I hate chickens; they freak me out.  The jerky movements, the vacant eyes, the feet.  No, no, and nope.  The little hen above (the one with the jacket) hangs out all day with her two coopmates, who, under the cover of darkness, peck the hell out of her while she just sort of sits around and stares out of the cage — no noise, no fight…just chicken.  So the good owners finally decide to get the hen a jacket, which is meant to protect her from the abuse of her buddies, who still occasionally walk by and peck at the piece of Kevlar.

Seriously, I could go on about the birds, but this post isn’t really about chickens, it’s about people…people acting like chickens.  Every time I look at the chicken jacket I am reminded that some people just don’t have a vocabulary for helping others in need.  Too busy to take a call, not enough time to hear out a friend who is swimming in pool of doubt or fear, or, perhaps, just bewildered about what to say to offer solace.  It’s passive, and odd, and I find myself falling into this trap all the time.

Others, far better than myself, DO take the calls, DO make time to listen, and DO tend to rebalance the chicken shit-house in which we sometimes find ourselves living.  Those people are like the chicken jacket.  You’re not going to change the basic nature things, but even the smallest bit of help in the form of a good listener makes a huge difference in one’s quality of life.  When I need ’em, I’m glad to know that I own a few jackets.

Okay, off for lunch — a hard boiled egg and a banana.  Cheers.

Last week, I almost created a category for the blog entitled ‘Excuses’ because, hell, I’ve been coming up with a lot of them lately for putting off suffering time in the water: jacked up shoulder, too damn cold, too much work/too little work, wondering how to fix things that can’t be fixed…a dog that has serious anxiety about not finding a place for his favorite bone.  All shite excuses, yes, but man how they can take on false importance.  Bugbears, all of them.

It’s time to search out some suffer-time and realize there is no perfect place to hide — it’s your own goddamned bone so go out and enjoy it.  People like you better when you enjoy it.

Oh, and go read Alain De Botton’s book Status Anxiety.  He makes a compelling historical argument about how our notions of success or failure are bound up in an overly simplified binary: you either are or you aren’t.  He notes that success and failure (words that have no inherent value) coexist…you can be one hell of squirrel chaser and totally suck at hiding bones.  Give it a few days…if you don’t fine the perfect place, you’ll find one that works.