Oh, my goodness. 2008.

I surprised myself. Mostly by this: Suzanna Dorkeaux had become one of the wisps of Southern family history who every now a then appear in shadowy form on the outskirts of a evening lawn party. My mind . . . it is an odd one.

From the old blog:

So what dork is doing this? O(h)

Some things I skim over and Dorko was one of them; that’s the last name of the new head guy at Lutheran Hospital. Then I saw it again . . . and it registered. Now, I feel for this man, I really do. I know he is a very successful man, and no doubt quite well off financially. I don’t know how old he is or when the term “dork” entered the vernacular, but it is probably not something is is happy about.

Excuse me, I am going to do a Google search. Ah, here it is – a reference to the word: DORK, and here is part of that entry verbatim:

Dork is a term used to describe someone who has unusual interests and is, at times, silly or stupid. A dork can also refer to someone who acts on his own motives without caring about his peers’ opinions. The term occasionally implies stupidity, though perhaps less often than it once did, and it can paradoxically imply an unadmirable (bookish, academic) intelligence, much like the terms “nerd” and “geek.”

. . . The adjectival form of dork is dorky, a word that was mainstream enough by 1971 to appear in a Peanuts comic strip

Oh, that 1971 mainstream reference means he has been dealing with it for some time; maybe it is the reason for his success. I know, I know, it probably represents a proud family – quite possibly of Dutch descent. There is nothing wrong with Dorko as a last name, not really. But, gee, it does kind of take you by surprise in a headline. He could have taken a French bent and changed the spelling to Dorkeaux and moved to Louisiana; heck, that kind of sounds like a name in a novel:

The dew lingered on the vines growing along the edge of the veranda where the morning shade kept the sun’s heat at bay. Mr. Dorkeaux always took his coffee there when weather allowed, often gazing across the lawn that rolled down to the river where Suzanna had first climbed in the boat that eventually spirited her away.

Ever so polite detectives had come and asked questions, left, returned and finally disappeared into the the same river mist that had closed in on the scene all those years ago. Suzanna Dorkeaux had become one of the wisps of Southern family history who every now a then appear in shadowy form on the outskirts of a evening lawn party. It was whispered that her travels – as Mr. Dorkeaux referred to them – had taken her to places where she could find no rest, no peace. And so, she was drawn back to her marriage home – Dorky Park.

Oh, no, no, no, no, nix that idea.

Of course, as I said, Joe Dorko has done well for himself.

Maybe my last name should have been Bozo.

Gadzooks!

I just wrote about taking more direction in my life – well, I wrote about it in so many words – and then I find myself thinking somewhat later: “Ah, maybe I should be DOING something.” See I didn’t think my complaining post through; I was just venting about being someone running from hole to hole in the dike, although I think my original reference was to dealing with downward-rolling balls of various levels of disaster.

But now, dear me, pushing Publish didn’t make it go away. So I am whining because I will either have to maintain the status quo which forces me into action or DO SOMETHING ON MY OWN MOTIVATION. I should have just kept my fingers still and just hum-drummed myself to the next problem and relaxed a little under my afghan. Now I have put myself in the position of putting my moving limbs where my mouth is. It’s like an assignment. Shoot.

Okay, I’ve got to make this seem like a puzzle, a riddle. It’s got to be something I figure out and not plod through, if I am to get started. That will involve lying to myself because there is always some plodding. Sometimes I do manage to see the plodding as Okay, just another try . . . okay, one more . . . maybe if I turn it this way . . .

However, I think this is a case where lying to myself is going to be the crucial part of the endeavor. Most everyone knows I believe it is all right to lie to yourself as long as you know you are lying to yourself. I know, I know – that cancels everything out, but if you say it real fast, it sometimes works. I think it is some phenomenon in physics or insanity.

On the other hand, when you are faced with an assignment, I have found that thinking about planning on how you are going to do it sometimes produces the feeling you have actually done something. It’s not a good thing in the long run, but it helps you stay warm under the afghan for a bit longer.

Say, you don’t think taking the time to write this post was a delaying action, do you . . . Oh, wow! I feel another What About Bob? moment coming on.

After looking back

After reading some of the posts – at random – from my old blog, I am starting to get the idea I should take my life back. Well, I mean I think I am getting too involved in trying to keep up with messes instead of dedicating myself to creating my own. Oh, let me think about this . . . Could my former insouciant mess-making be at the core of some of these present avalanching MESS-BALLS that keep rolling at me. Oh, wow! Could that really be!? Gosh, hey, do you think so? (Am I channelling What About Bob? here? Who cares.)

My usual response these days: Whatever.

Last evening I read a cheap Kindle book about extremely capable old people in the workplace being fired and then being recruited by a company to have intensive surgery and re-enter with workforce looking 20 years younger and still having their vast experience. The main character was 55. It was not a cheery evening and I seriously thought about not continuing, but as more and more “young” people turned out to be “oldies” I was curious about the ending. I should not have been; it was written by an author who should have simply written, “Sorry, I ran out of ideas.” Instead, he basically wrote, Whatever. I suppose there is a lesson in this Live by the whatever, die by the whatever.