Life Unraveled

I grew up in the northeast United States.   More specifically, I hail from Buffalo NY, a part of the world renown for its inclement weather.   During my formative years I spent more than my fair share of time dodging raindrops and shoveling snow, not to mention simply staring off (sadly) at one cloudy, dreary day after another.   To say that I never found much inspiration from the rain and snow is probably an understatement.   In fact, this is probably more accurate:  I hated them. I sure do love my sunshine, though.   I have moved to ever-sunnier places over the years, from Georgia to Southern California, and now to Hawaii.   But having seen and experienced the lush green paradise of these islands, with waterfalls to boot, caused me to rethink my stance on rain and what I perceive as foul weather.   I mean, anything that could create such beauty can't be all that bad, right?   And then consider that it i...

Whew.  We made it.  Upon hearing the news this week that some preacher in Oakland had proclaimed the world would end today at 6pm, I (like everyone else) just laughed.  What I really wondered was whether it would be 6pm Hawaii time, or would it be sort of a rolling apocalypse, starting in one time zone somewhere and continuing every hour, upon the hour, until the entire planet was wiped out?  More than anything, it just confused me.  I mean really, if you have knowledge about the end of days, you should at least be specific, right ?  I also wondered what all these purported rapture believers were doing with their final hours here.  Were they praying?  Eating everything in sight?  Partying like it was 1999?  Maybe seeing "Bridesmaids" for one final laugh before they bit the dust?  Inquiring minds wanted to know.   I even started (loosely) examining my own behaviors the past couple...

Just the other day, I browsed through a song playlist that was made for my upcoming high school reunion.  One glance at these classics compiled by my best friend during that era brought a huge smile to my face.   I started to play some of them and was instantly transported back to Lewiston-Porter Central School, circa 1989.  There I was, sitting in the school store (pretending to work) and listening to so many of these choice oldies on either a boom box or my Sony walkman.  That's what we called radios back in the day, for those of you not accustomed to any musical device with a name that doesn't begin with the letter "i". I felt like bursting into some glorious 80's dance moves (not sure what those would have been, but I'm sure they would have been identifiable as such) upon hearing the first notes of many of these tunes.  Ah, yes.  Music has a way of doing this, doesn't it?  Ca...

I love the water.  Plain and simple. I have always loved being around it, as far back as I can remember.  Growing up next to the Niagara River in upstate New York, I would take regular (almost daily) pilgrimages to sit at the edge of it.  All alone, just gazing away at those murky waters, I would dream of someday living by the ocean, where I would spend copius amounts of time gazing at it as well.  Assuming that the ocean water was cleaner and warmer than my neighborhood river, maybe I would even spend a little time actually swimming in it. I also used to love riding my bike down to Lake Ontario.  Now, this was a particulary long bike ride from my house (probably about a half-hour if I remember correctly), but I never cared.  I always, always loved heading to the lake because, well....it was a lake!  There was even a small patch of sand there.  Kind of like a (very) little beach, if you were able to ignore all the...

"Don't put this on Facebook."   I swear I heard this phrase uttered at least fifteen times the other day, if not more.  It didn't seem to matter where I was.  In the store, at the beach, at a party.  Anywhere cameras exist.  It has become the battle cry of nearly 500 million people worldwide.  "Don't put this on Facebook." Ok, I admit to using this phrase occasionally myself.  And yes, I still waste time on the social networking giant, though not nearly as much as I once did.  I mean, I was a hardcore addict at first.  It was nothing to waste six, seven, eight hours (or more) on Facebook each day.  Facebooking  was the verb I used to describe my new hobby, and also to detail what I was doing with half of my day.  I think I could have led a Facebookers Anonymous meeting at one point.  It probably would have gone something like this: " Hi, my name is Paul, and I changed my status three times today.  I ...