books 2009

currently:
first among sequels
[jasper fford]
{might i just say here, the brits are simply funny folk.}

complete:
north river
[pete hamill]
dragonlight
[donita k paul]
world without end
[ken follett]
the associate
[john grisham]
dragonfire
[donita k paul]
dragonknight
[donita k paul]
the archbishop in andalusia
[andrew greeley]
dragonquest
[donita k paul]
dragonspell
[donita k paul]
the spiderwick chronicles, vol. 1-5
[tony diterlizzi & holly black]
devil bones
[kathy reichs]
irish tweed
[andrew greeley]
the paradise war
[stephen lawhead]
hood
[stephen lawhead]
scarpetta
[patricia cornwell]

if there were pancakes on the floor would you eat them?

we're getting uverse soon, so we cancelled the dish today. it'll run through tonight and then that's it - end of month = end of dish. there will be a lag between the cancellation and uverse, and during the lag we might not even be able to access the tivo, so i'll be watching merlin on the computer. and this concludes teevee talk time.

today at work we once again did not get to the printer the job that was supposed to go to the printer on 24 août. ::sigh:: this project has been one hassle after another all summer long, and isn't that the way it is - one project will soak the life & breath out of you until you just cannot stand to look at it one more second, and you get to where you don't care a nidge about the quality anymore - you just want it out of your freakin hair. tomorrow. tomorrow it will go. it will!

finished north river by pete hamill. solid two thumbs up. pete's simply a good writer. it's a bit of history, a bit of love story, and all together romantic in the traditional sense of creating a mood. it's got some suspense and some drama and some comedy. solid 3-dimensional characters. really a good book that's got it all together. i've also read mr hamill's snow in august, and it's also a good story, and both are very different which you don't always find in a writer. of course, the rest of his stuff might be like one or the other of these two, and i wouldn't know it, but i doubt that. i bet he writes a different story every time. this book would be liked by boys or girls.

currently reading the book that was on the top of the teetering to-read pile - the 5th thursday next novel, and apparently skipped the 4th without realizing it. oppsey-duhsey. good thing they totally build on each other so at this point i am halfway lost & confused. jeepus. no, no, seriously not that bad and i do enjoy a visit with ol' thurs.

JA-kob DY-lan!! ja-KOB dy-LAN!!

i. am. a. fan. yes. i. am.

saw the wallflowers tonight at a local venue where one must remain standing at all times. this is not a venue for the weak of foot. or knee. or hip. or lower back. for the first hour or so of the wallflowers we were close to the front. these goobers kept moving in front of us and blocking-not-blocking-not-blocking-not the view. so we moved this way & that and skootched over and shifted our weight and we could see pretty well most of the time, and there is just something thrilling about being that close to someone you usually see on teevee. i don't care who it is or who you are, it's thrilling. add to it that it's someone whose music you enjoy, and there you have me, enthralled, about 8 rows back, peeking between folks' shoulders for a look at ol' jake.

the opening act was a young lady called butterfly boucher and she reminded me of that singer nena who is german and in the 80s had one american hit - 99 luftballons. and for those of you who are caring about this sort of thing, "luft" does not mean "red" but rather "luftballon" means "toy balloon" as opposed to like a balloon for riding around in. so there you have that, but we were speaking of miss butterfly. she claimed her name is really butterfly boucher and who is to doubt her? she is lovely to look at but it is sad to say that the folks were generally gabbing through her set except for the faster/louder numbers. her band was prerecorded, which i think would be tricky b/c you have to hit the timing prigzactly on target and there's no room for improv. her last song was the best, in my opinion, and that's pretty much what you'd expect.

spotted michael tait in the crowd, with a crew that looked like a band, and perhaps was dc talk folk, but how would i know? anyhoo - this is the same michael tait that i spotted at mellow mushroom a few weeks back, so i guess it's clear now that he's following me. stalker.

for the last few songs of jakob's set we moved to the back where the air was cooler, and if you didn't know better, you'd say my old man was dancing to "3 marlenas" but of course, we all know better than that, don't we now? yeah....

heh.

things to do today

1. ride bike
2. read that letter that arrived the other day about 403(b)
3. clean out closet
4. wash dishes
5. make bed
6. cut my old man's hair
7. do ankle therapy
8. figure out the meaning of that 403(b) letter
9. win a round of scramble
10. go to wallflowers concert [heh]

a classic irish tragedy

i was compelled to write a song this morning. it was a compulsion. i could not help myself. sometimes this has happened to me with poetry but never with a song. i even sat down at the piano and wrote the music. there's a first time for everything, and this was definitely the first time for that. of course, i don't read or write music, so it's in numbers. heh. it starts in the octave below middle c. that's all i got.

also, there is only one verse right now.

lyrics:

on a rainy morning in new england,
they gathered there to say goodbye.
their long black cars were winding thru the wet streets
past the mourners watching history go by.

carry on
carry on
carry on the dream they started long ago.
carry on the plans of grandeur they imagined.
carry on until you face the final foe.

:sciryl

okay, so the lyrics are a bit trite & maudlin, but it really doesn't get any more trite & maudlin than tragic irish family, so there you have it.

there's a problem with writing the music because i cannot portray the held notes and the halfnotes very well so i have tried to put a note on every syllable.

music:

5 6 7 2 2 7 7 6 6 5
5 6 7 2 2 2 2 7 6
5 6 7 2 2 7 3 2 7 6 6 5
5 6 7 2 2 7 6 5 7 6 5
[go up one octave]
5 3 2
5 2 1
1 2 3 5 5 3 6 5 5 3 2
1 2 3 5 5 3 6 5 5 3 2 1
1 2 3 5 5 3 2 1 3 2 1

:cisum

you would kind of have to hear me sing it, but i don't want to get the mic out now and record it, so you are just going to have to make do because i have got to go to walgreens and make some purchases.

thank you for your time & attention.

i think it's cool when a nickname is from the end of a name like colm for malcolm or liam for william or topher for christopher or ebe for phoebe.

being smart isn't always about knowing the answers. sometimes it's about knowing how to find the answers - that is, knowing how to ask the right questions. some people can memorize things and some people can figure things out, and okay - some people can do both, but if you pay attention you will find that people generally fall into one or the other category. people are either memorizers or figure-outer-ers. i am a brilliant genius, so i of course have both talents, but i do lean more to the figure-outer-er side of the scale. however, i am so exceedingly intelligent that my lesser skill in memorization so far outpaces the rest of the population that you normal people could not keep up with me even on my bad days.

speaking of smartness, i saw this headline today - «Many insurers to offer free H1N1 flu ... - Bizjournals.com» and what could be smarter than that? making people sick is the best way to get them to spend through that insurance benefit and dig right into their out of pocket expenses. brilliant!

i started this post at 11:11 which would have been a really cool time to post the post, and of course i can change the timestamp on the post to say whatever i want so i could leave it at 11:11, but that would be lying, wouldn't it now, and we can't have that, can we now? no.

crowning achievement

so i went and got a new dental crown today and guess what? it doesn't fit quite right. ::sigh:: why can't these things ever be right the first time? it felt okay at the dentist's office but turns out in real life i don't always precisely shut my jaw the exact same way. sometimes i am doing something crazy like chewing, and that's just unpredictable. i know, i know. how silly of me to be chewing! but i am just all wacky like that.

it's dark there & it smells like this, too.

i flicked on the flashlight and headed for the mailbox across the nighttime yard, smelling the sweet, sharp scent of pine & the mustiness of broken earth, and i listened to the crickets & scanned the ground through the flashlight's meager spot, ignoring the swish of car tires on the road & glare of headlights overhead, and for just a moment... just one moment... i could imagine i was in brigadoon.

narcissism forces me to bring forth from the archives my writings.

when

to run or not to run

blackbird sing

sky

something found

it just doesn't matter

word peep friend keep

wait

busy watching merlin

so here's a little something from the past for you to read.

sweet distance

you lured me out to five and so i went
and found when i arrived that you had gone.
your siren song, it beckoned me to six -
to seven, eight, and nine, and points beyond.

when i reached 10, i lingered with you there.
your siren song, it lulled me with its peace.
and then you ravaged me and broke my bones,
abandoned me - your love was just a tease.

the fierceness of your ire confounded me.
how could i have ignited such a wrath?
you called, i followed - loyally obeyed -
to sidewalk, indoor track, and wooded path.

today i ran again, and it felt good.
sweet distance, take me back. i pray you would.

futbol tips

here's the thing about the left side of the field: most people are right-footed. bringing it down the left side probably isn't going to work so well. go ahead & bring the ball down the on right then cross it somewhere 18-12 yards out. have one or two players positioned to receive the cross on the left and run one player in at the last minute as a wildcard. the wildcard player adds an element of surprise and confusion which will throw off the defense and give all three players a better chance of making a goal. the players on the left need to act quickly: there's no time to set up your right foot - you need to use your left. a quick left can be much more effective than a slow right, even if your left foot is not dominant.

when trying to move the ball down the field, remember your basic physis: you can't go through. that means you cannot go through people, but you can go around them. work the give & go with teammates or the juke moves on your own to go around players, but don't expect to go through them.

at the high school level, where you generally have one or two dominant players per team, your best player will be marked. she'll probably be marked by one of their best or even double-teamed most of the time. don't punt to her. don't direct goal kicks to her. don't throw the ball in to her. all these are 50-50 ball situations and give your opponent an opportunity challenge for the ball. instead of going first to your target, take a route through other players and vary who you direct the ball to. force the other team to cover more than one person. if your target player is double-teamed, someone else is open.

the signs are new but the electrical system is olde.

cash for indecisive slow pokes

what would you like to talk about today?

"With money running out, $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program will end on Monday. The tally so far: 457000 cars and $1.9 billion in rebates." -- cnnmoney.com. ::sigh:: my old man & i thought we could take advantage of this program because we have a clunker but it turns out that it's not that simple. go figure.

one problem is finding a vehicle we want that gets significant-enough better gas mileage. [nice grammer, eh?] another problem is that we wanted to get the cash for the clunker and also trade the harley, and we're not sure they'd take the clunker & the harley which are together worth around $12,000. the dealer might not want to give that much cash towards one purchase. another problem is that we'd have to discuss this with the dealer and that takes time. i mean, yeah, we could have initiated these discussions and we'd be that much closer to the answer, but we haven't and now we're out of time [again]. another problem is that the program requires us to purchase a new car to get the cash, and we really aren't into the whole new car idea. of course, the clunker cash and the harley cash would bring down the price to a more-reasonable level and the vehicle would not depreciate like mad as we drove it off the lot. but... we couldn't decide what we wanted to do and we didn't talk to the dealer about it and now the program is out of cash again and we didn't make a move. ::sigh:: a final issue goes back to the gas-mileage issue mentioned before... what we really want is a jeep wrangler and for that to qualify in the cash for clunkers, the clunker would have to be getting like 2 miles to the gallon. in conclusion, we're probably better off selling the myriad [and by myriad i mean 4] extra vehicles we have right now and taking that actual cashcash and wrangling a used wrangler.

books 2009

currently:
north river
pete hamill

complete:
dragonlight
[donita k paul]
world without end
[ken follett]
the associate
[john grisham]
dragonfire
[donita k paul]
dragonknight
[donita k paul]
the archbishop in andalusia
[andrew greeley]
dragonquest
[donita k paul]
dragonspell
[donita k paul]
the spiderwick chronicles, vol. 1-5
[tony diterlizzi & holly black]
devil bones
[kathy reichs]
irish tweed
[andrew greeley]
the paradise war
[stephen lawhead]
hood
[stephen lawhead]
scarpetta
[patricia cornwell]

forgot to buy powerball tickets! d'oh! if you don't win, you can't play.

we went to see harry potter and the half blood prince today and enjoyed it quite a bit. of course, any movie made from a harry potter book is going to leave a lot out. that's just the way it is - those books are too complex. so, this one left quite a bit out and some of it was sort of important. for instance - harry spent the majority of the book brooding & speculating about who was the half-blood prince, and that IS the subtitle of the book/movie, and they pretty much glazed over that entire plotline - just a couple mentions. it's understandable, because watching harry brood isn't as exciting as a good quidditch match or a lake full of dead people, but they could have given it a bit more play. other than that, the movie was spot-on and i give it a solid A-.


heard about this on the radio - dumpster pools. old dumpsters recycled into swimming pools. i had no idea there was such a thing as an old dumpster that would need recycling. i thought they just used those things until they fell apart. but these ones in brooklyn are recycled into pools. folks lined the dumpsters with plastic and then built decks around then. the radio story i heard said "it cost about $1000" but i don't know if that was for all 3 or just for 1. seems like a pretty cool idea, but then can't you get a regular above ground pool for $1000?

powerball is up to $250 million

can't find my copy of a tree grows in brooklyn. have you seen it?

went to goodwill again tonight to give another looksee at the underwood typewriter they had there. it's totally not working and $20. if it were totally not working and $10, i'd get it, or if it were working and $40, i'd get it. but not working and $20 is a bad combination. sunday night i found a columbia water skirt - brand new with tags!! - for a couple dollars. i am wearing it right now & it's lovely. also found a pair of denim jean shorts that i am not sure are going to work out. tonight i found a present for beavis! whoppwhopp! also found a fascinating green glass cone. i would show you a picture of it but i don't have a picture of it. i am going to take it to my office and put it beside my totem pole. i think that it will bring the alien transmissions in more clearly than the totem pole does on its own.

for your viewing pleasure, here is an updated picture of me.

past 2 times i've been to groc, there've been no nilla snackwells 12-packs. this is distressing. one can only hope this circumstance is not permanent.

ed hochuli, mike carey, and gene steratore - the three best refs in the nfl - welcome to another season of nfl football! whoppwhopp!

i would like to have some new socks. this is definitely a luxury item as i currently have more socks than i can wear in a given wash cycle but some of them are quite literally wearing thin. what i want is very specific - short socks that are either decorated with or primarily colored in the colors of the rainbow. not like with rainbows on them or with all the colors on one pair of sox. like - one pair sox that are red or with red decor, one pair sox that are orange or with orange decor, and so on. also would be nice to have pink and light blue. they need to be something more than the type of sock that is defined as "no show" because the typical "no show" sock steadily works its way down my foot and if left to its own devices, it would bunch up under my arch. i think they are shy or something. anyhootle - i've looked quite a bit and it's my belief that cycling has the sox i want. runners as a lot are somewhat boring, and swimmers don't wear sox.

a pool cat is a cool cat is a where-it's-at cat.

here's the problem with swimming as a form of exercise - it's a pain in the butt. you have to wear special clothing & go to a special place. okay, most exercise you have to wear some element of special clothing, but for something like running, you just strap on a pair of shoes & head out the door. soccer takes a lot of special clothing and you have to go to a specific location at a specific time - but there's the element of competition. you're playing with your teammates & for your team. swimming - you have to get all dressed up and drive someplace in order to swim back & forth & back & forth. i do like it once i am there, but it is a fairly large annoyance to get there. yes, i am complaining about being blessed with, in no particular order: health, transportation, wardrobe, facilities, and freedom.

reading is fundamental.

finished world without end. good book. nice long involved story. intriguing setting. but... one of the things i appreciated most about what mr follett did also tended to take up a lot of space. when he switched scenes, he always reminded you who the people were & how they were related to each other. this is very helpful when the cast of characters is large, but it takes up a lot of real estate. well, the way mr follett does it takes up a lot of real estate. also would have liked to have heard more descriptions about living with and around the plague. the months of plague were described in too few pages. caris's work with medicine could have been more deeply explored & explained. it was like mr follett got tired of the creative part of explaining the detail of medicine or cloth making or building - and he just settled for soap opera. not that it's not a good book, because it definitely is a good book, but it's no pillars of the earth.

currently finishing up the dragonkeeper series with dragonlight - the fifth book. it's sort of a relief after the darkness of the mid-1300s to read the more lighthearted fare of kale allerion & her friends. not that they don't have their tense moments - this IS the story of good-vs-evil after all. it's got its apocalyptic elements. but it's rated p-g where world without end definitely gets an r rating.

next after dragonlight - i am contemplating re-reading a tree grows in brooklyn. i read it for summer reading in like 7th grade, and i remember a couple scenes that really impressed me, and i remember enjoying it, so i'd like to go back and revisit it. but, there are so many books i want to read that i wonder about the value of going back and re-reading something. i mean, there are a limited number of books that i can read in this lifetime. maybe i should focus on the ones i haven't read yet. on the other hand, it's not like i'm trying to earn any accelerated reader points. i am reading for pleasure, and if i want to re-read something, then bygod i will! now... do i want to....

speaking of accelerated reader - remember s-r-a? that was like accelerated reader back in the day. it was these boxes of folded over cardstock - folded to like... maybe... 6x9 or something. each card had a story and you'd read the story and then answer questions about it. each box had like... 50 cards - 5 each in 10 sections. you'd work your way through the sections and through the boxes. i loved s-r-a. the neat boxes, the color coding, the progression, the scoring. yeah... s-r-a was the bomb.

gotta go google s-r-a now and see if i can find any sets on ebay or something.

books 2009

currently:
dragonlight
[donita k paul]

complete:
world without end
[ken follett]
the associate
[john grisham]
dragonfire
[donita k paul]
dragonknight
[donita k paul]
the archbishop in andalusia
[andrew greeley]
dragonquest
[donita k paul]
dragonspell
[donita k paul]
the spiderwick chronicles, vol. 1-5
[tony diterlizzi & holly black]
devil bones
[kathy reichs]
irish tweed
[andrew greeley]
the paradise war
[stephen lawhead]
hood
[stephen lawhead]
scarpetta
[patricia cornwell]

fri-day! fri-day!

yes, i realize les paul did not invent "the" guitar. he invented, like, kinds of guitars. i am not a complete idot.

let me just say that all this nonsense about the opposition to the health care plan not being true grassroots opposition is... um... nonsense. there are some people against the proposed health care plans. just like there were some people against the wars in iraq & afghanistan. what ever happened to those people, eh? they okay with the war now? um... right. anyway, there are people speaking out against a health care proposal they don't like. it's a free country - they are allowed to speak their minds. so why are they being villified? today obama said the insurance companies are behind the protests. glorioskie, man! conspiricize much? sheesh. you are the one who got a softball setup question at a town hall meeting just the other day from a child whose mother organized the meeting & wrote the question down for the child to read. now THAT's a conspiracy to produce a known outcome. hypocritical. sheesh.

in other news, the eagles signed michael vick. he says it's a country of 2nd chances, so let's give him a 2nd chance for now & see how things pan out. maybe he will use his chance wisely.

«A full 40.5 percent of posts on Twitter--or tweets, as they're called--can be classified as "pointless babble," according to a new study from Pear Analytics.» i have never tweeted anything other than pointless babble, so i'm batting 1000. someone is out there completely & totally unbabbling. unbabbling tweets? that, my friends, is truly pointless.

a little less les

les paul - guitar inventor - died today. until i heard that he died, i thought he was dead, but when i heard he did die, he was dead.

my neighbor is a pig.

and by that i mean to say - my neighbor has a pet pig.

i am sitting here on my deck bench with my legs straight out and my back against the house and my laptop on my lap and it's listing to port. because of my adventures with betty boot this summer, my port peg is smaller than my starboard peg. not that you'd notice at a glance, but in a precision maneuver [sp?] such as laptopping, it's noticeable.

who let the dogs out? seriously - the neighbor two houses to the north has got some serious bark action going on. perhaps they have spotted their neighbor the pig and wish to bring home the bacon.

one tidbit that i realized today at work - when someone says they will call to clarify verbally the contradiction in their written words which you have quoted & highlighted in email, what they mean is that they don't want to reply in email b/c they are so prone to manufacturing contradiction [i.e. "lying"] that they know they will get even further caught up in their own words if they continue via email. they don't want to clarify anything - they just don't want to get caught lying again.

hey. it's dark. let's go back inside.

headlines!

«Jennifer Hudson Gives Birth To New Baby Boy» -- ballerstatus.com -- good thing, eh? i mean, no one wants to give birth to an old baby cause that's just wack.

«US official gropes to explain Clinton's outburst» -- associate press -- heh. fairly certain the a-p saw the irony of using "gropes" and "clinton" in the same sentence.

«Orange Beach & Seacliff State Beach closed after shark attacks porpoise» -- san jose mercury news -- okay, seriously folks. if you're going to close the beach every time a shark has lunch, there won't be any open beaches anywhere. circle of life and so on. just stay outta the freakin' shark's way, and he'll naturally eat seafood - because those sea creatures? feeding sharks is their... porpoise. ppfahahaha!

«Sapporo Gains After Nikkei Reports Brewer to Buy Pokka Stake» -- bloomberg -- words of all english my language of speaking yet meaning of words to me invisible.

«Mexican Drug Gangs Diversify Into Oil» -- forbes -- don't want to be putting all your eggs in that maryjane basket, do you now?

«Genome Sequencing Gets More Affordable» -- atlanta journal constitution -- whew. this is a relief to me & all middle class americans who have been struggling to pay for our genome sequencing.

«Stay-at-home mom rips Arlen Specter a new one» -- examiner.com -- ppfahahaha! that's just funny, i don't care what your politics are.

«Taiwan mudslide hundreds 'alive'» -- bbc -- 'alive'? like 'zombies'?

~~ happy brithday to elvis! ~~

dave matthews & his band create a relatively attractive brand of jangly music and i do like me some jangly music so i have tried to like ol' dave's creations but he's just all jammed up with this arrogance. it's as if his music is something he's struggled to bring forth, as if he's suffered for it somehow, and he can't just suffer and leave it alone. he's got to suffer and point it out. first, he can't suffer in silence, but then, he assumes we're so stupid we'll miss his suffering if he doesn't point it out.

not "suffering" as in pain & agony. not "suffering" as in deprivation. "suffering" as in being affected by the pain & agony & deprivation that the rest of the world has to deal with. all that suffering makes ol' dave sad. and, dave wants us to know he's saddened by the suffering of the world and also made wise by the suffering. dave wants us to know he'll share the wisdom with us but he doesn't believe we will understand. like, he has special insight that we cannot quite comprehend without his explaining it to us.

so he's presenting us with these creations and we damn sure better be appreciative b/c - as he could tell us - it's superior. he's not sharing with us, he's instructing us. he is not giving to us, he is requiring that we pay homage not only to his musical brilliance and but also to his inspired philosophical insights into this thing we call life.

gimme a break, dave. you're just a guy with a guitar.

started this post at 8:09pm on 8/9/09. heh. cool.

when packing my lunches, i've been trying to use more faux tupperware and fewer plastic bags. this is my one small contribution to the reduction of the overall trash count. but, i wonder if the reduction in trash is offset by the increase in water used to wash these pieces. thoughts?

i have one actual piece of actual tupperware - a sandwich container that i've had for probably 20 years. it is an amazing piece. there used to be at least 2, maybe 3, in the set, and now there's just one, but this one has hung in there like a champ for lo these many years. for most of it's life, it went to school with mini-me.

the lunch of mini-me was the exact same base items for probably 95% of her 12 years of regular schooling - baloney+cheese unsammich & pb+j sammich. [the unsammich is 2 baloneys + 1 amer cheese with miracle whip between, but no bread.] in addition to these 2 delicacies, there would be some chips, some fruit, some yogurt, something else -- but the basis was the sammich & the unsammich. the sammich & the unsammich could live together in the tupperware, both being also protected by plastic bags. it was a fine operation indeed.

these pictures show the kind of sammich containter i have - the old style. the new ones have a hinged top and are also bulkier. part of the beauty of this one is the slimline styling - it just doesn't take up unnecessary room. it can sort of squish the sammich, but some of us might like a squished sammich. you got a problem with that?

why does the dentist -

- talk to his assistant like she's a total idiot - when she is a highly educated & competent dental worker.

- not tell you what he is doing or how much more he has to do before he's finished.

- repeatedly come in, do a little bit of work, then leave again without telling you when he will be back.

::sigh:: i realize dentistry isn't easy and that things go more smoothly if the patient agrees with the dentist, doesn't ask questions, and sits still. but does the dentist have to be such an ass? wouldn't it work better all the way around if the dentist let us in on what his plans were, how long it was all going to take, an outline of the process, and then provided periodic status updates? we're all adults here. maybe we could be treated as such, eh?

3k words

much like the midieval folk of world without end, i have an eating knife. i don't carry it with me - i keep it in my desk. it is rather smarmy. does my knife disgust you? does it?? i can see that it does! haHA!

in case you didn't know how the hand dryers in public restrooms work, this diagram reveals that they are stocked with firebreath. the firebreater breathes the excess firebreath into the receptical. if you need to dry your hands, you clap them together and get some firebreath back out. wahlah. look closely and you can see me taking the picture.

that right there is a no cell phone zone sign at library. that right there is a guy on his cell phone. the picture is sort of geewawed b/c i had to take it surreptitiously. if i had been taking a picture to report him to the authorities, i wouldn't have cared if he'd seen me - but i didn't want him to know i was going to blog about him. hehe. hes a idot!

in the collective elevator of life

dear joan osborne: the proper grammar is, "what if god were one of us?". best regards: ace.

one of the lines of the song says «What would you ask if you had just one question?» - meaning what would you ask god if you had the chance. i gave this some thought. the journalistic w's come immediately to mind - who, what, where, when, why and sometimes how. yes, how is a w in the same way that y is a vowel. sometimes.

you wouldn't want to be asking something specific like «when will i be debt-free?» or something useless like «what does green taste like?» or «where have all the flowers gone?». these do not greatly advance your knowledge, much less the general pool of knowledge owned by all mankind. simply asking who or what or when isn't worthwhile. those are specific question words that require more details and serve to narrow things down. those will not do. the way i'd want to go with this is something more general, open-ended, something that would encourage a bit of a convo with god. your best bet for gaining anything other than a short answer and a sense of supreme frustration is to go with «why?» or «how?».

imagine the scenario: there you are with god, maybe floating around in space where you can breathe without a space helmet b/c you are on a ride-along with god, and you just point to the earth and go, «what?» and you'll get an answer like, «ROCK AND WATER, MUD AND RAIN, TREE AND FLOWER AND FIELD.» b/c apparently god talks like tonto. um... right. anyway, the point is that «what» isn't going to get you much. imagine «when» or «where» and again - you are not going to gain much, are you?

but point at the earth and go - «why?» -- oOoOoOoO! now that one's promising. you are sure to get at least a few paragraphs out of that one. equally profitable would be «how?» - it's sure to turn out some meaty verbiage.

so, it's down to «why?» or «how?». which would you choose? are you a why'er - someone who wants to know the motives behind the production? or, are you a how'er - someone who wants to know about the engine? i am more of a how'er myself. i want a schematic.

and do you think if you heard «why?» or «how?» that you would understand it? or would it be like an mechanical engineer explaining the intricacies of an elevator to a 2-year-old? that kid is not even going to have the beginnings of the necessary vocabulary of images - much less a vocabulary of words - to assign meaning to the things the mechanical engineer would say. the mechanical engineer would have to dumb it down, draw pictures, explain only some small part of the operations of the box that carries us up & down. meanwhile, the kid is running around, pressing the buttons, looking out the windows [yes, it's a glass elevator - durr], enjoying the feeling of rising & falling, looking at the people coming in & out, sticking his hand in the closing door. the kid's not paying attention and probably wouldn't understand even if he did. the explanation is right there for the taking, but there is no possible way the kid can take it.

what if god were one of us? how would we act? eh... we'd probably keep running around pressing all the freaking buttons & sticking our collective hand in the closing door. we is what we is. we don't know any better and that's okay. just don't presume that because you do not notice god among us, that god is not here.

i know how those ladies felt in salem.

persecuted by bullies and villified by liars - it's annoying. at best, a frustration. but at its worst, the tension and fear will drag you down into sheer empty sadness.

i know how those ladies felt in salem.

a simple concept - organize a group of people to share something. how could anything possibly go wrong? i will spare you the nitty-gritty details, but i will tell you that any concept that involves a group is by definition no longer a simple concept. there is danger in groups because everyone fears the inverse: being left out.

i know how those ladies felt in salem.

if from the beginning you are the odd man out - the one thing that is not like the others - the unbelonger. if your innate differentness is not a choice but rather a part of your being - you will attract attention even as you attempt to deflect it. you become the focus because - even though thru no fault or choice of your own - you are different and in your difference you embody the ungroupedness that everyone fears.

i know how those ladies felt in salem.

the natural unbelonger. the innate outsider. everyone fears being outside the circle, and yet they bear daily witness to the one living outside the circle. time after time after time your orbit grazes by all the others - visible but not touching, present but separate. you live beside them, but not among them.

i know how those ladies felt in salem.

they fear being outside the closed circle circumscribing normal existence, and yet they are unutterably attracted to the very thought that it would be possible to exist, at all, out there. it is too much for them to bear. they cannot reconcile in their tiny little pathetic inadequate ignorant minds.... they cannot reconcile that they are so attracted to that which they so fear. freedom. they cannot reconcile it, and they cannot have it, and further they cannot even begin to comprehend that it cannot be possessed at all. that it is not something one has, but rather, it is something one is.

i know how those ladies felt in salem.

there is loneliness outside the circle, and there is a frustration in being misunderstood by one's fellowman, a frustration that leads to a sadness that runs deep. but, side-by-side, working to redeem the sadness of frustration and the loneliness of being outcaste, there is an abiding joy in freedom. a joy that is tinged with something that is sometimes somewhat bittersweet - but it is a bittersweetness that does not diminish but ironically rounds out the joy and makes it real & whole.

i know how those ladies felt in salem.

i do.

merlin! i am happy to report this is imported from britain. i am sad to report it apparently only has 13 episodes, in all, ever, anywhere. boo!

left to my own devices, i've never been one to watch a lot of television. i do like to watch some movies - and there are ones i could watch over & over again. pretty woman, the harry potter movies, bridget jones, sleepless in seattle, you've got mail, mrs doubtfire. i'd watch those - and that's not a complete list, there are some others, too - even if it meant watching commershals. i'd watch those movies when i am alone and i'd watch them with someone if there's someone who will watch with me.

there are very few television shows i'll watch alone. i'll turn on friends or raymond or seinfeld if i am in the kitchen messing around and my old man's in the other room watching golf or something. but if it's a series, it's something i follow b/c someone else is following it. take csi for instance. i really like the show a lot, but even so i would not watch it alone. mini-me would watch it or just have it on like 24/7. it could be a constant backdrop to her existence. the shaman could have watched law & order - every flavor, every episode - over & over & over. my old man likes to watch sports, so i watch a lot of sports with him, and he likes csi and law & order and so we watch those. i really like the closer and saving grace and the two of us watch those, but i don't think i'd watch them alone. i would not seek them out or tivo them.

so what is it about merlin? i am completely captivated with that show. i check the tivo every sunday night to be sure it's recording. i watch it alone while my old man's out at soccer or golf. any other show, i'd be doing a crossword or playing an iphone game at the same time it's on, but with merlin - no way. i do nothing but sit and watch that show. i know it's not the writing - i mean, it's got its moments, but it's predictable. is it the actors? possibly. uther and arther are especially electric - and merlin's enchanting [haha]. the others - gaius, morgana, gweniviere - all solid & likeable. the british accents? that might be part of it. you do have to sort of listen more closely to catch what they're saying. perhaps it's the wardrobe - which is exceptional [did you see that gold cape last week??], if not exactly correct to the period. or the legends, which are fascinating even if they are mangled a bit here. or maybe it's the special magical language, or the magic itself, or the tension between uther & arthur, or the love that floats between the young folk, or merlin's silly antics which spring from his loyalty to arthur and which land him in the stocks time & again. i know for sure it's not the talking dragon - bah!

well - whatever the cause - i'm going to go watch it now. care to join me?

the world in a grain of sand

sandsilica sandcomputer chip

 

computer chips are the basis of our entire society - social, medical, financial. the entirity of the world's financial systems - including stock markets and exchange rates right on down to everyone's electronically deposited paychecks - all are computerized. our medical records are stored on & accessed by computer and computers contribute to diagnoses. our social lives are conducted via computer - we keep in touch by email & facebook, we plan parties & send invites online. we keep journals online and vent about friends, family, & coworkers. we read everything from news to novels on computer. we play games & watch movies. we make the purchases that are the gasoline in the consumerism engine that drives capitalism.

our entire world is built on computers which are built on sand.

Matthew 7:24-27 ~~ Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell-and great was its fall!

you people need to lighten up and make a floatation device out of your pants.

today i went for a swim at the local natatorium. this structure houses a pool bel grande with 8 lanes on the long course. today there were 2 other lappers there when i arrived. i have only been 2x on saturday at 15:00, but two or three people would appear to be the norm for this time of day during the summer. during the school year when the swim teams are in full swing, there are more kids in the pool on saturday afternoons, but in the summertime, they are all safely tucked away with their video games and such.

so, i went for a lapswim with 2 other adults and was impressed again with this universal truth of adulthood: we are a boring lot. these folks were just sluffing along up & back & up & back. they were doing their regular laps and their kickboard laps and their fin laps. they had some super toys - fins for their hands and their feet! - and what are they doing? sluffing.

back in the day, at brigadoon, we were required to take swim lessons 5 days per week. they taught us 5 strokes - front crawl, back crawl, breastroke, elementary back, and sidestroke. i started as a beginner and progressed through advanced beginner, intermediate I, intermediate II, intermediate III, intermediate III+, and intermediate III++ -- because they didn't have anything else to teach us besides lifesaving, they kept putting plus signs after the intermediate III. we were such good swimmers we mostly swam laps and learned water ballet.

they taught everyone how to dive from the dock, how to perform water ballet, and how to make floatation devices out of our clothing. we played tag and water volleyball and jumped off the diving boards with wet pillow cases which filled with air and became floaties. games like water volleyball were really just tricks to keep us treading water forEVER. and of course we swam laps. laps upon laps upon laps. when we got to be big girls, we tracked our laps and recorded the miles on a big chart outside the dining hall where everyone could see who had swum the most. [these days they don't do that b/c weaker swimmers might "feel bad". ::sigh::]

the oldest campers could take lifesaving, but only if you were staying at the brig for 8 weeks. lifesaving was an 8 week course - one of the toughest lifesaving courses offered anywhere. we learned lifeguarding - how to keep safe around the water - and lifesaving - how to rescue drowning people & administer cpr. it was challenging & rewarding. during the latter stages of our training, when we were in the lake chugging out 2 miles every afternoon, we'd be stalked by the swimming staff who would tackle us in the water and we'd have to get out of their hold & "save" them. it was serious, but fun.

so today i am sluffing along with these other adults thinking «what the hell is the matter with us?» - so i threw in a lap of sidestroke and a lap of sculling and elementary back and i did a few surface dives and i swam an entire lap underwater. okay, i swam an entire lap by swimming underwater and coming up for air and going back under, but still... it was a wee bit more creative than all the sluffing going on around me.

a wee bit more creative and a helluva lot more fun.