thee!!!" or maybe a little Schwarzenegger "Hasta la vista...baby" as they click down sternly on their mouse.

Hahaha, it seems so ridiculous. So silly. So small.

But, most importantly...at the end of the day the two people that weren't accountable to me had never been accountable to themselves and maybe, just maybe that was the point I was making in the first place.

So the lesson for the day is, if you get in a conflict with a friend....don't click. Deal with things the old fashioned way and everything will work out fine. If you fucked up, suck it up. The first rule of the playground is nobody gets hurt. If you don't know the rest of the rules they are at the end of my very first blog on November 3, 2007. They were put there for a reason.