Hello again, my lovelies.
I had an interesting to and fro with a blog reader earlier today, on Twitter. He mentioned in another exchange with someone how he had run some Cat5 cable from one level of his house to another. I wrote and confided that I had never done such a thing, and wouldn't know how to do such a thing.
He wrote back that it really wasn't that difficult. That you had to measure the square root of the hypotenuse by Pi to the third power. Why, I have no idea. Then, you had to drill holes large enough to accommodate the cable that you were running. Then... I guess you hire Ant-Man to take the cable for you from its source to its destination, because how the hell else would you do it?
My friend said something about a snake doing the job. I would have more faith in Ant-Man. I do not trust snakes. They are icky, and their spittle and venom would get all over the end of the cable and might even bite off the little nubby thing at the end that keeps the cable connected to the computer.
It all brings to mind the many things in this life that I cannot do. That nobody has ever taught me, or shown me how to do, or which I tried and failed at. But they are things that people are just expected to pick up along the way, through some kind of osmosis or hocus pocus utterly unknown to me.
Other things I cannot do:
I cannot drive a manual transmission vehicle. Dad had them over the years but between my not expressing an interest in learning, and him not offering to show me, I never learned how to do it. I do not have a clue why anyone would want to drive a manual transmission. I have heard that they are more efficient and have other advantages, but I will be damned if I know what they are, and whether they are so compelling that a fella would want to learn at this advanced age, to drive a stick shift.
I cannot break an egg open the way you see on cooking shows. It looks effortless. The cooking person just squeezes the egg shell in a certain way, and it dutifully opens up and the egg runs out, and nary a piece of shell ends up in the pan or mixing bowl or whatever. I take a butter knife and "chop" the egg shell, and then manually open it with both hands, and about 30% of the time a piece of the shell ends up in the pan or mixing bowl or whatever. Patricia thinks my method laughable, and she is not wrong. But it is the only way I know to crack an egg.
I cannot get past page three of most "literary" novels. In high school, I had to read books by Sinclair Lewis and Margaret Lawrence and others, and barely survived. Tell me: is the purpose of these books to bore the living shit out of people?
I will catch hell from those who adore such books and admire these and other authors, but reading anything where not much happens to people I do not much care about, is a form of torture for me. I mean, Ami McKay is a casual friend to me. She always says hello and has always been kind to me. My mother loved "The Birth House". Patricia did, too, and has read several other books by her. So I feel I should at least try to read her books. But when I hear critics who likely drink their tea with the little pinky stuck up while consuming watercress sandwiches with the crusts removed, extoll her virtues, it doesn't make me want to go out and read her. But she has always been hella nice to me, and even offered me some literary advice a couple of years ago, so I will try. I promise. Right after I read the latest Jack Reacher.
And, too, Donna Morrissey used to be in my Toastmasters club. And her books are recognized as crime fiction with the Crime Writers of Canada, of which I am a proud member, so maybe I should give her a try as well, huh?
So, those are things I cannot do, try as I might. There are more, but it is 2 am, and I should turn in.
What can you not do, that you wish you could?
See you tomorrow.
Bevboy
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