Summer 2020

I may have mentioned in these pages that I’m not very fond of summer.  As my least favourite season, I’ve even been known to complain about it.  Plus, every year around Labour Day, I jump the gun and start singing the praises of autumn.  And – well – this year isn’t going to be any different, except … I have a confession to make.  The summer of 2020 hasn’t been all that bad.  That’s right, the worst summer this planet has seen since Marvin the Mongolian brought his pet rats to Genoa in 1347, was actually not as godawful as originally advertised.  Hold it!  Before you start gathering the torches and pitchforks, hear me out!  Here are a few reasons why, even though the Summer 2020 isn’t anything I ever want to do again, it was certainly better than expected.

We’re learning social distancing

1 – People kept their clothes on.  Normally, summers are awash with untethered flesh, wiggling and jiggling and … “Oh, God! My Eyes!”  I don’t know what happened, but somehow a lot of us started channeling our inner dignity.   

2 – We discovered what the word “brave” really means, and it’s got nothing to do with some celebrity playing victim on Twitter for twenty minutes.

3 – And speaking of celebrities, wasn’t it cool when they all shut up and went home?

4 – There were more regular people on the streets — walking, running, riding their bikes — and even though they kept their distance, they were friendly.  Neighbours waved to each other, asked how things were going and called each other by their first names.  (I didn’t even know the guy down the street had a name.)

5 – There was, on occasion, quiet.  The parks and beaches and backyards weren’t constantly haunch to paunch with obnoxious crowds of loudmouths, cremating their meat to the 4,000 decimal beat of a heart/lung machine that somebody once mistakenly called “music.”

6 – It didn’t feel quite so hot without those penis envy motorcycles roaring through the afternoon like recently castrated lions.

7 – Zoom

8 – Professional sports didn’t show up until later, so we didn’t have to endure an endless, meaningless, boring parade of nobody-cares-who-wins baseball games.

9 – We all began finding out how much junk we’ve accumulated over the years, and not just useless household junk — emotional junk, lifestyle junk, ideas junk, even people junk.  Last spring our world got ambushed and a bunch of stuff changed, so most of us have spent the summer — consciously or unconsciously — reassessing what’s important in our lives and what’s just junk.

And because of that:

10 – Even though it might not feel good right now, the best thing to happen this summer is a lot of people started thinking about, talking about and trying to do something about things that actually matter.

Interesting Stuff

One of the cool byproducts of spending your life putting pen to paper is you become an absolute fountain of useless information.  You learn stuff that most people don’t know (or even care about) but throw it into a conversation, and you sound like a genius.  Here are just a few cool things I’ve learned over the years.

Apparently, it’s been statistically proven that there is a direct relationship between how long it takes people to invoke Hitler in an argument and their level of education.  Basically, the higher the education, the longer it takes to get to the Hitler comparison.  (Who studies this stuff?)

Normally, tears of pain start in the left eye and tears of joy start in the right. 

Psychologically, it takes less than 10 minutes to fall in love.  However, our brains will not accept the fact until it’s confirmed by the chemicals exchanged during a kiss or other intimate act.

On occasion, people will lie about anything from the very serious to the most trivial, but when a computer asks them to provide answers to security questions, they nearly always tell the truth.

In crowded streets or pathways, people naturally walk on the right.  Even the Brits (and other countries) who drive on the left, walk on the right when they’re pedestrians.

There are hundreds of cultures in the world, and they all view and do things differently.  However, every person on this planet — from Boston to Borneo — has the same facial expression when they’re angry.

But speaking across cultures — all humans (and a few animals) blush!  It’s an involuntary physical response — like being startled by an unexpected noise.  The weird thing is blushing is intimately connected to culture, and different cultures blush for different reasons.  In other words, blushing is the only involuntary physical response that is triggered by cultural conditioning.  Neither scientists nor psychologists can figure out why — or how— our bodies change to accommodate it.

English speakers can recognize words written in a sentence without vowels but not without consonants.  (This doesn’t work for all languages.)

Despite what millennials will tell you, there is no such thing as multi-tasking.  When the brain has more than one task to perform, it doesn’t do them simultaneously.  It switches back and forth from one task to another, over and over again.  And even though these changes may be so rapid that they are imperceptible, they still reduce the brain’s ability to complete either task properly.

It seems 35 is a magic number.  People under 35 are more stressed, more anxious and more worried about the future; whereas people over 35 are more relaxed.  Psychologists believe this is because our subconscious memory recognizes bits and pieces of information from past experiences and that fools the brain into thinking we’re relatively safe because we’ve already been there/done that.  However, this also means older people are more easily bored — even with new experiences.

And finally:

The opposite of paranoia (the belief that people are plotting against you) is pronoia.  This is the irrational belief that people are secretly conspiring to make you happy.  Oddly enough, this disorder is more widespread than you might think.

 

More Stuff I — UH — Dislike

hate

Last week, I mentioned that hate was strictly verboten in the 21st Century.  I was only half kidding.  Think about it!  These days, about the only thing you can hate with any certainty is Hitler.  And if we keep going along this path, someday/someone/somewhere is going to start talking about child abuse and poverty, and even Adolf might get off the hook.  Personally, I think in the future, we’re going to have to buy a license to hate, and only rich people will be able to afford it.  But until then, here are a few more things I – uh – dislike very, very much.

The New Normal – One more “New Normal” and I’m going to scream!  Normal happens, and there’s nothing you can do about it.  When I was a kid, it was “normal” to write letters to your friends — with a pen — on paper.  Since then, we’ve been through at least three “new normals,” and — like it or don’t — there are a bunch more to come.  Get used to it!

People who use “for” and “of” when they should be using “about.” — English is a precise language because we have a bunch of prepositions that do a specific job — and they’re not interchangeable.  Jack just farted.  If you are embarrassed “for” him, it means you feel sorry he accidently made a social faux pas.  If you are embarrassed “about” him, it means he’s a jerk.  And if you are embarrassed “of” him, you’re talking gibberish – go home!

Covid Excuses – “Hello!  Your call is important to us.  However, due to Covid-19, even though we’re still the same lazy bastards we always were, you can’t bitch about it.  Have a nice day!”

Age is embarrassing — Our world is awash with instructions, coaching, counselling and good old-fashioned unwanted advice about everything from surviving puberty to buying a better divorce.  However, once you hit about 60, it’s as if you just caught a disease that’s not socially acceptable — and everybody wants to avoid the subject.

“Well, you didn’t hear this from me, but I heard Marvin got 61.”
“OMG!”
”Yeah, last week.  But I don’t think they’ve told the children yet.”
“Are you sure?  I was just talking to him.  He didn’t look any different.”
“Elsie told me in strictest confidence — you know — it’s not something you just blab around the neighbourhood.”
“Yeah, that’s true, but the poor thing!  She must be so worried.  They say 61 is contagious.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that too, but it’s not like you can just go ask somebody.  I mean really … that’s – well – you know.”
“Yeah, I know.  Elsie was awfully brave telling you.  I feel so sorry for her.  Have the aches and pains started?”
“She didn’t say, and I wasn’t about to ask, but she kinda hinted that he’s been watching Wheel of Fortune.
“Oh!  That’s so-o-o bad!  You know, I’ve never told anybody this, but my parents had 61 – both of them.”
“That’s terrible.  You’d think they’d have discovered a cure by now.”

“Sorry!” – In the 21st century, this is the universal “Get Out Of Jail Free” card.  If Jack the Ripper were alive today, all he’d have to do is go on Instagram or Twitter and say he is sorry, and he’d be back on the street in a week.

Doom Scrolling – You can’t get away from it.  Every website on the planet is busy telling us just how screwed we really are.  They all want a piece of the action.  Even the Facebook kittens are wearing masks!  It’s like living in a Michael Moore documentary.

And finally:

Covid Conspiracies – Human history is a litany of stupidity, and the last few decades have produced some serious gold medals in the Idiot Olympics.  So the rhetorical question has got to be: where did all these Covid supervillains come from?  It beggars the imagination that the same people who’ve never understood basic economics, can’t agree on Climate Change and haven’t been able to figure out who’s been doing what to whom in the Middle East for over 70 years, are now somehow manipulating a pandemic to control the planet.  Puh-lease!  Maybe it’s just that the Flat Earth Society has contacted Elvis on Venus from an ancient Mayan transmitter.  He will return to Earth at the Denver Airport as The Leader Of The New World Order, and they will do battle with the Illuminati and the Freemasons in a three-way fight to force mind control facemasks on an unsuspecting public.

Now that sounds legit!