Bambooze
You can't be wise and in love at the same time.
-Bob Dylan
posted by jack at 9:20 PM
4 comments
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Friday, September 23, 2005
What's In A Name?
When my own life has time to spare I live others' vicariously. One of my female friends is recently married to what seems from her description to be a throroughly chauvinist pig. I have never met him so I cannot confirm this. Even if she didn't love him it would be a little late for her to back out since of it since, yep, she's carrying his baby.
Yes "his" baby. It's a boy, see, and according to him, it is not only his right as the man to name the baby, it is his duty! Sexist? Naw!
My friend included a passage from a book called Wild at Heart by John Edlredge that she believes prompted his view and asked me to try to make sense of it for her because she doesn't get it. I'll include enough so you get the gist of it but not enough that I'll get sued for copying it.
I wrote to her:
If we are "personally, uniquely planned and created, knit together in our mother's womb by God himself," why -- when He is already doing this knitting in your uterus -- why can't he also be planting the kid's name into your brain while he's in the neighborhood? More simply: If He's using you to make the baby, why wouldn't He use you to name him?
By the way, although the Lord can work miracles (it's in His job description) it will make the knitting he's doing in your womb much easier if you remember to eat your recommended daily allowance of wool. Cotton and linen are also good supplements because you never know when God wants to knit a summer weight baby. Either that or you're going to birth a sweater. Congratulations! Now I see why a woman carrying a six pound baby can gain 40 pounds. There's a loom inside there! Who knew?
OK.
This stuff about the man having to name the male children is a bunch of hokum. I do have my father's name and I'm guessing it was his idea. But my mother named my two younger brothers. Hubby believing in his "right" to name the boy because he's the man doesn't surprise me since you told me how he flatly dismissed the idea of moving to accomodate your career while you were supposed to pick up and move to follow him to a job that will pay a fraction of what he makes now.
This next thought is competely none of my business to share but I will anyway. You have to settle whether you live in a marriage in which you're equal partners or one in which every time he stands up for something, he's exerting his rights as a man and every time you do it, you're acting childish. What happens once the baby is born? Are you supposed to give up your career and become a stay-at-home mom? That's as noble a profession as any if you choose it but it's darn near indentured servitude if you don't.
My take: A man needs to know his name? Fine. Until he figures it out, he can have one that his mother likes. Maybe you do it the way the President and the Senate fill vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court. The President makes a nomination and the Senate votes yea or nay. You can let Hubby decide if he wants to be the President or the Senate.
But it should be decided like most everything else in a marriage should -- as something you do as a team.
Of course, wacky thoughts like that could explain why I'm still single.
Yes "his" baby. It's a boy, see, and according to him, it is not only his right as the man to name the baby, it is his duty! Sexist? Naw!
My friend included a passage from a book called Wild at Heart by John Edlredge that she believes prompted his view and asked me to try to make sense of it for her because she doesn't get it. I'll include enough so you get the gist of it but not enough that I'll get sued for copying it.
A man needs to know his name. He needs to know he’s got what it takes. And I don’t mean "know" in the modernistic, rationalistic sense. I don’t mean that the thought has passed through your cerebral cortex and you’ve given it intellectual assent, the way you know about the Battle of Waterloo or the ozone layer –the way most men “know” God or the truths of Christianity. I mean a deep knowing, the kind of knowing that comes when you have been there, entered in, experienced firsthand in an unforgettable way.
"Who can give a man this, his own name?" George MacDonald asks. "God alone. For no one but God sees what the man is." He reflects upon the white stone that Revelation includes among the rewards God will give to those who "overcome." On that white stone there is a new name. It is "new" only in the sense that it is not the name the world gave to us, certainly not the one delivered with the wound. But the new name is really not new at all when you understand that it is your true name, the one that belongs to you, "that being whom he had in his thought when he began to make the child, and whom he kept in his thought throughout the long process of creation" and redemption. Psalm 139 makes it clear that we were personally, uniquely planned and created, knit together in our mother’s womb by God himself. He had someone in mind and that someone has a name.
I wrote to her:
If we are "personally, uniquely planned and created, knit together in our mother's womb by God himself," why -- when He is already doing this knitting in your uterus -- why can't he also be planting the kid's name into your brain while he's in the neighborhood? More simply: If He's using you to make the baby, why wouldn't He use you to name him?
By the way, although the Lord can work miracles (it's in His job description) it will make the knitting he's doing in your womb much easier if you remember to eat your recommended daily allowance of wool. Cotton and linen are also good supplements because you never know when God wants to knit a summer weight baby. Either that or you're going to birth a sweater. Congratulations! Now I see why a woman carrying a six pound baby can gain 40 pounds. There's a loom inside there! Who knew?
OK.
This stuff about the man having to name the male children is a bunch of hokum. I do have my father's name and I'm guessing it was his idea. But my mother named my two younger brothers. Hubby believing in his "right" to name the boy because he's the man doesn't surprise me since you told me how he flatly dismissed the idea of moving to accomodate your career while you were supposed to pick up and move to follow him to a job that will pay a fraction of what he makes now.
This next thought is competely none of my business to share but I will anyway. You have to settle whether you live in a marriage in which you're equal partners or one in which every time he stands up for something, he's exerting his rights as a man and every time you do it, you're acting childish. What happens once the baby is born? Are you supposed to give up your career and become a stay-at-home mom? That's as noble a profession as any if you choose it but it's darn near indentured servitude if you don't.
My take: A man needs to know his name? Fine. Until he figures it out, he can have one that his mother likes. Maybe you do it the way the President and the Senate fill vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court. The President makes a nomination and the Senate votes yea or nay. You can let Hubby decide if he wants to be the President or the Senate.
But it should be decided like most everything else in a marriage should -- as something you do as a team.
Of course, wacky thoughts like that could explain why I'm still single.
posted by jack at 11:04 PM
1 comments
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Oh, That's Why
I've mentioned the family video documentary I'm working on. If you want to read the backstory, I'm sure it's here somewhere. No, no, don't look for it. I'll find it for you. It's right here.
My parents did meet and get married, you'll be glad to know. And at the point in the script I've reached, I've just been born despite a labor in which my mother, new at this birthing thing and not taught how to breathe, was doing more to defeat the process than move it along. They finally put her under and pulled me out with foreceps. That probably explains a lot right there. And what it doesn't what I'm about to tell you will.
Well, yes, there's the part where she talks about regretting not holding me as much as she wanted because she was afraid it would spoil me and then bursts into tears.
That will likely make the cut but something even more instructive probably won't. Despite technology widely available at the time, my early baby pictures were shot on black-and-white film. Heck, I've since dug up a color photograph of my mother taken when she was five so you can save the old age cracks because I ain't that ancient.
"We were penny wise and pound poor, I guess, because we didn't get color film right away," my mother explains in her interview with me. "And I'm sorry about that because a lot of the outfits, by the time they got pictured the next time with (my younger brother) they went through the second round, they had already been spit up on and stuff."
You read right. The reason my mother wished they had used color film was so that they would have better pictures of my CLOTHING! You can write that off as a mis-speak and I was going to until I heard her tell the same story -- unprompted -- at my cousin's wedding a few weeks ago. (Read "The Wedding Report" for background.)
I'll use that soundbite in my next video project. It's going to be an autobiography for which I will interview a psychoanalyst who will explain how my mother's priorities scarred my fragile developing psyche for life.
My parents did meet and get married, you'll be glad to know. And at the point in the script I've reached, I've just been born despite a labor in which my mother, new at this birthing thing and not taught how to breathe, was doing more to defeat the process than move it along. They finally put her under and pulled me out with foreceps. That probably explains a lot right there. And what it doesn't what I'm about to tell you will.
Well, yes, there's the part where she talks about regretting not holding me as much as she wanted because she was afraid it would spoil me and then bursts into tears.
That will likely make the cut but something even more instructive probably won't. Despite technology widely available at the time, my early baby pictures were shot on black-and-white film. Heck, I've since dug up a color photograph of my mother taken when she was five so you can save the old age cracks because I ain't that ancient.
"We were penny wise and pound poor, I guess, because we didn't get color film right away," my mother explains in her interview with me. "And I'm sorry about that because a lot of the outfits, by the time they got pictured the next time with (my younger brother) they went through the second round, they had already been spit up on and stuff."
You read right. The reason my mother wished they had used color film was so that they would have better pictures of my CLOTHING! You can write that off as a mis-speak and I was going to until I heard her tell the same story -- unprompted -- at my cousin's wedding a few weeks ago. (Read "The Wedding Report" for background.)
I'll use that soundbite in my next video project. It's going to be an autobiography for which I will interview a psychoanalyst who will explain how my mother's priorities scarred my fragile developing psyche for life.
posted by jack at 8:20 PM
1 comments
Monday, September 19, 2005
That's Nice
A post on Sammie's blog gave me a chance to do some wishful thinking. Nice guys do not always finish last, she says. You know as well as I do that when a woman says that she usually means that she wishes her jerk of a boyfriend would act nicer. I don't know Sammie's boyfriend; I don't even know Sammie so I can't know if that's the case here.
All I know is that a girl once refused to take me seriously as a potential boyfriend because, in her words, "you're too nice." Hard to believe, I know. How could anyone mistake me for someone nice? I should have sued her for slander. You can't repair your reputation from such an accusation.
And how do you refute that? "No, really! I'm a complete bastard! You'd love me!"
But saying I was too nice was probably only cover for what she really meant:
"You're too poor."
It took me a while to figure that out. Once I did I felt a lot better. She wasn't going to marry an accountant; she was going to marry an account number. Not many women are out of my league, I like to think. But some are out of my price range.
Luckily, not many of the latter are ones I'd like to spend more than one night with anyway and even then I'd only want that much if I could skip out before she woke up.
I'm not suggesting that most women are gold digging damsels seeking rescue from financial distress. But do you really think it's coincidence that the words finance and fiance are spelled so similarly? Hmmm. Got you thinking, now, don't I?
When it comes down to it, if a woman has to choose between a guy with big bulge in the front of his pants or one with the bulge in the back of them (presuming it's from his wallet and not from some unfortunate accident) she's going to pick the one with whom she'll never have to come up on the short end of the shaft on the mortgage payment.
I don't blame her. Part of selecting a mate is determining which of the available candidates help build the strongest family. In the world today, security often means financial security.
Sammie, I appreciate the sentiment, sweetie, but I'm not buying it.
All I know is that a girl once refused to take me seriously as a potential boyfriend because, in her words, "you're too nice." Hard to believe, I know. How could anyone mistake me for someone nice? I should have sued her for slander. You can't repair your reputation from such an accusation.
And how do you refute that? "No, really! I'm a complete bastard! You'd love me!"
But saying I was too nice was probably only cover for what she really meant:
"You're too poor."
It took me a while to figure that out. Once I did I felt a lot better. She wasn't going to marry an accountant; she was going to marry an account number. Not many women are out of my league, I like to think. But some are out of my price range.
Luckily, not many of the latter are ones I'd like to spend more than one night with anyway and even then I'd only want that much if I could skip out before she woke up.
I'm not suggesting that most women are gold digging damsels seeking rescue from financial distress. But do you really think it's coincidence that the words finance and fiance are spelled so similarly? Hmmm. Got you thinking, now, don't I?
When it comes down to it, if a woman has to choose between a guy with big bulge in the front of his pants or one with the bulge in the back of them (presuming it's from his wallet and not from some unfortunate accident) she's going to pick the one with whom she'll never have to come up on the short end of the shaft on the mortgage payment.
I don't blame her. Part of selecting a mate is determining which of the available candidates help build the strongest family. In the world today, security often means financial security.
Sammie, I appreciate the sentiment, sweetie, but I'm not buying it.
posted by jack at 8:33 PM
7 comments
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Perspective
In forwarding pictures of my cousin's wedding to my brother, I wrote with perverse satisfaction that our cousins on our mother's side were so screwed up that we appeared to be the stable ones of the family. He replied:
The stable side of (Mother's) family is akin to hanging off the side of the mountain by your fingertips and saying, "at least we're not on the snow covered side."That might be something to keep in mind if you read any more of my scribblings.
posted by jack at 7:08 PM
2 comments
Friday, September 16, 2005
Non-Fiction
I played golf badly, which is to say that I played it like I always do. I made par on two holes, bogey on a couple others and on the rest it was easiest to keep my score by counting how many golf balls I lost.
I played with my father, who is good at it. He often shoots in the 70s. He wanted me to become a lawyer and a golfer and if he had to choose one he might have preferred golf. Instead I became neither.
I suppose it's not too late. With lessons and practice I could learn to play competently just as with preparation I might score high enough on the LSAT to overcome my mediocre college grades and qualify for law school. My only acedemic bragging rights are that I finished college in four years with no summer school and I never cheated. My GPA was nothing to write home about, though it was something my father sometimes wrote to me about.
If my father's passion is golf, my mother's tri-pastimes are smoking, reading romance novels and listening to right-wing talk radio, preferably simultaneously. Understand: if she is addicted to cigarettes it is only a byproduct of her enjoyment of them. She does not want to quit.
The company for which she worked before she retired went smoke free and offered to pay for smoking cessation programs for any employees who smoked. My mother took the course, successfully quit, then a year later decided that she missed it and started again. She took lunch breaks in her car so she could puff undisturbed.
On the rare occasions she is stirred to move, she mows the lawn. It is her lone physical activity and it says all you need to know about my mother that she interrupts her exercise for smoke breaks.
You think I'm kidding. I assure you I am not. This blog is anonymous, it is not fiction.
I played with my father, who is good at it. He often shoots in the 70s. He wanted me to become a lawyer and a golfer and if he had to choose one he might have preferred golf. Instead I became neither.
I suppose it's not too late. With lessons and practice I could learn to play competently just as with preparation I might score high enough on the LSAT to overcome my mediocre college grades and qualify for law school. My only acedemic bragging rights are that I finished college in four years with no summer school and I never cheated. My GPA was nothing to write home about, though it was something my father sometimes wrote to me about.
If my father's passion is golf, my mother's tri-pastimes are smoking, reading romance novels and listening to right-wing talk radio, preferably simultaneously. Understand: if she is addicted to cigarettes it is only a byproduct of her enjoyment of them. She does not want to quit.
The company for which she worked before she retired went smoke free and offered to pay for smoking cessation programs for any employees who smoked. My mother took the course, successfully quit, then a year later decided that she missed it and started again. She took lunch breaks in her car so she could puff undisturbed.
On the rare occasions she is stirred to move, she mows the lawn. It is her lone physical activity and it says all you need to know about my mother that she interrupts her exercise for smoke breaks.
You think I'm kidding. I assure you I am not. This blog is anonymous, it is not fiction.
posted by jack at 10:24 AM
5 comments
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Faking It
Scanning the channels last night, I ran across a re-run of When Harry Met Sally at the point where Harry Met Sally in the diner for lunch. Yes, the scene of the most famous faked orgasm ever in a cafe. And possibly ever anywhere.
Can I just say something?
(Hearing no objections I'll continue.)
Unlike Harry, I know I've been "faked on." Furthermore, I know WHEN. You see, dear lady, you're not Meg Ryan and you're not that good an actress. (If, by chance you ARE Meg Ryan, e-mail me, babe, and we'll do lunch! Toodles!)
When you fake it, I can tell. Just because I've never confronted you about it doesn't mean I've never noticed it. What, I'm supposed to call you on it? That was a fake moan! No. Politeness and the hope that I get a chance to redeem myself later require that I get the signal that you'd like to be finished and soon would like for me to be too.
Don't worry. I'm not offended. In fact, I appreciate the consideration for my feelings. It's much better than if you were to lie there and look up to ask, "Are you done yet?" before continuing to file your nails. Much better.
I may be atypical. My libido is not connected to my ego. I'm not looking to set any sexual records and I'm not waiting to hear your rave review, though I'll be glad to listen! I will not be the one who asks if I was the best you've ever had. When we're in bed I don't want you thinking about rankings. Ideally you'd be so deliriously rapturous that you can't think about anything. If we both enjoy it enough to look forward to doing it again that's all the reassurance I need.
But gets me wondering: should I fake it sometimes too? With a condom on I can, you know. Does it bother you if I don't reach my peak? Do you feel like you let me down or did not perform adequately? I never thought of that. I doubt most guys have. Would you feel better if I went through the motions and made the noises I'd make if I really were about to blast off for the moon?
Can I just say something?
(Hearing no objections I'll continue.)
Unlike Harry, I know I've been "faked on." Furthermore, I know WHEN. You see, dear lady, you're not Meg Ryan and you're not that good an actress. (If, by chance you ARE Meg Ryan, e-mail me, babe, and we'll do lunch! Toodles!)
When you fake it, I can tell. Just because I've never confronted you about it doesn't mean I've never noticed it. What, I'm supposed to call you on it? That was a fake moan! No. Politeness and the hope that I get a chance to redeem myself later require that I get the signal that you'd like to be finished and soon would like for me to be too.
Don't worry. I'm not offended. In fact, I appreciate the consideration for my feelings. It's much better than if you were to lie there and look up to ask, "Are you done yet?" before continuing to file your nails. Much better.
I may be atypical. My libido is not connected to my ego. I'm not looking to set any sexual records and I'm not waiting to hear your rave review, though I'll be glad to listen! I will not be the one who asks if I was the best you've ever had. When we're in bed I don't want you thinking about rankings. Ideally you'd be so deliriously rapturous that you can't think about anything. If we both enjoy it enough to look forward to doing it again that's all the reassurance I need.
But gets me wondering: should I fake it sometimes too? With a condom on I can, you know. Does it bother you if I don't reach my peak? Do you feel like you let me down or did not perform adequately? I never thought of that. I doubt most guys have. Would you feel better if I went through the motions and made the noises I'd make if I really were about to blast off for the moon?
posted by jack at 8:20 PM
3 comments
Seinfeld
Some days I don't like knowing people read this. Not only do I feel compelled to write something, I feel a duty to make it interesting, no matter how dull the material that inspires it. Maybe I should rename my blog "Seinfeld." You know, the blog about nothing?
What's truly on my mind right now? Here ya go: I woke up this morning with the skin on my face so dry that even after multiple applications of aloe gel and lotion (both!) it feels like even a mild grin will cause my face to crumble and fall off. How's that?
I could tell you about my cold. I probably caught it at my cousin's wedding or from a door handle at one of the rest stops on the drive home from it. Why can't they make bathroom doors so that you pull on the handle going in and not on the way out? That way after washing my hands I could push the door open with an elbow or a foot.
And while we're at it, why is it still societal custom to shake hands? Why do we use the primary means of transmitting disease to one another as a gesture of introduction or greeting? I think I'm going to start putting a dollop of hand sanitizer in my palm before shaking hands from now on. Even if it doesn't protect me from catching something, it will be fun to see the look on the other guy's face!
Don't get me started on saying "Bless you" after someone sneezes. Bless YOU? How about blessing US so that we don't catch whatever you just spewed into the air we're sharing.
That's right. From now on it is incumbent upon the sneezer to follow with a blessing to anyone within range. Who's with me!
The cold seems slow in coming, though. Perhaps the large doses of Vitamin C are helping me fend it off. That's the advice my mother still gives me if she learns I have a cold coming on. It's probably an old wives tale, which is fitting since after 44 years of marriage, my mother is nothing if not an old wife.
Thus Grace Slick sang in Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit. If Vitamin C my mother recommends doesn't do anything, it probably does no harm either.
What's truly on my mind right now? Here ya go: I woke up this morning with the skin on my face so dry that even after multiple applications of aloe gel and lotion (both!) it feels like even a mild grin will cause my face to crumble and fall off. How's that?
I could tell you about my cold. I probably caught it at my cousin's wedding or from a door handle at one of the rest stops on the drive home from it. Why can't they make bathroom doors so that you pull on the handle going in and not on the way out? That way after washing my hands I could push the door open with an elbow or a foot.
And while we're at it, why is it still societal custom to shake hands? Why do we use the primary means of transmitting disease to one another as a gesture of introduction or greeting? I think I'm going to start putting a dollop of hand sanitizer in my palm before shaking hands from now on. Even if it doesn't protect me from catching something, it will be fun to see the look on the other guy's face!
Don't get me started on saying "Bless you" after someone sneezes. Bless YOU? How about blessing US so that we don't catch whatever you just spewed into the air we're sharing.
That's right. From now on it is incumbent upon the sneezer to follow with a blessing to anyone within range. Who's with me!
The cold seems slow in coming, though. Perhaps the large doses of Vitamin C are helping me fend it off. That's the advice my mother still gives me if she learns I have a cold coming on. It's probably an old wives tale, which is fitting since after 44 years of marriage, my mother is nothing if not an old wife.
One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Thus Grace Slick sang in Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit. If Vitamin C my mother recommends doesn't do anything, it probably does no harm either.
posted by jack at 4:04 PM
3 comments
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Dear Fellow Blogger
An actual e-mail to an actual reader:
So here I sit, composing an e-mail to someone known to me only as "Cupcake." And, no, it's not a thank-you note to a brothel so you can stop with the "licking her icing" comments because I already thought of that and decided it would be in poor taste. The joke, not the icing.
She says she's a cute blonde from southern California but this is the Internet so he's probably a 57-year-old cross dresser from Topeka, Kansas. Enteraintment options are slim there and this is the best recreation he can find.
My sweet Cupcake, whom for the moment I'm going to presume is the girl she says she is because when you're playing in a fantasy league you might as well use a visual you like, my sweet Cupcake has subtly admonished me for a breach of blogging etiquette I did not know about. Hey, I didn't know how to let people leave comments. How was I supposed to know there were rules involved?
OK, not rules. But peeves. And I can only hope that she will outline for me when it is OK for me to communicate via the comment space and when I am required to write a ridiculously silly e-mail like this one to pass along thoughts about something she wrote in her blog, which I enjoyed because it was, if not true (You ARE in Kansas, Toto?), real in a way that too many spaces on blogspot are not.
(As I have written before, I have read 100 anti-Bush blogs that all say the same thing by people who I am sure believe they're cutting new swaths in social commentary when they're really parroting the same tired things. I am happy to report that the 100 right-wing blogs are just as unoriginally uninspiring.)
Whatever the rules, I will enjoy trading thoughts, knowing it won't lead to anything more since each of us is safe in his or her corner of the country. I'm in Florida and she's in Cali-freaking-fornia (Or he's in Topeka-freaking-Kansas.) and I'm going to have to post this on my blog because it was too freaking fun for me to write not to share it.
My dear Cupcake is free to share her comments about that however she wishes.
I thought that was the cleverest thing ever until I got Cupcake's reply. She thought she had touched a nerve and that I had, in turn, sent a sharp-tongued response. I then realized what a complete dolt I was for sending something like that to someone I did not know. I'm an idiot.
How was she to know that I was kidding?
How was I to know that she prefers her humor to be funny?
So here I sit, composing an e-mail to someone known to me only as "Cupcake." And, no, it's not a thank-you note to a brothel so you can stop with the "licking her icing" comments because I already thought of that and decided it would be in poor taste. The joke, not the icing.
She says she's a cute blonde from southern California but this is the Internet so he's probably a 57-year-old cross dresser from Topeka, Kansas. Enteraintment options are slim there and this is the best recreation he can find.
My sweet Cupcake, whom for the moment I'm going to presume is the girl she says she is because when you're playing in a fantasy league you might as well use a visual you like, my sweet Cupcake has subtly admonished me for a breach of blogging etiquette I did not know about. Hey, I didn't know how to let people leave comments. How was I supposed to know there were rules involved?
OK, not rules. But peeves. And I can only hope that she will outline for me when it is OK for me to communicate via the comment space and when I am required to write a ridiculously silly e-mail like this one to pass along thoughts about something she wrote in her blog, which I enjoyed because it was, if not true (You ARE in Kansas, Toto?), real in a way that too many spaces on blogspot are not.
(As I have written before, I have read 100 anti-Bush blogs that all say the same thing by people who I am sure believe they're cutting new swaths in social commentary when they're really parroting the same tired things. I am happy to report that the 100 right-wing blogs are just as unoriginally uninspiring.)
Whatever the rules, I will enjoy trading thoughts, knowing it won't lead to anything more since each of us is safe in his or her corner of the country. I'm in Florida and she's in Cali-freaking-fornia (Or he's in Topeka-freaking-Kansas.) and I'm going to have to post this on my blog because it was too freaking fun for me to write not to share it.
My dear Cupcake is free to share her comments about that however she wishes.
I thought that was the cleverest thing ever until I got Cupcake's reply. She thought she had touched a nerve and that I had, in turn, sent a sharp-tongued response. I then realized what a complete dolt I was for sending something like that to someone I did not know. I'm an idiot.
How was she to know that I was kidding?
How was I to know that she prefers her humor to be funny?
posted by jack at 9:50 AM
4 comments
Monday, September 12, 2005
The Wedding Report
"I will," my cousin said as the judge asked if he took the woman standing next to him to be his lawfully wedded wife; to have and to hold; to love, honor and cherish; and all the rest of the things that people say but in fully half the cases turn out not to mean.
Not, "I do." But, "I will."
Any time soon?
They told me it was going to be a non-traditional wedding. What did I want? The whole thing lasted less than ten minutes and whatever traditions they omitted, I did not miss. I once arrived 15-minutes late to a Catholic wedding (after staying late at the party the night before), missed the vows yet had to sit through an interminable service that someone else there later described as "a big long commercial" for the church.
I hope it's not an omen that the bride and groom, both lawyers, had to fight a fit of giggles as they recited their vows on the green lawn of the rented estate serving as the venue. I mean, if they're not going to take it seriously, why should the rest of us who dragged ourselves from varying distances away (nearly 700 miles in my case) to grace their nuptials with our presence.
They probably wanted to get straight to the drinking in deference to my uncle, a 330-pound invalid alcoholic and the groom's father. It is a testament to his manipulative abilities that he cannot walk yet he never has trouble keeping his drinks coming. That's some serious enabling. For Christmas I'm going to get him a cup-holder for his wheelchair.
But I had gone not for the family drama but to see two lives united in one love and to enjoy one of the few occasions in which we go out of our way to celebrate our lives while we are still living.
It was just a bonus to see that other people in my family are even more screwed up than I am. Ha! If they're going to mistake "freelance reporter" for "famous journalist," who am I to disabuse them of such a notion? Really.
My own marriage is not imminent. Right now it is not even a remote possibility and might never become one. I do not need to marry for status, standing or to fulfill requirements for a trust fund. I do not need to produce an heir for any reason other than to guarantee an audience for the family documentary I'm working on.
If I meet a girl, fall in love and by some fluke she seconds the emotion, I will happily stand before God and everyone to declare my undying love for her.
"I do."
Not, "I do." But, "I will."
Any time soon?
They told me it was going to be a non-traditional wedding. What did I want? The whole thing lasted less than ten minutes and whatever traditions they omitted, I did not miss. I once arrived 15-minutes late to a Catholic wedding (after staying late at the party the night before), missed the vows yet had to sit through an interminable service that someone else there later described as "a big long commercial" for the church.
I hope it's not an omen that the bride and groom, both lawyers, had to fight a fit of giggles as they recited their vows on the green lawn of the rented estate serving as the venue. I mean, if they're not going to take it seriously, why should the rest of us who dragged ourselves from varying distances away (nearly 700 miles in my case) to grace their nuptials with our presence.
They probably wanted to get straight to the drinking in deference to my uncle, a 330-pound invalid alcoholic and the groom's father. It is a testament to his manipulative abilities that he cannot walk yet he never has trouble keeping his drinks coming. That's some serious enabling. For Christmas I'm going to get him a cup-holder for his wheelchair.
But I had gone not for the family drama but to see two lives united in one love and to enjoy one of the few occasions in which we go out of our way to celebrate our lives while we are still living.
It was just a bonus to see that other people in my family are even more screwed up than I am. Ha! If they're going to mistake "freelance reporter" for "famous journalist," who am I to disabuse them of such a notion? Really.
My own marriage is not imminent. Right now it is not even a remote possibility and might never become one. I do not need to marry for status, standing or to fulfill requirements for a trust fund. I do not need to produce an heir for any reason other than to guarantee an audience for the family documentary I'm working on.
If I meet a girl, fall in love and by some fluke she seconds the emotion, I will happily stand before God and everyone to declare my undying love for her.
"I do."
posted by jack at 9:53 PM
0 comments
Membership
Oops. I had somehow screwed up the settings for my blog so that only its members could leave comments. I'm the only member of my blog. I like to talk to myself as much as the next guy but that would be just a tad ridiculous, don't you think?
As for what I think, I'll have to post a comment.
Now you can too. Membership might have its privileges but I did not mean to require membership for the privilege of posting comments.
Now if you get to the end of a post and you get a sudden urge to practice typing, you can click on the "Comments" link and let your fingers fire away!
As for what I think, I'll have to post a comment.
Now you can too. Membership might have its privileges but I did not mean to require membership for the privilege of posting comments.
Now if you get to the end of a post and you get a sudden urge to practice typing, you can click on the "Comments" link and let your fingers fire away!
posted by jack at 9:07 PM
4 comments
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Family Film
I'm working on a video documentary about my parents. It's not going to be a feature film or anything, just something for their grandchildren to look at someday when they're old enough to wonder where they came from.
I've shot interviews with them, scanned and shot video of old photos, screened some old home movie footage of my mother -- in short all the work up to the point at which I write the story of their lives.
I stymied myself over a whether to include a couple of things. My mother freely talks about her alcohol abuse (She's been sober for more than 25 years now). And she also breaks down crying when she recalls her regret at not holding me more when I was an infant (She believed it led to a spoiled baby, "and I didn't want a spoiled baby," she said, before bursting into tears.).
I'm in a quandary about whether to use these parts. I wrote to a couple of friends seeking their thoughts. One said that I should use them. They're parts of the story that will make my mother appear more human.
The other said she was stumped too. And that I should follow my gut. I wrote back (in part):
What say you?
I've shot interviews with them, scanned and shot video of old photos, screened some old home movie footage of my mother -- in short all the work up to the point at which I write the story of their lives.
I stymied myself over a whether to include a couple of things. My mother freely talks about her alcohol abuse (She's been sober for more than 25 years now). And she also breaks down crying when she recalls her regret at not holding me more when I was an infant (She believed it led to a spoiled baby, "and I didn't want a spoiled baby," she said, before bursting into tears.).
I'm in a quandary about whether to use these parts. I wrote to a couple of friends seeking their thoughts. One said that I should use them. They're parts of the story that will make my mother appear more human.
The other said she was stumped too. And that I should follow my gut. I wrote back (in part):
K:I was surprised both of them replied at all. They were mostly rhetorical questions written, just as this blog is, to work out the problem in my mind, and I was happy they cared enough to devote thought to them.
I agree. Usually when the brain can't figure out what to do it is best to let the heart decide. I'm sure the story, like most, will write itself as soon as I get out of its way. That's more difficult since I am one of the subjects (albeit a minor one) in it.
I will let you know how it turns out. And I won't do the project in a vacuum. My parents will get to read the script before I assemble the story, provided that I finish it during their lifetime! I'll follow their feelings. "It's their story," I plan to say in its voice-over introduction. "I didn't write it; I merely wrote it down."
While I trust my intuition, I do remember reading about a woman who resolved to listen to her gut only to careen from one disaster to the next until she finally concluded: "My gut has sh*t for brains!"
What say you?
posted by jack at 6:47 PM
2 comments
Noah's Seen What I Have Seen
"What is possessed," John Updike once wrote, "is devalued by what is coveted." 1996 Heisman Trophy winner Danny Wuerffel has learned again that the converse is also true:
Appreciating what you have makes it worth more.
The former University of Florida quarterback is the development director for Desire Street Ministries in New Orleans. He is among the throngs forced to flee the city by hurricane Katrina.
A Tampa (Fla.) Tribune (9/8/05) article quotes him as saying:
(That is a mess of a sentence, I realize. And if I were a real writer, it would have to undergo advanced grammatical triage before anyone saw it.)
But back to a certain kind of preacher hoping to use Katrina for his own ends. I wish a could cite a source for you. I don't know if it's something I read in the newspaper, on a web site or something that flashed past as I made rounds using the "Next Blog" button but it won't strain credulity when I finally get to the point.
Which is: Katrina is God's punishment for not worshipping Him enough. If only more of us went to church to kneel before Him! If only more of us prayed to him (preferably in public schools)! If only more of us sent money to televangelists so they could buy luxury cars in His name! If only! He could spare us the suffering of such disasters!
Yes, ladies and gentlement, boys and girls, Katrina is the long arm of a jealous and angry God reaching out to slap our backside. You know why? The Creator of the Heavens and the Earth and the Universe whose expanse we are only beginning to grasp; thine whose is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory; thine who is the Light, the Way and the Truth; our God rains his wrath on us because He (pause for dramatic effect) has self esteem issues.
You could think: Why not? He did make us in His own image, didn't He? And look how screwed up we are.
But think some more and you see that it's silly. It is the people who wanted to coerce people into believing their version of religion thousands of years ago who created a god in their image: vainglorious people who wanted to control people's behavior and assume exalted status in their communities.
Just like the politicos (again, on both sides), these preachers covet the right to remake New Orleans, the next presidential administration and the entire philosophy of our democracy as they see fit. Like Harry Truman promising to fill Japanese cities with nuclear hell if they didn't surrender in 1945, they threaten that more catastrophe is coming if we don't heed His will, which we can do by giving more credence to them. Fill their congregations and remember to give generously when they pass the plate. There are souls at stake. And Mercedes payments to make!
Appreciating what you have makes it worth more.
The former University of Florida quarterback is the development director for Desire Street Ministries in New Orleans. He is among the throngs forced to flee the city by hurricane Katrina.
A Tampa (Fla.) Tribune (9/8/05) article quotes him as saying:
"We just re-learned the difference between want and need. How much time do we spend saying, 'We need this, we need this' and get bent out of shape? Now we've got nothing and yet we have everything we need. We've got my wife and son and food and shelter."Wuerffel's perspective is refreshing, if not always easily remembered. I could afford to re-learn it from time to time too. If it's alright, though, I'd like to try it without losing almost everything I own first.
(That is a mess of a sentence, I realize. And if I were a real writer, it would have to undergo advanced grammatical triage before anyone saw it.)
But back to a certain kind of preacher hoping to use Katrina for his own ends. I wish a could cite a source for you. I don't know if it's something I read in the newspaper, on a web site or something that flashed past as I made rounds using the "Next Blog" button but it won't strain credulity when I finally get to the point.
Which is: Katrina is God's punishment for not worshipping Him enough. If only more of us went to church to kneel before Him! If only more of us prayed to him (preferably in public schools)! If only more of us sent money to televangelists so they could buy luxury cars in His name! If only! He could spare us the suffering of such disasters!
Yes, ladies and gentlement, boys and girls, Katrina is the long arm of a jealous and angry God reaching out to slap our backside. You know why? The Creator of the Heavens and the Earth and the Universe whose expanse we are only beginning to grasp; thine whose is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory; thine who is the Light, the Way and the Truth; our God rains his wrath on us because He (pause for dramatic effect) has self esteem issues.
You could think: Why not? He did make us in His own image, didn't He? And look how screwed up we are.
But think some more and you see that it's silly. It is the people who wanted to coerce people into believing their version of religion thousands of years ago who created a god in their image: vainglorious people who wanted to control people's behavior and assume exalted status in their communities.
Just like the politicos (again, on both sides), these preachers covet the right to remake New Orleans, the next presidential administration and the entire philosophy of our democracy as they see fit. Like Harry Truman promising to fill Japanese cities with nuclear hell if they didn't surrender in 1945, they threaten that more catastrophe is coming if we don't heed His will, which we can do by giving more credence to them. Fill their congregations and remember to give generously when they pass the plate. There are souls at stake. And Mercedes payments to make!
posted by jack at 5:05 PM
0 comments
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Work Things Out
Workouts work. You don't notice from one day to the next. But over time the effects accumulate until you catch your image reflected off a mirror or a glass door and you realize: Look at that! I'm built! Hey everbody! Come check me out!
I'm not talking Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise built. Or Brad Pitt in Fight Club built. Or Brad Pitt in any movie where you can see his abs built. But built so it's clear that the physique came from doing a lot more than 12 oz. curls.
I've never been a freak about it. No serious bodybuilding or steroids or anything like that. But the leaner I am the better I feel. Some exercise expert I interviewed for a story about the benefits of walking years ago explained that the body is designed to do work. It simply functions better when you regularly give it things to do.
I normally do that. But I got into an especially good rhythm starting last month. I had a three week freelance gig with a set Monday through Friday 9 a.m.-6 p.m. schedule. Every day I woke up early enough to get a workout in before I reported for my reporting duty. I took Saturdays off but not Sundays.
I've kept the routine up since the work stint ended except I sleep in until 7 a.m. now and I don't always work out first thing in the morning. But I've hit the weights six days a week for more than a month now and the rewards are showing.
And, of course, I have no one to show it off to. If I did, would I have to brag about it here? What is blogspot if not a new avenue for people to cry for attention? I use it to work things out in my head but, really, how many people publish something on the Internet who don't hope someone stumbles upon it and thinks its author is totally cool?
(Or, in this case, totally hot.)
Speaking of workouts for my head, I've been trying to read more. You can distinguish reading for entertainment from reading for exercise. The rare work does both. Once I got into it, I looked forward to plowing back into John Irving's The Cider House Rules. It was as illuminating as it was entertaining.
Now I'm reading -- here's where the "trying to" comes in -- a collection of John Updike's early short stories. He writes in his introduction about his "duty to give the mundane its beautiful due." Of that I have no doubt after reading a couple of his earliest efforts. I'm sure he gets better as he goes.
But the thing about so-called serious reading is that its rewards aren't immediate. Read Danielle Steel and the payoff comes with the inevitable happy ending. You're not going to admire the beautifully and intricately constructed plots. You can usually predict what's going to happen in the first 20 pages. But what you see coming is what you want to see happen and the joy is watching the love story blossom.
John Updike won't do that for you. He peppers you with bits of wisdom throughout his stories. I recognize it; I appreciate it; and I know it's like weightlifting for my brain. But like my other workouts, they're most fun when I'm finished with them.
Lucky for me I also checked out a Kinky Friedman novel. He turned to novel writing after a moderately successful career fronting a blues/rock band called Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys. Although he will surprise you with a piece of philosophy, he will just as often make you laugh out loud. Do not read one of his books while consuming liquid or while holding a full bladder. In either case you risk spewing fluid. His brain is differently twisted from most of ours but therin lies his charm. I'm still not sure it would make me want him to be the next governor of Texas, a job for which he has put his literary career on hold to pursue, but it's worth a few care free hours of my time.
Probably unlike the novella I just put you through. I bet if you slogged through all of it you feel like you went through a workout.
I'm not talking Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise built. Or Brad Pitt in Fight Club built. Or Brad Pitt in any movie where you can see his abs built. But built so it's clear that the physique came from doing a lot more than 12 oz. curls.
I've never been a freak about it. No serious bodybuilding or steroids or anything like that. But the leaner I am the better I feel. Some exercise expert I interviewed for a story about the benefits of walking years ago explained that the body is designed to do work. It simply functions better when you regularly give it things to do.
I normally do that. But I got into an especially good rhythm starting last month. I had a three week freelance gig with a set Monday through Friday 9 a.m.-6 p.m. schedule. Every day I woke up early enough to get a workout in before I reported for my reporting duty. I took Saturdays off but not Sundays.
I've kept the routine up since the work stint ended except I sleep in until 7 a.m. now and I don't always work out first thing in the morning. But I've hit the weights six days a week for more than a month now and the rewards are showing.
And, of course, I have no one to show it off to. If I did, would I have to brag about it here? What is blogspot if not a new avenue for people to cry for attention? I use it to work things out in my head but, really, how many people publish something on the Internet who don't hope someone stumbles upon it and thinks its author is totally cool?
(Or, in this case, totally hot.)
Speaking of workouts for my head, I've been trying to read more. You can distinguish reading for entertainment from reading for exercise. The rare work does both. Once I got into it, I looked forward to plowing back into John Irving's The Cider House Rules. It was as illuminating as it was entertaining.
Now I'm reading -- here's where the "trying to" comes in -- a collection of John Updike's early short stories. He writes in his introduction about his "duty to give the mundane its beautiful due." Of that I have no doubt after reading a couple of his earliest efforts. I'm sure he gets better as he goes.
But the thing about so-called serious reading is that its rewards aren't immediate. Read Danielle Steel and the payoff comes with the inevitable happy ending. You're not going to admire the beautifully and intricately constructed plots. You can usually predict what's going to happen in the first 20 pages. But what you see coming is what you want to see happen and the joy is watching the love story blossom.
John Updike won't do that for you. He peppers you with bits of wisdom throughout his stories. I recognize it; I appreciate it; and I know it's like weightlifting for my brain. But like my other workouts, they're most fun when I'm finished with them.
Lucky for me I also checked out a Kinky Friedman novel. He turned to novel writing after a moderately successful career fronting a blues/rock band called Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys. Although he will surprise you with a piece of philosophy, he will just as often make you laugh out loud. Do not read one of his books while consuming liquid or while holding a full bladder. In either case you risk spewing fluid. His brain is differently twisted from most of ours but therin lies his charm. I'm still not sure it would make me want him to be the next governor of Texas, a job for which he has put his literary career on hold to pursue, but it's worth a few care free hours of my time.
Probably unlike the novella I just put you through. I bet if you slogged through all of it you feel like you went through a workout.
posted by jack at 7:16 PM
0 comments
On your own
Heartbreaking and horrifying as the destruction of New Orleans is, the saddest part of the tragedy is that people won't learn its lesson.
And that is: If my life depends on government action -- at any level -- I'm in trouble. If disaster strikes, I'll be left to fend for myself. I can't storm-proof my home, though I will reinforce it however I can, but I can take steps so that if I keep my roof but lose electrical and water service that I'll survive.
'Cause, as we have seen, the gov't ain't comin'.
That means supplies of and water, nutrition bars, Pop-Tarts, canned fruit and meat, can openers (Yes: 2. What if one breaks?) and enough different varieties of food that I don't get sick of them. Hand sanitizer, baby wipes, bleach and other cleaners to sanitize whatever my bathroom facilities are if I can't flush toilets. Buckets, hand-cranked radio, flashlights and -- though it's not recommended because of the fire hazard -- candles. I have plenty of the jar kind so they should be safer.
That means keeping my cell phone charged and my car gassed up. And even my computer battery charged. I probably will not buy a generator because you have to operate it outside and my yard won't be secure or secluded enough to prevent theft. Besides, I'll need that fuel for my car if I need to flee.
Judging by what I've seen and heard, I might want to buy a gun for the first time in my life. Just in case.
This is not an exhaustive list. I'm just rattling things off the top of my head.
I remember a news story years ago on people going through so-called CERT training. That's Citizens Emergency Response Team. The premise was this: If emergency workers were unavailable to help you or your neighbors, how would you help yourself? The goal was to teach people some basic skills that would help them cope with a disaster until professional help could come.
Demand for the class was not heavy. Even in the post-9/11 world and now what we've seen with hurricanes last year in Florida and now this one on the Gulf Coast, people still don't think it can happen to them. It's not just hurricanes. I lived through an ice storm that knocked power out for a week. If you think you'd be miserable without air conditioning in August, try a week of winter without heat!
And that is: If my life depends on government action -- at any level -- I'm in trouble. If disaster strikes, I'll be left to fend for myself. I can't storm-proof my home, though I will reinforce it however I can, but I can take steps so that if I keep my roof but lose electrical and water service that I'll survive.
'Cause, as we have seen, the gov't ain't comin'.
That means supplies of and water, nutrition bars, Pop-Tarts, canned fruit and meat, can openers (Yes: 2. What if one breaks?) and enough different varieties of food that I don't get sick of them. Hand sanitizer, baby wipes, bleach and other cleaners to sanitize whatever my bathroom facilities are if I can't flush toilets. Buckets, hand-cranked radio, flashlights and -- though it's not recommended because of the fire hazard -- candles. I have plenty of the jar kind so they should be safer.
That means keeping my cell phone charged and my car gassed up. And even my computer battery charged. I probably will not buy a generator because you have to operate it outside and my yard won't be secure or secluded enough to prevent theft. Besides, I'll need that fuel for my car if I need to flee.
Judging by what I've seen and heard, I might want to buy a gun for the first time in my life. Just in case.
This is not an exhaustive list. I'm just rattling things off the top of my head.
I remember a news story years ago on people going through so-called CERT training. That's Citizens Emergency Response Team. The premise was this: If emergency workers were unavailable to help you or your neighbors, how would you help yourself? The goal was to teach people some basic skills that would help them cope with a disaster until professional help could come.
Demand for the class was not heavy. Even in the post-9/11 world and now what we've seen with hurricanes last year in Florida and now this one on the Gulf Coast, people still don't think it can happen to them. It's not just hurricanes. I lived through an ice storm that knocked power out for a week. If you think you'd be miserable without air conditioning in August, try a week of winter without heat!
posted by jack at 10:04 AM
0 comments
Monday, September 05, 2005
Sweet Cupcake
I work as a freelancer. What I freelance at you'll learn if you read far enough. Saying you work freelance is an elegant way of stating that you are largely unemployed. Sometimes you're as busy as -- or busier -- than any working stiff out there.
But mostly the "free" in freelance means I have lots of free time. That's a good thing for now but, sadly, I might someday have to work for a living again. Until then, I look for ways to exercise my brain and body in constructive ways. The former because, hey, I need all the help I can get. The latter because, as I like to say, I'm still single and I gotta advertise!
In hopes that someone is using the Internet more constructively than I am, I peruse through other blogs and see what's going on out there. I look for people who have something to say. I don't need anything particularly profound. A blogger with some wit and wisdom he or she hasn't simply cut and pasted or otherwise swiped from someone else will catch my attention.
This is rare.
Most of my spacewalks through the blogosphere leave me wishing I had the spent the time doing something more worthwhile like watching re-runs of lottery drawings on TV. (I lost again? Dang!) A few amuse me for a moment and others might if I could speak Spanish or German or any of the other countless language people use to blog. What? Al Gore invented the Internet only for Americans?
Today I found one worth mentioning. It's called Musings of a Cupcake. Its author appears to be a young single woman in California. It doesn't proclaim to carry the world's weight on its shoulders but it's bright, honest and fresh. And I took the time to leave the following detailed comment that I don't think is violating her confidence since anyone who reads her blog can read the same thing.
jack said...
Your blog is a good read. Well done!
Bored one day, I fired up my own blog and then started clicking the "Next Blog" button in the upper right corner looking for something interesting.
And, these days, something besides "The New Orleans disaster is Bush's fault -- that uncaring, incompetent weasel." Or words to that effect. I'm not saying the point might not be valid. I'm just saying that it has been well established and duly noted, thank you. Tell me something new.
And you did. Not just about "Czarina Katrina."
It was fun to read. OK, maybe not fun. I don't want to sound like I'm deriving enjoyment from another person's pain but the stories about your cyber-breakup kept me reading all the way to the bottom of the page. And when I finished that, I went to your profile, saw your other blog and read that too.
Now I'm as entertainment challenged as the next guy but not so much so that I have to read every word of every blog I click on. Take it for what it's worth from an anonymous source on the Internet but this is good stuff.
That brings up a point: If you're tempted to bash the President's handling of the Katrina crisis in your blog, please don't. It's all been said already and more eloquently than you ever will. And while in America nothing is ever anyone's fault so there must be someone else to blame, the finger pointing going on here smacks too obviously of trying to capitalize on it for political points.
My main surprise about the slow government response is that people are surprised. No massive bureaucracy is going to be prepared for a disaster of that magnitude. If John Kerry could not muster a better campaign against such a vulnerable incumbent, what makes you think he could have beaten Bush's response time to this by any meaningful amount?
For all the anger at the government -- at all levels -- how much did people do to prepare themselves? How many Floridians, even after last year's four hurricanes, have made plans for how to live in the aftermath of a huge storm? Polls earlier this year suggested that few of them had.
I have sheltered myself from a lot of the news from New Orleans but today I read all the articles about it in the local fish wrap. Unlike government authorities I had the luxury of not dealing with the reality until I had braced myself first. And I indulged.
Some people are offering space in their homes to those sent fleeing from the Gulf Coast. A friend of mine in Shreveport did it. She recently married and moved in, as you would hope she'd do, with her husband. Her house was empty and ready to go on the market when instead she "adopted" a family evacuated from New Orleans. She says other people have donated bedding and other basic supplies.
In the rush to help, I hope the people matching the homeless with the homeowners are doing background checks. You can see it now: Someone robbed or raped by someone to whom she had opened her home.
You'll be proud that I avoided calling them "refugees." Seems people are offended by the term. Is this really the time for semantics? I mean, if I'm ever wiped out like that, call me a refugee as long as you're calling help for me!
Where was I? Oh, yes. In search of more cupcakes.
But mostly the "free" in freelance means I have lots of free time. That's a good thing for now but, sadly, I might someday have to work for a living again. Until then, I look for ways to exercise my brain and body in constructive ways. The former because, hey, I need all the help I can get. The latter because, as I like to say, I'm still single and I gotta advertise!
In hopes that someone is using the Internet more constructively than I am, I peruse through other blogs and see what's going on out there. I look for people who have something to say. I don't need anything particularly profound. A blogger with some wit and wisdom he or she hasn't simply cut and pasted or otherwise swiped from someone else will catch my attention.
This is rare.
Most of my spacewalks through the blogosphere leave me wishing I had the spent the time doing something more worthwhile like watching re-runs of lottery drawings on TV. (I lost again? Dang!) A few amuse me for a moment and others might if I could speak Spanish or German or any of the other countless language people use to blog. What? Al Gore invented the Internet only for Americans?
Today I found one worth mentioning. It's called Musings of a Cupcake. Its author appears to be a young single woman in California. It doesn't proclaim to carry the world's weight on its shoulders but it's bright, honest and fresh. And I took the time to leave the following detailed comment that I don't think is violating her confidence since anyone who reads her blog can read the same thing.
jack said...
Your blog is a good read. Well done!
Bored one day, I fired up my own blog and then started clicking the "Next Blog" button in the upper right corner looking for something interesting.
And, these days, something besides "The New Orleans disaster is Bush's fault -- that uncaring, incompetent weasel." Or words to that effect. I'm not saying the point might not be valid. I'm just saying that it has been well established and duly noted, thank you. Tell me something new.
And you did. Not just about "Czarina Katrina."
It was fun to read. OK, maybe not fun. I don't want to sound like I'm deriving enjoyment from another person's pain but the stories about your cyber-breakup kept me reading all the way to the bottom of the page. And when I finished that, I went to your profile, saw your other blog and read that too.
Now I'm as entertainment challenged as the next guy but not so much so that I have to read every word of every blog I click on. Take it for what it's worth from an anonymous source on the Internet but this is good stuff.
That brings up a point: If you're tempted to bash the President's handling of the Katrina crisis in your blog, please don't. It's all been said already and more eloquently than you ever will. And while in America nothing is ever anyone's fault so there must be someone else to blame, the finger pointing going on here smacks too obviously of trying to capitalize on it for political points.
My main surprise about the slow government response is that people are surprised. No massive bureaucracy is going to be prepared for a disaster of that magnitude. If John Kerry could not muster a better campaign against such a vulnerable incumbent, what makes you think he could have beaten Bush's response time to this by any meaningful amount?
For all the anger at the government -- at all levels -- how much did people do to prepare themselves? How many Floridians, even after last year's four hurricanes, have made plans for how to live in the aftermath of a huge storm? Polls earlier this year suggested that few of them had.
I have sheltered myself from a lot of the news from New Orleans but today I read all the articles about it in the local fish wrap. Unlike government authorities I had the luxury of not dealing with the reality until I had braced myself first. And I indulged.
Some people are offering space in their homes to those sent fleeing from the Gulf Coast. A friend of mine in Shreveport did it. She recently married and moved in, as you would hope she'd do, with her husband. Her house was empty and ready to go on the market when instead she "adopted" a family evacuated from New Orleans. She says other people have donated bedding and other basic supplies.
In the rush to help, I hope the people matching the homeless with the homeowners are doing background checks. You can see it now: Someone robbed or raped by someone to whom she had opened her home.
You'll be proud that I avoided calling them "refugees." Seems people are offended by the term. Is this really the time for semantics? I mean, if I'm ever wiped out like that, call me a refugee as long as you're calling help for me!
Where was I? Oh, yes. In search of more cupcakes.
posted by jack at 1:38 PM
0 comments
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Simple Pleasures
The things you find on the Internet. If watching where you're going is not interesting enough, now you can have something else to watch while you're going.
Beware. They can also watch you.
This is not merely my idea of bathrooom humor. Har har. If we can believe this blog, this is a real product. But I ask you: Do you really want someone whose aim while urinating might not be accurate anyway to be distracted while he's doing it? It's not going to impess a lady, is it? What view is she going to have of it while tending to her bathroom business?
But you know some guy will get one then decide it's too cool to keep hidden in his water closet. That'll be the guy you make the mistake of visiting only to discover the toilet sitting in his living room. Just don't tell me the part of the story where he hosts a keg party and the line waiting for the bathroom gets too long. Just hope he has real plumbing attached to it.
Fitting that I would come across that site at a time when tens of thousands of people in this country would consider a simple flushing toilet as the grandest of luxuries. For most of us, an accident of birth lets us take such things as indoor plumbing for granted. Much of the world doesn't have it. Many countries routinely face the kind of tragedy we rightly find so totally shocking to see happen here. Starving desperate refugees fleeing an unliveable hell. American refugees? Crazy!
Common conveniences become simple pleasures. I treaure them even without the decoration.
posted by jack at 10:01 AM
0 comments
Friday, September 02, 2005
Spam This
Whew. Close call. For a moment I thought someone besides me was reading this stuff. That wasn't my intent. I'm not venting here for your entertainment. I'm doing it for mine.
When I first started "blogging," which sounds so inelegant that I hate to call it that, a few people noticed and passed along compliments. I think that new blogs get put into heavy "Next Blog" rotation. If it's any good, people will offer comments and that will inspire the author to continue adding to it. That's what happened to mine. And then I started thinking about writing for an audience instead of writing for myself. I already have a web site in my own name. I don't need an audience for this one.
And while people are welcome to read it if they want I figured any interest would die off when I let the blog sit idle for two months before firing up the browser yesterday and adding another two cents to the pile of pennies that constitute it.
So what happens when I visit again today? Somone had left a comment. Two someones, in fact. Or so it appeared. Then you read them and discover they're spam. Someone, I'm sure by some sort of remote control, had left what looked like praiseful thoughts about something I, of course, thought praiseworthy. A closer look reveals that the comments are generic. And come with an invitation to visit the commentator's blog, which is always a business site.
Hey, nice job. Liked your blog. Mine's about different kinds of acne treatments. Check it out and tell me what you think.
That's not verbatim but one of them actually was spam for an acne product site. The comment, if you call it that, had a picture of a teenage boy next to it. I'm sure the real owner of the site is a middle-aged man. And I don't want to know what's going on between him and the boy.
It is testament to the influence of the blogosphere that spammers had to break their way into it. I am grateful that blogger put in a verification system to combat the automated replies to blogs. I don't remember its existence just months ago when I signed up. But things move fast here in cyberspace. I'm sure those who try to pollute our e-mail inboxes won't stop finding ways to soil our blogs with uninvited and unwanted commercial messages.
But, for now, spam this!
When I first started "blogging," which sounds so inelegant that I hate to call it that, a few people noticed and passed along compliments. I think that new blogs get put into heavy "Next Blog" rotation. If it's any good, people will offer comments and that will inspire the author to continue adding to it. That's what happened to mine. And then I started thinking about writing for an audience instead of writing for myself. I already have a web site in my own name. I don't need an audience for this one.
And while people are welcome to read it if they want I figured any interest would die off when I let the blog sit idle for two months before firing up the browser yesterday and adding another two cents to the pile of pennies that constitute it.
So what happens when I visit again today? Somone had left a comment. Two someones, in fact. Or so it appeared. Then you read them and discover they're spam. Someone, I'm sure by some sort of remote control, had left what looked like praiseful thoughts about something I, of course, thought praiseworthy. A closer look reveals that the comments are generic. And come with an invitation to visit the commentator's blog, which is always a business site.
Hey, nice job. Liked your blog. Mine's about different kinds of acne treatments. Check it out and tell me what you think.
That's not verbatim but one of them actually was spam for an acne product site. The comment, if you call it that, had a picture of a teenage boy next to it. I'm sure the real owner of the site is a middle-aged man. And I don't want to know what's going on between him and the boy.
It is testament to the influence of the blogosphere that spammers had to break their way into it. I am grateful that blogger put in a verification system to combat the automated replies to blogs. I don't remember its existence just months ago when I signed up. But things move fast here in cyberspace. I'm sure those who try to pollute our e-mail inboxes won't stop finding ways to soil our blogs with uninvited and unwanted commercial messages.
But, for now, spam this!
posted by jack at 8:33 PM
0 comments
For Whom The Death Tolls
They can't count the dead until the people stop dying. And that's a long way off. Blame the government. We are bred to believe that nothing's our fault and that if something bad happens it's our right to just compensation. Or at least a bus ride out of our modern concentration camp.
The President should be impeached, I read. It's his fault that looters are shooters too and you'll excuse me if that scares me away from saving you. The government reacted too slowly. What good does a hug from the Consoler-In-Chief if the victims can't hang on until he drags them out of that hell that looks just like Sudan or Ethiopia or whichever African country this week is starving its people to death in the desert. But with taller buildings for backdrop.
People, desperate and destitute, with bewildered looks that show you they have no clue how they got into this mess and even less of an idea of how they'll get out.
It's a look that says, "I might not be good, Jesus, but I didn't deserve this."
It's racism. Must be. Please play that card because now is truly the time for games. No opportunity for free TV time should pass unused. Yes, the second guessing comes before the first guess is conjured about what to do about a mess so unprecedented and unfathomable.
Yes, I'm talking about New Orleans. Where have you been?
We are surprised that a city below sea level could be left sitting below sea. Nobody believed it could happen to them. They wouldn't let us live here if it weren't safe. If there are perils it's like cancer. Somebody else gets it. But sometimes that somebody becomes you or me.
I don't watch much of it on TV. If the images themselves didn't wrench my heart, the commentary by the news anchors would. For a different reason. Here is a class of overblowdried Barbies whose usual overblown hyperbole has met a disaster that exceeds description. How does fearmongering work when the worst fears have realized?
They'll put it to me in terms of degrees of devastation -- most, worst -- but that requires a perspective that is impossible because you can't compare the incomparable. And then they'll begin to tell me how it affects them. Forgive me if I don't want to hear the feelings of people who could leave but don't have the sense to do it. Don't tell me they're forced to be there. If you trade in tragedy for a living, this is your lottery. "Mississippi Misery!" Pass the dehydrated baby and bring her cryin' mama too! I'll get a resume tape out of this!
The good ones among them won't tell me how "completely destroyed (sic)" things are. I can see that for myself, thank you. They will focus on the details. They will share insight into how people keep their humanity in such inhuman conditions. And make us understand when they can't.
My own brushes with natural disaster have been brief and obviously minor by comparison. I cannot say I have been there done that lived to tell about it. I can't imagine it. Can you prepare for what you can't picture? In other times in other ways I have suffered enough to know: Desperation doesn't end when you wish you were dead. It doesn't end until death has tolled for thee.
Elmer, you're not the only one, buddy. I hate that wabbit too.
The President should be impeached, I read. It's his fault that looters are shooters too and you'll excuse me if that scares me away from saving you. The government reacted too slowly. What good does a hug from the Consoler-In-Chief if the victims can't hang on until he drags them out of that hell that looks just like Sudan or Ethiopia or whichever African country this week is starving its people to death in the desert. But with taller buildings for backdrop.
People, desperate and destitute, with bewildered looks that show you they have no clue how they got into this mess and even less of an idea of how they'll get out.
It's a look that says, "I might not be good, Jesus, but I didn't deserve this."
It's racism. Must be. Please play that card because now is truly the time for games. No opportunity for free TV time should pass unused. Yes, the second guessing comes before the first guess is conjured about what to do about a mess so unprecedented and unfathomable.
Yes, I'm talking about New Orleans. Where have you been?
We are surprised that a city below sea level could be left sitting below sea. Nobody believed it could happen to them. They wouldn't let us live here if it weren't safe. If there are perils it's like cancer. Somebody else gets it. But sometimes that somebody becomes you or me.
I don't watch much of it on TV. If the images themselves didn't wrench my heart, the commentary by the news anchors would. For a different reason. Here is a class of overblowdried Barbies whose usual overblown hyperbole has met a disaster that exceeds description. How does fearmongering work when the worst fears have realized?
They'll put it to me in terms of degrees of devastation -- most, worst -- but that requires a perspective that is impossible because you can't compare the incomparable. And then they'll begin to tell me how it affects them. Forgive me if I don't want to hear the feelings of people who could leave but don't have the sense to do it. Don't tell me they're forced to be there. If you trade in tragedy for a living, this is your lottery. "Mississippi Misery!" Pass the dehydrated baby and bring her cryin' mama too! I'll get a resume tape out of this!
The good ones among them won't tell me how "completely destroyed (sic)" things are. I can see that for myself, thank you. They will focus on the details. They will share insight into how people keep their humanity in such inhuman conditions. And make us understand when they can't.
My own brushes with natural disaster have been brief and obviously minor by comparison. I cannot say I have been there done that lived to tell about it. I can't imagine it. Can you prepare for what you can't picture? In other times in other ways I have suffered enough to know: Desperation doesn't end when you wish you were dead. It doesn't end until death has tolled for thee.
Elmer, you're not the only one, buddy. I hate that wabbit too.
posted by jack at 6:17 PM
0 comments
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Updates
I read my rarely tended blog to see that if you read it regularly, I have left you hanging.
First update: My townhome is still a flat dirt lot. However the streets of my new community are paved and Monday I got to park in my parking space. I'm sure there will be plenty of available parking until people actually begin to move in. I did take pictures of the still barren and bare land on a previous visit and I'll visit periodically to document its progress.
Second update: That company that owed me nearly $2500 in June now only owes me $550. That's much better. I have only had to resort to mild threats so far. The company gets the legal sounding stuff soon.
First update: My townhome is still a flat dirt lot. However the streets of my new community are paved and Monday I got to park in my parking space. I'm sure there will be plenty of available parking until people actually begin to move in. I did take pictures of the still barren and bare land on a previous visit and I'll visit periodically to document its progress.
Second update: That company that owed me nearly $2500 in June now only owes me $550. That's much better. I have only had to resort to mild threats so far. The company gets the legal sounding stuff soon.
posted by jack at 7:18 PM
0 comments
Once In A While
I thought I was going to blog more often than I have. Things have been dry for me. I haven't had much material to work with and it's always been my thought that if you have nothing to say you shouldn't say it. I see by perusing other blogs that not everyone thinks likewise.
While I appreciate the outlet (Many thanks, Google.), I wonder if it does any good, for me or for anyone who might stumble upon it and scan through. So many people say so much that adds to so little on the Internet these days that even the gems get covered by clutter. You could waste hours at a time clicking on the "Next Blog" button in the right hand corner of this page without seeing anything that's worth the paper it's printed on. And you can't get your money back for the time you spent.
If I see another blog with the word "truth" in the the title, I'm going to hurl. This would be a lot saner world if we had fewer people trying to pass off their opinions as the truth. Here's an idea: What if someone really did report and let me decide? Give me some facts, show me where I can verify them myself if I want, and I'll get along just fine.
But, again, judging by the popularity of talk radio and television spin-meisters, I stand in the minority. People don't want to be told the truth. They want what they believe reinforced. For that you can't blame the show hosts. They're just satisfying a demand. It's the somnabulent sheep -- the people who read a headline, if they see a newspaper at all, and think they know the whole story -- who don't think, don't question and don't care enough to know the context who are at fault.
You know the kind, the one who hears that going outside unprotected from the sun is good for you because it causes your skin to produce vitamin D and throws away his sun block, not bothering to listen long enough to hear that you only have to spend 15 minutes a WEEK outside to get the benefit.
Don't take my word for that, please. Get it from a more credible source than some wingnut writing on the Internet.
While I appreciate the outlet (Many thanks, Google.), I wonder if it does any good, for me or for anyone who might stumble upon it and scan through. So many people say so much that adds to so little on the Internet these days that even the gems get covered by clutter. You could waste hours at a time clicking on the "Next Blog" button in the right hand corner of this page without seeing anything that's worth the paper it's printed on. And you can't get your money back for the time you spent.
If I see another blog with the word "truth" in the the title, I'm going to hurl. This would be a lot saner world if we had fewer people trying to pass off their opinions as the truth. Here's an idea: What if someone really did report and let me decide? Give me some facts, show me where I can verify them myself if I want, and I'll get along just fine.
But, again, judging by the popularity of talk radio and television spin-meisters, I stand in the minority. People don't want to be told the truth. They want what they believe reinforced. For that you can't blame the show hosts. They're just satisfying a demand. It's the somnabulent sheep -- the people who read a headline, if they see a newspaper at all, and think they know the whole story -- who don't think, don't question and don't care enough to know the context who are at fault.
You know the kind, the one who hears that going outside unprotected from the sun is good for you because it causes your skin to produce vitamin D and throws away his sun block, not bothering to listen long enough to hear that you only have to spend 15 minutes a WEEK outside to get the benefit.
Don't take my word for that, please. Get it from a more credible source than some wingnut writing on the Internet.
posted by jack at 6:24 PM
0 comments
About Me
- Name: jack
- Location: United States
NOTE: This site works much better if your browser has its tongue-in-cheek and sarcasm fonts enabled.
Can you hear
Can you hear
Can you hear
Whispering Winds?
Why don't they just
Come right out and say it?
Email me: factjack (at) hotmail.com
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Previous Posts
- Having Trouble Grasping the Wisdom Here
- iDon't Believe This
- Overheard Inside My Head
- On the Ledge
- Dating Resolve
- Some Things Require Professionals
- Overheard Inside My Head
- Overheard Inside My Head
- Call
- Overheard Inside My Head
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