It's all I can do

I have been thinking recently about what I can do and also what I can't. Sadly the list for the latter is a big more sizable unless I start adding the little things on to the "can do" list, you know, like "breathe." Somehow that doesn't seem to balance out that I can't crochet. I know...only one of those is life sustaining, but it would be really neat to crochet.

I was sitting with a teacher recently and she was trying to teach me how to use a sewing machine. I have tried over the years to master the sewing machine. It is my Everest, except that you can sew with it. The problem I have is that i can't visualize how and why it works. The needle pushes thread through a hole and then comes up from the same hole. So why doesn't it pull the thread right back out? The teacher explained that it had to do with their being a lower thread which somehow gets pulled up. But how does it get pulled up, I asked? By the end of the lesson, she had successfully forgotten how to sew. My work there was done so I moved on to befuddle others.

The thing is, I really need to understand how something works to be able to work it sometimes. Not always. The internal combustion engine is only somewhat clear to me but I drive. I also have to be able to visualize myself doing something. If I can't picture myself doing it, I know it will never happen. I know that this smacks of self-defeatism and that it bespeaks a lack of imagination but I have found it to be a very good indicator of my success at something. I see myself working through it and I know I can do it, even if not well. Maybe this all points to why my list of "things I can do" is so short. Now, if that was all, then I could just go to bed comfortable in the knowledge of my own shortcomings. But that's not why I asked you all here this evening.

This morning, at around 10:30, I was walking through work and I burped. Not one of those little "pop" burps, and not one that I had to work at. And not one which I could foresee as a result of recent swallowing. This was a full tilt belch which just appeared out of NOWHERE.

[note: In my capacity as a male, I am bound by law to make some sort of gratuitous comment like "and sadly, no one was there to appreciate it"]

I can't figure out why I burped. I'm sure there was some physiological reason as to "how" so save me your medical jargon; I said I don't know "why." I just didn't realize that I ever had the capacity to burp spontaneously with such force, depth and character. If I could just take that skill and bottle it, I'm sure it wouldn't smell good and I'm not sure I could use it to teach myself to use a sewing machine.