Zen Imbecile

whaaaa?

2009-06-22T12:55:00.000-07:00

It has been almost a year since the BBB* was born.

Yesterday, we were at the swimming pool and I was reminiscing about the days leading up to his birth. I'd go to the pool just to get a little relief from gravity. I remembered the ache and the swell, the feeling of bursting at my seams both physically and emotionally. Such discomfort!

Then the strangest thought occurred to me:

"This hasn't been that hard. It has just been a year. A year of struggles but nothing insurmountable. Obviously, since we're here in the pool with a laughing baby in our arms."

And then I shared that thought with my husband and we both cackled at the absurdity of it.

*BBB is our new, more socially acceptable substitute for "bubba." It is prounounced "buhbuhbuh."

When ashamed of evidence of your country-bumpkin antecedents, add a syllable. It works every time!

... you haven't been paying attention

2009-02-25T11:59:00.001-08:00

By the way, anybody like us who, prior to this mess, did "everything" right should be at least as appalled by what happened on Wall Street as they are about what happened on Main Street.

If anything, I have more sympathy for people with mortgage troubles.

I know why we did "everything" right: we were raised by at least one parent who taught us how to do it. But many people didn't have any such luck.

But investment bankers - people with advanced fucking degrees in economics or business or law - don't have any fucking excuse.

the biggest losers

2009-02-24T10:28:00.000-08:00

Who are the biggest losers in the WEDSGD?

And by losers, I mean the "big L bouncing off their foreheads" kind, not the "bereft of their funds and possessions" kind.

Is it really the homeowners who got loans bigger than they could afford? The people who are going to need a $75 billion bailout?

Or is it the investment banks who got loans - on Wall Street they call it "leverage" - bigger than they could afford, to the tune of a $800 billion bailout?

Give me a fucking break, you finger waggers. All those people who got those bad loans were at best being duped by mortgage brokers they thought they could trust and at worst were following your fucking lead.

And ***YOU*** were making money off of them.

Fuck you.

(And also fuck you to the media and the left/moderates for not pointing that out more often.)

25 businesses likely to thrive during the WEDSGD

2009-02-20T12:33:00.000-08:00

1. car repair shops

2. shoe repair shops

3. dollar stores

4. comfort food purveyors

5. career advice specialists

6. resume writing services

7. movie theaters

8. strip joints

9. pornographers

10. libraries (if they could be for profit)

11. book stores

12. thrift stores

13. check cashing & payday loan places

14. pawn shops

15. knock off purveyors

16. outlet stores

17. fences (not the wooden kind)

18. cigarette companies

19. lottery vendors

20. gum manufacturers

21. con men

22. lawyers for investment bankers

23. providers of cheap indulgences

I'm trying to think of some good examples. This would be things that seem luxurious, help the person feel spoiled, but actually don't cost very much. Like cupcakes. I imagine that the cupcake business will continue to thrive.

24. ghost busters

25. underwear

25 things to do during the WEDSGD

2009-02-20T04:37:00.001-08:00

(WEDSGD = Worst Economic Downturn Since the Great Depression)

If you still have a job:

feel superior for seeing it coming "a mile away"
assign blame
consider whether we're permanently or only temporarily fucked
rent as many post-apocalyptic films as possible looking for survival tips
make a list of businesses that will thrive during a downturn
get angry that you can't get a loan to start one
assign blame
shop at the dollar store
fantasize about what you'll do with your money when the WEDSGD is over
fantasize about how much money you could make in the stock market if you can only get in just as things are starting their upward swing.
consider whether we are only temporarily or permanently fucked
fantasize about all the things you'll with your free time do when you get laid of
make lists of 25 things (tune in tomorrow ...)

If you lose your job:

panic
scramble
cut back
give up
set up a clothesline in your backyard, buy a prairie dress or overalls at thrift store, and pretend like you live in olden times.
go to the library a lot
ride your bike places for fun and exercise
find new music on Pandora
make some sandwiches and have a picnic in the park
people watch
take up a cheap hobby like writing or drawing or photography (hooray for digital cameras) or gluing stuff to other stuff
meditate (but don't hold your breath)

mixing a metaphor

2008-10-29T12:44:00.000-07:00

According to a co-worker, the squeaky wheel is the one who really stirs the pot.

A pot full of metaphors, apparently ...

good company

2008-10-24T05:10:00.000-07:00

I don't have the standard anxiety dreams. My teeth don't fall out. I'm never naked ... except, you know, when it makes sense.

My anxiety dream is always the same. I'm in a broken elevator. It isn't hung well and it is swinging from side to side. And it turns out that Charlie Kaufman, who I think is an absolute genius, told Terry Gross that he has the same recurring dream!

on the positive side

2008-10-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

Boy, there's nothing like a good international economic crisis for helping a mom like me take that baby weight off!

I know some folks turn toward comfort eating in times like these. But not me! My stomache clenches up and the food just can't fit.

And I shall call him Bubba

2008-10-04T12:59:00.000-07:00

This whole "baby changes your life" thing is all fine and dandy but I seem to be experiencing some kind of severe chemical reaction bordering on psychosis. And I don't mean postpartum depression unless spontaneously calling your baby "Bubba" is one of the symptoms.

Seriously. I'm calling him "Bubba."

The first time I heard myself say it, I thought "What on god's green earth is wrong with me?" I am a native Texan, true, but I am the type of native Texan who loves the myths, the brash personalities, outsized everythings, and absurd verbal ticks from a distance assumed by the informed and bemused observer.

Not to suggest that there's anything wrong with calling your child Bubba. It's just not me.

Really

It really freaks me out that I say this word "Bubba" in reference to my child. And I say it with affection.

So how did I end up in my own personal Bubba-ville and why am I dragging my child there with me?

This is my defense:

It started out as "Bebe" but perhaps because I sometimes call our dog "Puppeh" it morphed to "Bubbeh."

(If you're wondering how desperate I am to excuse this behavior that I would try to draw a distinction between an "eh" and "a" at the end of that word, I'll say that you have a tin ear and should never try to learn a foreign language.)

At some point, "bebe" and "Bubbeh" got mixed up with "Bubeleh" (pronounced BOO [as in "book"]-buh-leh) which is what my Great Aunt Millie called me when I was a kid and she wanted to shark me at penny ante poker.

(Not really. Millie always supplied all the pennies for the game)

(Also, totally off the subject, but Millie looked like a fat witch with a giant hairy mole on her chin, beady black eyes, and a long nose. Also, no joke, she used to hook her cane around my ankle and say "Come here Bubeleh" when she wanted me to come to talk to her.)

(I loved her so!)

So in the end, there's a simple, almost mathematical explanation:

Bebe + Puppeh + BOO-buh-leh = Bubba

Yet in the end, all that intellectualizing, analyzing, and linguisticizing still boils down to two bare facts:

My baby is my Bubba and I love him so!

si, se puede

2008-09-25T12:33:00.000-07:00

Seven things I've done that you probably haven't:

1) Traveled alone in the interior of Mexico for eight months.

2) During rush hour, spun 180 degrees on North Central Expressway in Dallas and lived to tell about it.

Not only did I not get hit or hit anyone but noone hit anything else attempting to avoid me. By the way, this road is so infamously congested during rush hour that it earned a spot on the Atari game Frogger.

3) Lied to an immigration officer about the location of my visa and got away with it.

At two in the morning, the Transportes Americanos bus I was dozing on stopped at the Mexican immigration checkpoint on its way to the US. The lights went up and the men in uniform sauntered down the aisle with big black rifles over their shoulders, examining each person's papers. When one guy got to me, I looked as surprised as I could possibly manage and explained sheepishly that my visa was in my backpack in the luggage racks under the bus. When in fact it was godonlyknowswhere, as I had discovered when packing my bags the night before. He grunted at me to bring it with me next time and moved on.

Can you imagine getting away with that in the US?

4) Left a different visa on a bus in a bag full of trash and somehow convinced the ticket agent to get his colleagues at the next town over to hunt it down and return it to me.

For details, see http://mcbmx.diaryland.com/031223_21.html

5) Accidentally spent an evening in a Mexican crack house.

Explaining this requires its own post. Someday ...

6) Had Rachel Hunter (yes, that Rachel Hunter) tell me that we were "alot alike."

I was a production assistant on the movie Pendulum and one of my duties involved bringing her tea every morning. I had a reputation as a space cadet, hence the comment.

7) Had my purse stolen from a state park outside Sao Paulo, Brazil and returned, intact, less than a month later.

I stupidly left the purse on the front seat of my ex-brother in law's car in the parking lot of said state park under the faulty assumption that people at state parks don't steal things. After tramping through rainforest, diving into crystal lakes, and all that other Brazilian state park jazz, we returned to discover the window busted out and my purse gone. A few weeks after returning to Austin, I got a call from IBM security who explained to me that someone had found my purse on the streets of Rio de Janiero (a good long distance from Sao Paulo, mind you), and found my old IBM ID card inside. So they brought it to the IBM office in Rio who mailed it to Austin and could I please come pick up right away. They also wanted to know why I hadn't told them about the stolen purse to which I answered "I haven't worked for you in like six months."

8) Gave birth to my little buddy.

zen imbecile / child = mombecile

2008-09-16T05:28:00.000-07:00

Boy.

You spend years working on your shit. Your insecurities, anxieties, emnities, and all the other ities you've carried around since childhood. You read and meditate. Take lots of deep breaths. Think you've got 'em licked.

And then you have a kid and they all come flooding back to you as if your ego were pregnant and its water just broke ... all over your psyche.

sigh (the good kind)

2008-09-15T08:02:00.000-07:00

Summer in Texas can crush your soul like a steamroller, but on the first lovely morning of autumn, it springs back to full form and then some.

Jokes is Funny

2008-08-21T01:45:00.001-07:00

But this isn't really ...

Q: What is the difference between an insomniac mom of a newborn baby and a regular mom of a newborn?

A: The insomniac thinks she has some psychological advantage over the normal mom because she's used to getting by on not a lot of sleep.

Q: What does an insomniac mom do when her baby starts sleeping through the night?

A: She wakes him up to keep her company.

...

Just kidding!

kick ass!

2008-07-31T08:44:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to be publishing an essay about place but I just got the best comment ever on this post and I had to let everyone know!

I'm flattered beyond words.

:)

The best part is that I have no idea who this person is or why she ended up on my blog. How exciting!!!!!!

Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda

2008-07-29T15:47:00.001-07:00

We have a son!

In the interest of time, which is in very short supply these days, I'm publishing something I sent to friends and family a few days after his birth:

Everybody kept asking pregnant me whether I was "soooooo" excited to have a baby. And while standard protocol might be to reply "I am soooooo soooo sooooo excited" I could not tell that lie. My answer sounded more like: "Uh ... yeah, I guess ... and terrified."

What I realize now is that I've always hated the word "excited" for being sort of meaningless and I especially hate it in regard to having a baby because what I am is ... completely transported by joy.

I've also been told throughout the pregnancy "Nobody tells you how hard it is," a statement which immediately belies itself. But the truth is that nobody can possibly describe to you how good it feels. I mean, he's just a little blob of red flesh and farts with no motor control and no personality but I'd gladly put myself on the rack - which we have over the last five days ;) - for his sake.

So sorry to bore you with a mini-essay but I'm mostly writing to say that we're home and safe and your phone calls are more than welcome. We have to be careful about visitors because his little immune system is still under construction. And I can't guarantee that we'll actually answer the phone but we'd really really love to hear from you.

A few details ... we went into the hospital early because my blood pressure went up. He was five days late so the doctor decided to induce. Unfortunately he didn't tolerate labor well - I won't get into the medical details - so we ended up having a C-section after about twelve hours. And then both of us had fevers so he was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and I got put on massive amounts of antibiotics. He only had to stay in the NICU nursery for a day before his temperature stabilized and then he stayed with us the rest of the time we were in the hospital.

7 songs (subtitle: baby baby baby)

2008-06-12T10:08:00.000-07:00

I was tagged by Ryan:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

1) Handlebars - Flobots
I just heard this song for the first time yesterday and it immediately got under my skin. I can't evaluate its success in its genre - it is sort of hip-hop by way of Cake - but I love the way it starts out so simply (I can ride my bike with no handle bars/no handlebars/no handlebars) and increases in intensity both musically and lyrically until it becomes a rousing anthem to the scariest aspects of modern American life (I can end the planet in a holocaust/in a holocaust/in a holocaust). I know it sounds pretentious but I don't care. I love it. It gives me chills.

2) Unknown Title - Dan Deacon
This is a song that the Alamo Drafthouse is using for their various promos. It is totally nuts. I don't know how to describe it except to say that it makes me want to dance like Ally Sheedy in the Breakfast Club.

3) William, It Was Really Nothing - The Smiths
Kurt has been trying to learn this song so it has been in my head alot.

4) You Are My Sunshine - Dunno
Supposedly I learned how to sing this song when I was 18 months old. I think that makes the toddler me freakishly precocious but it all petered out after that. :)

The rest of these are going to be songs on our delivery room play list.

(because I am a cliche and all I can think about is baby baby baby)

Kurt is bringing his guitar so we can entertain ourselves:
5) The Carter Family - the first CD in the collection although I can't remember the name. Also the song book.
6) The Beatles song book

7) Lefty Frizzell
8) Astral Weeks - Van Morrison
9) Apologies to the Queen Mary - Wolf Parade
10) The Soft Bulletin - Flaming Lips
11) A bunch of other stuff I can't remember right now

10) The Beatles song book

Grand Champeen Peach Prince

2008-06-09T08:09:00.000-07:00

Child-to-be, your father is a true champ. A peach. A prince among men.

While I've been incapacitated by exhaustion and a physiognomy that causes rolling over to take a twelve-point turn and rising to be a six-step process, he has:

1) Coddled me
2) Fed me
3) Tolerated my crankiness
4) Carted me around to satisfy insane cravings for pig cookies and Beck's near beer
5) Painted the nursery
6) Listened to me snore like a horse
7) Affixed the car seats
8) Assembled the crib
9) Stroked my hair
10) Constructed furniture
11) Did the laundry
12) Installed a ceiling fan!!
13) After I took an unfortunate stumble Saturday night, stayed awake with me until 2:30 at the hospital while the doctor's monitored your well being and unplugged me from the monitor every five minutes so I could pee.
14) Too too many other things to even mention
15) Smiled sweetly and loved me all the while

How did we get to be so lucky, kid?

very localized

2008-06-03T19:28:00.000-07:00

Don't gasp at me, people.

Please.

When you see my belly, just ... you know ... smile and say "You look great!"

Today, two different co-workers who haven't been in the office in months gasped audibly at me and squealed, "Omigod!" They both clasped their hands over their mouths. Multiple others have used the word "rotund" to describe my torso or asked "Are you sure its not twins?"

Yeesh. I know that nobody is trying to be mean but you're freaking me out!!! Is my size really gasp-worthy?

For fuck's sake.

Thankfully, one of my engineer girlfriends made up for it all by describing my belly in clinical, rational terms as "very localized."

I'll show you some braxton-hixie

2008-05-29T09:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at the gym, after finishing my pathetically short and unstrenuous swim workout, I stood at the end of the lane stretching and simultaneously feeling jealous of my lane neighbor who, as evidenced by her huffing and puffing, was in the middle of a nice hard training session.

As I listened and stretched, I looked forward to the day when I could push my limits in the pool - not advisable when you're 36 weeks pregnant - when my reveries were interrupted by this very woman gasping beside me:

GW: "Are you OK?"

What?

Me: "Yeah. I just can't do the workout I used to."

GW: "You were breathing heavy."

I was breathing heavy? Me? Are you projecting?

GW: "And you looked kind of Braxton-Hixie."

What does that mean? How does one look Braxton-Hixie*? Is that perceptible to the human eye?

Me: "I'm fine. Thanks for asking."

Shut up, Butt-inski.

* Braxton-Hixie presumably refers to the condition of having Braxton-Hicks contractions. These are also referred to as "practice" contractions that happen throughout pregnancy but increase in frequency and intensity toward the end of gestation.

CBT is my best friend

2008-05-27T14:23:00.000-07:00

My favorite thought stoppers in order of appearance:

1. There's no way I can really know what s/he/it is thinking.

2. I can't anticipate the outcome. Every time I've tried, I've been wrong.

3. Most people die of old age.

(#3 got me through my darkest moments in Mexico.)

you will not spy with your little eye

2008-05-24T02:22:00.000-07:00

... any sign of my nips.

(my mother-in-law might be reading this so I'll apologize in advance for any "mature" content that might make her uncomfortable but I feel very strongly about this and must have my word!!)

I plan to breastfeed. I even intend to breastfeed in public when necessary. But barring any confluence of unfortunate events, my nipples will remain my private property with viewings available by appointment only. At the discretion of the owner - meaning me - naturally.

(For the record, I do not have a problem with other people doing whatever they need or want to do with their nipples. This is just a personal preference that I feel the need to justify through a blog post.)

Some of you might be thinking, "For shame, Imbecile! Why should you be embarrassed by something so natural and beautiful! You have fallen under the sway of the patriarchy which sexualizes and objectifies your body! Love your nipples, do not hide them!"

I do love my nipples, people.

Believe me.

The patriarchy did not sexualize them. Nature did.

They are number two on my list of favorite erogenous zones. In fact, if the list were graphed based on a range of sensitivity from 1000 - 1, item number one would range around 1000, nipples would be, say, 750, and everything else would fall below the 300 mark.

And I'm most definitely not ashamed of that! I simply prefer to keep it between me and my husband.

Shit.

Wait a minute.

I kinda fucked that up, didn't I?

First, there's the whole matter of the baby. He's gonna get an long term lease, of a decidedly nonsexual nature, at the top of my nipple guest list.

And then there's you, reading this post. To whom I have just exposed myself in the figurative sense.

...

Watch yourself.

If I catch you staring, I will smack you.

And the award for Best Husband Ever goes to ...

2008-05-20T13:52:00.001-07:00

So I was complaining over IM to my husband about work. I'm feeling overwhelmed and underappreciated, having been dragged through a months-long effort only to have it all pulled out from under me at the last minute. Etc etc.

And you know what he said in response?

In complete sincerity?

"I can't wait for the moment when I can serve you whisky in the tub"

This is a man who understands me and wants to make me happy.

geography lessons

2008-05-12T12:56:00.000-07:00

On January 4, 2003, I arrived by bus to a small town in the middle of the middle of Mexico. On January 21, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake hit Colima.

A few days later I received a large volume of e-mails chastising me for not letting everyone know that I was OK.
There were hundreds of miles and one very large mountain range between me and the earthquake. My response at the time was "Learn your geography, people. Mexico is a huge country."

But now I'm the wrong side of the same problem. My parents are in China. According to the itinerary they sent me, on Mother's Day they were in Xi'an, about 500 miles north of the earthquake. And today, they have supposedly flown to Hong Kong, which is even further away from the disaster area, with their tour group .

Hopefully soon they'll be doing some of this:

And then some of this:

baby specifications

2008-05-03T05:26:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about what I want for our baby ... and what I want in a baby.

I'm sure that sounds incredibly callous to you but whatever. I mean, this little creature has been pummeling at my insides for months now and my body has dedicated a great deal of time and resources to manufacturing him. Don't I have a right to be invested in the outcome?

I think it is only natural to imagine a child as fully realized human being who is like us - only better. Maybe he's braver or more dedicated. A harder worker. More talented or at least more disciplined. Someone with access to all the advantages we did without. At a bare minimum we might hope to have a kid we like to be around.

And yet most of the time when he's knocking around in there, all I can think is "Who are you? What are you going to be like?"

It wouldn't too hard to make something up, honestly.

I mean, I do, hear, see stuff and he "reacts." For example, we went to see U2 in 3D at the IMAX. I liked it and he was going nuts throughout the show. Did that mean he liked it too? Or was he clawing desperately at his prison walls in an attempt to escape?

Not long after, we saw a free SXSW day show at the French Legation featuring Sons and Daughters, J.Mascis, and Thurston Moore. Another set of performances I thoroughly enjoyed, but Baby didn't have much to say. Was he enthralled and in silent awe? Did he spy through my belly button peephole how the cool kids express their enthusiasm - nary a head nod and absolutely no toe tapping - and decide to follow suit? Or did the day's spring breeze and golden light and my decidedly uncool hip-shaking chair dance lull him to sleep?

Early in the pregnancy, I made a long list of hopes and dreams for him. A recipe of sorts. But as his arrival date gets closer (7 weeks for God's sake!) I've realized that I don't want to be greedy. Right now my greatest wish is that he makes it all the way to D-as-in-"due"-day.

Beyond that, I think, "What's essential? What will get him through life with his fair share of joy?"

And it isn't whether he's an artist or an accountant, friendly or shy, hardworking or lazy. It has nothing to do with how he is as a child or where he ends up as an adult.

What's essential is what he carries with him from start to finish that will make whoever he is and whatever he does the right thing for him.

So these are my three hopes for our little boy:

1) A sound body

2) A clear mind

3) An open heart

Audi 5000

2008-04-28T20:14:00.000-07:00

My belly button is about 5 seconds away from transcending its terrestrial boundaries. (I can say that since I'm already pretty much the size of a small planet.)

It has an aspect of shock and awe. I like to imagine it smeared with camo grease, muttering, "The horror. The horror."

It also looks a bit like a prim old biddy whose rear end has just been pinched. Maggie Smith in Room with a View, maybe.

Or a baby chimp keening for a banana.

I'm terribly sorry, belly button, but it can't be helped.

lullabye and goodnight

2008-04-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

Poor you.

That's right.

You.

After a days long pity party, I'm feeling magnanimous and sympathetic toward you. That is, if you are among the blissfully ignorant throngs who regularly and/or easily get a good night's sleep.

You squander your blessings. You dismiss your bounty. You neglect and even abuse the gifts given to you. Some of you even have the gall to tell me that you're jealous of me because I can - read: HAVE TO - squeak by on 5 or 6 hours a night most nights.

But you, poor deluded masses, have no idea ...

You cannot fathom ...

I'm telling you, it is inconceivable to you ...

The triumphant surge of happiness rushing through my very core, the celestial pleasure, the transports of joy I experience on those rare mornings when I arise feeling well rested.

Poor you.

takes a licking ... and collapses into a puddle of tears

2008-04-21T07:22:00.000-07:00

How many licks does it take to get to the primordial ooze at the center of a "zen" imbecile?

We thought we take some time on the Sunday before her 38th birthday to find out!

...

Lick #1: A few days of sleep deprivation.

Lick #2: A shopping excursion alone because her husband has to work and she likes to pretend that she doesn't need female company for such things.

Lick #3: Said shopping excursion requiring a visit to one of those sprawling suburban strip mall complexes.

Lick #4: Said sprawling suburban strip mall complex happens to be the portal to Hell known as Brodie Lane where all U-turns are illegal. There are NO street numbers posted anywhere so unless you're intimately familiar with the shopping complex, you cannot make a surgical strike at the store of your choosing. It appears that this River Styx of a four lane blacktop is designed to force you through a labrynth of chain stores guarded by phalanxes of monstrous SUVs in hopes that you abandon all hope of escape and decide you simply must also stop at Michael's, World Market, Barnes&Noble, Ross, Circuit City, LinensNThings, Home Depot ... OK I'll stop now ... on your way to Babies R Us.

...

At this point in our experiment, said "zen" imbecile's veneer has been reduced to a fragile crust. And she has been reduced to inane screeching at traffic impediments.

But because we are true scientists, we will resist the temptation to bite and continue with a few methodical and well-calibrated final licks.

...

Lick #5: Cram a bowling ball into her abdominal region and have her complete all the above in this condition.

...

Extraordinary, ladies and gentlemen ... she's hanging tough.

...

Lick #6: Have her watch a 60 Minutes episode in which a Special Forces Marine stationed in Afghanistan collapses into tears while recounting the heroics of his squadron.

...

Ta da!

Six licks.

he says, "hello!"

2008-04-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

I have a baby inside of me.

You're probably thinking "Well, duh. That's what happens when you get pregnant," and, you know, fair enough but ...

I mean, seriously ...

There's a baby in there.

Like, in there ---> ( @ )

A baby. Wiggling around and shit.

I can feel him moving. If you timed it right, you could feel him moving too. A living being, inside of me, is using my uterus as his own personal bouncy bounce. It's fucking crazy.

I hate to say that he's kicking. That's the standard protocol but my god the variety of motions he's tried inside me conjure images of an entire cartoon universe:

* scritching out a tick mark on the walls of his prison to note the passage of time.
* doing a soft shoe routine
* practicing tai chi
* shadow boxing
* tinkering with a peep hole in the belly button region
* knitting
* swimming laps and especially doing flip turns
* sproinging off every wall in the room like Ricochet Rabbit
* throwing a temper tantrum on my cervix

Pregnant women habitually rub their bellies. I can't speak for anybody else, but, when I'm doing it, I'm just trying to find the next place he might bust a move.

Things a Child Should Never Hear - Abridged

2008-04-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

Ah Ruth, I could write volumes (VOLUMES!) on this subject. I have a lifetime's supply - creeping up on 38 years worth - of unpleasantries to share. Thankfully, you've hemmed me in with your own five short but fine examples.

(Alot of these are actually multi-sensory experiences.)

(Terrifying, I know.)

1) Mom giggling, "Oh Bill!" and elbowing my dad in the ribs while waggling her eyebrows at him as a girl with very large breasts passes us.

2) At Kurt's very first visit to my parents' home, Mom standing up to fetch something from the kitchen and farting in his face as she does.

3) In my grandmother's nursing home, after she has asked if she can go out shopping, Mom asking the doctor to evaluate the possibility like so: "We know that her health is very fragile and that she shouldn't be exposed to any kind of risk unless it is absolutely necessary. Do you think she'd be in any danger if we took her out like that?" and then gesticulating wildly to the doctor behind my grandmother's back that the answer must be, in no uncertain terms, "No."

4) Scene: INTERIOR, MOVIE THEATER, NIGHT

Me: Mimi (other grandmother) asked me if Pop had cancer.

Mom: What did you tell her?

Me: I said No. I mean technically he doesn't have cancer anymore because they removed it yesterday. Also, I don't like the idea of outing my parents as liars to my grandmother. Why the hell didn't you tell her?

Mom: That's a pretty good answer. I wonder how she figured it out.

Me: She told the nurses he was getting his prostate removed and they said the only reason they'd do that would be if he had cancer.

Mom: Hmmm.

Me: Why DIDN'T you TELL her!?!

Mom: We didn't want her to worry.

Me: So you stuck ME in the incredibly awkward situation of having to lie to my grandmother so that you didn't have to deal with the consequences. You could've at least told me what you were up to.

Mom: I'm sorry. You know how your grandmother is.

Me: ...

5) The next day, hearing my grandmother say "If your father dies before I do, your mother will put me out on the street."

love - for the vertically inclined

2008-04-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking alot about love lately. Love and Kurt. They go hand in hand. Which is handy since he's my handsome man.

Being an imbecile, it just dawned on me today that all that thinking was leading up to ... today.

Our second wedding anniversary.

I tell him stuff like this all the time so I'm taking today to tell the rest of you, whoever you are.

Except that I don't quite know what to say or how to do him/us justice.

It feels like I flung myself off a cliff when we met and it isn't exactly that he's caught me but he took the leap too. We're falling together, singing and laughing (and crying) (and everyonceinawhile shouting) all the way to the end.

Pregnancy Mountain

2008-04-14T07:26:00.000-07:00

The first six or eight weeks of my pregnancy were filled with wonderment.

That is, I kept wondering whether the piss test was wrong. I'd heard all these stories about women who "just knew" and other women who started throwing up on day 1. For me, other than not getting my period, everything seemed completely normal for the first half of the first trimester. I thought, "This is gonna be a breeze."

Fool.

It wasn't until I made that first OB appointment that nausea, exhaustion, insomnia, and fear slipped into my bloodstream along side the hormones my uterus manufactured to help baby grow. The next eight weeks were pretty miserable. I spent most of them on the sofa, eating Saltines, drinking Topo Chico, and asking Kurt to get things for me (mostly Saltines and Topo Chico). In my car on extra long lunch breaks, napping, eating Saltines, and drinking Topo Chico. At work, trying really hard not to talk about how sick I felt. In bed praying that all this misery wouldn't be for naught. After all, 25% of pregnancies end in miscarriage in the first trimester.

Finally we emerged from the first trimester tunnel right around Christmas. Second trimester was a breeze. Fascinating. I remember thinking on a daily basis, "The most interesting thing about being pregnant is ... "

I hope you don't think I'm going to tell you about all the things I found interesting.I should've written them down at the time because, now that I'm fully entrenched in the third trimester, I remember none of them.

No, wait, here's one: It was fascinating that I didn't seem to mind watching my belly grow and my wearable wardrobe dwindle.

The third trimester has been marked by more growing of belly and more dwindling of ... well pretty much everything else. Almost everything that seemed important to me including energy, mobility, self-sufficiency, focus, intellectual capacity, and emotional reserves. Putting on my shoes is difficult. Picking up things that I drop is difficult and that's a real problem because I'm a clutz.

I've had about eight Come to Jesus meetings with myself lately. While the topics might range far and wide from career to chores to friendship to family, they all start the same way: "You cannot keep this up. You have to choose carefully what you're going to work at and what you're going to let slide."

Sometimes it feels like I'm going to slide all the way down Pregnancy Mountain, but it also feels like that might be the only way I'll survive the trip.

PS: I tag Ruth with the tag from below ... five things about you that other people might consider lame.

laaame

2007-10-20T15:21:00.000-07:00

Stacy tagged me:

List 5 things that certain people (who are not deserving of being your friend anyway) may consider to be “totally lame,” but you are, despite the possible stigma, totally proud of. Own it:

1) I read waaaay too much into things. When I'm excited about a film, book, or other work of art, I will overanalyze it all to hell and enjoy the shit out of it while I do.

2) I sing in public. In parking lots, at the grocery store, waiting in line for a movie, walking in the park.

3) I dance in my car. I'll also dance in public if there's good dance music in earshot.

4) I like drum circles. I would totally join a drum circle if I were capable of drumming. And if noone tried to talk to me about peace, love, Phish, or herb.

5) I revel in my victories.

dawn of the living

2007-10-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/2007/10/02/D8S159800_odd_secret_apartment/index.html

tagged

2007-09-18T06:48:00.000-07:00

I was tagged by Kat:

Make a list of five strengths that you possess as a writer/artist. It’s not really bragging, it’s an honest assessment (forced upon you by this darn meme). Please resist the urge to enumerate your weaknesses, or even mention them in contrast to each strong point you list. Tag four other writers or artists whom you’d like to see share their strengths.

1. As a portrait photographer, I am really good at helping people relax in front of the camera. I don't know why exactly but my specialty is shooting people who are camera-shy.

2. Everyone is beautiful but sometimes the camera doesn't see that immediately. So I know how to spend the time necessary to help the lens find it.

(I'm not feeling great about my writing right now so this is going to be hard ...)

3. When I'm passionate about a cause, my writing can be very persuasive.

4. I can explain pretty complex things clearly and in simple terms.

5. My writing sometimes makes people laugh.

I'll tag Ryan, Stacy, Kurt (who can comment on my blog ;), and Anne.

The Lives of Others

2007-08-08T17:01:00.000-07:00

We have been taught to experience art in very limited ways:

* Art as skill: "I could tha-at."

* Art at commodity: "I wish I was an artist."

* Art as a statement: "Fuck the po-lice."

* Art as brussel sprouts: "You have to go the ballet, son, for personal enrichment."

Art is not brussel sprouts, people. It is also not just how it looks, how it was made, how much it costs, or even what it says. It is also not just how you feel or what you think while you're looking at it.

The Lives of Others, for example, is a great film. The camera work and editing is amazing, the script is amazing, the acting is completely incredible. And yet that's just the surface. Underneath all that physical beauty, the film is like a celluloid version of Mother Theresa or something.

************Spoiler alert!*************

The movie doesn't even have a particularly happy ending and yet somehow you walk out the theater feeling as if your life has been saved. There's not a single ray of sunshine in the whole film and yet by the end of it, you feel as if you've been carried up to heaven by a host of angels.

How the hell did they do that?

The landscape and interiors perfectly represent the American nightmare of Socialism, as does the lead character Gerd Weisler, an interrogation and surveillance expert for the East German secret police, who is the epitome of grim-faced dedication to the government's cause.

Assigned to monitor a writer named Georg Dreyman, Weisler and his team managed to bug his flat in a twenty-minute, precision operation and set up a monitoring station in the apartment building's attic in time for Dreyman's 40th birthday party with the expectation that a number of subversive artists will be in attendance.

Weisler's a little freaky, honestly. With his carefully pressed and zipped grey jacket and straight-backed, squared shouldered gate, he resembles nothing so much as a well-designed robot. And if he's a scary Socialist automaton, his self-serving, power hungry superiors are much worse. He might be a deluded true believer, but they're just abusing the system to get ahead or get laid. And yet, he's the audience surrogate and, by the end of the film, our salvation - this feeling that we've been transformed by the film - hinges on his actions.

That might be part of what works so well about the film. The director sets you up to believe that the main character is soulless but then he peels back a few layers of skin to hint at what he's really made of.

When Weisler finally sits down in front of his recording equipment and puts on his headphones, it's as if a new movie has begun. This other story is that of a man, Dreyman, dedicated to his art, his friends, and his lover. Deeply moved by the plight of his colleagues who have been blacklisted for speaking out against the government, Dreyman speaks about it to one of Weisler's supervisors despite the risk that addressing it openly entails. In fact, when he uses the word "blacklist," he is reminded that the East German goverment does no such thing and that suggesting it is "enough to get [him] arrested." Despite these great inducements, Dreyman has nothing negative to say about the government when Weisler's assignment commences.

We watch as Weisler listens. We become absorbed by the rich and passionate lives of his subjects, lives in which love and art move them to do extraordinary things. In stark contrast, the government has designed a life for people like Weisler in which every physical need is met and everything to meet those needs has been recorded in detail and is delivered or withheld according to careful calculations. We also see how his colleagues and superiors use the party name and their own positions to further their self interest, while Weisler himself lives by the Socialist rule book in a sterile environment organized to support his body but not his soul.

Dreyman's life is as rich as Weisler's is empty. So it is not that suprising that, alongside Weisler, we all fall in love with the lives lead by the characters in Dreyman's parts of the movie. And in the end, by watching Dreyman, Weisler, possibly for the first time in his life, experiences art. It is not something he looks at, quantifies, analyzes, or stuffs down his gullet because it is good for him. He actually lives it. He becomes a reader, an author, a muse. The art created by his subjects literally binds him to them and the love and beauty and even the suffering it manifests infuses his life with something a thousand times more worthy than any base need or philosophical posturing around which the Socialist supporting characters organize their lives.

Through Weisler and Dreyman, The Lives of Others deftly illustrates that art is meant to transform us, to add depth and breadth and breath to our lives, to help us see not just the piece in front of us but the whole world as something much more grand and interconnected than the scientific, political, aesthetic, and nutrional components necessary to support it.

eight and a half

2007-07-23T08:30:00.000-07:00

Tagged by Kat:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and that they should read your blog.

Eight and a Half Songs I Like to Sing:

1. A Man You Don't Meet Everyday by the Pogues

2. The Storms Are on the Ocean by the Carter Family

3. Danny Boy

4. Today Has Been a Lonesome/Fucked Up Day by Beck/Woodie Guthrie

5. Are You All Alone by Flatt and Scruggs

6. You Were Meant For Me from Singing in the Rain

7. Ask by The Smiths

8. Son of a Gun by The Vaselines

8.5 La donna è mobile by Verdi (this gets a half because I only know the first four words and maybe like the first 50 notes)

I tag Tamara, Marcus, and Anne.

cake day

2007-07-18T13:19:00.000-07:00

Today is one of those days when I could use a big slice of cake.

Not actual cake, but the kind of fluffy, warm, sweet goodness that dissipates dreariness just resting on your tongue.

Do you know what I mean? I don't really want cake. I want love, peace, acceptance, joy.

That's not too much to ask is it?

prolonged

2007-07-13T04:40:00.000-07:00

I'm so tired.

We've been moving piecemeal for almost a month now. Why did we do it this way? I can't remember. It seemed like a good idea at the time. In fact, I might've even thought, "Transitioning slowly from the old place to the new will ease the stress of moving."

Wrong.

Wrong wrong wrong.

The correct answer is: "Transistioning slowly will prolong the stress of moving."

Thankfully, the light at the end of the tunnel is speeding rapidly in our direction in the form of a big white truck and our only two broad shouldered, big armed friends. God bless you, you meaty angels.

We finish tomorrow. Huzzah!

Then there'll be cleaning. The mini-maintenance/wipe up clean holds no interest for me, but I love cleaning really filthy things. Thus, I am excited about this up and coming opportunity.

back in the saddle

2007-07-11T04:42:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm sort of back in the saddle here but too tired to think. Sorry charlies.

people are people

2007-07-02T04:07:00.000-07:00

People.

Do we have to?

Cuz honestly I'd rather pass.

I mean, people are lovely and all. They're, ya know, human and fallible. Warm. Unpredictable. Fascinating creatures.

But really how unpleasant they are in the end. And in the beginning.

And the middle.

I don't mean you, of course, dear readers. Dear friends, family, and loved ones. You don't count as people.

Nothing personal. In the dictionary sense of the word, you are in fact "people." But in the Zen Imbecile sense of the word, this label does not apply. In the Zen Imbecile Compendiumm of Neuroses and Related Disorders, the label "people" applies to vast majority of human beings who, if they have thoughts about us at all, have at least a 50-50 chance of thinking 50% or more unpleasant ones.

People include:

* drivers
* cashiers & other retail personnel
* various passersby
* citizens of foreign nations
* fellow travelers in said foreign nations
* gym, yoga, and/or running trail practicioners
* the homeless
* government employees & politicians

In other words, these are human beings with whom we typically spend almost no time who, if they think any thing about us at all, are likely to think pleasant ones based solely on our appearance or on something completely beyond our control like a facial expression we make that reminds them of their grandmother. Thankfully, whatever impression we do make is short-lived because we spend a maximum of an hour or two with most "people" and more often than not our exchanges with them last five minutes or less.

Phew!

That is not to say that I believe the vast majority of "people" are unpleasant, in and of themselves. No, indeed, "people" being what they are, they are warm, fallible, etc etc.

But I've intentionally left out one category of "people" who qualify as prolonged-contact "people" - neighbors.

good fences make good neighbors

2007-06-29T04:29:00.002-07:00

We're having a fence built. Fences are expensive.

Holy mackerel.

Here's a funny joke for you:

So the neighbor says to the new homebuyer, "You should just build that fence yourselves. We'll help. It'll save you alot of money."

I can't keep my clothes on straight. How the fuck am I going to keep a fence post level while the cement that will eternally affix it to the earth is drying? We'd end up with a fence that looked like a third grader's popsicle stick project. But you can throw a popsicle stick project away or at least put it on a bookshelf and find it charming/mock it when the child leaves for college. A future homebuyer isn't going to appreciate it when we elbow him in the ribs and say, "Isn't that cute?" about our crooked-ass fence.

***

Build our own fence.

Ha ha ha.

dirt farmer, part two

2007-06-27T04:01:00.000-07:00

Last night, I assembled our push mower.

Ladies and Gentlemehhhhhhn! Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Zen Imbecile Fight of Her Life!

When we bought the house, that patchwork quilt of grass squares called sod had just been laid on top of a large pond of quick sand in our front yard. When the sky proceeded to dump buckets of water on it for days at a time, the quick sand swallowed up some of our fuzzy green fabric swatches, mostly because we foolishly stepped on them and sent them plummeting to their sandy graves. Thankfully the grass sacrificed itself for the sake of our feet. We were then informed that we needed to let the grass grow for awhile so that the roots would firm up the ground.

One week and hundreds more buckets of rain later, some of those grass swatches are shin high and probably harbor families of field mice. Time to mow.

In this corner, in emerald green, with those buns of steel and guns of Navarrone. Those abdominal muscles that a 19th century pioneer woman could wash clothing on. That fancy footwork and quick instinct. She has a history of dodging both Facts and Figures flying furiously at her face. It's Fantasy!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had this brilliant idea. It involved taking my computer over to the new house and listening to a CD Kurt burned for me whilst assembling the mower. Later, but before the sun went down, I'd cut through the grass like butter and then collapse on our porch, spent but well used and satisfied by a hard job done well.

In the ... exact same corner? Also wearing green trunks ... slightly worn and very stained trunks. Looking kinda scrawny and pathetic. And hiding behind her opponent. Is that?

Yes, it is.

Reality, ladies and gentlemen.

Woo hoo.

The computer/CD plan goes out the door immediately. I'm working on the porch and it is fucking hot so when I turn on the computer, it says "Fuck you." and refuses to operate. That's OK though because the instructions are so long and elaborate that I need to fully focus on them.

Fantasy seems oblivious to the fact that noone is in the opposite corner. When the bell rings and the first round begins, she comes out swinging. It is a sight to behold. She'd massacre anyone who'd dare step out in front of her, but no one has. Instead Reality is deftly shadowing her every move. I'd have never guessed such a knobby troll could be so spry but she seems able to keep up pretty well ...

The instruction manual consists of eight pages of useless text plus a diagram to show you where all the nuts and screws go that is - I'm not lying - two inches square. It does include a couple of "closeups" to show where things go in relation to the front and back of the mower but in at least one case the item in the closeup is completely symmetrical. In other words, it is not possible to tell the difference between the front and the back.

Still I manage to assemble the handle and after struggling for fifteen minutes and losing two tiny metal half-rings that hopefully serve no purpose, I pinch the bottoms of the handle together and slide them over the hooks inside the mower body.

Viola! I'm done!!

And Fantasy swings that massive right hook through the blank space in front of her and as she does, Reality swings her toothpick of a leg around Fantasy's shins and trips her! Incredible!! To the ground.

Of course, the handle is jutting straight up at a 90 degree angle from the mower, which will make pushing awkward. And then I discover pushing is really awkward because I can't do it.

At all.

The mower won't budge.

She is down, ladies and gentleman. Out cold. Down for the count. This fight is over!

So I check the diagram and discover that 90 degrees is wrong. And while it doesn't tell me that an inability to move the mower is also the sign of an incorrect assembly, it seems reasonable to assume such a thing. It takes twenty minutes to get the handle off again.

And Reality has pounced on the prone figure of Fantasy and is just whaling on her. The ref pulls her off but she jumps back and stomps on Fantasy's head.

I try a different angle to reattach it but to no avail.

At this point, the handle is so thoroughly secured to the mower body that I have to completely dissasemble it (29 pieces including screws, nuts, and washers) to remove it. And then start all over again.

By the time I'm ready to reattach the handle a third time, I've discovered my error ...

The mower is upside - fucking - down.

I'm soaked in sweat. I've been there for two hours. And I've been wrestling with an upside down lawn mower.

By the time Fantasy comes to, the auditorium is empty. The lights are down, the chairs are folded, some kindly soul has covered her prone body with a soiled towel. Her good eye blinks away the darkness and she winces as she struggles to her feet. Hobbling to her corner, she punches the bare light bulb swinging over the center of the ring. She takes a seat on the stool and waits for the next fight. And grins and whistles while she does.

I couldn't help it.

It was 10:15 by the time I put the thing together but now I had a mower. And I built it.

I mowed.

a gift

2007-06-26T04:11:00.000-07:00

I got seven hours of sleep last night.

I'm not going to sing the song again, I promise.

But will you please clap your hands and say "Yeah!" for me? Maybe if enough people do it, my body will hear and give me a similar gift tonight.

Thanks.

curses

2007-06-25T05:26:00.000-07:00

(*&)&#$#&)^%)^*&^*!^#!^#*$%

Jesus H. Cristobal.

Goddamn sonofabitch mutherfucker.

Shit shit shit shit. SHIT!

I've been trying to write this fucking essay for a fucking week and I can't fucking do it.

FUCK.

living with a writer

2007-06-22T10:51:00.000-07:00

I try to explain to her that the writer is the duelist who never fights at the stated hour, who gathers up an insult, like another curious object, a collector's item, spreads it out on his desk later, and then engages in a duel with it verbally. Some people call it weakness. I call it postponement. What is a weakness in the man becomes a quality in the writer. For he preserves, collects what will explode later in his work.

- Anais Nin to June Miller about Henry

(Thanks to Karen for quoting this first.)

This habit of postponing and collecting is not something I'm proud of. It makes life difficult for me and for the people I love. I want to be communicative, open, and understanding. But I also want to take things in and thrash them out in my head and on paper for awhile before taking them out again. I want to understand what they are and what they mean before I let them go.

conversation with God

2007-06-15T15:17:00.000-07:00

This morning before we went to close on the house, we decided that God had something special in mind for us. Something like:

God: Go forth and give all your money to Hank Azaria.

Us: But God, we don't know Hank Azaria!

God: Well then, find someone who looks like him.

(Luckily, the builder of the home we decided to buy looks exactly Hank Azaria.)

Us: OK God, we're giving all our money to a man who looks like Hank Azaria. What do we get in return?

God: All your hopes and dreams for the future will be crushed.

Us: ... Man!

God: That is my will.

Us: ... C'mon!

God: OK. Nevermind.

Us: ...

God: Gawl! Can't you take a joke!?!

whoa

2007-06-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

We're the owners of a new home.

YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

dirt farmer

2007-06-14T04:06:00.000-07:00

Our new house is pretty cool. It has a big porch in the front, a utility room, plenty of closet space. Because we only have two smallish closets in the entirety of our current house, I'm especially happy about the linen closet. It is a closet dedicated to linens. An entire closet specializing in sheets and towels. It's like we're moving to Fantasy Island.

***

Does being excited about a linen closet make me sound like a suburban asshole?

Just wait. You have no idea.

I'm most excited about yard work.

***

Does that sound insane to you?

It does to me, especially considering that:

1) I've only operated a lawn mower twice in my life and it was one of those push things

2) Our current yard is pretty much a wreck.

3) I can barely keep house plants alive.

4) My memories of parental units doing yard work are not good ones. They involve alot of yelling, grunting, and grumbling. My dad once cracked two ribs when he was sideswiped off a ladder by a tree branch he'd just pruned.

5) It seems like a rule of homeownership that you have to hate yardwork. Either you have to hate hardwork or you have to be a some freakishly obsessive person who prefers conversing with flowers to making eye contact with neighbors.

After all, most people don't do yard work for the joy of it. It is something we do because our homeowner's covenant requires it or because we want to improve the "curb appeal" (ie the resale value) of our homes.

(Boy, that's a lesson in how to suck the joy out of things - make them about making money.)

Anyhow, I would like to imagine that I have some loftier goal in mind when I do yardwork like ... cue violin ... making things look pretty so's when we get home we have a beautiful green oasis to relax within.

But that's not why I'm excited about yardwork.

I'm excited because I like to dig in the dirt.

I wish I was special

2007-06-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

Three jobs ago, a few days after I gave my notice and began final preparations for a year of travel, the Vice President of Engineering popped by my cube to say, "You can't leave, Imbecile! We were going to make you our star."

By "star" he meant "vassal."

You see, a few weeks earlier, the company had "downsized" - damn, I love euphemisms! - and I was the only technical writer who made the cut. That meant six or eight books to write and, oh I don't know, 35 engineers to wrest information from.

If you've ever spoken to a single engineer, you might understand how daunting 35 might be. If you haven't, imagine using dental floss to yank a hippo out of a lagoon.

I had no interest in being a "star."

***

OK, that's sort of a lie.

Truth is, I'd always been a teeny speck of a star in my innumerable places of employment.

(OK, that's also a lie but I'll explain that some other time.)

In many of the technical jobs I've had, I've been pretty well regarded. Maybe not a star but a ... Christmas light! Somehow, I managed to maintain Christmas light status throughout the tech boom of the 90s while only working 40 - 50 hours a week when many of my co-workers regularly worked 60 - 80.

The same thing happened in high school. I always did my homework on the bus or in my lap in the 5 minutes before each class bell rang and yet somehow managed to be a Christmas light of a student. Teachers liked me. A Latin teacher once lost my exam and gave me an A anyway because she assumed that's what I would have earned.

This was not a good thing. I'm not exactly proud of it. My point is merely that being a pinpoint of light in some evergreen shrubbery was easy and I liked it. I especially liked that it was easy.

Nowadays, however, my little bulb seems on the verge of shorting out or at least being outshone by some actual stars around me. I sit one cube away from someone who is such a shimmering tower of luminescence that on some days I can barely see my monitor. And I hate her for it.

(not really. I love you.)

(But you're interferring with my little flicker. Stop shining so brightly! Stop working so hard!!)

I tell her all the time to stop working so hard. I pretend it is for her own well being (and it is mostly for that) but it is also because I can't keep up. At least I don't want to. I don't want to work half as hard as she does, but I also don't want to be so massively outshone. Dammit.

And that's the real problem. She doesn't work so much harder than I do, she just accomplishes a shitload more. People count on her. People listen to her.

I want to be listened to and counted on too!

Waaaaaa!

I just don't want to have to work hard to make it happen.

***

She's thinking, "You do work hard. You are listened to and counted on."

And I'm thinking, "Will you please just let me be frustrated?"

And that might be the most insightful thing I've written all morning. My problem isn't about how much I hate my job or how hard I should work or whether anyone is paying attention to me.

Maybe the problem is that I want to feel frustrated and I'm in a constant mad scramble to find excuses to do so.

sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you!

2007-06-11T06:18:00.000-07:00

I got seven hours of sleep last night.
Doo dah. Doo dah.
I got seven hours of sleep last night.
Oh duh doo dah day.

If I sleep all night.
Going to laugh all day.
I bet my money on a sleepless night.
I lost and that's OK!

Hooray!

if it is not one thing, it's something else

2007-06-07T03:14:00.000-07:00

Lessee, where were we?

Ah yes. My husband and I had just learned that the house we had a contract on was a modular building only 6 hours prior to the deadline after which our contract to buy the house became binding. And several of those hours were supposed to be spent working not researching modular homes.

Fuuuuuccccccck!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Because my financial and personal well being was at stake, I naturally let work slide momentarily and spent a few hours on the hunt for bad news about modular homes.

I couldn't really find any.

I found a number of sites that confused modular with mobile or manufactured homes. There's also one site in which the problems appeared to be about bad construction which is something you could potentially get from any new home and that a third-party inspector could find for you. Some sites mention environmental hazards like off-gassing from the materials inside the house but that appears to be a problem with most new construction except the prohibitively expensive environmentally friendly stuff.

But why didn't they tell us it was modular?

Content that the modularity of the home was not a deal breaker, I crawled into bed and while I slept the contract slipped out of its tenuous state into permanence. Three hours and half hours later, my brain decided it was no longer content and rattled the rest of me out of slumber. I spent the next three hours on more research.

Is that legal? Not tell us in advance that it is a modular home? Maybe the fact that it was modular isn't a bad thing but if these people are being deceptive, what else are they hiding???

Not only did I find not much more bad about modular homes, but I learned much that was reassuring. For example:

* Modular homes are not mobile homes. They're permanently affixed to a real, state-approved foundation.

* While mobile homes have to comply with the regulations for the place in which they're manufactured, modular homes must comply with the place at which they're going to be installed. This means they're designed to deal better with the environmental conditions of the area than mobile homes.

* They're typically shipped in two or three peices and they have to be built sturdier than regular homes because the chunks have to survive a long trip bouncing down the highway.

* They're considered greener than regular homes. This is because they're built more efficiently so they waste fewer materials.

* They're built in a controlled environment so you don't have to worry about materials being adversely effected by the elements during the construction process.

* They're kind of "the shit" among alot of modern architects. Of course, I think most of these folks are excited about the crazy boxy, stackable types they use in Scandinavian countries but still.

I also found the website of the Something Something Something Bureau that regulates the construction of modular homes. It has all sorts of information most of which went completely over my head except this list of things the builder is required to provide you. I even checked with a couple of architects I know and they both had good things to say about either modular homes in general or our house in particular.

Whew!

But ... why didn't they tell us from the beginning that it was modular??? That ain't right!

I put this question to our real estate agent. He put it to the builder. The builder's reply:

"I didn't think we needed to tell you. It is all over our marketing materials. It is on the sign at the front of the house."

Bullshit! I saw that sign. It said:

Matthew & Rita Berman
Some Phone Numbers
Something & Something Else Homes

So I drove over to the house after work. Guess what "Something" & "Something Else" were?

...

Custom

&

Modular

...

Ooopsie.

before your very eyes

2007-06-06T04:20:00.000-07:00

I saw the sign. I read the sign. At least I thought I did.

It sat on stilts at the end of the gravel topped concrete drive that would soon be ours and it said:

Something & Something Berman*

Some Phone Numbers

Something & Something Else Homes

* names & identifications have been changed to protect

me from being embarrassed in case any of

the associated parties stumble across this blog.

When you're buying a new house from a big builder, history and economics seem to be on your side. You look at the wide swaths of land he's paved over in the decades gone by and you think, "This is someone I can trust." or at the very least, "This is someone I can call the Better Business Bureau about."

With a small builder or a new builder, you don't want to just believe they're good people who build good solid houses. You don't want to think "He wouldn't do something like that to me." But you don't have a lot of recourse to research this person to whom you're about to give a ridiculously large sum of cash, so you have to cover your ass somehow.

In this case, I substituted ass covering with completely freaking out.

As in:

What if the roof caves in? What if the front yard is full of quick sand? What if the house is made of paper? What if he's totally screwing us over?

If you are buying a new home and have thoughts like these, be reassured that your state probably provides you with certain protections. For example, Texas requires the builder to provide warranties of habitability for 10 years. While I find the implication of this a little crazy - that the house only has to be habitable for 10 years - that's better than no years. And no years is exactly what you'd get if your builder went bankrupt before those 10 years were up.

That was the next panicky thought that wheeled around in my brain - What if he goes bankrupt? - thanks in large part to my mother who in fact planted the thought in my ear, patted it on its butt, and whispered, "Run like the wind."

Thankfully I am resourceful person. In the most literal sense of the word, I am full of resources including: a computer with an internet connection at both home and work, an obsessive need to get to the bottom of things, and an obsessive need to finish what I've started even if it means accidentally waking up at 3:30 am to do so. While I couldn't exactly determine whether the guy was going to go belly up as soon as I bought the house, I could at least get a sense of his history ... sort of.

I don't even know how I found half the shit I did online but eventually I stumbled across the Texas Residential Construction Commission (TRCC). Without all the boring details, I can tell you that these are the dudes who enforce the 10 year warranty. They also have a searchable database of all new home builders in Texas.

So I go to the search page and then I retrieve the bitmap in my brain of the white sign on stilts at the end of the drive. It is kinda pixelated. This is what I come up with:

Something & Something Berman
Some Phone Numbers
Something & Something Else Homes

That's not good. So my brain squints a little and produces:

Charles & Some Woman's Name Berman

Some Phone Numbers

Something & Something Else Homes

Ah ha! Charles Berman.

... Is that it?

I just search on Berman because that way all Bermans will come up and then I'll recognize it. But I do not recognize any Bermans on the list. I Google "Charles Berman" and find nothing.

Is Something Berman such a new builder that he's not even registered? Do I want to buy a house from someone who is completely new to the business???

At a decent hour of the morning, I call a TRCC representative who kindly explains to me that if the man has already built a house (Something Berman has built at least two) and he is not registered with the them, he's breaking the law.

(oh shit.)

(oh shit. oh shit. oh shit. oh shit)

To give Something Berman about six hours worth of benefit of the doubt while the panic of my restless night subsides, I ask our real estate agent to please get his builder number. This is a method for searching the TRCC database that doesn't rely on my imperfect memory of his name.

Later in that very long day, we meet with the agent to look at the house one last time before our contract becomes official. I take what I think is a long look at the white sign on stilts. This time I see:

Matthew & Rita Berman

Some Phone Numbers

Something & Something Else Homes

Ah ha! Matthew Berman. Not Charles. Stupid.

(Please note however, that I still hadn't really read the sign.)

Very shortly thereafter, my husband finds a sign in the wall inside the pantry indicating that this lovely home with the wonderful porch and high ceilings is a modular home.

A modular home?! What does that even mean???

After explaining it to us in not particularly flattering terms, the agent announces that he's got a license number from Rita Berman. It is IHB-### and it is issued by the Something Something Something Bureau. Not the TRCC.

This builder is not licensed by the body that governs new home construction in Texas and provides legal protection to buyers.

WHAT??? Modular home. Not TRCC. What in the hell is happening here? Are we buying a house or some sort of appliance? And why didn't anybody tell us this was MODULAR home???

Clearly, we are being SCREWED!!

Tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion!

Or whatever. I don't care if you read it or not.

oh shit

2007-06-04T04:42:00.000-07:00

When you ask an insomniac why they don't sleep well, they might reply with something along the lines of, "I don't really know. I wish I did."

But if they are anything like me, they are thinking something completely different. Something along the lines of, "Jesus fucking christ, how the fuck should I know?"

This isn't because they dislike you. It is because they haven't been sleeping well.

Once past the niceties, inquisitive types move on to solutions like:

* Do you take anything? You should try melanoma.

Reply: Do you mean "melatonin"? I've already tried it. It works for a couple of days and then I'm right back where I started.

Thought: Do you think I'm an idiot?

* Have you talked to a doctor?

Reply: No. They'll just prescribe something and I really don't want to be medicated.

Thought: Typical. This is a medicated world. Maybe I should just give up and join the body snatchers. I could run around like Donald Sutherland hissing at the under-prescribed.

* What do you think about that keeps you up at night?

Reply: It is really hard to say.

Thought: Why aren't you up all night? The world is a fucking wreck.

* You should have a drink before bed.

Reply: Actually, alcohol interferes with REM sleep which is what you really need to feel well rested.

Thought: No. No no no no. No. No. I do not want to have this conversation any longer.

Truth is though that I start the conversation. I'm constantly telling people about my bad nights' sleeps and then getting annoyed with them when they try to be helpful. What's wrong with me? If I don't want their advice, why do I mention it? It is enough to keep an imbecile up at night.

Truth is that after months of sleeping fabulously, I've been stricken with the sickness once again and I'm pissed about it. I also know precisely what's causing it. It's the house. Buying a house is keeping me up at night.

But it is not as if I can name the thoughts running through my head as I stumble out of bed and into the living room. I am fevered and rigid, with a clenched jaw and shoulders pinched up around my ears as if trying to keep my head on its hinges. I can almost feel the earth spinning and I'm clinging to it with my fingertips.

If I could name the thoughts I could think myself out of them. But all I can articulate is "Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit."

letter to the editor

2007-06-01T03:58:00.000-07:00

To whom it may concern:

I don't usually write letters like these but the situation I want to address has become intolerable. While it is perfectly obvious to me why newspapers, magazines, and other print/online media hire critics, it is decidedly less clear why such institutions might send them into the homes of the writers they are criticizing. After all, the general public wants to know about a work prior to reading it but when someone is constantly harassing the person producing those works the likelihood that said works will be completed is close to nill.

More importantly, why would you send one of your minions to harass someone who isn't even published or trying to get published? Is this your version of a pre-emptive strike? Do you think you're the publishing world's Dick Cheney with a 1% policy against bad writing? If there's a 1% chance that the writing is bad, then it must be stopped? It is counter-productive.

And mean. Just plain mean.

Sincerely,
Zen Imbecile

Editor's Note: We're sorry that Ms. Imbecile does not appreciate the assistance we've provided her. Free of charge, we might add. We're sure that if she took a bit more time to think about it, she'd realize that she and the public agree - no one wants to read bad writing so it is best to stop it at the source.

Dear Inner Critic,

Your boss is an self-important ass so I'm going straight to the source. Although it feels very strange to write you a letter while you're looking over my shoulder, I'm hoping that communicating with you in this form will prevent you from interfering with the letter writing process.

Can you please just leave me alone? I mean, I get one word out and you're fucking smirking at me. It is six in the fucking morning for christ's sake and I'm trying to write this shit off the top of my head. It isn't supposed to be perfect. If anything, I want to just write freely for a half hour or so. With no particular goal in mind except maybe to connect with ...

With what?

People? Readers?

Yeah.

God. Don't look at me like that!! I hate that fucking smirk. You think it is so fucking meaningful. As if you've said something. That's the worst thing about you. You don't say much at all. You just like click your tongue at me or raise an eyebrow. You drop your head in exasperation. It is fucking brilliant that you're criticizing my writing without using any WORDS. You're just a series of facial ticks and sound effects but somehow you stop me in my tracks.

You know what? I don't even know if I want to connect with any readers. I think there are only about two left. I want to connect with me. I want to spend time entertaining myself before my shitty ass day begins.

Why on God's green earth would you want to interfere with that? Why do you care?

Screw you. I've had enough.

***

Hello?

***

Did that work?

Hello!?

***

Hello?

***

Hmmm.

Cool.

bug

2007-05-27T04:40:00.000-07:00

Did you know that bacteria outnumber human beings by a trillion to 1? According to Gerald Callahan, an associate professor of pathology at the University of Colorado and author of Infection: The Univited Universe, only about 10 percent of the cells in a human body can be called human.

Does that freak you out?

If it does, you're not alone. Our society has become obsessed with the fear of infection. So you'd think that a film like Bug - about two people whose home seems infested with microscopic, blood-sucking insects - could convert that fear into smashing success at the box office.

Last night, when we saw Bug, the theater was more than half empty. More notably, when the closing credits rolled, there were four audible reactions in our theater:

"I want my money back."

"That sucked."

And "Thanks alot Tanisha."

Followed by, "I'm sorry."

The film suffers from a number of obvious problems. For one, it was marketed as a horror film. I spent the first third of the film waiting for it to get scary.

It is not a horror film.

It is a psycho-drama. The main character Agnes is a lonely woman, a victim of abuse with a weak sense of self whose tragic past is inexplicable to her until Gulf War veteran Peter shows up and provides some semblance of both love and answers. If you were prepared for a psycho drama, it wouldn't sound too shabby, would it?

Yet, by the end of the film, all I could think was, "So?"

Bug spends 110 minutes showing us how two lonely confused people find each other and then go crazy.

And? So?

It is also based on a play. Blech.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that I have always hated films based on plays. Because plays are almost always set in one or two rooms, they're just not cinematic. In the case of Bug, the film happens almost entirely within the confines of Agnes's room at a rundown roadside motel. Director William Friedkin tries to overcome this limitation with lingering closeups on the degrading details of the characters' lives - crumpled beer cans, lines of coke, the glowing remnants of a joint, the holes in Agnes's tank top. He also throws lots of bug-like shadows on their skin as they make love, making it way too obvious that he thinks the characters are nuts.

Throughout the film, he tosses in some perfunctory inserts of surveillance style overhead shots of the motel and very low angle pans across its parking lot as cars come and go, probably intended to make us wonder (cue timpani) what's really going on.

In the end, all we really wonder is, "So?"

To keep us engaged, the film has to help us identify with the characters enough to feel afraid either with them or for them. We have to wonder whether the bugs are real or at least whether we could end up in the same kind of horrific mess. Otherwise, it becomes the celluloid equivalent of spotting a homeless person swatting at his head next to a dumpster; our natural instinct is to give him a wide berth.

It starts out OK. Agnes is beautiful, fragile, alone. Peter is sweet, quiet, attentive. He's also intelligent and thoughtful unlike her brutish ex-husband. It seems to be a match made in heaven, until, after their first night together, Peter spots an microspic aphid in the bed. Agnes can't see it but the force of his conviction overcomes her doubt and, in seconds, she's convinced.

Perhaps if we had seen the relationship rot slowly from the inside, instead of imploding in the span of 15 minutes, and if the characters had revealed glimmers of their better natures throughout, we could have stuck with them to the end. But their reactions become so obscene and disconnected from reality so quickly that we have to check out. They're no longer compelling, just freaky. And not even all that fascinatingly freaky.

Another road to cinematic success might be to create a commentary on the nature of man or the state of today's world. And Bug pretends to ask alot of important questions like: What happens when we identify as threats elements of our environment that are actually part of a complex ecosystem the workings of which scientists hardly understand and lay people like the two main characters find utterly confounding? Or what impact has the military's documented history of experimentation on service men had on our ability to trust that institution?

Instead, nobody else can see the bugs at all and when at an offscreen doctor's visit, a medical professional identifies Agnes wounds as self-inflicted, we're not given any reason to disbelieve him. It would have at least been interesting if we'd seen the examination and been given even the tiniest reason not to trust him. At the height of the main characters' paranoia, Friedkin uses patently, purposefully false helicopter sound and light effects as if to elbow us in the ribs and say "See, they are crazy." While trying to manipulate Agnes into turning Peter in, a disaffected military psychiatrist plops down on a giant can of gas and takes a few hits off a mini-bong. "See, the military and medical professionals are evil. Banally evil."

While a good film would either suggest some answers or at least make you care about the questions, Friedkin swats these ideas off the top of his head as if they were little creepy crawlies themselves. It is only instinct for the audience to stomp on them and walk away.

fire now, not next time

2007-05-25T04:02:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my friend the fire next time, I now understand the purpose of fair and balanced reporting. Thanks, fire!

I used to think that it had to do with being nice - in the "share the Legos" or "don't eat the last bite of cake" sense of nice. The sense of nice you can't exactly articulate but you can certainly cock your head back and glare when someone violates it. And when they say "What?" you can bulge your eyes at them and huff.

This principle is also not intended to promote "understanding."Of course, my attempts to provide this version of fair and balanced in the reporting of the events of my own life have caused me no end of grief, as in:

I think he cheated on me because he was rejecting himself. Poor him.

Or

She doesn't have anything nice to say about me because she doesn't love herself. Poor her.

No, friends, fair and balanced reporting is also not a euphemism for masochism. It doesn't mean you stand aside and let people abuse you or your cause because you're supposed to have compassion for defectives.

The point of fair and balance reporting is simply to keep the discussion going until the majority of the public has finally made up its mind. And we can't have a discussion if we only hear one side of the story.

"Why do we need a discussion about this?" you ask. "That's fucked. The answer is obvious."

I agree.

Unfortunately, not everybody does. According to estimates by political scientists, regarding any given issue of public concern, while about 20% of the population has strong feelings about it, 15% couldn't give a flying fuck and 65% are disengaged but could become actively involved if they felt they could make a difference.

That's right. For any position about which you feel strongly, 6.5 out of every 10 people you encounter might actively support your cause if somebody would spend time explaining to them in a calm and reasonable manner why you're right and the other guy is wrong.

Whereas if you take the two out of ten people who feel strongly about an issue and pit them against each other, those other 6.5 people might watch the screeching from a distance but more than likely they'll just bow out. It is one of the reasons voter turnout is so low; when you're preaching to the choir or railing against the idiots, you're not engaging the people who aren't sure what to think.

That's why we need a discussion. The Disengaged.

Please don't misunderstand me. I do not expect everybody to become expert canvassers for their causes. Most of us, when we encounter an opposing viewpoint, clamp our jaws shut, turn red, briefly consider violent retribution, and then walk away from the offender. Or we shout, turn red, throw a brick, and then walk away.
That's fine. We're human beings, not automatons. Or debate nerds.

But, surely, considering the large pool (65%!!!) of potential supporters for your cause, you can understand the need to engage the public at large in some kind of judicious consideration of the issues.

We can't rely on television for this service since it relies on violence, sensationalism, and horserace coverage of poll results instead of sober discussion of issues. When pundits actually discuss issues, they tend to focus on a particular candidate or organization's strategy and character rather than their actual platform. Radio is mostly the same. We can't turn to the internet because if we do, we're likely to go the sites with which we already agree. Or to news sites like CNN that, in a desperate bid for clicks, focus most of their efforts on writing ridiculous headlines ("Mom wants husband, microwaved baby back at home") .

We certainly can't turn to political figures themselves since they've made a habit of mudslinging and labelling issues in a manipulative manner to squelch debate.

Barring any radical transformation in the way this society conducts public discourse, the semi-objective "news story" is the only real venue for bringing out both sides of any argument. Granted, the reporter ought to fully disclose each source's qualifications, or lack thereof, to the reader, but the reader also has the obligation to understand that reporting some person or group's opinion is not the same as supporting it.

In fact, we should be glad when a reporter quotes someone we disagree with because it gives us a starting point for refuting that person's arguments.

Ok, so you might already be completely familiar with your opponents' arguments and don't need to hear them again. But the Disengaged I mentioned earlier are not. By bringing those opinions into the public sphere you have a chance to show everybody why they are wrong.

And by "you" I mean you the blogger. You the guy in the pizza parlor. You at the gym. You in the office. You talking in public about the issues you feel strongly about and about the people who disagree with you.

But if one side or other is kept out of the media, the more public (pizza parlor, gym, office) discussion never gets started. Those ideas never get refuted so if any of the Disengaged stumbles across them, they don't have any ammunition to reject them.

You know what? Fuck it.

I've written all this stuff about being reasonable and calm and shit and that's all fine and dandy for some people. In fact, I hope that every cause has their reasonable and calm representatives to deal with the Disengaged. But I'm also glad for the ranter and the fist shaker, the red faced quaker, the shouter, the railer, the impaler (OK not the impaler), the holier-than-thou-er. All these people are part of the conversation.

It is the silent ones and the ones who want to silence people I object to. If they win the day, discussion becomes impossible.

holy crapamoly

2007-05-22T04:26:00.000-07:00

We made an offer on a house yesterday and it was accepted. If everything goes according to plan, we'll be closing in 3 weeks.

Lord, lord, lord.

whew.

eat, pray, love

2007-05-21T04:11:00.000-07:00

Screw you, Liz Gilbert.

How dare you write a really good book about getting a divorce and traveling for a year to find spiritual and emotional fulfilment. That's my book, dammit.

Of course, it is a book I haven't even outlined yet, much less begun writing. But mine's better than yours! And more interesting ... and funnier ... and well just better.

Sure you went to Italy, India, and Indonesia and I only went to Mexico. While you lived in an Ashram and made amazing strides in your Yoga practice, I struggled to keep my head above water (spiritually speaking, that is) and often found myself either terrified by or dismissive of other yoga students and seekers I encountered. You were making friends by the fistful; I cultivated my inner curmudgeon.

The contrasts are endless and striking!

I'm only about halfway through but I'm sure that by the time I finish it I'll feel even more jealous and lame than I do now.

Thanks, Liz. Thanks alot.

PS: Just kidding.

PPS: Sort of.

PPPS: Seriously, thanks. It is a wonderful book. Thanks to Kelly too for the gift of it.

I spy with my little eye ...

2007-05-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

... a slippery slope.

(Granted, I'm prone to slippery slopes)

(That's a funny image. Me prone on a slippery slope)

A wire story on Salon describes efforts by federal prosecutors to "enhance" the sentences of some arsonists as follows:

Prosecution filings argue that though the defendants were never convicted of terrorism, they qualify for the label because at least one of the fires each of them set was intended to change or retaliate against government policy.

What does it mean to "enhance" a sentence? Is that constitutional?

Is an action "intended to change or retaliate against government policy" the definition of terrorism? Apparently it has to be violent, but how violent?

home sweet home

2007-05-15T06:34:00.000-07:00

I'm out of town for work this week. I'm in Waltham.

That's Wall-th-ham.

It is outside of Boston.

I'm staying at the Doubletree Guest Suites.

PS: CSI Miami is a snuff flick. The cameras linger on dead girls' slender figures and play sexy music over the blood draining off the autopsy table.

indictment of an imbecilic interloper

2007-05-09T04:23:00.000-07:00

A body can only devour so much psychobabble. At some point, it is stuffed beyond comprehension and no more will fit.

At the same time, it always is much easier to swallow something when you've asked for it than it is when someone crams it down your gullet.

In other words, nobody wants to hear your lame psychological theories, so shut up.

***

I'm sorry. That was rude. Let me start again.

***

Having had a very strong negative reaction toward Anonymous's response to my divorce post, I felt the need to look more deeply into it in hopes that exploring these reactions might provide a little insight into my psychological makeup.

Those reactions follow, in order of arrival:

1. What?! Who the fuck are you, Anonymous? Get out of my shit.

2. Probably the Ex, sneaking around behind his new wife's back to look me up. Typical.

3. He's such a fucking narcisist, making it all about him. Physically incapable of seeing another person's point of view. Whatever it was in our relationship, it was always about him not me.

4. Wait. What if it is from someone who cares about me, who wants me to feel better by saying "It was about him, not you."

5. Hmmm ... They still need to fuck off and get out of my shit. This is such a lame excuse for bad behavior. Just apologize. No need to get all "psychological" on my ass.

6. Yeah, but you "get psychological" on people's asses all the fucking time. Why can't anybody else?

7. Because I didn't ask them to. There are only two times when it is socially acceptable to get psychological on someone's ass. Time number one is when they ask you to. Time number two is when you're talking behind their backs.

8. That's rude.

9. Shut up.

10. Besides, who ever asked you?

11. We're losing track of the point here.

12. You're being evasive because you can't defend yourself.

13. The point is ... Shit. What was the point?

14. Besides, you're the one who wrote the post so that anyone on God's green earth could read and reply to it.

15. Shut your hole. I can't think!

***

Having reviewed these responses, I have come to the following conclusion:

I'm an imbecile and noone should listen to me.

***

Also, while it is fun and interesting to get psychological on someone's ass, it may cause the other person to seriously consider spitting on you.

Even if what you say is true.

***

Especially if it's true.

***

Lastly, Philip Roth is right. Living is about getting - not just people but - everything wrong.

eureka springs revisited

2007-05-07T04:40:00.000-07:00

Ah ha!

Eureka!!

All is clear!!!

(If I keep writing things like this, this, and this, will I eventually stop searching for "clarity" and be content? Or at least, maybe I'll stop leaping out of my bathtub and running naked through the streets.)

***

You know what's funny?

(Sturge says: Jokes?

No.

Well, yes.

Hopefully, anyways.

But in this instance, no.)

What's funny is I wrote the first part of this yesterday and now I can't remember what I eureka'd.

Oh wait ...

***

The Five Stages of Grief

That's it!

Career-wise, I've been working my way through the five stages of professional grief!!

Here they are, adapted from Business Balls.

(???)

Stage 1: Denial
Denial is a conscious or unconscious refusal to accept facts, information, reality, etc., relating to the situation concerned.

In the Denial stage of our career, our job is mostly make believe. Or at least, we actually have the job but because it is intolerable to us, we pretend like it is make believe. We wear suits and take copious notes but we believe that when the sun goes down Mom will call us inside and feed us popsicles. We also have the other truly make believe job (or jobs) in our heads. The ones we really want to have which typically are some variation on "famous" or "influential."

Further wisdom from Business Balls: It's a defence mechanism and perfectly natural.

Thanks!

Stage 2: Anger
Anger can manifest in different ways. People dealing with emotional upset can be angry with themselves, and/or with others, especially those close to them. Knowing this helps keep detached and non-judgemental when experiencing the anger of someone who is very upset.

See the rest of this blog for examples, most recently this one.

Stage 3: Bargaining
Traditionally the bargaining stage for people facing death can involve attempting to bargain with whatever God the person believes in. People facing less serious trauma can bargain or seek to negotiate a compromise. For example "Can we still be friends?.." when facing a break-up. Bargaining rarely provides a sustainable solution, especially if it's a matter of life or death.

This is where we say to ourselves: "At least the money and benefits are good." or "At least the benefits are good." or "At least I have a job." Or "at least there are ten things I love about you."

Stage 4: Depression
Also referred to as preparatory grieving. In a way it's the dress rehearsal or the practice run for the 'aftermath' although this stage means different things depending on whom it involves. It's a sort of acceptance with emotional attachment.

Good ole Stage 4. Here I am. Despite the fact that I:

* Can barely bring myself to get out of bed in the morning
* Stare listlessly at the computer screen without understanding what's in front of me
* Don't hear half the words my co-workers say
* Panic at the thought of staying here for another six months much less the rest of my life

I'm glad to be in Stage 4 after all these years.

:)

Depression sucks, unless you can see your way around it to ...

Stage 5: Acceptance
Again this stage definitely varies according to the person's situation, although broadly it is an indication that there is some emotional detachment and objectivity.

Are you thinking: "Don't accept! Your life doesn't have to be like this!! You can have the job you really want!!! Don't detach!!!! There's nothing wrong with wanting more out of your career!!!!!"

If so, I love you for worrying about me.

(Although I love you even if you're not worried about me. I mean, if I already love you, that is.)

But don't. I'm OK.

And acceptance is not the same as complacency.

from Philip Roth

2007-05-03T09:01:00.001-07:00

The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It’s getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That’s how we know we’re alive: we’re wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that---well, lucky you.

well?

2007-05-03T04:25:00.000-07:00

I dance like a cowgirl who doesn't know she can't work a rope.

Tractorfacts- "A bird continually trying to fly through a reflective window."

What about you?

dance like nobody's watching

2007-05-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

No matter what the music, all babies love to dance. And all dancing babies resemble paper sacks with kittens in them; they're squat, shapeless, and likely to jerk arrhythmically in unexpected places.

mental neti pot

2007-03-07T15:45:00.000-08:00

Eight hours of boring-ass work suck the rant right out of me. I can't even rant about how boring work is.

How boring that would be?

Besides, even if it weren't boring, I'm just too ... something ... to work up a rant.

What am I? I'm not tired. I'm just ... spent? Spent has such nice connotations though. Of exhaustion after great physical exertion of a heroic or sexual or sexually heroic nature.

That definitely does not apply here.

Am I complacent? A complacent person wouldn't say they were bored, would they? They wouldn't notice. They'd just sigh and TCB (take care of business).

I'm definitely not content.

You know what I am?

I am irked.

I am weary.

I'm weary of talking about work and thinking about work. I'm definitely irked by doing work. I'd like to shake it off in one wild whip the way a teenage boy snaps pool water out of his hair.

And yet, after eight hours of work, that's not exactly easy to do. It has seeped into my pores. It occupies some of the empty spaces between my molecules. My psychic (as in psyche psychic, not ESP psychic) sinuses need draining.

I need a mental neti pot.

pro-choice

2007-02-27T06:17:00.000-08:00

One modern Zen author says that what we call emotion is just movement in the body that we've learned to label a certain way. For example:

Constriction of the abdomen = nervousness
Heat in the face = embarrassment
Dull ache in the chest = sadness

I had a lot of movement in my body yesterday.

It is not nice to end a beautiful weekend with a Monday. It should not be done. Monday should be a transitional day. A half day, if you will.

It is especially wrong to end a beautiful weekend with a Monday that starts with people telling you they needed something "yesterday." We all think that's a funny stereotype of the business world until someone says it to us and then, even though we know it isn't true ...

(because obviously nobody died yesterday when they didn't get it and if they really needed it yesterday, why didn't they tell me the day before yesterday???)

... rapid heartbeat + shallow breathing = panic

While we're trying to finish the work and build a time machine simultaneously, some backend processor in our brains manages to mull things over and accumulate a reservoir of righteous indignation:

Why didn't they tell me the day before yesterday?

How can we send it to customers if the guy who asked for it hasn't even reviewed the draft version?

How did I get stuck doing this in the first place?

If the other people on this project hadn't dragged ass for so long, I wouldn't be in this fucking mess!

This whole place is such a wreck. Upper managment seems to think we're magicians and completely useless at the same time. Fuck this shit!

Rapid heartbeat + shallow breathing + incomprehensible muttering + hot face + slamming of office supplies = anger

So movement, huh? Movement in the body that we call emotion.

Whaddya think?

(As these "movements" rattle your skull, it is lucky that noone nearby is there to remind you - because nobody nearby knows - that your beautiful weekend began at 1 pm on Friday when, speaking of movement, you ran off to a Barack Obama political rally.

You got your half day, bub.

Biking downtown with your husband to hear a politician who gives you hope for the future + being surrounded by +10,000 like-minded folks = contentment)

What's behind this concept that what we call emotions are really just movements in the body? The idea is that we have the ability choose which label we apply to these "movements" or, more importantly, not to label them at all.

Instead of saying, "I am angry," we can simply say "I am noticing rapid heartbeat, shallow breathing, incomprehensible muttering, hot face, and slamming of office supplies."

In fact, you might be saying that to yourself right now. Or you might be saying "Ridiculous!" or "Give me a fucking break" or "An emotion is an emotion is an emotion."

(= indignation)

(see, it's fun!)

(for me, anyways)

So you label these things. And then what?

I don't know, honestly. I have nothing useful to tell you. I just had a shitty day yesterday and am trying to figure out how to avoid that sort of thing in the future or at the very least keep the shitty days to a minimum.

At the end of the day, I asked myself, "Why did I even get angry about what happened? Why did I waste so much energy on it. It is just work for chrissakes. "

But wait a minute. That's a strange set of questions, isn't it: "Why did I even get angry about it?"

It implies that I had choice in the matter.

Hrmmm ...

an opportunity for growth

2007-02-22T06:09:00.000-08:00

Forgive me readers for I have sinned. It has been 10 days since my last confession.

It has also been five years since my divorce. Almost to the hour.

You spend twelve years trying to make something work. A year trying to get your head around the fact that it isn't working and never has. Six weeks in marriage counseling.

Half an hour on the phone hearing the thing you'd suspected all along. The thing that clinches it for you. "I finally found someone beautiful and exciting enough for me." In other words, you weren't it. And he'd been looking for a long time.

A week assembling the necessary paperwork.

And then it only takes five minutes in the courtroom to call it all off for good. To watch a judge flip through your divorce agreement without looking at it, while reciting a speech to you and asking questions without hearing the any of the words.

A wealth of metaphors exist to describe what happened next. Butterflies, flowers, worlds as oysters, and so on. I like to think of myself as one of these. Today, I am 600% larger and 600% happier with 600% more love in my life.

So why do the hours and days leading up to today still hurt, five years later? I don't really know. I have no regrets. I don't miss that old relationship. I can only think that it is because that day five years ago I had to accept the fact that I'd been rejected.

eureka springs

2007-02-11T07:39:00.000-08:00

Both opponents and proponents say that public education institutionalizes us.

In the opinion of the former, this is a very bad thing because it makes us conformists and pedants. For the latter, it simply means that we learn how to operate in a world full of institutionalized people. In fact, someone very close to me says that the only thing he actually learned in high school was how to navigate in the real world.

Apparently I gained no such advantage in my experiences in public school. If anything, my elementary and secondary educational adventures have left me with a completely warped idea of how the world should operate, as follows:

1) that you should change subjects every hour

2) that you should be provided with feedback of some sort - hopefully positive - every couple of days or, at a bare minimum, once a week.

3) that said feedback should come in the form of an easy-to-interpret alphanumeric character.

4) that you should have large swaths of time in the warmer months set aside for laying out by the pool and/or going to the mall.

5) that the beginning of each year should be marked by a dramatic alteration in your circumstances. For the better, of course.

So it was with an extra loud, very ambivalent thump of the heart that I realized the truth about the mess that is my resume ...

I have created for myself a treadmill for the institutionalized.

Numbers 2 and 4 are effectively out of my reach in the adult world - for the time being anyways - but the others are a different story:

#1 - Change subects every hour

This I cannot do. But as a technical writer, I can change them every time I move to a new product. Score!

#3 - Feedback the form of an easy-to-interpret alphanumeric character.

In the corporate world, MBOs stand for Management By Objective ... s ...? Nobody who takes them seriously will back me up on this, but they're essentially grades. Every three months, your manager assesses how well you acheived your objectives and then s/he evaluates you on a particular scale (1-5, Good/Bad/Ugly, whatever). But in the end, whatever that scale is gets converted to a percentage. In other words, a grade. I'm not kidding. You get a grade every quarter. True, it is more than six weeks and you don't get a piece of paper to take home and get signed but still ...

Typically, companies who have MBOs give you money based on how well you meet your objectives. In other words, you get extra allowance when you make a good grade.

Apparently that's not enough for me though. Which brings me to ...

#5 - Each year should be marked by a dramatic alteration in your circumstances.

And in the professional world, there's little more dramatically altering of circumstances than a new job!

Plus, you get to accumulate a kind of fancy and elaborate report card of your own design - otherwise known as a resume. You get to carry it around with you and say to people, "Look. Look. Look what I did." Each new job - that you didn't get fired from - is like another A on your report card.

Or I should say "my report card" since I'm the one who is trying to recreate high school in my professional life.

swing

2007-02-09T04:04:00.000-08:00

I'm getting back into the swing of things. I think.

I'd trying to write this post for awhile now but I'd been simultaneously trying to be clever and we all know what happens when a person tries to be clever. They get their heads chopped off.

Ha ha just kidding.

See this is me not being clever.

Anyhow.

...

Shit.

Maybe not.

hork

2007-02-08T04:18:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the universe really does hork up a blessing at us.

Although finding said blessing sometimes requires smearing away the surrounding loogie, I recommend it.

punto

2007-02-07T04:32:00.001-08:00

I know this sounds like I'm just rehashing old material but I had a point to make. I just can't remember what it is ...

slapped silly

2007-02-05T04:02:00.000-08:00

They say:

Everything happens for a reason.

Or

The universe is designed with your happiness in mind.

Or (even better)

The whole world is conspiring to shower you with blessings.

(And I don't mean this guy when I say "They."

Idiot.

Him. Not you.)

The Zens say the same thing a little differently. It doesn't sound so nice the way they say it:

Desire causes suffering. If you can accept what is, you stop desire and so you stop suffering.

These are all fancy ways of saying:

Tough nuts, dudes. You're stuck. Make the best of it.

Most of those don't sound like "tough nuts, dude" do they? They make it sound like the world is one big flower bed and everybody's getting jabbed at by fairies with Sparklers: "Ta da! All your dreams will come true."

As we all know, however, all your dreams don't come true. Shitty stuff happens all the time. And yet these fools persist in saying things like "The universe is designed with your happiness in mind."

You could try slapping them silly but they'd just grin and think about how that's part of the universe's design for their happiness. You can't win with these people. Amazingly, the large majority of them are adults who have already been slapped silly by Life long before you got a hold of them.

So what to do with 'em?

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?

Maybe ...

We can all spend an awful lot of time getting angry about something that's gone wrong - kicking and punching things (and people), thrashing in bed or at a bar - but no matter how many toes or knuckles we break, no matter how knotted our bedsheets become, no matter how many bouncers we spit on, we're never gonna make a dent in that thing we're angry about.

(Unless we're angry about how well-formed our appendages are. Or how dry Moose's shirt is.)

But if you can just say, "Shit." or "Shit shit shit. Fuck. FUCK. Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK." and then get on with your life and make the best of it, your toes and knuckles remain intact, you don't have to pay any oversized man's dry cleaning bill, and you can actually sleep in your bed at night.

Little. Known.

2007-02-02T04:20:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to write something and it gets lumpy before I can finish. I'm not giving up but to tide you over in the meantime, I'm stealing an idea from Nicebelt's friend Little Marvel Stove.

Five little known facts about yours truly:

1) When my eighth grade class went to DC for a class trip, the teachers asked me to be one of four students who laid a wreath on the Unknown Soldier's Grave. This still counts among the proudest moments of my life.

2) In my early twenties, I briefly considered a career in the military. Shortly thereafter (ie within 30 seconds), I also considered joining the police force.

3) I love Third Eye Blind although I don't own any of their records.

4) This is hard. I talk about myself too much to think of enough little known facts.

Oh shit! That's not little known.

5) If I were middle-school aged today, I might end up getting charged with "threatening an act of terrorism." I was so miserable most of the time that I sometimes wrote stories about blowing up the school and chuckling as I sifted through the debris for signs of my enemies' demise.

zoom a zoom zoom in a boom boom

2007-01-30T04:25:00.000-08:00

Resume.

Does anybody know how to accent the e on a keyboard? Because that's the word I want to write:

Re-zoo-may. Not resoom.

Although, resoom is a good word for what my re-zoo-may looks like. From a quick glance, you can see how quickly I've always resoomed the job hunt after accepting a job - almost every year of my life for the last 12 years. Maybe if I call it something different, people won't notice the resooming splattered all over it.

The Brits call it Curriculum Vitae. I like that. It makes me sound smart and lively ... as if I've been in school all my life. In fact, maybe that's a good way to spin my professional nomadism:

Curriculum - "To me, each job is an education."

Vitae - "For vitality ..."

Yes, I know that's not what that means. Shut up. How many recruiters know Latin?

blindingly fabulous

2007-01-29T04:15:00.000-08:00

Does playing "hard to get" work with employers?

I certainly won't find out any time soon. On Friday, I practically slipped in my own drool in the rush to respond to someone who asked for my resume.

Why was I drooling? Was this the non-tech writing career opportunity I've been praying for?

No.

It is still tech writing. It is a tech writing job where I'd truly be my own boss, yes, but that's not a drool-worthy proposition.

I was drooling because their office is downtown. Practically walking distance from my house. Definitely walking distance from a favorite bar.

I also was drooling because - and this is really embarrassing so get ready to cringe - the guy who recommended me was a former co-worker who I thought hated me. I was so thrilled that he respected my work that I nearly slipped in my own drool in the rush to apply for the job and, in the meantime, completely forgot what a pain in the ass this guy was to work with.

And it gets worse ...

My resume was not up to date so I wrote to the recruiter and said "I need a little time to get my resume up to date but here's an old one to tide you over." And then forgot to attach the old resume.

But I didn't realize this until Sunday when I was prepping my new resume and wanted to look at the old one for reference. When I went to my Sent folder, the resume was nowhere to be found. Oy.

(And worse ...)

So I ...

... called the recruiter to apologize.

ON A SUNDAY.

What is wrong with me?

It is the job-hunting equivalent of calling someone thirteen times the day after you met them.

Off and on for the last year whenever I thought about bailing on my current job, I'd tell myself that I would stay here until something forces me out of it, like:

- Circumstances beyond my control

OR

- Some position so blindlingly fabulous that I become like the Juggernaut in my relentless pursuit of it.

Maybe these silly antics are the work of my subconscious trying to undermine an opportunity that meets neither of these criteria.

Downtown Austin is quite lovely, but most definitely not blindingly fabulous.

with a heavy heart

2007-01-24T02:57:00.000-08:00

"Maybe working just sucks."

That's what a friend said to me as I was once again lamenting my employment situation. I had said something like "I hate my job but I'm pretty sure if I go somewhere else, I'll hate that job too."

Her answer is worth repeating:

"Maybe working just sucks."

Maybe.

At age 14, my first office job - temping for an accountant at an insurance agency - involved making copies of checks and filling out bank deposit slips. All day. My work table looked out over the highway so when I ran out of checks to copy, I'd watch the cars. Later on, by folding staples into tiny metal sculptures and attaching them to rubberbands, I designed an office supply-based jewelry collection. At least, I conceived of it and accumulated a large pile of folded staples. But I could never get close to finishing a piece before another pile of checks got dumped on my desk.

I don't remember being miserable. But I was 14 and had just escaped the clutches of a popcorn store where I couldn't really operate the equipment or the cash register. So maybe my perspective was warped.

Seven years passed before I found myself stuck at another desk.

No that's sort of a lie. I temped some one summer and actually spent three days in a windowless conference room assembling Albertson's bakery cookbooks with a girl who absolutely refused to speak to me. But that was tolerable because the end was in sight.

It wasn't until I was almost done with college that I got my first taste of the "real world" and it depressed the hell out of me. I interned at the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce for the guy who actually spearheaded the campaign to bring the Dallas Cowboys training camp to Austin every summer. (This ended in disaster by the way.) I don't know why I took that internship, except that I needed something on my resume besides "babysitter" and "lifeguard." I got no window. I got no desk. No staples to bend. A lot of busy work. A lot of rubbing elbows with cheesy dudes who talked alot of jargony, business-related nonsense and sometimes shot you with their finger guns.

I used to park on the top floor of the parking garage under the blazing summer sun so that every morning and every afternoon I'd be overwhelmed by sky for at least a few minutes. Just to alleviate that cramped, hemmed-in feeling that weighed down on me every day. To replenish the vitamin D that was surely being sucked out of my pores by all those flourescent lights. And most importantly, to bake the life force back into me after spending so much time in the cryogenic chamber that is every office in Texas in summertime.

How does one successfully transition from a life of constant movement across a beautiful college campus and across of a field of academic study to the sedentary and repetitive existence of an office job?

With a heavy heart.

climate control for polar bears

2007-01-19T03:57:00.000-08:00

Let's ask ourselves a real question, shall we?

Who cares whether our 10 year old selves approve of our jobs? (That's not the real question, by the way.) Ten year olds are dumb and clumsy. They shout too much. They just figured out Santa Claus isn't real.

The real question is whether that's a good criteria for evaluating our jobs.

Oh wait ... so this: "Who cares whether our 10 year old selves approve of our jobs?" was the real question after all.

Semantics ...

OK, anyways.

I don't appreciate it - this imaginary pre-pubescent creature looking askance at my profession. Who is she to judge? She doesn't have anything to worry about. Somebody else is putting food on her plate and clothes on her back. And rent? She doesn't even know what the word "rent" means. All she has to do is go to school, do her chores, and be a good girl. She shouldn't have any say in how I live my life.

And yet, I'm pretty sure, that long before H ever articulated this concept to me, I was asking for the approval of my 10 year old self. Most of the things I don't like about my job - poor management, lazy and/or crazy co-workers, being stuck inside all day, climate control for polar bears - are just as likely to recur in ANY profession I choose except maybe one that provides me with complete autonomy. I have a hard time remembering this, but when I do, it forces me to look at the content of this profession and evaluate it on its own merits ...

... from a 10 year old's perspective.

So ...

If I'm completely honest with myself, though I'll realize she hardly looks at all, askance or otherwise. She glances briefly, returns to her crayons, and forgets I'm even there. She's busy plotting her escape. With the $120 in the bank she's saved up from feeding neighbors' animals, she's figured she can live in the woods near her house for at least year - lunch meat is only 79 cents a pack - and she can walk to a bus stop that'll take her to another elementary school where nobody'll recognize her. She's drawn a picture nobody will ever see of herself and her brother sitting beside a camp fire, crying.

princesses and talking animals

2007-01-18T04:03:00.000-08:00

Would your 10 year old self be impressed with what you do for a living?

This is the criteria that my husband uses to judge his job. He can answer emphatically: "YES!" He designs movie posters and making-of movie books for a living.

Me, not so much.

After an explanation of technical writing, my 10 year old self would probably scratch her head and say: "You write books though, right?"

Now Me: "mmm ... sort of."

10 Yr Me: "About princesses? And talking animals?"

Now Me: " ... "

10 Yr Me: "And magic cauldrons? And ... and crazy little boys? And ..."

Now Me: "uh ..."

10 Yr Me: "little girls in log cabins during long winter storms ..."

Now Me: "Yes."

(See because, it is OK to lie to children right? Because they're stupid anyways, right? And when my 10 year old self gets to be my age, could she be more dissappointed than I already am?)

When I was little, my mom would ask me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I always answered "Write." As long as I could remember, "write" was the first answer.

What did Mom do? Mom came back with, "OK. What are you going to do for money?"

So now I make money. Plenty of it.

And I write.

Sometimes.

seven ay em

2007-01-08T05:19:00.000-08:00

7 A.M.

Ay Em.

It almost looks like "Amen!"

Which is what I really want to say because I decided last week that I'm definitely going to leave this job.

AMEN!

It might be in three months. It might be in six months. But I am going to leave and when I leave, I plan to kick up a trail of dust so thick noone will know which direction I'm headed.

What does 7 am have to do with anything?

Every morning for the next three months, I have a meeting at 7:30 in the morning. So, to gather my wits about me before hand - as if said wits were toddlers preparing for storytime - 7 AY EM is the time I have to arrive at work. Every morning for the next three months. While honestly that doesn't bother me too much because I'm a morning person and it means I can leave at 4 pm, it is a bad sign for the company.

Several months ago, a senior VP told us that they planned for the majority of developers to be based in India. This is a sign of that plan in action: 7:30 am to us is 7 pm to them.

In other words, it is more important to let them go home at a reasonable hour than it is to let the majority of us stay in bed until a reasonable hour.

First of all, can you imagine staying at an office job until 7, 8, or 9 at night? It would suck massively right? But imagine getting up at 5 or 6 am to get to work in time for a 7:30 meeting ...

I know you.

You're not a morning person.

(I know I'm a freak. I already get up at 5 am. )

You're horrified. Now imagine that has to happen every day for the next three months. Your blood is already running cold, isn't it? A sickly pallor has washed over your visage as you stumble toward the coffee pot ...

But coffee won't do anymore ...

You want brains! The brains of the senior executive team who has decided that India is more important than you.

Honestly, I have sympathy for those folks in India. It really would suck to have to stay at work until 9 pm.

But c'mon.

At least they're awake at 9 pm. Who, besides me, is awake at 5 or 6 am? You should see my bleary eyed teammates as we huddle over the speaker phone in that cramped meeting room. Worst of all, the phone connection is so poor that we can't even understand what the India folks are saying. They actually have to email their information to us BEFORE the meeting but they must still stay at work until 7 pm so we can strain our brains, necks, and ear drums craning across the two square inches of speaker on the phone in hopes of catching a comprehensible syllable.

We can't exactly give up on the possibility of understanding them, can we? We might have received a written transcript of what they're going to say, but if we're going to crowd around that phone at 7:30 am every work day for three months, can we really accept the futility of dialing in to an inscrutable conference call? Can we actually train ourselves to sit in that room and pretend to listen to garbled static just to justify our presence there at that hour of the morning?

I doubt it.

Well, I shouldn't speak for the rest of the team. I, for one, have already checked out. It is easy for me to pretend to listen because I don't give a shit anymore. I'm leaving!

Nota Bene: If you're my boss, I'm not really leaving. I just like to bitch.

another LIAR!!

2006-11-09T09:49:00.000-08:00

So I might have actually harbored some paranoid fantasies that our whole voting system was rigged and I'm glad to be proven wrong. But this quote from Rush Limbaugh, reported by Andrew Sullivan, might fuel a whole new set of 'em.

I never thought people like Limbaugh might not believe what they were saying.

Is this why our country is in such a mess? Because people are willing to sacrifice their integrity for the sake of victory?

Democrats/liberals/progressives do it too. I know that. I know people who hate the war but are willing to vote for Hillary "Hawk" Clinton for president because she's a woman.

Fuck that, man.

We need to have a real conversation about shit in this country. Not silent acquiesence for and especially not disingenous promotion of abhorrent policies in support of our goddamn team.

It seems only natural for party hacks and apathetic types to resort to this, but when our so-called free press does it too, it just breaks my heart. More importantly, it makes it that much harder to ensure good governance.

LIAR!

2006-10-11T01:42:00.000-07:00

I've been lying to you.

If it makes you feel any better, I've also been lying to myself.

I can't even drink decaf coffee. It is a gateway drug. Decaf coffee always leads to regular coffee. ALWAYS. You start off with a nice cup of decaf - black, hot, sharp, rich ...

ahem

sorry

I mean, you start off with good intentions. Naturally you pick one of the few places in town that serves good drip decaf - Jo's for example - and, still, within 45 minutes you're face up in the caffeine gutter spewing nonsense to passersby. Granted, sometimes it is not your fault. If the waittress happens to offer a warm-up and you fail to notice that she's holding the BROWN pot NOT the ORANGE one.

OK, am I lying to us again? Did I avert my eyes from the pot on purpose? Perhaps. At least I didn't whisper "Just a little squirt of the good stuff" and wink at her. Right? I mean, right?

It wasn't my fault!

Right?

OK, yes, I am face up in the caffeine gutter spewing nonsense to you.

I didn't mean for this post to be about my problem.

(oooh look at me ... the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.)

At least, I didn't mean for this post to be about THIS problem I have with coffee.

I think I've been lying to you about my JOB problem.

(and myself. I've definitely been lying to myself)

You see, yesterday morning I had an 8 am meeting followed by a 9 am meeting and that totally fucked up my morning routine, providing further roof that my job sucks, right? So I wore my exercise clothes to work and went to the exceedingly lame gym downstairs at 10 am to do the Stair Master for half an hour. After which, I took a shower and discovered that I had forgotten my foundation garments (that's bra and panties for those of you who have never worked ladies retail).

There are women out there who can go commando in such circumstances but I am not one of them. Would that I were ...

No, I need foundation garments. Especially my upper half.

So as I button my blouse, I stare hard at my jog bra willing it to dry out and de-stink itself in the next few hours because I have a lunch meeting off site (where, by the way, I fell off the decaf wagon and into the caffeine gutter) that I cannot flop around at.

I think about reattaching that damp and reeking spandex sling to my chest and that's when I think:

"Why am I here? Why do I have to do this? Why can't I be at home doing whatever I want whenever I want. THIS ISN'T FAIR!?!"

And that's when I realize that I've been lying to you. And me.

I don't want a better job.

I want no job.

Duh.

she-ra

2006-09-27T00:25:00.000-07:00

I remembered the story about the man after my father's biscuit (see the second entry) because, of course, I hate my job and would like to find another one.

More specifically though, I've been thinking about the possible similarities between a man hunt and a job hunt because, of course, I hate my job and would like to find another one.

And by "man hunt" I don't mean that the kind of hunt that ends with someone dead or in prison ... unless you consider marriage a prison.

As I said before , I have been doing this tech writing crap for a long time and I've hated pretty much the entire time. Fourteen years. That's a long time to do something you hate.

But I was in an awful relationship for 12 years. And after I left that awful relationship, I dated a series of clones of my ex for a couple of years before I finally snapped out of it.

See, there's one similarity already. Fourteen years.

(Hmmm. I broke two mirrors in one fell swoop once)

I can't think of any other similarities.

And yet I have done a spectacular job of hunting down a man. My man is fabulous. Nigh on perfection. So I'd like to think I might apply the same principles of man hunting to job hunting and find a paid job as spectacular as my sweetheart.

Except ... I didn't really hunt him.

I didn't dress like a slut and pretend to be interested in football.

That wouldn't have worked anyways. I also didn't dress like a hipster and pretend to be interested in the Hold Steady.

I didn't laugh at all his jokes.

Well, I did actually. Loudly and often.

But I'd get so freaked out by the possibility that he or anyone else would notice how hard I was laughing that I'd practically pinch myself trying to stop.

I didn't talk to him more than anyone else. If anything I'd keep a careful eye on how long we talked at parties and run away if it started to feel too intimate.

But one day we happened to be alone at the same place at the same time and that was the beginning of the beginning.

Can I try this with a job?

Just try to be happy with who I am?

Laugh alot?

Purposefully keep my distance because I don't want it to know how much I like it ... until one day our paths cross and we're drawn to each other irresistably and permanently?

headhunter

2006-09-21T19:49:00.000-07:00

As a small child obsessed with Gilligan's Island, the Three Stooges, and Johnny Weismuller's Tarzan films, I once intercepted a phone call for my father that made my skin crawl.

The man identified himself as a headhunter.

I immediately envisioned my father's shriveled noggin swinging on a piece of twine from the roof of the caller's straw hut.

Horrified, I asked, "What do you want from him?"

His response pierced my heart like the icy blade of a spear:

"He called me, sweetheart."

"Why?" I whimpered.

"I guess he's not happy with his job."

Why on earth would a person with two small, relatively well-behaved, and pretty cute children voluntarily hand his head over to a complete stranger just because he didn't' like his job?!?

Perhaps because the man never once evinced other signs of savagery familiar to a seven year old anthropologist, like grunting "unga bunga" or pounding a bongo drum, or perhaps because some part of me refused to accept that my father was suicidal, I delivered the message to him.

I also did my best to eavesdrop on the conversation.

Later I asked, with the bravest face I could muster, "How come you called a headhunter, Poppie?"

"Well, little bubbie, I'm thinking about finding a new job."

"But why a headhunter?"

"That's just another name for a guy who helps people find jobs. Or helps companies find people."

"Oh."

F and Becky

2006-09-18T08:28:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, when a disaster of momentous proportions crashed down upon the heads of an intrepid band of tech writers, my former co-worker F and his cohort Becky were two of the few people on the staff who had the skills and experience to deal with said crisis.

Writers came from remote offices far and wide to pull up their bootstraps, pull rabbits out of hats, pull wool over managers' eyes, whatever it took to get this problem fixed, but F and Becky were the heads of the pack.

Sometimes when we were feeling low and our fearless leaders were away in the trenches, we'd huddle together against the cold, dark, blustery chaos and ask "What would F 'n' Becky do?"

As lights began to appear at the ends of tunnels and the silver linings behind clouds became glittering chalices in the sky, the writers from the far off lands took their leave of us.

It seemed, however, that F's name caused confusion even amidst our stalwart visitors, as demonstrated by one young lady who turned to us at her departure and asked:

"Why don't ya'll like Becky? She seemed so sweet to me."

a rose is a rose

2006-09-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

I used to work with a man called F.

Yes, F.

Not Fred or Farrell or Fartface. Just plain F.

That's right. He goes by a letter.

It was a source of some consternation among our co-workers. One man even refused to call F "F" and insisted on addressing him as "Frank." F responded by sending an email to the entire tech writing department stating that he would not respond, under any circumstances, to any other name except F. He had another name, he'd explained, but he chose to go by something else and he expected other people to honor that.

And I say, "Bravo, F! Bravo."

I'm serious.

Really.

I repeat: "Bravo, F."

Is your lip curling? Have you scrinched your face? Are you taken aback? I mean, literally, has your head cocked back a few centimeters as if in response to some stench wafting under your nose?

Shakespeare says "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." But, apparently, that's not the case for poor F. Apparently, he (metaphorically) stinks. If we heard his name was Foster or Franklin, we might giggle and mime at adjusting a monocle or we might imagine him in an ascot and smoking jacket, but we wouldn't sneer.

Why do we sneer?

It is odd, I'll admit, to be called by a letter. It doesn't comply with our standard naming conventions. (Although, it is not unheard of. My ex's uncle was named RE. No periods.)

It doesn't even fit with our normal nicknaming conventions. (And yet I knew a kid in high school called T and my nephew's nickname is E.)

But why is this name of his - this F - met with such universal disgust? Maybe this particular letter is problematic. Even if it didn't inaugurate and sometimes substitute for one of our most foul curses, it is just an ugly sound.

EH-F-uh.

In fact, just saying it kinda makes you sneer.

It sounds reasonable to say that this particular letter is the problem but it just isn't true. The fact is that people get weird about unusual names. Especially unusual names with which the namee has christened him or herself.

A few years ago, a friend decided to go by her middle name. Multiple people in her family refused to call her by this name. One acquaintance told her that the act of rearranging her name at the age of 29 was insane.

Insane?

...

Why? Seriously.

Why the faces? Why the disgust? Why call it insanity?

For the longest time, it didn't make any sense to me but now I think I understand.

For most of our lives, we are named by other people. Our parents give us our initial names. Friends or siblings give us nicknames. Lovers give us pet names. Later on, depending on personal preference - and nothing else nowadays, thank goodness! - a spouse gives us yet another name.

It is a rule. Somebody else names you. You're not supposed to name yourself.

Isn't that strange?

We behave as if fully grown persons who can feed and cloth themselves, not to mention express and act on their personal preferences almost every moment of the waking day, are not allowed to choose their own names. Does that make any sense at all?

I have recently changed my name too, and without revealing either the hows or wherefores, I can tell you that most people will have a strong reaction to what I have done. This is a different sort of name change than the ones I talked about before. This is the big 'un. The one that follows closely on the white satin heels that trip lightly down the aisle at a wedding ceremony.

That's right. I took my husband's name. Do not applaud me. I'm no traditionalist. Do not denounce me. I'm no traitor to the feminist cause.

Or, you know, actually ... whatever.

Do you what you like to me. I don't care. I don't have to justify my choice to you or anyone else. I don't owe you an explanation. I don't have to provide you with a good reason. I don't even have to have a good reason, anymore than F does.

I wanted to write something profound about identity and labels but, you know what? Fuck it.

I like what Arthur Freed has to say on the subject:

A Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is
A rose is what Moses supposes his toes is
Couldn't be a lily or a daphi daphi dilli
It's gotta be a rose cuz it rhymes with mose!

Thankfully, the modern world is already behind me on this. On the internet, you and I can call ourselves whatever we choose and nobody balks. Or asks for an explanation.

momentum

2006-09-14T07:38:00.000-07:00

How long does it take for a body to process a cup of decaf Starbucks? Because I had one yesterday at 8 am and my eyes are just now starting a long slow retreat back into their sockets.

Four hours of sleep.

I got FOUR hours of sleep last night. Four.

I should be a zombie.

But no, instead I'm all zippity do dah, whistling, and dancing jigs and shit.

Criminy.

Geemanetti.

(That's what my dad says instead of "Jesus!")

According to some stupid website, a typical cup of regular coffee has 125 milligrams of caffeine in it; decaf coffee has three to four milligrams.

What about Starbucks coffee? Is it special? Hmm???

Guess who doesn't post information about caffeine content on their website?

Right now the tight ropes, trapeze swings, and giant fiery wheels in the three ring circus of my brain are filled to overflowing with crazed, screeching monkeys.

Either that twerp in the green apron gave me the wrong kinda coffee or the twerp who makes all the other twerps wear green aprons sells me shit that still sends my system into a days long Loopty Loo.

Decaf, my ass.

grow up!

2006-09-11T14:53:00.000-07:00

The other day I told someone to "grow up."

(Nevermind how pathetic and inappropriate this command might seem from someone who uses the word "dookie" twice in a single paragraph.)

It needed to be said. This person - who will remain unnamed - needs to grow up.

I do not mean that he needs to drive a sedan. Or that he should cook like Martha Stewart or buy a house. Or decorate his apartment like a page out of the Pottery Barn catalog. I do not mean that he should stop wearing Converse, give up on his dreams, and become a suburban drone.

Although, I have to say that when I finished college, this is what "grow up" meant to me. So I determined never to do it.

When I entered the work force - this is a soul-sucking expression if ever there was one - I saw even more wisdom in the decision not to "grow up" because most of the grown ups around me were both miserable and shockingly immature. I saw 30 year olds who let their friends falsely believe they were having affairs with multiple college coeds. 40 year olds who keyed people's cars. 50 year olds who did bad impressions of their bosses, literally, behind their backs. Adulthood was not only bland and grating, it embarrassed the hell out of me.

'I'll pass,' I thought.

Whenever I heard anyone tell someone else to grow up, even it was someone in a movie, I automatically hated that person. It was as if they were saying "Accept this curse - it is your obligation and your destiny - or be cast out from the company of Man," while they swayed in grey robes at the edge of the Forest of Eternal Night.

Now I'm wearing the grey robes and swaying in front of the forest?

Hell no.

When we're babies, our parents are gods. We're obligated by our own floppy limbs, useless vocal cords, and overwhelmed, underdeveloped synapses to rely on them for everything. They show us how the world works. What they say goes. That's not just because they're bossy and controlling but also, when we're too little and floppy to make decisions and take action on our own, it is imperative that we have an example to follow and a hand to guide us. During our formative years, they are the pinnacle of adulthood. Everything we do is either controlled by or assessed by our parents. We're incapable of considering that what they might say, do, or think might be wrong - or at least, not right for us - because they are the only things between us and the great, wide, dangerous world.

That's how a lot of people get screwed up. When you're wee and your parent does something dangerous on a regular basis, your brain is wired to believe that's how a person is supposed to operate in the world. You take that information in as if it were gospel because that's your biological imperative. Does that make any sense? These people are your sole means of survival and they behave a certain way so you come to believe that that way is the right way. As you get older, you tend to repeat their behaviors or you find people in your life who repeat those behaviors because that's what home feels like to you.

We also rely on our parents to assess us. Again, when we're too small to care for ourselves, we have to rely on the big people to tell us how to do that. They tell us what to do and how to do it until we're able to figure out some of that on our own. And then we spend years pointing to what we've done and hoping for some of that beaming and handclapping we crave. Or we hide what we've done behind the sofa and hope we don't get spanked.

But eventually, that has to stop.

Fourteen years after finishing college, I've finally figured out what it means to "grow up." It doesn't mean becoming a drone or a page out of a catalog. It doesn't mean that I stop drinking or staying out late or keying cars or picking my nose.

It doesn't even mean that we stop thinking about how our parents will react. It just means we stop acting as if their feelings and reactions are more important than ours. It means that we stop making decisions and taking action based on how our parents will react; relying on them for instruction and approval; or blaming them for how we are. At some point, we have to take responsibility for our own lives.

At some point, we have to say to ourselves "Uch, they're going to hate ______. But this is who I am and they're just going to have to deal with it."

biiiiite me

2006-09-07T02:49:00.000-07:00

Well, the experiment with my morning schedule was a complete failure. Apparently I need a lot more than 20 minutes of stumbling around time. I got to work at 10. Gots to figure out a different time to write.

stream of ... something

2006-09-01T05:20:00.000-07:00

If I'm really going to write for an entire 30 minutes and if my schedule is important to me, I have to sacrifice much of what is important to a writer in this attempt. You can't spend too much time thinking much less choosing words or sentence structure. You just have to keep your fingers on the keyboard.

On the tight schedule I've given myself, I can't even really choose a topic. I just have to go! I started at 7:15. I have to finish by 7:45. Write write write write! I can't even stop to think about whether you'll be bored by this. Type type type! So here I am type type typing and trying hard not to think about how dumb or boring this is because that's not the point! I'm not trying to be smart or interesting. I'm just trying to keep my fingers on the keyboard. Smart and interesting can happen later in the day after I get some of that decaf coffee in my bloodstream.

I do another writing exercise during the day. It's a book of silly opening sentences and absurd restrictions. For example, on one page the author has scattered random words across the page and you have to write so that those words fit into your sentences. The pages are also covered with bold and ridiculous images. And she always begins the instructions with "Write a story that begins with ..." But the page is only about 20 lines long! Is it possible to write a story in 20 lines? I can't do it. I'm horrible with plot anyways but in 20 lines! I can barely get a character onto the page in 20 lines. OK, so I've gotten slightly better at that but still! Who thinks a person can write a story in 20 lines. If you say "I can," you're an asshole and you need to shut up.

Of course, now I've been writing for 10 minutes and I'M bored. Poor yous. What are you going to do with yourselves for another 20 minutes.

How does one get efficient enough to write for 30 minutes straight and make some good choices without getting bogged down by doubt and indecision. Obviously 30 minutes is a long time if you really just put your fingers on the keyboard and let whatever crap roll out of your head and onto the screen.

The happy medium is hard to find.

Now see this is fun. I talk about crap rolling out of my head and I see this image of a big dookie on a bed in my brain rolling out from under the covers, stumbling to the medicine cabinet for vitamins, rubbing a little dookie doggie, fixing some coffee, and then sitting itself down in front of the laptop to write for 30 minutes.

And the happy medium that's hard to find calls to mind the image of a psychics convention full of grumbling depressed people and whenever you ask someone where the happy medium is they say "The crystal ball is cloudy." or "The cards tell me nothing." or "I think she's in the far east corner."

It isn't really writing but it entertains the hell out of me. Wouldn't it be fabulous is you could, in fact, ______ the hell out of someone. Maybe that's what the happy medium does. She divines the hell out of people.

And still 10 more minutes to go. Do you hate me yet? Have you quit reading!?

I just want to make you laugh. That's it. Think a little. Laugh. Love me! Ooh that one slipped in by accident. But it is true. I've thought alot about why people write and I don't really know about anyone else but me ... I want to be laughed at, loved, and understood a little better. I want to explain where I'm coming from but I also want to confuse the hell out of you. Ooh there I go again. Trying to save souls. Maybe I want to do that too.

Eight minutes. This is ridiculous.

I want to explain to you why I've got that stupid book full of writing exercises. Technical writing is a very dry and lifeless kind of writing for the most part. Your goal is to be clear and concise, which are admirable goals in most kinds of writing, but also to avoid complex sentences at all cost. Not that long ago I came to the terrifying realization that I could not write a complex sentence anymore. It was nearly impossible! At that point I thought, I must break out of the tech writer mold immediately. (image of woman sheathed head to toe in green fuzz).

While it has been incredibly freeing for me, it has done nothing good for my tech writer morale. I no longer care whether something is bolded or not! The point size on a particular heading matters not to me! And I'll use a damn complex sentence if I want to, dammit! I want to write: "Use common sense people! This shit isn't that hard!!!"

(fuck you, I know that's not a complex sentence)

So here I am now, four minutes away from finishing, and I know that you're not going to like this anyways and I've had enough ...

laying low. sitting up straight

2006-08-31T07:34:00.000-07:00

Hi.

It has been awhile, hasn't it?

Well:

1) I've been sick and tired. And sick. And tired. I get a little ... um ... hot under the collar about stuff sometimes which makes sleeping difficult which in turn makes waking difficult and wears down my immune system which ... Thus the whole business of being sick and tired.

2) I prefer writing in this blog to writing technical documentation. I also prefer checking for comments to writing technical documentation. Ok, I prefer almost anything to writing technical documentation. But right now, I need to write technical documentation! Shocking, I know, but true! Time's a wastin'! Clock's a tickin'! I gots deadlines!!

3) Related to #1, my new ambition in life is to follow my own advice. So I've started making myself sit still with my eyes closed for twenty minutes every morning. That's right, folks. Meditation.

4) My other new ambition is to get as close to eight hours of sleep a night as possible. That might sound like a modest goal to some of you but it has always been a challenge for me, even when nobody in the political or work arena is driving me bonkers.

My nights and mornings used to look like this:

Bed time 11ish
Wake up at 3
Toss and turn until 4 or later
Rise and shine at 5:45.
Stumble to medicine cabinet for vitamins
Stumble around with kettle/french press/coffee
Stretch while water boils/coffee brews
Rub Ruby's belly
Drink coffee & write from 6:30 to 7
Exercise
Shower
Work by 9:30 or 10

I just can't squeeze in 30 minutes of writing, 20 minutes of meditation, an hour of exercise, 30 minutes of showering etc, and a 20 minute commute before I have to be at work at 9:30. Bedtime is now 10:30 on the dot and wake-y wake-y starts at 6:30.

Thus, no more blogging in the mornings. I must find some other time to do it.

Shit ... wait a minute. According to that bullshit, I could get up at 7:00 and still make it to work on time with 20 spare minutes for stumbling around. What in the world do I do with my mornings that 20 minutes isn't enough stumbling around time?

OK, enough excuses.

If I don't write in the mornings, it is because I'm laaaazy. And if you don't like that, you can biiiiiiite me!

Love always,
Z. Imbecile

funnee

2006-08-25T10:31:00.000-07:00

Very few people get under my skin the way Dena S. did.

In fact, very few people - around six - get under my skin at all, but Dena S. was one of them. In fact, Dena S. was the queen bee. The king cobra. The royal bitch. I mean, she actually looked like a pit bull and, even though I had almost a foot and 40 pounds on her, she scared the crap out of me.

It was not as if I thought she'd bite me although she did sometimes snarl - OK, she didn't make the snarling noise but she did (really and truly) make the snarling face. The horror!

It was just that I was afraid because I never knew what would piss her off.

I always meant to write down some of the stuff she wrote to me. Now, six months later, I can't remember a shred of it ... Except that she chewed me out for working too hard and setting expectations too high; she badgered me into trading quarterly objectives (long story) with her; and then she complained about her quarterly objectives later and got them switched again.

I learned to dread the way she invaded on my desktop with that innocent little blue boxed "hey" of hers. MSN Instant Messenger was her favorite venom-delivery method and she used it with regularity and precision. She'd bait me with some sweet talk about the weekend and end up cheerfully accusing me of being the most evil and manipulative person on the planet.

She drove me so completely insane that I dropped every last shred of polite discourse and told her exactly what I wanted to which included, but was not limited to, "This is ridiculous." "No, I absolutely refuse." "What do you want from me?" "Why can't you just leave me alone?" and "If you have a problem with me, talk to our manager."

Eventually our manager talked to us. Separately. I'm not sure what he said to her but he said something to me that I will never forget.

He said: "You doan like Deena an thas okay. You doan haf to like heer but you do haf to work wit heer. Whatever you tink about heer personally, shee ees a good writeer."

He was Brazilian.

(I know it is a terrible representation of a Brazilian accent but at least you don't have to hear me try to do it. )

(She wasn't a good technical writer, by the way, but it is pointless to argue with a software developer over that. They don't know shit.)

"So Aye wan you to do somteeng for me." he continued, "Aye wan you to tray to get along wit heer. Now, when you see heer, you feel angry, am Aye rayght? So Aye wan you to tink funnee toughts when you see heer. Aye wan you to tink 'Hey! Look there's dat funnee laydee.' No more angry. Just funnee. Funnee laydee. Okay?"

It didn't really work. She still snarled at me and I still cowered in person and then snarled over IM. And then our boss got fired and a few weeks later, I left.

But now, when I think of Dena S., I think of him saying that to me (No more angry. Just funny. Funny lady) and I laugh. I should probably think that whenever I encounter any of the six people who drive me completely bonkers. Right now, I just try not to look them in the eye.

Honestly, I never remember his advice when I need to. I remember it later when it does me no good. And then I laugh.

I wonder if it'll work with other stuff that fills me with bile ...

Funnee Bush administration ...

... hmmm ...

abdicating responsibility

2006-08-23T18:32:00.000-07:00

I am good at relaxing. In fact, I'm great. I know how to kick back and do nothing for hours at a time and, frankly, I love doing it.

But tonight and for the last several nights, I have taken relaxing to a whole new level.

Actually, that's inaccurate because it implies that I personally have achieved a level of relaxation unheard of by most people when in fact I'm sure a fair number of people - some of whom read this blog - are quite familiar with it.

I, friends, am high.

High as a kite.

whoo hoo.

Not on heroin nor marijuana. Not even on whatever that crap is that they put in Robitussin. Not benadryl or any other over-the-counter anti-histamines. And most definitely not on life.

I am high on antibiotics.

Yes, that's right. Anti. Biotics.

May cause drowsiness, indeed.

I haven't been this relaxed in ages. I don't give a flying fuck about any old thing. Hallelujah!

Amazingly, I get to be completely relaxed AND I get to act like a total, self-indulgent idiot (because I'm sick!) AND I get to drop any pretense of kindness or understanding (because I'm medicated!).

For the first time in my life, I think I understand addiction. Addiction is an excuse to act like a relaxed, self-indulgent, rude idiot. If only I could get a lifetime supply of this antibiotic, I too could be an addict.

NB: I don't really understand anything so don't listen to me.

tossing and turning

2006-08-22T04:27:00.000-07:00

Some people have told me that they prefer my personal posts to my political ones.

Now seems like a great time to tell them that the political posts are personal. I don't write about this stuff because I think it is important on some lofty philosophical level. I write about it because a lot of it scares the crap out of me. I lie awake nights tossing and turning over it. I get headaches and stomaches.

I just wrote this long essay listing off the various things that scare me and why they scare me but I've realized I'm just rehashing old material. The truth is that I'm just scared. I strongly object to our government's actions in the Middle East, not because of some abstract political position, but because what they're doing is likely to increase incidents of terrorism.

I'm also heartbroken. I believe in freedom but I don't know what that means anymore. I feel like everything I love about this country is going into the trash alongside everybody's carry-on shampoo.

Tony Blair recently said that global terrorism "means that traditional civil liberties arguments are not so much wrong as just made for another age." If that's the case, I don't understand what we're trying to protect here and what we're trying to export over there. Is it democracy?

What is democracy without civil liberties?

What do you love about this country that does not rely on civil liberties as its foundation?

What is democracy without justice? What is justice unhinged from its guiding principles?

These are not rhetorical questions.

books books books booksbooksbooksbooksbooksbooks

2006-08-21T07:13:00.000-07:00

I'm not familiar with the whole tagging thing but I thought this was a good idea, and, like Collier, I love to think about reading almost as much as I love to read.

So I'll pretend like Ryan tagged me. Here goes.

Changed my life?
The Old Testament. I know I'm a freak but it is true.

When I was little, the Exorcist and Damien and Salem's Lot were the shit in the movies and on TV and, as a Jewish kid, I realized that I didn't have the protection afforded my little Christian friends - the sign of the cross. So I came up with an elaborate form of security for myself which involved being an extremely devout Jew. I told myself that if Jesus were really the Big Kahuna, he'd approve of my devotion to my religion and family and extend his anti-vampire/devil powers over me. So I read the Old Testament every night before I went to bed.

I honestly think that the good bits - about being kind to strangers, loving thy neighbor as thyself, judging not etc - sunk in pretty well. Not perfectly, but not too badly.

Also, the dictionary.

I've read more than once?
I am chronic re-reader so I won't list them all. I can't even begin to list all the double-reads.

The Old Testament - 5 times?
The Chronicles of Narnia - Gosh ... except for the Last Battle, which I read only once ... 8 times? (This one might've had as much impact on my character as the first.)
Pride and Prejudice - 4 times, plus one time in Spanish
A Room with a View - 5 times
The Corrections - 3 times
Crime and Punishment - 4 times
Ellison's The Invisible Man - 3 times
Catch 22 - 3 times

I'd want on a desert island?
The Boy Scouts Guide
The first narrator in Wilkie Collin's The Moonstone reads Robinson Crusoe as if it were the Bible and he's incredibly funny so I'd probably give that a shot.

Made me cry?
Of Mice and Men
The first half of David Copperfield. (The second half kinda sucks)
The Idiot by Dostoevsky

Made me laugh?
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations and The Pickwick Papers are tops) always makes me laugh
The first half of the Moonstone, narrated by the guy who only reads Robinson Crusoe.
Jane Austen
The salmon scene and the talking shit scene in The Corrections almost made me piss my pants.
Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet

I wish had written?
The Corrections
Wonder Boys

I wish had never been written?
The Old Testament?

... as if humans wouldn't find some other spiritual justification to destroy each other ...

I'm currently reading?
I am between books at the moment. Just finished Into the Wild and might start another John Krakauer book or Kafka on the Shore by Murakami.

I’ve been meaning to read?
Lordy, where to begin?

history lessons

2006-08-16T05:02:00.000-07:00

Chadwick,

Sorry for picking on you about the history lesson.
Half my day at work is taken up with listening to people explain "why we did it this way" either to justify continuing to repeat a bad habit or to absolve themselves of guilt for perpetuating the bad habit because it was someone else's idea or it originated from circumstances beyond their control.

Even when they're not trying to justify repeating the bad habit, they throw their hands up in the air and saying "It's not my fault! It wasn't my idea! He's the one who started it!!"

But after these people spend all this time explaining to you why things are the way they are, if you suggest trying to do things differently, they start the whole story over again.

I could give you some examples but they'd be boring crap about software development and I don't want to subject you to that.

People do it all the time and it drives me completely nuts. But that's not your fault. It is just a huge pet peeve of mine and I took it out on you.

So solly,
Z

haters

2006-08-14T16:45:00.000-07:00

Both sides of the war on terror debate would be a lot better off if we'd drop as much silly rhetoric as possible.

Just because the Bush administration has thrown around this idea of "freedom haters" for five years doesn't mean that any of us has to cling to it any longer, either to mock the opposition or to extol our country's comparative virtues.

We're in a fucked up situation and all the name-calling, tattle-telling, and case-building in the world is not going to solve the problem. Neither is all the bomb-throwing, collateral-damaging, and racial-profiling. Even history-reciting, blame-laying, and spell-checking won't cut it.

(I know, I called Tony Snow an asshole the other day. I take it back ... sort of)

Stop arguing about who did what, when, how, where, and why. Stop trying to figure out who is really to blame, who is the worst of the lot. Stop thinking about the solution in terms of punishment or retribution.

It doesn't help.

However, thinking about it in the terms Bryan suggests might actually do some good.

my humblest apologies

2006-08-14T12:35:00.000-07:00

To those of you who left comments on the previous post over the weekened. They are now available for public consumption.

Uncle Sam wants you!

2006-08-11T04:34:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't been paying attention, god forbid, good old Joe Lieberman, one of the few Democratic senators who still supports the war in Iraq, lost Connecticut's Democratic primary to a rich guy named Ned Lamont whose platform was "I'm not Joe Lieberman" which roughly translates to "I'm not a lackey for the Bush Administration." and "I hate the war."

Whitehouse spokesperson Tony Snow had an interesting take on this development. He strongly suggested that Ned Lamont and his supporters did not take the war on terror seriously.

So ... pulling out of Iraq is equivalent to not taking the war on terror seriously?

Is this brand of bullshit still effective?

We now know that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We also know that Saddam Hussein had no ties to Al Quaida. None of the terrorists caught since 9/11 have been Iraqi. Many of the counter-insurgents in Iraq are from other Arab countries.

What on God's green earth does the war in Iraq or any of our other efforts in the Middle East have to do with the war on terror???

I'll tell you:

* We're detaining, torturing, humiliating, raping, and killing innocent people in Iraq.

(OK. You're right! We're also detaining, torturing, humiliating, and killing the bad guys. But let us not forget about the innocents. Nobody else is)

* We're funding Israel's efforts in Lebanon and the resultant "collateral damage." That's right folks! Conservatives estimate that one-fifth of the US budget for foreign aid goes to Israel. That might be news to you but it is not to other nations in the Middle East.

* We claim to be importing democracy but we disavow it if we don't like the election results, as in the Palestinian territories.

OK. I get it now. We're acting like total shitheads in that part of the world because we want MORE terrorists.

Tony Snow, stop talking to us as if we are dumbasses. Save that for your boss.

Asshole.

sigh

2006-08-10T05:03:00.000-07:00

My thoughts won't gel. My sentences are lumpy and lifeless. Try again tomorrow.