Terri Schiavo Died This Morning
What else is there to say? It's over, and you feel relief for the media circus has ended. That Jesse Jackson can go home.
But in the end, there is this poor family. Let's see them at their best. Parents who never lost hope. A husband struggling to honor his wife and live his life. A young woman struck down, never to return.
You always hold out hope. You always want to fight for another day of life. But when the river is rushing you toward the waterfall, at some point, when the body can no longer struggle against the current, you must confront the new reality that lies yet unseen, over the edge, and embrace it, imbue it with all of the new hope and new possibilities of an undiscovered country...and dive.
If you like to believe that the soul lives on when the body fails, let her revel in the wonder...
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Synchronicity
Today I had a frozen lunch. It was bland and depressing. There was a review of frozen meals published in Slate today...the very same day I ate a frozen meal!
(apparently, most frozen meals are bland and depressing).
I also thought about exercising this morning. I really should exercise again...and restart my morning journal. And, there was an article in my morning paper about how exercising eases depression. I'm depressed. And I thought about exercising this very same day!
Yes, my friends, there are days when all the stars line up. When coincidence becomes incidence and when you must take heed of the signs all around you. How a radio snippet about Iraq connects to the holes in my sock and to the girl in the pretty frock who's always listening to Bach and when she takes her boat away from the dock and across the water and into the rocks where...crash...and I realize that it's not funny to mock ... synchronicity.
There are signs and omens everywhere.
It's really spooky, you know.
(apparently, most frozen meals are bland and depressing).
I also thought about exercising this morning. I really should exercise again...and restart my morning journal. And, there was an article in my morning paper about how exercising eases depression. I'm depressed. And I thought about exercising this very same day!
Yes, my friends, there are days when all the stars line up. When coincidence becomes incidence and when you must take heed of the signs all around you. How a radio snippet about Iraq connects to the holes in my sock and to the girl in the pretty frock who's always listening to Bach and when she takes her boat away from the dock and across the water and into the rocks where...crash...and I realize that it's not funny to mock ... synchronicity.
There are signs and omens everywhere.
It's really spooky, you know.
Friday, March 25, 2005
"Strange Things are A-Foot at the Circle K"
A Short Tale of A Man, A Dinosaur and His Foot
Today I took a walk around downtown with a dinosaur attached to my foot. It was, you may have already guessed, one of those really small dinosaurs. The ones they never talk about.
Anyway, he bit my shoe. It hurt a lot, like a small animal was sinking razor sharp teeth into my foot. Exactly like that, actually. I howled. I kicked. The really small dinosaur wouldn't let go at first, so I went to the drugstore, all calm-like, and purchased a bottle of Vaseline. I rubbed it all over the dinosaur's mouth and head. I heard a little avian-reptillian coo, which I think meant he liked it. Glad your so HAPPY! I thought. Then I gave another kick and slammed him against the cornerstone of a skyscraper. The Dino fell to the ground, and so did I, and then I swiped at him with my foot one more time, just because I could, because I'm big and he was small and dammit isn't that the way it's supposed to be in the world, when natural selection takes over and big people with hands and feet and the ability to purchase Vaseline encounter smaller, weaker species?
The feisty little beast came to quickly and scampered off... I threw a rock at it. It stopped, turned around and I could swear that evil lizard mouth curved into a smile. Because in its little, not-quite-atrophied hand was my shoe. And in my shoe was a single, bloody foot in a black argyle dress sock.
Ouch! I said, and hobbled back to work, rethinking my feelings on natural selection.
-------------------------------------------------
where did that come from?
Today I took a walk around downtown with a dinosaur attached to my foot. It was, you may have already guessed, one of those really small dinosaurs. The ones they never talk about.
Anyway, he bit my shoe. It hurt a lot, like a small animal was sinking razor sharp teeth into my foot. Exactly like that, actually. I howled. I kicked. The really small dinosaur wouldn't let go at first, so I went to the drugstore, all calm-like, and purchased a bottle of Vaseline. I rubbed it all over the dinosaur's mouth and head. I heard a little avian-reptillian coo, which I think meant he liked it. Glad your so HAPPY! I thought. Then I gave another kick and slammed him against the cornerstone of a skyscraper. The Dino fell to the ground, and so did I, and then I swiped at him with my foot one more time, just because I could, because I'm big and he was small and dammit isn't that the way it's supposed to be in the world, when natural selection takes over and big people with hands and feet and the ability to purchase Vaseline encounter smaller, weaker species?
The feisty little beast came to quickly and scampered off... I threw a rock at it. It stopped, turned around and I could swear that evil lizard mouth curved into a smile. Because in its little, not-quite-atrophied hand was my shoe. And in my shoe was a single, bloody foot in a black argyle dress sock.
Ouch! I said, and hobbled back to work, rethinking my feelings on natural selection.
-------------------------------------------------
where did that come from?
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Stuart Smalley Saves ... Me
I'm reading The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron, a how-to guide for unlocking your creative soul, or some such nonsense.
Oh, right. I'm not supposed to engage in such negative "blurtings."
On this continuing journey to find my muse that will enable me to produce creative works that nourish my soul and bring in piles of cash so I can quit my job, I have discovered that what I like to call "considering every last barrier to success to fully understand the problem" is actually "finding endless reasons not to start or finish everything so I can sit on my ass and surf the Internet all day."
The Artists Way recommends starting each day writing three pages in a journal (to save time on this, my first day, I have chosen a half-size steno pad). Cameron recommends beginning with affirmations that really boil down to Stuart Smalley's famous "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggonit, people like me!"
Okay, I'm blurting again.
Irony is overrated, and as Al Gore once said, "a cynic is just a disappointed idealist in disguise, a dreamer yearning to dream again." (I actually remembered that one).
And, as I'm about to say: every journey begins. Or it's not really a journey, is it?
There. I said it.
Oh, right. I'm not supposed to engage in such negative "blurtings."
On this continuing journey to find my muse that will enable me to produce creative works that nourish my soul and bring in piles of cash so I can quit my job, I have discovered that what I like to call "considering every last barrier to success to fully understand the problem" is actually "finding endless reasons not to start or finish everything so I can sit on my ass and surf the Internet all day."
The Artists Way recommends starting each day writing three pages in a journal (to save time on this, my first day, I have chosen a half-size steno pad). Cameron recommends beginning with affirmations that really boil down to Stuart Smalley's famous "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggonit, people like me!"
Okay, I'm blurting again.
Irony is overrated, and as Al Gore once said, "a cynic is just a disappointed idealist in disguise, a dreamer yearning to dream again." (I actually remembered that one).
And, as I'm about to say: every journey begins. Or it's not really a journey, is it?
There. I said it.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
The Rules
My wife has some specific rules about our household. After seven years of marriage, I've finally figured them out.
When your husband is at home:
1) Never enter the garage. The garage is a cold, dark and scary place at night. Not to be entered lightly by the fairer sex, it is best to send your man, shoeless, to the minivan for the forgotten cell phone phone, PDA, kids' art projects, soiled toddler underwear and the like.
2) Never lift a laundry basket. The laundry basket, while of reasonable weight during the day, increases in weight tenfold in the evenings, requiring the better-developed musculaculture of an American male transport it from bedroom to washer.
3) Never fill an ice tray. Filling an ice tray, requiring addition of water to a small plastic receptical with multiple trapezoids that allow ice blocks to form, is an unendurable duty, yet vital to the maintenance of the household. Best to let your husband do it.
4) Never go up or down stairs. While in daylight, stairclimbing is, again, a routine task. In the evenings, gravity exacts a heavier toll. When sweatshirts are required from the closet, toys from the basement or frozen meats from the freezer, it takes a man to traverse the mighty pathways of our house....both up...and down.
6) Change a diaper, say, if you can avoid it. Well, who would, really?
When your husband is at home:
1) Never enter the garage. The garage is a cold, dark and scary place at night. Not to be entered lightly by the fairer sex, it is best to send your man, shoeless, to the minivan for the forgotten cell phone phone, PDA, kids' art projects, soiled toddler underwear and the like.
2) Never lift a laundry basket. The laundry basket, while of reasonable weight during the day, increases in weight tenfold in the evenings, requiring the better-developed musculaculture of an American male transport it from bedroom to washer.
3) Never fill an ice tray. Filling an ice tray, requiring addition of water to a small plastic receptical with multiple trapezoids that allow ice blocks to form, is an unendurable duty, yet vital to the maintenance of the household. Best to let your husband do it.
4) Never go up or down stairs. While in daylight, stairclimbing is, again, a routine task. In the evenings, gravity exacts a heavier toll. When sweatshirts are required from the closet, toys from the basement or frozen meats from the freezer, it takes a man to traverse the mighty pathways of our house....both up...and down.
6) Change a diaper, say, if you can avoid it. Well, who would, really?
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Breaking News
Milk no longer grows strong bones... say the vegetarians...
Aspirin no longer eases headaches...say the herbalists...
Clubs ineffective as fighting tools...say the baby seals...
Marijuana really good for you...says Dominos...
Dog food really really bad for dogs...say the horses...
Soylent Green really really bad for people...say people...
Aspirin no longer eases headaches...say the herbalists...
Clubs ineffective as fighting tools...say the baby seals...
Marijuana really good for you...says Dominos...
Dog food really really bad for dogs...say the horses...
Soylent Green really really bad for people...say people...
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Humor Hiatus
Since I begin many days by reading myself into an alchohol-like stupor, I tend to get obsessed certain favorites. My flavors of choice have certain similarities:
* Daily updates
* Rich feature catalogs
* Humor, typically of the literate-and-clever-yet-juvenile category.
I tend to stick with my favorites ... if a satisfying buzz can be obtained, why not go back again and again? But when their owners stop updating, it can be a very unsettling experience for me.
Witness LostBrain. This humor site, while sloppily edited and unevenly written, has had its moments over the years, and, most importantly, delivered the potential for laugh-out-loud comedy on an almost daily basis. Then, after writing a send up of Martha Stewart's website for fans written as she faced her prison sentence, and, in April 2004, a lame call to hack into Gmail, the site went dark. No updates, no explanation. No comments comments on the web about the site. No bylines by the writers in other publications.
And yet, I keep going back, maybe once a week, just to see if they have added a story, or a letter to poor, pathetic readers like me who wondered where they've been. And I dropped in again yesterday, and, good lord, there's an update. An extremely lame story about Barry Bonds and steroids, and a couple vague references in the headline links that the stories are all a year old or so. I feel vindicated for my loyalty, and betrayed by the editors' utter indifference to my plight.
And don't even get me started on Modern Humorist.
* Daily updates
* Rich feature catalogs
* Humor, typically of the literate-and-clever-yet-juvenile category.
I tend to stick with my favorites ... if a satisfying buzz can be obtained, why not go back again and again? But when their owners stop updating, it can be a very unsettling experience for me.
Witness LostBrain. This humor site, while sloppily edited and unevenly written, has had its moments over the years, and, most importantly, delivered the potential for laugh-out-loud comedy on an almost daily basis. Then, after writing a send up of Martha Stewart's website for fans written as she faced her prison sentence, and, in April 2004, a lame call to hack into Gmail, the site went dark. No updates, no explanation. No comments comments on the web about the site. No bylines by the writers in other publications.
And yet, I keep going back, maybe once a week, just to see if they have added a story, or a letter to poor, pathetic readers like me who wondered where they've been. And I dropped in again yesterday, and, good lord, there's an update. An extremely lame story about Barry Bonds and steroids, and a couple vague references in the headline links that the stories are all a year old or so. I feel vindicated for my loyalty, and betrayed by the editors' utter indifference to my plight.
And don't even get me started on Modern Humorist.
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