I'm like "no way". I love the Billy Collins poem What She Said. It captures the essence of what people my age think of young people using "like" in this sort of phrase "I'm like 'stunned'". We learned to analyze such a statement in a way that leads to deciding that when someone is like stunned, they are close to being stunned, in a condition similar to but, as Collins wrote, not identical with, being stunned, just like it, close to it, approximately stunned. Maybe their condition reminds them of occasions when they were stunned, but with differences between then and their current state.
We are pestered by fruit flies, gnats. These pesky little bugs fly in our faces and annoy us. Some of them are highly attracted to fumes that wine or other drinks give off. When Lynn buys certain sticky pieces of cardboard and inserts one vertically in the soil of a potted plant these flies love, they are attracted, land on the stuff, and are stuck fast. We are indifferent to the loss of their lives and enjoy the more bug-free atmosphere.
This morning, she asked me to take over the task of keeping fresh stickies in the plants. I was like stunned. I was like no way! I mean she is the sticky panel lady. Do I look like a sticky panel lady? No, I don't. I leave that important and delicate maintenance up to her, experienced, competent her. I don't always find flexibility in myself. I don't find a willingness to assume new responsibilities. I don't find myself open to change.
Finding I am this way, at least partly, at least sometimes, is a surprise. I like to think of myself as flexible, open to new ways of doing things but then I like to think of myself as superior, wonderful, clever, patient and insightful, too. I seem capable of giving myself credit for these qualities whether I have them or use them or not.
I respect the power of change and the continuous need for it but I also respect the value of keeping things as they are, being reliable and dependable and all.
New duties to snare fruit flies or write more poems or cook better meals might be added to my list, but I am like resistant much of the time.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
