A.L. Harper

I have been working flat out recently trying to do my part to prepare the company where I work, for a major restructure. With all the hours I have been putting in at work — and then coming straight home to try and clean the house, cook dinner and spend time with my family before I get to sit down at the computer to attempt to string two words together into a vaguely readable sentence — I had been feeling drained and unable to find inspiration in the world around me. Never mind inspiration, I wasn’t even seeing the world around me. God knows what I missed.

Today that was different. I found I had nothing to do. Today was the kind of day where you’re just waiting on everyone else to finish. So I answered a few emails, read through some of the latest Blogcritics posts and even managed to post a message on a group or two. Then I began to surf the net looking for inspiration for my next Blogcritics piece. I went to MSNBC to look for interesting tid-bits of news. Something to inspire my next deeply thought out, intellectually worthy piece or writing. Instead I found my Horoscope:

Hard work, enthusiasm and dedication are now paying off for you financially, dear Libra. New opportunities could be opening up for you to profit from making use of your artistic side. The downside of this is that you might be working so hard you’re too drained to be creative - even though the inspiration is there.

I thought how strangely accurate this was. I don’t usually read my horoscope; I find that they leave me with a scratching-my-head feeling. So what are the chances that today, the first day that hasn’t been a too-many-things-to-do-in-to-little-time day, in several weeks, I come across this horoscope?

Maybe possibly the “even though the inspiration is there” part meant I should write about what I had been doing all day. However spending the afternoon at work doing nothing except surfing the net isn’t something I would normally want to brag about. In fact I felt guilty for wasting my day in such a frivolous way. Even if I did feel much less stressed. Then, feeling suddenly inspired, I realised what I wanted to write about.

So I changed tack instead of looking for something hard hitting and emotionally draining I started looking for news about silly, trivial or unimportant things. And I discovered many deliciously ludicrous bits.

For instance did you know that February 20 is Hoodie Hoo Day? What, I hear you asking, is a Hoodie Hoo? I asked the same question. What I found is that “Hoodie Hoo” day is a copyrighted holiday — who knew you could copyright a holiday — that is always held on February 20^th. At noon people go out and wave their hands over their heads, in the air and chant “Hoodie Hoo”. The idea is that it will banish those winter blues. How fabulous is that! I know where I’ll be come noon on Monday — in the car park waving and chanting like a crazed moron.

I felt completely rejuvenated by this cubic zirconia chip of information. I looked for more. What I found was, February 21^st is Card Reading Day, February 22^nd is Be Humble Day, February 23^rd is International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day, February 24^th is National Tortilla Chip Day, February 25^th is Pistol Patent Day (Samuel Colt), February 26^th is National Pistachio Day, February 27^th is International Polar Bear Day and February 28^th is Public Sleeping Day.

So in the perfect, eloquent words of the poet Shel Silverstein

Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
‘Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain’t been there before.

We’ll all feel better for it. I feel better already!

This entry was posted on Friday, February 17th, 2006 at 1:24 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.