Unsubstantiated Heebie Jeebies

I missed a day. And I'm not backdating because I can only be so much of a cheetah. I attribute yesterday's silence with a few things, not the least of which was that all of yesterday was gray and sleepy. On my way home from the city, I saw a man's black dress shoe in the middle of a busy intersection. It struck me as odd and out of place. And overdressed. Abandoned shoes are usually of the sneaker variety. Seeing it there, abandoned and alone on that street I felt the tone of the day setttle in. Some days are exactly like that shoe: incomplete, random, lonely and simultaneously noteworthy and forgettable all at once. Such was yesterday.

Today I've felt exhausted, physically and mentally. I don't really know why. This isn't a noticeably stressful time, I mean apart from whatever stress the holidays bring. Being a childless, unmarried cat lady, I don't have a lot of the traditional stresses of family dinners and children's needs to attend to so my level of stress stays relatively even. Just this morning, though, I wanted to tunnel through my blankets and arrive in a warm pillow fort and come up with a plan of attack for the rest of the day, the rest of the week, possibly the rest of my life. But I woke up late and groggy and there was no time. I've been feeling out of it and, despite the geyser of caffeine I've tried to foment since about 7am, I'm just getting sputtered out steam. I just don't wanna.

When I worked on Saturday, I noticed that my library had mounted a new poster of Nelson Mandela on the wall. It features a close up of his face with the inspirational quotation: "What can one person do?" Underneath the question it says something that rang very familiar to me: Inspiration. Pass it On. I remembered seeing television ads and a few billboards with that slogan and I'm not sure when or how I equated it with the Mormon church. Each time I've seen that phrase somewhere, I've just automatically drawn a connection to Mormons. I vaguely remember that the TV ads were a little strange because they didn't seem to ever be selling anything or providing any kind of contact information or anything a normal ad does. They just always had a little story about someone doing something moral or kind for someone else. They reminded me of those old Scientology ads they would show in the 90s with vague messages and graphics of volcano-like explosions with quotations about achieving inner power or something. It is all a big blur, frankly (though I still get creeped out by these).

Anyway, the Mandela poster brought this vague feeling of unease for me and I did some cursory research on the organization that published the poster. There is a website on the poster that says values.com. Anyway, and I have to stress this emphatically: I did not do exhaustive research and so I don't know a whole lot about this place. And maybe it says way more about me than anything that I have an instant mistrust of an organization that has "values.com" as its domain name and that pumps a lot of money for expensive advertisements to just say things like "share with each other" and "pass on inspiration" without an obvious agenda but I am suspicious. I approach life with a light dusting of defeatism (more as a precaution than anything) and I'd frankly feel more comfortable if they would take the poster down. However, being a rational adult, I can't very well tell the powers that be "Yeah can you take that down because I have the heebie jeebies?" Also, until I have actually done any research to substantiate said jeebies, I will just have to drop it. Unsbustantiated Heebie Jeebies: Pass it on.

Since I'm talking about heebie jeebies, I'll mention a regular library patron who is here tonight and whom I have dubbed "Pizza the Hutt". You'll remember Pizza the Hut, a character played by Dom DeLuise from the classic film "Spaceballs."

Pizza is gonna send out for YOU.

And since all of you remember him,  you also remember that he made various disgusting noises as he talked and just sat there, oozing cheese and sauce all over the place. The sounds were gooey burps and phlegmy clearing of his throat and wet sighs. Are you grossed out yet? Because this is what I have in front of me at the  moment and every weeknight that I'm at work. The Library Pizza the Hutt (LPTH) has a briefcase, and by "briefcase" I mean several plastic shopping bags filled with crumpled up paper that he prints out from the library. I am, in fact, typing this little mention of him in order to drown out a few of his standard noises, since he is on a tear this evening. One of my coworkers once saw him hanging around an emergency room one night. Wisely, she did not make contact and does not know if he was actually a patient there. Knowing nothing whatsoever about LPTH, I would still be apt to bet a small amount of money on "digestive problems." I will never know. Personally, when I run into strange library patrons outside in the real world (something that happens more often than makes me comfortable) I apply a valuable lesson taught to us all by Lucille Bluth:

I take heart however, my Monday will be over in 90 minutes. Hold me until then?