Low expectations, that's the key. I've never wanted anything that I didn't get and what did it ever get me? Now I've run outta' stuff to want.
When I was a kid I would sit for hours poring over the Sears & Roebuck catalog. I would mentally select one item from every page for each member of my extended family. Mom, Grandma, cousins, all the aunts and uncles. Sometimes friends, neighbors and great aunts and uncles.
It was a disciplined exercise. I wouldn't allow myself to skip a page. Of course I was always aware that Murray Jr. didn't need anything from ladies' lingerie and that Aunt Pauline had almost no interest in baby chicks.
When I think about the hours that went into this endeavor, I'm reminded that I could have amounted to more with a little direction.
My big plan was a commune. Still is, I suppose. Funny- this old man who lives alone and has gotten comfortable at a table for one has always wanted to live with everyone. I want all the dogs and cats, too.
In college I took a course, Idea of Utopia, in the Ideas Department. Everybody else understood that it was a literary class. I thought it was some kind of vocational thing.
I was never like the others. Never will be. When friends try to be kind in explaining my personality, they tell me, " She just doesn't get you." They've been telling me that for years. I've just begun to catch on.
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