Please tell me you get the ‘Deep Thoughts’ reference. For those of you who don’t know, Jack handy is a comedian/writer best known for his mini segments on SNL during the 90’s. He was also one of my childhood heroes (I was so not like other kids). Completely under-celebrated, in my opinion, Jack Handy is a genius.

Let’s take a look at some of his work:

• “To me, it’s a good idea to carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way if someone says, ‘Hey, can you give me a hand?’ You can say, ‘Sorry, got these sacks.’
• “If trees could scream would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.”
• “If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you’ll look like a dummy and someone will catch you, because, hey, free dummy.
• “Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.”

If reading these didn’t just make you smile a little, clearly you have no sense of humor whatsoever.

So, where am I going with all this?

Well, I’ve been thinking about adding new monthly installments to the blog with my own ‘not so Deep Thoughts’... because I have a lot of them. My random mind mutterings don’t necessarily fall under specific categories like ‘beauty’ or ‘recipe’, and usually aren’t beefy enough to make an entire post. However, clumped together, my brief observations make a nice new category for the blog, and my own personal outlet to vent, reflect, and laugh at myself.

Btw- since visuals are always helpful, this is what I look like when I’m having ‘not so deep thoughts’.

Kudos to Russ Mezikofsky for capturing this moment.

Let’s get started with April’s installment of: ‘not so Deep Thoughts’ by: Susie Light

A lesson on spacial awareness.

Spacial awareness is the ability to be aware of oneself in space; where you are, physically. In general I’m not the least bit concerned with people’s awareness of themselves… unless theirselves is a little too close to myself. Obviously, no one likes a close talker. Even though it should be universally understood that, a solid three feet should be left between you and a person you are conversing with, some folks believe you must feel their breath in order to effectively convey a message. Unless you are my spouse or child, we are standing side by side, or you are trying to resuscitate me, please take a step back.

Even more maddening for me in terms of those who lack spacial awareness, are those who are unaware that a certain amount of space should exist between them and the person in front of them in line at the grocery store. That’s right, the grocery store. Since I frequent the place I consider myself an expert on grocery store etiquette. So, by rule of thumb, you should leave at least a shopping cart’s distance between yourself (or the end of your cart) and the person in front of you. As a matter of fact, standing within arms length of a person making any sort of transaction is unacceptable.

Speaking of Lines 

Since I’m on the subject, let’s quickly touch on proper deplaning etiquette. If you feel you should be able to exit an airplane before the people who are sitting in the rows ahead of you, you can’t. It doesn’t matter if you’re late for your connector, have a train to catch, or just want to get off the stupid thing, it is not ok to jump out of your seat and run as far forward down the isle as you can to cut in front of people who might also have somewhere to be. If you feel your time is more important than anyone else’s, you’re wrong, and perhaps you should have upgraded your seat to begin with.

Someone had to say it.

Just when you think they’re not listening…

Since I’ve been a bit cynical thus far, I’d like to end on a positive note. As parents, we can sometimes fear our children aren’t listening to the lessons we try to teach them about life and growing up. Clearly there are no indications of listening; eye contact, nodding, verbal acknowledgement. But once in a great while they do show signs that they’ve actually been picking up what we’ve been putting down, and immediately you are bathed in relief.

To illustrate I’d like to share two pictures my son Collin made in school.

The first is from way back in the second grade (please forgive the photo quality). His assignment was to make a list of “needs” and “wants”. For his “wants” he wrote a tv, an ipod, a castle, and a dirt bike (a yomuho, to be specific). And for his “needs” he wrote, water, air, money, shelter, food, guns, and a knife.

The day this came home in his homework folder, still may be one of the proudest moments in my husband’s life. “He gets it. He actually gets it.”, said my elated husband.

The second picture is actually from just the other day. I believe his assignment was to come up with a simile about people.

This was my proud moment. He gets it. He actually gets it.