barcode life

A person's life could be visualized as one long, long barcode. And no two are exactly alike, see, just like the purported snowflake (although I think we have all concluded that that's a bunch of hogwash). Anyway, the thin lines of the barcode represent normal events, and the thicker lines represent defining moments that further make us who we are. So, unbeknownst to us, a thicker line somewhere would suddenly have bearing on which of the following lines were thick and which were thin. Follow me? Because if you had a defining moment in which you understood something like, "Eating grass really sucks" and then another day, "World poverty exists," then a thick line on your barcode might be the moment you put those together and realized that some people have to eat the equivalent of grass to survive.

Now then, there's probably one real and true barcode version of a person's life, although it's not possible in a scientific sort of way to know what it looks like. But if I were to draw my own perceived barcode and make thick lines at the moments I think were defining, and then lay it over the real and true barcode (if they were both on transparency film), I wonder how they'd line up.

This is the thought I fell asleep to last night and wished to heaven I wouldn't forget by morning. As you can see, it's a good thing I didn't, because we may be on to something here.

Dreaded Dave

David, my youngest brother, is leaving for college in two days. This is utterly depressing for Jason and me. Living in the same house with him for this past two months has been so great, a hearkening back to childhood but replace the little kid who threw a bouncy ball at the wall for hours with a hilarious, perceptive, handsome young man who cuts me breaks in Halo. Fortunately, the stories that will inevitably make their way to us from school are our redemption. He's off to a good start so far - a newly dreaded kid showing up at a rather conservative school with the plan to live in his pickup and topper, in protest to the fact that they make you buy an expensive meal plan (for questionable food) if you live in the dorms.

shots from our garage sale in the smoke and bees

brown sweatshirt

So there are roughly 5 billion things I've been wanting to blog about, but somehow I've had blogger's block whenever I sit down at the computer. Maybe I'm still feeling self-conscious about it, or I want to attach pictures and they're still on the camera, or maybe I don't know which things are blog-worthy (??). It's tough being a new blogger, let me tell you. But I decided that I feel so nice about this day that I had better tell it, despite.

It has been sunny, hot, and dry all summer here in the Flathead Valley, and recently it has been all of that plus smokey. The last rain storm was several weeks ago. We want rain. The forests need rain. The survival of neighborhoods depends on rain. Well, no rain yet, but it's cloudy today. Cloudy as opposed to smokey. Delicious, thick clouds in varying shades of white and light blue. Which make it cooler. And which make it necessary for me to get out and wear for the first time....my brown sweatshirt from the Salty Dawn Saloon in Homer that I have been longing for. Neil brought it back from his recent trip to Alaska, just the size and color I asked for.

And those things, my friends, make for a nice day.