Musings
03/16/08 -
uniquely priya - My wife is a happy person with the ability to see the positive in a situation. Her cheerful disposition helps her make friends easily. She is one of the finest managers I have seen, meticulous about completing every task on time with quality and within budget. Sudha was the only female student in her Engineering class at Hubli, a conservative town in North Karnataka. She was a first ranker in all...
03/16/08 -
Certifiable Princess - I am writing to thank you for being the low life piece of scum that you are. Not only did you feel it was okay to smash my passenger window of my car and steal my purse, but you also were inclined to use my credit card. Sadly for you, Crack Whore, you weren't able to use my card. It is maxxed out. I also appreciate you using, rather, attempting to use my card at a 24 hour gas station that is all...
03/16/08 -
Blistered Avalon - When I was little, I dreamed of being chased. Sometimes, the assailant was the thumbtacks hanging posters above the head of my bed - they would fly through the air, aiming to stab me, and there was no where I could run that they couldn’t follow. Sometimes the assailant would be an unknown man, and no matter which room I hid in, he would always be a step behind in. I would eventually escape our...
03/15/08 -
Nerd Litter - I know I should be writing about current music, this being one of those shiny newfangled MP3 thingies I've been hearing so much about. But today, I can't. It'd be disingenuous to pretend I can listen to anything but a nearly two-year-old song, "Coming Down The Hill" by El Perro del Mar. Since recently getting her new album, From The Valley to the Stars, I decided I should first revisit 2006's...
03/14/08 -
Ian's Blog - Out of a lack of inspiration I’ve been tardy on blog posting lately. But thanks to Emily and Litlove I don’t need to come up with a subject—I’ve been tagged for a meme! This is the Kindness Meme: 1. List five kind things you do for yourself. 1) Have my shows: Now that I’m off most nights I actually have a TV schedule. Here it is: Sunday: HBO—they just finished what just might...
03/14/08 -
Amazon - Well, good morning, friends. I was looking through my collection of previously-written short-shorts and decided to share another anecdote with you. I hope you find it amusing in a "quaint" way. Before I continue, I'd like to point out that the comment button on my last blog (Fading Eyesight) failed to work. Many of you complained that Amazon wouldn't let them post. I reported the problem...
03/13/08 -
Hooks and Bullets - Today, I made my usual run through one of my favorite web sites, Michigan Sportsman, looking to see if there were any hot topics that I might need to write about this morning. The first one I saw was a post titled hunting partners, and for what ever reason I was intrigued to read it. The gentleman went on to say how he had just lost his hunting partner, which happened to be his beagle dog, and...
03/13/08 -
BluePrint Zine - Past midnight I lay here contemplating what happened to my life, and the memories of being a child and growing up. For all these things seem to be vacant from my mind, as I can only recall small glimpses of my childhood. Where did my story begin and how I got to where I am is a question that I ask myself, the answer lies within my dying memory. ...
03/13/08 -
My Journey to Eliminate Debt - In my post: Eliminate Debt: Where do I start? I recommended doing a financial timeline, listing all the events that have lead up to your current financial position. Doing this exercise has helped me a lot so I have decided to share my financial timeline with my readers. Teen years I paid cash for what I wanted, earned money from doing markets with mum Early 20's Had a good job, the first thing I...
03/12/08 -
Beautiful World - So I’ve made it my goal to start getting up earlier and go running. If I go to bed at a decent hour, my body usually wakes itself up around 6am anyway. I just have to choose whether to follow through with that initial urge… or not. I usually choose not, roll over, and go back to sleep....
03/12/08 -
17 Seeds - With eyes like sweet caramel and a thick head of blond hair curling playfully to the side, just one look from that broad-shouldered boy would send me places I knew a young black woman in the Blacklands of North Carolina shouldn’t go. He wasn’t the first white boy that I’d turned a furtively affectionate eye toward but he was the first to return with a longing of his own....
03/12/08 -
Mommy's Blog - You know how making bold statements that begin with words like, “I never…” is kind of a bad idea? Well, so is saying that you’ve prayed for the health of your children, because right after I wrote that in my last post, there was an injury. It seems praying for the health of my children wasn’t enough. I should have also said a prayer to offset my parental stupidity. Or perhaps been more...
03/11/08 -
Mormon Mentality - I fly too much for work - sadly I achieved platinum status on two airlines last year. I like to observe people who are in the plane and try to figure out why and where they are going. Some are easy to figure out - the vacationers. Others are clearly students headed somewhere, while there are also a significant number of business travelers, particularly on flights going to New York City. And then...
03/11/08 -
Seven Miles to Nowhere - I'm 3/4 Italian. My dad's full-blooded, both sides of his family having come from Sicily; my mom's 1/2 on her father's side. Growing up, I was lucky enough to have known my mother's grandfather until I was into High School. I knew he came over on the boat when he was 12 or 13. I knew that he came knowing no English, that his family settled in Pennsylvania and then moved to Akron to work in the...
03/11/08 -
CBEB's - Like any red-blooded American teenager, I grew up worshipping at the altar of Led Zeppelin. At one point in my life, I owned all their official albums, plus a live bootleg (note: this was before In Through the Out Door was released, so I can proudly say I never owned that piece of shit). I even had that big-ass Led Zeppelin poster hanging on my wall....
03/10/08 -
Will In The World - Conferences today (I’m writing this from my office); USC’s Writing Program requires instructors to do one-on-one conferences with each student once per assignment, of which there are 5. I’m basically, then, the one professor my students really connect with to some real degree. I like that. It opens it all up to remind everyone that my class isn’t about the room it’s in. ...
03/10/08 -
Big Blue Barn West - I watched in amazement as the family fell apart. I wasn’t surprised by my mother’s reaction – even though she had declared many times that she was going to leave him and wanted a divorce. In the end they were a couple of months short of being married for 50 years. It was my siblings that surprised me so much....
03/10/08 -
H^2 - For the longest time, computers and computer related things have been my hobby. Most recently building & tinkering with my HTPC has been an ongoing thing in my house, and now that it’s mostly complete (a good working setup that won’t need to be upgraded for quite awhile), It’s time to move on to something else. After all, I’ve made my hobby (computers) my job. ...
03/09/08 -
Beetqueen - I touch his nose and make a boop noise and he disolves into gigles. I can do this for five minutes straight, each time getting the same bout of hysteria, and then two seconds later, stone cold silence. My husband can play a snoring game with him,* and yet when I try, my son throws me a look of “are you kidding me?” and turns right back to his stuffed monkey. One day he is fascinated by the toy...
03/09/08 -
laelaps - Given how much time I spend writing at a computer (be it for this blog or my book), I thought I'd indulge in a little more navel-gazing about my writing habits. What I write is usually dictated by my surroundings and the time of day, and as much as I might like to change things a bit I can't help my own quirks & predilections....
03/09/08 -
beanland - Then there was the gathering up of stuff. Stuff to take care of me. Stuff to take care of Mackenzie. My own private food supply because did I mention the hospital food was nasty? Assorted things Scott had grabbed “just in case” when I sent him home to get my “hospital bag” after the doctor broke my water. Um, I hadn’t packed a hospital bag but he could tell I was in no mood to quibble so...
03/07/08 -
Amberfire.In.Us - Are you a coffee lover? It seems in the last 10 years, we have all become coffee snobs! How did that happen I wonder? Good marketing? I don’t know how suddenly overnight it became acceptable to pay $5.00 to buy a cup of coffee. It seems weird to me, yet we all seem to do it....
03/07/08 -
Ken's Blog - Today a friend asked me the following question: “Blogs are a very public way of revealing thoughts. Did/does it make you uncomfortable at times?” A very good question. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the answer is non-trivial. The best analogy I can think of is with driving a car...
03/07/08 -
Adventures of a Bad Ass - We pack up after work and drive down to the home of our hiking buddies, Skidmark and Balloo, for Skidmark's 30th birthday bash. Lots of friends, lots of beer. Our gift to Skidmark was a framed photograph of a group of hikers (her included) in varying stages of undress at Bryant Ridge Shelter in Virginia....
03/06/08 -
Blistered Avalon - When I was little, I dreamed of being chased. Sometimes, the assailant was the thumbtacks hanging posters above the head of my bed - they would fly through the air, aiming to stab me, and there was no where I could run that they couldn’t follow. Sometimes the assailant would be an unknown man, and no matter which room I hid in, he would always be a step behind in. I would eventually escape our...
03/06/08 -
If Mom Says OK - Don’t know why it took me so long for this fact to hit me, but today I realized that I was now outnumbered in my own home. It went from a fairly balanced male/female ratio to one that is clearly stacked against me. (I say ‘fairly’ because while there were technically two women in the household, only one could truly be called a ‘full-time’ resident - what with one being a high school senior...
03/06/08 -
Jackie Cameron - One of the joys of blogging is that from time to time somebody else comes up with the idea for your post. And it is now time for Bob Hruzek’s What I Learned from ….monthly writing project. This month the theme is - THE LAW. I thought and thought, I started writing and then I stopped. I have really taxed my brain on this one. ...
03/05/08 -
Chasing Paradise - My sister is having an affair. She’s been married to my brother-in-law for nearly 17 years. But they’ve been together for 20. She first told me about The Other Man in January. I had suspected something for a while. Just the way she talked about him was enough to raise eyebrows and suspicions. Something seemed not right about it. Like they were more than friends....
03/05/08 -
Just Peachy Baby - Before I was a mom, I didn't have that much exposure to playground politics. I mean, I can't even remember when I had actually stepped onto a playground as an adult. Sure, I've been at parks for barbecues and picnics. And I've seen kids playing on the jungle gyms, swings and slides. At a distance....
03/05/08 -
The Girl From The Ghetto - Sure, it’s hard to think back 23 years and just pick only 10 meaningful concerts. I had it down to 13, and I’m still upset I couldn’t at least put in Eminem in my top 10. So I’m giving him a shout-out here. That day we spent on Ford Field together was awesome. I was close enough to make a stage dive and get kicked out of there. ...
03/04/08 -
juno henry - It’s been over a year since Henry and I broke up, and I’ve said very little about the relationship that was, since that happened. This is not me breaking my silence. Not exactly. But i feel moved to write, which happens less and less frequently these days, as I feel my world slowly crumble before my eyes — so I let the muse speak from within me, and I lay myself bare before you. ...
03/04/08 -
hannah's blog - Gypsy was a really good dog and I’m sad at her demise, not because she’s free of her restricted but protected life, but because I was always been ambivalent about keeping another creature captive. And yet, had she run free, her life would have been a lot shorter. It was a lesser of two evils situation that we got into because my mother wanted a dog in exchange for being compliant and agreeing...
03/04/08 -
sleep eat run - I didn’t realize how much I truly missed having a kitchen until I got back into the kitchen. I haven’t been cooking much since I went out to dinner twice over the weekend; that’s not a normal phenomenon for my family but we were celebrating a bunch of birthdays over the weekend so treats were in order. But today I “got my feet wet” in cooking again: I woke up this morning, toasted (!!!)...
03/03/08 -
ontario locavore - One of the things I have had to come to terms with when I switched to not only eating local but to having a holistic household in general is that I am living much more closely with nature now. Without chemicals and pesticides on my food and floors, I find bugs in the strangest places. Several time, for example, I have opened my fridge to find a snail crawling across the milk jug or up one of the...
03/03/08 -
write or die - True to nature, I had not done the exercises regularly during my illness. Once I returned to work on Tuesday (the weather was cold, but no rain!), I let the need to get caught up overwhelm my need to do the exercises. I had to force myself to take the time to return to PT on Thursday. I had lost a lot of the movement previously gained. After an hour of walking on the treadmill, doing the stretching...
03/03/08 -
Flying High - Well there are loads of things that run thru my head............ Scared of what future holds for me ... i am excited but a lil scared i dont know what am i suppose to look out for, its like rite now i am flying aimlessly. How do i know wat is rite or wrong for me how do i read the signs?? But before all that i dont know if i have completely shut off my past and how do u do that? or how do i know...
03/02/08 -
lyndas world - What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? Holy crap, my back hurts. Do I blame Dan or the cat for pushing me out of bed at 4:30 in the morning? What were you doing 12 AM last night? Playing World of Warcraft and chatting....
03/02/08 -
lucy loves australia - I was having a think the other day about what options there are for you if you are scared of flying, but still want to visit Australia. There are 2 options really — one is to get there overland and/or by sea. The other is conquering your fear of flying (there is probably a third option that involves tranquilisers, but not too sure on the legalities of that one!). So, firstly — conquering...
03/02/08 -
my plain view - I was talking last night about how I wish I had learned to ski when I was little so that I wouldn't be so afraid now. When asked what difference it would have made Laurie and I said, "When you are little, you don't know any better. You don't know that when you fall, it is going to hurt! You don't know that you could lose control and going flying off of a mountain (Jason, it is possible).” You just...
02/29/08 -
Dani Rodrik - In my senior year at Harvard, I applied to six different graduate programs: a business school (HBS), a program in international relations (Fletcher), a doctoral program in political science (Harvard), a doctoral program in economics (Yale), and two public policy schools (HKS and WWS). In other words, I was as confused about my career goals as you can imagine. Once again, I was the beneficiary of...
02/29/08 -
dilbert blog - The biggest problem with any city is all the traffic. And much of that traffic can be avoided if the city is designed right. I imagine homes above ground, connected by a network of underground bike and robot paths. The bike paths would allow weather-free, flat paths, and parking, from anywhere to anywhere in the city. No cars to contend with, and wide enough for senior citizens to putter around...
02/29/08 -
kents bike - We've had some of those warm, clear days we seem to get every February in Issaquah, the days that sucker you into thinking spring is just around the corner and then the cold rain returns for many more weeks. But for now, it's wonderful. I'm out running a bunch of small errands on my bike when I see her. She's walking her dog, but stopping every few feet to pick up trash and shove it in a big plastic...
02/28/08 -
the reel addict - Even worse, it seems like you’re also going the Eddie Murphy/Tim Allen route and starting to make too mainly family friendly movies. Though THE GAME PLAN was cute, you’ve got another Disney remake in the works (RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN), and it was just announced that you’re starring in a film called THE TOOTH FAIRY where you will apparently play a guy who has to save the tooth fairy kingdom....
02/28/08 -
mouse words - I love to shop, but sometimes buying eludes me. I’m notorious for being indecisive in the area of my wardrobe. I often wind making unwise purchases in a last-minute rush as the store closes. That means I’ll be back shopping again soon, after I realize the outfit I put together is really pathetic. Even when I can make a decision, there has to be a catch. Like the last time I went shopping for...
02/28/08 -
the daily burns - I am not very romantic. I appreciate romance & am incredibly grateful that my husband IS romantic, however, I lack…something. I tend to be more utilitarian practical. I love practical gifts. Our first christmas together ryan bought me a pair of diamond earrings & a (really cool) toiletry bag. I apparently gushed a little too much over the toiletry bag & not enough over the earrings…i could be...
02/27/08 -
poot and cubby - The other day after we dropped Elliot off at preschool, Arlo and I went to Starbucks. We were waiting in line behind a cop. Even though I’ve never been arrested (or even pulled over), cops always make me nervous. As I stood behind this tall, authoritative man, I wondered if I was breaking an obscure law that I was unaware of. He turned around suddenly and I felt sure that it was all over. That I...
02/27/08 -
Dani Rodrik - When I applied to Harvard College as a high school senior from Turkey, I wrote on my application form that I wanted to major in electrical engineering. Huh? Wake up Dani, there is no electrical engineering major at Harvard College! Nonetheless, I was admitted, through some quirk of the Harvard admission process which I learned about years later....
02/27/08 -
economonkey - You might not need money to be happy, but unless you feel like living off the grid and growing your own food (in which case, I say good for you) you’re always going to have bills to pay, so you need money to live. For most people this means getting sucked into a life of wage slavery. Hate your job? Suck it up, you need the money. Feel like taking six months off to write a novel or travel the...
02/26/08 -
retarded rugrat - Most of you know what issues I have with shopping for pants. I have an adult sized waist, and tiny little kids legs. In other words, I’m short enough, but not thin enough to get into kids ski pants. So finding ski pants was always going to be an issue for me. The other issue was price. Seeing ski pants priced at $449.99 was a real downer. As we made our way through the stores, I began to feel...
02/26/08 -
2Blowhards - Yup, that's right: Today the in-laws received a business-solicitation letter pitching the idea of buying cremation services now rather than waiting 'till the usual time. Some alluring passages from the Neptune Society's letter: ...
02/26/08 -
run jen run - Babies are annoying because they cry a lot and poop in their pants. Kids are annoying because they ask too many questions and need too much attention. Teens are annoying because they wear clothes that are a) too small or b) too big. Twenty-somethings are annoying because they think they run the world. And then people over 60 are annoying because they think they have earned the right to be rude to...
02/26/08 -
The Rotund - So, let’s discuss. Does a fat body have to be portrayed in a “fat positive” light in order for something to count as “fat positive” art? In other words, does the focus of art that supports the concept of fat acceptance have to make beautifying fat a part of its mission? We talk a lot about Leonard Nimoy’s Full Body Project. The images are gorgeous celebrations of the body. Another...
02/26/08 -
The Writer Bee - As you may or may not recall, it was just a little over 2 years ago that I was running from Cujo and broke my foot at the ski house I was a part of in Killington, VT. It was a long time healing and I ended up going to the closing on my house with crutches. I worked hard, though, and was still able to hike the Inca Trail only 4 months later. The worst was over…or so I thought. I’ve had a...
02/26/08 -
ezra klein - In general, I don't pressure myself to post on weekends. If I'm around, I do. If not, not. Today, however, I was absent for an altogether sadder reason. I was in New York, attending the memorial service for the younger brother of a dear friend. My friend's sibling was an extraordinary young man: He was born with health problems that left him mute, and with some facial disfigurement. His was a...
02/24/08 -
beet queen - My son had his first fever on Monday. I thought he felt warm from the moment he got up, but it took a few hours of him wanting to snuggle to convince me the body heat he was producing wasn’t just another genetic link he shares with my husband. My son is not a snuggler. He is far too busy running all over the living room, trying to climb everything and hunting for carpet fuzz to patronize me by...
02/24/08 -
throwing things - There was so much -- so much! -- hype about the quality and professionalism (or ringerism) of this year's American Idol crop that the show almost convinced us to forget that it's not necessarily the best singers who make the best pop stars -- it's the ones best able to connect with the current pay-for-downloading audience. It's a good thing that we had Simon to remind us, ever-more desperately, that...
02/24/08 -
teachers college - I learned that it is necessary to make an example sometimes, but you can never make an example out of a student at that student’s expense, nor can you make an example out of a student just for the sake of making an example. I also learned that a good teacher has a plan for when things like what follows happen. I had to divert to plan B with the students… I originally had planned to lead the...
02/22/08 -
Nurse Sean - I walked through my front door at 20:15 last night feeling beaten and broken. My brain felt like it had been placed in a blender on high–simple thoughts felt like complex calculus equations. It wasn’t a bad week, per say. It was simply busy beyond belief. And it wasn’t really a fun busy in which I was floating from one fascinating challenge to another. No, it was just wall-to-wall basic...
02/22/08 -
the other side of kim - My antipathy towards new cartridges and calibers has been extremely well-documented, so when Reader Ed K. wrote to me to ask whether I’d heard about the new cartridge offering, the .327 Federal Magnum, I wasn’t that enthused, at first. I’d heard about it, but never followed up with some research (because when it was announced in November 2007 I was deep in “I’m Going To Vienna!” mode...
02/22/08 -
byzantium shores - In terms of preferred times of day, I'm really pretty schizophrenic. I can pick reasons for liking every time of day. I used to loathe mornings, but years of getting up early have made me attuned to morning's charms. There's a crispness in the air on a fall morning, and on a humid summer morning, if you get up early enough, the mist hangs around the ground and dampens the sound of the world. I love...
02/21/08 -
rachel lucas - My totally awesome boyfriend, “Rupert”, who lives with me and is the only reason I eat square meals on a regular basis and don’t dress up my dogs every day, was at work last week when he got a call from his mom telling him a package had arrived in her mail from the National Guard, addressed to Rupert. It’d taken a few weeks since it was postmarked to get to her because they didn’t have...
02/21/08 -
2Blowhards - It's not yet Hong Kong. Or even Manhattan. Not yet, anyway. But I wouldn't be surprised if Seattle's planners and their political and media allies, deep down in their hearts, would like the city to resemble those places. When I was growing up, Seattle was a city of detached houses. There were a few areas with "high rise" (in Seattle's case, six floors and higher) apartment buildings. Other areas...
02/21/08 -
Escape Brooklyn - Last night I had one of those "New York City is so great" moments. It lasted a couple of hours. I had coffee after work with a friend, then met DH for a free screening of that new movie Penelope. (Cute but Reese Witherspoon needed a much bigger part.) And I kept thinking: isn't NYC fantastic? Where else could I live and experience this? And what a great deal to see a new release movie for free!...
02/21/08 -
stuff white people like - Many white people will look into the window of an ethnic restaurant to see if there are other white people in there. It is determined to be an acceptable restaurant if the white people in there are accompanied by ethnic friends. But if there is a table occupied entirely by white people, it is deemed unacceptable. The arrival of the “other white people” to either restaurants or vacation spots...
02/21/08 -
big ass belle - Kayla is blind and paralyzed on one side. She is lying in her bed in pediatric ICU, slowly turning her head to the left, where she grimaces, shivers and then repeats. Over and over she does this, a pained writhing, the sole outward manifestation of her swelling brain and spinal cord trauma. Head injury. Blunt force trauma. These dreadful things would seem mysterious ~ what happened to this little...
02/21/08 -
evilganome - I am going to be getting an award from the school I work for. It's a pretty big deal. The award is given out by the school, not just the department. I guess I sort of felt pretty good about it when I first heard, but it took on a whole new meaning when I found out I had been nominated by the students. The young people in our grad program are very busy. They probably have a heavier workload than...
02/20/08 -
roboppy - People usually ask me if working at Serious Eats entails gorging on free food all the time. No, most definitely not. ...I mean, there is a ginormous apple pie in the fridge right now (about the size of a baby's bathtub or an obese cat) that I eat a slice of nearly every day and will probably last for the rest of the month, but we don't usually have giant pies lurking in our kitchen. I swear....
02/20/08 -
fattening of america - Those of you who read The Fattening of America remember my friend Mark. He’s the guy who had the unprotected sex with the woman from planned parenthood. Mark was used to introduce the notion of morale hazard. This is the economic concept that says that, due to insurance, individuals may change their behavior and not engage in as much preventive care. As discussed in the book, Mark is a thrill...
02/20/08 -
fops and dandies - In addition to a Super Stop & Shop, Northport is also home to a Salvation Army Family Store. At first glance, it looks really discouraging and forbidding: it's right by the train station, monolithic, and sits squarely in the middle of a lot, leaving no real parking spaces. But once inside, and after spending an hour going through each aisle (time always flies by when thrifting), I found a LOT of...
02/19/08 -
Escapable Logic - The suit they wore was an Astronaut’s suit. They likewise carried a portable air conditioner around with them. Everything about the SR-71 mission was cool and macho enough to twang the heart of any red-blooded American male. Just one thing about Ben Bowles is an exception to the clichéd archetype of the macho fighter pilot: ...
02/19/08 -
bedouina - I bought a wig today. For my Lebanese and non-California readers, I apologize for no makeup, but this is the way women look in the Bay Area. I should have put on lipstick but I forgot... This is what three months of chemotherapy looks like. Below are pictures of me over the last six ten years. My own family has trouble recognizing me from one day to the next....
02/19/08 -
Frugal Zeitgeist - I spent a few hours with my accountant this morning to figure out my taxes. There was a time I tried to do this myself, but after once having to pay a shocking amount in penalties for a mistake I made on the federal form that the IRS caught three years later (and yup, I was liable for three years of penalties), I've found that having an accountant is well worth the investment. This year, I was...
02/18/08 -
the other side of kim - I think women don’t understand how clinical men can be when it comes to analyzing a relationship. (Note: just because we don’t talk about our relationship with you, doesn’t mean we don’t analyze it.) Here’s how I explain it. I think that men keep a running ledger going in their subconscious—all the good/great things about their relationship on the one side, and all the bad/terrible...
02/18/08 -
Corduroy orange - If anyone in Pittsburgh wants to try a cricket, stop in at Reyna Foods, 21st and Penn in the Strip, where crickets come in a variety of flavors. I tried a sour cream and onion flavored cricket last weekend. Truth be told, it was so dusted with the sour cream and onion flavor that I’m not sure the cricket part provided anything but crunch, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless, though...
02/18/08 -
Bats In My Belfry - Mushy Peas, not just for eating. I suppose I ought to get those put back in the cupboard. Hard to see but I’ve gotten pretty anal about lifelines. Thanks to the sensible comments from Stellaluna and Himself, I’ve gotten over feeling like I’m “wussing out” using lifelines. In fact, I find it quite freeing. After counting stitches obsessively to be sure I’m on the right count and pattern,...
02/15/08 -
rachel lucas - It takes a special kind of self-absorption to claim to know - without any doubt - how other people think and feel, especially when you’re talking about enormous groups, such as “women”. Add to that self-absorption a thick squirt of projection and you get statements like this: Every woman I know — no matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally secure — feels...
02/15/08 -
dilbert blog - When I think of the ways I could die, almost all of them are better than being killed by flying poop. That’s the sort of thing that could erase a lifetime of accomplishment. I would instantly stop being the guy who created Dilbert and forever be known as the cartoonist whose head was crushed by a turd. If I die from frozen restroom waste, my friends and family would have trouble stifling a laugh....
02/15/08 -
foothills - Ever since Nicaea, the Church has held that Christ has two natures: He is fully human, and fully divine, at one and the same time. His two natures cannot be separated, but are nevertheless distinct. This is a difficult thing to keep in mind (he said with dry understatement). While knowing and believing that Jesus is God-Incarnate, Man Divine, I tend not to think about Jesus’ human side. But Jesus...
02/15/08 -
Texas Liberal - Women, gays, blacks, and self-defined punk rockers make the most reliable friends. At least they did for the person I had become. Knowledge is not inherently power. It depends if you are in a situation where what you know can be applied. However, the more broad perspective on life that comes from knowledge is a form of power because it allows you to better understand and take advantage of your...
02/15/08 -
11d - Last year, it became obvious that we needed to fix up the kitchen sooner than later. The stove was too small and out dated. The ceiling was sagging from a leaky tub upstairs. It was dark and ugly and cramped. So, we started squirreling away money and buying the kitchen magazines. Now, if you want a kitchen that will be just fine for making waffles and burgers, you can get by with a $20,000 kitchen....
02/15/08 -
the donovan - I have always had a fascination with firearms. I got my first gun, a M1873 Springfield Trapdoor, when I was 15, as part of a family distribution of guns from the old family hardware store. All the males in the family got one. I still have it, natch. The first one I bought myself, was a Commission 88 Mauser, which I bought at Woolco, in 1975, the day I turned 18 and could buy one. It was $35 or...
02/13/08 -
ironic sans - Thursday is Valentine’s Day, a holiday where it’s customary to give a card to your loved one just to say “I Love You.” But even before the Catholic Church decided to honor one of its Saints with a holiday on February 14, this month was celebrated as a month of fertility festivals going all the way back to ancient Greece and Rome. I’ve decided to honor an entirely different group of people...
02/13/08 -
dilbert blog - When I think of the ways I could die, almost all of them are better than being killed by flying poop. That’s the sort of thing that could erase a lifetime of accomplishment. I would instantly stop being the guy who created Dilbert and forever be known as the cartoonist whose head was crushed by a turd. If I die from frozen restroom waste, my friends and family would have trouble stifling a laugh....
02/13/08 -
Jamie Abroad - I started this blog about two and a half years ago, living in a borrowed room at a friend’s house, translating for free room and board, living on about $100 a month, rewriting essays until three or four in the morning. And now I’m sitting down to finish it, living in a borrowed room at a new friend’s house, my life stuffed into a backpack. In one week I'll be on the boat to China, not much...
02/12/08 -
3quarksdaily - Learning about the Museum of Broken Relationships in Berlin (it really does exist...), I asked readers to write in with an artifact that deserved to go on view there. It need not be a concrete artifact, but could be a memory, an idea, a painting, or a puppy, and anonymized entries were welcome. To say one word more than that would be to seriously take the fun out of what follows. ...
02/12/08 -
Always Aroused - Cut him some slack, I told myself. After a long dull marriage, he’s in the first heady rush of sexual exploration. He just needs to find his sea legs. He’ll be fine. With those hopeful thoughts in mind, I eventually scheduled a coffee date with Mr. SV for a week in the future. In the meantime, we continued to make each other’s acquaintance over the phone and on instant messenger. One...
02/12/08 -
beanland - Until I became a parent, I didn’t realize how those two things related. Now I know that, at least during this stage of parenting, they are inextricably linked. And so our story begins. Nighttimes are going very well for us, all things considered. But they invariably go better for Scott because he is not the one waking up at odd hours and trying to fumble in the dark to feed a ravenous...
02/11/08 -
certifiable princess - Sadly for you, Crack Whore, you weren't able to use my card. It is maxxed out. I also appreciate you using, rather, attempting to use my card at a 24 hour gas station that is all lit up and has cameras everywhere. We have your transaction on receipt and your ugly fucked up mutilated looking mug on video. Do you not realize that a crack whore such as yourself would be noticed immediately? You are...
02/11/08 -
bitch phd - Niece was born, obviously, a long time before PK was. I don't think my sister will mind my saying that niece was unplanned, and conceived while sis was still in college; sis spent a few years as a pretty damn poor single mom, and then one ill-advised year married to niece's dad (a nice guy, but somewhat trifling, as they say). Sis married again a year or so after the divorce, and she and brother-in-law...
02/11/08 -
Crooked Timber - The fun continues in the 4th sentence so allow me to add that: “Bars such as Cadbury Dairy Milk, Galaxy or Hershey must be labelled ‘family milk chocolate’ in the EU, as they don’t contain enough chocolate to count as chocolate under these rules!” So yes, it’s worth noting that chocolate is not immune to policy considerations. It may sound silly, but it’s obviously a huge industry...
02/10/08 -
College Callgirl - As a young girl, I eventually acquired one porno tape, Masseuse II, given to me by an enterprising school chum who got a handjob for his trouble. I liked the Randy West and Steven St. Croix scenes a lot because they were both kind of mean and rape-y, if not that attractive. And the plot was good; I still think it’s really hot to roleplay the legitimate masseuse who lets herself be talked into/coerced...
02/10/08 -
sarah pullman - In slightly less good news, there were a few sad casualties among the things I shipped from Toronto on Greyhound. Of course, I managed to wave goodbye to my things just as the temperatures across the centre of Canada dropped insanely. So my boxes of belongings voyaged across this fabulous but frozen country, transferring between trucks 3 times I'm told, in temperatures averaging around -30ºC....
02/10/08 -
mochi runner - The reception venue was beautifully lit with candles and little white lights. I wish I had pictures of the actual wedding to share (the bride and groom are just about the cutest couple ever and the ceremony was beautiful), but I kind of stink at picture taking. Also, I'm not sure I would have been able to juggle a camera and bouquet of flowers. I was so sad to leave my Ole girls and Minnesota....
02/08/08 -
beet queen - Ever since my son was born I have a pretty high tolerance for gross. Not that he’s particularly dirty or overly messy, but he is nearing his first birthday and feeding time for him has become good practice if I ever find myself in say, a war zone. I can duck and dodge bits of pasta, carrots and all sorts of fruit chunks like a pro. In addition to my food evasion tactics, I have also grown...
02/08/08 -
Escape from LA - So the last day and a half I have been pretty low, but there are some things that happened..actually one in particular that made me remember the little things....I got a postcard from Winter Park which is where I hurt my knee...a bit dazed and confused it took me about 3 minutes to figure out who Mitch Wesp was...wow...it dawned on me...he was the Ski Patrol that took me down in a sled... a big bear...
02/08/08 -
Dangerous Girl - I think sometimes people attribute my anger management problem to the fact that I'm from Detroit. That makes sense I guess; Detroit's an easy target. You can know nothing about it but still have some cursory understanding that it's a rough place. And it is...but it isn't. In a lot of ways it just got the short end of the stick for like 40 years. But no, that's not why I'm such a psycho. Besides,...
02/07/08 -
matt cozart - Brought together without order, distinction, or design (for sex) to divide or subdivide into branches or subdivisions that may be read with ease to dishearten a schoolmaster one versed or skilled in treating diseases of the eye characteristic of woman or womankind bred from the best or purest blood or stock a cup-shaped vessel with a long handle, intended for dipping up and pouring...
02/07/08 -
just hungry - A Dutch friend of mine asked me today, "What were your impressions of the food in the Netherlands?" I had to think a bit, especially since I've only visited there twice, briefly, and only Amsterdam both times. It also got me thinking about all the good, and bad, memorable moments I've had relating to food while travelling. Here are a few...though no Dutch food memories, I'm afraid. (I have a feeling...
02/07/08 -
melody nelson - During the procession, we had a very talented string quartet interpret The Beach Boys' God Only Knows while the bridal party and adam walked down the aisle with his parents. My parents and i walked down to Henry Mancini's Moonriver (how so audrey hepburn and new york of me!). When we were announced as husband and wife, the quartet played The Zombies' This will be our year (our favorite song and one...
02/06/08 -
2 blowhards - Even in a large, liberal place like Seattle I normally see cars sporting only a single die-hard Kerry/Edwards sticker from 2004 or perhaps a sparkling new Obama one. I said Seattle was liberal, so maybe that's why virtually all cars I notice having lots of stickers have lefty slogans. Only a few times a year do I spot heavy-duty right-wing sticker plastering. Could this be because righties are, uh,...
02/06/08 -
lg business solutions - Yesterday, while standing in line to self-check my groceries, an older man seemed perplexed by the process. I offered to help, and his excited response was: "I have done this a 1,000 times: Just take it easy." His anger surprised me, and I thought about it much of the afternoon. I concluded that he wasn't angry, he was frustrated that something so simple seemed so hard and that others could see...
02/06/08 -
Frugal Zeitgeist - One thing I've noticed about myself is that when I'm very focused on personal finance (usually to the point of tracking my budget to the penny), I tend to gain weight. When I'm focused on losing weight or otherwise increasing my level of fitness, tight control over my finances starts to slip. I don't mean that I start running up debt or anything like that, but temptations that didn't exist before...
02/05/08 -
fattening of america - Another guy ran with a stick extended out in front of him with two donuts bouncing on a string on the end. Like a dog at the race track, he never took his eyes off the prize. The run was only $15, one of the cheaper races I’ve entered, and that brought out lots of college students and other runners. In all, 3,000 dozen donuts were handed out. The race organizers let baby joggers enter (I pushed...
02/05/08 -
fickle foe - Someone on the third floor of the English building has a real problem with people who don’t wash their hands. Right now there are nine signs in the bathroom begging, threatening, or trying to scare people into washing their hands. Some are just friendly little signs with a happy person washing their hands. Others show close-ups of the influenza virus and tell us that this will be our fate if we...
02/05/08 -
zen habits - The summer after high school, afflicted with a serious case of boredom, I would often spend my time baking away pool side, or watching Jerry Springer or Maury Show at my then girlfriend’s house. In fact, we spent so much time watching these shows, and ones like it, that I began to see patterns in the scripting of human behavior. You would think I would use this new found skill for good, but...
02/05/08 -
Surgeon's Blog - Inside a vein, it's always perfect. No matter the state of the rest of the body, when you open a vein and look inside it's smooth and shiny and slippery. The inner wall glistens and lavishes the eye with a creamy-khaki surface. Not that it's common to get into one on purpose: but for things as minor as a cut-down (directly opening a vein to insert a large IV), or as major as a portal-vein...
02/04/08 -
nursesean - It is a super-duper, BMW designed, Saeco built, espresso machine! I have been shopping around for a high quality (but not prosumer level) machine that I can play with on a daily basis. I have had a long history of coffee drinking that all started when I was fifteen years old. I’m steel reeling at the fact that I am twice as old currently! So, I guess you could say that my coffee adventure...
02/04/08 -
ficklefoe - It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was a time when people rarely, if ever, washed their hands - in short, it was a very dirty time, full of sickness and disease.” Oddly, these signs it not last long. I assume some indignant student was appalled to see Dickens, Melville, and Twain used in an advertising campaign, no matter how noble the end may be, and tore them down...
02/04/08 -
beetqueen - My great aunt died today. Wow, it feels wierd to write. It’s not exactly a surprise to any of us. She was 94 years old. She’d had at least two heart attacks, a pacemaker, blocked arteries and in the last six months she’s had some pretty bad falls. Bad enough to land her in a nursing home, a place I know she never wanted to end up. Sadly, the nursing home was getting ready to transfer her...
02/03/08 -
Escapable Logic - One of the many adventure camps of my fortunate life was a 6-year stint as a USAF pilot, which sounds more impressive than it is. But the core of that experience is instructive: If you attend USAF Pilot training, you want to be a fighter pilot. That’s as obvious as saying that, if you attend Julliard, you want to perform at Carnegie Hall. And if you want to be a fighter pilot, you embrace all the...
02/03/08 -
cranky professor - Monday we went to the Vatican Museums - utter overload, of course. I concentrated on the huge sarcophagus set-up in the Pio-Gregoriano collection, trying to prepare them for the Mathews book. The advantage of a big load of real things is that it sometimes helps students to understand two important things. First, that ancient art was not all one-off pieces of creative sculpture, but was often...
02/03/08 -
Escape from LA - I had a sticker on my bike in college that said; "Escape Mediocrity"..at the time i just thought it sounded cool. I didn't really understand what that meant. I am reminded of this as I read and think a bit about being creative. It seems that many of us creative souls and anyone who is concerned about their own place in life worry about our own goodness, talent, ability and force. We are constantly...
02/02/08 -
Midnight Hour - I like gadgets. I like tinkering with gadgets. It doesn’t really bother me when one of my gadgets doesn’t work perfectly when I fire it up the first time, because I am reasonably confident that I can dig into its settings and change the undesired behavior. If intuition fails me then I am confident I can find information from other users on the internet to help me solve the problem, and I’ll...
02/02/08 -
Lost Posts - Currently listening to: Could've Gone Mad - Poe Well, how do you know if I'm really listening to this? Maybe I'm really listening to Fix You, by Coldplay. In fact, that is what I'm listening to. Oh, wait. The song just changed. Now I'm listening to Ultra violet, by U2. Anyway, just thought I'd write stuff. I've always wanted to just ramble on my blog, but I never really do that. Well, that's...
02/02/08 -
MetroDad - All my daughter wanted for Christmas from Santa Claus was a Cinderella princess doll. I have to admit that, for quite a long time, I contemplated not getting one for her. As a modern dad who considers himself fairly progressive when it comes to parenting, I don't like subscribing to outdated notions of gender stereotyping. Besides, I felt conflicted about buying into the whole "Disney Industrial...
01/31/08 -
john mcnamara - Okay, we all know that there really is no art to it. Hot people get naked and do all sorts of mild to wild things to one another, showing off amazing bodies, incredible muscles and well-shaped implants. Nothing to it, really. The "actors" in pornography are not really known for their acting skills. The dialog is usually pathetic, unless of course, the flick is foreign, and then, since I have no idea...
01/31/08 -
dilbert blog - Suppose a stranger starts beating you with a stick for no reason other than his own entertainment. He’s got you cornered, and no one is around to help. Luckily for you, he loses his grip on the stick, and drops it. You grab his stick, and without it the stranger can’t stop you from escaping. Are you evil for ruining his fun and stealing his stick for your own selfish happiness? It seems...
01/31/08 -
Big Brass Blog - From my friend, Julia, she has fought the good fight for years against multiple cancers and for the longest time, seemed to be holding out against it. But judge for yourself, she has a power that I am not aware of and is placing her options ahead of herself as she faces the future. She is one of the most interesting and fantastic persons I have ever known. A baseball fanatic, she actually played...
01/30/08 -
katie kokopop - Lately Matthew keeps opening up the refrigerator and pulling out the ketchup. I don’t even know why we have ketchup - probably for a brisket recipe I tried last year. The only time Matthew eats ketchup is when we go out to eat and he has french fries....
01/30/08 -
fox in the woods - In less than two weeks, we will be a "normal" family. By normal I mean Kevin will actually be home to spend time with us in the evenings. We can eat together, read together, draw together, have more dance parties together, take turns working on art projects, and acting all around as a happier and much more funct