Am I Supposed To?

     So happy it’s Thursday! A guy my wife used to work with would say that every Thursday. He would usually preface it with the initials: S.H.I.T. It’s one of those old-man type jokes that just get annoying after a while. Come on, every Thursday?! He thought he was clever. Now, neither of us can hear, nor type, that phrase without thinking about him. He was an okay guy, but we’d never really be “friends.” Now the phrase usually gets met with an eyeroll, a bit of an exasperated “ugh,” and the word: “Julius.” Wow, I was about to go into a lot more information than you needed to know. Good thing I caught myself. This is not about him. But that’s what you get sometimes when you don’t have an agenda. It’s funny how words like “agenda” can be both good and bad, depending on how it affects you. It makes me think that the people who started the anti-agenda movement probably weren’t big planners, and thus thinking those who have a plan must be evil. It’s weird to think that people different than us must have something wrong with them. I’m a naturally curious person. When I encounter something unfamiliar, I usually become interested. Having never really been part of a “group,” I don’t really have an “us verses them” mentality. It’s also weird, since I’m here already, that the dynamic to which I was just referring to is changing a bit. It feels like, for the longest time, we did have this development happening where we’ve been programmed to think that different meant wrong. Although, now that I think about it, it seems like that has been changing. It feels like now, when people encounter a difference to themselves, they take the position that something must be wrong with themselves. Not everybody obviously, but I think a significant populace do. That could be one of the reasons that depression is running so rampant, people thinking that there’s something wrong with them because they aren’t like everyone else.

     Whoa! I did not know I was going there. I feel like I could keep going, but I’m afraid I might say something I’m not “supposed” to. “Supposed to” is another phrase I battle with. In general, I feel like “supposed to” is a bunch of rubbish. Says who? Is the supposition made by yourself or another? Yet, at the same time, I do feel like there are some certain things that should be done, and sometimes in a particular way. But, whenever I catch myself using “supposed to,” I am reminded that I don’t particularly subscribe to that sentiment. And now you know. Back to the beginning, I really am glad it’s Thursday. Tonight might very well be the last Eruption practice of the year. Although, it’s not really “Eruption” practice. Our drummer was in a car accident a couple of months ago, and so when he’s not around we have JoZ practice. We basically make stuff up to a drum machine. Or we use the drum machine to help us practice our parts for the Eruption. In the beginning, we didn’t have a drum machine, and we would just improvise anything we wanted to. It sounded a little bit like new-jazz, hence the word JoZ. (Imagine saying jazz in a pretentious voice) We have a lot of fun. It’s one thing when you’ve got work to get done, but it’s a whole other thing when you’re just having fun. There are no “supposed to’s” in JoZ. Anyway, I’m excited. Today is also the day that our drummer meets with his doctor to find out how much longer he’ll be out of commission. I hope he’s getting better. I’m sure he is, but whiplash can take a long time to heal from. And, since we already know we’re not practicing the next 2 weeks, that’ll only give us one chance before the end of the year. I don’t take pride in being a pessimist, but I have to say, this has got all the workings of: “Let’s just wait and see how I feel at the beginning of the year.” Which is fine. Heal!

     My birthday was on Sunday. It was pretty cool. My wife and I went out to dinner with my parents and sister. We went to a place called Café Sevilla. It’s a Spanish tapas restaurant. It was delicious. Some of the best ceviche I’ve ever had. We like being able to try a bunch of different things, and that place knocks it out of the park. I thought my parents had never had paella before, which was kind of the reason I picked it, for the experience. It turns out they had, but we had never had it together, so there you go. I thought it was weird because initially, they seemed very hesitant to the idea. It caught me off guard. My memory starts in Japan. Most of my life, I’ve lived with this idea of “try it.” I did not get that on my own! These people made me, and my sister, try everything. If you didn’t like it, you didn’t need to eat it all, but you had to try it. This has led me to be a very adventurous eater. I’ll try just about anything, and gravitate towards things I don’t know. I want to try new things! My sister, not quite so much. She’s getting better. Somehow my wife got her to try sushi about ten years ago, and now she seems to finally be coming around to the idea that we don’t like garbage. So far, I bet she’d be willing to say that she like’s everything we’ve exposed her to. And hopefully her life experience is becoming more broad. But the fact that my parents are apprehensive of trying new things now has got me flummoxed. Who are these people? We were “supposed to” have dinner with them yesterday for my mom’s birthday, which was actually on the 5^th. We’d been texting about it. All of a sudden, my dad calls yesterday to cancel. I know my mom is not always well, but it seemed so sudden. I decided not to ask what was wrong.