It’s brutal, making the list of Things I Don’t Do, especially for someone like me, who refuses most of the time to acknowledge that there is, in fact, a limit to her personal ability to get things done. But I’ve discovered that the list sets me free. I have it written in black and white, sitting on my desk, and when I’m tempted to go rogue and bake muffins because all the other moms do, I come back to both lists, and I remind myself about the important things: that time is finite, as is energy. And that one day I’ll stand before God and account for what I did with my life. There is work that is only mine to do: a child that is ours to raise, stories that are mine to tell, friends that are mine to walk with. The grandest seduction of all is the myth that DOING EVERYTHING BETTER gets us where we want to be. It gets us somewhere, certainly, but not anywhere worth being.
trying to kick your buddy off the wall of a mineshaft for shits and giggles struck him as just plain dumb. He didn’t rate the actual climb itself much higher on the common sense scale, but the climb was a quarterly requirement. Who knows when they’d have to climb some rocky, vertical surface in order to achieve their goal? Eagle had pointed out, every time the test came up, that he flew their transport, the Snake. He could put them at the top of any cliff or wall they desired with no sweat. Such logic held little sway with Nada and Moms, neither of whom, Eagle noted, were currently with them.
The, uh, snowy mountains are like really cold, eh? And the, um, plains stretch out like my moms girdle, eh? There's lotsa beers and doughnuts for everyone, eh? So the last one to be peaceful and everything is a big idiot, Eh? So shut yer face up and dry yer mucklucks by the fire, eh? And dream about girls with their high beams on, eh? They may be cold, but that's okay! Beer's better that way! Eh? -- A, like, Tribute to the Great White North, eh? Beauty!
Ain't nothin' an old man can do for me but bring me a message from a young man. -- Moms Mabley