Elephant in the Room

Q. Why do elephants paint the soles of their feet yellow?
A. So they can hide upside-down in the custard.

Q: Did you ever find an elephant in your custard?
A: No? Well, it must work.

The month of November always feels like a blank between Halloween and Thanksgiving. A void which I rarely remember. I'm all settled in back from my Halloween east coast trip and am back to business as usual. That doesn't mean I can't keep reminiscing. While I was in DC, we entertained ourselves with silly one-liner jokes from when we were small. There were some very good ones shared. Mark had one I liked about elephants that I decided to share today as my quote above. I tend to say, "See, it works!" as my punchline. A quick search revealed that there are a lot more elephant jokes than I would have thought.

The elephant theme works out great, because I feel like in many situations there is an elephant in the room that goes ignored in my life, be it when I'm alone and mostly when with others. I do a great job of ignoring those elephants. This picture I thought was a great representation of it. (Hope that is photoshop Peta). (I also imagine that elephant hiding in custard.)

The big question is, what is my elephant in the room? I probably have lots and even now I don't want to think about them. Some are just lies I say to myself. There are a lot of things I don't talk about, especially on my blog. It is weird that I consider myself such a private person, yet have kept writing here for over 10 years. I guess I like things on my terms. There are actually a lot of thoughts about a lot of things and even people that I don't say a word about. Maybe at times in a passive aggressive vague way, but never anything detailed, but mostly nothing. It is probably for the best though. So that is my lesson, I need to start identifying my elephants and not just calling them out for the sake of being self aware, but dealing with them.

The other day I wrote an entry entitled The Diploma Frame. It was pretty much the story about why it took over 8 years for me to finally get my Cornell Frame for my college diploma. Well, the frame came in Monday and I moved my still unpaid for (student loans) diploma from its cheap frame to its new classy frame.

Here is the box. It was a good size, but I was glad to see that it was packaged well. It makes the frame look bigger than it actually is.

Below is a photo of my diploma in the $8 frame on my office wall. The frame has served me well and I wonder what I'm going to use for now. Maybe pictures of some sort. You know, I have never had a picture of anyone in my office, at least in this office. I digress.

After some work, I was able to get my new frame opened and up on my wall. It looks so much nicer I must say. Check out the setup below:
So I will say, Thank you Vero for the gift. Sorry it took so long. You were right. Oh, and you do know that you are also getting me (and getting credit for) my law school diploma frame in the future, but let's give it some time since these things cost a lot.

This summer I heard the following letter read at my friend's wedding which I thought was very moving. It is an excerpt of a letter from Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain) to his wife Olivia Langdon five months before their wedding:

"This 4th of February will be the mightiest day in the history of our lives, the holiest, & the most generous toward us both -- for it makes of two fractional lives a whole; it gives to two purposeless lives a work, & doubles the strength of each whereby to perform it; it gives to two questioning natures a reason for living, & something to live for; it will give a new gladness to the sunshine, a new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth, a new mystery to life; & Livy it will give a new revelation to love, a new depth to sorrow, a new impulse to worship. In that day the scales will fall from our eyes & we shall look upon a new world. Speed it!"

Other than the impressive use of the semi-colon, it was something that when I heard for the first time made quite the impression. Talk about something to aspire to. Mark Twain was such a great writer. My first book was Tom Sawyer, that I got for Christmas from my Aunt/Tia Mati. I was upset at first, since what kid wants a book, but I read it and the reading thing caught on.

Saturday night, I went to see Joe Rogan's stand up comedy. I think I have gone to see him 3 times over as many years in Austin. I always enjoy it. The year that has past since I last saw him went by pretty quickly. Funny way to measure time. I went with my friend Megan and I don't think I could have prepared her for amount of vulgarity, but she was a good sport. The opening acts were more vulgar, though still funny. When Rogan performed, I felt like I had heard some of the jokes before, but the majority of it was new. My favorite part is when, at the end, he just let's the audience pick topics. I always forget that, and next year I'm going to be more prepared to yell out things so that the drunk guys yelling UFC stuff can be ignored for my cool topics.

After getting lasik this summer, I've started to forget that I don't wear glasses anymore. It has just become so normal. I thought it would take longer to not be reaching for my glasses. I will still say it was some of the best money I have spent. So bear with me, but I have for years brushed my teeth in the shower (great idea, you should try it), but now that I can see in the shower, I just recently added shaving to that list. I purchased a sweet fog-less mirror and gave it a try. It is awesome, and since I spent way too much time just standing under the hot water drifting off, now I can be more productive and can shave more often. I'm getting to the point where I should probably shave every day, but I still save every two days. I have a shower radio I never use, always thought I would use it more often.

Here are some more thoughts on the Rally to Restore Sanity. I was watching the Daily Show this week where Jon Stewart Responds To The 'False Equivalency' Critique Of The Rally To Restore Sanity (VIDEO) "See, it turns out that a lot of people are all in a twist over what they saw as a "false equivalency" between what left-leaning media types do every day and what right-leaning media types do every day."

I'm a huge fan of Jon Stewart and thought the Rally was great for many reasons. It was a bunch of reasonable liberals dressed up like moderates. (You know, since the definition of moderate moves more to the right as the far right pulls farther. ) It was also a grand sign making party. Facts and distortions are not differences of opinions, but the Rally meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people, which I thought was a fair response by Stewart. Whatever it was, there wasn't an alternative Rally to attend.

patience can be an excuse to let life pass by