Years ago, Suzanne handed me a copy of a meme she’d printed out. It said, “You can’t please everyone. You are not a taco.” I still have it somewhere in my piles of files. I like running onto it occasionally, because it’s a smart reminder. When I saw this t-shirt, it made me muse about the meme yet again. My own life’s experience has taught me, over and over again, that pretending to be what you are not might seem to work for a while. But it will inevitably end up hurting all who are involved when the truth finally seeps through the facade and shows itself. And—trust me on this—the truth will ALWAYS show itself in the end, despite any meticulous planning you might do. Remember: you are not a taco.
I don’t know why other people’s opinions of us often carry so much weight. Why do we so often feel the need to be what other people want us to be, instead of being content to be the mysterious and fabulous person we really are? It makes no bloody sense. I don’t know how it works with you, but I have found that I am the only one who has to live with me every minute of every day and night—which means I’m ultimately the main human whose opinion of me matters. Think about it: you are the main character in your autobiography. Your life is your story, and your story is about you. Your opinion of yourself as you live your unique life matters, so you probably ought to get comfortable with being the real you. Make your authentic self someone you can stand to live with. If you do that, you’ll likely find that you naturally make the people who matter to you oh-so very, very happy—without even trying. 😃 🌮
See Dad’s superhuman strength. See my bigly diaper-butt reflected in the mirror. See me not yet wearing a bow tie. Sing with me: “He’s got the whole baby… in his hand… He’s got the whole baby… in his hand…” MERRY 92nd BIRTHDAY, DAD! WISH YOU WERE HERE, SO I COULD KISS YOUR BALD HEAD!
I am a fan of staplers—mini and not-mini. I turned my all-time favorite mini stapler into another Bow Tie o’ the Day. This stapler is designed to look like a cowboy hat and a red bandana. It is certainly worthy of being seen by the throngs at 7-11 while I’m putting gas my jalopy truck. ⛽️
When the cantankerous din of the world’s shouting is just more noise than I can take, I can simply yank out my hearing aids and make a magnetic Bow Tie o’ the Day out of them. “Can you hear me now?” No, I can’t hear you now—and it sounds fabulous. 👂🏻👂🏻
Because I’m allergic to bee and wasp bites, this magnet-and-spray-can Bow Tie o’ the Day can be my first line of defense when I’m out on the deck or patio this summer. If the spray fails me and I get stung, I can use my EpiPen Tie o’ the Day to give myself a life-saving shot, so I can continue to breathe. Breathing is pretty much necessary if I want to stay alive to create TIE O’ THE DAY hijinks. 🐝 👃 🐽
I once again seem to be in the mood to experiment with my t-shirt bow tie magnets. This flyswatter Bow Tie o’ the Day not only looks casually dapper, but it’s a practical way to have a flyswatter handy when chillin’ in the great outdoors this time o’ year. Just “thwack” and replace!
I’d like to say that I spent the final two weeks of my absence from TIE O’ THE DAY in Ireland, wearing my fave pair of shorts, dangling my fluorescent white legs over the edge of the Cliffs of Moher—hypnotized by the ocean below while I pondered the meaning of life. I’d also like to say my new truck that I ordered in November was finally delivered and I went on a wild two-week road trip to break it in. And I’d like to say that I wrote the awesome, bestselling novel Suzanne thinks lurks somewhere inside my brain, just pushing to be born into the literary world. But, alas, I cannot truthfully say I spent the last days of my absence doing any of these things. So what exactly did I do with the final two weeks of my time offline? The answer is “not much.”
For the first four weeks, I didn’t check TIE O’ THE DAY. I didn’t check any of my social media platforms. By the time I finally—and briefly—checked in with my online footprint, I was overwhelmed to discover countless messages, comments, and emails that had piled up while I wasn’t online. In fact, I had over 1,000 real emails to answer—as opposed to ads and scams and junk and other varied bullsh*# emails. I panicked about how I would ever be able to catch up and respond to all the correspondence. I still haven’t caught up. If you contacted me or commented in some way while I was “missing,” and I haven’t yet responded, please trust that I will reply as soon as I can. Know that I thank you for the concern and kindness y’all always so graciously show me
Here are a few of the not-very-high highlights of those last two weeks:
1. I did watch the wind-down episodes of THIS IS US. I freely and obnoxiously will tell you right now that I think the series should have ended with the train episode. I was never a fanatic about the show, but it usually kept my interest over the years—which was a good thing because Suzanne was an avid fan. I liked the idea of THIS IS US, but I ended up finding the side characters so much more interesting than the Big Three themselves. Suzanne will tell you that—one by one—throughout the six-year series, I soured on each one of them. I was done with Kevin in Season 2, I think. I was done with Randall around season 4. And I was over Kate in Season 5. It was the same trait in each character—expressed differently in their individual characters—that annoyed me to my top nerve. Call it “ego.” Call it “self-centeredness.” Call it “narcissism.” Call it what you will—they were full of it. Gradually, during the run of the series, I had bellowed—more than once—at each one of the Big Three, “Get over damn yourself!” Oh, and about the Katoby split: that storyline was a bonehead plot joke—completely out of character for both halves of Katoby. Okay, that’s enough. I’ll let THIS IS US rest in peace now.
2. While grocery shopping one day, I noticed that the people who make Skittles finally dumped the “new” green apple-flavored Skittle, and returned to the original lime-flavored green Skittle. I bought a semi-bigly bag o’ Skittles to celebrate the over-due retro change, and I then spent an entire afternoon nuking tiny batches of Skittles in the microwave. Oh, the yumfest I tasted! (Here’s my Nuked Skittles recipe: In a small bowl, nuke no more than 8-10 Skittles at a time, for no more than 10 seconds. Eat them while they’re hot. The insides of the candy will be molten, so be careful not to burn your tongue.) 🍋 (Pretend the lemon emoji is a lime.)
3. With time on my hands, I theorized a discovery all by myself. I needed neither scientific theory nor conspiracy theory to affirm what I believe to be the fact-ness of this discovery. I calculated it in my own nose’s imagination, and I swear I will make it my mission to create it in its fullness whenever possible. I theorize that the Best. Smell. Ever. is a serendipitous confluence of these three smells: the smell of freshly cut grass, plus the smell (petrichor) of a long-awaited rain, plus the scent of bacon cooking. If ever these three odors converge, you will experience the Best. Smell. Ever. I further theorize that it will come to be known as the smell of Plato’s triad of ideals: Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. ⛳️ 🌧 🥓
FYI You can see I’ve been playing around with my t-shirt bow-tie magnets again. Here, my magnet is holding a part from Suzanne’s sewing machine to create this Bow Tie o’ the Day. I believe the part is called a presser foot and/or a stitch foot, but I wouldn’t bet on it. It makes a swell bow tie, whatever it is. It is gadgety and suave at the same time.
My apologies for not posting yesterday. I spent part of my day in a session with my “crazy head” doctor, and another chunk of the day at the hearing aid hospital retrieving my once-was-broken-but-now-is-fixed hearing device. The right-ear gadget went kaput last week, and I’ve been hearing lopsided without it ever since I took it for repair. My equilibrium balanced out the minute I inserted the newly tweaked hearing aid back into my ear.
Anyhoo… At the end of my last post, I wrote that I would be spilling the magic beans about the strategies and tactics I used to fight my Nay-sayer, and I will. But I’m afraid I will also be letting you down as I tell you. No, I didn’t fall off the beer wagon during my struggle. No, I didn’t take cheap shots at the monster by fighting unfairly. And I’m not saying I fought my Nay-sayer in ways that disgraced me in the eyes of God and my family. I kept my side of the fight principled and humane. The fact that I’m once again feeling like myself enough to be back to writing TIE O’ THE DAY is evidence enough that most certainly—if only temporarily, until the next skirmish—I conquered my Nay-sayer. Unfortunately for Skitter and the neighbors, I’ve even been singing “We Are The Champions” repeatedly since my win. Nevertheless, what I will now disclose to you about my triumph will surely disappoint you for this reason: because what I have discovered over and over throughout my time on the planet is that—and here it comes—there are no magic beans to help you slay a Nay-sayer—especially your inner Nay-sayer. There are no tricks, charms, spells, or shortcuts either. Indeed, there’s no bigly scoop I can report to you about how best to slaughter your own private Nay-sayer. You are ultimately the lone front-line soldier in your one-person squadron. In the end, this is a fight between you and your worst enemy—who happens to be the same person you see every time you look in a mirror. You must get out of your own way. You must stand up in defense of your best qualities, and you must scrupulously exorcise the worst in you—which is, of course, your Nay-sayer.
I can offer up only a distilled recipe that has, so far, worked for me. Perhaps it can serve you well, too. Resilience is so important to successfully navigating the heave-and-ho, up-and-down, mysterious roller coaster we call life. I’ve been trying to figure out just how to fine-tune whatever resilience I can muster, and so I had to break down for myself what exactly resilience is. I think it is not all that complicated. Resilience—in my opinion—is the quality born of patience and endurance. It is simply hanging on, through the passage of time. It is out-waiting the Nay-sayer. It is letting your self-destructive state of mind tire itself out. It is Muhammad Ali’s rope-a-dope tactic. It is having the courage to be patient with yourself as you endure the Nay-sayer’s unwanted visit. It is the realization that—all things being otherwise healthy—the Nay-sayer will eventually recede. Heck, without inviting the Nay-sayer to move in with you, offer it a quick refreshment (maybe a heapin’ helpin’ of funeral potatoes), and then gradually ease the monster out your front door. It will visit you from time to time, because it is a part of you. Be ready, but don’t panic. You don’t have to make it your friend, but you do need to be able to recognize it when it shows up at your doorstep looking to start a fight.
I had been accomplishing nothing for almost a month. By the fourth week of my absence from TIE O’ THE DAY, an old monster friend of mine showed up to camp. Well, I probably shouldn’t say the monster is mine alone. Most of y’all likely have had visits from the same malignant friend at various points in your life. I call it the internal NAY-SAYER. It’s usually quick to show up and chat when you have suffered a tremendous loss or defeat. It comes around when you lose a job or go bankrupt. It comes around when you are exhausted or ill. Heck, the sly Nay-sayer can sometimes find you even when your life is blissful. The insidious Nay-sayer is always lurking somewhere inside your head, waiting for its chance to speak. In the fourth week of my absence from posts, plenty of folks began emailing, messaging, texting, and calling to check on me because they figured something must be wrong if I hadn’t produced a TIE O’ THE DAY post in oh-so long. Even with the concern I was freely shown, I felt enough unlike myself that the Nay-sayer saw a way in to taunt me.
The Nay-Sayer whispered in my Spock ear: “You haven’t written a TIE O’ THE DAY post in almost a month, and nobody cares. Nobody needs you. You make no difference. You have not transformed the world and made it even a little bit better, as you once dreamed you would do.”
And then my own brain’s voice starts to wander down this not-well path. Most of what the Nay-sayer says is technically true—regarding me, regarding you, regarding each one of us. Think about it: our families, our friends, our pets, our churches, our political alignments, our jobs, our very homes and cars, our favorite pair of jeans, our bow tie collection—these things will find a way to continue their existence on the planet without each and every one of us, whether or not we are around to see it all. The world will continue to spin, with or without us. That raw truth cuts deep.
And it’s right at that point when the unkind Nay-sayer whispers in my Spock ear again: “You can see it now, can’t you? You are nothing special. You are nobody. You are connected to nobody. You are worth nothing. There is no point.” The Nay-sayer wants you and me to believe we are of no consequence. At times, we easily believe that to be the case. And so, the fight with my Nay-sayer began. I seriously wondered: how could I possibly get myself out of this battle alive, sane, and restored? I’ll spill all the so-called magic beans in the next post.
BTW I don’t think I own any battle/fight-themed neckwear to wear in a selfie, so I channeled the pugilistic master, Muhammad Ali (still named Cassius Clay at the time). I thought of his poetic ditty in which he said he would “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” as he fought Sonny Liston. So here I am wearing my Madame Butterfly Bow Tie o’ the Day and my bee-covered Shirt o’ the Day.
During my lost weekend which lasted for six weeks, I was able to rally around one particular theme: Mother’s Day. A couple of days before the actual holiday, Suzanne and Skitter and I made a car voyage to Delta to wish Mom a pleasant Mother’s Day. While in Delta, I let Suzanne run rampant with my debit card amidst the towering canyons o’ fabric at Mom’s Crafts. A giant shopping bag filled with her sewing-track mind selections was my extravagantly costly—but so worth it—Ma’s Day gift to her. Back in SLC, we had reservations at STANZA for Mother’s Day brunch. And later, Rowan and Cameryn took time away from their fascinating life to bring us cookies and gifts, and to spend a swell evening gabbing with us.
FYI I won’t leave you hanging. TIE O’ THE DAY will resume tales about my “disappearance” drama in the next post.
