Sister coming to visit. Very busy. DIY mavens, we are. New ceiling fan installed. Check. New kitchen faucet (and sprayer, ptl) installed. Check. Yardwork. St. Barbara's check. Homemade enchiladas and lasagna in the freezer. Check and check. Lists with check boxes checked. Check.
new ceiling fan. cool.
new faucet. smooth.GEM ONE of TWO
Happened upon two gems in my cyber travels recently.
The first is SlidellBaptistSeminary.org (I won't even link to it because I can't bear to increase their site traffic. Go there if you don't believe me but you'll only have yourself to blame for the retinal scarring.) A few golden snippets from their page on Doctrine:
3. We believe that man is totally depraved, a sinner in both nature and practice, therefore totally separated from God, totally lost...And here are some beauties under Course Descriptions:
There are few things that get me off faster than being called totally depraved. Where do I sign up?
9. We believe that the Bible is the Word of God and is the absolute authority in determining the faith and practice of God’s people. We affirm that the sixty-six books of the Bible are inerrant, divinely and uniquely inspired, and [yadda, yadda, virgin-v'jay-jay, yadda, yadda]...
Have these folks every played Telephone? (Or as the politically insensitive call it: Chinese Whispers or Russian Scandal.)
Inerrant? As in:
in·er·rant /ɪnˈɛrənt/ [in-er-uhnt]
–adjective
free from error; infallible.
Nothing new, this literal Bible thing. It just never ceases to amaze me how blithely Fundamentalism kicks Logic right off the cliff.
| SURVEY OF THE CULTS | An investigation of the Doctrine of Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Armstrongism, Christian Science, Unity and others. Attention is also given to the founding fathers. |
| PERSONAL EVANGELISM | This is an interesting course in personal soul winning. It is comprehensive in that it deals with the “how to” in soul winning. |
| ADVANCED EVANGELISM | This is an advanced course dealing with soul winning. This course, taught by Dr. Dabdoub deals with different scenarios that the soul winner will face during door to door soul winning... |
| APOLOGETICS 1 | This is an advanced study, taught by Dr. Dan Botterbrodt, dealing with the subjects of Evolution and the Cults. |
| HOMILETICS | This course, taught by Pastor Phillip Weaver, offers an introduction to homiletics, which is the art of preaching. Varied considerations for [blah, blah, blah-fuckity-blah] ...sermon delivery. |
| HERMENEUTICS | This course, taught by Phillip E. Weaver deals with the process of biblical interpretation. |
American Accrediting Association of Theological Institutions (AAATI) is a Christian nonprofit organization offering educational accreditation, based in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. It was formed in 1983. The composition of the board is unknown. According to Steve Levicoff, it is an accreditation mill operated by Dr. Cecil Johnson, president of Christian Bible College, a distance education Bible college based in Rocky Mount that Levicoff identifies as a diploma mill.(ugly tables, theirs; inconsistent italicizing/bolding for emphasis, all mine.)
AAATI is not recognized as an accreditor by either the United States Department of Education and Council for Higher Education Accreditation.
I am delighted to present these two sites in one entry. Pastor ("Dr.") Dabdoub can now share his fame with technicolor pubes.- Coordinate your collar to your cuff.
(gobless your betty-free heart, Giuseppe,
for sending me this link.)- Order carpet to match the drapes.
- Sync up your 'do and hoo-hoo.
- Match your mullet and muff.
- Get your bob and beaver on the same page.
A perfect blend of catch and skiff here. Enjoy Moby Dick via the interpretive genius of one Aaron Francis, D.V.D., one of my four adopted sons (AQ, JA, PR, you know who you are). The degree letters are for AF to decipher. [Hats off to my virago daughter (definition 2, por supuesto) for the link.]
Dave, Dave, Dave. You bait me with this:
Now I am plagued by unclean thoughts.
callipygianPRONUNCIATION:
(kal-uh-PIJ-ee-uhn)
MEANING:
adjective: Having well-shaped buttocks.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek calli- (beautiful) + pyge (buttocks).Callie called to her pigeon while leaning over the balcony, her callipygian form silhouetted in the fading light.
Have I mentioned how much I love A.Word.A.Day?
To clarify my previous post...I think that design can actually change the world.
Well-designed items or processes can beautify, enable success and, well, reduce suffering. Furniture, web, fashion, information, tool, interior, architectural and auto design (etc., etc.) can all add to or subtract from our everyday experience. Both aesthetically and practically good design is vital.
I also think it's important to poke fun at the collective snobbery that often accompanies design. So, you know, don't be a pretentious fuck.
I submitted this entry to Six Sentences and they accepted and posted it here.
Which makes me happy, but that niggling voice in my head mocks me with yeah, but how many entries do they turn away?
I don't know.
But writing succinctly is a great exercise.
Thanks to Veronica for pointing me to 6S.
Well, just look at this, another six sentences.
I have so many things in my head to share. Real thinking things. Ideas and shit. But random and fluffy things have been accumulating in my virtual navel and I must clear them out:
Gay Pride Parade
Best t-shirt spotted (black letters on white shirt, gay man with straw cowboy hat):
Cowfag
Message to trannies:
Girlfriends, buy some decent wigs. I've seen Barbies with more natural coifs.
My queer epiphenita:
I'm the Bacon in the Great Bacon Lettuce Tomato sandwich. I love bacon.
Irony
Is anyone else pissed off at Fate's little joke of taking out two ground-breaking comedians within one month of each other (May 29 and June 22)? Korman, Carlin: I hope you two are doing that foul-mouthed voodoo that you do, soooo well.
Visitors
The Finns were here. Our Finnish host daughter (from 10 years ago) and her boyfriend were spending their vacation in the US and sandwiched 5 days in Houston between New York and San Francisco. They were completely delightful and we had great fun. I've been cooking like my mother (meaning I've been cooking well and in ridiculous quantities. And making menu lists.) for over a week and I am a bit tuckered.
Note: Between Finland's corner on the vowel market and the Czech Republic's capture of most of the consonants, it's amazing that we have enough letters left to cobble together a language.
Hypocrisy
Hello, Liberals/Progressives? Stop doing the McCain is so old schtick. It is, in essence, no less of a bullshit prejudice than racism or sexism and he has provided ample fodder for you on the real issues. Really, enough. You lose your integrity with each comment.
[One exception to the ageism slam: The Rude Pundit. A man whose commitment to the egalitarian smear is so wide-ranging and profound, it borders on the holy edge of the profane. When you look up the definition of "nothing is sacred," it links to his site. O Rude One, carry on.]
Dusty Mecca?
How the hell did I miss this?
Rampant Lesbianism
Republican candidate for senator from Oklahoma, Tom Coburn
You know, Josh Burkeen is our rep down here in the southeast area. He lives in Colgate and travels out of Atoka. He was telling me lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they’ll only let one girl go to the bathroom. Now think about it. Think about that issue. How is it that that’s happened to us?"
–Tom Coburn, 8/31/04
–Atrios (via dailykos.com)All the lesbians I know are going to be pulling up stakes and heading north to Ponca City or OK City or DustyPoonanny City as soon as they close this window.
Click on the image (careful!) to enlarge. Click here to go to fldsdress.com to peruse the homespun frocks. FLDS stands for Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Über Mormons. Guardians of female hymenity, pastel full-body armor, cheap casseroles and all things caucasian. These are the placenta-makers, my people. Reproducing at a rate that causes great papal shame. And while we're talking about conspiracy, don't think it's a coincidence that FLDS reads exactly like "fluids." That is right. Every sperm is sacred.
Look at little Billy's face in panel two. Is it even possible that there's a child out there who gets this torqued-out about wearing clothes made in other countries? (Any child not poisoned by xenophobic parents, that is.) Or even grasps that clothes are not made by the clothing elves living in the department store basement?
Aside from the fact that this comic strip is inane and the very definition of saccharine, what kind of message does this send?
Free market exchange for us but not all you brown fuckers (Now, Billy, you're still not allowed to say the brown word), I mean, brown kids. Or: We can dress up like you on world cultures day at elementary school, learn your folk dances and the bleached version of your history but we're not buying your shit...unless, of course, it's made in our goddamn sweatshops.
With a sweet little nod to knittin' grandma.
Family Circus sucks.
That was a nap that makes the other naps whistle a low, "da-a-a-mn."
That was a nap of stygian oblivion. A state of perfect matte blackness from which you awaken unsure whether tomorrow has eclipsed today.
That was a nap that bulleted past with all but its wingtips tucked and obliterated your little sparrow of consciousness in such a blinding explosion of feathers and talons that you didn't have time to whimper.
That, my friends, was a nap.
Damn.
[update: I submitted this entry to Six Sentences and they accepted and posted it here.]
Just read a great post about school fair goldfish at The QC Report.
It reminded me of another watery pet story filed under: Unwanted Pets That Wouldn't Die. My son had sea monkeys. I can't remember who bought them for him, probably someone with a score to settle with me. And obviously, whoever marketed brine shrimp as pets was a certifiable mad genius.
I, however, found it difficult to distinguish sea monkeys from flotsam in murky water and was not impressed. And they lasted forever...even when my son stopped feeding them and I, um, forgot to remind him. For a month. Jesus, they cannibalized their young or ate their dead or something.
But I didn't kill them all on purpose, no matter what my family thinks. I was cleaning off the countertop while my children were at their dad's house and the cloudy little shrimp tower fell over. Generations of sea monkeys rode a scum tidal wave over the kitchen floor, racing beneath appliances to die and decompose.
While I mopped up the carcasses of innumerable smelly shrimp, Barbara scoured a half-dozen toy stores and found another batch of dried monkey powder that we reconstituted and encouraged to speed grow (they didn't) so our son wouldn't know that all of his adult sea pals had been replaced (he didn't).
For years after this mishap I felt the weight of massacred sea monkeys on my soul. Every time I swerved to avoid a squirrel in the road, I imagined a few dead sea monkey black marks erased from the tally. Years later, when I felt that my pet-related crimes had been atoned for in full, I was finally free to annihilate all those animals too unevolved to factor automobiles into their genetic code.
Oh, calm down. I hate washing dead critter bits off my car.
Not ofet6n often do I blog drunk.
Because I can't speel spell...or rather, I can't type fir for shit.
But goddammit, am I relaxed.
Hey–did I mention that for my 50th birthday (FIFTIETH, you heard me) I had a choice? Yes, I did. (First, I puled about not spending money and Barbara said, Let me remind you about how this works: you suggest, I decide. I love it when she goes all unexpectedly butch on me.) I really wanted a new computer. One of those MacBook Pro things. You can navigate the Space Station with those fuckers. And oh my god, do we need countertops. I also had my heart set on a stand-alone mixer. Like those gorgeous Kitchen Aid professional mixers. They come in red and will whip chunks of mesquite into a fine paste. BUT, our friends in Germany said, Come visit...stay with us, we're 1 hour from the border of France.
It's a no brainer, people (At this point in time, I am more than qualified to discuss decisions made while using very little of one's brain), new countertops and computers be damned, I'm going to celebrate my 50th in France. Paris, if possible.
I'm goign going to bed now.
Good fight, and good fuck.
Cheers for California queers! Particularly this lovely old couple, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons, who tied the knot in California yesterday:
Phyllis & Del, then. | Del & Phyllis, now.I overheard my coworkers begin their morning chatter and reached for my headphones just as one of them exclaimed, I haven't read a book in ages. The other responded, It's been five years since I read a book!
A moment of brain-recoiling horror. I can't imagine not reading books. All the time. Sometimes several at a time. And real books, fucking snob that I am. Books that have vocabulary and plot. Books that challenge my viewpoint and pull me into another world.
But, I thought (trying to regain my equilibrium) there are things that I haven't done in five years that might horrify someone else. Let me think. Five years since my last manicure? Okay. Maybe something more substantial...five years since I went to a concert?...since I've worn heels and pantyhose? Okay, that isn't really substantial. Five years since I danced? That actually is a tragedy...except I can't dance. Five years since I've bought a car...since I've gone hiking or camping (I'm stifling my applause). Five years since I've ridden a bicycle. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Five years since I've flown a kite or gone skiing or used differential calculus.
Now I'm exhausted. But none of these things seems as critical, or mutually exclusive to giving your brain regular stimulation. Of course, we always see as most important the things we like and are good at...
Aw, bullshit: people, your brains are going to mush and you need to feed them something decent. Not the Weekly World News. Not romance novels. Or not just the Weekly World News and romance novels.
I'd been peeling back the layers of accumulati adorning my desk when I rediscovered my "notes" from the recent funeral I attended. Approaching any ceremony or meeting without a writing implement and paper sends me into a wild-eyed panic. Swaths of exposed skin have been penned upon in emergencies. Praise Zeus funerals provide programs...
One of the peculiarities of religion is the need to speculate about god's motives. You know, god took the baby because she was too good for this world. Gramps died because The Lord decided to ended his suffering. (Presumably The Lord thought 10 years of exponential dementia and 3 years of grueling chemotherapy were just about right.) ANYWAY, at my aunt's funeral there were several references to the Virgin Mother taking her on Mother's Day. As if that was the best way to honor her. At her party. On the other side. I'm so perplexed by all this. I find myself daydreaming that the priest dies and arrives at deathland only to realize, "Shit. I was totally talking outta my ass."
Most religions are power-sucks–even if it is the comfort being sought–because they hammer home the concept that you can't do things without god's help. You can't overcome your weakness, you can't accomplish your goals, you can't face death, you can't get to heaven, etc. ad nauseum without following some prescribed behavior. Without faith. Without obedience. Without baptism and tithing. Which seems counterintuitive, if you buy this divine spiritual goal of attaining perfection. Shouldn't we be taught that we have incredible innate powers? Not reaching inward to tap into these fallow abilities should be a sin. On that note, epiphenita's latest set of commandments:
This public diary thing is, you know, pretty fucking self-centered. I was reminded of this last week when the Writer's Almanac profiled one of my favorite authors, Michael Chabon. I skipped over to his bio in Wikipedia and read this:
In a 2002 essay, Chabon decried the state of modern short fiction (including his own), saying that, with rare exceptions, it consisted solely of "the contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory story." In an apparent reaction against these "plotless [stories] sparkling with epiphanic dew," Chabon's post-2000 work has been marked by an increased interest in genre fiction and plot.Now I'm not a fiction writer. I'm an essayist of blog-common proportions. But I appreciate a periodic reminder that this private/public exercise is often no more than shameless masturbatory musings.
Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, was written as his UC-Irvine master's thesis. Without telling Chabon, his professor...sent it to a literary agent, who got the author an impressive $155,000 advance on the novel (most first-time novelists receive advances ranging from $5,000 to $7,500.) The Mysteries of Pittsburgh appeared in 1988 and became a bestseller, instantly catapulting Chabon to the status of literary celebrity.It just makes me happy to know that someone, whose work I respect, doesn't confuse credibility with popularity.
Chabon was ambivalent about his newfound fame. He turned down offers to appear in a Gap ad and to be featured as one of People's "50 Most Beautiful People." (He later said, of the People offer, "I don't give a shit [about it]....I only take pride in things I've actually done myself. To be praised for something like that is just weird. It just felt like somebody calling and saying, 'We want to put you in a magazine because the weather's so nice where you live.'")
It's been two weeks since my last confession entry and I've got a bit of a backup. I can't [because I care] disgorge all the minutiae of the past couple of weeks but I can't seem to move forward until I unload some of it.
While I was watching my friends' ravenous pet corn snake devour a dead mouse this past weekend–'twas three times the width of its head, I swear–a word kept running through my head. As if on cue my smart, nature-loving friend M spoke the word:
per·i·stal·sis (pr-stôlss, -stl-)What a fabulous adaptation, that unhinging jaw and muscle-rippling that moves such a proportionately gigantic lump from mouth into body, until there's nothing but a tongue-like tail left hanging from its reptilian lips.
n. pl. per·i·stal·ses (-sz)
The wavelike muscular contractions of the alimentary canal or other tubular structures by which contents are forced onward toward the opening.
I think homeland security is in cahoots with the manufacturers of travel size containers.
My aunt died. On Mother's Day of all days. Nature is not a kitten, my friends. My parents and three of the four sisters will meet on Long Island tomorrow. The missing sister represented at my cousin's funeral a few weeks ago, so we are representing for her this week.
Things have not gotten off to an auspicious start. However, the liquor up north tastes exactly like the booze we swill down here in Texas, so I'm sure it will all work out.
Hope our presence, in some way, honors our dear aunt. Hope our family time is incident-free. Anecdote-rich but incident-free...
Isabella Rossellini defines gorgeous and sensual. I have sometimes joked that I would watch a movie of her folding linens (as if she folds her own linens). I wish I would have said: I would watch a movie of her dressed as a drone mounting a cardboard bee. That would have been prophetic.
Watch these shorts Isabella Rossellini created, called Green Porno. She is phenomenal.
(Thanks to L&M for sending me this link. It made my day.)
When people (the real ones and the others knocking about the cluttered anteroom of my brain) talk about success and income and metrics, I often have to pause. I am clearly a part of middle America: becubed and belawned. But what measure do I use for these status-stained ideals? Most of what is batted around as a gauge for success is deeply unsatisfying.
Often these references are about my children. And what they are doing. In terms of the capitalist fast-track, they are not doing. In terms of everything that matters, they are so fucking engaged in life it's breathtaking. I admit to worrying about health insurance and financial stability while I marvel at their consciousness. An excerpt from my son's recent post:
it's been a good week, though long. my feet howl at their abuse and my heart scratches at my ribcage. the summer is almost here, bringing more changes than the season. it's after three in the morning and i just got home from work. the show tonight was simply awesome; the music, the people and the night itself. i scored 106 points on a scrabble word and it made me giddy. all i had to eat today was two cups of tomato basil soup and two stout helpings of whisky. i am erratic and unhinged and i don't feel the need to be otherwise. when this life is done i will consider myself lucky beyond measure.If that's not rich with satisfaction, jesus, I don't know what is.
I had jury duty this afternoon.
It's scary in there
Democracy is basically a good idea and so is civic duty. But the idea of being judged by a jury of my peers is bowels-turning-to-ice-water scary. Almost as frightening as having your fate decided by an appointed judge (read: crony) or elected judge (read: politician). But not quite. Hardly anyone likes jury duty and I'm no exception (and I forgot my damn earplugs) but like a pap smear or colonoscopy, you don't have to like it, just get it done (as professionally as possible).
A few years ago I was chosen to be on a jury trying two of the five people accused of torturing and murdering a mentally retarded man. The ringleader, Suzanne Basso, was eventually given the death penalty by another jury. [Note: I am against the death penalty and if I had been in that jury, I would not have agreed.] However, it was Bernice Ahrens Miller (Suzanne's close friend) and Miller's son, Craig Ahrens who were the defendants being tried by our jury.
Count to three; it's okay to use your fingers
Before I go on, let me return to today's jury duty. It was municipal court, pretty much guaranteed to be a simpler, briefer experience than the previous one. Of the larger group that showed up for jury duty all but two made the first cut into little potential juror pools (I was cut after the second round of tryouts, ptl). The pool to which I was called numbered 14. Six were to be empaneled. The judge (a zaftig amazon with good hair) was mercifully intelligent and non-pontificating unlike her irritating bailiff. She asked each of us to answer three questions. Each one requiring a one word or simple sentence answer. Three questions:
Three questions...and she even gave an example:
- Occupation
- Where you live (what area or neighborhood)
- Have you ever served on a jury
- Astronaut,
- Clear Lake,
- No, i have not served.
Out of the 14 people, five couldn't complete this request without prompting. And that's immediately after being asked and hearing others answer correctly. FIVE out of 14, godsaveusall.
Back to the murder trial
First of all, let's get this out of the way: the trial was about the torture and murder of a mentally retarded man. There were gruesome glossy photos and lengthy lawyerly theatrics. There were few mitigating circumstances to this sideshow of human abasement. It was ugly and sensational. This was almost 10 years ago, in 1999; there were 12 of us. A decent cross-section of our population, slightly skewed towards white lower middle-class, as I recall. The makeup of the jury didn't stay with me as anything more than a fairly typical "peer" sampling.
What I learned about the jury process
Many come into the jury room clutching their damaged inner child or hopped up on god or chomping at the bit with an axe to grind. This was about abuse, so some who had been abused felt compelled to share. This was about depravity and so some jurors felt compelled to use this experience as a way to right society's wrongs. All we could/should do was to make a decision based on the facts presented. Nothing more, nothing less. It was hard enough without all that other shit. The defense and prosecution depended on the antics of lawyers. God, there are so many douchebags practicing law. However, we could only glean the facts from the lawyers' arguments and the witnesses' testimony. The attorneys' logic and debate skills were to persuade us one way or another. They dueled and we held up the score cards. My fellow jurors veered off point so many times. They distorted logic and threw in some politics and religion. They were indignorant. A small number (2 or 3) of us attempted to drag folks back to the subject at hand. There was open hostility and crying. Let me repeat, there was crying. On that note, my fundamental jury duty axiom:
gimcrack \JIM-krak\, noun:Let's use it in a sentence, shall we?:
1. A showy but useless or worthless object; a gewgaw.
2. Tastelessly showy; cheap; gaudy.
[From Tuesday's dictionary.com word of the day.]
In the long list of suspect business names out there, my personal favorite here in Houston is restaurant named Crapittos. It doesn't matter that it's family name, really. It's just not a good choice, especially for an eatery: Crap Eat Toes.
Today I found a flyer in my mailbox for a local handyman. The company name was Arreola's Construction.
I sometimes walk the downtown tunnels to the Park Shops (a mall-like building in the middle of urbania). Generally, I trek there for the Hallmark shop because while the tunnels are rife with little trinket shops, the cards in them categorically suck ass. While Hallmark makes me want to vomit from sweetness, they have some tolerable greeting cards. Anyway, on the third floor of the Park Shops there is a vitamin store. Or some kind of snake-oil peddler of health stuff. Every time I pass this store I want to go in there and steal their sign. I must not be the only one because now it's taped to the inside of the display window:
We have returned from visiting the parental units and adding the first two notches on our 30 stadium tour belt. A bit travel-weary but happy to be home. Trying to kick-start normal routines back to life but so far, not much luck.
Forced myself to go into the kitchen and whip up some dinner. My mother cooked for us every day and well, she managed to raise me without spoiling me so how could she undo all that hard work in one week? Anyhow, I thawed some flounder fillets and scrounged up a couple of lemons for marinade. Did you ever cut a lemon in half, dig out 8 seeds and begin squeezing the juice out only to have another eight seeds try to skydive onto your meal? You catch those and begin to squeeze with abandon, because surely there aren't any more in there, and watch another half dozen fly out. You fish those out only to have a few more slide by. This was the lemon I faced on my reluctant return to the kitchen. The Darwinian Champion of lemons. The Ron Jeremy of Citrus.*
*I realize lemon seeds are more symbolic of ova fecundity than phallic virility. However, the analogy doesn't work very well. We don't tend to look at a female and think, damn, that's a lot of corpus luteum for one woman!
Btw, Happy 420, all you people with the dopey smiles.
The following entries are odds and ends I wrote up offline while on vacation but didn't have the internet zen space to post. They're in no particular order...
I have had several people lately question me about revealing so much publicly on this blog. About work, about family and about, well, everything. The thing is, I don't feel exposed. Perhaps I should be more discreet, but polite chatter is no longer in me. I spent all my caution chits in my youth. Obsessed about what everyone thought. Preoccupied with "avoiding [even] the appearance of evil." The call to speak truth as I see it is stronger than all that for me. Check back with me if I get fired. I'm betting I'll feel the same.
Of course, that frankness does not extend to the people in my life without permission. I don't include names or details that would leave those I care about vulnerable.
I do have a deal with my kids, though. If the story is really good and we don't explicitly forbid its telling, all holds are barred.
This is not about my kids, however. It is about my father. And told with his permission. He is a complex, dynamic, difficult and earnest man. A man who epitomizes the American way. There is so much history to his life that it has hindered my writing about him up until now. Suffice it to say, he is a man who came to this country as a child, did not speak the language, lived in a ghetto, went into the army and served his country, educated himself and raised five children who have transcended subsistence living and ignorance because of his inspirational, bullheaded perseverance.
My father and I love to talk about politics. He started out a conservative man who, in my opinion, was freed from that cling-to-the-past mentality by formal and informal education, keen observation and surviving the horrors of poverty, bigotry and war. He's a retired cop, to boot, and that makes the transition even more noteworthy.
It was our conversation on waterboarding that fueled me past the overwhelming task of introducing him. My father enlisted in the army in his late teens and served this country in Korea. He speaks very little of this time. However, I believe it was the beginning of the end of his blind, flag-waving nationalism. My mother once found a box of his war medals and asked him about them. His only answer was to upend them into the trash.
So Dad says that absolutely, unequivocally: waterboarding is torture. It's not an issue worthy of debate and he says that there is nothing more unAmerican than condoning torture.
Then, he said to me,
E, do you know what else is torture?
What Dad?
Sleep deprivation.
[I quell the snarky: You're preaching to the narcoleptic choir here, Dad.]
He says that the army used sleep deprivation on him and his fellow soldiers in Korea. He said it got to the point where you didn't care who you killed or if you were killed—so maddened were you by the need for sleep. After days and days of sleeplessness and mayhem, you became a zombie watching your buddies and the enemy brutally killed.
When you are finally allowed to put your head down even briefly, he said do you know what happens in your nineteen-year-old head?
You dream of a bed.
My cousin Charlie is dying.* He is the only cousin my age, my father's brother's eldest son. He waited for a liver transplant for a long time and finally got it. But the donor liver never kicked in. Life support was disconnected a few days ago since there was no brain activity after the seizure that followed liver failure. His wife and three children now wait for the inevitable. My parents will wait for the news and fly up to New Jersey when he dies. This would be a painful enough occurrence if it weren't for the fact that...
...My aunt is also dying. My mother's friend since junior high school and the maid of honor at her wedding, she and my uncle have been especially important constants during the upheaval in our family over the years. She has survived the destruction of diabetes for far longer than anyone ever predicted. She always had a wicked sense of humor and a real concern for my sisters and me. I am deeply saddened as she slips away. Her husband and three daughters join my cousin's family in that waiting limbo where all you can do is review the past, stifle hope and wish for the unthinkable: that your loved one will pass painlessly.
*Charlie died one day after this entry.
I was so wrong.
The Marlins beat the Braves 6 to 5. Big home run action to boot. It was a great way to start the big stadium tour. We enjoyed Miami's open-air Dolphin Stadium on a beautiful night. No hot dogs or beer, due to the ridiculously good Cuban meal we enjoyed in Little Havana before the game. [Roast pork, arroz moro, yuca with garlic and sangria. Goodgodalmighty, that was amazing.] Worth the trade off, we’ll hot dog it up tonight at the Rays game.
The first time I heard the fable, The Emperor’s New Clothes I had no idea what a metaphor that little tale would become for me in my life.
No, of course, I am not the lone voice of sanity in an insane world. That would be arrogant.
There must be 12 or 13 of us out here.
We're here in Florida, north of Tampa, in the community where my parents live. It's lovely and calm and has nothing to do with my everyday life. We went to a little Cuban/Puerto Rican coffee shop this morning for breakfast and café con leche. The locals (middle-aged and older hispanic men) sit around bitching, laughing and pontificating loudly. It was noisy and hectic and perfect. The waitress: "Un momento, Mami, I'll be back to take your order." I love that place.
However, I'm afraid I won't be blogging much, because there is always someone talking in the same room and it's not my house so I can't say, Could you people take your chatter elsewhere so I can think? You know, I can't say that. It's rude. I love them, they're my people. But haysoos cristo, I wish they'd give me a moment of quiet to write.
Mom, Barbara, my sister and I will be driving down to Miami Wednesday to see the Marlins beaten by play the Atlanta Braves. It's stadium #1 of 30 in St. Barbara's Major League Baseball Stadium Tour. It's going to be a blast.
Hey, everyone has quieted down! I think I can stretch this out a bit. My mom is so funny. She plans 12 meals in advance. I never thought of her as the quintessential (jewish, italian, irish, etc.) mother urging everyone to "eat, eat!" but she is certainly that. Thank goodness she's a great cook. My parents house doesn't look sterile or cold. It is very inviting and warm. But fucking surgically clean. Seriously, you could do emergency surgery on any horizontal surface. My mother is a cleaning machine. She's so good at it she has time left over for fun. I, on the other hand, am not so gifted.
The other thing I notice, again, is that my parents are even more cold-natured than I am. Their home thermostat is set to womb.
More later...
St. Barbara's halo is blinding in its brilliance. She thought I'd have to file an extension and figuring out the estimated payment was giving us both brain cramps (mine were more sympathy brain cramps as she was the one actually doing the ciphering). For a person with as small a "this is what's left after paying bills" buffer as I have each month, my taxes are way complicated. What with our vast land holdings and staggering investments...
Anyway, Barbara managed to trudge through pages and pages of the tax labyrinth and get them done. E-filed this very morning. Before vacation. With me paying $1,000 less than I did last year. Holy shit, give that woman a prize. She is going to get some serious stadium tchotchkes as we begin our national (+ Toronto) tour of Major League Baseball Stadiums.
Can I get a woohoooo?
Isn't it depressing to go to the zoo and see the animals in sterile, empty, box-like structures? Getting their environments as close their natural habitat seems the least we can do if we're going to keep them in captivity.
That's my new theory about having friends over: see me in my natural habitat rather than an artificially tidy space. A little bit of chaos is how I roll. Wouldn't it be better to see your friend [me] happily peering around a stack of boards or pile of twine, rather than gleaming pristine surfaces?
Okay, shit. I really like the pristine surfaces, too, but keeping them that way means I spend a great deal of creative energy on cleaning and not enough on...creating. Let's get back to the habitat analogy, okay?
So, this is just fair warning to my friends and family. We want you to come visit more often but I'm leaving some clutter. Perhaps a little dust. Oh, relax, the kitchen and bathroom will be clean but you may notice a lovely little sawzall case against the wall or a sewing machine on the dining room table...
Unlike the zoo, however, you can feed the animals at my house. And bring them alcoholic beverages.
I'm probably going to regret this but here goes. I'm a fan of Violent Acres as you can see by the link thing over to your left somewhere. I love her bluntness and how she tells her life story without self-pity or sentimentality. From time to time, however, she posts something so fucktarded I can hardly contain myself. But I do. Because like her or not, bitch will be vicious. I'm not usually all that inclined to poke the hornets' nest.
That said, this post was simply too ridiculous to ignore. I will do the point-by-point thing and if you have no interest, you can stop right here. V's blog entry is italicized, my commentary is bolded.The problem with Atheists is most of them are snobs.
So believe whatever you want and so will I. But if you shit on my lack of belief, at least be better informed and talk to some thinking atheists.
Atheists think they’re being clever with their spaghetti monster analogies and fairy tale rhetoric, but at the end of the day, they come off sound like condescending pricks.
From the Queen of the Condescending Pricks? What a compliment. And that Flying Spaghetti Monster analogy is a bit esoteric, I suppose, I mean making a metaphor about fanatical belief. Shit. Satire is for suckers.
Furthermore, any group of people claiming superior intelligence that willingly engages in the fight of a losing battle automatically loses credibility. However, Atheists are too dumb to realize they’re fighting a losing battle, so they persist with the lecturing and the withering stares. Atheists have singled handedly ruined coffee shops with this crap.
Now this one is going to bring out my snobbery because it is as logical as saying "if you're the only one who believes the way you do, just shut up, loser! You're too dumb to understand that the majority is never going to respect freedom from religion. You're losing the battle to the faithful, stupid atheist, so stop talking about your non-belief right now and get out of my coffee shop."
I, myself, have not been able to claim belief in a higher power for many, many years. However, I can still see the value in Religion. Perhaps growing up without a strong parental figure in my life made me recognize the possible value of a loving Father figure up in the sky watching out for me. And hey, I try my best not forget that sometimes we all need something to believe in.
Well, aren't you the poster child for Mommy was a hateful bitch and all I want is a benevolent male role model [like God!] in my life? So, you don't believe but you're content to have that picket crammed up your ass while you perch on the fence. Hedge your bets. That's a respectable position.
Most Atheists have the tendency to thumb their noses at Jesus, and then log onto World of Warcraft so they can pretend to be an orc for a couple of hours. They sneer at the Bible, but have no problem playing endless hours of vampire role playing games. The message is clear. Fantasies are OK as long as they include gratuitous violence and some sort of porn.
This one is my favorite. Most atheists play WOW, love violence and soft porn? I had no fucking idea. Really? Most of the atheists I've met were, well, blow me, they were seriously philosophical about belief, not hateful. And most came to atheism after years of religious searching.
With what kind of characters are you having atheism discussions? I mean the ones you describe might be creepy if they talked about Sunday School...wait, I know some of those! Let me judge all of Christianity on a few oddballs immersed in WOW, drooling over the gargantuan tits spilling out of cartoon bustiers and getting hard on virtual violence.
According to you, it's clear atheists think that "fantasies are OK as long as they include gratuitous violence and some sort of porn." So accepting Christianity as a fantasy is okay? Self-delusion is fine–just don't shoot any fake people or ogle them cybertits.
Note: any atheist who hates video games and violence [I'm not dissing soft porn here] can forget this particular point but remember, you're still a goddamn snob.
It’s no wonder Religious folks don’t take them too seriously. Even the Quiet Intellectual Atheist comes across as if he’s only denying belief to be aversive. It’s hard not to pity the guy addicted to nonconformity like an addict to a needle.
I know lots of religious folks who are freaked out by atheists. And to claim that people who don't believe are denying belief just to be "aversive" sounds seriously like, "Oh, come on now, honey, you are shouting NO but you really want it, don't you?"
[By the way, I don't think you mean "denying belief to be 'aversive'" as aversive is usually used as an adjective and the noun definition seems a little murky here. Maybe you mean contrary or antagonistic. Damn, there I go being all snobby and shit.]
Oh, the irony. Being "addicted to nonconformity" is something you seem especially good at.
Stop being so simple-minded, V. You are actually too smart for logic this holy...oh, I kill myself. I know, just go to Christian coffee shops! That way you won't have to deal with the phony, snobby, withering non-believers.
My parents had four daughters. Not to slight my brother, whose story is here, but this is just about The Sisters. Somewhere along the way (our parents and) we started referring to ourselves in this strangely conventish manner and it stuck. I like the idea that we're some odd but not-very-pious faux-religious order. An order in which all first names begin with the letter E.
I am the second daughter, flanked by an 18-month or so distance on either side by #1 and #3. Another odd factor: our parents often refer to us by birth order number. (I have since rejected my place in this appellation as too fecal, even for this potty-mouth. I prefer to be called e-squared.) Anyway, in keeping with the previous theme, I call #4: Sister E of the Bungled Contraception. She was the six-years-later bonus baby. The result of irregular cycles, assumptions and mom being too cheap to go get a blood test. My mother thought she was pregnant, stopped using birth control and got pregnant. I fucking LOVE this story. (My mother is absolutely the wellspring from which my humor originates, and while I don't think she would find this entry as entertaining as I do, she still appreciates the funny. I also don't think she reads this blag-o-mine because I say fuck and asshole too much and she hates those words. I delight in those words because I'm such a fucking asshole.) I especially love that this funny misstep affixed the fourth wheel to our e-is-for-estrogen caravan. A real bonus baby if I've ever met one.
Anyway, I have, in all modesty, three of the most badass sisters ever assembled. If there was an athletic bone in my body, I'd say we were a ready-made team that would be hard to beat. All of my sisters are smart. Educated. Funny as hell. Great mothers. Professionals. Compassionate and generous. And can't bear it when any one of the other sisters is in pain. We live very far away from each other, a thousand miles or more separate me from each of them, and I'd like to say that the distance isn't what keeps us close but I don't know. I hope that proximity would not erode the affection we share.
We've all been through our respective periods of hell. On the list of the saddest moments of my life was watching my just-younger sister lose her children in a custody battle. We are very close and the anguish she felt was physically painful to me. (She got them back and has proven what we knew all along, that she is an exceptional mother who was married to a spineless piece of shit. Sorry, my niece and nephew, I have no love for anyone who hurts my sister.)
My oldest sister has been away. And she's come back and the best, best thing of all is to hear her laugh again. Really laugh.
There have been sick children, ugly divorces, custody battles, financial crises and finding out their self-righteous, once-religious sister (moi) was queer. There have been accidents and domestic violence and court martials and unplanned pregnancies. And still, when the shit hits the fan, my sisters rush to each other with shit-repelling umbrellas. And Lysol, for the smell.
I have three incredible sisters. My parents should positively burst with pride.
P.S. I may have forgotten to mention that we're a damned attractive quartet of siblings, too.
Join me on a (self-indulgent?) mini-trip of philosophical pining and discontent. Or don't, you won't hurt my feelings because I won't know one way or the other.
Some of this discontent may be influenced by my daughter's presence. She is a bright, moody, seeking, affectionate, bristly, wonderful human being. My conflict with her nature is, in significant part, a conflict with myself. She is a reminder of the dynamic tension with which I live. With which many people live, I assume.
It is easier for me to simply characterize periods of existential angst as normal and cyclical. And they are. But they can also be catalysts. And even at the ripe old age of 49, I can use the cyclical unrest to question and reevaluate my life and where I'm at. But, then what?
The problem, lately, is an old one. I don't want to feed my feeling of isolation, which is an unproductive trap, but there are times in the world of advertising/marketing that I feel alone in my loathing for all industry. Education, non-profits, corporations–it does not matter one whit in which field I've worked. There is a need, so my culture tells me, to sell shit to support ventures. And that which works, in all this scrambling for funding, advertising dollars, underwriting, etc., seems to target the most ignoble of human qualities. Vanity. Greed. Falseness. Insecurity. Guilt. Some ads aim at the higher qualities of human nature and, then, use those aspirations to sell you a car. A sandwich. Some insurance. I find it, so often, powerfully narrow and depressing. And isolating.
Advertising or marketing are the arenas in which a web animation designer is most readily employed. So here I am. Two mortgages and dreams. Don't get me wrong, I love, love, love my little conjoined plots of land and travel plans and my home. God, how I love my cracked, desperately-in-need-of-updating little home. I dream of a huge studio space, traveling to see family and foreign lands. Taking the woman I love to every major league baseball stadium just to see her smile. Donating money to organizations struggling to deal with catastrophic disaster and social fallout.
I hesitate to open this issue because I have a great dislike of talking about things and not doing anything about them. Don't tell me what you're going to do, do it. Don't over apologize for something, figure out how not to do it again. Don't spread your discontent like a rash all over your friends and readers, feel exorcised and go on to the next post all pithy and snarky. Not to mention that I'd rather not bore my friends. But this diary/journal thing is sometimes about less entertaining, unsettling issues. And it's, of course, my damn blag, so I get to expound. You get to close the browser window.
Spent this Saturday morning (after a clusterfucked work week) watching TED.com videos of Stephen Hawkings, Jill Bolte Taylor, Steven Pinker and Karen Armstrong. I hate, hate to weep. I do. I don't want pity or vulnerability. Or to expose my grief in any way that elicits a comfort me response. Besides crying makes me puffy and gives me a fucking headache. But here I was. Weeping for deeper meaning in my daily life. Jesus that sounds trite. I am no idealist. [I don't expect everyday to contain some kind of Bill Moyers epiphany...though I could probably talk with him everyday and get closer.] I just want my integrity to come home with me at the end of the day.
Work is about survival. It is about finding the middle ground between being a nomad, devoting the lion's share of your day in quest for food/shelter and the unrealistic goal of doing whatever you want and getting paid handsomely for it. Work is about satisfaction. Work is about other people and how your interactions enrich or detract or slide neutrally by in a place where you spend so much of your time. Work is about obtaining the means to do so many other things you love outside of the job. Ways to help those you love and do some good.
Right at this moment, work feels like an insignificant piece of a large, shallow, dangerous, phony machine. A philosophically bankrupt, omnivorous organism. And I am one cog of a million helping to propel and enrich a venture for which I have little respect.
Shit. I will feel better by Monday morning but I don't know how.
Hard week. My brain feels beaten up. Well, not just my brain but everything connected to it. So, I decided to watch some people talk about how the mind works. Philosophers, engineers, linguists, neuroscientists, etc. And my brain feels better. Solipsistic little pile of gray laundry.
In the middle of a conversation with my daughter the other day she looked at me and basically said, you're writing a blog about this in your head right now, aren't you?
Goddammit.
P.S. For those of you who give a shit, I've upgraded my template. On my computer "normal" font size used to look ginormal, so I used to use a smaller font because I'm a designer, blah, blah, blah and I didn't like the way it looked. After upgrading, however, it looked like the bottom line of the hardest optical chart ever created. I've also taken a mensa class and figured out how to add the blogs I read and some other impressively mundane bits. SO. Sorry for the unreadable and/or huge font size swing.
