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Ten Years Old

Remember that big hoopla a couple of weeks ago about the 10th anniversary of 9/11?  That thing where everyone in the nation - and possibly most of the world - took a moment and thought about where they were and what they were doing 10 years ago?  I did that, too.  But I'm doing it again today, 17 days later, because it was 17 days after 9/11 that my wife gave birth to our first child, Max.  And today he's ten.

Staggering.  Literally.  Sometimes I just stagger about, enjoying how the furniture feels when I bump into it.  Then I reassemble it with wood glue and allen wrenches and tungsten.

Max is in the fifth grade, which he does not like as much as the fourth grade (his teacher last year was a hard act to follow), and we have recently seen a bit of a grade slip due to various factors, but we're working on it.  He's musically inclined, singing in the school Chorus, taking steel drum classes and piano lessons.  He's just moved into his new room, and as much as he hated the move and the very idea of it, he seems to have settled in the new room quite nicely.  He has a workbench now with tools and electronics and things to work on, piles of books and tape recorder, wire, rope, rocks, and 'scopes of various varieties.  He still reads constantly; Big Nate, Rick Riordan, mythology, 39 Clues, Wimpy Kid, fables and stuff about sorcery and alchemy and monsters.  His favorite superheroes right now are Hulk, Thor, Green Lantern, Iron Man and Batman.

He makes up intricate imagination games for any he plays with, and is fiercely competitive at any game he's not making up as you're playing it.  He makes a lot of notes and small comic books on Post-its.  He sings in the shower, and makes superhero noises.  Good acoustics.  He's sensitive and moody and easily over-stimulated by people noises.  He gets sucked into television still, no matter what's on.  He's lately been most interested in Phineas and Ferb still, but also Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends from the early 80s, and also Voltron, Jimmy Neutron and the Fairly Oddparents.  He's fun to hang out with still, but for different reasons.  He loves his sister unless she's whiny, and feels very protective of her.  He likes sleeping with the dog in his room.

We're supposed to be bowling and doing laser tag and stuff tonight, with cake and pizza and stuff well into the weekend, so you all have ample chances to wish Max a happy birthday.  And stuff.

They Saved Descartes' BRAIN!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought maybe you all would enjoy seeing what happened toward the end of my somewhat boring 85 minute Intro Philosophy class today.  Obviously, we've been discussing Descartes, and we've already had a Gervais/Pilkington "Does my brain control me or do I control my brain?"  Our first test was Tuesday, and there seemed to be a high rate of attrition today - either folks taking a break after the test or simply bailing entirely after failing / thinking they failed it.  It's not an easy class for many reasons, and sometimes, you have to make stupid shit in your notes.

Like a Box of Chocolates...

I really don't like Forrest Gump.

This is a somewhat unpopular opinion amongst people I talk to, and they invariably react as though I've announced that I don't like puppies or orphans or well, chocolate.  It's always the same thing: "Oh, you don't...why?  I always liked the part with (Forrest interacting with the American Baby Boomer experience in some way)."  That approach baffles me.  You can point out all day why you like a thing, and it brings no one around.

Whatever.  Don't get me wrong here - Tom Hanks, Robin Wright (though I hate Jenny with a burning fiery passion), Gary fucking Sinese.  I even like, really like, Sally Field in this one.  Effects are good up to a point - I hate that hackneyed feather device, but Gary's absent legs are good stumps - I mean, stuff.  I just hate America's half-assed excuse in the form of a revisionist history to love the idiot man-child version of itself, fucking Forrest Gump.

I read the book, too.  If you can believe it, Winston Groom's original work is an order of magnitude more ridiculous than the filmic institution it spawned.  It's not a bad read, I guess, but I was in high school when I read it, so I'd have to go back and read it again and I'm not going to because I like my brains and won't do that to them.  It's not really the novel I'm here to take issue with anyway.  Or even the whole movie.

It's this: "Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get."  This homespun piece of crapheaded pseudo-wisdom gets bandied about by people whenever they need a crutch for what's just happened, or when they're too lazy to actually figure shit out.  It's like a substitute for real conversation or actual thought.  Like when people talk about "fate" or "God's will."  It just wears me completely the hell out. 

"Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get."   Chocolate, motherfucker!  You're going to get goddamned chocolate!  If you don't, you did it wrong, you retarded Alabama hillbilly fuck!  I hate that shit - the next person who says it to me gets force-fed a box of fucking chocolates.  There.  Now you know what the fuck you're "gonna" get.  

And I get it.  I really do.  It's metaphor chocolate for our times, bullshit about surprises inside of each one, and how some of the surprises in life suck.  Like this metaphor, which is never a "best of times" kind of thing - it's always shat out when shit happens.  Okay; fine - you lament the unpredictability of life's "chocolates" but resignedly accept their inevitability?  And that's how you feel about life?  That's just "shit happens" in her prettiest Oscar frock so you can show her to Grandma, you fucking sucker.  This shit is the illegal chokehold you use to prematurely end your wrestling match with regret so you can sleep at night, and you got it from fucking Hollywood.  Makes me want to vomit chocolate bile.  On your shoes.  So you'd know what you're gonna get.

Let's continue your rich, creamy metaphor: Let's say - though it hurts my face and skull - that life is in fact, like a box of goatsucking chocolates.  And you keep buying (into) boxes of chocolates and being surprised.  Your failure to learn about life is not the fault of the metaphorical box of chocolates.  If you can't figure out any better than this what the fuck just happened, then you should be listening harder to your brain, and less so to Forrest's fucking mom, who, let's face it, can't be too bright herself, having named Forrest after Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of the founders and first leader of the fucking KKK.  The character's an idiot, the line is quoted by an idiot, the line was probably written in jest to illustrate the character's resigned foolishness in the face of the torrents of life - how did it get from there to profound?

"Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get."  Stop fucking saying this.  I implore you as group, though my expectations are low.  You're making us all stupider when you quote this, like a slow motion fecal chunk dropping from your mouth into the frothing gene pool to mix with our collective culture.  That look on your face right now?!?  That's how much this bothers me.

Requiem for the Toastmaster

Last week, our faithful toaster of 16 years, the 4 slot GE Toastmaster Platinum, finally gave up the toast, er, ghost, and left us.  A moment of hot, buttered reflection, if you please.  Thank you.

Unceremoniously, it seemed to us,  after more than a decade and a half of service, nine moves, and untold slices of evenly browned slices, the occasional bagel, waffle and toaster pastry, the Toastmaster called it a day and sat silently on the counter for the first time, buttons depressed, indeed -  but cold and quiet.  The service of the Toastmaster cannot be questioned, though.  It served not just our eventual family of four, but also the stream of people who've lived with us over the years; Angie, Janson, Dug, Brian, Eric P., Brett & Ron.  By my count, the Toastmaster, in the last year alone, was responsible for over 400 sandwiches, the vast majority of which would have been PB & Js.

So - a surprise?  Hardly.  The far right hand slot had gone out long ago, like a candle in the wind, and the slot next to it toasted only on one side, and that somewhat pathetically.  I had basically been using it as a two-slot for the last couple of years.  Those two slots had had enough last week, so now it is time for the Toastmaster to take the long trip to the dump - or possibly to my son's workbench to be methodically disassembled.

Respect.  R.I.P, Toastmaster.

Back to School

I am in my third week of classes at Middle Tennessee State University.

It is an interesting experience to walk a college campus for the first time.  I mean, I went to MATC for a while, but all my classes were in one building and stuck off the edge of State Street, and it never felt like college - I guess because it sort of isn't.  Not so, the MTSU experience.  I walked to my car today after classes - I have to park just off campus because MTSU parking is a nightmare slide into hell that every staff person has been trained to lie to you about - past columned buildings with too many stairs across a sun-dappled quad shadowed by trees.  I heard four languages spoken before I got to my car, and saw one person dressed as a giant panda.  College.  Where the half-stoned libertarian who sits behind me in Electoral Politics spouts crazy nonsense, and I've seen guys with their shirts off playing guitar in a circle.

First smells I picked up on: lots of perfume, gum, cloves (really), sneakers, soda, and in the early morning hours, freshly showered women.  Judge me if you must.

My first day on campus, I considered changing my major to Parking and Urban Vehicular Management.  After I found a space and walked a mile or so, I thought I was prepared, with my little maps and class schedule printouts jammed into my shirt pocket - and realized outside the building which houses my 9:10 Spanish class that I had brought no room numbers with me.  As I was looking for a side entrance to the building, this guy followed me, and it turned out that he was on the way to my class, so I followed him after that.  I ducked into the Language Lab and pulled my #s off my page on the MTSU site after my Spanish teacher started off our relationship by alphabetizing us, which moved me from the back corner to the middle of the front row.  Yay. 

The people helping thing is sort of a theme for me now, though - this one girl loaned me her Philosophy reading (my printer had been packed for the move) one morning, and I've had people offer me pens, directions, or help repeatedly.  It's a fairly friendly campus, until you try talking to someone you don't know as they're going from class to class in the giant, lemming-like rush of humanity that streams from the new College of Education building to Peck Hall several times a day.  It's best to keep your head down and avoid the earnest evangelicals and poster salespeople.

Peck Hall is a square buidling constructed around a courtyard by people who were concerned about a coming zombie apocalypse 40 years ago.  My department and advisors are all housed there on the second floor, and I have a MWF class there, too.  Every single time: "Well, you can believe Mr. Pecker - " "My name is PECK."

Walking around campus is cool - it's much more like a little city (or, I suppose what I want a city to be like) than is even Murfreesboro.  Lots of different kinds of people walking to and fro, people obviously there for a lot of different reasons.  Every ethnic group and size and shape of person.  I see a lot of headscarves and tighter-than-skin jeans, which I think misses the point a little, & a lot of dyed hair and really interesting clothes.  Not a lot of obvious gay couples, but everyone's in a hurry, so I don't see a lot of couples, period.  I keep getting addressed as though I'm in my 20s; "When I was your age," or "The fall of the Soviet Union, which happened before you guys were born."  This makes me feel like Jon Cryer in Hiding Out, except, you know, I'm actually supposed to be there.

Finally, if you are speeding down Middle Tennessee Boulevard, I want you to die.  I want to personally hack off your leaden right foot with my dull-ass Swiss Army knife and suffocate you with it.  You will then be mounted roadside as a warning to others.

So, yeah.  For those of you who've asked or wondered: it's weird, I'm not entirely sure I like it, and I'm struggling with it a little bit as school's never really been a natural thing for me to do.  Further bulletins more toward the end of the semester.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have to know where 193 countries are on a map by Friday, and I have twenty pages on free will to read in the next hour or so.

Tonight's Topic Is...

Soon this blog will simply be entitled "the Facebook Chronicles."

A few weeks ago, I and some friends of mine rallied around another friend with a problem, and in a series of more than 400 comments on a random Facebook status post, tried our best to solve the problem, lighten the mood, reminisce, and remember why we like each other, actually, in real life.  I don't know that we helped at all (In point of fact, we were part of creating an actual problem the following day when an easily-damaged party read the whole thread.  The ongoing conversation has since been shifted into private messages, which sounds nefarious, but isn't. ) but we tried, and we had a fun time chatting.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and would like to take this opportunity to let them know.  Hence, a whole blog entry about a FB thread.

Is that too self-reflective/meta/interwebs for you?  I can't care.

This exchange led to an ongoing chat which ranged far and wide over a number of subjects, and a few nights in, somebody asked for topics.  As in, "What's tonight's topic?"  My brain spit this out over the course of about four minutes and change (and felt much better afterwards, I might add): 

• "Should gay couples be allowed to adopt straight pets?"
• "Should crotchless fashions be available for the clergy?"
• "Why aren't there any Moslem butcher shops?"
• "Drinking: A Parent's Best Pal."
• "Cypher in the Bushes: A study of child perversion."
• "Fighting City Hall: Ordnance and Strategy"
• "Guidelines for Hiding your Aliases from a Life Partner, Section III"
• "Microwaving Your Way to Super-Powers."
• "Compare and Contrast: Bullshit Stories"
• "Where Are My Socks? No, Seriously."
• "Why Democracy Doesn't Work: A Guide to Culling the Stupid"
• "Peaches: Nature's Oral Sex Trainers"
• "Harmonica for the Tongueless"
• "Why Pointing Out the Facts Doesn't Work Anymore"
• "Can a Vampire Take Your Virginity?"
• "The Best Kid Cereals for Adults"
• "Why Aren't We Taxing Churches?"
• "Hustling: How to Find Bread at the Sex Shoppe"
• "How Guitars Improved Worship: One Woman's Story"
• "SeXXting for the Illiterate"
• "The BDSM Way to Weight Loss" 

If any one of you wants to add to the topic list, or take one of those and run with it in the now back-from-the-error-on-my-part comments, please, be my guest.  As usual, you may comment or call in your madness on the rocklines - 737 ROCK or 737-ROLL.  Unless it's about Mormons - the Mormons were wearing me out defending their faith on here.  I WILL take comments about Mormons (or any other group) and how weird they are, though.  Slander someone!  You'll feel better after.

Lone Gunmen & 9/11

About six of my fellow tinfoil hat-wearing friends have sent me this since yesterday, so I figured I would re-post.  It proves nothing, but then that would be the nature of the thing no matter what it was.  I actually enjoyed Lone Gunmen for the one season it was on, but I think it would have quickly worn thin.  I understand that this episode (which is all chopped up here) ran in March of 2001.  Enjoy and be slightly creeped out.

A 9/11 Remembrance

I'm doing this this morning because this is what you do.  I don't really know what else to do, and I've already done this, this, and this, which is basically just like what I'm about to do, so if you go read it, you'll either be really bored or catch me in an inconsistency.

Ten years seems no more significant to me than one or five or seven years, so I'm not sure why the media's erect right now except for the fact that we, as a culture, find nice round numbers satisfying.  Ten years ago, on a chilly Tuesday Wisconsin morning, my wife Christie woke me up with a phone call about a plane hitting one of the Twin Towers.  (Christie has subsequently awakened me with news about the Columbia, and about Johnny Cash's death.  I try to always be up before her now.)  This was before everyone could tell you exactly which tower was which with a glance, and when they still had them in establishing shots in shows like Friends, or anything that happened in New York, and when the Coup was going to release this, and the Spider-Man poster had the reflection of the WTC in the eye of his mask.  So she didn't tell me which tower it was because she didn't know at that moment.

As I recall, I don't think she actually woke me from a sound sleep, I think she just got me out of bed, where I was soaking up morning quiet. The mood was good before that morning - four friends of ours had married recently, and Christie was really amazingly pregnant and would be giving birth soon.  I recall standing on our rug - the one Max would eventually pour white paint on - and watching the coverage of the attacks.  I still went to work, but I did nothing productive or of consequence all day except watch primary Big Three network coverage on my old TV with the stickers on it and rabbit ears sitting on the edge of the work table with not enough extension cord.  Truth be told, that day is part of the reason I keep hanging on to that TV.

We had a discussion group that night - which was supposed to be a Comics Night where adult friends of mine sat around and read comics at one another - and I eventually put an American flag out in front of our house.  I was not then, and have not really ever been a nationalist, but I did feel two things: one, it was the quick, available symbol of the time, and remembrance of the dead was paramount, and also I was deeply, internally offended for the 3000 people who had the promise of what I believe America to be about - the right to live free from other people's oppressive beliefs, a promise that rarely pans out like I think it should - ripped away from them.  I displayed the flag then for the same reason I hold Captain America as my favorite superhero - it's all about the idea, the promise and the responsibility.  My flag came down, as did many, when we saw how it was getting exploited in a post 9/11 world.

The next 17 days for me is kind of a blur - I remember getting the newspaper on the 12th and holding onto it, knowing that it would important, and doing likewise with TIME magazine and Marvel Comics' fundraiser issues.  I basically bought one of those for every person I knew who I thought would want one.  I remember the absolute certainty that we would end up going to war over this, no matter what, and the outpouring of support and brotherhood from the rest of the world.  Yeah, remember that?  I remember when TV football was insane with 9/11 stuff, and when it was inescapable.  For a long time.  At the end of 17 days, my world refocused completely with the birth of my son.

Now, I'm looking forward to the rebuilding, which I posted a picture of at the top of this blog.  I want my family to be able to go there when everything is opened up and see what there is to see when we put things back together.  Destruction takes only moments.  Building takes a long time, and is usually worth it. I look forward to seeing the results.