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We were reaching the end of a blissfully blog-free three-day vacation in San Diego (and I was, for once, grateful for my impressive lack of readership,) when I got the e-mail from blogger.com, notifying me of the most recent comment, a response to my earlier request for topics.
York,
Topic: Inspiration
Ready?
Go!
Zach
Of course it was Zach, the guy, after all, who told me he wanted to see more writing, less audio journals (“I really like them, too, but…”), and thus inspired The York Inverse Essay Contest. Just hours before the sunset of the entry deadline, and my prospects for an unbroken record streak of non-blogging, and Zach shows up. Well, here you go, Zachie-boy. I hope you like it.
Inspiration. To address it, I must first define it. In our Western can-do let’s-go make-it-happen world, to be inspired is to be motivated to do something, to create something, to take action of some kind. When I think of inspiration, however, I harken back to earlier times, when to be inspired was to be exalted, to be moved for passion’s sake, and not merely for practical purposes.
I was inspired today (in fact, on innumerable occasions – trust me, my mind is a Dantean hell – but here follows one example.)
Julie My Love and I were at Costco. Jeremy, my stalker, can testify to this fact (should he ever humble me with a comment,) as he, being my stalker, quite naturally was also there, and “just ran into” us.
We were there to buy me a pack of underwear. That’s not even a joke; it’s true. We went to a big box retailer, where everyone in the checkout line is spending $4000 on next year’s groceries, to buy me one pack of underwear.
We walked in the door, grabbed a bag of 6 Kirkland-brand tighty whiteys, and got ourselves into the shortest line within two minutes (here’s a tip: if you ever want to go into Costco and you don’t have a Costco card, just tell the card-checkers at the door that you’re going to the pharmacy! Pretty cool, huh? But, once in, you can’t actually buy anything unless you have that card.)
Now, the shortest line only had one guy getting checked through, and one guy waiting behind him. But between us and the register was about a quarter of an Albertson’s-worth of groceries waiting to be rung up.
The man standing in front of us turns around, looks at me, looks at my skivvies, and says, “Is that all you’ve got?”
PAUSE.
“Yeah, this is it.”
He then graciously waved us in front of him. Now that pause there was me thinking vigorously for something smart-alecky to say to his question, as I explained presently to Julie.
“But why did you want to say something smart-alecky?”
“That’s what I do. I’m a smart aleck.”
“I thought you were a wit.”
“No. My friends think I’m a wit. People who don’t like me think that I’m a smart aleck.”
“No, they just think you’re an asshole.”
Conversation inspires me. Exchanges like this excite me, like an electron, to a higher plane. This is inspiration.
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