Tag: just goofing around

Word Count

He was mentioned as not being very talkative, but I found him loquacious. I mentioned the disparity to him.

“Well.” He shrugged. “I don’t talk much around my wife and family, or her friends.”

He turned his beer bottle by its neck. “I read a 2014 study about the number of words men and women use in a day. They always used to say that women talk more than men, but this study showed that men and women speak the same amount on average, about sixteen thousand words a day. Most of us filter it out. I talk more at work than at home because they filter more of my words out at home.”

“How do you do that? I mean, how do you figure something like that out?”

“Well, it’s all rough. There are a lot of factors. I set up a spreadsheet to figure out the average. I can show you on my phone.”

“Ummm….”

“Okay.” He laughed. “No problem. I understand. I’ll give you the executive summary for an average day, quote, unquote.

“I work nine hours a day. Monday through Friday, of course, with holidays off, all that. With commuting, I’m gone about eleven hours a day. I sleep about seven. That’s eighteen hours. So I’m awake and at home about six hours a day.

“Since I’m awake about seventeen hours a day, I decided that I average about nine hundred forty words an hour. I decided to call it a thousand. So I spoke about six thousand words a day at home. I figured that they hear about half of what I say. Three thousand words. They pay attention to about fifteen hundred. So, I’ve reduced what I speak at home to about a thousand words.”

“You speak a thousand words in six hours?”

“Yep.”

“But don’t the same rates hold? If you’re saying a thousand words, aren’t they hearing just half of those, and so on?”

“Oh, no.” He grinned. “Now, because I don’t talk much at home, they pay more attention to when I do.”

“That’s all pretty cynical, isn’t it?”

“Cynical? Or honest?” His grin turned rueful and his gaze turned inward. “Truthfully, I think they still pay attention to about half of what I say at home, if I’m honest. I think I’d rather be talking more and ignored, but I see them tune me out when I open my mouth.”

Shrugging, he lifted his beer bottle toward his mouth. “It is what it is.”

4

An Opposite Day

I’m right-handed. I’ve established a routine of doing physical activities with the opposite hand.  I was initially just checking it out to see how well I could do things with my left hand.

I started with the usual stuff of signing my name, throwing and catching a ball, and eating. Then it became a challenge in motor dexterity and balance. As I’ve aged, I’m staggered to see how my habits and routines had trained and limited my body and its movement. Because of that, I expanded my opposite routines to shaving, dressing, and brushing my teeth. It surprised me how hard it was to dress doing things as though I’m left-handed. Putting on my boxer shorts was especially challenge.

Today I added one that I’ve never done before: I reversed how I wear my belt. Let me tell you, thinking through how to put the belt through the loops was funny as hell because it wasn’t easy.

What about you? Do you ever practice doing things with the opposite hand?

5

Precision

Someone asks for the time. You look at a timepiece. It’s 10:28. Do you say, “It’s almost ten thirty,” “It’s ten twenty-eight,” “It’s about half-past ten,” or “It’s about ten thirty?”

Or do you say, “Zulu or local?”

4

Coffee Lemonade

My wife and I read that coffee lemonade is the latest hot new thing. Sadly, no businesses around here are offering. People that I speak with are not even aware of it.

It’s sad to live in such a backward and remote part of the world. I guess I’ll need to travel to a metropolitan area to sample coffee lemonade.

Quick check: what alcohol should be added to coffee lemonade to give it added zest?

3

Food Suggestions

Have you ever been reading something, and the characters are eating, and you find yourself wanting what they were eating?

In a book I was reading, the main character had oatmeal and avocado. Now I want to try oatmeal and avocado.

I also enjoyed the many times in the book where the hero showed up and handed others coffee, and they were all, “Coffee!” It was instant, but still.

2

Skipping Stone

Did you see it?

Did you see that stone skipping over the waves,

defying gravity as if it was nothing,

touching the water and flashing off like a blade of sunshine

never stopping?

Yes, that was me.

0

Advice

Back when I was eleven, my future-self visited me to impart some advance. “Always confirm that toilet paper is available before you sit down and start your business. Sometimes others won’t be there to spare a square.”

Then he left. He’d arrived ten minutes late, of course, and left without providing the square so desperately desired.

As Alanis would sing, “Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?”

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