I have been doing that thing: deep breath for 3 seconds. Hold for 3 seconds and then exhale for 3 seconds.
It actually feels really good.
Then I feel like a genuine prat for intentionally taking 9 seconds to breathe.
What this originally looked like was…
I think I like the one I drew on the back of an envelope better. But then again – what I think is not important. Fatalistic Yoga is about what YOU think. 😉
…or Ed’s Spa.
PART TWO – the REmix:
Here’s the original
And now – once again – with a custom font designed to enhance the ambigramishness of it all. (I’m refining the fonts all the time (when I have the time and the motivation on the same time and in the same place… which is rare when the Minions are running around the house.))
I don’t know what kind of treatments they offer at “edsspa” but I’m sure they are lovely.
Greetings from Chester! He’s the skeleton I keep in my closet. It COMPLETELY freaks out anyone that comes to look at the electrical box or phone lines. And that’s why I keep him there.
oh – he’s also the source of all my ‘Dark Powers’… I really wish they were useful for something OTHER THAN knowing that there is ice cream in the freezer.
After years of nakedness – Stretch Armstrong finally has a new pair of shorts… pictures at 11.
First – I feel badly about doing this – I’ve got my littlest Minion home with me while his sister is off in Shaolin learning to kick a$$ with the monks…
When I was a boy I was told that you shouldn’t start sentences with And or But. But sometimes it sounds better! And that’s all that matters when you’re trying to get people to read/digest/enjoy what you write.
Scott or the person I portray as “Scott” is really a nice guy; very calm, very, very classy… contrary to this space, you could say he was ‘to the MANNER born’.
When I talk to him I feel like I’m the world’s crappiest client (letting my dirty filthy subconscious run wild like this doesn’t actually help). I never feel like I’m worthy enough to be his client.
He’s got clients that wear shoes with laces!
He’s got clients that own boats.
He has clients that don’t actively attempt to compose the most profanity laden sentence in history… and then send it to random people. (One reason that almost all of you reading are wise: you NEVER give me your email addresses! Thanks for that.)
Anyway – I apologize in advance for breaking that dear, sweet man’s heart by depicting him as an empty-headed, insensitive and ineffectual jerk.
And his mirror trading strategy was something I agreed to.
… you can put the gun down now – I already made it look like “I’m” the bad guy here… is this mic on? Is it capturing what I’m saying?…
I’ve been involved in thinking up, preparing and presenting business proposals for nearly 30 years. It is so ubiquitous in my daily life that I don’t always realize when it is happening.
I can however tell when they go all horribly wrong. I can tell you the dates and locations of all of those events.
This will cost me 1/2 of my regular daily viewers.
By guys! I’m sorry. I’ll miss you both!
Tasteless – I know.
I’m cleaning out the cupboard to make room for fresh ideas.
The next few days I’ll be scraping the bottom of the barrel. If you’re faint of heart or squeamish in any way, I suggest taking a few days off.
Apparently Bill HAS a good lawyer.
At times like these we see why sometimes a good lawyer is what you really need.
….I never liked Pokey – I always saw his true nature.
Taking a few days off to work on a few lingering projects. (Not fit for mentioning here!)
Let me leave you with something fun:
My son wanted to dress up as the BLUE Color monster for school…. Armed with the book, a crappy screen grab, some KT board and a utility blade I was able to do THIS.
How did I do?
…what if Bob Dylan was your friend.
… what if he had your telephone number and called you all hours of the day and night to try to help him understand the mundane aspects of life that you NEVER expect Bob Dylan to be connected to???
God – I’m shameless.
I’m a huge fan of something I call “Cultural Smash and Grab”. Just like breaking into a jewelry store (I’ve never done that!) I like to think that I’m smart enough to throw a brick through the window of some standing structure, reach in with my one good arm and grab something of value (to me).
My wish, if I were entitled to anymore wishes would be to make THREE movies (one wish???) … THREE MOVIES!
1) would be my 60 second love story movie. That’s the one I keep showing people and they keep telling me that it is the worst idea that they have ever seen in their entire lives. Harsh!
2) would be “Also Ran” – I shared that in a post a few months ago.
https://tothespannerborn.home.blog/2021/03/08/also-ran/
And 3
3) would be to remake “Tommy Boy”, the movie starring Chris Farley as a clumsy and unwitting hero character… but I’d want to remake it IN CHINA – with an all Chinese cast and pretty much the exact same plot line and script.
For now I’ll be content with my smaller ideas – lack of respect and humility and all.
As I have mentioned and you may have taken note of, I’m making some subtle stylistic changes. Don’t worry! Don’t worry: there are more crude and unusual jokes (I have about 50 of them that I am pretty much terrified of!).
This one takes a rough look at what it would be like to recast the ‘strong leading man’ type of role with a ‘vapist’. (Or are they vapers?)
That’s why you never hire a giant squid as your Chief Revenue Officer!
(Short post for Dragon Boat Festival.). Is that “The Mr Young” or “Them R Young”?
(And I get accused of poor branding!!!)
Sorry – I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel. I’ve been busy doing stuff for other people (like what?) [Like – you don’t want to know!]
I HAVE been making new stuff but I’m not going to lie, I’m not just shaking them out of my sleeve at the moment.
So – submitted for your (dis)approval: an and stuck to the side of a rollercoaster. What would that be like for the ant?
… I do actually think about stuff like that.
Sorry – I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel. I’ve been busy doing stuff for other people (like what?) [Like – you don’t want to know!]
I HAVE been making new stuff but I’m not going to lie, I’m not just shaking them out of my sleeve at the moment.
So – submitted for your (dis)approval: an and stuck to the side of a rollercoaster. What would that be like for the ant?
… I do actually think about stuff like that.
Behold – the cheap stock imagery. The vaguely altered purloined images… Mario is at it AGAIN!
Would Elvis ever wrestle Andre the Giant? IDK – how would we get Christopher Walken to referee?????
I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but probably the most terrifying words I read with any consistency are “UNRECOGNIZED PASSWORD”.
…all those apps and OS features designed to make keeping passwords safe and secure have one MAJOR flaw: they are merely idiot proof.
I am much, much more than an idiot.
The things that make me laugh are varied but all linked by the connective tissues of irony and/or plausibility/implausibility.
Could this happen?
If it can happen – how humiliating would it be for everyone I know to see it happen to me?
If it isn’t likely to happen is the pay-off (the humiliation factor) so great that it is worth pushing the envelop of statistical probability to try to reach the point where it IS likely to happen?
Is it ironic?
If it happened in front of people would they instinctively think that I deserve this kind of humiliation?
If it didn’t happen in front of people, would the think it so humiliating that they would either be willing to believe it happened because it would please them or at least pitch it up against my track record of humiliating myself publicly to think “…yeah – he really did do that…”?
I guess what I’m saying is that the thing that makes me laugh is humiliating myself. That explains a lot about the past 40 years.
The fundamental reason I’m not really happy as a person (as though I might ever be happy as a coffee table!) is that I’ve never been what I wanted to be.
I always saw myself as an artist. When I made friends who were artists they would point me in the other direction and tell me that I was more ‘suit’able for business. When I was in the corporate world people would recoil every time I said anything because I was too free spirited and unpredictable “you know… like an artist…” so that wasn’t ever destined to work out.
About 20 years ago I was really struggling. I couldn’t keep down a job. I was able to find jobs and get them – but some of them only worked out for a week or so… one only lasted for 2 days. I needed help! I went back to my old school to speak to a career counselor. There I took a test to see what my personality was like and to match me up with other people that I was most like and then to find out what careers they were most happy in.
My top three matches:
1) airline test pilot
2) a person who arranges displays of food
3) a musician or actor who performs on stage.
I can tell you that I do NOT like turbulence (I’ve been through some SHOCKING moments!)
I actually DO like presenting food and have taken part in designing and producing about a dozen parties that hosted multiple hundreds of people… that was cool… but I was paying for the parties and after a while THAT kind of sucked.
Not gonna lie – I’d love to be a musician. But there are only TWO things that keep me from it: lack of talent and lack of practice!
… so now I do THIS instead!
And this has happened to me.
But WHO CARES? It’s Friday!!! The week’s half over!
I’m old enough to remember people turning their nose up at Japanese cars… I’m also old enough to remember how the first few early adopters that I knew laughing at everyone else because they kept their cars for decades and hundreds of thousands of miles!
I’m worldly enough to have driven in Chinese made cars. People Stateside are probably very dismissive of Chinese cars. Chinese cars 15 years ago – yeah – dismiss them. They were junk. Chinese cars today??? Mmmmm I don’t know. Some of them are pretty nice. Point of fact – no one is going to bother to design a car with obsolete features and functions! If you’re making a car today, you make TODAY’S car.
I’m also very very lucky to know a bunch of people who design cars (as a kid the one thing I always talked about was designing cars! My much younger self would have been well chuffed to know that his older self would know folks who make cars!). These guys are very slick and very sophisticated.
….what does any of this have to do with long-term relationships?
I
D
K
I get messages from the beyond. It is always the same sort of thing: I ask “Am I doing the right thing?” And all I ever hear back is laughter.
Sometimes it feels like all my kitchen can produce with any consistency is STRESS! Stress sandwiches for lunch and dinner. Stress cakes for breakfast. Bacon and Stress on weekends. For a midnight snack I can sneak into the larder to spread a bit of stress on a pita bread.
I need to lay off all the stress.
I think I’m going to switch back to chocolate!
This has been one of my favorite jokes for the past 15 years. Of course – it doesn’t translate into text – it’s a spoken word jam at best.
I’d tell people “you remind me of the riddle of the ass!” …’ you mean “and the two bales of hay”…’ to which I would quickly and deftly reply. “NO – two halves and a hole (whole)!”
… look – I KNOW! I KNOW! I never said I was Noam Chomsky!
(Maybe ONCE I said I was ‘like’ Noam Chomsky…)
I was on the phone with a friend. He’s not a big believer in what I’m doing (that’s a scary proposition because HE is the dreamer and I am usually the practical one!)
This came to me while we were on the phone. He doesn’t know that this is out (not a lot of my friends (none really) ever look at these.)
…he couldn’t understand why a porpoise would be a peristalsis poster animal. I suggested that a penguin would be worse for hygiene reasons. Apparently he didn’t understand why peristalsis needed a spokesperson. That’s a valid point. I’ll get back to you on that later.
Sorry to go for the low hanging fruit, but HEY! I’m human and by that I mean lazy.
… and I’m certain that this sort of thing HAS happened before. (Ewwwwwwwwww!)
Relationships and how we see ourselves in relationships are another of science’s great mysteries. In an ideal setting both parties sense the gravity of the situation they are in and respond with parallel or at least symmetrical(ish) actions.
Sometimes however, things go south FAST!
You see a situation and try to find the easiest possible solution; your mate may decide to take a different tact.
For instance – the coffee pot is BROKEN (OH NO!).
Your solution is: go online and order a new pot… spring for overnight shipping.
Your partner may decide that the easiest solution is to move out and keep your record collection.
Oh well.
I don’t know about you (how could I?) but I’m constantly stuck in a paradox:
On one hand I try to exist HERE and NOW… in the moment.
On the other hand I have kids and I don’t always feel comfortable asking them to live in the Zen of life – so I plan things out.
To the best of my knowledge and my abilities I don’t feel comfortable making plans that go out beyond the shelf-life of green bananas. Oh well – I suppose to keep both sides of the ledger happy I’ll just let the $h!t hit the fan and then act ‘in the moment’ to see what I can do!
Wish me luck!
What if the soliloquy from “On The Waterfront” took place in 2020/2021 – via ZOOM?
After yesterday’s rant about golf, I know it is possible for people to think I’m a ‘negative’ person. In actuality, I’m not. I’m actually a pretty cheerful person – yes – crappy things happen, but I usually find a way to find the humor in them or find creative solutions.
And I’m fully aware that crappy things happen to other people too. I don’t go around seeking pity.
So, today’s post is a good faith showing that I can be a ‘positive person’ from the outset.
Golf and people who play golf, or worse are GOOD golfers are not to be trusted: they have some deal with the devil that allows them to bask in the glory of the sport while their personal lives seem to cruise control from one success to another. (Hint: that’s how they have time to play the game!)
Their model of achievement in the universe can not be applied to people who are bogged down with changing diapers or building businesses.
(‘But people do business on golf courses!’)
People also do business at Starbucks! And I trust deals that are made over coffee (a fundamental building block of human life) over deals made obsessing about having “skill” as it pertains to knocking something that fits in the palm of your hand into a predetermined hole a mile away!
YOLO
FOMO
Acronyms that are supposed to describe how we feel/act towards things. Maybe it really is as simple as fear and greed? Throw in a dash of ignorance in the fear camp and a splash of arrogance in the greed crew.
What was the computer’s sage advice in that ancient movie with the kid who played games with a government computer : “the only way not to lose is to never play the game”
…how boring! And who likes hyper-moralistic computers anyway???
In case you couldn’t already tell, my weight is a constant source of interest for me. I keep a few different paper journals of my food intake and my moods and my weight (please note – I don’t take it very seriously because I don’t COMBINE THE THREE!)
One very telling post from the other day read: “I guess chocolate cake is NOT my secret weapon in the war against obesity!”
(Those are kilograms – not pounds! 😦
… and that’s why these glum, portly characters beset my thoughts.
In fairness to myself – I’m not actually that dumb.
(I’m DUBMER!)
So, here’s how this works.
I get home from taking my kids to school and having breakfast with my wife… I stare blankly at the walls.
Something funny comes into my mind. Normally I’d just giggle and go back to staring at the walls. Now, thanks to Fatalistic Yoga, I try to visualize that funny notion and make one of these crappy cartoons.
I use Canva – mostly because it is very, very easy. That’s a good thing because I’m not actually too smart – so the easier the better. I create “Volumes” every week and try to produce anywhere from 5 to 10 of these little ditties.
After I stare at these (as opposed to the wall) for a long enough period of time I export them and stick them in a folder.
Every few weeks I go through all of my published posts (like this that you’re looking at now) and all of the scheduled posts and try to create (if you can but believe it) a cohesive flow of images and words…
But I don’t just publish them all at once – no. I schedule them days and even weeks into the future. Monday through Friday at 5:55AM UTC they hit the world!
(what the hell is this madman talking about and WHY is he talking about it?)
What I’m trying to say is, as sad as this is going to sound, there was a moment in my life when the idea of a person with gastrointestinal problems talking to a Scottish doctor (with haggis on his mind) was extremely funny to me.
Now, months later, as I look at this I have to question my own standards.
FYI – if you have the need for a surgeon – go Scottish. It’s a long story… someday I’ll write about it. That will be one of my “The WORST day of the rest of your life” stories.
Sorry, no. Lowest Common Denominator.
Sometimes that’s the limit of my capabilities.
“I wish that I could really tell you all the things that happen to me, and all that I have seen.”
Realistically – the person who’s story I should tell is my wife’s. About how she met the man of her dreams and how he swept her off her feet with his charm and his romance and wit… how they fell in love and became inseparable (so far I haven’t actually lied yet!)
Then the $h!t hit the fan and she decided to get a job in a highly competitive and almost 99% exclusively male dominated industry and work to the point where she was acclaimed far and wide (still no lies)
But she doesn’t want her story told (in fairness, she’s still sketching out new chapters on a daily basis!) so you’re all stuck with MY lame-ass stories instead.
Fundamentally I would LOVE to be on YouTube… but what I would LOVE MORE is for someone else to do it for me. I’d script it out and block the scenes and do all that stuff… but I don’t actually want people to see me… or hear my voice.. or know who I am.
I need to find better hobbies.
“One day I’ll be famous. I’ll be proper and picky; go to St Richard so often that I’ll call it St. Ricky!”????
It doesn’t have the same lyrical appeal.
“They say I got brains – but they ain’t doin me no good (I wish they would)… I guess I just wasn’t made for these times.” Brian Wilson
It just seems tougher and tougher to get to ‘that place’ where everything works. So many things are in flux. Time is in flux. Chemicals in flux. Money in flux. Motivation is in flux. Aptitude is in flux. Enjoyment and dread are in flux.
I wonder if the pendulum ever finally sits still or if some other variable comes along to tilt the plane and put it all in flux again.
Oh flux it!
(EXPLETIVE DELETED)!!! The seal inside the washing machine is mouldy (I don’t even want to think about what the implications are for me underwear.)
The little hatch that releases the detergent packets into the dishwasher doesn’t open during the wash cycle. (Which explains the slow-building gut-wrenching pain that has me sidelined.)
And now the display on the microwave stops for part of the time and flickers for the rest. (I have been using a stop watch to time things that go in for a warm-up.)
Fortunately the gas range top still sparks-up and lights with not much fuss! Good’ole fire ; it hasn’t let us down since the year dot! (What’s the worst thing that can happen?)
🙄
To The Spanner Born 