May I Please Have One Quarter Pound of Time and a Side of Lime

I am of the belief that life is a beautiful and precious thing. And given this personal truth I am quite careful as to what I do with the time that I have on this planet. This is especially true because I do not know exactly how much time I am working with.

It would have been nice to begin life with the gift of knowing approximately how much sand I have going in the hourglass. But that didn't happen. So I have to guess. And since I am not a very good guesser I figure that anything could happen. I could be hit by a bus tomorrow. And that would suck.

So. Given that I could be hit by a bus tomorrow I feel that I should be somewhat particular as to how I spend the little bit of time I have remaining. Unfortunately there are a variety of things that take time away from other more interesting things that at the moment I cannot not choose. As I am not independently wealthy I must work. This is fine most days as I do actually enjoy my job the majority of the time. But this does not mean that there might not be something else on the list of things to do that I would rather be doing.

And given that my housemate expects me to pay my share of the rent and given that I am far too obsessive compulsive and vain to live on the street it is necessary for me to derive income in order to pay said rent.

And work takes up a great deal of the aforementioned precious time. Who decided that a forty hour work week was acceptable? Seriously. I would much prefer a six hour day for four days per week at my current rate of pay. However as I have not yet lost my mind I am fully aware that this will not happen any time in the near or distant future.

But I digress. Because this post isn't about a shorter work week. Not that this would be a bad thing to discuss. But a discussion for another time indeed.

Rather, this post is about time. And more specifically my precious and valuable time. I do not mean this to imply that my time is any more precious or valuable than your time. But simply that time is the greatest commodity. And we should treat it as such.

Which brings me to my point. Recently I had another epiphany. Yes. Go make some cocoa and come back and read my epiphany. Because ephipanies should be read while drinking cocoa.

I realized that I can no longer continue to permit situations in my life that disrespect me such that they devalue my time. Do not devalue my time people. That is not delicious. I do not appreciate it.

This means if you want to see me -- naked or otherwise -- then do so. And be on time. If you cannot be on time for some reason then I am more than willing to be understanding, but it should be a good reason.

It should be because you were getting me a present. That is a good reason for you to be late meeting with me.

There might be a few other good reasons but I cannot think of any at the moment. I'll keep you posted.

What it really boils down to is you should do what you say you are going to do. Have enough respect for others to make an effort not to waste my precious time. Life happens and we should all be understanding of such life related things, but if you are a perpetual flake and cannot seem to get it together than you should know that I will not be making an effort to continue a friendship with you.

My time and my life are valuable. You should think so too.

And if you do not then perhaps you should rethink the friendship as well.

We -- as in the collective we -- seem to spend a great deal of time complaining about the behavior of other people. But we -- collective again -- do not seem to do much about it. It is almost as if many in said aforementioned collective forget that we have a choice.

Who. What. When. Where. How.

Seriously. It's not just for reporters anymore. Take charge and control of your own life. I say this as much for myself as I do for everyone else on the planet. Value you life every day. Value it more than you do in this moment.

Five Thankful Things

I had planned write a fairly extensive imperalist holiday post about the many things that I am currently thankful for in my life. However I realized that this post would be like many other postings and decided that there are really five things that I need to address at the moment, rather than the complete multitude of things for which I am most grateful. This is not meant to slight anyone or anything, but it may actually be true that there is a time and a place for brevity.

Consider this the first and last time for me. And truth be told this began as three things, but after I typed the three I realized that there were two more additional things to add for sense to be made out of the whole.

So without further introduction or subsequent comment I will lay out the five things that I am currently thankful for at the moment. And these things all involve an expression of gratitude to my Very Wise Friend.

* Thank you for asking a crazy girl to marry you on your first date with her so many years ago and subsequently moving to Portland due to said proposal.

* Thank you for deciding it would be in your best interest to work at an UNNAMED CONVENIENCE STORE in a small suburban Oregon town.

* Thank you for coming back home.

* Thank you for dragging me to eat grilled cheese and drink sugary coffee after your art show at the UNNAMED COFFEE SHOP LOCATED IN THE GARAGE NEXT TO THE TATTOO SHOP last year.

* And finally (at least for this posting) thank you for falling in love with an amazing woman, deciding to become a tattoo artist, and moving to Olympia (in no particular order) and for having wonderful friends who felt the need to throw you a going away party.

You have my utmost gratitude. More than you could possibly know.