A Concerned Fruit Consumer

Dear Maker of Dole Fruit Bowls,

I really like your fruit bowls, especially the Cherry Mixed Fruit ones. I eat one almost every day as a snack in the afternoon. Those cherries really make a difference, too. You guys do a great job of putting just enough cherries in there so that you can get one for each spoonful.

But we need to talk about your packaging. Maybe it's just me, but every time I try to open one of your bowls by pulling back the plastic covering, I inevitably spill some. That's right, your bowls gleak syrup on me every time I want to eat one. And it's not like I am new to this either - I've been eating these things for over a year now. I try hard not to spill, but it's really just impossible. It's almost like you guys are rigging the things on purpose. It's not like I'm going to stop eating your delicious little fruit bowls, but I'd really appreciate it if you guys made an effort to make your bowls a little less prone to spillage. It's really kind of embarrassing for me.

Thanks for looking into this, and keep up the good work!

Juno

Juno was released today on DVD. I try to only get movies I will watch several times, and Juno qualifies because it just felt like one of those timeless movies that is so deep and so light at the same time that you will keep coming back to it over the years to both stir and pacify the soul.

There are literally dozens of great lines from the movie, but this one, from Juno's dad, really struck me tonight:

"In my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person will still think the sun shines out your ass. That's the kind of person that's worth sticking with."

This sounds like a pretty amazing concept, but it seems a bit frightening, too. Almost like hero worship, like you can do no wrong in a person's eyes. I don't think that's what is meant though. Furthermore, love must require some level of effort. You cannot simply take someone's love for granted. But I think in the end, while you may have to work to keep a love afire at times, that certainly shouldn't be the status quo. If you are always working, and never sense what is described in this quote, maybe it's just not worth it. Everybody, I think, needs to feel loved just for who they are.

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Now playing: Matchbox Twenty - Long Day
via FoxyTunes

A dollar!

Today I found a dollar in the back pocket of my jeans. I've actually found that same dollar in my pocket for the past several days. I keep putting it back. I like repeatedly being surprised by it and feeling a dollar richer.

A strange farewell

One of the better managers I have worked with had his last day in our Princeton office today, before transferring to Europe. As I was saying goodbye, I remembered a funny comment he made a couple years ago.

See, I keep a lot of food in one of my cabinets at work. Mostly healthy stuff, like oatmeal, fruit, granola bars, and nuts. One day my cabinet was open when this guy stopped by, and he noticed my rather sizable supply of snacks. He paused for a minute, and then I'll never forget what he said: "Well, I know one thing about you. You are probably always regular." If you are going to do potty humor, that's about as classy as it gets.

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Now playing: Avril Lavigne - Hot
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I need a girl who wants to sing this to me.

Sleeplessness

I never was the type of person to suffer from sleeplessness. No matter what was on my mind, I could always get a good night's sleep. Even after fairly traumatic events in my life, I have always been able to fall asleep after, at most, an hour of restlessness. I always wondered what it was like to have something weighing so heavily on you that, despite physical and mental exhaustion, you could not manage to fall asleep. Well, I no longer have to wonder.

About 3 weeks ago, I experienced a few relatively sleepless nights. I was sick at the time, and also having girl troubles, but I wrote it off as simply being due to my illness. It got worse a few days later, plus I started taking Mucinex D, which happens to be a stimulant with potential side effects (I only learned later) including agitation, nervousness, and, as seems obvious with a stimulant, sleeplessness. But the girl situation had also worsened. Still, I simply thought the cause of my inability to sleep was the combination of emotional distress, a cold, and (stimulating) medicine.

But now I find myself writing a blog entry at 4 in the morning. I can't sleep at all. I got in bed exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally. And yet I couldn't sleep. It was a very strange experience. My mind wasn't even racing, as often happens when I'm having trouble falling asleep. My thoughts were vague and unfocused. Although they kept coming back to the same thing - the aforementioned girl, whom I had just happened to see this very evening for the first time in 2 and a half weeks. I suppose I was angry at first that I couldn't fall asleep. But there's no one to blame. It's just life, I guess - now I can at least empathize with others when they tell me they can't sleep. I just hope this is temporary. I'm going to be an absolute wreck tomorrow. It's the strangest thing though, because I am wide awake right now. I don't see myself falling asleep anytime soon. How can this be? The heart is a deep and mysterious thing, and I'm in a part of mine quite new to me.

Or maybe it was just the tiramisu...
(but I doubt it)


Because I don't get no sleep in a quiet room and...
The time when kindness falls like rain
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Now playing: Counting Crows - Anna Begins
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