Someone very wise once told me, “Tess, you have an opinion,” then added , “however, sometimes you need to learn when to keep your mouth shut”. I haven’t learned that last part very well over the years, even though I still hear it upteen years later. If I have an opinion, damn it, you’re going to hear about it whether it’s relevant or not, or invited, or necessary, or makes sense…. Yeah, I haven’t learned the part about tact yet either. So blogging or allowing my inner “I-Should-Really-Keep-My-Mouth-Shut” voice to be stifled.

*The main reasons I’m even doing this is to counterpoint how I felt about blogging a few weeks ago. All of which is relevant under certain circumstances and I love to digress.

5. Everyone should have a way of expressing themselves without offending everyone in the room,  bus, meeting, dentist waiting room,  [fill in the blank here.] Blogging allows you to pretty well say what you want with impunity. And, as a bonus,  allows you to only offend the people who read your posts as opposed to those who don’t or give up after the first two lines. Any more than two lines and they/you run the risk of offense.

4. I love to talk. And listen to the sound of my own voice. It’s a nice voice when I hear it recorded I like it although I think I’m too much of an alto.

3. I’m interested in so much shit it fills my brain and has to leak out somewhere and somehow and blathering on about something on a web page sounds like a great way to blather. Blathering in person has its down points (you know people looking at their watches, saying they have to go bath their cat, or staring at you in disbelief that you don’t even breath when you talk, yeah you get the picture. ) Whilst blathering online is so much easier.

2. It’s so much easier to just start your thoughts, come back later to finish them after they’ve jelled for awhile and it’s kind of like writing a book only you don’t have to peddle the manuscript around to publishers or be one of the thousands of books I see on the bookshelves these days extolling the benefits of what? Life. Ach!! 140 characters or blogs I don’t need chapters.

1. I’m a very important person to myself and deserve to be able to add my voice to the chanting millions about stuff. Even if you don’t care about it.

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.
Donald Rumsfeld, U. S. Department of Defense news briefing Feb. 12, 2002.

Dear Mr President,

Sir, everyday I hear nothing but good things about you and my heart truly goes out to wish the very best to you and your young family. This will be one hell of a ride for all of you as well as all the people on this continent and perhaps even on this small very fragile planet. But you know, right now all the details are still pretty fuzzy and unclear but most of all, Mr. President things look kind of scary.

I hope you are right about your convictions and your dreams and most of all I hope you withstand the next four years.

More than any of us you will need the very best minds on your side and I wish you well with that. I also wish I could feel the same confidence with my government as even I have in you, but alas it would seem no one wants the job or perhaps those that could help here in Canada see gain in other pursuits. But I hold out that someone somewhere in this nation, might take your lead and come forward with their ideas to help our nation in an unbiased way even if it means a lot of hard work and thankless honesty.  If nothing else, Canadians are a stubborn opinionated lot and we are seldom afraid to share this with anyone who will listen but for a strong honest political leader, we can still only hope.

If  by some miracle you manage to get enough people to agree with you and maybe save your people from the world economic tail spin don’t shut the rest of us out.  We like sharing with our neighbours (or neighbors) to the south. Not only do we have a common land mass to share with you, but we have always looked to you for a lot of our shared dreams and ideas and I certainly hope its for our friendship as well.

People may question your motives, they may resist your methods to change, or hold you accountable for things you never did; everyone will criticize constantly and in the same breath wonder why you’re not doing more; your detractors will see your failings, deliberately misunderstand your intentions, and most of all forget that you are only human and I will probably in an unthinking moment yet to come, be one of these people and for that I’m sorry.

So good luck, my friend. May your days be many and your troubles be few.

I get the feeling around this time of year that people search for something tangible to enjoy or maybe they hunt. Food is always a fav so is companionship as is a good deal.
I’m always looking for a good way to take the edge off a desirable food item. Drink water (boooring) or (my favourite) substitue. Yeah baked potato chips for real Miss Vickies - not – a – chance! How about this one: eat less of what you want. That works for me for the most part.

So tell me, how do you avoid buying that big screen LCD TV because it will make you happy? Buy a smaller one? Buy a whole bunch of good books instead? Invite yourself over to your neighbour’s house offer to bring your blu-rays and the popcorn (he’s got a huge screen projection job its like an IMAX in his basement).

My point is (and there is one I think) is that we are never quite happy, we always seem to want something. Which is too bad, conspicuous consumption is more about keeping our sense of fullness and completeness, not about satiation and satisfaction. Being mindful of so much in this world: food, breathing, loving, appreciating, caring, thankfulness, everything….

If we had less food or even just simpler food, if we read books and invited people over for card games and laughter, would that help us see that all the consumer goods in the world really don’t matter. As I sit here in the relative comfort of my recliner, the hypocrisy of my words spill forth from my Dell laptop, while I sip coffee with a great, fantastic, “I-made-this” ginger snap.

I get it and I don’t. I’ve fallen victim to this as well. Get out the hard hats people, this recession is going to be a tough one! Happy 2009!