Tuesday, May 20, 2008

I’m Writing As Fast As I Can

I wake up every morning and rush to my computer to start writing. I don’t even stop for coffee or to make a pit stop until I get my first thoughts of the day down. I am writing as fast as I can because I don’t want to forget or lose any of the thoughts I have stuffed into my head; my dreams, my hopes for the future, my imagination run wild.

It is a compulsion I admit, but then where would we be if we weren’t driven by one thought or goal or another? Where would we be if we tempered down our emotions to the point that we were acting more like robots than humans? Where would we be if we substituted mundane function for thought provoking instinct and action? Where would we be if we let our inhibitions keep us from being the creative and vibrant human beings that we are capable of being?

I can’t imagine the day when I don’t avail myself of the opportunity to create something new at my computer keyboard. I have all these things to say; that’s why I am writing as fast as I can.

What about you? Are you taking advantage of one form of communication or another to express yourself? Are you doing all you can to add to the general good by expressing yourself? Are you allowing yourself to be creative?

You don’t have to be a writer to express yourself or your feelings. You can do it at work, or with a gesture to a loved one, or by humming a favorite tune. You can do it with a smile, or a comforting word to someone in need of your friendship and good thoughts. You can even do it just by the feelings of good will that you share with others.

I think we all need to find a way to express ourselves, and to let our imaginations run wild. We can’t keep our emotions in a box. We have to let other people know how we really feel.

That’s why I’m urging you to express yourself. Go ahead and let your true feeling out. The time is now for you to take action. You could begin to feel wonderful.

There, don’t you feel better? I know that I do.



Hi, this is Arthur Levine, to find out how I express myself in my writings, please go to: http://johnnyoops.blogspot.com.

Friday, May 9, 2008

I JUST CAME FROM THE POST OFFICE

I have been trying to calm down, but I don’t seem to be succeeding. Is the Post Office a government agency, a quasi government agency, or an anti government agency?

I go to the Post Office in New York City. It is a horror. The lines go on and on for the better part of an hour. They have something like 15 teller windows, but usually only a few are manned at a time.

Today was hot so they kept the ceiling fans off and the outdoor fans off I suppose in the hopes that some of the customers couldn’t take the heat and would go home.

After waiting twenty-five minutes the fire alarms started screeching and the manager – we will call him Mr. Blue Stuffed Suit – came running out from his four hour lunch break to tell everyone to run out of the building that this was not a drill. I never saw the postal people move that fast in my life.

Ten minutes later we were let back in. The fire alarms had sensed a melt down because it was so damn hot. Of course it was, the lines were long and the fans weren’t on. Body heat added to climate change and management incompetence had combined to produce a melt down condition. How fitting. How typical of the Postal bureaucracy.

This time I got near the front of the line because most customers gave up and went home, and because some of them were waiting behind a locked side door that never was reopened. Now there were 6 tellers working furiously and all the ceiling fans and the outside fans were working. Of course they were. Mr. Blue Stuffed Suit had been woken up from his nap and was marching up and done in the teller area looking very official.

The finale to my day was when I asked to buy 10 self stick stamps, and the clerk told me the price was going up on Monday to 42 cents from 41 cents – I guess this was a self anointed reward for screwing up how a Post Office should function because there was no notice and no signs. Was the post office – notice I no longer capitalize it - planning to keep this price increase for incompetence a secret so we wouldn’t get mad? I am already mad. Are you mad too? Write to your post office. It probably won’t help, but it might give some postal supervisor a big laugh.

This is just great. I had put 41 cent self addressed stamped envelopes in some letters I just sent out to 2 publishing agents on 2 different novels that I wrote so now I won’t get the rejection letters that usually come back in them. Maybe I am better off.

Maybe I am better off if I stop using the post office altogether. I’ll use Fed Ex and the Internet. They haven’t figured out yet that customer service is dead.

Maybe I’ll complain to my congressmen – notice I no longer capitalize him either. He and a lot of his fellow congressmen and women haven’ figured out yet that we are not voting for them any more.

We want real change, not the kind the special interests have been buying for themselves. We want the kind you can get only through the ballot box. Vote the bums out. I don’t know about you, but I am tired of being sweet-talked and taken advantage of by both political parties.

I want services that work. I want to be treated decently. I want the government to be responsible to the people. I want things to function the way they are supposed to. I want someone to have my best interests at heart.


There, I feel better now that I’ve vented, what about you?