Homer Simpson Is Pretty Smart

 

I am today donating $1600 to FHI 360. Thank you all for your $2014 worth of donations (how cool is it that that’s the amount? Cool, that’s how cool). You all are amazing and now little kids who get malaria will have actual drugs to treat it instead of whatever  was being sold before to innocent sick people. I always imagine a big pill jar full of Smarties and candy cigarettes, probably because I get all of my medical training from old Popeye cartoons.

Update: DONE!

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Yesterday, I read this post. It was about how if you live in the present moment, everything is always fine, because you don’t have anything to compare it to.

Living in the now means that you are either filled with enthusiasm with what you’re doing, or you’re at least enjoying it, or you simply accept it. There are no other choices, because even though you could daydream about other things, it’s not going to magic you away to those other places, and you’ll always be comparing yourself to the mystical Other, the one who gets to lay in bed all day and rub David Beckham’s abs with your face and who wears bikinis and never has to do exercise. That Other is a total bitch. Thanks a lot, Posh Spice.

Living in the now means that you don’t daydream about other ways to be.

Now, I don’t know about that. See, I’m doing everything I can to get better, and yesterday I went to the lowest depths yet. I…I…I made a smoothie with spinach in it. I’m trying to eat more vegetables, and I swear, that was the only way because I’d tried everything else. So while my kids were enjoying McDonald’s on their last day of school, I drank a peach, strawberry, almond milk, yogurt and spinach smoothie yesterday. And I daydreamed that I was someone else. I may have just barfed remembering that.

But if you ever question my dedication to feeling better, just say the words spinach smoothie and know that I am as serious as it gets.

(It really wasn’t that bad. Shhh. Don’t tell Past Shalini.) (I had a melted Swiss cheese and grilled onion sandwich with french fries for dinner, to compensate.)

In my attempts to get better, though, I tried to live in the now. The problem with the now is that the now is usually stuck doing things like grocery shopping with two kids, or folding laundry, or cleaning out the leftovers from the fridge, or sitting in traffic. That is what I did yesterday when I decided to live in the now. I was in traffic on 520, which, for you non-Seattleites, is basically just a big long chain of cars, constantly. And I had my two kids in the car with me. How could I not fantasize about something better, like a life without spinach smoothies? But no, I decided to live in the now. (Is it annoying you how many italics I’m using? It’s annoying me a little bit. But I’m living in the now!)

So, in traffic, instead of being miserable and thinking of all the things I could be doing instead of waiting behind ten million Subarus and Priuses (that’s all Seattleites are legally allowed to drive), I decided to go all Homer Simpson* on myself.

*Have you ever met anyone who lives in the now more than Homer Simpson? He doesn’t think about the consequences at all. EVER. Doughnuts? YES PLEASE. Beer? YES PLEASE. Going on an adventure to find out what the “J.” in “Homer J. Simpson” stands for, despite his responsibilities to family and work? YES PLEASE. (It stands for “Jay,” in case you missed that episode.)

So there I am, rubbing my metaphorical (fine, real) belly, trying to enjoy traffic, or at least accept it, and so I turn around and ask the boys to play rock-paper-scissors with me while I sit there. And then we open our windows, and they tell me about school, and I turn on the radio and sing very badly to a song, just to make them cringe.

“I WANT TO GET BETTER!” I yell at the top of my lungs, and the boys are laughing uncontrollably at my terrible voice and, wait a second, am I a little tiny bit better already?

Well, I’m drinking another spinach smoothie today, so…maybe.