Blabbering Instead of Writing

Beards, masks, and legal pads

I’m not in the mood to write so I’m just going to blabber. Is that okay?

I went to the grocery store the other day. I noticed that way more people were wearing masks than during any of my previous grocery store visits over the last two months. The fear level seems to have increased. I also noticed that there were way more scarf masks than medical surgical masks.

Then I turned into the oil and spice aisle to pick up some raw, unrefined, unprocessed, organic coconut oil — one of my three favorite oils. I noticed a man walking in my direction wearing a gas mask. You know, one of those masks that covers the entire face with a very long protuberance coming out from the nose and mouth area. Someone could have let loose a tear gas cannister in that aisle and that person could have maintained their casual shopping.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Halloween in May. I quickly realized that levity is something we all desperately need right now.

I continued down that aisle to pick up some organic sesame seed oil — another one of my favorite three oils. Sometimes I wish someone would invent an organic sesame seed oil scented candle so that I could smell it all day.

Then I turned into another aisle to pick up some organic Twix bars. Okay, they’re really not organic but pushing my cart down that aisle I saw a young fella wearing a Darth Vader helmet. Again I laughed — although not as much as I did seeing the gas mask (sorry, but I’m not a Star Wars geek).

From then on I kept waiting to see someone wearing a NASA space suit while shopping but it didn’t happen.

Back in December I wrote an expose here on the M platform about my life-long addiction to index cards. (Here) I’ve been addicted to them for almost a century.

Well, a couple of months back, around the time the pandemic panic started, I decided that I would purge myself of all old habits and habitual routines and as much habitual subconscious programming and addictions as I could. So I decided that I needed to get rid of my index card addiction.

Often when someone gives up an addiction they use transference. They transfer their addiction onto something else. For instance, when my ex-mother-in-law quit smoking she began having a Tic Tac in her mouth at ALL times. She successfully quit smoking but now she is a Tic Tac addict.

Hey, if it works for others surely it could work for me, right?

I have to admit that my index card addiction is not completely cured. I still use index cards to make grocery lists. They fit perfectly into that left breast men’s shirt pocket that was originally designed to hold a pack of cigarettes. Index cards are the absolute perfect invention for grocery lists.

But that is all I use index cards for now. Instead of having a stack of index cards next to my laptop on my desk I now have something else…

I guarantee you that never in my life have I ever had any inclinations to become a lawyer. Never! It’s a real turn off for me. Having said that, though, I must confess to a secret admiration of legal pads; what with their inviting yellow color and perfectly spaced blue lines. When I see a virgin legal pad that has never been written on my right hand starts quivering as it searches for a black pen to take that legal pad’s virginity away. (I never, ever write on a legal pad with blue ink. That’s just wrong!)

The problem with legal pads, though, is that they are just too gosh darn big! If I had a legal pad on my desk next to my laptop there would be no room for my drink and drink coaster or for any organic Twix bars. (Or green chile nachos.)

But the solution came to me recently when I was accidentally shopping in the office products department of the local Wal-Mart. I try to avoid shopping in that department because sometimes my addictions are just too strong to control.

I saw some packages of mini legal pads. They are only four and three-quarter inches by eight inches. They were so damn cute! So I bought a package containing four of them. Now, instead of having a stack of wayward index cards I keep a mini legal pad next to my laptop on which to write down wayward thoughts. The nice thing about the mini legal pad is that the wayward thoughts are recorded chronologically. Index cards seem to get mysteriously shuffled in the middle of the night and I can never tell in what order those wayward thoughts came.

Right now I am about three-quarters of the way through my first mini legal pad. When I fill a page on that pad I just fold it over to the back and I have a brand new blank page. Is there anything more joyous and celebratory than a blank page? Oh, I get extremely turned on when I flip a page over and have a blank page! It’s one of the greatest joys of life.

Anyway, I decided to flip over all those written-on pages to look through the jibber-jabber that I had written down over the last few weeks and here is some of it…

In a far away dimension I be From my body I am set free

Accumulation can be yours but it can never be you

Lack of boundaries at night

Buddha — one who has gone beyond intellect

Never read your writing aloud

Nothing suppresses the human immune system more quickly and intensely as fear and anxiety

One of the most successful political tactics is divide and conquer. Therefore, one of the most successful reactions to that is solidarity

Nothing influences the news we are fed more so than the advertisers who support the news

In culinary school people are taught how to be chefs. But they are not taught how to be nutritionists. Shouldn’t those two things go hand-in-hand?

The crowded empty place

Efficacy of chaos

Amruta — Ambrosia

In the shadow of a small mountain

The joy of being an idiot

Shante Ishta (Cherokee) — The single eye of the heart

I have almost always had a beard ever since I was old enough to grow one (around the age of 15). Unlike my head hair which I never, ever cut or trim in any way, I keep my beard short and well-trimmed. I can’t stand it when it gets long because I can’t keep my fingers out of it.

And I always shave my neck. Facial hair is one thing but neck hair is disgusting. My neck is the only part of my body that I ever shave. While I have on occasion been mistaken for Sasquatch, I always have a shaved neck. It’s a quirk of mine. And, I realized, it is a habit.

In my recent consideration to release all habits and routines I have considered stopping all shaving and trimming and letting my beard grow very long like some of those old Indian mystics. You know, white beards reaching down to their bellies.

I just don’t know if I can do it. I’ve given up so many bad habits throughout my life but this is something that I just don’t think I’m capable of. It may be beyond my ability to implement. It may be the only habit left that I can’t kick.

If I had stopped trimming my beard and shaving my neck 25 years ago my beard would probably now be down to my knees. Birds would be building nests in my beard. As titillating as that sounds I just don’t think I can do it.

But never say never.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved.

Speaking of mass hysteria…