Night before last, while cooking, I noticed movement on the wall behind the stove.  Peeking out was a spider big enough to deserve a first name.  Jerry was dark gray and furry, with long mandibles.  I have mixed feelings on spiders.  I know they eat lots of annoying critters but they're not exactly friendly.  I had a small pit on my leg that took a year to heal that was most likely a brown recluse bite.  My son had a spider bite behind his ear that got infected and got bigger than a marble.  

I was quickly mentally debating what to do when Jerry retreated.  Yesterday, I saw him once more climbing up the wall but jumping down as soon he realized he was in the open.  I think Jerry and I have an informal non-aggression pact.  I'm not going to pull out the stove or resort to poison.  But if he starts getting bold like he owns the place, he'll meet the underside of a shoe.

I think Do Overs shouldn't just be for kids.  I told myself that I was going to start a blog just before work got extra busy.  So, here's attempt #2.  We'll pretend that there was no big time gap and move on.

We should allow the occasional Do Over both in others and ourselves.  When not taken to extreme, forgiveness is a good thing.  "That presentation sucked.  Wanna try again next week?"  or "I told myself that I would never again eat nachos with that weird fake cheese.  I did.  Now I'll never do it again, I promise."  No condemnation, no guilt, a chance at redemption.

In fact, I'd like to declare the hour that you repeat when we set the clocks back in the fall the Do Over Hour (DOH).  Everyone should get a chance to do whatever they want in the to-be-erased hour.  As long as it has no permanent consequences, if they don't like it, everyone will pretend it never happened once the hour is over.  Imagine, once a year, everyone getting up in the night and trying new things.  Feel free to run naked through the park, attempt that soufflé, ask out your neighbor's mom, or even do slam poetry.  If the results are less than hoped for, I promise to never bring it up at embarrassing times later.   Of course, until DOH is an official holiday (holihour?), I can’t promise that others will do the same. 

 

Yes, now even I have a blog.  I think of it as a place to write things best not spoken aloud.  (No not like Hastur.  Well, not always anyway.)  Just odd ideas that are too complicated or silly for casual conversation.  For me, the blog will be like external memory.  So I can  find thoughts later if need be in their original form.

Most of my thoughts are geekier than most people can imagine so I don't expect wide appeal.