Over the weekend I had another "Flea Market Day." These are the days when my buddy Bob and I cruise the lanes to the sound of Tejano music, bumping our way from one plywood table to another in the hopes of finding a deal. We are there mostly for electronic items. Laptop and desktop computers, sound equipment, "previous generation" professional gear that can still hold its own in our new, digital world, and the occasional electronic relic that we pick up purely for its aesthetic or nostalgic value.

I love these days. And even though the weather yesterday was clear and blue and cool, a perfect Spring day, it wasn't the day itself that made it good. We've been out there in the stifling, dusty heat of summer, the bitter and biting cold of winter and the sloshy and mucky rainy days. All of them were good. Even the days when we came back empty handed were good.

There's something therapeutic about the flea market. The smell of strange foods, the press of people, and the sort of third-world atmosphere are enough to make you feel like you're not in America - at least not at the moment. Somehow you've been transported to a simpler world where your bargaining skills have to be sharp to get what you want. It's all about the barter. It's all about supply and demand.

The flea market is a study of humanity. You see people in their primary colors. People care less about decorum and propriety there. But they care a hell of a lot about honor. You can annoy the world with your too-loud, vibrate-the-car stereo system but you can't say anything if someone else is doing it. You'd be offending their honor, somehow.

You also get a sense of how much fuss we make over things like "cleanliness" and "odor." You see people do things that would be disgusting anywhere else, but here seem strangely appropriate. The restrooms are appallingly dirty and smelly. People have no trouble spitting on the floor of the lane as they walk by you. And body odor... well... as it turns out there are a variety of brands out there.

Children run free at the flea market. In any other venue, parents would hold their young ones close to keep them safe. Anywhere else in civilization parents hold the hands of children to keep them from being overrun by a car, trampled by a crowd, picked up by a stranger. At the flea market it's not uncommon for children as young as three or four to run through the crowds unattended, to play at the feet of strangers who are stepping over them in an effort to get to the next table, to dart between parked cars, to play with discarded items by the dumpster. These children grow up and their children do the same as they did. Life continues in a determined cycle.

I admire the flea market. It has charm. It speaks to a part of me that remembers growing up not exactly poor in Wild Peach, Texas. I see all my old toys out there. The plastic action figures, the aluminum cars from Perry's, the old lights-and-sounds handheld games the proceeded "video." It's like revisiting a part of my past... only it smells worse.

I would recommend a trip to the flea market to anyone. I know plenty of people who would absolutely hate it, but there are those few who could get past what they see, hear and smell and actually appreciate it for what it is. You should give that a try.

J. Kevin Tumlinson is the Editor for ViewOnline Magazine and a Producer and Writer for Hat Digital Media. He can be reached via e-mail at kevin@viewonline.com. He bartered for his opinions at the flea market.

This will come as no shock to anyone, but I talk to myself. Even less shocking, I answer. I realize this fits the proverbial "sanity check," but I'd like to make the argument that it's exactly the opposite. I think it helps keep me rational and open minded.

Maybe it would help if I pointed out that I'm not just talking about fervent, whispered conversations as I push a wobbly grocery cart down a sidewalk. I'm not having a debate with myself about whether or not to burn things or whether kittens taste better with catsup (ok, I'm Southern... I actually say "ketchup," but some jokes require you to work with them).

Actually, if anything, what I'm talking about may be even crazier than that. I'm talking about having a conversation with myself in the future.

I ask the usual questions you would think to ask your future self, of course. Do I lose my hair? Do I ever find the remote for the DVD player? What ARE the winning lotto numbers? And I get surprising answers like, "No, yes and the lottery is a mind control device used by the government to subvert your will." useful things like that.

Actually, the conversations I have with Future Kevin are quite poignant. We talk about where my life has taken me thus far, and where I would want it to go. And Future Kevin is full of advice for getting where I want to go. He says, "If you want to be a writer, then write every day." He gives good insight like, "If you miss a day of writing, feel guilty about it. Feel like something is missing, like you're uneasy, like you can't rest. Use that negative energy to do something positive."

Sure, Future Kevin sounds an awful lot like some of the advice you get from self-help books, but then I think he's read a lot of them and has come to a Zen-like place in his life.

All this conversation with Future Me has a point. It helps me focus on my goals and to envision a path to reach them. If I start to feel like things are a little out of control, I can automatically hear a clear voice saying, "It'll be ok. You get through this. Better things happen to you." It's a comforting sort of self-indulgence that helps me get my brain back to center.

You should try it. If it makes you uncomfortable to think of it as your "future self," maybe you should imagine that it's some wizened elder on a mountain top, or a being from a higher plane of existence who has taken a shine to you. Or maybe it's God. Not to put words in the Big Guy's mouth, but the idea here is to draw on insight that's bigger than you are. It's there. You'll be shockingly surprised when you see it. If you start having these conversations, letting your mind take on both sides of it, you'll find that you have insights you never thought possible. You have, within you, the ability to see beyond the problems at hand.

It was Future Kevin who prompted me to write this column today because he knew that I needed to shape the idea and give it some clarity. He knew that I have an interest in seeing people better themselves. And he knew that my goal is to be a better writer and grow in that field day by day. He knows all this stuff because he was me once. He's outside of me looking in, and that's the best vantage point for giving advice.

Introspective? Certainly. But useful. I'm sure there's a psychological term for this kind of thing, and I'm positive I'm not the first to come up with it. But I came to it on my own and I wish I had thought of it sooner.

Hey, maybe I'll tell it to my younger self.

J. Kevin Tumlinson is the Editor for ViewOnline Magazine and a Writer/Producer for Hat Digital Media. He can be reached via e-mail at kevin@viewonline.com. He is talking to you from the future.

I've never been one to pour over contracts. I don't look forward to it. Which is not to say I haven't spent a fair amount of time doing just that. I took several contract writing courses in college and, after all, I do run a business that can be pretty contract oriented. But that doesn't mean I like it.

So when my wife and I started the process of looking for a house, I had to start mentally preparing myself for all the contracts and paperwork I'd have to read and scrutinize. I started this process early so I wouldn't be a jerk about the whole thing when it finally happened. It helps to know that you're going to have to do something like this, that way you can get the petty feelings out of the way early.

I have a beef with contracts, though.

A contract is meant to be specific, to lock down all of the pertinent details of a deal between two or more entities so that there can be no question of anyone's obligations or responsibilities. That said, does anyone else feel like a contract is the most vague thing they've ever experienced?

In one of my contract writing courses I was actually told by the professor that you want to purposefully leave loopholes in a contract so that it can be manipulated. I argued with that, of course, but in the end you're just not going to win against the guy teaching the class. But really, what's the point of building in a loophole? Well, honestly, it's so the lawyers have room to do their dance when they need to.

But loopholes aside, my real gripe with contracts is that they use jargon and language that no normal human being is going to be able to fully comprehend. I believe, with all my heart, that contracts are written with the express intention to confuse the reader. They aren't clear from beginning to end. You can't sit down with a good contract at the end of a long day and come away feeling educated.

You have to read a contract more than once. I don't know about most people, but I know that if I read a book once I have the gist of it, and if I read a magazine article once I can pretty much quote it back. But with a contract, I have to read not once, twice or even three times but usually MORE. By the time it's all said and done, I've had to read the thing half a dozen times just to make sure I'm not signing away the rights to private parts.

The reality, though, is that most people never read a contract even once. And I have to admit that a lot of times that includes me. I've never read my cell phone contract, for example. I've never read the warranty information on anything I've ever bought. I don't know what the rules are regarding my apartment lease.

You may ask, why would you not read these things? Aren't they important? My answer to that is another question - If you read something you didn't like in, say, your apartment lease, would that keep you from getting the apartment? Would you be able to change the offensive article and make things go your way?

No.

Because contracts are a shortcut used by the faceless part of a business to just get the signer good and hooked. They are purposefully cumbersome because the writer is counting on the reader to get bogged down and just sign to get it over with.

No one really reads contracts. Not fully. Not the way they're intended to be read.

I'd much rather sign a bullet list of things I can and can't do, personally. Just make it a one-pager that I can glance over two or three times as needed and sign at the bottom. No need for fancy words that I have to look up in a special dictionary. Just finish every bullet list with the words"under penalty of death" and I guarantee EVERYONE will read it six or seven times to make sure they have it memorized.

J. Kevin Tumlinson is the Editor for ViewOnline Magazine and a Writer/Producer for Hat Digital Media. You can reach him at kevin@viewonline.com. He is contractually obligated to say that.