serendipity

the cap auto parts at 200 appleton is no longer, but on a trip there to see about a battery for the currently out-of-commission car, i found both louis garage and casa de carnes solucao. on the stove as we type the linguica is frying up, and i'll let you know how louis does later when he calls, but the early experience was extremely positive, though a lot of people might not understand why i'm optimistic.

louis doesn't speak much english, (he appears to be portuguese, but what do i know). louis' mechanic speaks even less, and appears to be cambodian. between them they discussed the best first step for the guy with no car. "triple a?" i was able to understand from the southeast asian, and the southeast european's response was that there wasn't any reason to waste $75 if he could run 'round the block with jumper cables to see if he could get the patient up to the clinic that way. with hand signals i got the mechanic to the car, and, sure enough, the cables did the trick. now the car is up getting a new battery, an oil change and an overdue inspection, and we'll see later how everything came along. i'm thinking i'll like the pragmatic-first, language-second approach to automobile maintenance.

as for the sausages, i can smell 'em from here, and they do smell good.

obrigado!

one lowell

living well is the best revenge. george herbert said that.

this afternoon, in blood-thirsty revenge for all that verizon has done to me, (and, indeed, for everything they've done against all mankind), i'm hanging out with the folks down at one lowell. seems that computer geeks who can spell "network" ("networking and i'm user friendly", as warren zevon, in one of his worst lyrics ever, used to sing) and know how to install printer drivers are in short supply. they also need help teaching english, (YES!!! blank slates onto which to scribe the TRUE LANGUAGE!!! which is to say, NO GANTLETS!), voter registration and poll work. if there's more, i'll do it.

yeah, you're right, it's probably because i'm subconsciously hoping to find some hot cambodian babe who dreams of keeping house (the place doesn't clean itself, you know!) in return for help with her coursework down at the university, but, i think, on my long list of things that are all about me, assuming we can let the hair cutting slide at $25 a pop, and observing some of the present "volunteers" have multiple talents, i'm pretty close to having everything i could possibly need, and i've ever dreamed of already.

time to help others take revenge on the phone company, too.

on which day did god create the phone company?

it's a trick question, as i've just proven as fallacy any literal interpretation of the bible that would lay credit for the creation of the heavens and the earth (and all things under and on them) on any sort of beneficent being, since nobody could ever suggest with a straight face that the phone company was created by anyone other than mephistopheles himself. in fact, if you ask me, i'd say there's a better than average chance, despite what the naysayers think, that hell does indeed exist as a real and tangible place, though i think it exists in multiple places, or wherever verizon happens to maintain offices.

yes, dick the butcher, you obviously didn't know from which you spoke, since in elizabethan times samuel f. b. morse and alexander g. bell hadn't yet invented their first and second circles. (lawyers, i think, occupy the third, though i'm sure they're litigating for promotion even as we speak). i'm not sure i can even explain how bad it really is, other than to tell you that, in order to enjoy the privilege of continuing to pay them money, the trolls at verizon have required that phone, tv and internet service be shut off, perhaps in some sort of bizarre ritual for which we've forgotten to sacrifice a firstborn or two. that's right--the reward for always paying your bills on time and automatically is that you can never stop paying them.

now this likely pales in comparison to the situation of those battling real evil in this world, (nods to a friend who can't get desperately needed medicine for a sick child owing to the classic pharmaceutical game of "scrip, scrip, who's got the scrip"), but when you consider that medical bureaucrats are likely trained in places like the phone company in the same way doctors go through medical school, it's important to stand and fight wherever the battle finds us.

people who push buttons and paper without ever considering the impact of what they do are soulless and worthy of our pity, but, until we recover our better graces, they'll just have to do with our scorn.

w.

t.

f.

first we kill all the phone/cable/internet providers

lawyers? they're kittens. for three months my wife and i have been united in only two things: devotion to our children, and the (futile) pursuit of telecommunication satisfaction. our children, thankfully, are doing well. our phone stuff? let's just say that, for me to agree with the post title, the means would have to be extraordinarily slow and painful for me to be even partially satisfied.

you say eethr, i say eyethr

it's always amused me how attached we all become to our own personal dictionaries. (consider me one of the most attached people to mine you'll ever meet). for some, their dictionaries are extremely imprecise (i wonder if we pedantic could ever considere "there" as a linguistic swiss army knife instead of a litmus test for illiteracy) while for others there's only ever one word (and one spelling) that'll do in any given situation.

most amusing for me to consider this morning is that not-so-infrequent happenstance when pedantry collides with homophony, and we find out the hard way that philistines do, indeed, sometimes speak a language commonly accepted as english. (happened to me again just the other day with "gantlet/gauntlet", and i *do* find it significant that if you type "define: gantlet" into google they come back with all their examples spelled "gauntlet", and the number of entries for "gauntlet" is roughly five times as long). yeah, yeah, i know, google isn't the oed. so what do *they* have to say about it? likewise, when you type "gantlet" into the oed's search function, the definition you get back is spelled "gauntlet". i rest my entirely pointless case.

which all would be just for me to enjoy, except it would seem that some of those otherwise blessed with literacy-aware brain cells were spending at least some of their lost rent years by the nitrous table, and furthermore compelled to let on about it. yes, "whip-its"are indeed one particular brand name of the head-feeding cartridges from which profound disorientation can be achieved. however! lest you've not grown up scion to a family of dairy farmers possessed of their very own ice cream stand, or happen to have had only the *other* brand of cream-inflating cartridges on hand between english lit classes, please take my word and amazon's that "whippets" are indeed either (that's EEthr in this part of a sentence) the original, or, at least, long-lived enough to have been in commercial availability since the 1950's, which is a fact i cannot personally attest about their competition, but, of course, those who might know different are welcome to chime in. (and if you still don't believe me, i do indeed still have a box of those wouldn't-be-canine "whippets" from the family dairy in my collection of old yankee memorabilia, which is not to say that it's curated for any nostalgic purposes as much as retained because we old yankees never throw anything away, but from which i'd be happy to bet on the accuracy of my linguistic preference).

which is all to say, though folks wouldn't have been wrong to spell it their particular way in *their* blog, it's my prerogative to spell it *my* particular way in my blog. that someone might be confused that i don't know from dogs is their peril. ;-)

though i do appreciate sincerely the interest in accuracy, which, whether you'd need to be huffing or not, i'd be happy to reward in any way that is preferred, since there's nothing that turns me on more than somebody who cares enough about language to always strive to get it right.

the lost rent scoreboard

one of the more amusing pastimes we invented for ourselves in college was the lost rent scoreboard. (another was the eight beer club, but remind me to tell you about that one another time, because this one will be long enough all by itself). neither attending a (reasonably tuitioned) state school, nor being patronized by our parents, a bunch of us quickly recognized the irony of paying big money for a dorm room that we didn't always sleep in. some quick math (accounting and finance majors are both pretty quick with that sort of thing) yielded the appropriate daily factor (based on dividing semester days by total dorm fees), and then a simple running tally of hash marks upon the ubiquitous dorm room door whiteboards up and down the dormitory hallways provided the basis for the euphemistic lost rent. indeed, there's nothing like celebrating a combination of fiscal profligacy and promiscuity. (i happen to think that's why we're so fascinated as a culture with prostitution, but, again, little time for digression).

i was always one of the higher performers in said competition, but never a leader or anywhere near the actual winner. i quickly deduced, of the many different motivations that drove rent-losing behavior, that sexual indiscriminance contained a built-in lost rent governor since it was basically a 50/50 proposition if you'd end up at your place or hers. compared to full-on alcoholism for the drinking's sake, rather than simply the lowered inhibitions of your drinking partner(s), where you could basically pass out anywhere, it really was no contest. but it was always fun to keep score.

i think one semester a particularly proficient contestant almost ran the lost rent scoreboard table, but he received an asterisk for his accomplishments because being taken out of school midway through a semester by ones parents for fears that the voices he was hearing of jerry garcia telling him what to do ("jerry says more whippets") weren't always speaking in his best interests, wasn't hardly playing fair. no, to be fair, you had to earn your lost rent one sordid excess at a time to really earn the respect of your peers.

my best semester coincided with my landing an open-minded girlfriend with a single. for whatever reason, perhaps good sense, she was always happy to send me off with my drinking buddies all by my lonesome, yet also always happy to receive me in her room whenever my drunken wanderings led me back that way. maybe it was because she knew that maintaining that positive feedback loop (i'm a behaviorist, remember?) would increase the odds that i'd always end up making the proper effort to make it *her* room i was always seeking in that state, or maybe it was because she was always genuinely glad to see me. who knows. in any case, good for me and my lost rent efforts, it guaranteed a goodly number of lost rent tallies on my dorm room whiteboard and the due respect and admiration for my accomplishments from all my miscreant friends.

i bring it up today because i'm thinking for nostalgia's sake i ought to be bringing back the scoreboard, even if only for my own compulsive-recordkeeping amusement. (remember folks, folks competing in the lost rent olympics aren't the sort to be shamed or discouraged when better folks roll their eyes in disgust at them, so you might save yourself the ocular gymnastics and just resign yourself to the truth that i truly am, as my ex would tell you, incorrigible).

sunday evening, at the first of a couple of soccer games i indulged myself in yesterday, i caught up with a teammate who i hadn't seen in some weeks. he added all the usual "i'm sorry to hear that" about the divorce, and thoughtful questions about how i was doing, and how were the kids--in fact, all the best civilized men have to offer each other. then appeared the irish smile at the bag i carried which was filled not only with all my soccer gear, but also a rumpled pair of jeans and a spare toothbrush. "haven't been home in a couple days, eh?"

as a matter of fact, i haven't! thanks for asking! (he says with a proud smile that 47 is the new 21). now before everyone else gets excited and considers an intervention a la mr. jerry garcia's parents, you should consider that sex and drunkenness are not the only reasons for unexplained absences, though, admittedly, they certainly hold potential to pad the totals. sometimes you stay with mom and dad. sometimes you're away on business. (a new category not available to the average college student). sometimes you're just not saying.

i'm not sure if it's fair to just calculate the new lost rent factor at just the mortgage, or just the mortgage plus escrow for taxes, or if i should also add in the condo fee too. (variable items like phone bills and electric charges obviously shouldn't count). but, either way, i'm thinking of finding one of those grease-marker whiteboard thingies that i can put on my condo door for the tallies. it'll make me feel good to track my progress. (i'm figuring i scored an easy couple of hundred or more this past week alone).

anybody else in?

i think i'm becoming sceptical of cynicism

i think i'm going to have to start forwarding writers royalties to chuck lorre for this one, since i've been using it so much lately...

the new england patriots are an incredible organization. in an nfl era designed specifically to recycle lower placed teams into places ahead of prior champions, so that everybody's fans can get a taste every once in awhile, the new england patriots have engineered a regime so enduring that it defies both belief and the record books. and it all, arguably, began on a loser's plane flight back from a long ago lost superbowl, when bob kraft sat and talked to bill belichick and formed a bond that would help them both construct a dynasty.

so, we congratulate both men for their excellence, and their various players on the team that has endured so magnificently for the past seven years, and we marvel at their professional acumen, preparation, and ability. we see their game strategies and their accomplishments, and we chalk it up, among many other reasons, to their professionalism and their hard work. it's all quite obvious.

and yet...

there's something about a team that transcends all of that. for anyone who has ever achieved something in concert with others devoted to the same cause, i'm sure i do not have to describe the emotional undercurrents. just the other day, as a matter of fact, i myself framed and placed a photograph of a group of 20-something software kids in a very prominent place in my home in memory of something resembling that...

and i think about what kind of a team this must be. yeah, yeah, tom brady is all that, and when the "greatest qb of all time" plays for the "greatest coach of all time" what else might we think would happen? but i don't think that's it. not all of it. not me. (i'm cynical).

randy moss has brought something to this team that's not recorded in the game summaries. i watched the most recent game a second time via tivo, frequently in slow motion and with copious instant replays, and i marveled most of all at a downfield block randy had laid upon an unsuspecting defensive lineman that went completely unnoticed by the announcers, though it was the most dramatic element of the visual tableau if you were looking to see it. i've lost count of the number of times that belichick and brady have both said that randy is the most intelligent football player on the field for this team, and more than anyone else can know.

so i'm reading a moment ago that tom brady wasn't present in the locker room when it opened for reporters, and neither was he upon the field for the first 15 minutes of practice while it's likewise open. and my scepticism/cynicism said to me "paul is dead"...

in the sixties, the beatles proved that the most powerful image is the one that you don't allow to be shown. well, randy moss got himself into some trouble recently, and there was no stopping it. it was beyond denials, or reason, or anyone's pleas to put it aside. and he plays for a team that has proven itself capable of some pretty amazing things. superbowl wins... recorded analysis of opponents defensive signals... and it dawns on me, that if any team in history might be capable of something so shrewd and cynically clever, that this is the one.

can you imagine randy going to bill, and baring his soul? (he did, they both described it). and can you imagine bill promising randy that the organization would be behind him, in return for all he had contributed to the organization? (he did, the press quoted him on it). so, now, can you imagine bill turning to tom, perhaps after consultation with bob, who knows, and asking him if he'd be willing to put himself on the line for his teammates, to shoulder a burden that no one else on the team had the strength or ability to shoulder? because that's what it would take to win that game, for randy, and for every other blood-brother in that locker room? "here's all that you will need to do".

so tom grabs a boot out of the PT room... wears it for 30 seconds on the way into gisele's place with a bouquet of flowers... (i LOVED that richard seymour picked up on that, and said so to the press). then doesn't even have to ever wear it again, or do anything except stay out of sight (which i dare say he'd have preferred if he could have gotten away with it any other way anyway) for the next couple of weeks while the press and the public goes into a frenzy.

"tom brady's ankle could be injured".

"randy who?"

i have no idea if it's true, i only know that it suits my sentimental admiration for this team to imagine that they'd do that much for a friend. because there's a picture of a bunch of old programmers i know that's full of people who'd do likewise.

understanding the system

i test well. always have. despite being burdened with a few more little circles to fill in with my #2 pencil (for my name) than most classmates, i was always done early, and my results were always near the top of the class. in fact, if it wasn't for my best friend peter and his other-wordly intellect, (in third grade he could flawlessly fill in randomly ordered multiplication tables from 0x0 to 10x10 faster than i could write the numbers from 1 to 100 sequentially, which always blew my mind) i'd have been able to finish first in both speed and marks every time.

i've often mused that having a brilliant example like peter in the class never hurts a high-potential student, but i know after years of observing myself learn that it's also got a lot to do with the *way* that i learn. which is to say, a lot of people "cram" and memorize and study their asses off, but i'm so compelled to understand *why*, that by the time it comes to answer the question *what*, i've already understood what the answer has to be, so i no longer have to go fishing in my memory for any further candidates, nor worry about guessing wrong if it finishes in my addled brain as a toss-up. (as in, concerning the past presidents of the united states, and the order in which they were elected, and the alliterative confusion between the mssr's james madison and monroe, or was that monroe and madison, it's easy for me to know that james madison was the fourth president, and that he preceded james monroe, because thomas jefferson was a widower and needed dolley madison to serve as his de-facto first lady, as she did as well for her husband who followed him into the oval office...)

so, when it comes to knowing women, in both the literal and biblical sense, lets just say i'm far less likely to memorize who may or may not like mushrooms on their cheese steak sub than i'm compelled to want to understand the mind which might make such a choice.

it came up in my mind recently to wonder about *doing* vs. *being*. as in, if the end result is a pleased man, would one woman or another's satisfaction be more from achieving for him that state, or being in the process of achieving that state. (just so you know, i'm trying to keep things somewhat and purposefully vague both to annoy my sluttish readership as well as to avoid offending those less so). maybe the question is hard to understand because it's geared towards something in the deep recesses of my own mind, rather than out there in the real world where the rest of humanity lives, but it's an important one to me. i can answer for myself that i'm most interested in the results. (*being*, rather than *doing*). but i'd never want to presume it's that way for others.

one woman i'm close to is a doer. while she would wait beside me, she'd be in constant thought as to when i'd want something next. so she could *do*. (and be done, let's not forget this is a mutually agreeable relationship). another is a be-er. (now there's a euphemism i'll need to remember...) she'd wait beside me in constant meditation on my having everything i want. so she could just *be*. well, they'd both want to know what i'd want next, just the same way i can't help but contemplate what it is in the world that they would want, even if it's just to please me. (again, we've covered this before--these are my daydreams, so they don't have to resemble reality, k?)

all this is just a long way of saying that i've never felt that knowing how a woman felt at any given point in time was nearly as useful or rewarding as understanding how she felt at *all* times. maybe you wanted me to do A but i did B and that was a disappointment. all too bad. but maybe, regardless of what you'll ever want me to do or be at any given time, if i knew where the secret heart of all matters could be found, i'd never have to wrack memory or guess about any of it. (not that i'd worry either way, as in these daydreams i'm worthy of devotion despite all extant foibles to the contrary).

so, tell me... if you were to want to *do* or *be* something, what would it be? (i think i'd like to do something about it).

what's it all about, alfie?

maurice micklewhite got it down much better than david law did, imho. (i.e. it's hardly about being pretty when they're desperately projecting their entire being into what a guy might say). the contrivance of both movies is that it's ultimately empty to have said it without meaning it, but it's always occured to me that there's far more to be said about what might be driving a man, and how that isn't something to be changed like ones mind or the weather. alfie is who he is, and wasn't that the original point?

some men, though while in the arms of various women, are nonetheless clearly and obviously driven by nothing more than fame and fortune. (the donald is one bad combover archetype). other men make it nigh on impossible to know the difference. (does bill clinton pursue sex via power, or did he just do a better job of enjoying himself than most after he glibbed his way to the top?) still others are addled by adulation (tell me that al sharpton cares for anything more beyond the headlines) or undone by it (curt cobain sure could have done more with his life). but, in all cases, i'm willing to bet they all had or have a pretty vigorous sex life to go with it all, though it would never be the point to try to understand them on such simple terms.

but, for some, and i think i know what i'm talking about on this one, you really don't have to go all that far beyond sex to get where they're coming from. alfie would tell you. (alfie DID tell you, aside to the camera, but you just got lost in all the moralizing required by the convention before realizing it was the main point of things, and that the rest of the story could be ignored as little more than dross).

it's all what we do to substitute from love. power. money. sex. for women, i imagine it's far more complicated than that, but, in the end, i'm also quite confident it's not, either. could be power, money and/or sex, or it could be serving, doing without, or pleasing. but, in the end, we've all arrived at our own internal shorthand for how love is most poignantly expressed. yeah, yeah, it's always nice to fade out into a happy ending. but, let's be honest, you can't feel it unless it's pointed straight at what you've set up as a proxy for your heart.

what's your life's center?

i'll bet you right up front you'll never be happier than when somebody's scratching that exact spot.

p-p-p-perfection

when the pats first dismantled the otherwise-respectable san diego chargers back on the sixteenth of september, i can recall very clearly the first thought into my head upon the final whistle. "this team is going to go undefeated". of course, as luck would have it, i neither wrote it down nor considered why i should, but that hardly diminishes the achievement upon the cusp of which we sit. nobody has ever won 18 games in one season, though, of course, the players are right when they observe that nothing else will matter lest the superbowl end as the nineteenth of the string. but to win 19, and get the trophy at the end of it, ahh, that's magic.

so, this morning, we can all vicariously consider the essence of perfection from the perfect vantage point--of not having attained it. so we all know it's good, of course. who wouldn't want to be 19-0 and on top of the world. but while all is blue skies and potential it occurs to me to consider the relative importance of even pursuing such a thing.

in life, there really is no 19-0. there isn't even an 18-0, not really, as current football streaks have nothing to do with real life. (though a lot of face-painted hoo-hahs are going to be confused about just that over the next couple of weeks). the good and the bad news of the whole thing is that everything is a judgment call, and there's no referee to award an unequivocal "w" to let you know when you've been successful. *you* have to let yourself know--that is, if you'd even know how.

to many, the word "perfect" is conjoined to all sorts of their life's aspirations. the "perfect sunset" makes a "perfect end to a perfect day". the "perfect wedding" presages the attainment of the "perfect children" as part of the "perfect family" which is, of course, the "perfect result" of the "perfect marriage". (pardon me while I feel perfectly sick). the fallacy, of course, is that each perfect piece of the perfect puzzle has hardly anything to do with the essence of perfect at all. you can have all the perfect weddings you want, but they'll have perfectly nothing to do with the perfectly troublesome relationships that follow.

i'm perfectly happy, in the one sense, though hardly satisfied. in the present glow of the precipice of perfection, it's clearer than ever (or it should be to everyone) that perfection ends the moment perfection is attained. then it's all old news, and hardly worth a perfectly plugged nickel. some misguidedly deride the "gilding of the lily", but i know better today what it's all about. nope, i'm not satisfied. at the very least, you'd need to start the next season so you'd be able to raise the championship banner from the last.

and, truth be told, present conditions are hardly perfect, anyway. the b's aren't perfect by a long stretch of the hockey imagination, and the impending financial perfect storm of divorce is going to be an ugly reality to those of us used to easier times. (calculations would have it that i'm already past due on paying the piper, and it's a good thing i've laid in a goodly supply of pasta for the duration). but they're reasonable, and the experience is purely positive. nothing truly bad has ever happened to me. ;-)

sunrise in the garden of good and getting better

one of the things i like best about my new digs is that the sun rises straight into my windows. literally straight--the line of hills just to the southeast of me rises just enough to ensure that when the sun breaks what serves as my horizon, it's streaming straight in, already warm and full. (i especially like the way it mixes with the warm hue of the walls and positively glows wherever it hits).

there isn't a cloud in the brightening blue sky, and i don't even have to look out of the window to see it that way.

tortured artist syndrome

i've never quite reconciled with the (apparent) correlation between artistic talent and mental imbalance. graham parker, certainly not a complete rebuttal to the theory, turned it cynically on its head to advise "if you can't sell your work then cut off your ear". (i was going to say "turn it on its ear", but, though it would have been cute, it would have required repeating the word, and i've got an internal proximity alarm where these things are concerned). the sad truth being that a lot of the world's great art gets created by a lot of the world's great nut cases, and the visible attributes of being a nut case make such a powerful brand statement that you can even fake it just by being weird enough to sell some stuff in the meantime before the world figures out you're not sylvia plath and capable of lying down under your porch long enough for the maggots to start infesting your face. why is that?

the thought occurs to me today that anxiety and angst are great motivators, if only to emote and thus try to expel the offending spirits, like with those hypertense hormones and tears. even though we can't take quantity as any measure of quality, especially where my own blog is concerned, i still think there's something to the gaps here that bears mentioning. january 15th through 20th? one of the happiest weeks of my life. not coincidentally, no typing.

i won't go too much into why, because that would require naming names, and being a happy guy, you're not compelled to "out" your emotional patrons the same way as you might be compelled to complain about the somebody that instead might have ruined your week. but, see, nobody was able to ruin my week because i've been invested with the good-mood kevlar that only peace and peace of mind can bring. (i wonder if the onset of this might have been why the ex was compelled to try to test the proverbial vest?)

all i know is that any chance i might have had of being a good writer is all but lost now, because i'm too complacent and happy to get all riled up about writing. oh, yeah, i'll dabble, but that's not the same as feeling like you would literally die if you didn't get something *right* down on paper. (or whatever this medium is). can't sell my work? who cares, i'm *happy*.

sometimes happiness is found in subtraction. (thanks, ex). other times, it's found in addition. (thanks, y). and, sometimes, when the universe is aligned and everything is going your way, it's found in multiplication, too. (everything is better times two). and, when you're happy, you tend to be content. (which i am). and content isn't motivated to go spew on the puter when it can wander down to the hockey game and just hang out with the world and enjoy being part of it.

more later. maybe. :-)

let it go

awhile back, a very wise soccer referee once explained to my pique against an opponent's transgression that he'd blown his whistle and that was all the justice i could expect on a soccer field, so i'd better let it go before i got my own self in trouble. a light went on for me in that moment, and it's come in handy countless times since, both on the field, and elsewhere in my life.

yesterday my soon-to-be ex trumped her own recent complaints about the echoes of my long-past sins by trying to talk about who i should, could and shouldn't see. all of it was framed by her interest in preserving peace for the children, but the point lost on her was crystal clear to me. on the soccer field of marriage, divorce is the whistle that, once blown, signals all we can expect. and, at that point, the best advice to be heeded is to let it go.

of course, divorce being what it is, it's just about guaranteed that at any one moment or another, one of the ex-partners is going to be need of reminding. only trouble is, the other ex-partner is the last person in the world that they can constructively hear it from, and, unfortunately, there is no referee.

so my recourse, observing that the whistle has been soundly blown for both of us and for all of this that's still going on, is exactly nothing more than my getting my divorce. all the rest?

let it go.

ohmmmmmmmmmmmmm

everything you say

i love the whole concept of cognitive dissonance, and i'm never so pleased as when causing or at least enjoying a good show of the results of it. at the same time, as is appropriate to mention, i believe wholeheartedly that zen master brilliance is indeed being able to hold two diametrically-opposed opinions in your mind at the same time. (maybe my amusement is just in watching people try and fail...)

anyway, this all gets me thinking, in light of several comments made to me by various people on my most-recent blog post, that we generally want to attribute consistency and to hold people to account for everything that they say, which in no way represents the random way thoughts come to us and are expressed. today i think peyton manning got everything that he so richly deserves. well, yesterday i thought that too, but that's not the point. the point is that nobody is ever consistent. even the best politicos are actually no better at this than the next guy or gal, though i will say that i believe the essence of effective politics is being able to maintain the illusion of it. e.g. the mittster's about-face on abortion and gay marriage and all sorts of things isn't a flaw in his character, it's the realities of running for president as a republican. (the flaws in his character are all over the place in other areas, but i digress). yeah, sometimes what we think and say remains consistent. i really don't care for peyton manning. but other times, like when i started out thinking that tom brady was just the right guy on the right team at the right time, there shouldn't be a penalty for changing ones mind. (26 out of 28. wow).

so when i muse on the beauty of collecting women for their attributes, i'm expressing a very clear (and, yes, selfish) thought that occurs to a lot of people a lot of the time, though perhaps they're a bit more political and circumspect than to actually say it out loud. lots of women, i'm sure, want a guy to listen to them when they're kvetching, and another one to play the strong silent type when they prefer that too. and another one to earn a lot of money, and another one to fix the lawnmower and the garbage disposal as might be required. and some guys don't want personal massage services, though i have no idea what they're on while they're not wanting that.

real compromise, for most folks, is when they meet and accept a partner based on all they can and can't do, and will or won't be. the beauty of being pariah in the land of respectable folk is that such restrictions no longer apply to me. i can muse that, yeah, it would be cool to have a 20-year-old and extremely cute hair stylist on call for that one day a month that i might care to enjoy the services of one. (as i said, the compromise to that is that i just plunk the $20 on the counter and do without the naked part of the breast show). sure, it makes me a shallow, selfish and out-of-control person if i really believe that i should have it, and, in the opinions of some, still a bit shallow and selfish and out-of-control that i can hold the idea of it in my mind while i'm still trying to pretend that i'm honestly trying to be earl's better person. the real answer is that it's impractical given your average 20 year old's aspiration to be more than a once a month shampoo, cut and blow job.

but here's the thing. sometimes folks *like* to be appreciated for who they are and what they can do, and aren't all hung up on the one-and-only myth. (ex married types are allowed a little cynicism, yes?). for myself, i'll just say, i'm with chuck lorre when he opines that:

"i believe i'm becoming sceptical of cynicism".

that sums it all up very nicely.

how they got that way

a friend remarked recently about an english eccentric (i think that's either redundant or a brand name) who collected photographs and mementos of his 65 mistresses, or, as he called them, wifelets. nice work if you can get it. (i think the "family money" helps in attracting them, too). but i've always wondered how you could possibly care to accumulate so many to speak of or remember.

last night in the chair across the street at the local salon, when i was having a very sweet young thing take care of the last haircut i definitely didn't like, (by that sweet old german lady who i didn't know was german until she shoved my head in the direction she wanted it, and then i didn't even have to ask), a thought occurred to me--i'm not sure if i'll ever understand why women can be alternately so oblivious to the things they do with their breasts, and then, at other times, precisely calculating about the exact same things. in any case, i did appreciate the fact that hers were both extremely attractive and basically but millimeters from my nose as she gave me a very thorough and enjoyable wash before the cut, and it's your call if you think she was sending a message, or just shampooing, or, maybe, if you're especially cynical, if she was just doing it to influence a tip, and, no, i don't think it's possible to ever know for sure, even if you ask the owner of the breasts in question. and then she flitted and flew about my hair with her scissors and her sweet childish banter, ("i'm getting a degree in business, but think i'd want to be an english major if i could choose again"), and the results were perfectly the way i liked them. she was good. perfectly good.

so it struck me: women are beautiful. women who attend thoughtfully and artfully to a man are even more so. it would be hard to misunderstand why a man might feel inclined to reward those thoughts and attentions as might be within his means, and so it might go upwards toward 65. but that's all to say, beyond the inexplicable and luckily not-inextricable, ties that once bound me to someone incapable of getting it, that i'm lucky enough now to understand myself and the gifts life and the occasional beauty has seen fit to bestow. nope, i don't have the means (or the time) to do more than plunk my money on the counter to get my soon-to-be-monthly dose of salon sweetness, (she'd probably want to "date" me, or at least that what it said on the grape before i bit into it and winced from the acerbicness), but at least i can get why some guys wind up with women kinda the same way that leno ends up with cars. (if you're running out of room, just build a bigger garage). but there are only ever so many hours in a day, and days in a week, and i think, upon reflection, the really rich guy is the one who is out on the road in *exactly* the car he loves best at any given moment. doesn't take 65, or even 6. maybe it takes more than one, if the divorce statistics are to be believed, but i know it doesn't take 4--of that i am sure. at least until i accumulate 3, and then find out that i'd really appreciate someone to clean my house and keep the sheets nice and fresh every night...

let's see... cooking... cleaning... massage... haircuts... we might as well toss in a nice metrosexual manicure here and there... laundry services... (the sex all goes without saying)...

it's the recipe for the perfect 50's executive's housewife, only we know she never really existed, except in hugh hefner's imagination. (and joe dimaggio's, and we see where that got him).

so what's the recipe look like in the other direction?

enjoying bureaucracy

i realize i'm in a rare situation to be able to "work from home", which is really, in cases of feeding the bureaucracy, just running errands on company time, while then doing the company's business at hours that make other people scratch their head. (the last project wrapped up the other night after the germans had already arrived for work the next morning). so, the last couple of days has been almost entirely devoted to the simple privilege of driving a car.

hint #1: even if you're married and planning on staying that way, still don't register vehicles and other property in joint names if you can help it. that's because statistics say that you are just as likely to regret it as you are to make it to the nursing home with coincident domiciles intact, and the down-side risk, i.e. that of becoming imprisoned by the bureaucracy that will always demand to be fed, just isn't worth it. that goes for bank accounts, credit cards and just about everything you can think of, but doubly so for anything having to do with the registry of motor vehicles.

hint #2: when you find yourself imprisoned by the bureaucracy, remember that maintaining a pleasant demeanor, as supremely difficult as that may be in the face of what to which you will become confronted, (nods to winston churchill who pointed out that ending sentences with prepositions was something up with which he would not put, and, yeah, i think he was drinking and being extremely sarcastic at the time), may very well be your only hope of escape. that includes finally getting to the front of the line without a checkbook or piles of andy jacksons in your wallet, and finding out that registration changes of any sort can't be paid by credit card.

because bureaucracies don't care about you, even though neither are they "out to get" you, either. they are just what they are, and, in order to ensure their persistence, (remember, that's the only way that bureaucrats get paid and are able to feed their families, of which they are at least as interested as you and me), they simply need to be fed. licenses on one side, and registrations on the other. and, if you'd like the nice lady at the registration window to handle your license change without making you go through the entire other line to do it, then just remember that railing at her for the stupidity of having to get a brand new set of license plates just because your wife kicked you out of the house will, indeed, come back to bite you and only you on the ass. she could really rather care less one way or the other. but, if you're the only person likely to smile at her throughout the entire morning, and you take that time to smile and see the humor in your pathetic imprisonment and share your magnanimity with her, there's a chance, however small, that she might smile back and be inclined to do you what favors of which she's capable. only a fool whines where the line of the clerk's discretion ends, and spends 20 minutes ranting about the fact that she doesn't seem to have the right paperwork in order to have her license reinstated while her similarly un-bathed boyfriend with the bad combover stands behind with his hands in his pockets. (i *wish* i had had a camera on my cell phone today, because you would not otherwise believe the appearance of these two).

so, where was i?

oh, yeah... helpful hints for enjoying bureaucracy..

hint #3: plan on it taking 3 times as long as you estimated in your most conservative estimation, and on *not* getting it all done today. i actually used this approach a week ago when this all began, but forgot it yesterday while I was spending my entire late afternoon at the insurance company getting what i thought were the final touches done on all the paper. because, back to the "3 times as long" thing... that's actually a lie, and, observing that murphy was an optimist, the factor will inevitably increase to whatever number is necessary to ensure that you only finish with one step of the process after closing time of the subsequent step. but the good news for those of us practicing the zen of bureaucracy is that the lines at the rmv are, indeed, shorter the moment they open up in the morning as opposed to when they summarily close in the afternoon, and where one hand taketh, the other hand happily taketh with that much more alacrity, though not quite as much as would otherwise have been had you showed up to the rmv realizing you were going to need either a check or a prodigious pile o' cash, and not had to run down to the atm to ensure you could include the green kind of paperwork along with all the other colors.

so, long story not quite so long, the forms are filled, the plates are swapped, and there's only one more step to be done in the process, which, if you've been paying attention, it would not be wise to assume is only one step, since getting your car reinspected because you now have a new registration which was necessitated by the new title which was necessitated by the new insurance that had to be acquired because it's not enough to just tell folks that you're keeping the beat-up car while your ex continues to enjoy the new one, doesn't mean that there won't be some sort of technicality among the motor vehicle inspection bureaucracy that will require further care and feeding of the bureaucratic beast. (so far, the minimum investment is another $30 and whatever time it takes to get to the head of the line at the inspection station, but we know not to bank on anything but it taking longer than we thought).

hint #4: bureaucracies will suck you dry, and, glass half-full, you could think of them as helping you find your proverbial bottom dollar, but you better not think of what you *really* think, or that will sour your mood, cause you to say something impolite to one of the bureaucrats along the way, and then find out (a la murphy) that they're actually the one person who *could* have helped you out, but now they're not going to. today i used this hint to my advantage, and figured that along with the other thousands of dollars this little exercise is costing me, another $70 (plus unanticipated costs that i'm smart enough to know *will* be there) for a vanity plate is no big deal. want to know how beautiful the serendipitous karma of zen bureaucracy can be? the nice woman at the head of the registration line (remember, i smiled at her and was friendly even after she told me i had to go find some cash and start again at the back of the line) was able to check the database for prior dibs, and lock me in (she says) for getting my initials as a license plate, even though, every other year i've checked their database online they've sworn to me it wasn't available. maybe some poor sod finally had his plates revoked for getting caught on the wrong side of the bureaucracy, i don't know. but even though i know well enough to know there still might be a gotcha for this, i'm still happy enough to smile at the possibility of it, and look half-full upon it as the "good thing that happened to me today at the registry".

because, hint #5: nothing good ever happens to anybody down at the registry. not really.

:-)

the big bang theory

chuck lorre has a way with extreme behavior. if you ever watched dharma and greg you know what i mean, since you undoubtedly thought that susan sullivan and mitch ryan (kitty and ed montgomery) were funnier than the whole rest of the cast put together, with the possible exception of yeardley smith (you know, the voice of lisa simpson who's as funny to look at as she is damn downright funny in everything she says and does, including her cameos as greg's secretary that appeared, believe it or not, in only 13 episodes of the entire five year run of the series). the title characters? besides the fact that jenna elfman is hot hot hot, the fact that they were written to be "just like you and me at heart" undermined the whole concept.

so when we watch charlie sheen being charlie sheen in 2 1/2 men, and holland taylor being omfg off the charts (last night's re-run featured the line, to her son in explanation as to why she found it necessary to pursue the dirt on which to ply her beverly hills real estate trade via cocktail party conversation, that "i used to be able to get all this useful information just lying on my back, but now i have to work for it") we can only enjoy the show once we've given up trying to reconcile it with our previous notions of moderated behavior. why did i tune into "men" last night? for janeane garofalo, of course, who player her neurotic to the point of psychotic self-loathing sex-medicating character to exquisite perfection. (chuck rarely does depth when he's doing female characters, so it was a rare treat to see janeane donating hers to the cause). if you're still inclined to disagree, just consider that only sean penn, elvis costello, harry dean stanton and steven tyler have appeared on the show as themselves.

the highlight of chuck's career so far, for me, despite what you might think about the parallels between charlie/charlie and myself, is jim parsons as sheldon cooper in "the big bang theory". perhaps the very first tv character to ever have both a phd and asperger's on camera, he's so o/c as to keep his toothbrush in a plexiglass case under a uv lamp when not in use, and argues the scientific inaccuracies of superman the movie based not on whether or not a man could fly, ("let's assume for a moment he can"), but on how, when catching lois lane after a 200 foot fall just above the ground, the man of steel's arms would have necessarily cut the poor girl into three equal pieces. "if he truly cared about her he'd have just let her hit the ground".

am i the only one who gets why this is brilliance?

the fact that chuck has had to once again resort to hot chicks to sell his fascination with the extremes of and to which all males are both capable and captive hardly counts against him in my eyes, for no better reason than the fact that no one else has previously or usefully ever gone this far before. janeane gets it. she contributed a character who would repeatedly sleep with a man for whom she had no attraction, only to break into nausea and tears of disgust immediately after. (and even attempt suicide by walking into the malibu surf). and i get it. i watch and i learn about myself every week.

self actualization

maslow had a very useful, if a tad self-centered, list of steps outlining the road to self-actualization. his nod to goldstein at the top of the pyramid is the one that gets all the reflective attention, "what a man can be, he must be", but lest such a single, all-inclusive description proves unwieldy, i've always appreciated his helpful list of hints to figure out when someone gets it:

1. objective (aware of reality and not in any state of denial)
2. creative (spontaneous in action and focused on solving problems, including those of others
3. positive (close to others and appreciative of life)

above these attributes, however, there was another part of maslow's thinking that always made a lot of sense to me. in addition to being objective, creative and positive, he described the importance of being possessed of a fully internalized system of morality that is independent of external authority.

YES!

none of this nonsense about being a good person according to someone else's list of mores and prescribed behaviors. maslow got it--that being happy depends indispensably upon being true to nothing higher than ones own moral compass. so, writing to you this morning from a blissful state of the complete absence of deficiency needs, and feeling a powerful positive dose of all those wonderful growth needs in the never-ending process of being happily met, i'm all-of-a-sudden reminded that i *do* have a fully internalized system of morality that is independent of external authority, and it's not a day to be beating myself up about that.

yup, to most, that just means i'm amoral and subversive at best.

here's to those with whom i am close and growing closer, and for whom i am making sense. nope, i'm not claiming to be sane, i'm just in the process of self-actualizing.

;-)

professional vs personal

being so used to the frustrating gulf between unprofessional and professional, (speaking of which, i just had the most quaint conversation with my new mortgage company's escrow department), it's easy to become inured past remembering that there's a whole 'nuthah level of service out there.

so, nods to purely professional, but big props (and anticipation) to pleasurably personal. and you know who you are. ;-)

frank capra

ever hear the expression "capra corn"? (you know, the source of that sticky-sweet, ate-too-much-candy feeling you get from films like "it's a wonderful life"?)

my odd little college film professor once asked half the class to step out for the last 120 seconds of mr. smith goes to washington, and then he had them return to discuss their impressions with those of us who had seen the whole thing. then we switched and tried it again with "meet john doe". wow. then he explained the studio system's insistence on happy endings, (which, coincidentally, later allowed me to appreciate scorcese's "new york new york" while almost the entire world cannot, but that's another review for another time) and asked how someone might go about communicating an idea hidden beneath a prescribed facade.

so yesterday when i watched "i am legend", i couldn't help but wonder if i was seeing more than just the snarly coating.

so here's the plot spoiler alert, for those of you who'll need to stop reading and (maybe) go see the film. stop reading, and go see the film!

ok, we're back...

so when will smith sets his trap to capture one of the zombies for his attempted medical experiments, he concludes by the head zombie's willingness to endure the deadly effects of the sunlight on his skin, in would-be pursuit of the man who had captured one of his own, that he's lost the very last vestige of his humanity. (his instinct for self-preservation). but eliminate your benefit of the "last 120 seconds" and think back on that moment...

what would any man do if one of his own (and, more than that, she could very well have been his woman) was cruelly ripped from the shelter of their life and family, and taken away for what undoubtedly would have been learned by then to be an emotionless medical experiment and death at the hands of an alien aggressor? wouldn't pursuit be the very least of his commitments?

later, when anna sees the wall covered with polaroid photographs of nameless dead who lost their lives on "doctor" neville's table, the "last 120 seconds" might interpret her sympathy to have been with the well-intentioned doc... but couldn't it have been just as surely for the horror of his clinically methodical laboratory of death, death, and more death?

the film asks about our humanity, and even tries to channel bob marley's idealism for it, but i found the message there to be empty and faux. maybe frank lawrence understands frank capra, and knows enough to be able to satisfy both the general population's hunger for a "happy" ending, as well as a discerning viewer's interest in more on which to ponder. or, maybe, i'm still searching for *more* when i go to see films these days, and hallucinate much that isn't really there.

but, at least for me, in this case, it *was* there. will smith was caught in his own trap, falling for his own mannequin bait and hoist on his own "humanity" petard, much because he had lost his ability to empathize and recognize anything but his own violent savagery. his dog laid down her life for him, and yet he was the one to strangle her in his bare arms--oddly, in the only way he had left to express any caring or humanity at all. he was mengele and eichmann all rolled into one.

"this is my message to you-ou-ou"

my one critique, though, is in why the zombies had to be super-human and cgi to boot. had frank lawrence spent more time watching john ford westerns in addition to frank capra cornfests, he might have gleaned the power of perfectly matched foes... ethan edwards vs. chief cicatrice/scar... tom doniphon vs. liberty valance... he might have created just the much richer a question (and scaring/scarring us just as surely) while he was thrilling the gd hell out of everybody in his audience.

mental note: after software, consider movie screenplay writing...

the happy new year

resolutions don't seem quite as useful or important right now as reflections and appreciations, but here's a little bit of all:


1. (resolution) no agendas that aren't mine.

when the ex criticized the way i was doing laundry the day before i was due to move out, i knew it was o-v-e-r over. what possesses people to be so "generous" with their guidance about what has to be done and how to do it? that it remained so important to her right to the bitter end is perhaps the saddest part. i'm just saying that i'm done with it. d-o-n-e done.

2. (reflection) lives and soccer teams need to be built the same way.

some sports indulge weaker links. (e.g. nobody seems to care overmuch about who plays defense behind peyton manning). but on a soccer field, each spot occupied by less than the right teammate reduces the effectiveness of everyone else, and, on a lot of teams, you gain more by neglecting to add the wrong player than you do by trying to put too much effort into finding the "right" one. i'm resolving to live my life the same way--more time for the people that add quality, and less for those who don't quite.

3. (appreciation) for all those who have shown me understanding and kindness these past difficult months--thank you. i hope to take advantage of my new opportunity to repay all in kind, and i hope you and yours have all the best in this next new year.