(The below post was written 12/16/08)
Ok, it's been over a month since I posted anything.
I was going to write about the guys I met standing in line to vote on election day, one of whom remembered me and later sent me free symphony tickets. Or I could write about how my friendships seem to be coming under attack lately, one by one, like some force in the Universe is making me take a closer look at them, putting them on like last year's school clothes asking, "do these still fit?" Darned right they fit! I'm not throwing anyone away. I could write about how I've been told by my boss that his boss does not promote so even though I've replaced a guy with a higher title than mine and who made more money than me, and even though I'm doing an admittedly better job than him, for now I get no raise and no title - maybe in a few years after the guy retires. Or I could write about the recent trauma I experienced when, frustrated with my fluctuating pants sizes, I went to an alternative dcotor recommended to me by a friend and was sent home to collect my own stool samples. Eww. And NO.
I'm not going to write about any of that. It's almost New Years. Time to do some housekeeping and wipe the slate clean. Time to set some new goals. I have always loved making New Year's resolutions. I am one of the few people who actually keeps them, or rather I was until I became more open.
I started this blog in 2004, a year after my sister's death. She had lived her life wide open and exposed for everyone to see. We were exact opposites. She had taken all the sunlight, all the air. I was happy to be the shade, the cloudy, rainy restful day. She was all poetry and I was all prose. It was not until she was gone that I started to realize why I had needed her. It's because some ideas, like plants, need exposure to air and sunlight, and to the thoughts of others in order to grow. If I was going to finish growing up I was going to have to do for myself what she had been doing for both of us - open myself up and expose myself to others. This blog was my attempt. It's been successful. After years of practice I now make friends with ease, real friendships not just superficial ones. When perfect strangers tell me they're going to call back or email me, they actually do. When they say they're going to send me symphony tickets, a few weeks later not one pair but two arive in the mail. (I still owe my new friend a "thank you" card.)
Now comes the second part of this lesson: keeping some things to myself. As I've let the world in I've experienced what I've always suspected (and I mean always - since infancy, it seems): a loss of resolve. Something about people knowing what we want, seeing us struggle in front of everyone, erodes our ability to do it. Is it that their disbelief and doubt act as an anti-creative force? How often are other people's beliefs an even greater influence than our desire for ourselves? If enough people believe something about us then whatever it is they are believing is as good as done.
Nevermind "The Secret". That's not what this is about. I don't know anything about that lady's book. I own it, but I can not bring myself to read it. I am just talking about relationships with other people and how they affect us. We need people. And I've learned to let myself do that. But we also need to keep a part of ourselves away from everyone - like seeds that need to be kept in dark, moist soil before the little shoots peek through the ground and expose themselves to sunlight. But what parts? When? And for how long?
I recently finished reading "The Shack" which was recommended to me by my friend, the mom of the Texas Trio. I started out thinking it was too simplistic, too juvenile. But out of respect for her I pressed on and by the time I was halfway through it I was hooked. The book is about relationships - God's relationship with us and our relationship with others. Turns out, according to this author that's all God really wants. When I lived in Chattanooga, Tennessee my Sunday school teacher said that the second of the two Greatest Commandments, "Love your neighbor as yourself" was about what he called "the Law of Hospitality". Take care of other people. Be in relationships with other people. Love one another. Making others feel truly welcome. It's all the same thing. There is no higher power.
It seems that all of my life, long before I moved to Chattanooga, long before reading "The Shack", back when I was still a small child, all I wanted was to achieve enough success to take care of my family and to welcome others into my home. Last year I was finally there. Seems to me there's nothing left to want.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Cool World
(The below post was written 12/29/09)
Mick's Music & Bar, one of my favorite spots in the whole world, is closing. Well, not closing, but being sold and changing to a different bar with no music - so the place as I know it will no longer exist.
There's nothing in the world better than sitting at the bar with the glow of the candlelight bouncing warmly off the red walls, my fingers wrapped caressingly around the stem of a glass, sipping my favorite wine of the moment and listening to some undiscovered indie/folk/pop/easy listening/classical genius. This is the way God intended us to listen to music.
No one looks at me as if to say "why is she here alone?" If they do I just give them a look that says "I'm not alone, you're here too". The next thing you know we're sitting together. Those are the kind of people who come to Mick's. It's the kind of experience you tried to have in college (or maybe paid for in therapy) only this time (a) you actually know what you're talking about (b) you're drinking something that actually tastes good and (c) the music is infinitely better. If it's Wednesday night, my favorite, Korey Anderson's smooth, silky, (why in the heck is he not famous? I don't know but lucky me) voice croons in the background and try as I might I can't keep my body from swaying and my voice from ever so quietly joining in.
Add to all of this a cast of characters who, like nuts, cherries, bananas, chocolate chips, and various colored sprinkles on a wierd banana split come in a variety of personalities, professions (or lack thereof), shapes, sizes and colors. Without realizing it you awake to find that you have entered into a live animated Omaha version of the "Cool-World" cartoon.
2009 - The Mother Code
(The post below was originally written 1/4/09)
I've spent the beginning of 2009 cleaning up the leftover mess from the end of 2008. I decided not to take before and after pictures, but just picture what four months of non-stop travel, packing and unpacking suitcases without putting anything away looks like. Add to that various party oufits, work clothes, my Halloween costume and Jane Austen outfit including the huge layered slip all strewn about my bedroom and spilling over into my living/dining room and well, you get the picture. It was quite a mess. Despite appearances I love order and I live to create organization out of chaos. I've finally gotten it all picked up, washed, organized, and put away.
I have way too many clothes but I know if I throw some things out I'll only end up buying a new version of the same old thing. Like my burgundy ribbed turtle neck - some days it's too tight but some days it's not. I haven't worn it this year but I know eventually I'll need it again. Then there are things I hang on to for sentimental reasons. I don't wear them, but I just can't bring myself to get rid of them, like some of the stuff my mother gave me during Thanksgiving. Ok, let's face it.....like my mother herself.
She and I had had a wonderful Thanksgiving cooking dinner together with her giving me advice on how to make various traditional family recipes, the two of us working in harmony in her cramped little kitchen. The next morning when I awoke she had made a big breakfast. I spent all morning in the bathroom, ate a little of the breakfast, and then dashed off to meet a friend I hadn't seen since high school. It was our best Thanksgiving ever, even she said so.
Hoping for a repeat I cheerfully went back for Christmas but this time things had changed. "Those are the same sheets you slept on" she said as I headed off to bed, "but if you want to change them you can". I froze. (If they're the same, why would I need to change them?)
"You can get the other sheets out of the closet if you want." I started to move towards the closet. "They're clean." (No they're not) I stopped again. If they were clean she would have already put them on the bed. There were no clean sheets. Leveling my gaze at her, I gave her a chance to come clean. (pun intended) "Do I need to change the sheets?", I asked, involuntarily raising my eyebrows. "No" she'd replied with a smirk. It won't make any difference.
Having already dropped breadcrumbs of truth for me to follow, her job was done. I spent a sleepless night itching, tossing and turning. I am allergic to the dander and dead skin cells of other people, dogs, cats, you name it. No matter what anyone says, my sensitive skin always knows the truth.
"I didn't make breakfast" she said the next morning. "If you want anything to eat you can go in the kitchen and cook it yourself. And whatever you want for dinner you're going to have to go to the store and buy it and cook it. I didn't know what you wanted." Translation: This is not going to be the same kind of visit you had over Thanksgiving. Don't expect me to lift a finger. Purposely letting me sleep on dirty sheets and then making me scrounge for breakfast and buy and cook my own meals? Not my idea of a Merry Christmas, plus if I was going to have any patience with her new attitude I would need a better night's rest than the one I'd just had. So I decided to check into a hotel. This made her furious. Apparently for her the only thing worse than having to make me comfortable was knowing I was even more comfortable in a hotel.
The grand finale was the day after Christmas. I went over to make dinner and she was wearing a watch, my watch, one that my uncle had given me for Christmas the day before. When I asked about it she insisted it was hers. But I'd been given other jewelry too and none of it was around.
"Where's my jewelry" I asked.
"I don't know" she said, "this watch is mine, all the jewelry is mine. If you want this watch so bad I'll take it off and give it to you, but he gave it to me."
There was a gleam in her eye that I hadn't seen in a long time, one that I remembered from childhood. It's a flash they make when she's lying.
Her unspoken message hung in the air: You can afford to buy your own jewelry, I'm keeping this.
It was surreal. Here I was standing in a condo I pay for her to live in, cooking her dinner. It was as if the guardian angel was finally meeting the serpent. I could not believe anyone could be so greedy, so ungrateul, so selfish, and so blatant. And then it dawned on me that this was the woman everyone else had been warning me about for years. I was finally "seeing her". The next morning I told her I wanted my watch back and all the rest of my jewelry, pointing out that my nephew had made a video of me receiving it and opening the box. Suddenly she remembered. "Oh yeah, that's right it is yours!!" she said. "I must have been mistaken". I don't think it was the video that scared her as much as the idea of her only grandson finding out. God bless my Grandma for not letting me be raised by that woman!
So which one is she? The woman I saw at Thanksgiving or the one I saw at Christmas? Actually she's the same person. Just before I left after Thanksgiving she'd asked for something she values more than me - and I gave her only what I could spare, and just like a sweater washed in hot water, things had changed. Some days she fits and other days she doesn't but I'm not throwing her out. I am an adult but there are still days when I need a mom - my mom. Not to worry though, I'll keep her where she is and wear her only when she fits.
I've spent the beginning of 2009 cleaning up the leftover mess from the end of 2008. I decided not to take before and after pictures, but just picture what four months of non-stop travel, packing and unpacking suitcases without putting anything away looks like. Add to that various party oufits, work clothes, my Halloween costume and Jane Austen outfit including the huge layered slip all strewn about my bedroom and spilling over into my living/dining room and well, you get the picture. It was quite a mess. Despite appearances I love order and I live to create organization out of chaos. I've finally gotten it all picked up, washed, organized, and put away.
I have way too many clothes but I know if I throw some things out I'll only end up buying a new version of the same old thing. Like my burgundy ribbed turtle neck - some days it's too tight but some days it's not. I haven't worn it this year but I know eventually I'll need it again. Then there are things I hang on to for sentimental reasons. I don't wear them, but I just can't bring myself to get rid of them, like some of the stuff my mother gave me during Thanksgiving. Ok, let's face it.....like my mother herself.
She and I had had a wonderful Thanksgiving cooking dinner together with her giving me advice on how to make various traditional family recipes, the two of us working in harmony in her cramped little kitchen. The next morning when I awoke she had made a big breakfast. I spent all morning in the bathroom, ate a little of the breakfast, and then dashed off to meet a friend I hadn't seen since high school. It was our best Thanksgiving ever, even she said so.
Hoping for a repeat I cheerfully went back for Christmas but this time things had changed. "Those are the same sheets you slept on" she said as I headed off to bed, "but if you want to change them you can". I froze. (If they're the same, why would I need to change them?)
"You can get the other sheets out of the closet if you want." I started to move towards the closet. "They're clean." (No they're not) I stopped again. If they were clean she would have already put them on the bed. There were no clean sheets. Leveling my gaze at her, I gave her a chance to come clean. (pun intended) "Do I need to change the sheets?", I asked, involuntarily raising my eyebrows. "No" she'd replied with a smirk. It won't make any difference.
Having already dropped breadcrumbs of truth for me to follow, her job was done. I spent a sleepless night itching, tossing and turning. I am allergic to the dander and dead skin cells of other people, dogs, cats, you name it. No matter what anyone says, my sensitive skin always knows the truth.
"I didn't make breakfast" she said the next morning. "If you want anything to eat you can go in the kitchen and cook it yourself. And whatever you want for dinner you're going to have to go to the store and buy it and cook it. I didn't know what you wanted." Translation: This is not going to be the same kind of visit you had over Thanksgiving. Don't expect me to lift a finger. Purposely letting me sleep on dirty sheets and then making me scrounge for breakfast and buy and cook my own meals? Not my idea of a Merry Christmas, plus if I was going to have any patience with her new attitude I would need a better night's rest than the one I'd just had. So I decided to check into a hotel. This made her furious. Apparently for her the only thing worse than having to make me comfortable was knowing I was even more comfortable in a hotel.
The grand finale was the day after Christmas. I went over to make dinner and she was wearing a watch, my watch, one that my uncle had given me for Christmas the day before. When I asked about it she insisted it was hers. But I'd been given other jewelry too and none of it was around.
"Where's my jewelry" I asked.
"I don't know" she said, "this watch is mine, all the jewelry is mine. If you want this watch so bad I'll take it off and give it to you, but he gave it to me."
There was a gleam in her eye that I hadn't seen in a long time, one that I remembered from childhood. It's a flash they make when she's lying.
Her unspoken message hung in the air: You can afford to buy your own jewelry, I'm keeping this.
It was surreal. Here I was standing in a condo I pay for her to live in, cooking her dinner. It was as if the guardian angel was finally meeting the serpent. I could not believe anyone could be so greedy, so ungrateul, so selfish, and so blatant. And then it dawned on me that this was the woman everyone else had been warning me about for years. I was finally "seeing her". The next morning I told her I wanted my watch back and all the rest of my jewelry, pointing out that my nephew had made a video of me receiving it and opening the box. Suddenly she remembered. "Oh yeah, that's right it is yours!!" she said. "I must have been mistaken". I don't think it was the video that scared her as much as the idea of her only grandson finding out. God bless my Grandma for not letting me be raised by that woman!
So which one is she? The woman I saw at Thanksgiving or the one I saw at Christmas? Actually she's the same person. Just before I left after Thanksgiving she'd asked for something she values more than me - and I gave her only what I could spare, and just like a sweater washed in hot water, things had changed. Some days she fits and other days she doesn't but I'm not throwing her out. I am an adult but there are still days when I need a mom - my mom. Not to worry though, I'll keep her where she is and wear her only when she fits.
Inauguration Day
(The below post was originally written on 1/27/09)
I just got back from Washington D.C. where I attended the inauguration of President Barrack Obama. Sorry, but I don't have any pictures of me at the inauguration. I don't have anyhing for other peole who weren't there to say "look, here is my friend, she was there". I was going throug a rough time with my new boyfriend, Ken, and honestly I looked and felt like hell. I didn't feel like having my picture taken. I was exhausted before I even made the trip.
I just got back from Washington D.C. where I attended the inauguration of President Barrack Obama. Sorry, but I don't have any pictures of me at the inauguration. I don't have anyhing for other peole who weren't there to say "look, here is my friend, she was there". I was going throug a rough time with my new boyfriend, Ken, and honestly I looked and felt like hell. I didn't feel like having my picture taken. I was exhausted before I even made the trip.
I worked in Kansas City on Thursday night, all night from 7:00 pm till about 5:00am. I got back to the hotel and into bed at 6:00am, woke up about 4 hours later, checked out and drove home 3 and a half hours to Omaha. I had a 6:00 am flight out on Saturday morning but was just too tired to make it. Luckily there was a seat available on the Sunday flight the next day. When I arrived in D.C. I had to took the Metro out to Fairfax where a friend of a friend of a friend from church back home in Chattanooga had arranged to let me stay in her apartment for the week at a bargain basement price of $100 a night, a savings of about $300 per night over the best hotel rate I could find. The friend's Dad picked me up, gave me a tour of the apartment, showed me where the bus stopped and left me with a key. I was on my own with no rental car and two exits on the interstate away from the nearest Metro station. I wondered what I had gotten myself into and $1600 suddenly didn't seem like too much to spend after all. But it was too late to get a room now.
I went out to wait for the bus. Not being quite sure where to stand I tapped on the window of a man sitting in his car warming it up. He pointed out a bench across the street. I walked across and sat there waiting for a few minutes when suddenly he pulled up in front of me in his car. "The bus probably isn't coming this late on a Sunday and it's cold. Can I give you a ride somewhere?" he asked. Could he???!!! My knight in shining armor turned out to be an ex-marine turned cartogropher for Ratheon who was originally from Ecuador and had served two tours of duty in Iraq. He graciously became my transportation back and forth to the Metro station for the rest of my stay.
Once at the Metro station for the second time that day, I found my way downtown to Georgetown where I met a vice president from work and some of his family members for dinner. We had a good time but it would be the last time I would see a familiar face for the rest of my stay. At 10:00pm dinner was finally over and I walked a couple of blocks back to the Metro and caught it back to Faifax. Now how was I going to get back to the apartment? As a gay couple hopped into a cab, I tapped on the window and asked if they'd mind sharing. They didn't and I had a ride home, but I was already beginning to see how exhausting this was all going to be. I started to have sympathy for people who live in suburbs and have no car and have to rely on public tansportation for everything. No wonder they had no energy left to try to improve their lives.
The next morning was Monday and I optimistically went out to wait for the bus again, but it never came. I would have called a cab but like everyone else I know, the girl whose apartment I was borrowing did not have a phone and my own cell phone was dead. I had packed my charger in my suitcase, I remembered, but unfortunately it was not the suitcase I had brought. Stranded with no transportation and no cell phone I fished in my purse for the Ecuadorian marine's card and went in search of someone from whom to borrow a phone.
The marine kindly gave me a ride. You know the rest of the story...
Happy Belated Birthday from My Sister
(Originally written 1/27/09, but never posted)
I have added the below post to "The Center of the Universe", my post from my birthday in July 2008. I have often felt the need to defend my going to the bar, I guess because it seems like something that is uncharacteristic of me.
I have added the below post to "The Center of the Universe", my post from my birthday in July 2008. I have often felt the need to defend my going to the bar, I guess because it seems like something that is uncharacteristic of me.
My sister left this world in 2003 and she and I never understood each other. We approached life from completely opposite directions. For me the bar experience was my way of stepping out of my perfectly engineered life and getting a little messy, walking in her shoes and better understanding her choices, of finding the part of myself that I rejected because I didn't like the reflection that I saw in her - my gift of understanding to her and her gift of creativity and of open-mindedness (and open-heartedness to me). I think if she could have given me a birthday present this is exactly what it would have been.
A (very) Little Romance
(The post below was originally written 2/21/09 but never posted.)
A Second Opinion on "Nights in Rodanthe"
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=63456346059&h=B29ih&u=pe9rO
Above is a link to what another blogger had to say about "Nights in Rodanthe". It's worth reading and considering but I still say the movie was drivel. Plus now it is having the added bonus of not wanting to go away, kind of like Angelina Jolie. So I'll write about it again, because believe me, I have more to say....
An interesting thing about the post from the other blogger who is obviously a fan of the movie, is that she also believes the movie is implausble. But her problem is with the number of days it takes the couple to fall in love. Not so with me!! After all I can remember being in college and meeting a guy. After a night beside some fireplace in some lodge or maybe sitting in some library, or in a hotel hallway during sales school having some deep philosophical or religious discussion I would feel something akin to love. It can happen, a magic connection over a short meeting. I believe in love at first sight or first conversation or first weekend. My problem is with the fact that they have NO REASON to fall in love. No chemistry, no comfort, no deep conversation, not even a shared experience in their history. She cares about what he's struggling with, but that just makes her human. All they really have, admit it now, is alcohol and a storm.
My second problem is this....(spoiler alert, if you haven't seen the movie, stop now). As implausible as the romance is, the death of Richard Gere's character is even less plausible. He goes to a Central (or was it South?) American country and dies in a mudslide. A mudslide??? I'm naturally a very sympathetic and empathic person, I cry during Hallmark commercials, but I had to breathe deeply to avoid laughing, yes laughing, out loud during that scene. You're Richard Gere, you can't out run mud?? Now if you're from or have ever been to one of those countries where they have mudslides I apologize. I understand that natural disasters are serious things and that sometimes people get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But seriously, at that point the movie crossed the line completely for me and became a comedy. My shoulders shook and I dabbed at my eyes but no one could guess why. What made it worse was that my dear friend, the married woman, was sitting beside me crying her eyes out. I think I reached inside my purse and passed her a kleenex. I think I managed to look plausibly sympathetic, but if she was buying what was on the screen my acting didn't have to be good to be convincing.
My last complaint is that there were too many shots of Diane Lane's rear end. Not that I have anything against Diane or her rear, but it has been my experience that the more a director has to rely on shots of a specific body part, the less there actually is to hold your attention in the movie. Maybe the rear-view shots were for the guys to look at while their wives and girlfriends dabbed at their tears. If that's the reason, then I forgive them.
Then, as if I hadn't been through enough already, during the drive home my friend the married woman wanted to re-hash the movie and talk about the scenes and how meaningful the movie was. I think I managed to nod and say "mm hmm" in the right places. My heart was in the right place and I truly felt a tug that she was relating somehow to the romance and sadness, while I on the other hand was thinking about the sadness of the romance. Before you judge me just remember that I've been watching Richard Gere since "Pretty Woman" and Diane Lane since "A Little Romance" so I know everyone will be ok. Personally I think the most convincing performance all night was my own.
A Second Opinion on "Nights in Rodanthe"
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=63456346059&h=B29ih&u=pe9rO
Above is a link to what another blogger had to say about "Nights in Rodanthe". It's worth reading and considering but I still say the movie was drivel. Plus now it is having the added bonus of not wanting to go away, kind of like Angelina Jolie. So I'll write about it again, because believe me, I have more to say....
An interesting thing about the post from the other blogger who is obviously a fan of the movie, is that she also believes the movie is implausble. But her problem is with the number of days it takes the couple to fall in love. Not so with me!! After all I can remember being in college and meeting a guy. After a night beside some fireplace in some lodge or maybe sitting in some library, or in a hotel hallway during sales school having some deep philosophical or religious discussion I would feel something akin to love. It can happen, a magic connection over a short meeting. I believe in love at first sight or first conversation or first weekend. My problem is with the fact that they have NO REASON to fall in love. No chemistry, no comfort, no deep conversation, not even a shared experience in their history. She cares about what he's struggling with, but that just makes her human. All they really have, admit it now, is alcohol and a storm.
My second problem is this....(spoiler alert, if you haven't seen the movie, stop now). As implausible as the romance is, the death of Richard Gere's character is even less plausible. He goes to a Central (or was it South?) American country and dies in a mudslide. A mudslide??? I'm naturally a very sympathetic and empathic person, I cry during Hallmark commercials, but I had to breathe deeply to avoid laughing, yes laughing, out loud during that scene. You're Richard Gere, you can't out run mud?? Now if you're from or have ever been to one of those countries where they have mudslides I apologize. I understand that natural disasters are serious things and that sometimes people get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But seriously, at that point the movie crossed the line completely for me and became a comedy. My shoulders shook and I dabbed at my eyes but no one could guess why. What made it worse was that my dear friend, the married woman, was sitting beside me crying her eyes out. I think I reached inside my purse and passed her a kleenex. I think I managed to look plausibly sympathetic, but if she was buying what was on the screen my acting didn't have to be good to be convincing.
My last complaint is that there were too many shots of Diane Lane's rear end. Not that I have anything against Diane or her rear, but it has been my experience that the more a director has to rely on shots of a specific body part, the less there actually is to hold your attention in the movie. Maybe the rear-view shots were for the guys to look at while their wives and girlfriends dabbed at their tears. If that's the reason, then I forgive them.
Then, as if I hadn't been through enough already, during the drive home my friend the married woman wanted to re-hash the movie and talk about the scenes and how meaningful the movie was. I think I managed to nod and say "mm hmm" in the right places. My heart was in the right place and I truly felt a tug that she was relating somehow to the romance and sadness, while I on the other hand was thinking about the sadness of the romance. Before you judge me just remember that I've been watching Richard Gere since "Pretty Woman" and Diane Lane since "A Little Romance" so I know everyone will be ok. Personally I think the most convincing performance all night was my own.
Rants About Movies, TV and Stuff
Below is a very old post, written last year, Valentine's Day 2009. I don't remember why I didn't publish it.
So it's Valentine's Day. I'm in no mood. What I am in the mood to say is this...
I hated the movie Nights in Rodanthe. It was drivel. It had, among other things, a bad script and too many shots of Diane Lane's rear end, a cliche of a black character, absolutely no explanation for the main characters falling in love....
I loved The Notebook.
My LEAST favorite movie of all time is Message in a Bottle.
I am still boycotting Angelina Jolie's movies for breaking up Brad and Jenn.
Anne Hathaway was completely miscast as Jane Austen in Becoming Jane. Good actress, bad fit.
Don't even get me started on Keira Knightly. She's way too thin to be attractive.
I am living for the day when they re-make all the most recent Jane Austen movies with more suitable actresses.
I'm happy that Britney Spears is making a comeback. I'm proud of her for suffering through all that public humiliation and pulling herself out of it. Maybe it will make her a better mother.
The Rhianna and Chris Brown incident sounds like Rhianna had PMS and Chris had abusive tendencies and the combination was a chemical fire waiting to combust. Look for Rhiana to set someone's house on fire ala Left Eye from TLC.
Why do good shows like My Own Worst Enemy go off the air, while The Bachelor continues to thrive?
I don't watch The Office. Not that I don't chuckle when I watch it, it's just not the kind of humor I seek.
I also don't watch Lost. I travel too much to become addicted to one more show.
Dancing with the....Stars? Really? Stars? I'm gonna watch this season because I can't wait to see what Lil' Kim does.
My guilty pleasure is America's Next Top Model :-) It's what MTV's "The Real World" used to be.
Desperate Housewives is a bad influence, but I still watch it.
Grey's Anatomy is going down the toilet. The only person left with any sense is Dr. Shepherd.
The "romance" between Dr. Sloan and Little Grey is creepy bordering on criminal. She's way too young for him. Maybe they're trying to draw in the college crowd with that romance. If that's the reason for it, give Lexie and the interns a show of their own and leave the grown-ups alone.
Bringing Addison back is a good idea. Her show is awful. She should return with Taye Diggs and leave the rest of them behind. I think she could become the new Chief of Surgery but let the old Chief stay as her trainer or something. But seriously she and Derrick should no longer have any chemistry. That is so over, it's beginning to play like daytime soap.
Why does Grey's keep trying to make Callie into a lesbian? It isn't working!!!! The show doesn't need lesbians and it looks like it's trying to force the issue. It's distracting, not entertaining.
Now that I think about it, neither Callie nor Bailey seem to have chemistry with men. Here's a thought, why not just let them be good doctors and leave their love lives in the background?
Never ever show Bailey flirting, it doesn't work.
Sloan should have hooked up with the British chick. Then have her turn into his stalker. That could be hilarious...she could blackmail him for a while....etc. Sloan is funny...VERY funny, and having him running from a stalker chick would be soooo karmic.
Alex Karev is funny too. Grey's should use it more.
Christina needs a much, much bigger story line.
That new Dr. Owen is a disaster, there's no way Christina would fall for him. If he's supposed to be House-like I could see it, but he isn't. It's like the writers are too afraid of having him upstage Shepherd to make him as God-like as he needs to be to actually make sense for Christina.
How come when Bailey had all the interns it was like she was the only one who did, but now they all have interns? Focus on one person's interns - give them all to O'Malley- and get rid of the rest.
Magic - Colbie Caillat
So it's Valentine's Day. I'm in no mood. What I am in the mood to say is this...
I hated the movie Nights in Rodanthe. It was drivel. It had, among other things, a bad script and too many shots of Diane Lane's rear end, a cliche of a black character, absolutely no explanation for the main characters falling in love....
I loved The Notebook.
My LEAST favorite movie of all time is Message in a Bottle.
I am still boycotting Angelina Jolie's movies for breaking up Brad and Jenn.
Anne Hathaway was completely miscast as Jane Austen in Becoming Jane. Good actress, bad fit.
Don't even get me started on Keira Knightly. She's way too thin to be attractive.
I am living for the day when they re-make all the most recent Jane Austen movies with more suitable actresses.
I'm happy that Britney Spears is making a comeback. I'm proud of her for suffering through all that public humiliation and pulling herself out of it. Maybe it will make her a better mother.
The Rhianna and Chris Brown incident sounds like Rhianna had PMS and Chris had abusive tendencies and the combination was a chemical fire waiting to combust. Look for Rhiana to set someone's house on fire ala Left Eye from TLC.
Why do good shows like My Own Worst Enemy go off the air, while The Bachelor continues to thrive?
I don't watch The Office. Not that I don't chuckle when I watch it, it's just not the kind of humor I seek.
I also don't watch Lost. I travel too much to become addicted to one more show.
Dancing with the....Stars? Really? Stars? I'm gonna watch this season because I can't wait to see what Lil' Kim does.
My guilty pleasure is America's Next Top Model :-) It's what MTV's "The Real World" used to be.
Desperate Housewives is a bad influence, but I still watch it.
Grey's Anatomy is going down the toilet. The only person left with any sense is Dr. Shepherd.
The "romance" between Dr. Sloan and Little Grey is creepy bordering on criminal. She's way too young for him. Maybe they're trying to draw in the college crowd with that romance. If that's the reason for it, give Lexie and the interns a show of their own and leave the grown-ups alone.
Bringing Addison back is a good idea. Her show is awful. She should return with Taye Diggs and leave the rest of them behind. I think she could become the new Chief of Surgery but let the old Chief stay as her trainer or something. But seriously she and Derrick should no longer have any chemistry. That is so over, it's beginning to play like daytime soap.
Why does Grey's keep trying to make Callie into a lesbian? It isn't working!!!! The show doesn't need lesbians and it looks like it's trying to force the issue. It's distracting, not entertaining.
Now that I think about it, neither Callie nor Bailey seem to have chemistry with men. Here's a thought, why not just let them be good doctors and leave their love lives in the background?
Never ever show Bailey flirting, it doesn't work.
Sloan should have hooked up with the British chick. Then have her turn into his stalker. That could be hilarious...she could blackmail him for a while....etc. Sloan is funny...VERY funny, and having him running from a stalker chick would be soooo karmic.
Alex Karev is funny too. Grey's should use it more.
Christina needs a much, much bigger story line.
That new Dr. Owen is a disaster, there's no way Christina would fall for him. If he's supposed to be House-like I could see it, but he isn't. It's like the writers are too afraid of having him upstage Shepherd to make him as God-like as he needs to be to actually make sense for Christina.
How come when Bailey had all the interns it was like she was the only one who did, but now they all have interns? Focus on one person's interns - give them all to O'Malley- and get rid of the rest.
Magic - Colbie Caillat
Ahhhhh 2010.....Sweet Freedom!
It's 2010 and I haven't posted in quite a long time. Many funny and interesting things have happened, but because I don't take notes they have been lost to my memory forever. No matter. The universe is sure to supply new material for anecdotes.
First, a checklist of things that have happened in my life since September of 2009...
Since I last posted I have enrolled in graduate school and am now getting a masters degree in engineering management, which is a degree that combines a masters in industrial engineering with an MBA.
In graduate school we are doing a lot of group work. It's interesting to see how I interact with people. Because the degree is all online everything I "say", every interaction, is recorded in print. It turns out I'm not so bad. I could stand to be a little bit more agreeable, a little more flexible. But what suprises me most is how often I am RIGHT! It actually makes me feel a little bit more relaxed, a little more wise, to know that I don't have to prove my point. I can rest in the assurance that most of the time my assessments are correct and I can relax, stay open to learning another point of view, and let other people work their way to their own conclusions: right, wrong or indifferent.
I have broken free of people who mean me no good: the users, the people who demonstrate the attributes of friendship and affection up and until exactly the point where my happiness seems to exceed their own, wherein they proceed to demonstrate the unmistakeable signs of envy. It feels good to be honest and open with everyone about what my limitations are and what I will accept and what I can not accept. I feel centered. My relationships are true and genuine! My friendships, deeper.
Not only am I a member of the Jane Austen book club, but I have also helped form another book club with the ladies at my church. THAT'S interesting! Being in a book club with church ladies requires that you find books that are good literature but have no (or very little) offensive language. I recommended we read "Eat, Pray, Love" and was terrified of what the ladies might think of the "Love" part of the book. Luckily for me the book got a lot of press on shows like "Good Morning America" (or one of those shows) right at the time we started to read it. Somehow if it was good enough for wholesome morning TV talk shows, then it was good enough for us! To use language like Jane Austen might have used, the ladies surprised me most pleasantly.
Tiger Woods has been in the news with something like 18 mistresses! Poor man!! Not that I am excusing him, but when you have had to be THAT good and THAT well-behaved for THAT long, how could you not start to think you deserved to...well...be a little bit bad? Granted, he was more than just a little bit, but you get my drift. We are not meant to be perfect. Someone wrote that now he can finally be more human and authentic because he has fallen off his pedastal. I couldn't agree more! He apologized most sincerely and is getting help! It's not how many times we fail that define our character, but how we are able to recover and help those around us recover. Quitting on people is a much greater sin than any other mistake we could make. When I wrote above about having genuine friendships, I didn't mean that I cut anyone out of my life. Quite the contrary, I became honest with people without cutting them out of my life. They accepted my boundaries and I accepted theirs and it made the air between us fresher to breathe.
I am noticing that every time I write something, I come to a new paragraph that seems to contradict what I have just written, almost as if I was writing the Bible! Case in point...
John Mayer has also been in the news, not for cavorting with strange women, but for expressing the fact that his, uhm, physical parts do not respond to black women. He expressed this in the most racist and offensive manner possible by calling his, uhm, physical part a "white supremacist". And the question he was asked wasn't even about whether or not he found black women attractive, it was whether or not THEY chased HIM. A simple "yes, but I haven't dated a woman of color" would have done. I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with finding certain features more attractive than others. As a celebrity he has to be aware that his opinion is going to influence public opinion. He has voiced an opinion that has been secretly held by a white segment of the population for centuries. Racial selection in dating ranges from "I don't find that race attractive" to "I find them attractive but wouldn't want to be seen withthem in public on a date" to " I believe there are attractive people of all races". The spectrum is broad and yet his preferences, if not his social views, fall in line with the most undesirable group on that spectrum. And so he has unconsciously validated their view. The damage is done. No take backsies, John.
Now can he grow and learn from the public outcry over his view? Will it bother him that so many people found offensive what he considered to be a matter of fact? His public apology seems to indicate so. If his mind opens up just a crack then maybe, just maybe, there is hope that he will begin to see past race which, after all, IS just a social construct. As I have said in a previous post, race is no more a valid way to separate people than hair or eye color. What we define as "race" is just a series of dominant genes overpowering recessive ones. We all originated from the same colony in East Africa. So if we are all one race, any race, then we are all black.
I don't know how white people originated but one theory is that two black people can get together and have an albino child, whereas two white people can only have a white child. The first albino child born amongst East African black people must have seemed like a strange anomaly, even a curse amongst the superstitious. It would have been likely for such a child to feel ostracized and eventually separate from the group. Whatever genes in his parents produced him would eventually produce others. The genes would be passed through generations and a colony of outcasts would have eventually formed, giving them enough people to migrate and create a colony of their own away from the scrutiny of "normal" black people. Environmental factors can attribute for the rest. It would make sense that eventually an appearance that once seemed strange and misplaced would gradually become exotic, then rare, then preferable.
First, a checklist of things that have happened in my life since September of 2009...
Since I last posted I have enrolled in graduate school and am now getting a masters degree in engineering management, which is a degree that combines a masters in industrial engineering with an MBA.
In graduate school we are doing a lot of group work. It's interesting to see how I interact with people. Because the degree is all online everything I "say", every interaction, is recorded in print. It turns out I'm not so bad. I could stand to be a little bit more agreeable, a little more flexible. But what suprises me most is how often I am RIGHT! It actually makes me feel a little bit more relaxed, a little more wise, to know that I don't have to prove my point. I can rest in the assurance that most of the time my assessments are correct and I can relax, stay open to learning another point of view, and let other people work their way to their own conclusions: right, wrong or indifferent.
I have broken free of people who mean me no good: the users, the people who demonstrate the attributes of friendship and affection up and until exactly the point where my happiness seems to exceed their own, wherein they proceed to demonstrate the unmistakeable signs of envy. It feels good to be honest and open with everyone about what my limitations are and what I will accept and what I can not accept. I feel centered. My relationships are true and genuine! My friendships, deeper.
Not only am I a member of the Jane Austen book club, but I have also helped form another book club with the ladies at my church. THAT'S interesting! Being in a book club with church ladies requires that you find books that are good literature but have no (or very little) offensive language. I recommended we read "Eat, Pray, Love" and was terrified of what the ladies might think of the "Love" part of the book. Luckily for me the book got a lot of press on shows like "Good Morning America" (or one of those shows) right at the time we started to read it. Somehow if it was good enough for wholesome morning TV talk shows, then it was good enough for us! To use language like Jane Austen might have used, the ladies surprised me most pleasantly.
Tiger Woods has been in the news with something like 18 mistresses! Poor man!! Not that I am excusing him, but when you have had to be THAT good and THAT well-behaved for THAT long, how could you not start to think you deserved to...well...be a little bit bad? Granted, he was more than just a little bit, but you get my drift. We are not meant to be perfect. Someone wrote that now he can finally be more human and authentic because he has fallen off his pedastal. I couldn't agree more! He apologized most sincerely and is getting help! It's not how many times we fail that define our character, but how we are able to recover and help those around us recover. Quitting on people is a much greater sin than any other mistake we could make. When I wrote above about having genuine friendships, I didn't mean that I cut anyone out of my life. Quite the contrary, I became honest with people without cutting them out of my life. They accepted my boundaries and I accepted theirs and it made the air between us fresher to breathe.
I am noticing that every time I write something, I come to a new paragraph that seems to contradict what I have just written, almost as if I was writing the Bible! Case in point...
John Mayer has also been in the news, not for cavorting with strange women, but for expressing the fact that his, uhm, physical parts do not respond to black women. He expressed this in the most racist and offensive manner possible by calling his, uhm, physical part a "white supremacist". And the question he was asked wasn't even about whether or not he found black women attractive, it was whether or not THEY chased HIM. A simple "yes, but I haven't dated a woman of color" would have done. I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with finding certain features more attractive than others. As a celebrity he has to be aware that his opinion is going to influence public opinion. He has voiced an opinion that has been secretly held by a white segment of the population for centuries. Racial selection in dating ranges from "I don't find that race attractive" to "I find them attractive but wouldn't want to be seen withthem in public on a date" to " I believe there are attractive people of all races". The spectrum is broad and yet his preferences, if not his social views, fall in line with the most undesirable group on that spectrum. And so he has unconsciously validated their view. The damage is done. No take backsies, John.
Now can he grow and learn from the public outcry over his view? Will it bother him that so many people found offensive what he considered to be a matter of fact? His public apology seems to indicate so. If his mind opens up just a crack then maybe, just maybe, there is hope that he will begin to see past race which, after all, IS just a social construct. As I have said in a previous post, race is no more a valid way to separate people than hair or eye color. What we define as "race" is just a series of dominant genes overpowering recessive ones. We all originated from the same colony in East Africa. So if we are all one race, any race, then we are all black.
I don't know how white people originated but one theory is that two black people can get together and have an albino child, whereas two white people can only have a white child. The first albino child born amongst East African black people must have seemed like a strange anomaly, even a curse amongst the superstitious. It would have been likely for such a child to feel ostracized and eventually separate from the group. Whatever genes in his parents produced him would eventually produce others. The genes would be passed through generations and a colony of outcasts would have eventually formed, giving them enough people to migrate and create a colony of their own away from the scrutiny of "normal" black people. Environmental factors can attribute for the rest. It would make sense that eventually an appearance that once seemed strange and misplaced would gradually become exotic, then rare, then preferable.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)