I’ve talked about time before. In the 24 years of the WonderBlog, with three thousand posts, a search reveals I’ve mentioned time in half of them.

That sounds right.

And I think of this line:

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons

T. S. Eliot’s Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. But let me read the poem to find the line. I dissect out this cross section:

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

Yes, Prufrock. Time, like the green then yellow lemons on the tree. Hanging with promise for so long, ready for harvesting anytime. I could pluck it. Or cherish the unspent future.

Lemons look great on a tree. I’ve found the bright yellow promise can deceive. They age well on the branch, looking bright and cheery. I finally pick it to find a dry husk.

I hate to waste time. I feel it move over me. My habits—to see the morning, greet my day and make something of it—are part of redeeming the time.

But I don’t always get what I want. I didn’t expect to be out of work since September.

The sun rises without my help.

My best quote for the feeling is my own from The Russian American School of Tomorrow:

“We had crossed the International Date Line, so it was..yesterday? Tomorrow? Time hung spinning in the now with nowhere to land”

Time vertigo.

On May first I signed a contract. The wheels touched down on the track again.

I am moving forward.Fast.

Oh yeah. I missed this. I’m good at this. It’s high time I found my way back to it.

Inertia can mean being stuck in one place.

It can also mean gaining momentum on a path. I’ll do that now. Holding my hands up on the plunge of the roller coaster..heeeere I go!

I visited the county fair this week and I’m not entirely happy

It is typical Los Angeles to schedule the fair to be more convenient and to make more money.

It’s time for a history post!

I grew up loving the state fair, looking forward to it all year and squeezing all the joy I could out of it. I was a 4H kid.

Let me explain:
I was raised in Alaska next door to the fair. Alaska gives a lot of attention to their fair—everyone goes to the fair. Every year since forever more than half the population goes.

There are pies and jams and quilts. And the big pumpkin, big enough for Cinderella to fit inside. So amazing! The half-grown pigs who raced for oreos—place your bets!

Festivals, markets and fairs have been around as long as people, almost. The idea of an agricultural exhibition took off with the industrial revolution. Americans had the same impulse as their European neighbors. The famous Crystal Palace of Victorian England was part of this trend, and the World fairs that came after it.

People want to get together and show what they can do and help each other figure out what is possible. The farmers can show their prize animals, get bragging rights and share some secrets for how to get these results.

It didn’t stop there. That Crystal palace I mentioned was constructed in 1851, and was the biggest glass structure created at that time. Glass wasn’t new. The breakthrough was standardization. They made same-same screws, and the cast iron bars for the frame to take the standard size panes of glass. It was put together in 9 months. It was magical and 6 million people passed through it to see new industrial marvels.

Other countries were so jealous of Queen Victoria’s accomplishments that a ripple of world fairs followed.

Paris responded with the Eiffel tower in 1889 as a showpiece for their world fair.

Only four years later in 1893 the Chicago world’s fair had the staggering Ferris wheel. This wheel could take 2000 people up and around all at one time, each car holding 60 people at once.

World fairs are still happening. Japan had one last year. But I feel like that time before the world wars was the golden age.

I look forward to going to the county fair as I get older and even downright elderly. I want to be shocked by the latest food thy fry and put on a stick. And to hear what music is being sung. I want to see all the farm animals and be amazed anew with some fact I forgot or never knew.

I want to feed the baby goats and feel their warm breath on my palm. All of us are animals together. I’m eager to be full of wonder every time.

“Do your best!”

That very little sense to me. When I was young, it enraged me. If I set out to do a thing, it will get done. Like Yoda said, there is no try there is only do.

What does best even mean?

Grade inflation has rendered grade A into average.

Best friend has turned into BFF—not just best friends but bust friend forever with the person who gave the Starbucks order as you that morning.

And I go hollow.

Best is the highest I can attain or be. And if best is so easy maybe I am not worth that much either.

It’s a dream—how high could I go?

Does best have boundaries? I don’t reach for what I think is impossible.

It was inconceivable for humans to move faster than the speed of sound until Chuck Yeager did it.
And then they did it again. And then humans walked on the moon.

I don’t want my best to be mediocre. What else is under that best?

Could I be better than best?