You know your birthdate but do you know...

When’s your birthday?  It takes but a moment to think about it.   You put it on forms, on websites, on credit-card applications, etc.  It’s RIGHT THERE on the tip of you memory lobe.  You might not know the actual DAY (I was born on a Thursday), but you know the date.  It doesn’t take a lot of effort.

When’s your deathday?  Oh, well, that’s a bit trickier.  What would you do if you knew when your deathday was?

All this week (December 17^th through 21^st ) I’ve been battling a headache.  I don’t get headaches and this one is just lingering.  Never fully going away but not really debilitating, either.  It’s just THERE.  Sometimes it makes itself known, sometimes it just lingers.  It’s kind of like Regis Philbin (sic?) in that respect.  A co-worker said it was a “tension” headache.  Sure.  Whatever you say.  I’ve taken meds, they don’t really help.  But what could possibly be the cause of this headache?  Let’s see...

1.      I was panicked early in the week over a potential gift for my son and then had “buyer’s remorse” but still, will think he will like it....maybe.

2.      My friend’s best friend from high school is dying of a brain tumor that is “taking a buzz saw to his nervous system.”  He probably will die before the end of the year – if not soon after.

3.      Saturday I have to deliver my 22 year-old Twinkie to the buyer who bought it for $74.  Of course I had dreams of thousands.  The Kickstarter campaign is lagging but I need to kick it into gear soon after the Holiday.

4.      Work has been looooooong as all week I’ve been fielding calls in regards to a class action suit, including a call where the man yelled at me because his “daughter died a few years ago and now his wife is upset and he’s upset and he doesn’t want any more letters sent to him!”  That’s fine, I didn’t send it to him.  Still, I couldn’t help but feel a teensy bit bad he got the letter in the first place.

5.      Then, of course, there’s the pall of the killing of 26 people (20 of them children) in Connecticut that still lingers over everything like a depressing fog.

6.      Lastly there’s the whole “World Will End December 21^st! – ‘Cause the Mayans predicted it!” thing that has also been taking up synapses in the old gray matter.  And all this has been pushing on my “deathday” button.  In other words:  If you knew your deathday, what would you do?

I don’t mean to be morbid, especially 5 days out from Christmas Day – but too many things  have happened (or are happening, or are rumored to be happening) that is causing me to think of my own mortality.  The problem with mortality, is that when it rears its ugly, ugly face the only thing it truly does is force you to turn around and look in a mirror.

What do you see in a mirror?  You see yourself – warts and all.  And no one sees you like YOU see you.  What do you also see?  You see what’s behind you.  And that’s that ol’ mortality trick.  When the reality of sin, evil and death (Connecticut) or simply the reality of life and death (my friend’s friend) sift to the surface it causes one to pause.  Or SHOULD cause one to pause and take stock of where you’ve been (all that stuff behind you in the mirror) and where you’re going.  But when you look in the mirror you don’t see where you’re going.  You see you.  And what are YOU doing about YOU?

So as the headache comes and goes, I wonder:  “Is it a brain tumor?”  “Am I dehydrated?”  “Am I tired of fielding calls that at any moment some guy is going to yell at me?”  “Did I get all the presents wrapped?”  “Will Nick like his gift?”  What kind of questions are these when I’m looking at myself?  Back up the horse-cart, Billy, and think about the future.  The REAL future.  YOUR future.  As if your deathday was tomorrow.  What would you do?

I would love or attempt to love.  Because nothing is more important than that.

Common Courtesy

Thank you!  Good morning.  How are you today?  Excuse me.  Please.

Is that so hard?  Really?

I can’t remember her name.  People like these I sort of block out of my mind.  What is the point, really?  She was an attorney I worked with at Miller Nash and she bugged the hell out of me. Why you ask?  What was it that she did (or didn’t do) that got my panties in a wad?  She was rude.  RUDE I tells ya!

It was in High School when I first realized that the words:  “How you doing!?” are not a question.  I know what you’re saying:  “Well, gosh-o-golly, Matt, it sure LOOKS like a question!  It has all the elements of a question.”  Well, for some, it’s not a question, it’s a greeting and as the janitor in my High School asked me this fleeting greetquest I stopped to respond and he didn’t stop to listen.  It was at that point I was clear that “How you doing?!”  and any of the sisters of it  (“How are you doing?”  “How’s it going?”  “What’s up?”  “How’s it hangin’!?”) are not questions, too.  They’re a greeting.  For some.  For me they’re still questions because I REALLY want to know how you are doing and how things are going and what’s up and how it’s hanging and I’ll REALLY stop and look you in the eye and wait for a response.  Call me crazy.

But morning after morning I would wander by this attorney and I would say:  “Good morning.”  And she would not respond back.  Not a “hi” not a “good morning” not a “how’s it going?”  NOTHING.  She’d give me a look like I was not worthy of her attention and keep on moving.

After this moment would pass I would enter my office (more a closet really) and I’d be pissed.  My co-worker would look at me and say:  “Did so-and-so ignore you again?”  And I would say “Yes!”

Again the question begs – is it SO HARD to say “Good morning” back?  This isn’t a “let’s talk about the cute crap my kid did this weekend while I pin you to the wall for twenty minutes” it’s just a greeting.  A simple, no nonsense, greeting.

Most recently the same thing has happened.  I will approach someone on a nearly daily basis and say clearly and cleanly:  GOOD MORNING!  And my co-worker will stare straight ahead and continue typing like I don’t exist.  There’s no way to mince the words, there’s no two ways about it:  IT’S RUDE.  It’s as rude as vomiting during a wedding ceremony or loudly farting in a crowded elevator and not saying “excuse me.”

But what galls me is that this same person would be the first to run screaming if I dare did the same thing to them.  When they come and talk to me it’s usually in a confrontational way and they expect, hell, DEMAND that I give them my full and undivided attention.  Just once I would love to have the courage to just sit and type at my computer while they yammer on and on about whatever issue they’ve got and then, after an interminable amount of time finally turn to them and say:  “oh, I’m sorry, were you talking to me?  I didn’t see you there because I completely ignored you like you do to me on a daily basis.”  But I don’t do that because I know that they have worth and deserve my attention (and I don’t want to get fired).

Weird ending to the Miller Nash story was after weeks and months of this attorney ignoring my very existence, when I sent an e-mail out to all staff telling them that I was leaving to go to Heller Ehrman she was the FIRST person to come running into my office and exclaim:  “Oh my God, Matt, how are we going to survive without you?!  You’re so great!”  I guess I really did exist.