One better in Normal entries

Wolves mate for life. Heh. That’s one of the eight zillion things in English that means something other than a direct translation would mean. It means they stay with the same mate, not that they fuck until they die. Part of their success, if you can call almost extinct a success, is they don’t have marriage so there’s no stats on wolf divorce. They also prefer to live in packs. People are fascinated when they hear other animals acting like humans. Humans don’t really mate for life, though, traditionally, marriage is at least as equal politic as mating. The larger our pack gets the more uncomfortable it makes us. Wolves actually do that stuff better than we do.

What the fuck dawg? You say to your computer screen. Hopefully not your smart phone. If you say what the fuck dawg to my smart phone it will do a google search and speak the first sentence or two of the top hit. I have this story I was going to tell. I’ve told it before, but it’s become relevant again. Just as a way to bookmark it for my memory (I’m not going to tell the story now) The seahag was five months pregnant when I met her, within a few weeks of meeting her I took her on a long road trip to Georgia, Georgia was closed so we went to California. On the way back we got a ride from this crippled black truck driver. He had a lot of opinions. The exchange between the seahag and the truck driver is sort of a national conversation now. At one point the truck driver wouldn’t address her at all, only me. Not because she was a woman but because she pissed him off. I’m not saying he wasn’t sexist, I’m just saying she pissed him off. That’s enough to remind me of the perspective I want for that story.

I still have a difficult time with what passes as empathy, that is the meaning of empathy that objectively is walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. What I like about writing fiction is you choose a perspective and stick with it. Real life, like the seahag and the truck-driver, changes depending on who and why you tell it.

Funny, when someone insists you tell them the truth they mean the ugly little supposition they have of your story. It rarely means “tell it to me nicer, like you love these people” it means “not shameful or visceral enough.” That and the accusation that you’re lying. Off the top of my head I could tell that story five different ways without changing a single fact (as I remember them). I don’t get told to tell the truth very often, but I hear it a lot from people talking to one another. Usually people get louder by the time they pull out “Tell the Truth” from whatever dark corner of their bowels in which it lurks. One of the ways someone can accuse you of not telling the truth is “Did you pull that out of your ass?” With the exception of TSA’s and prison guards that phrase is rarely literal.

Huh. Truth, ass, wolves … oh yeah. A phrase that really bugs me — “You don’t even know”. There’s a lot of variations and it’s one of those things that is both literal and … something else. Usually it’s in a friendly context like — “Do you love me?” “You’ll never know how much.” On the face of it, it sounds like she loves him but he’s too stupid to know how much. Shit. I’m not doing a very good job of this. I guess ‘You have no idea’ is more common, it’s all sort of the same thing, and no matter how good the intentions are the phrase both states and implies the other person is incapable of understanding the complexity of the speaker’s mind and heart. Even in the humblest of conversation, the person who states the depth and perpetuity of the others lack of understanding on whatever the subject is, is taking a stance of superior intellect. It’s a filler phrase, sounds made to take time and space, a phrase you don’t have to think about. That last bit is why some folks use that phrase frequently, it’s easier than just saying “the Truth”. Heh.

I really hate the phrase “I’ll do you one better” and, again, folks what use it get into the habit because it’s easier. An ex half sister in law of mine couldn’t speak for five minutes without using the phrase, sometimes stumbling over her own words to find a way to fit it in. Sure, if you’re playing poker, for instance, I’ll do ya one better is fitting. If you’re telling a story around the dinner table about a car accident you were in and someone says I’ll do ya one better (an ex half sister in law for example) you just want to slap the stupid off her face, or his, I don’t know your ex half in laws. I wouldn’t want to presume.

I could put those altogether in a sentence so damn familiar you’ll do a Facebook search for someone you used to know just to friend them and call them an asshole. I could also tell the story of the seahag and the trucker. I’m not going to do either those things just yet. I am going to wish y’all a good weekend, a safe one if you’d like, or an interesting one, or a boring one.

Oh, yeah. Those phrases might not be that common in all English-speaking countries. Though, I think, “The Truth”, in any language, is usually a hostile comment.