A blast from the past...

A FRIENDLY DRIVE

I was driving down the road the other day, when I flipped out. It wasn't a new song on the radio. It was the curb that caused it. Before I knew it I was doing summersaults.

My car landed right side up and I staggered out. I, literally, spit glass out of my mouth as I gazed disbelievingly at my car. People stopped and were asking me questions, but I just alternated nodding and shaking my head without listening to them.

My car ... me?

Not a bruise. Not a cut. The glass didn't even cut the inside of my mouth. Not one thing was wrong with me… No, I wasn't wearing my seat belt.

As my brain finally started excepting messages my eyes were sending it, I noticed my windshield lying a few feet from the car, shattered, but nearly whole. My newly bought side mirrors were, naturally, broken off. There was mud allover my car as luckily I had rolled on grass instead of pavement. The passenger side of the roof was smashed in a bit, my door was bent in, and the right rear fender was smashed.

Someone said I must have been listening to the radio to hit a rock and roll.

Somehow I got the idea of trying to start my car. Since no damage was done to the hood or anything under it, I got the car started without any trouble.

I ended up driving the car home, with no windshield in below freezing temperatures. I shook all the way home, partially from the cold and partially from shock.

One the way home I thought of something that Winston Churchill once said, one of my favorite quotes—

 "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."

I made it home without getting pulled over, even though it's illegal to drive without a windshield.

I can still remember (in flashes) that sensation of turning upside down and rolling. Things flashed by so fast. I saw parts of my life in quick, unrelated glimpses. Then, in mid roll, I thought to myself, "This is a dream."

Microseconds later I realized it wasn't a dream, that my car was rolling over and I was in it, and that I would be late for work. I wondered why it rolled. Was I rolling up a hill? Through lanes of traffic? Was I dying? Had I ever lived? Was my car paid off? Did I have clean underwear?

A feeling soon to be forgot, but a time long remembered. If the feelings that one has during an uncontrollable moment in one's life could be totally recalled, I doubt if many mistakes would be repeated. But the only thing that is truly remembered are the after affects, and they never seem to be quite as bad.

Yes, how easily feelings are forgot.

Trying times can test us and show what we're made of. I'm not sure what I'm made of, but I know that I don't like tests.

It sounds unusual, but I think Cicero made a lot of sense when he said,

 "There is something pleasurable in calm remembrance of a past sorrow."

Maybe it's just the fact that the adversity has been survived, and it makes present adversities seem conquerable. Something Friedrich Nietzsche said helps shed light into Cicero's statement:

       "What does not destroy me makes me strong."

You are stronger from living through past sorrows. Also past troubles seen through memory's eye always are less sharp and out of focus then is the pain of present problems.

Remember the lesson of the day — Brakes, steering and even good friends can fail. To remain strong without becoming bitter is the trick. Friends don't care about your failures, and they care only to beat your successes. The best one can ask of a friend is to tell the truth when you need it, also to lie when you need it, and to listen nearly as often as they talk. Many times I find myself praying like Marshall de Villars.         — "God save me from my friends

                  I can protect myself from my enemies."

I expect distress from my enemies but when it comes by way of friends it is unbearable. I guess I just have to learn something that Agnes Macphail put well by saying,

“Do not rely completely on any other human being, however dear. We meet all life's greatest tests alone."

I guess when you have news that makes your life miserable the best thing a friend can do, from his point of view, is to exclude you from his life so you don't make him share in your misery.

"Heaven for climate, hell for company." — James M. Barrie.

Half my friends are in heaven, and the rest just have their heads in the clouds.

Dearly befriended,

èim  Uhr

P.S. It's funny the way

       one thinks of friends

                          in times of sorrow. I

                          can usually think of

                          them, but I can't talk

                          to them. 

Drive me away                                       RIP or RID(rest in drive)

                            We all crash alone

Windows to the Soul

Windows of the Soul

Windows of the Soul

Windows. I have always loved windows. Standing in one atmosphere, gazing out at another environment that may be totally different. Removed, unconnected. Like looking out at a blizzard from a cozy warm home, the totally white frozen obliteration contrasting to the warmth and varied colors within. A thin, clear membrane separating you from frostbite. A thin clear line between Nevada and Alaska. It’s like looking at an historic painting that you feel so distant from – like instead of gazing at another time, you are looking into another dimension.

Sometimes when I’m depressed I can gaze out a window and imagine another life. It’s always nice to put glass between your pane [sic].

Just as children growing up strive to separate themselves from grownups, so we in general as humans are prone to feel the need to separate ourselves from history. Denying past errors. Maybe that’s why windows dominate today’s society, since we like separation, with windows we can at least be conscious of the division and pretend to care. (Kind of like seeing starving third world children on television and feeling compelled to send off a dollar or two to alleviate our guilt, pretending that we're not separated from their blight.) We air condition against the warmth outside, just as we heat when it is cold outside. Man – always trying to be separate from, trying to change reality. Never satisfied with the way things are.

For it is the change that always stands out. The difference is what’s important. If almost all birds were either blue or red, I’m sure that it would be the brown one’s that we considered beautiful.

We climb mountains with great delight in being able to look down into valleys. We live in the valley in order to have a view of the majestic mountains.

And it is with the help of windows that make all this so obvious. Windows let us see our separation, make us aware of the modifications we have made. Windows are constant reminders of man’s attempt to turn reality up-side-down.

Windows are barriers that at least let light get through so that we can fool ourselves into thinking there is no separation. Thus we can say, “I live in Moscow” or “I live in Cleveland” or “I live in Chambly,” instead of “I live in a 70 degree heated/air-conditioned bubble – just like you and most everybody else.”

We play with reality until reality loses it’s meaning. Is reality the inside of the cage or the world outside? It depends on which side one has his perspective from. Whether they are bars of steel or piled up bars of gold, poor are affected as well as the wealthy - as your personal prison can be from theft as well as riches. Money can separate us as it stacks up around us forming an inpenitratible barrier that no one can reach through. Seclusion can be our own private jail. The rich as well as the poor can experience alienation from society. Lock me away, or shun me. Observe me only through windows. Keep your distance! Not like a lion in a cage, but more that of a fish in an aquarium. You could never truly know my world. My glass separates universes, dimensions. My glass is a bubble that surrounds me as I float in and out of your reality.

It is sometimes said that separation is an illusion – but in reality anything and everything but separation is the illusion. Each object, each person, is made up of individual cells. Each cell in your body has as much connection to each other as do the planets in a solar system.

Space. Space is the truth. There is space between everything. The only connection between us is space. The Universe is essentionally empty. It is a vacuum by any standard. Even a pane of glass is not really solid. A neutrino passing through a window has a very small chance of colliding with any molecule in the glass – most assuredly it will pass right through without any effect. It would be almost impossible for it to strike anything.

Although you can see a completely different world outside your window, you have little chance of having any effect on it. Of all the animals on Earth it’s the human beings who are known as the creators on the planet, always building things, but in actuality our creations are small and usually temporary – just waiting for entropy to overtake them. As the debate rages on whether we are destroying the planet I think that we are locked in a perspective that is far from reality. I’m not sure we are as of yet able to destroy the Earth, we are only able to change it – possibly destroying the atmosphere and any possible living conditions. But the Earth, in one form or another, will survive. So the only thing we would probably be destroying is ourselves, along with a few billion animals. I think that long after we’re gone the Earth will repair itself. Maybe then the next incarnation of life will get it right.

Maybe we’re just like microbes in a Petri dish. The experiment of life on this planet may have passed its half-life. Maybe the scientist running this experiment has as much feelings for us as we do for mold spores. Possibly we are just a little experiment in filling up some space. We take up about as much space in the Universe as we do time in it’s history. We would not even register as a blip on the radar screen. We are dandruff on the head of the Universe, exaggerating our self worth. Is it man’s deterrent or his blessing to be so self-centered? Man’s ego is what has caused him to expand beyond any reasonable measure. In this microcosm, man is king. Man’s inflated self-importance is what makes him rise above the other microbes in the Petri dish.

The ultimate question is whether he can rise up enough through his own compost to really communicate with the scientist running this experiment and possible save himself with something more than complaints or simple pleas of help.

                                                                                    éim Uhr

P.S.   It is said that a millennium is just a moment to the Universe. Do you want to give me a moment to see if I can unstick this widow?

The eyes have it. [sic]

which window video is the best??? - let me know!

Window1                                   Window2

Window3

W I N D O W S

Jerks are only human

Jerks Are Only Human

"The trouble ain't that people are ignorant: it's just that they know so much that ain't so." – Josh Billings.

I'm sure that everyone has had an encounter with a jerk. Just to clarify things, a jerk is someone who is dumber than you. If you don't know very many jerks that means that many people consider you to be a jerk. To be a jerk is not necessarily bad, everyone is someone else's jerk. A jerk is neither good nor bad. A jerk just is.

Did you ever take the time to get to know a jerk? I mean, did you realize that they're people too. Dumbness is not necessarily a qualification for one fitting the jerkism category. I have known some very intelligent jerks in my day.

It is common to have, at one time or another, said or thought, "Hey, that persons a jerk!" But have you ever thought about whether or not that person can help it? Maybe he was born that way. No one knows for sure if jerkism is hereditary or not. Is it in their genes? Should a person be ridiculed and condemned for something that they have no control over?

Is it fair? Doesn't anyone care? Do people have to stare? Do they always get into innocent beings hair? Do they really foul the air? Do they come only as a pair? A jerk! – where?

In honor of those afraid to stand up and admit to jerkism I officially declare that for one week a year, from this day forward, all will celebrate a National Jerk Week. Parades and festivities will be forthcoming.

There are many ways to celebrate this grand occasion, and I'm sure that many more will surface once word hits Wall Street and People Magazine.

So take a jerk to dinner without laughing as food drips down his chin. Smile at a jerk (Don't Laugh!) when she does something dumb. When a mechanic works on your car, who you find later to be a jerk because your car runs worse than when you brought it to him, don't say anything about the problems, just pay with a smile. When you listen to a jerk weatherman and have a picnic on a "beautiful day", just keep quiet and eat the soggy, rain soaked, sandwiches. Please remember, at least for this one week, if a jerk smiles – try to refrain from knocking out all his teeth.

If a jerk is crying for no reason – don't give him one.

If a jerk is dying of laughter – don't tell your favorite joke to him, he probably wouldn't understand it anyway.

If you see a jerk pounding on the chest of your mother, who is suffering, not from a heart attack, but from sunburn – calmly point out what he is doing wrong.

If a jerk puts out his cigarette on your waterbed-- don't suffocate him with your pillow.

If a jerk criticizes your writing – don't stab him with your pen.

If a jerk is driving his car in the wrong direction on an exit ramp on interstate 999 – please don't honk at him, it will only add to his problems.

Even though a jerk is calling your mother names as he hangs from a 2,000 foot ledge – help him.

If a jerk is taking you to lunch this week – offer to pay half the bill.

But how does one spot a jerk if he wishes to take one to lunch as part of one’s civic duty?

 You can usually tell that it's a jerk when …

He stops you, just short of electrocuting yourself as you reach for a light switch, because he remembers that he screwed the bulb in backwards.

When he tells you not to worry as you see your car start to roll, because he cut the wheel toward a brick wall so it wouldn't roll out into the street.

When he heaves rocks through your window to see if you are up before he knocks on your door because he doesn't want to make you mad by waking you.

When he won't answer his ringing phone knowing that it doesn't work, because every time he dials his own number it's busy.

He is the biggest fan of a team that is a rival of your favorite team,

When you ask him for the keys to your car and he tells you not to worry because they are locked safely in the car.

When he takes an umbrella into the swimming pool because of the 100% chance of rain today.

When you realize he was going to take you to dinner this week…

How can you tell if you are a jerk – so you can know to skip food shopping this week?

When you are constantly lending your car to jerks.

When people are calling you weeks in advance to reserve a dinner date with you this week.

When you step into the shower before adjusting the temperature.

When you can't tell the time because the little  “ : ”  burned out on your digital watch.

You throw out your pens when the wax runs out.

You can't tell the eminent from the facetious.

You are in charge of blindfolding the condemned man in front of a firing squad, and when the handkerchief rips you curse by saying, "Shoot!"

You find a ten-dollar bill in front of an apartment complex and spend the rest of the day looking at all the mailboxes for the name Hamilton.

You wear a windbreaker because you’re feeling gaseous.

You have a solar lighting system installed inside your house.

You read in the dark because bright lights give you eyestrain.

You want to wear glasses because they make you look intelligent.

You try to fall asleep, but your vivid dreams keep waking you.

You want to wear contacts because you want to change your eye color.

You have at select times proved that it is possible to trip up stairs.

You read articles by people who write about dumb things…

                                                              Leaving you Dumbfounded,

                                                            èim  Uhr

                   P.s.      To all my readers —                 

   Eat a light breakfast all week. 

Some Smart People(my readers???)

Dating Stupidity (caution - watch at own risk!)

*

My latest book

People have been asking me what the latest Novel I've been working on is about.

First of all it's called "To The Sea."

Second of all it's just about done!

So here's a little bit about it...

T o    T h e    S e a

To the Sea is a story of a man and the effect that the sea has on him. But more than the effects that the sea can have, it points out the impact of friendship, kindness and love that influence everyone. It is a gentle but powerful story where feelings and emotions are laid bare. The interplay of tragedies and the various types of coping mechanisms employed are the backbone to all that is going on. The settings are also vital to the various moods and characters, as it moves from a deserted beach, to a crowded California beach and conversely to a Lisu Tribe in the remote mountains of Northern Thailand.

To the Sea is a serious work of fiction – how-ever that does not stop it from being playful, with it’s mistaken identities, language barrier confusions, and the good-natured banter between good friends, it has many light moments.

To the Sea leads you to a plausible conclusion that is never predictable or forced. It is a dynamic modern story with emotions that are timeless and a pace that is contemplative but always energetic.

Let me know if you want to read a little here...

Or if you would prefer me to continue with my inane rambling...

                Video Rant

A Light Beyond

A    L I G H T   B E Y O N D

Endings always come to fast. Indeed, I've heard it said before, but up until now I have never believed it. Throughout my life I have experienced that in most of my relationships, endings don't come fast enough to suit me. I have always pushed to reach conclusions, in movies, especially books, and even in relationships. But as I sit where I have sat for the past twelve hours, only the direction I'm facing having changed, alone, through a long night, I think about endings corning too fast. Endings always come at last, maybe that's why they seem to come too fast. If they are to truly come at last, then once you have an ending it has to be the end, there is nothing more. It seems the reason I have never before feared endings, is because I always assumed there would be more. After a movie ends, just take a stroll down to the next theatre and see Rambo #12. After turning the last page of a book, picking up another and starting on page one. After saying good-bye to a temporary friend, although they never seem to catch on to this fact until it's too late and they wind up hurt, saying hello to a new one.

But what if this is the last movie to be made? What if after this book I find that there are no others? What if the last girl I have said good-bye to, is also the last one I will ever say hello to. The word "end" never meant the same thing to me as it did to other people. This is a realistic approach, but is it the better? Have I been living my life to the fullest? I may be taking too many things for granted. Is it truly living if you don't die with every flower as the cool winter wind cuts through your petals?

I have been living like I know that I'll always be living. But all things must pass. Once I did believe that endings would come and go, flowers will die and grow, precipitation turns from rain to snow. But now as I sit here in this field alone, I'm not so sure I know. What page are the answers on? Although I finish the book, will I ever be given a change to go back and reread? Those pages I skipped over may be important…

I watched the sun set, hours ago. But time is nothing but what my memory makes it out to be. Did this memory ever really exist, or is it something that my brain manufactures just to make sense of the present? Do the people around me really exist, or do they just represent pages in my book, with no lives of their own, just waiting for me to read? Once I leave my friends, do they really do the things they say they do? Or does my mind just make them say that to fulfill the need I have to make them appear that they are real? Do other people really form opinions about me, or do I just think they do, pretending that they have any thoughts? Is this just a fail-safe system my mind has worked out to keep me sane? Am I alone?

It can be pretty hard to check your sanity when you're not sure if you're already insane. Is it the rest of the world that's crazy? Every person must feel that they are the only ones who is truly sane in this world, and those that don't feel this way are the ones locked up in the asylums.

As I sit here, waiting, in the grass, legs crossed, I wonder if we each don't, in our minds, build four convenient walls around ourselves. Forever safe, in our individual, custom-made, asylums.

The sky is much lighter than it was just an hour ago. The stars, already starting to fade, are completely blocked by a cloud that drifts overhead. It's a fluffy, average-size summer cumulus cloud, and for a moment I wish that I too were floating, unaware of time, with it.

But things are not always what they seem. The looks of this cloud are deceiving as I know that it weighs at least 550 tons.

So here I sit, expecting nothing except what I expected from the start.

I catch a last glimpse of the moon hanging in the sky, as it in many ways represents the opposite of the sun. The moon, slow and cold, while the sun is fast and hot.

Endings always come too fast. The sun, at first peeks over the horizon, then bursts into the now bright sky. Though its warmth seems immediate, it is not enough to dry a tear from my cheek.

Endings always come at last.

Though a new day is beginning, what can be said of tomorrow?

There's a fine line between the darkness and the dawn…

                                                             Lastingly True,

      èim  Uhr

P.S. Time doesn't pass too fast. It’s all relative. For along

        the Earth's equator, dawn arrives at 1,000 m.p.h.

        But along the moons equator, it comes at only

        10 M.P.H. — slow enough for a man on

        bicycle to keep up with it.

Sane?                    More craziness 

                          Many good Crazy songs!

Extremists and Other Extremities

Extremists and Other Extremities

                                                                                                     By Tim Uhr

            Follow your body… lose your mind. To lift weights -- or to read a book, my choice was as easy as the choice between a dumbbell and a scholar. My choices were clear, but my answers were opaque. As I wrestled the choice over in my mind, I grew weary and fell asleep.

Was my body seeking sleep as a form of rest, or was my mind searching to find new universes in the realms of sleep?

While I slept I dreamt of chocolate covered army ants. They were still alive. Helplessly struggling in waves of chocolate. They were almost cute, with their little blindfolds. You had to shoot them before eating. I didn’t have the heart, or a small enough riffle…

So much to do, and so much time. I only lack the energy to succeed at everything.

From networking to needlecraft, each stated phrase speaks to the coming phase that leads to a craze, which can only bring me more grays.

Which train do I board?

Any nice tunnels ahead?

With so many openly going on the wagon, while multitudes of others coming out of the closet, and still more standing for this, or sitting for that, it all makes me kind of dizzy. And with my head spinning will I miss my turn?

Right of Left? Sure we should all vote, but when I finally make my mind up—the light turns red. Leaving me faced, with red. And I’m not bluffing, just blushing.

But I try to fit in. I bought an exercise bike, a self hypnosis tape, a computer, went to karate class, bought a crystal, a fax machine, a gun, a pair of one hundred and fifty dollar tennis shoes, a cell phone, a case of Dove bars, three jazz records, a flower, and meditated in my spare time. That was last week.

Needless to sat I never actually got around to meditating, and my list wasn’t quite as long as I wanted because my sixteen charge cards were all over the limit.

I soon found out that you can’t have it all. I was getting close but I was robbed and left with nothing but the bills. When they say “You can’t take it with you” I hope there talking about the debts.

Life is full of little choices: You can exercise the biceps or the brain cells. There is no middle ground. One side detracts from the other. It’s like a balance scale where one side is physical and the other is mental. On this roller coaster we call life – hills abound and the scale is never balanced.

Physical fitness seems to be winning the war—every where you go there are muscle men and women. On the beach the muscles have become more important than the tans. I call it the “parade of chests.”

But is this fitness thing just a fad? Will it go the way of hula-hoops, pet rocks, and mood rings? One can never tell. Who would have ever thought that rock n’ roll would still be around after more than a quarter of a century? The Who indeed.

Staying in shape is an important goal, but anything taken to extremes scares me. Just as Hitler went to extremes in trying to rebuild Germany (rebuild it into the whole world????), as did Diane Witt of Worcester, Mass., by letting her hair grow for eighteen years. Her hair was measured at ten feet, nine inches in 1989.

I guess I never did believe in being an extremist. I have never allowed myself to get wrapped up in anything. I like to spread my interests around, this keeps me from succeeding at anything and thus I don’t have to focus my attention on any one area for too long, keeping me from ever growing bored. People well-rounded are like balls that bounce from one thing to another, never coming to rest in any one place long enough to be at the top.

Specialization is the modern way. If one puts their concentration in any one area, chances are they will become very good at it. It can be very gratifying to be able to say that at least you were good at one thing.

It used to be called “having a one-track mind,” but that was before it became “in.” Perhaps that’s why there are very few athletes who play more than one sport. It goes against the grain of specialization. Sometimes it amazes me that so many people are baffled when someone tries their hand at two different sports. You think that there aren’t a lot of baseball players that can’t play football, and visa-versa? But I like it. I think it’s healthy. I wish we could bring back a little of that “jack-of-all-trades” philosophy. There are exceptions. But most likely it will never become common. Try finding a handy man these days.

Nothing is permanent. Nothing lasts forever. Muscles turn to fat, which eventually turns to dust. Even taxes, which grow, eventually get so large they explode into the controlling government’s face. This isn’t what the government.

Health and fitness is slowly replacing the couch potato mentality. Don’t believe for a minute though that TV will suffer, because soon it will be that instead of eating potato chips and drinking beer in front of the tube, it will be lifting weights and exercising while watching your favorite TV show. TV is the base of all modern human life.

I once succumbed to the fitness frenzy. I bought weights. They were heavy. Hard to lift. Lifting them made me tired.

After lifting the dumbbells a few times, I actually felt weaker! So I immediately ran to a mirror and I swear I could see no difference in me. I didn’t think I looked at all like one of those body builders I see on the beach. When I’m with a girl and I come across a muscle man I always try to point out that I’m probably smarter than they are. Maybe.

So, if after lifting a weight, I don’t see any improvement in my physical stature, what is the sense?

After a week of depression from my failed foray into musclebound mania I came up with a solution. A plan. A blueprint of success. Thinking power to solve the mystery of the physical:

Instead of lifting these artificial weights, I decided the smart thing was to go natural. I found the environmentally sound solution. It starts with drinking beer and eating potato chips and ice cream. With this strict regiment I figure I could gain an extra twenty pounds around my mid-section within a month. Then, by lugging this extra twenty pounds around all day, instead of just a few minutes with those artificial weights I would get fitter more quickly. Naturally. (Isn’t he the shortstop?)

Life is what you make it. Adversity is how you take it. And to get to the top you sometimes have to fake it.

I have a problem with faking anything. The only one I can ever fool is myself. What fun is that? Probably rates right up there with exercising. And with this thought I finally hit upon my ultimate solution—I will fake exercising. Therefore killing two birds with one stoned. And everyone must get stone. Or is that rock?

Remember: A beer in the hand is worth two bushes…  Or is it buds?

No. No. No! “A dead bird in the bush is worth two hands.” Or is it, “A rolling bird gets stuck in the moss, and thus can’t fly.”

Anyway, you get the point. I hope.

I think it’s time to run (I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to run around the block a few times to clear my head) before I start mixing metaphors or something equally as revolting. Because it is important to remember that when you mix a metaphor improperly the cake batter turns out lumpy.

End.

Did I just awaken my spirit?

Can it Dance?

Where am I now

that I am awake?

Let me know which of the above links you like the best...

Friendly Drive

A FRIENDLY DRIVE

I was driving down the road the other day, when I flipped out. It wasn't a new song on the radio. It was the curb that caused it. Before I knew it I was doing summersaults.

My car landed right side up and I staggered out. I, literally, spit glass out of my mouth as I gazed disbelievingly at my car. People stopped and were asking me questions, but I just alternated nodding and shaking my head without listening to them.

My car ... me?

Not a bruise. Not a cut. The glass didn't even cut the inside of my mouth. Not one thing was wrong with me… No, I wasn't wearing my seat belt.

As my brain finally started excepting messages my eyes were sending it, I noticed my windshield lying a few feet from the car, shattered, but nearly whole. My newly bought side mirrors were, naturally, broken off. There was mud allover my car as luckily I had rolled on grass instead of pavement. The passenger side of the roof was smashed in a bit, my door was bent in, and the right rear fender was smashed.

Someone said I must have been listening to the radio to hit a rock and roll.

Somehow I got the idea of trying to start my car. Since no damage was done to the hood or anything under it, I got the car started without any trouble.

I ended up driving the car home, with no windshield in below freezing temperatures. I shook all the way home, partially from the cold and partially from shock.

One the way home I thought of something that Winston Churchill once said, one of my favorite quotes—

 "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."

I made it home without getting pulled over, even though it's illegal to drive without a windshield.

I can still remember (in flashes) that sensation of turning upside down and rolling. Things flashed by so fast. I saw parts of my life in quick, unrelated glimpses. Then, in mid roll, I thought to myself, "This is a dream."

Microseconds later I realized it wasn't a dream, that my car was rolling over and I was in it, and that I would be late for work. I wondered why it rolled. Was I rolling up a hill? Through lanes of traffic? Was I dying? Had I ever lived? Was my car paid off? Did I have clean underwear?

A feeling soon to be forgot, but a time long remembered. If the feelings that one has during an uncontrollable moment in one's life could be totally recalled, I doubt if many mistakes would be repeated. But the only thing that is truly remembered are the after affects, and they never seem to be quite as bad.

Yes, how easily feelings are forgot.

Trying times can test us and show what we're made of. I'm not sure what I'm made of, but I know that I don't like tests.

It sounds unusual, but I think Cicero made a lot of sense when he said,

 "There is something pleasurable in calm remembrance of a past sorrow."

Maybe it's just the fact that the adversity has been survived, and it makes present adversities seem conquerable. Something Friedrich Nietzsche said helps shed light into Cicero's statement:

       "What does not destroy me makes me strong."

You are stronger from living through past sorrows. Also past troubles seen through memory's eye always are less sharp and out of focus then is the pain of present problems.

Remember the lesson of the day — Brakes, steering and even good friends can fail. To remain strong without becoming bitter is the trick. Friends don't care about your failures, and they care only to beat your successes. The best one can ask of a friend is to tell the truth when you need it, also to lie when you need it, and to listen nearly as often as they talk. Many times I find myself praying like Marshall de Villars.         — "God save me from my friends

                  I can protect myself from my enemies."

I expect distress from my enemies but when it comes by way of friends it is unbearable. I guess I just have to learn something that Agnes Macphail put well by saying,

“Do not rely completely on any other human being, however dear. We meet all life's greatest tests alone."

I guess when you have news that makes your life miserable the best thing a friend can do, from his point of view, is to exclude you from his life so you don't make him share in your misery.

"Heaven for climate, hell for company." — James M. Barrie.

Half my friends are in heaven, and the rest just have their heads in the clouds.

Dearly befriended,

èim  Uhr

P.S. It's funny the way

       one thinks of friends

                          in times of sorrow. I

                          can usually think of

                          them, but I can't talk

                          to them.

Dummy

Helpless