on being and rudeness

"You really are."

You--in this case it was me.
Really--in full actuality, in this case modifying "are".
Are--present indicative of being, in this case a "real" being and therefore, existentially, presumably, an ontological inarguability.

And now, because I've brought it up . . .

Ontological Inarguability--a phrase I just made up intended to mean that a "Being" can only BE what it IS, "really," no more, no less, regardless of prejudice, hindsight disallowed. (Though Sartre, I believe, would have us also being Will-ares and Was-bes (phrases I just made up and with which I am self-delighted)--an amalgam of forgotten and unknowable states, respectively--but in this case, let's be satisfied with a limited definition of "Being.")

So it was like this:

Earlier, I was compelled to stop productive momentum, be-coat myself, and drive to the library--some books and movies for to return. I was listening to my Speak German CDs and calling out responses to the teacher's prompts when my turn came upon me suddenly. Traffic was heavy and I am easily confused when thrust into the Immediate. Heroically, I navigated my course successfully, wedged though I was, precariously between two cars, fore and aft.

However, as I made my turn into the library's parking lot, I noticed that another car--one of those mini-vans-but-not-really-- was all tight up in my business like a lead ball in a musket. The driver, a blond woman, veered left when I turned right toward the drop-off awning. No harm, no foul.

Leaving my car running (the weather outside was frightful and my heat was sure da-da-dah), I dropped my materials into the outside deposit slot. I turned back to my car and was confronted by a red-faced blond woman.

"Could you really not let me in back there? You were in such a hurry?" she barked at me. "You're gonna make me miss the library when I'm trying to turn in my kid's book so it won't be late?" she continued, in quite a froth. I shrugged, stunned. Again, confused by the unexpected immediacy. But it dawned on me, maybe this woman was trying to get in the turn-lane that I was so tenuously keeping in line with. But I would never . . . not on purpose . . . it's just not the way I am . . .

"You are rude on Christmas, you know that?" she says and then (wait for it) . . .

(wait for it) . . .

"You really are!"

As she strode triumphantly through the library's automatic doors, I managed a polite "Who even are you?" But she was gone.

And gone she is and yet those three words still linger. On the drive home, I actually felt bad. Some kind of jerk, I am. She had almost missed her turn. (Another, more accessible, wider-laned, turn was a mere thirty feet farther down, but still.) Her precious child had a brush with delinquency. (Narrowly missed by the six hours before closing, but still.) And on Christmas, no less. (December 13, but still.) I was truly disturbed, upset. My stomach felt empty, my chest cold. The thought--I am rude--like a dull ache in my head.

But wait. No I am not. Not when it comes to courtesy on the road. In fact, I err on the side of extreme, inordinate, extra-mile-type courtesy when it comes to allowing drivers to merge and cut or enter the traffic. One car, two cars, oh what the hell, three cars come on in. The more's not the merrier but we all gotta get where we're going in this life, might as well scootch in.

So why was I letting myself feel guilty of an un-willed act? A fact of circumstance not at all linked to my Being; an event of objects not of subjects. Of cars and calendars and just one in a billion near collisions across the universe any given second.

Maybe that's the way I am. Too easily mussed by the "gaze of the other." [Sartre] Too readily ashamed of my place in a big, fast, confusing world.

too much much?

One million.

1, 000, 000.

Eine Million.

An impressive number compared with almost anything besides national debt and the distance to outlying galaxies. As a yute (did he say 'yute'? excuse me your honor, as a yooooth) few things were more alluring and yet ever out of reach than the status of millionaire. Except in the game of LIFE. Which, after we lost the plastic mansion, why bother playing really? To have a mess of peg kids? To sling the spinner into orbit every other go? To become a millionaire in Monopoly was harder still. We had to manipulate the rules, turn free parking into a jackpot. As a matter of fact, we had so inflated the real-estate market that the Parker Brothers allotment of varicolored bills was inadequate and we were obliged to print larger bills of our own. (Perhaps we were minor prophets considering the current mortgage mire.)

However sliced, a million is a number to be reckoned with--for its psychological and cultural significance (granted for pre-2K generations, mostly) as well as its actual numerical heft.

Why the fuss? I have reached a dubious milestone in my life. Blew by it about a month or so ago, actually. (No, would-be-glommers, I have not come into a million bucks.) Hold the drumroll. No applause, please.

By my calculations, in the last 12 years, I have ingested over 1, 000, 000 milligrams of mind-numbing pharmaceuticals. And I can't help but wonder how many lost flashes of brilliance that accounts for, how many less-than-thrilling stories in my catalog, how man never-inspired poems? Speaking of never, I will never know.

But that's Ok, right? It has to be OK. And that goes for all of us. Sure, you may not be so drug-addled as me; but you have your stuff. Stuff that impedes productivity. (Kids much?) Stuff that stultifies creativity. (Workaday onus much?) Stuff that shin-kicks, sucker-punches, and blind-sides the freedom of the mind to simply stroll the acres of live-oak and imagination. (The world is too much with us much?)

Did you ever try to count to a million as a yute? It would have taken about a week. Unless you needed food or sleep. Which most of us do. Ghandi and Edison, respectively excluded. A million miles? Go to the moon, bring me a rock to look at, then take it back. A million words? A] Your homework is to read War and Peace and Les Miserable. Or B] 1000 pictures of your choice.

Our lives are not measured in millions but let there be no doubt that there are millions of things we contend with in a lifetime. And most of us, for the most part, for most of the time will be OK. We will have to be OK. Because the alternative is bleak--all the mansions are plastic and all the money is just paper yanked from spiral-bound notebooks and printed with Magic Marker.