tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68986053705398640272024-02-20T16:49:09.211-08:00The War Room: Where The Voices In My Head BrawlPhiliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-69266824959612485712021-08-31T23:06:00.001-07:002021-09-01T21:40:38.767-07:00Requiem For A Mwuss<p> A year ago this morning, I woke up to realize my cat Mickey hadn't come in during the night. Admittedly, I wasn't terribly worried at the time. There'd been a few mornings where he stayed out all night and didn't wake me up by jumping on the bed and walking around. I don't remember if I worked that day or not, but I do remember that by evenng, I was getting worried, even going outside and looking for him and calling for him. By the next morning, I was really worried. As the week progressed, I was scared and starting to lose hope. Despite the search, calling out, spreading his litter to apread his scent, he never came home. It's been a year now since Mickey went out and never came back.</p><p>I felt horribly guilty for awhile too. Shortly before he went out, he'd been antsy to go out. I didn't want to let him out at the time because my roommate was in the shower, which means I would have had to let Mickey out through the kitchen door. But when my roommates take showers, they close the bathroom window, which is about the only way that Mickey could get back in the house unassisted. So I wanted to keep him indoors until the bathroom was vacant again. Unfortunately, Mickey couldn't understand that. He was antsy, and was roaming around my room acting up, trying to get me to let him out. At one point, he knocked over my laptop. Worried about the damage, and upset with Mickey who I felt should have known better, I picked him up, looked him in the eye and said, "Bad kitty!" Mickey avoided me for most of the rest of the night. For a little while, he seemed to calm down. By 11:30, I'd remembered he wanted to go out. I had him come into the bathroom with me, and I opened the window wide for him to go out. He was hesitant at first, but I picked him up, snuggled him, told him I loved him, and helped him out the window to let him know it was okay. But still, up to that point, our last interaction was confrontational. I could probably count on one hand the number of times I scolded Mickey with the words "Bad kitty," or "Bad Mwuss." (Mwuss was a nickname I gave him.) I felt horribly guilty that he wandered off thinking I didn't love him anymore or that he thought I was kicking him out of my life.</p><p>He was also having health problems. About three weeks before that night, he'd had a visit from the mobile veterinary service, and was diagnosed with a thyroid condition. The vet told me that the medication was something I could find in a human pharmacy, so I was under the impression that it was something I could just pick up, that it was over the counter. After failing to procure it, I received a call a couple weeks later from the vet asking for an update, and I expressed my problems. It was THEN that she explained that it was not over the counter, and that I simply had to tell her where I was planning to buy the medicine from. I told her from an online pet supply retailer, they corroborated the prescription, and my purchase was approved. A few days after Mickey disappeared, his thyroid medication finally arrived. So, I also still feel a little guilty about botching his care so badly. I worry he wandered off and disappeared to die. He was losing weight and not eating like he used to. And wandering off to die alone is something cats will do. As he was fourteen years old, I frequently told Mickey that I wanted him to die at home by my side so I could know and bury him. But he was a cat. Even if he did understand my words, his instinct would still be to die alone, the result of my negligence. </p><p>It's also possible that the coyotes got him. We get coyotes out here once in awhile, and I heard them howling that night, and a few nights afterward. Side note, genuine howls of coyotes really do sound like teenage boys trying to howl like coyotes. It's bizarre, but it's true. Strangely enough, if this was his fate, I'd be most okay with this option. Mickey was a hunter, and brought me numerous trophies of varying species, all of them mammalian, thankfully. For a coyote to have picked him off would mean he died the way he lived, a part of the circle of life. I only hope he thought of me in the last moments before his pure survival instinct kicked in, only to have failed him.</p><p>Whatever happened, Mickey has been gone over a year now. I held out hope, because it's not unheard of for kitties to disappear for an extended period of time only to return suddenly. There's been news stories of this happening several years after the cat disappeared, but most anecdotal stories say it's about a year later. So, I wanted to believe that Mickey was going to return. Maybe he was serving a stint in the feline ROTC, or something. I just wanted to have a reason to keep believing he would come back. I even balked at ever talking about him in the past tense. But it's well past time to concede the odds that Mickey is most likely dead now. That I'll never see my fuzzy little buddy again.</p><p>For those who don't the background info, though, I first met Mickey in 2012. I was looking for a place to live in Mount Vernon, and I checked out this one house that had a room available. I got there late at night because that was what worked for the landlord, as well as me. The night I checked out the room, I talked in the living room with the guy for a few minutes. During that time, this tabby cat was walking across the room, curious about what was going on. I asked what the cat's name was, and he said, "Mickey." I crouched, got the kitty to come over to me, pet him a few times, and then picked him up carefully. The homeowner was impressed. He said the cat never let strangers pick him up. He also said that must mean I have a good character. </p><p>I took the room and moved in. And lived there for about four years. I learned that Mickey was adopted at a young age. He was adopted by the homeowner as a pet for his daughter, whose mother he never married. His daughter didn't live with him, but lived a few streets over with the mother. The mother didn't want Mickey living with her because she lived a little further out and heard coyotes howling sometimes. Go figure. The daughter used to come over frequently though, to play with the cat. By the time I moved in though, she was a teenager and was more interested in boys and her friends than her cat. Even though she never visited Mickey anymore, she was still adamant that daddy couldn't give him away. She was hoping to take him with her when she went to college, or something to that effect. My new landlord fed the cat, kept the water full, and maintained a litter box, even though Mickey usually did his buisiness outside, but wasn't super affectionate to the cat. He'd pet him sometimes, but he clearly wasn't emotionally attached to the cat. Over the time of my tenancy there, the cat and I became better acquainted. In fact we became good friends. Very good. So good, in fact, it became a source of contention. The landlord accused me of overstepping my bounds of being affectionate with the cat. When I first moved in, he allowed me to let the cat in my room. Then he disallowed that. Then he didn't want me encouraging the cat to come down the hall toward our bedrooms, followed by not letting the cat in at night. That one at least had a fair explanation: the hall floor was wood, and the boards creaked when I walked, so it woke him up when I walked down the hall, and he didn't like losing sleep. Problem was, Mickey jumped at my window to be let in, so that I was losing sleep. I swear I didn't teach the cat to jump on my window screen, he just did it naturally. But it got worse: the landlord soon didn't want me letting the cat in or out at all, regardless of time of day, then told me I was not to look at the cat, talk to the cat, or pet the cat at all. I was to ignore him completely. He said I was a good roommate, but I gave the cat too much love, and the cat was coming between us. </p><p>The thing is, the cat wasn't the only problem, the only thing coming between us. He was just the brown tabby M&M in the bowl. There were other problems. I wasn't allowed to check the mail because at one point, he offered to be a residence for a girl he worked with, so she could get her driver's license. He was hoping to score with her, and this huge favor was sure to put him in good with her. But the day some of the paperwork arrived, I checked the mail and sent that back saying "Not at this address." When he found out, he was pissed because I had unwittingly cockblocked him, and forbade me from checking the mail again, except when he was out of town on vacation. He canceled the HBO because he didn't want me watching smut like "Game Of Thrones," even though at the time, the only thing I ever watched on HBO was the annual Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony. He didn't care. He blamed me for breaking the dryer, even though by the time it broke down, he'd owned it for ten years, and made me buy a new one for him. He drank an entire bottle of wine every night he had off, which wasn't a problem at first, since he worked five nights a week. But when he cooked on his nights off while drinking, there was a forty percent chance of him setting off the smoke detector at some point. And toward the end of my tenancy there, he intentionally got himself fired from his job so he could collect unemployment while he tried to start up his own independent work as a dump truck driver. The problem was, he couldn't get a quality truck. The only one he could get a loan for spent the majority of the time in the shop, which means he was home most days. And drinking most nights.</p><p>That wasn't the entirety of the problems, and he did have his good points too. I didn't hate him, but I had to move out of there before I did. But the cat was the most visible source of friction. And he frequently promised me that when I did move out, he would want to give me the cat, since he could tell I loved him, and that the cat loved me too. But as his dump truck woes increased and he got moodier, his commitment to that promise became threadier, to the point where it felt like he was dangling that promise in front of me to keep me in line. It was too much. I had to just get out. I loved Mickey, but I had to move. But I made sure that the place I moved to would allow me a cat if I decided to get one, just in case. I moved out, but I thought about Mickey everyday. I missed him.</p><p>It's worth mentioning too, that in the struggle to maintain my sanity and sleep schedule, I found a clever way to disobey the landlord. First off, Mickey figured the need to keep quiet as he moved about the house, and he could walk the floor without creaking. Also, I could open and close my bedroom door without making noise. And over the years, Mickey had jumped at my screen so much that there was a huge tear in it. So, in the last month or so, when Mickey jumped on the screen, I raised the blinds, opened the window, stuck my hands out the hole in the screen, and finally got Mickey to jump into them so I could pull him into my room through the hole. Then I'd quietly open my bedroom door and let him out so he could get some food, and close the door not to raise suspicion. Then, when Mickey wanted to go back out, (and this was something he would do when he wanted to come in and cuddle with me), he'd come to my door and lightly scratch it instead of meowing. He knew I could hear it, and I would silently open the door, and be ready to pretend to go to the bathroom in case the guy was awake and noticed. If he wanted to go out, I'd open the window and let him out again, and go back to sleep. It was sneaky, and would have gotten me evicted if caught, but the security deposit was already gone anyway. I was past caring. Anyway, after I moved out, and a new person moved in, Mickey continued in this habit, expecting the new guy to know the drill. Well, the new guy worked for one of the ferry services, and did not appreciate a cat waking him up. So two weeks later, I got a call from my Mount Vernon landlord asking me if I wanted to adopt the cat. He daughter's mother still wouldn't take him in, and he had to get rid of the cat or lose a new tenant so soon. I sprang at the chance, paid a pet deposit to my new landlord, and brought the little fella to his new home, where he lived with me, as my cat, for the next four years until that fateful night last year.</p><p>I can't say if Mickey was good with kids, as I never saw him around children. But he was pretty friendly with humans, especailly after I came into his life and showed him how some humans could be toward cats. Also, he never brought dead animals in the house until me. A few times in Mount Vernon, he brought in a mouse or rabbit, which freaked the landlord out. Once he became my cat, in a new house and a new city, he REALLY became a prodigious hunter. So much so, that I started keeping empty Pringles cans around to put the dead animals in, to keep their corpses from stinking up the house. He really became both more independent and more affectionate after I got him out of that house. We pretty much had a habit of snuggling up on my bed and cuddling at least twice a day: once in the morning when I woke up, and again in the evening at some point. He drooled when he was happy, and he was happy with me. When my current roommate moved in, she introduced him to catnip, and he was hooked. He wasn't too friendly with other cats, but he could be civil, as long as it was understood that he was the alpha. He was okay with smaller dogs, like my other roommate's chihuahua, but did not like bigger ones. He also came to appreciate being photographed, both with a disposable camera and a smartphone. My Instagram account is mostly full of pictures of him still, his various cute poses, and anthropomorphic captions for his expressions. Independent but very affectionate, he was the perfect cat for me and the lifestyle I had with an insane work schedule.</p><p>Mickey was the first cat that was mine, as an adult. We had barn cats growing up, and some of them definitely were close to me, and many loved to be pet, but Mickey was the first one actually registered to me. He knew me for 8 years, just over half of his life. I was hoping to be his pet parent for half of his life, but that would have required him making it to age twenty. I'm glad to have had the time I had with him and the memories I have. And I'd like to share a few specific ones now.</p><p>One of my favorite early memories with him was when I was in Mount Vernon. One night I was folding and putting away laundry. He was still allowed in my room, and I saw him walk in, but thought nothing of it. As I'm hanging up a shirt, I suddenly hear an insistent, "Mrrrowr!" I turn around and see him sitting up on my bed, looking at me, and peering, poking his nose forward at me, in an expression that seemed to say, "I am cute and cuddly. Don't you dare ignore me. Whatever you're doing can wait. Pet me!" This would turn out to be his general attitude toward me doing any kind of housework.</p><p>Another time in Mount Vernon, he had just come in the house and was meowing while sitting up in front of the refrigerator. I made sure he food dish was full, and even watched him eat. After he ate, he sat in front of the appliance again, and resumed his meowing. As I walked away, he meowed again. Looked at the fridge, and then at me, back and forth. It had been a busy day, and I hadn't eaten anything, and wasn't really ready for dinner just then, but I realized that Mickey was making sure that I was eating too. He had had his meal, and now he was going to make sure I ate too. So I opened up the fridge, got some of my Christmas fudge out, bit into it, and made "MMMM!" noises. Mickey gave a me a look like, "Yeah, okay, whatever." And walked away.</p><p>When I was beginning to have problems with my gall bladder, I spent a night writhing in pain and had to go to the hospital. After having maybe three hours' sleep in the hospital, I came home a mess. I collapsed into my bed and was out within minutes. Mickey sensed something was wrong, and he climbed onto my bed, and perched himself right on my chest. He stared at me, and I pet him weakly, best as I could, before passing out. I awoke a couple hours later, and he was still perched on my chest, watching me. He hadn't budged an inch. The second time it happened occurred after the landlord forbade me from letting him in my room. Since he was home that day, after I got home from the hospital, I went straight to my room again. Mickey saw me stagger to my room, not well at all. When I woke up later in the day, I opened my door, and he was sitting right there, standing guard. He had been there the entire time I was asleep, having been sick. He was my little guardian.</p><p>One time, where I live now, I went away to convention for three days. I came home and he was missing. He hadn't been seen since the morning of that day. I was a basket case the entire next day, which thankfully I had off. I looked everywhere I could think, called out for him, nothing. Then, 10:00 that night, I thought I heard a meow outdoors. I thought I was hearing him all day, but I figured this was worth one last look. Sure enough, it was Mickey coming home! I picked him up, and snuggled him. He didn't leave my room that night. </p><p>Many of the other memories I have of Mickey are ones that happened frequently: snuggling on the bed, jumping on the arm of my chair, interfering with my typing on the computer, his flopping on the ground when I came home, his trilling meow when he came in with a freshly killed animal, him coming back in the bathroom window while I was in the shower, his soft eyes telling me he loved me, brushing his fur and getting so much out of it, and so forth. So much mundane happiness that I treasured every time (unless the animal he brought in was still alive!), that I still miss very much. I'll always love him. I nicknamed him "Mwuss" for the Disney parody pun of "Mickey Mwuss." He was a very unique cat, to the point I liked to say "There's only one Mwuss." Indeed, there will never be another like him. </p><p>I still hope against hope he'll show up, but in all likelihood, he is gone. He was a wonderful fur baby. I wanted to wait a full year to mourn and give him a chance to return. I don't know if I'll get another cat just yet, but I do know that I'll wait until after New Year's just because we're entering our busy season that can include 14-16 hour days. No time to home a new cat. I'll at least wait until then.</p><p>Goodbye Mickey. You weren't just a good cat; you were the best. </p>Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-46324840815613352212020-04-26T21:35:00.000-07:002020-04-26T21:50:39.951-07:00Character matters (my attempt at quarantine thoughts)We're not even halfway through this year, and it's already a safe bet that this year will be primarily remembered for the effect that COVID19 will have had on our planet, in all areas: the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, and also human society, in all of its facets. I shudder to think what in the world would have to happen for this pandemic to be the second or third thing people remember most prominently about this year when we look back on it. Which brings us to the fact that this is also a presidetial election year here in the United States Of America.<br />
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Back when the Democratic party still had too many candidates to host on one stage on a single night for debates, people were already picking their favorites to support. Like others, I had my favorites, mainly two that I was solidly behind. As discussion ensued over all the candidates, I distinctly remember being chastised for my reasons supporting those that I did. I said it was because of the general assessment I had of their characters, and not necessarily the positions on the issues they were taking. I was told that I was wrong for using a candidate's character as a metric for whether or not I support them.<br />
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Sometime later, I got into another discussion on Facebook regarding President Trump. It's no secret that I do not support him. In discussing with Trump supporters, though, I repeated my objections to Trump were based on his character, who he is as a person. I soon received a reply from a Trump supporter that my belief that character in a person is paramount was laughable. I was told I should care more about the economy and what the president has done for it, as reflected by the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ, rather than his character as a person.<br />
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I was hearing it from both Trump supporters and Trump opposers: it's wrong to support a candidate because of who they are as a person. Normally, if a person is hearing it from both sides of the aisle, there's probably good reason to pause and seriously reconsider. After all, a person can be of good character and still be a lousy leader. But when one flips it around and asks if a person of bad character can still be a terrific leader, I have to wince, making a face even as I type these words, and confess that I don't think so. It's no secret that a person of terrible character can be an effective leader, an efficient leader. But that doesn't inherently mean they're a good leader. History is full of examples of leaders who could get the job done, and maybe even respected a mite for such, but are nevertheless regarded as villains in the scope of human history. Just because a leader can get an agenda pushed forward doesn't mean they're a good leader.<br />
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So what makes a leader good? How are we even defining "goodness"? Those who know me know that my faith strongly directs me in this regard. For the sake of the readership who don't share my religious views, I shall attempt to make it as universally applicable as possible, but going forward, I'm not sure how successful I'll be in that regard. But just as C.S. Lewis started <u>Mere Christianity</u> with the underlying assessment that people will admit that they don't always behave the way they feel they should, I think that we can corrollate to that statement that there is within a society a general agreement upon what is good character and what is not. A general agreement, mind you. Not every person will agree upon every detail, but if your mentality is even one iota more flexible than "My party, good; them, bad," if you believe it's possible to assess a person's character without first knowing their political affiliation, then there will most likely emerge within a society a general consensus as to what is good character or poor, based on the social mores. We agree that killing people is bad, so much so that we codify that into law. To what extent we believe it is not always universal, capital punishment for example. But in general, killing is bad, as are stealing, assaulting, and so forth. It gets murkier when it comes to things that aren't specifically codified into law, though exploiting loopholes also tends to render a tally mark in the negative column. But overall, a sense of altruism for one's own societyand the fellow members thereof, a condemnation of prejudice, and the ability to improve one's self without exploitation of others will typically result in one being regarded as having "good character," and in a leader, that is what I look for.<br />
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That definition right there is a solid beginning place as to why I believe good character is paramount in a leader. Good character will generally seek the betterment of the greatest number of people while making every effort to not harm those in the minority. When our leaders our sworn into office, they take oaths that essentially affirm that to lead is to serve. It is perhaps a great detriment to our nation that we lost the vision that all government employees, including the highest tiers of management, are public servants. To lead is to serve the people, and a leader with character will strive to improve that section of the nation that is their purview, while taking care to not harm others. It is also worth noting that requiring some level of sacrifice does not always constitute "harm," though skilled sophists will often try to either conflate the two to prevent having to make any sacrifice, or separate the two too far to justify harm inflicted on others.<br />
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There is perhaps no greater test of a person's character than to bestow upon them the mantle of leadership. The old axiom states that power corrupts and absolute power, absolutely. This is also why character matters so much in those we elect. Power can change a person, but a person of character will usually be trustworthy with it. Now, not every person has the gift of leadership, but as stated earlier, someone who would be a terrible leader can still be a good person. In the case of the presidency, this is where a person's history of other positions held comes into play. Opponents of Mike Bloomberg never stop beating the drum of his "stop and frisk" policy until he finally withdrew from the 2020 race. Both parties wanted Eisenhower to run as their candidate in 1948, based on his leadership of the Allied forces during World War II. Critics of the Trump candidacy in 2016 pointed to his multiple declarations of bankruptcy as inability to run a business properly, which should have, in their opinions, signaled that he was unfit to lead a nation. So whether it's political, military, or economic leadership, a candidate's history of leadership is another important component to determine whether they should be president. Even then, examining how good of a leader they were then can also provide insight into their character, to see if having power did indeed corrupt them.<br />
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That's not to say I don't care about the issues when it comes to politics. If I believe both candidates to be generally good people, it will come down issues. However, I would also submit that a stance on an issue might also provide insight into a candidate's character. Do they support or oppose something, and why? Is it important to people who oppose capital punishment that a candidate oppose it because they believe execution is an abhorrent and draconian penalty, or is it enough for them to oppose capital punishment because it is more fiscally draining than lifetime incarceration without the possibility of parole? Why do they oppose net neutrality? Why do they support the right to die? Or is enough to know they simply do? Not for me. Character matters when it comes to issues, too because one can say they support or oppose a measure, but once elected and tested, when pressed on it, they could renege on it. Again, it will matter why. Bernie Sanders dropped out of the presidential race, saying he didn't want people risking infection of COVID19 by going to public polling places in states where voting by mail wasn't happening. Did a leader have to compromise, to table a pet project for something that proved to be more important? Did they have a change of heart? Did new data come to light? Heavy is the head that wears the crown, but a leader of character will seek to do what is ultimately best.<br />
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Most topically tied to my thesis here, sometimes the most pressing issue of a presidency will prove to be something that arises out of the blue. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 was a defining moment of George W. Bush's presidency. The response of President Bush to those attacks will most likely be that which he is most remembered for, whether viewed positively or negatively. In the case of President Trump, the response to the Coronavirus pandemic, and its effect on American society will almost certainly serve to be the defining moment of his presidency, especially if he loses his reelection bid. All of the things that supporters and critics alike believe about him as a leader and as a person will most likely be summarized in the handling of this emergency. His attempts to erect a massive wall along the southern border will be secondary. Sadly, the children in cages have already been forgotten in the wake of this pandemic. The debacle of his impeachment will be a footnote, partially because everyone agrees its conclusion was foregone. His choices of Supreme Court appointees will likely have longer-lingering effects, but won't be remembered as vividly. It's possible that this event in history will also obscure the whole narrative pushed by his critics that he is essentially a puppet of Vladimir Putin's. The current pandemic was something almost universally unforeseen, and the issues that matter most to us have almost gone completely by the wayside to focus on public health. But even Donald Trump does not wield power over the world of microbiology and cannot bid this virus cease. But the content of his character should have forewarned us that his handling of the situation would be disastrous and slipshod.<br />
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The TV show <u>South Park</u> has an episode that basically said every election we will ever have will be about choosing the better of two bad choices, the lesser of two evils. I don't know if that's entirely fair. I'm not expecting perfection. No one is perfect, and no one's character is without flaws. I've got my laundry list of flaws too. For example, these past two years in my life have revealed to me just how much I dearly need to work on developing patience in life and with people. That's just the tip of the iceberg for me, and I don't believe it's my place to assert if I'm a person of good character, either. I suspect the sentiment of "giant douche versus turd sandwich," as the aforementioned television episode deemed it, stems partially from the primary process where we inevitably weed out candidates that we may have much more strongly preferred, those with much better content of character. It may also come from the notion that politics is inherently a dirty business, and you can't be good and be good at it at the same time. All that said, I've been voting in every presidential election since 2000. For 2000, I didn't like Al Gore's character because he was too closely associated with the Bill Clinton presidency, and I REALLY didn't like Bill Clinton's character. I wasn't strongly swayed by George W. Bush's performance history as a governor, but at the time, I did feel he had a good character. In 2004, I was impressed with Kerry's character, and still thought well of Bush's, so it came down to issues for me there. 2008 was a year I thought we really got the best candidates from both parties, in terms of content of character. I liked both Obama and McCain on that front, but I was upset with Obama's removing his name from my state's primary ballot because the primary date was moved up. I wasn't thrilled with Romney's character in 2012, but I didn't have an intense dislike for him either (though some of my friends did). 2016 was the first presidential election in my adult life where I really felt we were given the worst of both parties. Those who've known me the longest can attest to this, especially my long-standing and intense distrust of Hillary Clinton. But I still voted for her, because I thought Trump's character was even worse. I still do, especially in the wake of COVID19. I felt Hillary Clinton simply wanted her plaque, her name encased in amber and etched in marble. I believed she only cared about being remembered as the first woman to be President of the United States Of America. That said, once elected, inaugurated, and officially achieving that title, I believed her presidency would have been most aptly described as "perfunctory," as opposed to the adjectives of "malevolent" and "opportunistic" that I hold for this current administration. I believe she would have handled this unforeseen tragedy much more efficiently and with greater integrity.<br />
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If we could have known ahead of time how long he would procrastinate before springing into action, how he would downplay its severity to the point of prevarication, how he would make unsubstantiated medical claims and then try to gaslight the American public on his semantics or his seriousness of those suggestions, how he would try to force medical professionals to lie and support his claims, etc., would we still have elected him? I worry about that. Paradoxically, I feel the greatest failure of the Hillary Clinton campaign, aside from taking swing states in the Rust Belt for granted, was that it focused entirely on ad hominem attacks upon Donald Trump, while offering little of substance on the issues that could have enervated more potential voters to actually show up at the polls. But more than that, her attacks on his character ultimately fell on deaf ears because there are far, far too many people whose political socialization has them wholly subscribed to the idea that a candidate's party affiliation defines their character. Too many cling to that simple, yet fallacious dichotomy that one party is one hundred percent pure, and the other is one hundred percent putrid. Our country will suffer as long as that dichotomy is deemed accurate. As Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney sang, "there is good and bad in everyone."<br />
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This pandemic should be a wake-up call for America. Political agendas don't matter when everyone is at risk. There is little profit to be gained from the death of an entire population; it's bad for business. There are things that cannot and should not be corraled by party affiliation. And lying about it will only make it worse. Disbelief will not stop infection: this isn't the <u>Star Trek</u> episode "Spectre Of A Gun." And apparently, in this case, neither does belief, as the Lord has seen fit not to spare those who as an interpretation and statement of their faith, defy medical advice and gubernatorial orders. We are coming up on a presidential election, folks. The impetus for this entry was spurred primarily by Joe Biden's status as the last candidate in the Democratic primary race. I am deeply troubled by his character too. With the exception of Mike Bloomberg, there was no candidate I wanted more vehemently to drop out of the race than Joe Biden, and now he's the only one that remains. I don't know if I'll actually be able to bring myself to vote for him. I know I won't be voting for Trump. Trump's abject lack of character radiates more powerfully with every press conference pertaining to this pandemic, spreading moral cancer throughout the actions of his party's members, and America as a whole. But Biden is only slightly better. I believe Tara Reade, and all the other victims who've spoken up about Biden's behavior. I said it on Facebook, but I'll say it again here: we now have a 100% chance of electing a corporately owned, socially regressive, sexual predator to the presidency this year. The year may be 2020, but our vision as a nation sure isn't.<br />
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Character matters. It is paramount in our candidates because those candidates may become leaders, and we need leaders with character. Once we are able to take to the streets again, we must do so and demand better of our politicians for our nation, for our future.<br />
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Character matters.Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-26680149010744511092019-12-31T19:20:00.000-08:002019-12-31T19:20:02.715-08:00Recapping 2019.So I've toyed with the idea a few times. But I thought it might be nice to do a recap on the year that was 2019. We're over halfway done with this dumpster fire that is Donald Trump's (first and hopefully last) term in office, which means of course, there is so much going on with the race to supplant him on the Democratic side. Brexit may or may not be happening after all. And just today, insurgents are storming the American embassy in Baghdad. <br />
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It certainly seems like bad news all around. The world going to hell in a hand basket. But that's also been the way of the news at least as long as any of us have been alive. "If it bleeds, it leads" has been an axiom at least as long as I was a student of the media. There have been positive, heartwarming stories too. I don't recall any of them of course, other than maybe Greta Thunberg being named "Person Of The Year" by TIME magazine, especially when there have been so many worse people who've either had the spotlight during this year, or continued to be a huge part of the news cycle throughout the year. Seriously, whether you believe in climate change, it's at least good to acknowledge those who are trying to encourage better stewardship of our Lord's creation.<br />
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But I'm not trying to fill this post with political ramblings. This post is really meant to be more narcissistic than that. What have been my highlights and low points? I went back through my Facebook feed to refresh my memory of this year, and you know what? That was pointless. It appears I really do just use Facebook for entirely vapid purposes. And to share pictures of Mickey. Tidbits and witticisms throughout the year, shared memes, and hopefully an occasional philosophical nugget. But yeah, pretty depressing to go back through your Facebook feed throughout the year and see how meaningless your life really is. And now I'm depressing myself. The point is, even if you followed my Facebook feed diligently, you might still not know things going on in my life, because I don't feel like I'm able to share more intimate bits about myself on social media. I can't share my faith because I have so many atheist and agnostic friends, I can't share my politics as much as I'd like because I have conservative friends and family members, and I'm nowhere near as liberal as the rest of my friends, either. Until Trump sewed up the primary, most political pundits would have identified me as either moderate or slightly conservative. I really don't watch many of the current TV programs because they don't interest me, and I'm past the age of paying attention to new music, though once in awhile I make an effort to try. I don't have the time or energy to stay up on the world of cinema anymore either, those I did see Avengers: Endgame, and the Spider-Man movie after that, as well as a few others. I'm really trying hard not to become one of those people who live in the past and make their entire Facebook feed shared memes from various nostalgia pages. No kidding, folks, that's annoying. People who live in the past do so because they have no future to look forward to. But I'm meandering down rabbit trails again<br />
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So, with no holds barred, here are some of the peaks and valleys regarding my life this year. I've tried to be chronological, but I'm sure it's not quite accurate.<br />
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In January, I was still fuming and grumpy about still being an RCA--Rural Carrier Associate. A sub. Yeah, I shot myself in the foot on that one back in 2018, but that doesn't mean I can't still scream in pain and be mad about it. Because of the holiday season, they held off putting the route up for bids again, and I had to wait. Finally, in January, it went up for bids. I bid on it, was the winning bidder. And then I had to wait while management gave me the runaround about when I was officially a regular carrier. They were trying to get a couple weeks out of me without me being the regular, and I wasn't having it. So, I finished the month delivering on my primary route, out on the Lummi reservation.<br />
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February 2, 2019. I'm officially a regular carrier. I have my own route. And on my first day, I have a new hire shadowing me. I'm already getting a primary sub! Woohoo! The day went okay; I found out that being a local product, she knew several people who live on my new route. Sadly, she didn't remain my sub very long. Management thought she was struggling a bit too much, and that my route was too hard for her, so they put her on another route. Soon thereafter, she quit due to managerial harassment. Nothing actionable, but that's the best word I could come up with for it.<br />
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Sadly, the joy of making regular did not last terribly long as tragedy struck my family. My cousin Daniel died about a week or so later of a heart attack. He worked at a local hospital, had a heart attack right on the job, and couldn't be revived. He's the first of our generation of the family to die. It was a shock, to be certain. I really don't have much else to say that hasn't been said already about it, so I'll move on. <br />
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After becoming a regular, I finally decided to settle down and officially become of a member of the church I'd been attending for some time. I'd held off because as a sub, I was subject to working Amazon Sundays, and I wanted to be sure that phase was over before officially joining that church. Slight hitch: my membership from my previous church could not be transferred. That's because my previous membership had been with a church in East Lansing. Back in Michigan. I'd been living in Washington state for seven and a half years now, and it took all that time to find a church that I was comfortable actually transferring my membership to. Part of that had to do with my expecting to marry and settle down with my then-girlfriend sooner rather than never, and that church would have been a mutual agreement between the two of us based on where we ended up living together. Well, after breaking up with her in 2016, that was no longer a consideration. And I'll say this right now: "shopping" for a church SUCKS! It sucks so much harder when you're a single, adult male with no kids. I tried attending one of the bigger non-denominational churches for awhile. I wasn't happy there, though. First off, I don't like "praise concert" worship services, where they just sing a bunch of upbeat, modern, artistically fallow praise songs, and have a 20-minute keynote address from the preacher. I just never got a "spiritual high" from that environment. But I wanted to make it work. Because socially speaking, that's where I fit in. That was the church single adults went to, it seemed. I even tried plugging into the small groups' scene there. I attended an informational session there, about the groups in the church that were forming. I was frustrated and disappointed when I found out the majority of the new groups were either for newly married couples, single moms, or just women period. There was only one group for men, but I didn't like the approach they were taking, and besides which, I didn't want to be in a "men only" group. Why does the church have to suck so badly at being a place where couples can form? Y'all want more babies in your church, but you won't do a darn thing to help initiate or facilitate that process. Methinks the local churches really need a crash course in preaching Song Of Solomon again. But I'm getting off-track. I found a small group that was open to everyone, where I ended up being the only uncoupled person (of course), but I left that church because in addition to hating the worship format, I also took exception to their theology on baptism. I firmly believe in infant baptism, and nobody is going to tell me my baptism as a helpless baby is meaningless or heretical. <br />
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So I kept worshipping at a church in the denomination I grew up in, and decided to finally become a member, but my membership in the church in East Lansing lapsed several years ago. So, I had to meet with the elders of this church, give them my faith story (seriously, I hate sharing my faith story, because it's the most boring, white bread, milquetoast faith story EVER!), and be approved by the council. Which happened. So, I now officially have my membership in a church again, where I am an active member.<br />
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And active is right! Shortly after being made an official member, I was recommended for the office of deacon in the church. There ended up being three candidates and two positions to fill. So, one candidate would miss out. Our church does the casting of lots, and neither lot fell to me. I was not to be a deacon. It was a little saddening, but overall, I'm not upset about it so much as I am crestfallen. Back in East Lansing, I was searching so hard in some way to be an active member of the church there, to be more than just a seat filler, but every door shut in my face. This felt like the vicious cycle beginning anew.<br />
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In the meanwhile, with my hobby of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, they had a great ceremony, inducting seven acts: the Cure, Def Leppard, Janet Jackson, Stevie Nicks, Radiohead, Roxy Music, and the Zombies. Both Janet and Stevie encouraged the Hall to induct more women. The call to induct more women became a huge rallying cry in the hobbyist community throughout the year. What really helped kick it off was a fantastic piece by Evelyn McDonnell called "The Manhandling Of Rock 'N' Roll History," which is still an awesome read. Evelyn would later appear on the "Who Cares About The Rock Hall?" podcast to talk about the underrepresentation of women in that institution, wherein she uttered a definition of rock and roll that I thought for absolute certain would be the highlight of my entire year. She was lamenting a little bit, and said rock and roll is not just "long-haired white guys wanking off with Les Pauls." Still gold, and still very relevant, as this year's ballot has only three women on it. It's still a problem, and the community of those who have made the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame their hobby, we're still largely scathing about it. Even now, I would still place that quote as the second greatest thing that has happened to me this year.<br />
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Back on the work front, I got a new primary sub. He had one ride-along with me, and then I never saw him again. There's a rumor that he had an accident during his vehicle training, but it has never been confirmed. In our union, I was unanimously elected chapter president again, which meant I'd be doing my "Goodwill Tour" of the post offices either in or tangentially connected to Whatcom County. I did not go to the state convention this year, however. When I returned from state convention last year, I came home to find Mickey had disappeared. Thankfully, he turned up the next night, but that was a scary thirty or so hours for me, as I worried about him. So, I decided I was staying home and keeping him company. He's curled up and asleep on my bed right now. <br />
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After not being chosen to serve as deacon in my church, another opportunity arose. The Gideons had called up our pastor, asking if there were any men who might be a good fit for their ministries. My pastor said that he basically prayed through the church directory and contacted the men whom he'd felt inclined to contact, and I was one of them. I, on the other hand, did not feel such an inclination. While I did pray about it, I didn't feel led towards enlisting in their numbers.<br />
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Back to the work life, I got a third primary sub. This one... this one was a disaster. Everyone kept saying she was like a female version of me, so we should get along great! Now I have to wonder how well people actually know me. I mean, people thought that because she likes to make jokes, and so do I, we must be the same person, practically! Taking no account of different styles of humor, this was what people seemed to be thinking. Giving no heed to introversion versus extroversion, we were lumped together. Believe me, we are very, very different. After a few disastrous days of her working with me, being in the vehicle with me, and struggling with basic concepts that include "follow the mail" and "don't call the person teaching you how to do your job names," I asked for her to be reassigned. When they talked to her the next day, she chose to quit instead. While it was a rough time, it was also a learning experience. I thought I was a pretty patient person, most of the time, but this incident made it clear that I have some work to do in this area. Also, I have to find new ways to teach. Socratic method didn't work, letting her try to figure it out didn't work, and I wasn't going to keep giving her the answers every time because then she'd never learn for herself. I'm actually considering becoming an On the Job Instructor. Maybe this little incident means I shouldn't, but I'm not completely discouraged yet.<br />
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In the personal life aspect, I had a huge setback, in that a friend broke off contact with me. She unfriended me on Facebook and threatened to block me. It started as a joke about "calling demons to torment" her (the joke she made), and ended up in a fight over religion. I tried to give her room, but what I could not and would not do was let her have a "safe space" to say everything hateful she had to say about God and His character, without rebuttal. I couldn't do it. I believe that there is simply no hiding place from the Kingdom's throne, and thus her slander could not go unchecked. I tried to keep it from getting out of hand, but once she started unloading, I couldn't restrain myself either. What started as a joke ended a friendship. I wish the best for her, and I hope she's doing well. Last time I saw her, she was dealing with a lot of problems, but I've given her space and don't know how she's doing now.<br />
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In the church life, I was asked to be part of two teams. One was a short-lived committee to help determine the next direction to go in and books to study in the adult Sunday school curriculum. I agreed to that one, and we've decided we really want to focus on the subject of prayer during the first half of next year. After that, maybe something with evangelism, still not quite sure. The other team I'd been asked to be a part of is the Vitality Team. It's an ever-changing body with a revolving door of people on it, changing annually, to try to find ways to help our church grow and remain vital in the community. We've had some ideas; they're meeting with a certain amount of resistance, both in terms of logistics and in terms of enthusiasm from the congregation for them. Right now the only thing we have solid support for is reviewing and improving our church website, and possibly also welcoming brochures. It doesn't seem like much, but we've also just started meeting. We started in October, so we're really just getting underway. I feel a little discouraged, as some of my ideas just keep getting put on the back burner, but there'll be time to discuss these ideas too. There's still a lot of time left in this term of the Vitality Team.<br />
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Speaking of things just starting in October, the final piece of amazing news is that I have a girlfriend now. I haven't changed my relationship status on Facebook yet, but we are officially calling ourselves "boyfriend" and "girlfriend." Her name is Carol, and she currently lives in Mount Vernon, but it's so far out in the sticks, it's practically Clear Lake. There's a spiritual spark between us. We've been on a few dates, and basically are spending our Sunday afternoons together. She and I are very different people, but so far, we're getting along amazingly, and are constantly smiling when we're together. Where this will take us, I don't know, but I'm strapped in for the ride.<br />
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So that's my review of personal things in this past year. Over the past summer, I lost fifty pounds, which is amazing. I've since put ten back on, but I've managed to level off. Maybe next year I can improve on that. We'll see. I intentionally omitted one piece of work-related news for reasons I do not feel I should disclose either. But other than that, yeah. I still have a darling fuzzy buddy to curl up with and help get me out of bed in the morning. I have the same roommate as I had last year. No new fights with any airb'n'bers. Some conflict between the landlord and our neighbor, sadly. Who knows how that will end, though? All in all, though, it's been an okay year on the personal front. 2019 was probably a better year for me than 2018, but I'm hoping this next one will be even better.<br />
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Happy 2020 everyone. Fuck Trump.Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-53951809417725130582019-08-27T22:44:00.001-07:002019-08-27T22:44:11.827-07:00A visit from the neighbor's cat.Tonight, I was sitting in my easy chair when I saw a four-footed creature come walking through the bathroom door. Since this is how Mickey usually comes into the house, I assumed it was him. The lighting in the hallway was rather dim, though, so I couldn't see him too clearly. I called out, "Hey, buddy," and the usual things I say when trying to call him. After he got into a little more clearly lit part of the hallway, I clearly saw, this wasn't Mickey. It was a different cat altogether. This was a black cat. He had just wandered in. <br />
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I pet this new visitor and felt his body. He was very thin, bony. His vertebrae were very high up off his ribs. I was very worried for him. I tried feeding him some of Mickey's dry food, but he didn't even eat a bite. I tried feeding him some of Mickey's wet food. He didn't touch that either. I was worried. I filled up a little dish with some water and offered it to him. This time, he took some and drank. I felt better about that. I let Fergie out of my roommate's room to roam around a bit and see how she would react to our guest. She didn't seem to mind his presence too much, but she didn't want to be friends with him either. The black kitty sat on the steps leading up to our front door. I sat down by him and pet him. His purr was pretty good, which was saying something considering his meow sounded like a high-pitched quasi-"whoop" sound, like he was out of breath or something. I did everything I could to make him comfortable, but I didn't know what else to do. I really didn't think he was a stray, but I didn't know whose he might be. Fortunately, my landlord came in to use the bathroom and met him. At first, he wasn't sure either, but then he had a hunch that this cat belonged to the family on the other side of the backyard fence. Sure enough, he was right. With a little handling from me, we brought the cat back to his family. It was then I found out that when I said, "Hey buddy!" I was right on the nose. Buddy is in fact his name. And sadly, I was right about his condition. He is dying. They said he hadn't eaten anything in a couple days, but they were glad to hear he'd taken some water. As I gave him back and shook his paw, he was purring again.<br />
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I remember the whole time Buddy was in the house wondering what to do. I didn't know he wasn't a stray, but it seemed unlikely. What to make of his not eating? His whooping meow? What would happen if Mickey came in from the outside and decided he didn't like me petting and feeding another cat? Would he stay the night? So many questions I didn't have an answer to. I do remember thinking I needed to check with either the landlord or my roommate to see if they recognized him. I'm glad I didn't have to figure something out beyond that. Buddy is home.<br />
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It's also sticking with me how his family reacted. They knew he was dying, from old age, according to them. They said Buddy is fourteen. That gave me pause, because Mickey's already thirteen, and right now, showing no signs of slowing up. I didn't know what else to say to that. Old age, when he's only a year older than my cat. It also shocked me that they'd pretty much given up on his returning. They figured he'd just wander off to die, and they'd never see him again. It's a scary thought for me because of how much I love Mickey, and for how much I prefer closure and don't like to assume. I prefer to know. Even though it is likely the way of cats to do so, I really hope that when his time comes, Mickey won't just wander off, leaving me to wonder where he went. I hope he'll come to me and let me close his eyes and bury his body. He'd probably want to spare me that. I hope he doesn't. We're a package deal, together to the end, and I would hope to know it's the end when that time comes.<br />
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I'm also reminded of the saying that kindness is never a wasted effort. Even though he wouldn't eat the food, it gladdened the hearts of his family to know that Buddy drank some water, the most he'd ingested in a couple days. Shaking his paw, hearing him purr, knowing he was happy, and the happiness when he was returned to his family, I guess it is true that the kindness wasn't futile after all. I can't prevent death, probably didn't even stave it off a full hour, but no one asked me to do that either. Some water for a suffering animal may be all that's required of me in this instant.<br />
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And if I may anthropomorphise Buddy for a moment, I might conjecture that feeling like he's not long for this world, he decided to take a chance and go somewhere new, satisfy one last curious itch, and see what was in that window, and in doing so, made one more friend. Maybe we should all live that way.<br />
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Don't know if I'll see Buddy again, but as I type this, there's a little buddy sitting on the arm of my chair, wanting some love and attention. <br />
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And that's tonight's discourse in philosophy.Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-91786174400288223852019-02-10T19:26:00.001-08:002019-02-10T19:26:08.930-08:00Thoughts on deathHey! What happened to 2018? I don't wanna talk about it, but between personal and professional setbacks, we've ignored it. Call it suppression. I dunno.<br />
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So, last week a cousin of mine died at the age of 40. For all we knew, he was in good health. I'm not gonna rehash what I've said in memorial to him on Facebook, but I still feel like there's something I've got to talk about. What, I'm not sure. But I know I want to blather a bit about the subject of death.<br />
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I don't want to double down on the importance of telling loved ones you love them. It's something I've been working on doing, and it's not where my mind is wandering right now either. But yes, tell your loved ones you love them. Actually use the "L" word, folks.<br />
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As I type this, I've just finished talking to my parents. I try to talk to them every week, usually on Sunday. With the cousin's passing this past week, at such a young age, it prompted my parents to talk to me about the importance of making a will, naming a power of attorney, having enough life insurance. My sister has also in the past posted adamantly about having life insurance to not burden loved ones financially. I have nothing to say against that, so I really don't want to dwell on that.<br />
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The subject of a will though. that's an interesting thought. My cousin didn't have one that we know of, and now the handling of his estate is rather kittywhompus, to say the least. His parents are divorced, so that makes things even more fun. My parents asked me if I've put any thought into making one. Thought? Yes. Commitment to it? Eh. I once wrote some thoughts down once on some paper. I had this eerie feeling once, and I wrote something down, but in the days afterward, that feeling passed, and I chucked that scratch paper. Wouldn't have been legally binding anyway. I told my parents, as I looked around my room, that I didn't think I had much that anyone would want anyway. My dad liked that I had that attitude. He volunteers for a secondhand store similar to Goodwill, and told me that so much of what comes in is stuff that none of the surviving family members wanted, and just wanted to unload, so that store gets them. So to realize that so much of what I have is pretty worthless to most people is a healthy way to think about it. I know that I kinda wanna bequeath some of my CD's to particular co-workers, as gag gifts from beyond the grave, so they always think of me, but would I really do that? I dunno. It makes me smirk to think about it though.<br />
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But the thing about the will that really sticks in my brain right now is that it really serves to illustrate how disconnected I am to the area I live in and to the people. Over the holidays, I got called in to report for jury duty. I was dismissed from the trial, but that's the closest I've been to making connections to anyone in the legal field, in this area. I also haven't really found a financial adviser about handling my stock portfolio (pithy as it is), and even getting a local insurance agent was a mad scramble because my previous company didn't provide coverage in Washington state, for whatever reason. So shopping for agents of this nature is outside of both my ken and my comfort zone. I don't know any lawyers out here, and I don't even know how to go about shopping for a lawyer. What kinds of things should we agree on that will tell me this is the person I want to handle my legal matters, should my time come sooner rather than later? Same thing for financial advisers! What should I be looking for? I have no clue where to even start.<br />
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And that brings me to power of attorney, executor, and things of that nature. Those, at least intuitively, are things I think should be granted to someone whose perspectives and beliefs are at least somewhat similar to mine. And holy cow, does THAT rule out a lot of my friends, possibly the majority. Most of my strongest friendships have arisen out of my latent journeys in life to love and try to at least understand people with wildly different points-of-view than mine. I'm not saying I couldn't trust my atheist friends to arrange a Christian funeral for me, but it would be a greater comfort for me to have that mantle placed on someone who thought like me more often than not, and would know exactly what I would want for myself if I didn't make it abundantly clear beforehand. That's especially true when it comes to power of attorney. If I'm in a persistent vegetative state, I want to be kept alive until even the most expert of medical skills surrender to the will of the Almighty Father, but who reading this would have known that if I didn't say it just now? Or that I wish to be buried and NOT cremated? I love my friends dearly, and I trust them to have their hearts in the right place to do what I would want, but in this instance, I think it's better to have someone whose thought patterns align more closely with mine. <br />
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So between my cousin's death, and my finally achieving full-time employment (oh yeah, that happened, hurray!), I've got a lot of decisions to make soon regarding things that are HIGHLY specialized and that I'm not smart or trained enough to navigate alone. When I first felt compelled to type about all this, I never figured that by the time I got to this paragraph that the big takeaway life lesson here is how much more I need to plug in to the immediate world around me. I have no idea how to even go about doing THAT, but it'll come, I hope. So much that needs to be done within the next three weeks just regarding my health insurance (full-time employment being a major life change, after all), and so much more to think about. And not just think, do something about.<br />
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Oh, and P.S., just so it's out there too, if Mickey survives me, I want him to see my cadaver. He's a smart cat, and being a hunter himself, he's got a pretty good understanding of the balance of life and death, at least I think so. I want him to see my corpse so he understands that I'm not abandoning him, and that I really did love him up until the end. And then have him go to my current landlords, Obaid and Freba. They love him too, and he's quite friendly with them. I know they'll continue to give him a loving home. And maybe put a burr in their saddle to stop renting out their upstairs on Airbnb and move back in. Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-68975327794298351852017-09-15T15:27:00.000-07:002017-09-15T15:27:06.435-07:00What is value?Last night, I went to a singles' event. It was an interesting experience, well-guided, and thought-provoking. One gets really contemplative with some of the questions they ask. They sound silly on the surface, but it really was worth going. I didn't get a date out of it, but I may make contact with someone later. Who knows?<br />
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One of the last exercises we did was stream-of-consciousness writing. For six minutes, we were to keep writing. We were given the first four words, and then we kept going from there. When it was over, we were asked to share three of our best sentences that we wrote. The first four words were "What I value is," and we took it from there. Many people wrote lists, whether bullet-points or lists in sentence form. My sentences took a different bent. It was kind of awkward, but the sentences I shared were, "I feel the meaning of the word "value" has been... well... devalued due to oversaturation. I guess the best place to start is what I most appreciate having in my life right now. ... I enjoy [my job], and it's where I hope the permanent roots prove to have begun." <br />
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It was very impromptu, and thus a bit clumsy. If I'd had a little more time to think about it before writing, I think my three sentences would have read thusly:<br />
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"I feel the meaning of the word "value" has been... well... devalued due to oversaturation, due in part to the world of advertising. I suppose that it's indicative that what I ultimately value is value itself, deep meaning to things and experiences. I've been told on numerous occasions that I overthink things, overanalyze situations, and infer meaning where none simply exists, but the search for purpose, deep meaning, and yes, value in my vocation, recreation, relationships, and especially in my walk with God is a continual endeavor for me, because I suppose in the end, I want my life to have had meaning -- something I suppose we all strive for."Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-63820924262519868872017-04-28T13:26:00.000-07:002017-04-28T13:26:20.847-07:00What changed my mind?Unlike my usual entries, this one has a specific audience: my coworkers. Feel free to keep reading if you're not, but there might be some jargon in here you won't understand, or you'll just lose interest, though in all fairness, the latter could happen even if you are one of my coworkers for whom this post is meant. I apologize if it gets hard to follow in some parts; I'm intentionally eschewing using people's names.<br />
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In case the grapevine hasn't already gotten to you, last night I was nominated and voted in as County President of WARLCA for our county. For those in the know, this was not a position I particularly coveted; truth be told, I was practically dragged into it kicking and screaming. I had reasons for not wanting the position: I didn't think I would make a particularly good president, for starters; sometimes, I have the same feelings about the union meetings held by those of you who never attend said meetings; but most of all, I didn't think an RCA should hold office. I felt that someone with more experience should be president, that an RCA wouldn't have the confidence of the full-timers behind them, and I especially worried that an RCA as chapter president would send a message of general union weakness to management. My name had come up at a previous meeting as being a "good choice" to succeed my venerated predecessor and then-president; however, so opposed was I to this notion, that I originally planned to skip the meeting.</div>
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That changed on Wednesday, the very day before the meeting The events of the work week were snowballing and when a coworker said something about the upcoming meeting, it flipped the switch internally. On Saturday, we were shorthanded and ended up having to split two routes, resulting in the curtailing of standard flats, and probably raw as well. I made a point to case all my raw, and leave just the flats for the regular for whom I was filling in. The way that whole situation was handled by management was still resonating at least through Tuesday. On Monday, one of the regulars told me that she wishes they'd called her in, that she'd have come in to help contain the chaos, and then asked for a different day off that week. It was still being talked about on Tuesday, with some murmurs about X-time being owed, who would have come in, and just the overall disgruntlement one would expect there to be. And then on Wednesday, the subject of the meeting came up, and how it was primarily about electing new officers. That's when one of the carriers said that if they couldn't fill all the officer positions, our chapter would be absorbed into the Skagit chapter. I already knew that, but when she repeated it at that moment, it jarred me. When I transferred to the office I'm at now (before that actually), I noticed something about management there that wasn't at the office I was transferring from. Four years later, that particular problem remains, though there is a little more effort to take care of it. (A glaring moment of lapse, however, befell me yesterday, more on that in a bit.) But since then, I've noticed other problems in our office, as all my fellow coworkers from every craft have. It just struck me that we're having some infantile and avoidable confrontations, and it just seems like it shouldn't be. We'll always have problems; technological advancements, population growth, and other factors will keep the nature of the job in a constant state of flux. But when the problems of our office alone overwhelm the shop steward into stepping down from that role, then it becomes clear that absorption of our chapter must not be allowed to happen.</div>
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Right now, attendance at the meetings is a little low, and it's understandable. Most who only attend once in a blue moon wish to attend to vent frustrations, get some answers, and if necessary, get our steward to initiate discussions with management to resolve the issues. That's what unions are for, after all. And our district representative doesn't attend every meeting. But even when he is there, attendance still fares so-so at best. And we can't even get any members from across the river to attend. I can understand nobody from Deming, Acme, or Maple Falls attending, but I'd at least like to see if we could cajole a couple people from Everson to attend. But I digress. The point is, even when people are steamed right around the date of the meeting, it's inconvenient for them to attend. If we were absorbed, it's all but guaranteed no one would attend a meeting, thus ensuring that our issues would only ever compound.</div>
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I can't guarantee that I'll be a good county president. I was told I was nominated because I'm observant. I'll let you decide for yourselves on that one. I've been told I'm nosy, I overthink things, and even read into things when there's nothing to read into; but I haven't been called "observant" much. And if you wouldn't have even thought to call me that before now, then I'm probably not. But what I do observe just in my office alone, is that we need to keep our chapter local. Yesterday, I had a flat tire on route, and had to call the office twice before help was sent out to me (four times actually, but twice I got a busy signal). My vehicle was immobile for an hour and a half with a flat tire. That's sixty minutes longer than it should have been, and it's because the first supervisor I talked to didn't contact the motor pool guy. That's an issue that wasn't even initially a compensation issue, at least not for me. I just wanted to get back on the road and finish up and wasn't even thinking about money or O-time, or anything like that. NOW it's a compensation issue: because I had to wait an extra hour to get help, I went over forty hours. I got overtime this week because of two split routes, schedule changes, a second run to complete an auxiliary parcel pick up, and a really long wait on a flat tire. Three of those four things are, in my opinion, things that could have been handled better. And at the meeting, I heard about an issue at another office that was even worse. I strongly believe our chapter needs to stay local for our own strength.</div>
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Looking at the County Unit map on the WARLCA website, I see it wouldn't be the worst thing to be absorbed. Right now, our county is the only political county that is also its own county unit with WARLCA. Other county units are at least two counties big. Some are three. Two of them are five whole counties with a piece of a sixth to them. So, if we were absorbed with our neighboring three-county unit, we'd probably be renamed to the "North West" county unit. But looking at some of the spreads on the map, I wonder how well represented some of those areas really are. How well are the issues being handled at their levels? I have no idea. But ultimately, that's the key thing I can do as president, if nothing else: we can keep our resolve and focus more finely tuned by remaining our own county unit. That's how we can make beneficial change happen for us.</div>
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And that can only happen if we have people serving as officers. It almost seems silly, but it's true. If next time, someone comes along with some really good ideas, I'll gladly defer to them, whatever is best for us. I joined the union following an accident. I'd held off joining because I wanted to work a whole year at one office first. Those plans were quickly changed. I joined then because I needed the union. And at the risk of sounding like cliched movie dialogue, it seems now the union needs me.</div>
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Hi. I'm the county unit president.</div>
Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-82456295747100948682016-08-03T18:00:00.000-07:002016-08-03T18:00:29.492-07:00What's in a passport?So a little over a week ago, I posted a Facebook status, "And the passport is in the desk." This status got one like from one friend I haven't met, and have only talked to over the phone. I don't know if she got what I was saying with that. I talked to my sister later, and she understood what it meant. I don't know if anyone didn't get what I was saying, honestly, but the silence in response to that post was deafening. Either way, I know I have to say something about it for my own peace of mind.<br />
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So, just in case anyone DIDN'T get it, the passport is in the desk, because like most people I suspect, I use my desk to store things that are important, but might not always be of immediate use. I used to keep it up in the dash of my car because I used it a lot. Those who know me know that I was frequently going to Canada to visit my girlfriend. The time has now come that I no longer know when next I shall be crossing the border, because I no longer have a girlfriend in Canada. After the better part of seven years, I decided that it was time to break it off.<br />
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This was not a decision I made lightly or in a moment of rage. I held off breaking up for a long time, and as the now-ex-girlfriend can attest, I did indeed fight to try and save it, including a couple meetings with our pastor to try and help gain perspective and focus. However, at one point I met privately with the pastor, and after explaining the extent to which I was frustrated, he calmly said, "At this point, it's okay for you to walk away." At this point, I knew it was inevitable, and I still made a last ditch effort to try and prove myself wrong. It was a long road, and I remember at one point feeling my emotional ties snap, to where I emotionally checked out of the relationship. And I still tried to make it work, hoping to gain back what was lost.<br />
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I suspect a lot of it had to do with a fear of being alone again. Before the Canadian girlfriend, I was in another long-distance relationship, and broke that other one off to be with her. So, this is technically the first time I've been single in over a decade. But to be honest, this was the first one where we were really together, lived within driving distance of each other, and were making serious plans. Yeah, I really didn't want to throw it away. But also, who I was while single, and even in the other relationship, was vastly different than who I was with the Canadian girl. I was significantly more pathetic then, probably even creepy. I distinctly remember when people found out I was in a relationship with this Canuck, they treated me differently. Teenage girls that I worked with at a dead-end job stopped treating me like a member of the Addams family and started treating me like a human being. I was different; I was happy. And I did not want to go back to being what I was. I was certain that if I did, then spiraling back into that person would be unavoidable. <br />
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To some degree, I have a little. I'm a bit sadder and moodier now. I'm more on-edge, and feel prone to snap. I've noticed it in a few moments of tension at work, where I just about yelled at one person or another over something trivial. I feel like my humor at work is a bit off too. Not that I'm funniest person at the office, but once in awhile I can get a laugh. Even I can tell my punchlines are not good. My mood is not what it was, and if I can't rein it in, I'll return to being a social pariah in my professional environment, which is pretty much all I am now. <br />
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Who am I now? I have a cat now, so I have someone to come home to, but as much as I love the little fuzzball, he's not another person, and can be a little twerp himself sometimes. I'm still a Christian, but lately, the only way I can get Sundays off from work is to actually put in a leave request slip, which is just wrong, but that's another topic for another time. And having just moved to a new place, I haven't really found a church that I want to call home either. My job is about the only solid external anchor now, and I worry that I'm gonna end up married to my work and die alone. I don't want that to be who I am. I want to find a new home church, a new group of friends outside of my coworkers, and maybe even be able to hang out with my coworkers outside of work sometime. I want to find a woman who can make me a better person and help keep me that way, and someone I can do the same for. I want to keep believing that this is possible.<br />
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Surprisingly enough, what I don't want to do is vomit all over my ex. I don't want to air the dirty laundry or unload to the world everything that pissed me off, especially towards the end of it all. This actually surprises me because I remember the weeks leading up to the break-up where I dwelt on everything that was irking me. I kept venting off the steam several times to myself and to the Lord in prayer. And if someone actually wanted to hear all about it, I probably could summon up the frustration to launch into it again. But for right now, I really don't want to. We're still friends, and I don't want to hurt her. I want the best for her. I still see some of the positive things in her that made me think we could go the distance together, and I don't want to destroy those things. I don't want to rant about the things that drove me away. I'm guessing that means I'm either ready to move on and date again or I'm nowhere near ready to move on and date again.<br />
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The Bible says there's a time to refrain from embracing, and for us, that time has come. Goodbye, Erica.Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-62683525604990828522015-10-07T13:47:00.000-07:002015-10-07T13:47:46.863-07:00What's in a hamburger?A couple weeks ago, we were eating out at White Spot, and they were featuring some of their new menu items. One of which was a new sandwich of the hamburger variety that boasted a patty that was half traditional hamburger meat, and half bacon. Now, you can say what you want about the ubiquity of bacon fanaticism, but my thought was really more about the concept of the hamburger itself. This past weekend, I tried a sandwich that was supposed to be a hamburger patty wrapped up in a very small pepperoni pizza--think like a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. The next night, we went to Red Robin, and I order the Red Robin Royale Burger. The common factor among all three is that they were pretty tasty, but what made them special was the toppings. See, for all the hype of a patty that was half-bacon, it tasted no different than a regular hamburger patty. This is mainly because when you simply cook bacon for the simplest of bacon bits, there's a great risk you slightly overcook it, and when you do, it tastes almost the same as ground beef. Slather on toppings that have pronounced flavors of their own, and you can't tell the difference. This is also why I don't bother ordering ground beef as a pizza topping, or bacon, because those baked crumbles have little flavor by that point and just fall off and make a mess.<div>
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And that's not even considering that ground beef is pretty flavorless when cooked. Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's because I worked at McDonald's for four-and-a-half years and have been rendered incapable of tasting beef from both cooking it and eating them for so long. But I find that hamburgers in general are only worth ordering if you like the taste of the toppings. It's not like a good steak, where you can pick off onions and ask the chef to go easy on the pepper if you don't like those things. Oh sure, on the odd occasion that I still order a McDonald's double cheeseburger, I still get it without the onions, but if I also hated ketchup and pickles, and couldn't tolerate mustard, I'd really have no reason to eat one. Hamburger meat by itself, just isn't that big a culinary treat. Now you can make some good sloppy joes and meatloaf, and do not for a moment suppose that I'm including steak and prime rib, or even pot roast in this conversation; but at this point, a hamburger is just a meat slab between buns, and whatever toppings and sauces you find tasty. </div>
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I'm no culinary expert, so I can only surmise that ground beef is the least of all beef cuts and that the grinding process only makes them worse. They're still passable, but the point is, really, stop trying to "revolutionize" the hamburger. The only way to really revolutionize it is basically convert uncooked meatloaf into patties and grill 'em that way. And even then, no guarantees that that would work. The hamburger's pretty good the way it is. Of the three I mentioned at the beginning, the Royale is easily the tastiest. </div>
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Mainly because one of the toppings is a sunny side-up egg. </div>
Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-9524041568984082562015-05-03T22:25:00.001-07:002015-05-03T22:25:10.066-07:00The room with a revolving door versus the opium of stasis.This past week, another roommate moved out, and a new one moved in.<br />
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A little context. I moved to my current dwelling in 2012. It has three bedrooms. The master bedroom goes to the landlord, I have one, and the third has had a handful of roommates over the past three years. I'm not even sure I can remember all their names, either.<br />
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There was the guy who juiced everything. I really don't remember why he moved out or what he's moved onto. <br />
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There was the dude who worked at the theater and had a medical marijuana prescription. His grandmother left him some money in her will with the stipulation that he had to go to college. So he moved out to do exactly that.<br />
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There was the lady who just moved out. She's a nurse, and she moved out to move closer to her work. One of the family members of one of her cases is highly allergic to cat fur, and since the landlord has a fairly affectionate cat at the house, she needed to get away from the little fuzzball. <br />
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There may have been a couple others who didn't even last a week before finding something more convenient, someplace cheaper, or something else.<br />
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Now there's a new guy, a freelance translator who works largely with hospitals, but some legal and other various associations as well. <br />
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I'm not even sure where I'm going with this. Is it me? Is it the landlord? Is it really these opportunities for them? When will the time be right for me to move out and move on with my life? I'm not even getting ants in the pants to leave the place, though if I had more brains I suppose I would. My landlord roomie is certainly a belfry full of bats half the time, but when push comes to shove, he's someone who'll shock you and make you glad you had him in your corner. Plus, I really love the cat. When I do move out, the cat's coming with me. My significant other and I like to joke about how it'll be the three of us when we finally get a place of our own.<br />
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As for the other roommates, I don't know if I made any impact in their lives, and I'm not even sure if they impacted mine. Just a weird, almost ethereal feeling as I see people come and go. Am I numb to it all? Have I grown enough to not be jealous of their moving on to better things? Am I depressed that I don't feeling anything more? Am I weak person for not moving out sooner?<br />
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Truth is I don't know. This is as much me looking for an excuse to have something to post in my personal blog after not writing anything for all of 2014. Do I really need another reason beyond that? Perhaps, but since I pontificate considerably more on my other blog, I thought I'd share a personal sentiment. And that sentiment is, one room causes doldrums, one causes new chapters. <br />
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Maybe next time I should switch rooms.Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-61422453830582010702013-07-08T15:33:00.000-07:002013-07-08T15:33:09.472-07:00Feeling bad for not feeling bad<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
“In years to come, they may discover what the air we breathe and the life we lead are all about, but it won’t be soon enough, soon enough for me.”—Paul McCartney, “Tug Of War”</div>
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Last week at work, an announcement was made over the speakers that a former co-worker had taken her life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had retired before I transferred to the office I’m at now, so I literally never met her, never worked with her, didn’t even know she existed, since no one told me any tales about her after she retired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, I should point out that I am no stranger to death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve attended funerals for relatives, a relative of my significant other, classmates, a coworker, and even a late boss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not to mention people I once knew whose funerals I was unable to attend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still this was the first time that a suicide victim was someone whom almost everyone else within a particular social circle of mine knew.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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And therein laid the problem for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just about everyone else knew her, but I didn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wasn’t deeply moved, and what did stir within me were the ripples of emotion from other people, like aftershocks or a domino down the line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learned (from a coworker who claims to have barely known her either) that this woman was having both physical and emotional difficulties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her family all lived faraway, and one of the apparently closer ones, whom she wanted to move in with, said she didn’t want her to move in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, her last months were very sad and tragic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I was a little saddened by it too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So if nothing else, I proved I’m not a robot.</div>
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Still, I was left with a little bit of sadness, and no way to really express it that would be appropriate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t feel like crying, nor did anyone else in my immediate vicinity, though the supervisor who broke the news to us was breaking up in tears as she told us.</div>
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I guess I really don’t know how to feel about the whole ordeal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one really blames me for not feeling much, and yet I feel bad for not feeling bad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While we look upon death as natural and part of the cycle of life, it’s still sad when it hits close enough to home for us, and even more so when the cause is neither natural nor accidental.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to do something for those who knew her, like be ready to fill in for them if they need a day off to grieve, but no one seems to need it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess they figured with her physical complications, she wasn’t bound to live for long.</div>
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Overall, I guess the saddest part for me is imagining what must have been going through this woman’s mind in her final days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our society is a little more (albeit very little) sympathetic to those who would choose suicide because of constant pain, but it’s so tragic to think that the reason she did it might have been that she believed her entire emotional support network was frayed and disconnected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t claim to be or to have ever been clinically depressed, though it’s been suspected of me before; nevertheless, I have frequently known the feeling of sadness that comes with an unmet need, but you don’t want to actually ask for help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You want someone to care enough for and about you to a) recognize something’s wrong in the first place, and b) offer help or initiate contact or conversation, and it has to be that way because to get help after you asked for it first doesn’t feel as meaningful, or even genuine—they only care because you asked them to care and not because they actually care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You want to be reached out to, but unless you overact the emotions, no one’s gonna be able to tell that you need someone to talk to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a vicious quicksand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I heard someone say that most suicides are just a cry for attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, if a little attention can stop it, I’d say it’s worth it, even if it’s just long enough to get them to a trained professional to help them.</div>
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I’ve seriously contemplated suicide a few times in my life, but I’m glad I’ve never gone through with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m very thankful for the relationship I have with my fiancé, who can almost always tell when something’s bothering me, and sometimes worries something’s wrong when fatigue causes me to act like I’m depressed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m also thankful for my relationship with God, by Whose grace and mercy I’m still chugging along and learning, finding meaning in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If that sounds trite or cloying, it’s because I’m not good at sharing my faith (tends to happen when the majority of your friends throughout your life are atheists who are stalwart in their doubt or denial), but I really do mean what I say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But right now I only hope that I can be there for friends when they need me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been there for friends with relationship issues, which is practically the height of irony given my entire life, but I’ve never yet had to be there, as far as I know, for someone on that edge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I only hope that if I am, I never find out what the stakes are, because I know I’ll panic and give lousy advice or listen wrongly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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I don’t know what to say to wrap things up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Always beware of becoming too self-absorbed?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be a good friend?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even then, there’s only so much you can do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t really say everyone’s responsible for their own actions, since we know that physical and mental disorders can many times render a person inculpable for their actions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess don’t be afraid to ask for help when you’re at that place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one wants you to commit suicide, and those who do aren’t worth you giving a shit about them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Talk to God, talk to the Suicide Hotline, talk to friend or family member.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Talk.</div>
Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-15628259361975416242013-06-17T14:51:00.001-07:002013-06-17T14:51:44.733-07:00What's in a double take?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
As bad as I am at keeping up with this blog, this is pretty bad that I’m a month overdue mentioning that I took the fiancé back to Michigan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My elder sister got married a month ago, and my significant other and I spent some time seeing some more sites around the ol’ stomping grounds in addition to attending the wedding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This trip proved to be a bit more trying than the previous one, mainly because of the mosquitoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hate mosquitoes, mainly because they love me so much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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But being a tourist in my own hometown for the second time really gave me a chance to take an outside look at what I want for my future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In many ways, it still has the same rural charm that I’ve always simultaneously loved and sprayed OFF! on me to keep at bay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cruising down the old roads, swerving and slowing down on some of the dicier gravel roads, or even just going to my nephew’s little league game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plus, the added bonus of seeing how the school has expanded and improved from when I was a student there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Truly some great moments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But whether it was the few adults who were acting inappropriate at said little league game, the fact that every business there plays the awful, awful country station for its patrons, or finding out that the newly elected county sheriff seriously considers extraterrestrial abduction as a plausible explanation for any missing person report (no joke, they won’t even let him speak at press conferences anymore, the deputy sheriff has to address the local news outlets), there’s just something that says either my hometown or I have changed too much to be compatible anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Strange as it sounds, I’d like to think it’s me that’s changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For starters, if you’ve had even a semi-happy childhood, your hometown will seem like Mayberry when you think back on your youth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To notice these things now is to say that the world, or at least that corner of it, hasn’t actually gotten any worse, we’re just more aware of it now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And to that end, we can say our parents did a good job of protecting us from these things long enough until we were able to absorb the brunt of these reality-dealing blows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some might actually call that bad parenting, but I disagree: it’s managing your own home environment to be as healthy as possible for the sake of those you love most, and sometimes that necessitates being the shield or filter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So to that end, I can say that my parents did a great job raising me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not that I’ve ever thought any different, but I don’t suppose I’ve ever actually told them that.</div>
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More to the topic at hand, I’d like to think of this newfound incompatibility to be a sign of personal growth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think I’m too good for my old hometown, although I’m certainly glad Mount Vernon’s chief of police doesn’t leave green cookies outside to lure Martians, and that the local supermarkets don’t play that ersatz country/Nashville pop while you’re shopping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But overall, I’m not dismissive of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t want to say it’s like outgrowing an old favorite shirt, but that’s kind of what feels like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d like to think it’s not so much outgrowing the old hometown as much as just outgrowing the memories, though I’ll always cherish them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where this personal growth will take is anyone’s guess, so I guess I just gotta buckle up and survive the ride.</div>
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I’m not sure where I really want to settle down, though I’m pretty sure it’ll just be wherever the fiancé is happiest living, or where the jobs are easiest to get.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As long as we’re happy there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess a hometown is just what you make it.</div>
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And apologies to all the people who read this who are either older than me or have more established lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t have funny or endearing stores of my children or really even much of a home life to share.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s either this or zingers from work that you had to be there to find funny, thickly laced with job jargon.</div>
Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-9057751981183099412012-11-17T09:38:00.001-08:002012-11-17T09:38:16.666-08:00What's in a miscommunication?For those who know or don't know, today is the third anniversary of the night I finally worked up the gumption to send a message to a cute-looking girl with an interesting profile on a dating website. Three years from that day, and I'm now sitting on her couch while she takes a brief nap on the couch next to me. I look across to her and see.. well it's not her face, she's turned to face the back of her couch. But if it were her face, I'd tell you of the angelic bliss I see in her visage as she slumbers peacefully. As such, the current view is also quite gratifying. Boy, she's gonna be mad at me when she reads this entry. What can I say? Being a stinker once in awhile is part of the fun of sharing a love with someone.<br />
<br />
So you'll be happy to know that barring her being upset with me for the above paragraph, the eponymous miscommunication is not about us. It's a work snafu. See, originally, the plan was for me to work this morning. And if I'd worked this morning, I wouldn't have been able to be with her until late this afternoon or possibly this evening given traffic (they really need to add more lanes on the Trans-Canada between the Cloverdale exit and the Highway 7 exit, but I digress). Thankfully, there was a foul-up in communication, and someone else is working today. It would've been nice to work today, make a little extra money, but the fiance was really excited about me coming up this afternoon because it's the first anniversary that we've actually been able to be together in person rather than on the internet or over the phone. So if she was excited about having the last maybe 7 hours of the day with me, imagine her excitement when I showed up at her door last night ready to spend ALL of today with her! She's excited, even if her sleeping state doesn't scream enthusiasm.<br />
<br />
So, whether you believe that all things happen for a reason or just love a good mix-up, the point is when I called the other person to discuss the schedule foul-up, she said she'd planned on me working this morning, but would be willing to do it if I wanted it off. So, when an opportunity strikes grab it. I did. It's how I got to spend the whole anniversary with the woman I love. It's how I got my fiance in the first place.<br />
<br />
Happy anniversary, Erica. I wouldn't switch lives with anyone because I have you. I love you.Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-82135752876945545932012-10-07T10:00:00.001-07:002012-10-07T10:00:49.544-07:00What's in a joke or five?<br />
<h1>
<u><span lang="EN-US">Five Jokes With Which Drew Carey Is Ruining “The Price
Is Right”<o:p></o:p></span></u></h1>
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<span lang="EN-US">No question about it: The Price Is Right is
one of the greatest, arguably THE greatest, and most enduring game shows of all
time. A lot of this has been due to the
fun of playing along at home with the games, a lot of it has been allure of the
models over the years, but undeniably, the greatest factor was the show’s host
who will forever be directly associated with the program, Bob Barker. And a lot of good people were dismayed when
the reins were handed over to comedian and star of two retired shows on ABC,
Drew Carey. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In all fairness to Drew, Bob Barker is
irreplaceable, and Carey was a better choice than some of the other ones the
rumor mill was predicting, such as Rosie O’Donnell. It’s never fun to be the man to have to fill
a legend’s shoes, knowing you’ll always be in his shadow. Drew realizes that, even taking it as a
compliment for the first couple years, when people kept calling him “Bob.” It places you in an instant catch-twenty-two. If you try to carry the torch by imitating
the master, then you’re ridiculed for just being a copycat; if you try to add
your own twist to the job, you’re reviled for taking away from the show and not
honoring the master’s legacy. To that
end, Drew Carey’s had the good sense to bite the bullet and make the job his
own, trying to maintain a balance between the tradition and the reality that
Bob’s not coming back, which to his credit, he actually does a good job of.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">One of the ways he does this is in the
jokes he makes. Bob made jokes on the
show, but as a professional comedian, Drew has a different style that makes the
job his. However, as any professional
comedian will also tell you, making your stuff translate to network TV is no
small task. Drew Carey has found this
out the hard way, and thankfully he has adjusted the jokes, and has even
stopped telling ones that were just bombing (“Ezekiel Barker” when playing the
old Barker’s Bargain Bar before that game got a makeover; joking about two completely
unrelated products going together). Here
are five more that desperately need to go:</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">#5: “The ol’ Price Is Right clock on the
wall”</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">When you hear it: before they call the
final contestant down to Contestants’ Row.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Why he does it exposition really. For those just tuning in who aren’t sure
where in the program they are. It also
calls attention to the fact that there’s one pricing game left, trying to
instill a sense of urgency in the one who’s called down and the three still
there.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Why it needs to go: for starters, there’s
no clock that we see. When he does that
joke, they cut to George Gray at the announcer’s podium, and they show a
computer image of a clock with the hands going round. Maybe I’m alone in this, but I kinda miss the
less-computerized things they did: from the giant backdrops depicting a prize
trip, which have been replaced with LCD screens; to the old lights on the
Temptation game that now show scrolling numbers. This display of a clock just irritates me
further. I’d rather they have a prop
clock with the cuckoo bird holding a sign that reads “One More Contestant!”
than see that digital display. But more
importantly, The Price Is Right is too well established as a television
institution for this joke. People who
are just tuning in know that the show is winding down by this point. We know it by heart now: three games,
showcase showdown, three more games, another showcase showdown, and the final
showcase. This joke is more of an insult
to the audience than a bit of humor.
Lastly, this joke ruins the illusion of relaxed pacing that we’ve all
enjoyed. It’s about fun, not making the
show run on time. With a few exceptions,
like urging a contestant who doesn’t know what to bid and takes awhile to
decide or the games that run on a timer, the show has always had the illusion
of a Jack Benny kind of “We get there when we get there” pace to it, even
incorporating the timer games into that pace so it never seems rushed. This joke erodes that tent pole in the
festival of fun. </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">#4: “One of our luckiest models!”</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">When you hear it: when playing a game that
involves one of the models doing something functional in the gameplay and/or
one of the games with a higher chance factor involved than other games.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Why he does it: to give the contestants
more confidence, to create and nurture an atmosphere of well-wishing that
includes not just him, but everyone, including the models.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Why it needs to stop: in all fairness, this
joke really isn’t supposed to be all that funny, so the fact that it’s not
funny really isn’t a strike against him.
What is a strike though is the execution of the joke, as quite often
he’ll engage said model in baiting banter, asking her if she’s feeling lucky. Right on cue, she says, “I feel lucky!” This is irritating because we know what
she’ll say. I mean, what else is she
gonna say? This is just unnecessary
dialogue. I’m not against having the
models speak or anything chauvinistic like that—I actually like it when Drew
pauses for a sec to ask the model what song she’s pretending to sing when the
item up for bids is a karaoke machine.
But the fake enthusiasm the model is expected to exhibit makes high
school cheerleaders look like Flavor Flav-league hype-people. And also, of all the ways luck comes into
play, the involvement on the part of the model is really the least of
them. Not to mention that there are some
people who will take that joke seriously and attempt to calculate the Model’s
Luck Coefficient. . Lastly, making the
models out to be little more than good luck charms is more objectifying than
pure chauvinism, as they’re no longer eye candy, but bracelets on the wrist.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">#3: “The greatest game in the world!”</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">When you hear it: when they play Rat Race.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Why he does it: it’s a game that he helped
create and develop.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Why it needs to stop: for starters the game
pretty much sucks. It’s one of the most
chance-determined games they have. You
can do everything right and still end up with the least of the three possible
prizes. It’s not the most popular game;
that would be Plinko, which ironically enough is even more chance-riddled than
Rat Race. True you can win three prizes,
including a car, but you can also do that with Master Key, Ten Chances, and
even better than that with Switcheroo.
For anticipation, there have been better ways to do it than watching
wind up mechanical rats, such as watching the mountain climber ascend during
Cliff Hangers. The joke’s not funny
because it’s obvious the humor comes from his pride of ownership. Also, claiming one game as the best of all is
insinuation that there are games that aren’t fun.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">#2: “Look out! Try not to collide!”</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">When you hear it: when the models have to
switch sides in the game Switch?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Why he does it: the thought of two models
possibly colliding seems somehow funny to him.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Why it needs to stop: where do I start with
this one? Is it the assumption that on a
2-D television screen, the viewer will forget that life happens in a
three-dimensional world? Is it the
thought that the models aren’t smart enough to walk and carry a sign at the
same time? Is it the fact that it’s a
completely unnecessary gag during the filler music that plays while they switch
places? Is it the fact that if the
contestant doesn’t wish to switch, Drew jokes about a potential crisis averted? You guessed it, all of the above. This joke is a failure on just about every
level. It was even funny the first time
he did it, it’s still not funny now.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">#1: “Oh, mighty sound effects lady…”</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">When you hear it: when they play One Away</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Why he does it: it builds anticipation and
tension, and Bob Barker did this joke, too…sort of.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Why it needs to stop: let’s start with the
fact that this takes Bob’s original bit to ridiculous proportions. Bob made the contestant ask nicely using
“Ladies” or “Gentlemen”, and say please, or say a specific phrase. And that’s fair. The sound effects people are union,
work-a-day people, and when Bob asks on their behalf that the contestant address
them politely, that’s just looking out for the little guy. By contrast, Drew makes the contestants
flat-out grovel, to the point of deifying the sound effects lady. The sound effects person does not have THAT
much control. The sound effects person
just lets you know how many numbers you got right. That’s it.
They’ve got higher-ups to answer to if they don’t do their damn
job. There’s no need to humiliate the
contestant (any further than they embarrass themselves that is). Also, it drags the game on forever. Remember the clock on the wall that tampered
with pacing by instilling a false rush?
This is the joke that drags the pace of the show down by Drew actually
slowing it down. He demonstrates how the
contestant needs to ask with slow enunciation, and as expected, the contestant
emulates the very slow beseeching of the sound effects lady’s favor. This bit is so annoying that it has wrecked
the game for me. One Away used to be one
of my favorite games on The Price Is Right, now I mute the TV when they play
the game, and sometimes change the channel, because even without sound, it’s
painful to watch. If the mighty sound
effects lady had as much control as Drew makes her out to have, she’d play some
goofy sound effects over Drew Carey’s demonstration so the rest of us could get
a genuine laugh, for a change. </span></div>
Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-46308690333751396792012-09-05T16:51:00.002-07:002012-09-05T16:53:46.055-07:00What's in a vacation?Last week, I finally had the opportunity to introduce my
fiancée to my family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t tell you
how nervous I was about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While I’m
not completely attached to my family, I discovered that it was extremely
important to me that they at least be able to be happy for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t quite need their approval of her,
just that they be able to be happy for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That seems easy enough, but it hasn’t really happened before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My first girlfriend, they were less than
thrilled with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My second girlfriend, I
never even told them about while I was dating her (well, two of my siblings
knew, but the rest of the family remained oblivious).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
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Now, this is a tightrope to walk to explain: my family
aren’t flint-hearted villains who don’t want me to be happy, and I’m not the
kind of guy who’d be devastated and would break it off if they didn’t approve
or couldn’t be happy for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if the
family isn’t happy for me, then there’s probably something I’m not seeing or
considering, that love is blindsiding me to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So I was a little concerned as to how the week would go.</div>
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And it was a hectic week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The main purpose of the visit wasn’t for them to meet my fiancée, but to
attend my little sister’s wedding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
also, my brother was in town with his wife and kids, and while I’d met them, my
other siblings hadn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So this was a
full plate for the family, and we could very easily have gotten lost in the
shuffle.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In some ways we did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We stayed in a hotel since the aforementioned brother and family were
staying with my parents, so we were separated from the family in that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And much of the time was spent seeing sights
that at one time or another meant a lot to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Still there was time for the family, all four siblings and almost all my
nieces and nephews (and one smelly rat disguised as a dog).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know which sibling got to know my
fiancée best, or if my parents got that chance the most.</div>
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All I can really tell you is the results: one brother said
he would start calling my fiancée “sis”; the other brother said he’s never seen
me happier than I am with her, one sibling has added her as a Facebook friend
(as did the sister’s fiancée and two of her children), the other sister….well
she ‘s the one that got married, so let’s let the lovebirds finish honeymooning
first, shall we?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Though the new
bro-in-law has also friended her on FB too).</div>
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As for my parents?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Well, they’re parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have
concerns a-plenty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of it entails
either the legal falderal that awaits us or things that are directly affected
by aforementioned falderal. They're happy for me though, and they're looking forward to our wedding.</div>
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Normally when I post to this blog, I try to have something
learned along the way, or something important to say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know if I have that this time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learned some things this past week sure,
but nothing too grandiose that could be the moral lesson on an episode of
“South Park” or anything like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To
be honest, I’m not sure what to make of the whole experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I really wish I’d had more time to spend with
my siblings to get them to know my fiancée better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the major upside of it all is that we
feel ready to start planning our wedding, hopefully in April,<o:p></o:p></div>
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So um.. I guess the moral is get your passports renewed,
because it’ll probably be in Canada.<o:p></o:p></div>
Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-77504483195640566342011-11-17T06:36:00.000-08:002011-11-17T06:36:31.424-08:00What's in an anthem?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">On the episode of <u>Glee</u> that focused on anthems, among other things, we witnessed the character of Loren Zizes singing, “I Know What Boys Like”, which she called her anthem, because it spoke so well to and about her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If that’s the definition of an anthem (and it really isn’t on any level) then before two years ago today, my anthem would have been Uncle Kracker’s “In A Little While.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To me, the song speaks to every level and age plateau in life, at least for those with a hole in their lives.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 55.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">“Here’s to the good life, or so they say”… an expectation of the best being yet to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“All those parties and games that all those people play”—what to expect and what we should hold as an end unto itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They tell me this is the place to be”… and these are the best years of your life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“All these beautiful people, and nothing to see”: the realization that it’s all a façade and nothing of substance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt like this was my life, first high school, then college, then when I moved to Lansing as a young adult; I’d finally gotten to where and when I was told that I needed to be to really enjoy life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, I knew from my Christian upbringing that this wasn’t necessarily going to be true, but I still hoped that the sentiment would still be truer than it had been before, and be less of a lie, that reaching a certain age meant a leveling out of how much life sucks.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">But the bridge, or second half of every verse, is the part that really made the song mean so much to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Sometimes I feel like something is gone here, something is wrong here”, something’s missing and it sure ain’t right that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then where he sort of exclaims, “I DON’T BELONG HERE.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not just the line, but also the way he sings it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You just want to scream, “THIS IS NOT WHERE I’M SUPPOSED TO BE!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similar to the way Freddie Mercury screams/sings “LET ME OUT” in “Under Pressure.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t tell you how many times I just felt like I didn’t belong where I was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every dayjob I’d had since leaving college, every group of roommates (except Edwin), at the radio station during the day when almost none of the salespeople had any clue who I was—even at church of all places, where I felt out of place at the various ministries I was in or tried to be a part of, or during the early morning service because I was the only one under thirty not with their parents or in college, or at the later morning service where I wasn’t moved by the contemporary praise songs to lift my hands to Heaven (that’s more my problem though… I was raised in a conservative worship tradition, and raising hands still feels weird to me).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did feel comfortable at the evening services, which were smaller, but even then that was only when I could make it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Going back home to my parents place to visit, I felt like I belonged at home, but there was always the issue of how I didn’t feel comfortable in the rest of the town just because it’s changed so much over the years, and even being at my parents’ place carried the reminder that I’d soon have to drive back to Lansing, so there was no point in getting too comfortable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which bridges nicely into the line, “Sometimes I feel like a stranger in town”… duh, not just my hometown, but Lansing too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was supposed to have been just passing through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“And I’ve lost what I found, it’ll all turn around.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe just about having to make sacrifices to set the things in motion that you want in motion and in the desired vector.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">“In a little while, I’ll be thinking about you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a little while I’ll still be here without you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For me, the desire for love and to be loved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You never gave me a reason to doubt you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can’t have a reason if you don’t have they who’d give you the reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">“On the other side of the coin, there’s a face, there’s a memory somewhere that I can’t erase.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Past love?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Past memories?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve all got them, and they still come back to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“And there’s a place that I’ll find someday, but sometimes I feel like it’s slipping away.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The destination that you feel called to, but that’s coupled with the doubts that you’ll actually arrive there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the last verse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Some things are lost, some left behind, some things are better left for someone else to find.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let the past be the past, and have someone else learn the lessons for themselves, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Maybe in time I can finally see, I just wonder, wonder do you think about me?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe I’ll get over it, but are you struggling with the memory of me as I do with yours?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">As I said, this was my theme song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I identified so very strongly with that song… up until two years ago, when I finally found the nerve to approach a girl I was interested in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And eventually I got her interested in me, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s proven to have been the best thing I ever did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This girl has turned my world upside-down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mentioned a bit of it last year in a blog on this date, but it’s still true, maybe even truer, to think about how she’s just changed my world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m now living on the other side of the country, making plans to move to another country to be with her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This year has definitely been a harder year for the both of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I believe I can speak for her as well when I say that this past year’s struggles were much harder and nearly tore us apart a couple times, that we’ve both had to step up more and work harder to make this work, but that we’re also both happy that we did and happier to have each other in our lives, and that we very much look forward to a life together, a future, an eternity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And any time I start to doubt it, all I need to do is call and hear her voice, even if it’s the recording on her voice mail, and everything returns as to how I know we belong together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I don’t know if she’s ever felt any kind of creeping doubt (at least not since I moved to Washington), but hopefully there’s something about me that she just needs to see or hear again to spark her memory about how much I love her and how much she loves me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">So, sorry Uncle Kracker, your song is no longer my anthem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I still love the song, but it’s no longer as meaningful as before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> This woman has made me feel like I belong somewhere, that nothing's wrong here, what's best lost and left behind has been, and that I am indeed getting close to the good life. </span>I don’t know what my anthem is now, probably don’t have one (at least not one that I’ll readily admit to), but it’s not a song about depression and resignation, and it probably won't be "Smile" either.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt;">And to you, Erica, my love, Happy Two-Year Anniversary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll always be thankful to God and to you for your presence in my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love you.</span></div>Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-87225070318577128832011-11-08T17:20:00.000-08:002011-11-08T17:20:28.692-08:00What's in the front yard?The short answer to that question would be: leaves. It's autumn out here, and even here in the Evergreen State, deciduous trees are losing their leaves. It's pretty everywhere else, but not so much in your own front yard. Which is precisely when I was almost/sorta beaten over the head again with the roommate agreement. The agreement states that I will help with the care of the yard. The head roommate put this clause in because she is on disability and cannot be doing things like mowing the lawn, and shouldn't be raking leaves. Well, I have two more roommates, a married couple, and the husband usually does the yardwork. When it comes to the yardwork, he prefers to do it by himself for a couple reasons: one, he's got a particular way of doing it that he wants done that way every time; two, it's his "me time"... when he's away from his wife, the head roommate, and even me. He gets to be left to his own thoughts and just get lost in his thoughts. <br />
<br />
Nonetheless, this past week, it apparently took him four hours to do the leaves in the front yard. He was out there with a leaf blower, and just blowing them away the whole time. The day he did this was a day off for me, so I was inside my room the whole time, in my own little world. A few hours later, the head roommate came to me, upset, asking me why I wasn't out there helping him. What could I say? I don't mind helping out, but I've lived in rental areas for the past eight years where only ONE of those eight years was I actually required to rake the leaves, and before that, living with my folks where if they wanted me to rake the leaves, they took away the Nintendo controller and told me to get out there. Suffice to say, raking leaves is just not something I think to do. Just doesn't even appear on my radar. It's almost a pointless task, really. At least, that's my opinion. Anyway, I said defensively and plainly that since I don't have a door from my room to the outside (like the others do), and my blinds and curtains are always drawn (because it's not very sunny this time of year), if there's yardwork to do, they'd have to tell me, because I won't notice and won't think to do it. She was still pretty huffy about it when we finished talking, and I even went to the roomie who'd been out there and apologized. <br />
<br />
He and his wife both said to ignore the head roommate's admonishment, but nonetheless, it's a lesson in what it means to be living with a woman who has expectations of you: if she has to ask you to do it, you're already on her shit-list. In this case, I don't think it's particularly fair, but since I hope to be married by the end of next year, it'll soon be a love situation, and like war, all's fair. The transition from bachelor to husband is definitely more than a matter of standing next to a woman and having a clergy or justice, in the presence of at least one witness, declare you each other's poor sucker. It's about realigning your antenna (not a euphemism) to pick up signals that are sent just as tacitly and perhaps just as electromagnetically as real analog transmissions. <br />
<br />
This lesson was compounded further by today's day off. I had seen that there were indeed leaves on the front lawn again, and had made plans to do them. Even coordinated with the leaf blowing roomie about letting me help him out just to keep Head Roomie off my ass. I planned to do it at 1 in the afternoon. It'd be about as warm as it was gonna get, and there's nothing on TV from 1-7. But at 12:45, on a premonition of sorts, I peered out my window, and sure enough, someone was already on it. This time, the head roomie! The last person who should be raking leaves was out there, raking her heart out. Well, that last thing I wanted to do was give her any more grounds to holler at me, so I went out there and told her she shouldn't be out there, and that I'd take over. Pretty pointless gesture actually, because she was about done. But I kicked a few leaves in an effort to "help." She didn't get on my case about not having been out there sooner, but nonetheless, I learned today that I would very soon be, if not already, living on WST, Woman Standard Time.... meaning it gets done when SHE wants it done, and my plans to do anything later in the afternoon don't mean diddly if she (whomever "she" refers to at any given time) wants it done at a different time, be it sooner or later. It gets done when she wants it done. And that's definitely something that'll be a factor in my eventual married life, though in all honesty, the woman I intend to marry is going to have to concede a little bit, not for my sake necessarily though. But yeah, better synchronize the watch and calendar.<br />
<br />
What the hell am I getting myself into, I sometimes wonder.Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-61804759355912280122011-09-11T15:55:00.001-07:002011-09-11T15:55:37.724-07:00What's in a vacuum cleaner?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“I lived with you … and your definition of ‘table settings’ was a six-pack of beer, a gallon of ranch dressing, the top of a pizza box and a roll of paper towels!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had two forks, and we didn’t wash those everyday!”—My friend Ben, about a former roommate of his… NOT me.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">This past week I’d gotten a note from the “head” roommate, so dubbed because she writes the amalgamate check to the landlord, serves as liaison to aforementioned landlord, and all the utilities are in her name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She said we needed to talk about my roommate agreement, and I knew pretty much what it was she was specifically referring to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was a little bit upset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actually, I was more upset about the passive-aggressive means she took to address the situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We never actually talked per se; she left her copy of it out circling the issues in question and writing a footnote about what it was that was upsetting her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt that was pretty disrespectful to just not talk directly to me about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that’s not the point… the issues are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All but one were petty, and were actually pretty defensible for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The one that was really bothering her regarded the carpet. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The roommate agreement stated that I would keep in mind that the carpet was new and would treat it with respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been living here for just a hair over a month now, and had at that point not yet vacuumed my room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had tried to suggest that I do it earlier that day in a subtle way, and I did catch her drift, but I got engrossed with other things and it clean slipped my mind. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I still had something of a mess on the floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a little bit of dirty laundry, one pizza box (I’ve actually been really good about throwing out anything involving food like cans, bottles, containers, wrappers, etc.), and mostly my bed sheets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The blankets were the big eye-catcher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my defense, I hate having to make my bed, not because it’s so annoying to do, but because literally ALL the sheets and blankets you tuck under the mattress are sized for my old mattress, which is approximately half as thick as my current one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So if I make my bed, getting in at night will be like getting into a short-sheeted bunk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Add some tossing and turning and most of the blankets are on the floor each and every morning, including the sheet that’s supposed to hug the mattress and stay under me while I sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I don’t want to bother putting upthe money to buy all new blankets for a mattress that’s at least eight inches thick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So making my bed is pretty pointless: just put on a pillowcase, get my much bigger comforter, and off to dreamland I’ll go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But having nowhere else to put them, I pretty much left them on the floor.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">All this rendered the floor unable to be vacuumed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which put the roommate in a snit, apparently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Normally I would tell her it’s none of her business, but she went out of her way to make this part of the roommate agreement, so I could tell this was a hill she was willing to die on, whereas it really wasn’t for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And as I said, I was more upset that she left a note rather than actually talk to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seriously, that dang note didn’t even mention the fact that the landlord was expected to pay us an inspection this month as part of renewing his insurance on his rental properties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If she’d even just mentioned that, it’d have been done before she could have finished her sentence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But no… a note.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Baaaaack to the focus of this: the floor, the contract, and the meaning of words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See, the contract said, “Respect the carpet.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What the contract didn’t take into consideration is that for the past eight years, I’ve lived life with a style that was a hybrid of “grad student” and “bachelor pad”, mainly because two of those years were with grad students as roommates and six with the landlord as my roommate, he also a bachelor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Living as such, phrases like that mean something else to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the past eight years, if the rental agreement had said, “Respect the carpet”, it would have meant: a) don’t torch it, b) don’t pull it up, and c) use Resolve and a paper towel if you spill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vacuuming was an “oh crap, we’ve got company coming in 20 minutes!” kind of thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seriously, I went at least a year or two between the penultimate occurrence of vacuuming at my last place, and the final time when I was getting ready to move out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a veritable dust bunny ranch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It just wasn’t something done with any regularity</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It would seem however, that the phrase “respect the carpet” means something entirely different to my new roommates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems that vacuuming is supposed to be a weekly occurrence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And maybe using this “Carpet Fresh” stuff on the odd occasion is recommended.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pizza boxes are supposed to go out the next morning instead of being converted into writing surfaces or lap tables, and trash bags should be inside a plastic or metal can of sorts while they’re being filled up.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Okay, in all fairness, I didn’t expect to continue living like I had or even being allowed to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I moved all the way across the continent to be closer to the woman I intend to marry and start a family with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To continue to live with a bachelor mindset would simply destroy the marriage we plan to have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I knew that I was going to have to change a lot regarding my lifestyle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Boxes will no longer be stacked to convert into the TV stand, the bathroom will need to be maintained a little more attentively, and “for now” will mean less than a week when it comes to temporarily placing something someplace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Strangely enough, I kinda expected much of this to happen automatically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the minute I moved in, certain changes happened instantly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Probably because I was conscious about them and trying to make sure I took care of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there’s stuff below the obvious (at least what wasn’t obvious to me).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just to state for the record, vacuuming was NOT one of the “below the obvious” things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The frequency with which it was expected to be done probably was, though, even though vacuuming ^was^ something my parents made me do on a weekly basis</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Overall, I’m thinking of the time I’m in Everett as something of a purgatory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m where all the sinful habits of bachelorhood must be purged away before I can ascend, both metaphorically and geographically, to the paradise of a marriage with a wonderful woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know, “paradise of a marriage” is probably a contradiction in terms, but don’t spoil the metaphor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">So, on the horizon, more nagging and constant reminders that I’m far from a perfect roommate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But better to drive a temporary roommate crazy with old habits that I’m trying to quell than the woman who’d have to put up with them for the rest of her life if I didn’t curb them now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And looking at the floor now, I see it needs a going over again, because time has passed since I did it last, and it needs to be maintained.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Right after I get all my blankets off the floor and make the bed again.</div>Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-63128707090892928132011-09-06T04:50:00.000-07:002015-05-04T21:51:10.759-07:00What's in a road trip summary?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Now that I'm in Washington, I thought I'd talk a little about the trip. We'll see how much. On a pseudo-poetic whim, I’ve decided to sum up my little excursion across the country with this ersatz acrostic.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
A is for Alexander and Aiden, the two nephews I finally got to meet.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
B is for Boise, the only stop I made in Idaho.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
C is for Coca-Cola, which I drank a lot of while behind the wheel.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
D is for the dolly upon which my car was towed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
E is for Erica, the very reason for the move.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
F is for Flying J, which has surprisingly good pizza for a truck stop chain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
G is for the Great Salt Lake in Utah, which I got to visit.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
H is for Hamilton, Michigan, still my home though I’m so many miles away.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I is for Iowa, the first state on this trip that I’d previously never been in before.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
J is for Jerome County in Idaho and Joliet, Illinois: the former, where the longest road construction backups were for me; the latter, where the construction actually forced me off the interstate at one point.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
K is for Kennecott, the copper mining facility we went to visit.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
L is for Laramie, Wyoming, the first city with serious downgrade warnings.</div>
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M is for Mark, the brother with whom I reconnected.</div>
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N is for Nebraska, the only state I didn’t see a sign welcoming me into, because I was driving into the sunset and through a work zone at the time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
O is for Oregon, which had the most beautiful mountain scenery.</div>
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P is for Penske, the company that rented me the truck.</div>
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Q is for quesadillas, which I had for dinner my second night.</div>
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R is for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame series of homemade CD’s I listened to in the truck for most of the trip.</div>
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S is for Sandra, my sister-in-law whom I finally met.</div>
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T is for TomTom and TracFone, the two technological presents that made this trip a lot easier.</div>
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U for Umatilla, both the only stop I made in Oregon, and the reservation with the deadliest stretch of road the entire trip.</div>
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V is for the Vocal Group Hall Of Fame series CD’s, the other homemade disc set I listened to while driving.</div>
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W is for the wounds that reconciliation have finally healed.</div>
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X is for the Xanadu Restaurant, where I ate my first breakfast in the state of Washington.</div>
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Y is for Yakima, which was the projected hit point for day five (or seven depending on how you looked at it), and where I should have stopped that day, since I found myself driving into the sunset after that point.</div>
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Z is for zero, the number of regrets I have for having done this.</div>
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<br /></div>
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And the Top Ten significant numbers of this trip:</div>
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<br /></div>
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10. States I drove in.</div>
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9.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Days of the truck rental lease</div>
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8.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Days I actually used the truck</div>
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7.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The time I usually woke up each morning.</div>
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6. Motel chain I spent two of my three motel nights in.</div>
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5. Maximum number of states driven in within a single day (Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska).</div>
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4. Relatives in Magna, Utah visited.</div>
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3. Time zones moved across</div>
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2. Times we readjusted the wheel straps to make sure my car was secure on the towing dolly.</div>
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1. Woman who made all this worthwhile.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Hammy and cheesy, yes, but hold the wry.</div>
Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-67406930949821058452011-07-04T00:10:00.000-07:002011-07-04T00:10:29.938-07:00What's in a dream job?Commercial broadcast radio. I love it. It's a job I look forward coming to just about everyday. Even a weekend like this, I enjoy it. It's an extended weekend with the holiday, and the guy who does two of the weekend overnights asked me to cover his shifts. Works out pretty well, because one of them means 5.5 hours of holiday pay. That's worth a few missed hours of sleep. And after having worked 12.5 hours in a 14 hour stretch, I got asked if I could come in and do the third (second, chronologically speaking) overnight of the weekend because the guy asked for it off and my program director simply forgot to ask people if they'd be willing to fill in. And so it fell to me. And despite being tired as all get out (I was literally brushing my teeth before going to bed when he called, and had to make him wait a second so I could spit out the toothpaste so I could actually talk to him), I was actually happy to do it. This job is great. It's literally the reason I moved to Lansing in the first place. If it wasn't for this job, I might still be living with my folks, working a job I was really hating, and probably suffering very deeply in depression. Not to mention I probably wouldn't even have the social circle I do now, since it's almost all internet based, and my parents have dial-up since they live out in the country. Heck, my social circle would probably be just a dot. This place has been an absolute dream to work at.<br />
<br />
Although lately, that dream has been taking some of those weird, inexplicable twists that usually only dreams are capable of taking. It's starting to get aggravating and frustrating. And not eustressful. But not really even distressful either. Just a lot of little things that aren't your (my) fault, but still have to be dealt with. Mostly it's a matter of handling people. And I don't just mean the mentally handicapped (literally in a couple cases) call-in listeners. But that's a whole nother blog that I'll only publish when I'm sure that I'll never work in radio again. I don't want to get into specifics, because I don't want to be thought of as the office gossip, but a combination of procrastination, free-spiritedness, difficulty learning new tricks due to being an older dog, super intensity, people getting mad at me for doing the job the way it's supposed to be done (and I don't mean that in a snooty manner, I mean actually doing the little things that we're supposed to do but are so little that others often ignore them) and a hint of territoriality spread over a number of co-workers has been feeling like a bit of a push out the door lately. And it's sad. I really want to be on the verge of tears from missing the place when I leave. It takes some balancing out, too. I mean, I've got my faults to be sure too.... anal retentivity and the preference to walk around the building with shoes off are probably my two biggest flaws, that and probably complaining and timidity.<br />
<br />
All in all, that's what made this place a blast. Sure we've got flaws, but what we bring to the table far outweighs those things. But since I'm one of those guys who doesn't speak unless something's wrong, you'll probably only usually hear the negative things from me, which by the way, is also why NONE of my current co-workers are Facebook friends with me. I don't want anything I say to be construed as me not liking my job or my co-workers. Also because my sense of humor is generally self-deprecating a la Ray Romano or Dave Barry... I complain to be funny....like "you would NOT believe what happened today!" and expecting to get a laugh from it. I've actually had negative reviews because my superiors didn't realize that's just what my sense of humor is like, and thought I was a real malcontent. With this place though, nothing could be further from the truth. I absolutely love it here. Part of me really does not want to leave.<br />
<br />
Kind of conflicting emotions in this post. I'm saddened because I'll be leaving here soon. Really scared by the fact that I haven't been able to land a radio position in the city I'll be moving to. REALLY scared. This is what I really want to do, and I'm not enjoying the thought that I might be closing the door on what I want so badly to be my lifelong career. All the same, I'll be remembering the good times. And the bad times, because I think they're funny stories... when told from a retrospective perspective.Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-87774680331455867962011-04-30T17:17:00.000-07:002011-04-30T17:17:00.491-07:00What's in a hot dog?Just kidding. Some questiosns are better left unanswered.Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-11069112284306943512011-04-11T19:47:00.000-07:002011-04-11T19:47:11.749-07:00What's in me?"But it's all right now. I learned my lesson well. See, you can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself."--Rick Nelson<br />
<br />
I just happened to notice that I went the entire month of March without posting a blog. With everything going on and going so fast right now, it's hard for me to stop and catch my breath and pontificate upon it all long enough and write about it. <br />
<br />
I think it's also because I didn't really plan on blogging unless I felt I had something interesting or useful to say. I was thinking of my audience, the readers. I felt I should try to say something that could either relate to the reader or at the very least get them to read or comment on it. <br />
<br />
But as I read the other blogs of those I follow, it strikes me that all of that rather belies the point of even having a blog. It's an online diary, for crying out loud. Or just a sounding board for interesting or amusing stories. Not being a parent and pretty much having no social life here in East Lansing, my humorous anecdotes are pretty much relegated to the workplace, and much of that is either inside jokes or instances where you had to be there, although saying you're open-minded to the thought of using metal cans to sanitize your crevass will ALWAYS earn you that look that asks if you've been drinking cleaner fluid again. Again, though, you pretty much had to be there to really enjoy it.<br />
<br />
But all that comes to the point that I realize that like being funny (steakhouse in Bloomington anybody?), I'm also usually my most interesting when I'm making no effort to be so. Or when I'm horribly sleep-deprived, since that's when the brain filter doesn't receive its recommended allocation of oxygen to function properly... like being on Ambien, only with a marginally better chance of remembering what you said later on.<br />
<br />
And as I read the blogs of other people, it becomes more and more clear that they're doing it for their own benefit, and not really for anyone else's. And I realize that that is actually a challenge for me... to do it just for my own sake. My adult life I've been so desperate to be cool, accepted, and normal. As a child, at least up until my senior year of high school, I actually reveled in the fact that I was so different from my classmates. Then I realized they were laughing at me and not with me, stabbing me in the back as well as to my face. Now, I just want to fit in, to like what other people like, to have similar tastes in everything from food to movies and tv, to music. And if you know anything about me, that quest has been a horrendous and dismal outright and abject failure at every turn.<br />
<br />
So I can't force myself to like what I don't. All I can do is expose myself to it, and if it doesn't expose itself back, oh well. And this is where the voices in my head come to duke it out, not stage a performance for the amusement of others, though I still want to entertain and amuse you. Can I be myself again? Well, the first step is going to be wanting to do so again. I'll keep you posted on that, I guess. To mine own self be true.Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-69874819356964735412011-02-09T08:18:00.000-08:002011-03-21T11:59:44.400-07:00What's in an "adventure"?Adventure (n): 1. <span id="hotword"><span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">an</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="cursor: default;">exciting</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">or</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">very</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">unusual</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">experience.</span> </span><span class="dnindex"><span id="hotword"><span style="color: #333333;"><span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">2.</span> </span></span></span><span id="hotword"><span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">participation</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">in</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">exciting</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">undertakings</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">or</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">enterprises:</span> </span><span class="ital-inline"><span id="hotword"><em><span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">the</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">spirit</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">of</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">adventure.</span> </em></span></span><span class="dnindex"><span id="hotword"><span style="color: #333333;"><span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">3.</span> </span></span></span><span id="hotword"><span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">a</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">bold,</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">usually</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">risky</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">undertaking;</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">hazardous</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">action</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">of</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">uncertain</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">outcome.</span> </span><span class="dnindex"><span id="hotword"><span style="color: #333333;"><span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">4.</span> </span></span></span><span id="hotword"><span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">a</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">commercial</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">or</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">financial</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">speculation</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">of</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">any</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">kind;</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">venture.</span> </span><span class="dnindex"><span id="hotword"><span style="color: #333333;"><span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">5.</span> </span></span></span><span class="labset"><span class="ital-inline"><span id="hotword"><em><span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">Obsolete</span> </em></span></span><span id="hotword">. </span></span><span class="dnindex"><span id="hotword"><span style="color: #333333;"><span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">a.</span> </span></span></span><span id="hotword"><span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">peril;</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">danger;</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">risk. </span></span><span class="dnindex"><span id="hotword"><span style="color: #333333;"><span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">b.</span> </span></span></span><span id="hotword"><span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">chance;</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'">fortune;</span> <span id="hotword" name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">luck. -- dictionary.com</span></span><br />
<br />
<span name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">Everyone has those words that they absolutely hate. A former co-worker of mine hated the word "eventually" because a boyfriend of hers used to use that word a lot, and it drove her nuts when he wouldn't give a straight answer. Internet friends of mine hate "irregardless" because, as they would say, "IT'S NOT A F***** WORD!!" Others hate words for the way they sound to the ear or roll off the tongue. But for me, one such word is "adventure."</span><br />
<br />
<span name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">I suppose it's because of children's programming most of all: those shows that promise that every episode is an ADVENTURE filled with excitement and personal growth lessons to take from it, or worse, the word "adventure" is in the name of the program. Seriously, that's annoying. As most of the definitions above will tell you, risk or hazard is involved, and for the viewer, there is none, since a happy ending is always guaranteed, and equilibrium is always restored to normal. In fact, I'd say the only reason that definition number one gets top billing is BECAUSE of children's programming's saturation of the word, bringing that much safer, even milquetoast I would say, definition and connotation of the word to the forefront of our collective consciousness. Oh sure, the characters on the show don't know they'll be okay at the end, but for the viewer, we always know better. Like Bob and Bing sing in "Road To Morocco": "we might run into villains but we're not afraid to roam/Because we read the story and we end up safe at home." That primary definition is the reason I hate that word. At its absolute best, the word "adventure" by that meaning is a term used by super-annoying "glass is half-full" people to try and put a positive spin on something that anyone with any hint of sanity would look upon with dread, like going to the orthodontist or something. My own sister once used that word in giving me some life advice, and it came off like a "today is the first day of the rest of your life" pep talk. Sorry, sis, I know you didn't mean it like that, but grrr..... </span><br />
<br />
<span name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">In its truest and oldest form, however, risk is involved. The word "adventure" should give us pause. Safety is not guaranteed. We could lose something, something important (like the true definition of the word "adventure", haha!). In this sense, those aforementioned optimists would still be using it to put a spin on something dreadful, but with a much more somber tone. At its absolute best, I feel the word "adventure" should be used in past tense, and sometimes present tense, like what you would say about something risky after it was done. "Well, that was an adventure." It'd be kind of like saying, "I wouldn't mind doing that again now I that know you can live through it."</span><br />
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<span name="hotword" onclick="this.style.backgroundColor='#b5d5ff';return hotWord(this);" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='transparent'" onmouseover="this.style.cursor='default'" style="background-color: transparent; cursor: default;">I guess it's not all bad to use that first definition. I would say my impending move across the continent would qualify as an adventure, because it is unusual, and would definitely be exciting, especially because of who awaits me at the end of it, but that's not the only reason to use the word for this circumstance. Given how much I'm giving up and how much can go wrong (even though not likely to) on the road, there is both short and long-term risk involved. But overall, I resent it being used to describe television programming, summer camps, travel holidays, etc. Yes, it's true to the first definition, but the first definition is annoying too, so knock it off. The word "adventure" should NEVER be cheerfully or perkily used.</span>Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-60873938532131874062011-01-26T19:57:00.000-08:002011-01-26T19:57:48.075-08:00What's in my pants?Some years ago, when I was working in fast food, I remember commenting to my dad at one point about how odd it was that it used to be khakis were Sunday-only pants, and jeans were for getting dirty in. Now, as an adult, my job required getting dirty in khakis, and it was pretty rare that I was wearing jeans. I'm not saying it's a huge switcheroo, but it's an irksome one, nonetheless. <br />
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There used to be a symbolism behind the khakis (admittedly, a term being used somewhat loosely to include all pants that fall between denims/jeans and suitpants on the Scale Of Dressiness). For me, they were church pants. And it made sense. Putting God first in your life meant giving Him your best, including your best attire for the times when your express purpose was to focus on Him and your relationship with Him. However, I'm not lamenting the loss of the symbolism so much as there are atheists who shouldn't be denied the right to wear khakis just because they don't acknowledge a deity to get close to; nor does it deny the suitability of khakis for other dressy occasions, because they are dressy and can really do wonders to make a good impression in an interview or when meeting your girlfriend's parents for the first time, or whenever being dapper is a major asset.<br />
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The problem for me is that khakis are NOT the pants you should be wearing at work if you work a blue-collar job. You should be working in denims. Seriously, khakis fucking piss me off. They're more expensive than denims and nowhere near as durable. When you have to walk around or twist and turn while standing all day, your pant-legs are bound to rub together. They wear thin from the abrasion and you get holes. Okay, now part of it is indeed due to the fact that I'm overweight, but look among your fast-food workers or other blue-collar laborers whose jobs require khakis... I won't speak to percentages, but simple observation says that a good deal of them also are not athletic. That's a lot of khakis getting ruined quickly.<br />
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And let's be real here... in these kind of jobs, you're gonna get dirty occasionally. It is SUCH a pain in the ass to have to do a SPECIAL load of laundry for your work uniform because they CAN'T BE WASHED WITH ANYTHING ELSE!!! Seriously people, (hard) WORK clothes should not be FUCKING GENTLE CYCLE WASH!! Why is this so freakin' hard to comprehend?!??!! It's just a waste of energy besides to have to do a separate load! And realistically, anyone who's working blue-collar probably does NOT have a lot of gentle cycle clothes in their wardrobe besides the uniform. <br />
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Now we come to the "uniformity" aspect. Look, I get that there needs to be distinction between the employees and those who aren't employees. That's why you have uniform shirts/blouses (again, which should NOT be gentle cycle wash, but sometimes are), and name tags. And you can always mandate/allow black denim that don't have the ripped or faded effects to them. They do look nice enough and maintain the uniformity concept. But if you really want to get after uniformity, how about you get after those employees who are still wearing huge hoops in their ears, have painted press-on nails, and all those body piercings? I guess nine earrings in the left ear and seven in the right looks professional, but don't wear black denim, as you value your life and job!<br />
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And speaking of professionalism... really? Making the teenager who's spitting in my burger wear khakis is gonna somehow transmorgify him into an upstanding citizen of the American dream? When he's accepting his honor as President of a Fortune 500 company, he's gonna start his speech with, "First, I'd like to thank Burger World, for making me wear khakis, so that I could be professional!"? Let's be real. You could wear a tuxedo, and you still wouldn't be considered professional because a) you're working in a socioeconomically laughable position for a company whose global reputation is only slightly higher than that of BP, b) you're making crude jokes and using profane language with your co-workers when your back is turned to me because apparently you think I can't hear you anytime we're not making eye contact, and c) you still spit in my damn burger in the first place! Speak with proper grammar and with manners and show some social grace in your work, and maybe then I'll start considering you "professional."<br />
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Really folks... khakis should NOT be work pants! It's completely impractical. Khakis should be worn only in moderation... you know, for special occasions. Let's start a movement to get black denim in the workplace. It just makes much more sense.Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6898605370539864027.post-4432609775556126582010-12-15T21:04:00.000-08:002010-12-15T21:04:55.550-08:00What's in a calling?I don't usually like to unload my spiritual problems on anyone. And even less so on my blog here since most of the followers of my blog are not Christian. But recently, I began making some fundamental efforts to rejuvenate my spiritual life and strengthen my connection to God and His people. I feel like I'm really making strides in this regard, but one thing I feel is really missing for me: a way to give back, ministry-wise. I've wanted to get involved with a ministry at my church, but kept getting a "no" from God, and this is starting to get frustrating now with this newer and more concentrated effort to reconnect. I mean, right now the most I'm doing for God is defending Christianity on internet message boards. Whoop-de-doo. I'm not changing anyone's minds really about anything, or anything that can even be considered remotely close to saving a soul or converting someone. The best I'm doing is just showing that not all Christians are complete douchebags, and considering I just used the word "douchebag", I'd say I'm not exactly doing this job all that perfunctorily either.<br />
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So, I've really wanted to get involved again with the church. Back in... oh man, how long ago? 2003 or 2004 I'd guess... I had thought about joining the choir. I'm not gonna be added to the cast of "Glee" anytime soon, but I'm no William Hung either, at least I think I'm not though nuclear family members have told me otherwise growing up. Well, one Sunday morning in August or September, just after the morning service, I was having juice and cookies with a friend from high school and her then-boyfriend (they're now married) who had just transferred to the graduate program at MSU, just talking with them. The choir director walked up to us and introduced herself to the three of us. She was fishing for new recruits. Keep in mind, I only knew who she was because she's at the front of the sanctuary leading the choir... we'd never met. She looks at me and said, "I've seen you around before..." and she then turns and looks directly at my friend and starts trying to recruit her. I'm still standing there, kinda upset that she didn't even ask me if I'd ever considered joining choir. While my friend is being invited, my brain and heart are screaming, "HEY! Where's my invitation?!?!?!!! Ask me to join!!!" I left the building feeling... pre-emptively rejected. Like walking onto a Broadway stage and hearing "NEXT" before I even open my mouth. I left that day fairly certain that God doesn't want my larynx melodiously meshed with the men and women of the chorale.<br />
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Two or three years later, once again in fall, I had asked if there was gonna once again be a Welcome Back BBQ for the students, like they'd done in years past. I was told that there had been no plans made, but hey great idea. So, I was thinking maybe I should be a leader in the Campus Ministry program. Why not? I was familiar with the program, and last year, there was no leader, causing it to just fall apart for the school year. As I was cooking burgers and hot dogs that morning for the cookout (not really a bbq, but you know what I mean), I was thinking about asking the senior pastor about possibly heading it up or at least leading in some capacity. While I was cleaning my grill, the pastor got up and welcomed everyone there, and then proceeded to introduce the new campus minister, who'd be leading the program. As the pastor kept talking, I felt God put His arm around me and say, "See I have provided for them already. This is not for you." I just about cried, and probably would have if a friend hadn't walked up to me that instant and made chit-chat with me. It still makes me tear up a little to remember this.<br />
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The next calling I felt pulled towards was prison ministry. Our church has a group of volunteers that regularly goes to a prison in the next county over and in addition to sharing the Word, also helps inmates in the process of getting ready to re-enter society. I thought this would be great for me. I called the lady at the church who headed this, and she put me in touch with the prison chaplain who gave me a phone interview and said everything looked in order. I would hear from them soon about going through orientation. Only, that was the last time I spoke with them. I even asked the lady from our church about it. It just simply appears that I must have been lost in the bureaucracy and wouldn't be allowed to join them. Another rejection.<br />
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That was maybe a year ago. The latest one happened last week. Our church's full-time custodian is retiring, and they were looking to hire two or three part-time custodians to help fill in. I sent a resume, had an interview and tour of the storage areas in the church. Then Friday, I got the call. I was not selected. For other reasons I don't wish to get into here, this made going to church this past Sunday slightly awkward for me.<br />
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And the worst part is, there is a ministry out there... our denomination's version of the Boy Scouts, that my mother has suggested to me in the past about getting into. On more than one occasion. It feels like nagging. And when the head counselor got wind that I'd been one such scout when I was a boy, he started talking really friendly to me about it. The thing though is.... I don't WANT to do this one. There are a few reasons that I haven't tried to get involved, but the main one is I just. Don't. WANT to do it! Nothing about it feels or sounds right. Me a role model for young boys in our church? Are they nuts?! Me trying to teach them about tying knots, map reading, or building model rockets... me, the guy whose tool sets are filing for separation? This CAN'T be it! But I feel like others are trying to SHOVE me into it. And I'm resentful and angry about it. How can it POSSIBLY be a calling for me? Isn't a calling supposed to be a gentle, friendly invitation to serve? It's not supposed to feel like a forceful push over the cliff! I know following Jesus involves taking up a cross, but how can I go into His service with a feeling of DREAD towards that particular ministry? Surely there has to be something else God wants me for! (cue voice from above saying, "No, and don't call me Shirley!")<br />
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So, among the other aspects which are actually coming together relatively well, this is just a rut for me. It's something I've felt and said before, but I feel the need to say it again: it's a horrible, horrible feeling for me to believe in God but be left feeling like maybe He doesn't believe in me. Maybe this is one of those things that won't fall into place until after I move to British Columbia and start my new life with my true love, but for right now, it hurts so badly.Philiphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08292012228944104037noreply@blogger.com0