No sense

If only my random thoughts would be something more than chaos theory

My father played football with the last Chinese prisoner released during the cold war.  His name is Jack Downey and recently I read the CIA version of his life and watched his video on the CIA website.  That's right, he was a CIA agent who was captured and held for 20 years in a Chinese prison.  He was offered book deals after his release but he was not interested because he said being a prisoner was boring and the book would likely be blank pages.  Another agent also shot down said he spent most of his time in solitary confinement reliving car rides he had taken in his native Connecticut.   Jack Downey maintained some semblance of sanity by "filling" his day with a million mundane and repetitive routines.  I have heard a notion that people should live in the moment but for these two guys that meant nearly ten million minutes of nothingness...I mean there are only so many bricks in the cell to clean...

I think I would have played word games, randomly stringing together sentences for my own enjoyment.  I write notes in a journal I keep close to my computer so I can always entertain you faithful readers.  Halloween is right around the corner and I scare myself when I realize my notes reflect rather disturbed word associations...is it possible to fear your own conjured thoughts?  Here are a few topics I thought partner well for interesting blogs:

Toilet paper and condoms...Wow I see no connection, can not even picture the items together.
Daytona and frostbite...This might be connected to the vacation my niece and her father spent in rainy Florida or it could simply highlight my ignorance of geography.
Tax day and accountant humor...thought this was an oxymoron and then I remembered that the IRS just had two weeks off with pay and the agents still get to impose penalties during the shut-down...say it ain't true.
Humorous and macabre...goes along with my ironic death theories but who is going to admit that they find people getting hurt funny.  Ok, I find people getting hurt funny, sorry sisters but some of those ski accidents were epic...on snow and water.  Ask my mother how frustrating it was when she would try and punish me and I would just giggle.  I admit it is pretty sophomoric humor that makes me laugh and sometimes it is simply being in the same room with my family members.  If I am having a bad day I still laugh out loud when I envision my older sister being chased down a country road by a kitten.
Live like a Hobbit...live short? live hairy? increase your shoe size and number of piercings on your ears? no wait that would make me an elf...make friends with the dark one? what kind of a goal or affirmation is this statement? 

To bring this back to the story of the last Chinese prisoner, I imagine if I had been captured I would have spent my time making myself laugh at the most inopportune moments.  In the CIA video right before they face a tribunal for their sentencing the two agents meet and one says to the other "who's your tailor?"  I would not have been able to keep a straight face and certainly would have chuckled for at least two years of my captivity.  When they both returned to the US they acclimated back into the simple, boring lives the rest of us live.  Jack Downey became a judge and really who better to be in that position than someone who had already been a prisoner.  His fellow agent was turned down for a job as probation officer because he had served time in prison.  Guy can't get a break ...   

P.S. For months I have suspected that most of my international followers are trying to learn English or American culture, especially those in the Ukraine and China.  Won't you be surprised when you visit our great land of opportunity and discover no one thinks like me!