Talk Thursday (on Sunday): I Mind /I Don't Mind

Yet another week with two Talk Thursday posts. I'm telling you, this'll lead to the end of the world before the collective Mayan subculture can yell "December 21, 2012". But do I mind? No, I don't mind. Two chances to shoot my mouth off about nothing in particular is better than none. Besides, I'm not sure there really is a collective Mayan subculture, or if that's just a myth that periodically circulates in the colonias of San Sebastian. Remind me to ask somebody next time I'm down there.

Anyway: I mind a cat stomping on my stomach at six in the morning on a Sunday and demanding food. I don't, however, mind the same cat doing the same thing on a Monday, because if I'm not up by then I'm running very late indeed and should be thankful as hell to be waked up at all.

I mind cold swimming pool water for the first forty-five seconds after I jump into it. After that, though, I don't mind, because when swimming as hard as I'm known to do on a typical morning, the last thing I want to be in is water that's too darn warm.

I mind doing laundry and hauling wet sheets out of the washing machine into the dryer. I don't mind hauling the same sheets, dry and sweet-smelling, out of the dryer to be folded up and trekked back upstairs to be applied topically to a waiting mattress. Why I find one chore so annoying and the other one so not-annoying, I haven't the foggiest idea.

I mind grocery shopping. In fact, I mind it with a passion. When Joan had her hysterectomy and couldn't drive for six weeks, we damn near starved to death because I did. Not. Want. To Go. To. The grocery store. Dammit. But I don't mind making a list, checking it twice, and preparing the food once it shows up. Figure that one out. I certainly haven't.

I mind traffic, and I mind being stuck in it. I particularly mind being stuck in traffic for no apparent reason, i.e., we finally start moving and we never pass the scene of an accident. I don't mind getting off the freeway and winding my way down surface streets to get where I'm going. That's the job of an urban explorer, a.k.a me.

I mind running out of scented shower gel before I run out of matching scented lotion. I don't at all mind shopping for more at Bath & Body Works, home of the official nose party.

I mind that in a desperate attempt to keep people from getting high, those in authority think they need to ban new substances every time I turn around, such as bath salts. For God's sake nobody tell them that kids in my high school used to smoke coffee grounds. I don't mind that somebody in my nabe smokes pot in his back yard on a regular basis, though someone in authority might. (I do mind, a little, that the stuff makes me sneeze, even far distant as it is.)

Interesting to note that the parts I mind, as well as the parts I don't mind, are largely a matter of perspective. Move two feet to the right and look at it again and you might not mind at all. The basic existence of something, like a cup of coffee, doesn't change whether you like coffee or hate it. (I happen to love coffee.) To ascribe hateful or likeable aspects to something is a uniquely human characteristic. The cup of coffee probably has no feelings whatever on the subject. It's neutral. It's Switzerland. It just is, and if we could remember that about more things more often, we might have an easier time with life in general.

That enough for one night? Yeah, probably. But because I went to a horror movie and lived to tell the tale, let's close this one out with a Friday Fright (on Sunday): I saw Paranormal Activity 2 at the local dollar theater this afternoon. (By the way, the dollar theater's gone up to $1.25. Inflation. ) If you saw the original, you might wonder how exactly the critter that was haunting the house in San Diego got to the house in San Diego to start haunting it. You might also wonder what happened to the slightly crazed heroine after she disappeared at the end of the movie. Both these questions get answered in PA2 in a really clever way that I won't go into here, tying the two films together in a neat package that pretty much kills any possibility of a PA3. But I've said stuff like that before and been wrong. There are scares aplenty, most of them loud and startle-y, and a couple of them involve a pool cleaner (don't ask). Three stars. Jen says check it out. Joan says, no, don't, things will jump out at you and scare you fuckless. Both of us are essentially right. You have been warned.