the days of the weak

 In the course of human events, the ancient world was rife with conflicting schedules for the unit we call “the week,” from five days to ten days, with some societies choosing alternating numbers of days in the week to balance the year. In the so-called “West,” it was a Roman Emperor, Constantine, who endowed us with a much more reliable measurement, standardizing the week into seven days….which, of course, made him look like a super genius. Constantine, who appears to have been a wee bit of a super narcissist, stole the idea from the ancient Hebrews, Babylonians,  and other empires….and God.

The average man or woman in 322AD, in the area influenced by the Roman Empire, went to work on “A” and might go shopping on “H.” The Romans were less original with their days of the week than just about any other civilization ever to wake up from a bed in the morning. This might explain why there were so many murders among the imperial family, who must have taken the blame for not exciting workers into more production on “Day E,” and for the shopping day fiasco “Black F,” our predecessor to “Black Flag,” which is always a nasty surprise to insects, infidels, and 16 year old Snowflakes…

And while everyone- including the Hobbits, elves, unicorns, My Little Ponies, Democrats and Cybermen- could rationally argue which day Christ was born in Bethlehem, and which calendar should be consulted for that….and which day is the true seventh day…and which element should be used to calculate when a day is officially over…and which calendar is the most accurate for predicting the end of the world…there is  enough history revealing how corrupted and inaccurate ancient time-keeping was that it is simply a waste of time in the end.

What does not make sense is that the names used for the days of the week in much of the western world is still attached to long forgotten pagan mythology that makes little sense to use in the 21st century. And while there have been mostly forgotten attempts, like those by Pope Sylvester, to change the names to more reasonable and useful references, none has shaken, nor officially changed the days of the Western World.

Strangely enough, Sunday, the first day of the week now, is closest to some semblance of usefulness. Sunday, like Son-Day, the day celebrated as the day when Christ rose from the grave, at least makes a bit of sense. Monday, on the other hand, sounds like “Mun-day,” the Day of The Mundane.

Many of us have to get up early and go to work on this Monday, Mundane Day, not nearly as happy as Son-Day, because it is most likely to be the least exciting day of the week. Hence, it is more appropriate to rename it “Munday,” short for “Mundane Day.”

Tuesday…well, who knows what in the world that refers to, other than it is “Twos Day.” On Twos Days, we know that it is the second day of the standard Western workweek, still so far from the weekend. Twos Days are good days for Two For One specials because we…those of us who must take time to stop into a restaurant to eat our meals while working in our fields…are more likely to succumb to this two-for-one deal as it is early in the week, and we are still hungry from the terrible day we had on Munday (Mundane Day).

The third Day of the week, sometimes called Hump Day, which is not helpful for the chronically single, is Wednesday, which makes absolutely no sense. No one I know says “Wed-ness.” Can I get a Wed-ness that it is Wed-ness-day? Wind, yes. Winds-day- that I hear all the time. Of course, this Winds-Day is the day when it can go  either way- good or bad- being the third day of the work week, and the day when you do not know which way the wind blows, nor which way the week will blow…

The fourth day of the week is Thursday, or “Turzday.” I prefer those who pronounce it in the latter form, as it reminds me of just how frustrating the day can be. Turz is like Turds, and while it is not Friday, you can certainly smell it from here…

Back in the day, I remember the lads talking about “getting fried.” Well, if you have a really terrific job, you don’t have such pathetic days. But if your job is a pile of Turds, Fry-day is the day you either eat all the fried chicken, chickfry (deep fried breaded anything fried in the same grease as fried fish), or some other ghastly grease-enriched gastrointestinal adventure…or….because your brain is so “fried,”you need to go do something stupid like watch every season of a 70's sitcom until your eyeballs bug out, or you collapse like a three-toed sloth on the bedroom floor…

And then, there is Saturday. What can you say about Saturday? Nothing bad, surely. It is a good day to relax from all the hectic work days. Some of us do have to work on Saturdays, but even then, there is something uniquely pleasing about Saturday that says to us that it is a good day to sit at some time. So, Saturday is not too far off from Sat-ur-day, or sit down and do nothing so stressful as what was done the previous five days. 

While there is currently no mass movement to change the names of the days of the week…this post should inspire you to come up with your own ideas for new names for the days of the week. After all, how long is the western world going to be writing “Wednesday,” when practically nobody pronounces it that way?

 

grandma

when I was twelve, I thought life was like chocolate cake…

 yet so many sobering faces confronted me

 from the crowd that lived the longest-

 no sunshine in their veins,

 nor smiles in the topo lines etched in flesh

 with the scent of faded gardenia

 in an old musty beige house, 

 that sadness lingered. 

 silence was my grandma's friend

 but a clueless mystery to a boy of nine

 clinging to the porcelain edge while taking a bath

 as if the flood of years would invade

 and I drown in her memories

 but silence slept with sadness

 when grey eyes drooped, and the mouth dropped open.

 it terrified me at six, the stillness 

 that came when I closed my eyes and opened my ears

 in the dead of night, the purple black.

 listening to the wheezing of the old one

 in the room beside me

 wondering if it was catching, this awful sound-

 would I get it too when I became crusty?

When life is short...and so are you

 

when you have to stand at the back of the line- behind twenty-five monsters- your toes pointed straight ahead, your mouth shut, and your arms down at your sides like some kind of toy soldier- it isn’t fun when some wiggleworm can’t keep still in front of you…and you end up getting in trouble. because your teacher isn’t going to be able to see it wasn’t you who had ants in his pants. but that’s the way it is when you’re the shortest one in line.

back in the olden days. back when little girls wore dresses to your patio birthday party, organized by your big sister and her bigger friend. and everyone had a paper name tag, complete with a giant safety pin, pinned right there on the front of your shirt or blouse because, well, life was kind of clunky. you’d stand around in a circle waiting for your big sister to tell you what to do next, because she knew exactly what came next. and when it was time to play spin the bottle, why everyone played and you just couldn’t get out of it, even if you tried.

i know. i remember Katy-did…that’s what we called her….with the insect-like hairdo…spun the bottle and it pointed directly at me. in the ensuing panic, she managed to graze me slightly on the side of the head, lips touching hair, and i was spared the cootie invasion.

at least it wasn’t Judy, the girl who galloped around, whinnying like a cartoon horse whenever you said something she didn’t like. she galloped around the playground at recess like she’d lost her mind…but here, sitting in the circle, she couldn’t do that. as long as my big sister was there, she was half-way human.

and after a few games, it was time for treats. not the decadent processed goodies you get today, but some baked peanut butter cookies and a big glass of green kool-aid. i loved the taste of green, and although i cannot tell you what it tastes like today, i know it turned my tongue green, and that was good enough for me.

when you’re short, you have to do something to attract the cute little girl from down the street…so i practiced making my tongue green…and purple and orange. i ran down the street in my father’s boxer shorts…over my own pants. i rode my skateboard into her father’s vehicle, and face-kissed the front.

But because i was short, and life was short, I was too nervous to take the time to settle down and respond to the female gender with some vocal fluidity.

by the time i managed to get the courage to speak to her in complete sentences, she’d found herself some real friends, and i was standing at the back of the line again…literally and figuratively.

i managed to grow up, graduate from the line, and grow tall enough to not be the shortest man on the street. but back in the olden days, being the shortest one in class always meant you were probably the last on the cute little girl's list.

 

no more time to waste

Evil has a long leash, and he is running about like a Rottweiler with rabies, threatening to pull the stake out of the yard…longing to tear into something, anything…to gnash his teeth, to taste the frenzy…heart and mouth full of impatience…he senses a time to fulfill, to satisfy.

he is easily discernable to the naked eye, yet so many stumble around him, as if he was invisible. The one who fails to recognize the sounds of his deception, these naked men and women…naked in thought and deed…are hell-bent to share in his own self-destruction. It would be pitiful, if it was not so alarming. The blind multiply while evil is glorified.

the days are here, there is no sign that they are not. it is a useless question, to question the times and seasons when the season is obvious. when the sun sets, you call it night, when the sun rises you call it day. how then can you not see the sun going down when it is fading in the west?

there are more than wars and rumors of wars. more than plagues, fires, and pestilence. more than lawlessness about every turn of the corner.

this is our time- we were born for these last days. the time to wait is over. the time to waste is past. the time for being deliberate is now.

deliberate in selfless love

deliberate in boundless hope

deliberate in fear-shattering faith

deliberate in being the reflection of the One who made us.

The Super Genius

after a long hard day of work...for the job that really pays my bills, and not writing, which is my heart...I come home like an old wet dishrag, slump into a Lazy Boy, and ponder how I was born for such a time as this.

I was born too early to be a YouTube star, too early to make much money on the web. I'm like a time traveler stuck in two different eras at the same time. And everywhere I look, some super genius has a technologically superior website that makes me feel like a third grader at a talent show. The real world has forced me into making a living using lower-level critical thinking skills, while there is someone above me making decisions on a level comparable to my dog’s IQ (if I had a dog, but I've no time for that sort of thing). You would have thought Momma would have told me there’d be days like this….but she never did...so...

...every day, I do the same old thing…get dressed, eat some dippy eggs and buttery bread, go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, open the door, close the door, go back and open the door, go back and put the toilet seat down…and finally, get my gear and head for the mobile office…

now, my neighbor has a dog…who never shuts up. He barks at mashed potatoes, he barks at running water, he barks at street lights, he barks at car doors. when I climb into my vehicle to go to work, he runs away from the fence and into the house and back out the front door to say good-bye. I appreciate it, because at least someone thinks I am a little more interesting than discarded food. But it shouldn’t be this way. I have talent. I have skill. And I have a longer attention span than a poodle…

But you wouldn’t know it, if I sat in the same room as these profiles you see online. no, you surely wouldn’t. so what if i am trilingual…they are the feckin’ easter bunny. and don’t you forget it. they will charge you $297 to show you how you can take photos that no longer look like Mister Potato Head in a friggin’ snowstorm. Color palettes of shades you never dreamed of because you were born in a hovel somewhere and your education never gave you a pallet, except one to lay on the ground. and your likes? right, they have enough likes from over 1.7 million subscribers, you will never be in their league. so how can I compete against these know-it-alls with mysterious acronyms behind their names?

sure, it may take me awhile…but after a time, i'll forget about the audacity of fuppin' eejits who know how to code. I will remember again that I am certainly as intelligent as that narcissistic eejit hawking earth-shattering photography lessons for hundreds of dollars online. I'm no eejit. If I was, I might be spending my hard-earned money on a course of photography from someone who may be a brainless twit. I am not going to have any delusions of being the next super genius. I understand there are "gifted" people out there with thousands of dollars of equipment that can make them look like a great photographer, even if they have the IQ of a banana. So I may never be a great photographer, but at least I will not have wasted $297...