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Rewriting Hamlet? If Only.


No secret that Hamlet is a whinging git. I loved teaching the play when I was a middle school teacher, but in depth character analysis is a bit difficult with grade seven’rs.

I once was treated to a patronizing lecture designed to dissuade me from my Hamlet dismissing tendencies by a rather learned historian at a summer workshop I attended in my more youthful days.

But though I appreciate some of the dodgier aspects of the play now that I am older, I still think that Hamlet is a big baby, and the play is best when presented in its abbreviated form – kind of like Melville’s Moby Dick, tell the fish story and leave off the color white.  Brevity and wit’s soul and all that.

Time of Death? There’s an App for That


Ever wondered when you were going to die? Imagine no further because an app developer has got you covered.

With the ease of a click and for the pittance of exposing your personal information (and the personal information of everyone whose foolishly friended you), the time of your shuffle off the mortal coil can be yours to cherish and share with your family, friends and that girl from high school who you only friended in order to find out if she’s gotten fat or not (she didn’t, which validates your continued dislike of her).

Of course it’s just a spoof. A fun way to pass the time you choose not to spend interacting in the real world.

But what if those few clicks away of your privacy revealed your actual date of death?

And what if it was like … an hour or a day or a week or so from right now?

This app has popped up on my Facebook feed a few times. It’s slightly creepy, and in my opinion – fate tempting, but overall rather harmless. The bell tolls for us all eventually. No point in cowering fearfully.

Most of the death sentences put the recipient well into old age. The impending demises are sitcom hokey.

What I’d like to see would set a person recoiling from the keyboard like school girls from a bathroom mirror after a “Bloody Mary” chant during a sleepover.

Anniegirl1138 Well, this is inconvenient.

Annie has just found out DEATH’S TIME

DATE: July 10th, 2010 at 2:12 AM

CAUSE: Asthma attack induced by selfish next door neighbors and their love of fire pits but their complete ineptitude, which creates more smoke than actual fire.

AGE: 46

Hmmm, it sorta isn’t as funny, eh?

I wonder what would happen if I posted this as my FB status update?

Not that I am in favor of squashing ghoulish fun. Mocking the impending is a brilliant coping strategy. Truly.

But, the non-yoga space in my soul can’t help but going to places that would make others feel uncomfortable in their naiveté.

The Annual Summer Purge


Three years and the basement still yields enough junk for a garage sale. How can this be?

When Dee and I moved in, we brought only one U-haul plus a Chevy Avalanche truck bed of belongings. That was twenty years worth of life that included no fewer than six moves, a marriage and a child from years zero to four that Rob and I pared down to the essentials plus toys.

Toy purging is a long tedious process that would test the patience of the Dalai Lama.

Before we arrived, Rob stripped the living areas in order to make room for us, but he didn’t do much in the way of purging. Partly because he needed the girls to help him go through their mother’s things – and they weren’t ready – and partly because he is a bit of a pack rat. Not Oprah intervention proportions, but he saves things because they might be useful someday. And while every once in a blue moon I donate, toss or garage sale away something I wish I’d kept – this type of reasoning will pack the empty spaces of one’s existence as firmly as a gluten laden breakfast plugs up a colon.

Every summer since then, we attempt to dig out and reclaim more space.

Progress has been slow.

Sometimes, it’s not even visible to the naked eye.

This summer – breakthroughs.

First, Edie moved into her first solo apartment. She has the entire basement of a home to herself and … too exciting for words … storage space. Two small rooms that are nothing but shelves and a home for all the boxes with her name on it currently taking up a 1/4 of the south west corner shelving in our basement.

Second, Dee has noted and began to see the wisdom of decluttering, AND she can be reasoned into selling – not donating, she’s eight after all – her less interesting possessions. I am loathe to foster monetary greed in the child, but if it empties the basement, I’ll cross my fingers and hope my karma stream isn’t polluted to the point of cockroach reassignment.

Finally, Rob is tired of clutter.

Oh, he’s been tired for a while, but when weighed against reno work, us time, family time and him time, purging and restoring order often fell off the to do list. But this summer, reno is being finished up with an eye towards simply basking in our space and the space … needs to be “spacier”.

I will, of course, never achieve my dream of near empty.  A room with a view via ceiling to floor windows with next to nothing from one end to the other save my mat and a few bolsters, maybe a book or two. However, I will take purged and orderly. I will take it and be sincerely grateful.