don charles

On Luck - #22 - 2/12/2020

IT IS WEDNESDAY

Intro!

None this week!

My Take in One Take - What I think in a first-go draft.

On Luck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGNwXq6vPoI - I find the concept of luck entirely stupid. I don't believe in that the universe has a luck thing for you - you go make your own luck, you know what I mean? However, I must say that my Costa Rican uncle a million miles away said to me over a Whatsapp video call: "You are the unluckiest and luckiest man I've ever known." Circumstances in the past month is a well represented slice of how my life usually is, though it can't just be me... right? Everyone has extreme upsides and downsides one day to the next. They have to - it can't be just me. RIGHT?I get hit by an SUV - that's some bad luck. Practically alive with no major organs hurt, spine and neck unharmed, nothing except for a broken clavicle - extremely good luck. Surgery needed - bad luck. Surgery not needed the next morning based on an X-ray "woops" - good luck. Coming back to work and chipping in $5 for a Super Bowl raffle because of office social pressures - eeehh it can go either way. Winning 4 out of the 6 bet positions and practically taking ~33 other office assistants and execs their bet money in a 1 in 400 chance outcome winning $225 - good luck. Realizing my clavicle may not be healing well due to my Chiropractor saying so - bad luck. Surgery is an easy operation and should take about 2 hours in and out according to the Orthopedics PA I met - good luck. LA Orthopedics office said they can do it the next day if I want - good luck. Health insurance not accepted in California - bad luck. Lawyer told me that I may be receiving very, very little in the other driver's insurance - shit. "Woops, forget what I said, it's more than that, the insurance company had a typo," said the lawyer - okay cool. "But due to health insurance laws, if you do the surgery, you may get zero," - bad luck. Tells me after seeing my health insurance policy that it won't be zero - good luck. Due to health insurance laws, have to do the surgery in Texas - good-and-bad luck kind of maybe, who knows. Having to meet my Primary Care Physician, but can't get a meeting till February 25th - bad luck. Switched PCPs, got an inital appointment before the surgery with an Orthopedics DO surgeon (not MD) in Waxahachie, Texas on Wednesday morning 2/12 - good luck. Tells me that my clavicle fracture is not worth doing surgery on... and that I'm better off leaving it as is because my clavicle is displaced at 1.86cm, not 2cm which is the intended threshhold for doing surgery - good luck? I think? Having to put my seatbelt over my collarbone bump for the rest of my life till I'm dead - bad luck. It's annoying. So that ends it. My broken collarbone adventure is more or less over. Now I'm just sitting on my behind on the 3rd Act denoument for the next 2 months. Luck makes no sense. Is there such a thing as luck? Who knows. If you want to hear something silly; I lost my keys Thursday night and couldn't get in my apartment. Phone was dead. I wandered all over Vine & Santa Monica searching for a pay phone or outlet. Starbucks and Jack in the Box didn't believe in outlets, nor did my apartment's exterior walls. Knocked on my neighbor's door, the only neighbor I knew well. No answer. Waited. Thought my roommate left for the night to be at his girlfriend's place. I was in the cold for 1hr 30min until I did the unimagineable thing of introducing myself to a new neighbor I never met. Came in, they were really nice, and I called my roommate as soon as my phone charged. Told me he arrived just as I called him. Came into the apartment and couldn't find my keys anywhere. Next day I found my keys in the inside pocket of the jacket I was wearing last night.Call that luck, bad luck, good luck, I don't think it's anything. Everything above is just circumstance. That's all life throws at you - circumstance. That... or it's God saying "Ehh..." Take it or leave it.

News.Video.Poem

  1. Who Will Win The 2020 Democratic Primary? -Full disclosure: I used to be a major political junkie. Since it's an election year, I'm getting back to it. Due to New Hampshire going for Bernie, Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight is saying the Primary may go for Bernie. Or... it will go into a contested convention where nobody wins. And I find that slightly pleasant in a "millions-of-dollars-thrown-in-the-trash-for-nothing" sort of way.

  2. Drive a Car Like This - This is the Simpson's jab on 90's comedians' race comparison humor in the February 10, 1994 episode of S5E14 "Apu vs Homer". I never watched a single episode of The Simpsons, but I find this jab funny. It's what Vine did a lot for years.

  3. won’t you celebrate with me - A poem by Lucille Clifton, a poet who was discovered by Langston Hughes. Click on the link and the full poem is there along with a recording of her reciting it in a lecture hall / auditorium. Enjoy!

Silly Sh*t: None this week due to me being in the country of Texas. However, here is something I recorded back in college to show a friend how I cleaned my coffee table. Enjoy.