sealife chronicles

armed and genderous

2012-01-16T15:35:00.000-08:00

Happiness is a warm gun
Happiness is a warm gun, momma
When I hold you in my arms
And I feel my finger on your trigger
I know nobody can do me no harm
Because happiness is a warm gun, momma
Happiness is a warm gun
Bang bang, shoot shoot...

~~john lennon

i don't mind guns.

it's people i don't trust.

people and guns are a bad combination. anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is lying. or foolish. foolish liars with guns are an even worse combination.

"chicks with guns" (the concept and the book) is only slightly less disquieting than "children with guns," or "monkeys with guns."

women, see, are the life-affirming, life-giving, life-worth-living side of humanity. our better half in more ways than one should attempt to count.

put 20 million guns in their hands, and what do they become? what do we become? irredeemably dangerous. frightening. and, best avoided by creatures that prefer their bodies unpunctured by fast-moving metal.

"but, guns are for protection! women deserve to feel safe from other people with guns. people with bad intentions. you know, men!"

this argument seems valid, until you look at the fine print. the part about 30,000 u.s. gun deaths each year. the 17,000 suicides, and the 1,000 accidental deaths-by-gun.

when you put it that way, being anywhere near a gun doesn't sound like such a good idea. it sounds about as safe as petting a ravenous mountain lion. or befriending a masked man with a chainsaw. or fracking a volcano.

or indoctrinating the next generation of gun-toting tots...

Some of the more haunting images are those of moms with their kids.

In one image, a woman who lives in Healdsburg is seated on her bed with her daughter. The woman, named Lake, holds a stainless-steel Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. Her young daughter, Ruby, sits behind her and holds a vintage cap gun. Both stare impassively at the camera. Another portrait shows a woman in Houston, cradling her naked young son in one arm and holding an Ithaca 20-gauge side-by-side in the other. The woman told McCrum, "I'm eager to teach my boys everything I know."

if she gets started on that lecture now, those boys should be ready to go out and shoot living things any minute. heads up, y'all.

if we're being honest here (and we are), we should agree that guns are made to kill and maim animate objects. and if we can agree on that, we can also feel the dissonance of turning women into steely-eyed weapon wavers, a hair-trigger away from something horrifying and permanent.

men, historically, are the hunters and killers of all things with a pulse. back in the days of mammoths and saber tooth tigers, you could make a case for weaponizing the males, so the women could focus on perpetuating the species. now? not so much. the threat of extinction is no longer imminent, so men with guns kill things for fun, or because they're drunk, or because they're stupid.

until proven otherwise, we should agree that men can't be trusted with anything more dangerous than a plastic butter knife. and that the women are too smart, too civilized, too invested in the future of humankind to set their sights that low.

or maybe that's just whistling past civilization's graveyard.

Author and satirist Christopher Buckley called the book "a serious work of cultural iconography, and visually stunning, alternately sexy, arresting, haunting and mesmerizing."

visually stunning and haunting, certainly. indicative of our culture's cheerfully homicidal nature? definitely. sexy? um, right. nothing says "sexy" like a woman with a gun in her hand and a look of vacuous indifference or calculated menace in her eyes.

upon further review, it occurs to me that if you mentally photoshop out the guns, most of the women in "chicks with guns" actually are sexy. but then, they'd have to change the title of the book to something like "random chicks in fields," or just "chicks." which would be kind of odd.

the conclusion, then, is that that the chicks with guns should stay far afield~~farther...no, really, farther~~and i'll stay over here with the living things that don't care to be shot or shot at or even have a gun anywhere near them.

we can agree to that, yes?

thanks.

truth is a maverick, and other foibles

2012-01-06T16:41:00.000-08:00

“You can’t hide from your record of making this country bankrupt, from destroying our national security and making this nation one that we have to restore with Mitt Romney as president of the United States of America!” ~~john mccain

i don't know why i let this kind of thing bother me. i really don't.

yes, i do.

it's because i was taught early in life to tell the truth. or risk a swift beating. it's not the best rationale for truth-telling, but it stuck with me.

a couple decades ago, john mccain seemed to have a stubborn streak of the truth-telling in him. while his colleagues on the right were busy defining down the concept of "facts" and "reality," mccain would get all contrary and say something like, "no, that's not right, and i'm not going along with it."

that's not a direct quote. but it does capture the essential mccainness that earned him the "maverick" moniker among his admirers.

compare that with today's mccain, who has sold his soul to the loony-fringey sarah palins of the world. to the point he will blame barack obama for bankrupting the country, destroying our national security, and oh-i-don't-know, cooking up endangered species in the white house kitchen.

as if everyone wasn't painfully aware george w. bush did all of it first, and far more efficiently. with a monkey grin on his face.

the fact that mccain has endorsed a candidate who would take us back to the glory that was the bush years perfectly illustrates how the old maverick is now not much more than an old barn horse ambling from fence to fence, hoping someone will feed him a carrot.

mccain used to be someone whom you could admire, sort of, if you overlooked his cognitively dissonant politics and the fact he was a lousy pilot.

one day, though, it seemed like senator maverick woke up believing the hype. overnight, probably during the 2008 presidential election, he jumped his own shark into the land of self-parody. from that moment on he's been kind of a sad charicature, an unfunny punchline who doesn't get the joke.

the lesson here is that it doesn't take much, or long, to fall from prominence and relevance to absurdity and bewilderment. this is especially true if you walk away from the qualities of character that made you interesting in the first place.

mccain's vanished integrity (and empty ranting) really isn't worth a moment's dudgeon. it shouldn't bother me in the slightest.

but for some reason, it does.

the end of the beginning

2011-12-31T18:45:00.000-08:00

this is it.

unless something really interesting happens (let's hope not), this is the last blog post of 2011.

the last one by me, anyway.

i know several people who, for an assortment of very good reasons, did not enjoy their 2011. "i can't wait for this year to be over," they say, hopeful that adding a digit to the calendar will bring better results. or at least some breathing room.

i hope it works.

of course, 2011 wasn't bad for everyone. the 1%, for example, got richer. sure, the 99% got poorer, but the tide may be turning. the 1% really hate that prospect, which is in itself a good thing. #occupy 2012.

the spaceneedl family managed, once again, to keep heads above water. that too may change in 2012, when the missus quits a job she can no longer tolerate and goes in search of a new career. while i'm not eager to be poor, i'd rather be poor with a happy wife than comfortable with an unhappy wife (because, really, there's no being comfortable with an unhappy wife).

besides, i am fortunate in many nonmonetary ways. for example, i have the great good fortune to work with some of the most fiercely intelligent women i've ever met. they amaze me every day...plus, they make me laugh, for which i'm very grateful. i live with a couple females who fit that description, as well. the older one continues to be my best friend, as has been the case for many years. the young one continues to keep me wrapped around her little finger (and every other fiber of her being), as has been the case for all of her eleven years.

i do know a few intelligent males, but they're fewer and farther between. maybe it's because men are rumored to think of sex every sex seconds (which would certainly make concentration difficult, if that were true, which i'm sure it's not). i happen to live with an intelligent young male who tries hard, every day, to convince me he's not very bright. so far, i'm not buying it. but for the record, he is very persuasive.

collectively, we are healthy, we have enough to eat, and we have a roof over our heads. this makes us far more fortunate than many. we are grateful for our good fortune, and empathize with those who are not so lucky.

moving on...

at the end of last year i did a review of my itunes downloads for 2010. it was cathartic, and served to remind me that not every idea that pops into my head is a good one. yes, i needed the reminder. this year, instead, i offer the following random observations on the pop culture i stumbled across in 2011. make of them what you will. but try the wine...

movie of the year: (tie) "the help" and "midnight in paris"

album of the year: low country blues, gregg allman

song of the year: "god loves me" melissa mcclelland (2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T2_NAbtTZE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

wine(s) of the year: (red) 2008 tres picos garnacha; (white) 2009 chateau montelena chardonnay

chocolate of the year: coconut milk & caramelized ginger 55% dark chocolate (madre chocolate, honolulu) madrechocolate.com

best fitness-related decision of the year: stop playing basketball, start running. for real. as a demonstration of this zeal, today i was about to blow off running. late, a thought occurred to me: "LAST CHANCE TO RUN IN 2011 !!!" that got me moving. three and a half miles as the sun w
set over the olympic mountains.

best running shoe ever: new balance baddeley 890 (bought on a whim for $45.00 at nordstrom rack)

top projects for 2012: finish "the rally," start "the midlife wife." also, goad brenda into starting "deadwood SD" (or maybe "secrets of deadwood." still thinking about that one)

that's it. bring on 2012.

and don't make me regret it.

why so serious, son?

2011-12-22T16:37:00.000-08:00

"You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go 'according to plan.' Even if the plan is horrifying."

so, apparently the war in iraq is over.

you might have heard about it last week~~but then again you might not. the 'news' didn't get a lot of play in the press, and celebrations were muted.

VJ-day it was not.

"The last convoy of heavily armored personnel carriers slipped out of Iraq under cover of darkness and strict secrecy to prevent any final attacks. The 500 soldiers didn't even tell their Iraqi comrades on the base they were leaving.

"The fear spoke volumes about the country they left behind - shattered, still dangerous and containing a good number of people who still see Americans not as the ally who helped them end Saddam's dictatorship, but as an enemy."

officially, the last u.s. soldier killed in the conflict was a young man named david hickman, from greensboro, NC. speaking about hickman's death, and the outcome of the war, a friend said, “There aren’t enough facts available for me to have a defined opinion about things. I’m just sad, and pray that my best friend didn’t lay down his life for nothing.”

if we don't find horror in that kind of numb ambiguity, it's likely our souls are full of novocaine.

and sadly, plenty of facts are available. to recap, there was no link between iraq and 9/11. there were no WMDs. in fact, there was no justifiable reason at all to wage war there. in the end, there was just a surfeit of carnage. huge deficits. and a middle eastern country left wide open to the kind of threat we were warned to fear beyond all rationality.

did you know: the u.s. spent twice as long fighting in iraq as it did fighting WWII. would anyone like to make the case that saddam hussein was twice the threat of hitler, et al?

in lieu of that, it would seem that a langourous conflict in iraq, along with an endless "war on terror" was actually part of someone's mind-boggling plan.

and we haven't even mentioned afghanistan (aka, the place empires go to die). that plan, ten years later, is still reaping grimly, with no end in sight.

in both cases, despite all evidence to the contrary, there are still plenty of people who insist not enough time, money, and blood have been squandered. as if a pyrrhic nonvictory that laid waste to three countries (yes, the u.s. among them) isn't enough. what would satisfy them, one might wonder?

particularly since the u.s. is leaving behind a significant military presence, in the form of nearly 53,000 military contractors. plenty of money still to be made on that front.

to sum up, the u.s. spent nearly nine years at war with a third-rate dictator; hundreds of thousands of people were killed and trillions of dollars were spent. america became known for torture, prison without trial, and irradiating/strip-searching hapless air travelers.

for that horrific cost we earned the opportunity to sneak out of iraq under cover of darkness.

not to worry, though. it was all according to some sort of plan.

In the end, many of the departing troops wrestled with a singular question: Was it worth it?

Capt. Mark Askew, a 28-year-old from Tampa, Florida, said the answer will depend on what type of country Iraq turns into years from now - whether it is democratic and respects human rights.

"People are asking themselves: `Was this worth it?'" he said, speaking to his troops before they set off to Kuwait. "I can't answer that question right now."

ajax, au revoir

2011-12-13T22:08:00.000-08:00

bubba's days are running out.

he's 20, see, which is old for a cat. it's hard to say if the liver failure or the kidney failure will get him first.

what is certain, in the meantime, is that bubba's light is dimming. his back legs no longer work very well...a far cry from the smoothly athletic stunts he used to pull, like leaping from the bathroom counter to the top of the door. or flying up the trunk of a large pine just ahead of two pursuing dogs. he was a sight, back in the day.

these days, bubba doesn't stray far from the space heater near his bed. his eyes are clouding, and his coat is perpetually full of mattes, despite the fact that i brush him every day. he's tired, mostly, and you can't really blame him. we should all be doing so well when we're the equivalent of 100 years old.

still, it's a little heartbreaking. some days, if i'm overly tired or stressed or otherwise out of sorts...it's a lot heartbreaking. we've been together a long time~~and though i can see a future when he's no longer around, that prospect doesn't feel real, or possible.

denial is a remarkable thing.

there are other, parallel endings imminent. for the wife of a good friend. for an uncle in hospice. strangely, there are more just outside our orbit. they resonate here, adding to the disquiet.

time slips through our grasp, not like sand or water, but like hard radiation, desiccating everything it touches.

and the simple, obvious, inescapable fact is this: at the end of the day, no one gets out alive.

we're having a run on sand...

2011-12-04T17:27:00.000-08:00

running on the beach is different.

for one thing, you're running on sand.

sand, as a base, is notoriously unstable. thus, "a house built on a foundation of sand" historically is considered "not a good investment."

but we digress.

running on sand is difficult. particularly in bare feet. bare feet tend to sink in sand, requiring significant additional effort to push off and ambulate forward in the rapid manner often associated with running. also, beach sand may be fraught with seashells, coral, driftwood, jellyfish, shark teeth, pufferfish, buried treasure, mermaids, kraken, and other dangers. so, caution is always advised when running on the beach.

beaches typically slope toward the water. sometimes precipitously. when running on a beach, therefore, one foot is almost always lower than the other. indeed, one entire side of your body is lower than the other. unless you are genetically or otherwise mutated, your body is not accustomed to this kind of imbalance. it complains and resists and may try to ambulate in a circle. or it may sustain "trauma" consistent with an "injury." plantar fasciitis, strained iliotibial bands and severed achilles tendons are examples of such injuries.

the water associated with many beaches often appears in the form of waves, or surf. these waves sometimes ascend the beach in an uproar of spray and sand. running at the edge of the surf sometimes morphs into running through the surf without any prior agreement on your part. a wetsuit or other protective gear may be advisable in these conditions.

sand, water, slope...what are we forgetting? oh, yes: people! walking people. running people. fishing people. surfing people. small, digging-in-the-sand people. and not infrequently, dog people. which is to say, people with dogs. all vying for the same few yards of navigable beach. it's like nascar, minus the cars.

the running people generally are not a problem. they share your concern for the local conditions, and will invariably give you an empathetic little wave or smile as they go by. one caveat to this is the bikini-clad runner, who often presents a significant distraction hazard. appreciate the young, fit, ridiculously hot bikini-clad runner(s) briefly, and at a distance, to avoid injury.

walkers are slower versions of runners, and can be avoided by veering inland, or into the surf. going the surf route causes significant splashing, however, which many walkers prefer to avoid, even at the beach. go figure.

surfing people are generally not a threat when offshore. they can, however, become obstacles when carrying their surfboards into the water. avoid them by veering toward a corporate environment.

fishing people tend to cast lines into the water, then plant their fishing poles in the sand. this can create a "clothesline" hazard if the lines are low, or if you happen to be tall. be careful to avoid decapitation by ducking under the lines or veering inland. veering into the surf to avoid the lines is not recommended, as you may become entangled or impaled by a fish hook. decapitation and being impaled by a fish hook are additional traumas consistent with injury that are not conducive to finishing your run.

note: fishing people who cast-and-reel, cast-and-reel, etc. should be avoided by veering inland~a radius of a half-mile is recommended (see "impaling" information above).

small, digging-in-the-sand people (often "children") should be avoided. parents tend to object if you trip over or otherwise become entangled with their progeny. also, holes created by digging are hazards associated with tripping, falling, and trauma consistent with injury.

dog people at the beach often throw sticks, frisbees, tennis balls and other dangerous items. also, dogs dig holes in the sand (see "sand-hole digging" information above). dogs (and less frequently their people) have been know to bite a passing runner without any prior agreement on the runner's part. veering inland or into the surf are not viable avoidance techniques, as the dogs (and sometimes their people) are capable of herding you back to the danger zone. consider carrying a large stick with you while running; in an emergency, it can be thrown into the surf as a diversion, enabling you to retreat and escape. alternatively, it may be used to inflict trauma and injury.*

at this point one might reasonably wonder why anyone would ever want to run on/at/anywhere near the beach.

by way of response, consider the following quote from the great louis armstrong, used completely out of context:

"if you have to ask, you'll never know."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

note: this is not a complete list of beach running hazards. your results may vary based on local conditions. past returns are no guarantee of future results. see store for details.

* for defensive purposes only. no dogs or people were harmed in the creation of this post.

surf and smurf

2011-12-01T19:10:00.000-08:00

at low tide there's thirty feet of sand between the seagrass and the line where the waves reach, falter, and retreat. in that expanse, tiny, translucent crabs skitter sideways, back and forth, occasionally disappearing into the holes they've dug. there must be some purpose to their nonstop activity, but whatever it may be is indecipherable.

further out, into the waves, the girl is on a short board, working in the gaps between the swells. every so often she, the board, and a wave connect in a long, frenzied ride to the sand. spent, the wave slides back dejectedly. the girl, meanwhile, gathers her board and sprints back into the fray.

the low waves are often taller than she is, but she is relentless. she drives into them, dives through them, dances between them. her energy matches theirs, surpasses it, until she emerges in the relative calm behind the breakers. in the surf, her movement is purposeful and powerful. her arms and legs are strong beyond her years. in the waiting green water past the sand bar she is watchful, impatient, eager to throw her board into another headlong rush toward the beach.

a muscular wave rises behind her, and the girl launches herself into the midst of it. she and the board accelerate down and ahead, into an uproar of spray and sand.

at the end of each ride she smiles, rises, and turns. again. again. again. the churning water batters her. she is unperturbed. the waves, in turn, are implacable, innumerable, inexorable. everything they touch they inevitably wear down.

eventually the girl picks up her board, absorbs yet another wave, and hesitates. she shakes it off, turns and walks out of the surf. she is smiling.

behind her, on the horizon, a two-masted schooner moves smoothly, gracefully, at full sail. between clouds, the sun catches the white canvas, turning it incandescent for a long minute.

gradually the sails sink below the horizon, then disappear.

running like water

2011-12-01T16:01:00.000-08:00

running is different here.

for one thing, you can go out wearing very little. shorts. shoes. smile.

it's much easier to get through the first mile. i mean, you're already warm.

and soon, you're sweating buckets. it just pours off of you.

rain, when it comes, is a relief. it too is warm, so rather than curse it, you welcome it and invite it to hang around awhile.

on you go, covering ground much more quickly than you're used to. the usual aches and pains are conspicuously absent~~apparently your body likes being warm like this. it's so much better than the alternative.

before you know it, you're done.

and rather than walk to cool down or immediately jump in the shower...you jump in the ocean. one step, two steps, dive. ahhhhhh....

is this heaven? it might be heaven. it sure ain't iowa.

beachy keen

2011-11-25T10:37:00.000-08:00

"New day. New outrage."

~~Bil Boyd

waves on the beach.

they never stop. one pretty much like another. with the occasional tsunami to break up the monotony.

it could get damn tiresome, if people didn't love the beach so much.

you know what else people like?

drama.

conflict.

outrage.

thanks to our nonstop news cycle and general obsession with celebrity scandal football reality survival dance-offs, we're in a constant state of uproar over something or other. every day.

this is, in part, because the 1% who own our media find it profitable to continually stir us up. they broadcast something provocative and loud, we howl at the moon. or the television, as the case may be.

this is also, in part, because of our collective tendency to react to whatever perceived threat is most immediate. back in the day, it was the saber tooth tiger prowling outside the cave.

now it's a politician or some foreigners or a former assistant football coach. lather endlessly, rinse, repeat.

for those who do the stirring, there is no limit to the exhausting supply of outrages. not a day goes by that someone somewhere is doing something illegal, reprehensible or otherwise objectionable. should that day ever come, a suitable outrage will be manufactured.

if you, like me, are prone to regular fits of high dudgeon, the only way to reduce your dudgeon levels is to remove yourself from the line of fire. take the pot off the stove. unplug. decontaminate.

trouble is, doing so also takes you out of the game, civic responsibility-wise. if you don't know that your elected officials are rigging the game in favor of their wealthy benefactors, it never occurs to you to protest.

which, of course, sets in motion counterprotests and chain reactions and fresh outrages, during which most with short attention spans forget what was being protested in the first place. they just know that it all hasn't been wrapped up in time for the next very special episode of "dancing with NFL survivors," and there's no quick fix or happy ending, and they find it all very boring and annoying.

and so it goes.

it's a very successful formula. just like waves on the beach. one pretty much like another. on and on.

with this in mind, there is a hawaiian proverb that is strangely applicable across a multitude of life's little adventures: mai juli’oe I kokua o ke kai.

"never turn your back on the ocean."

there's a hole in the bucket...

2011-11-04T17:06:00.000-07:00

turns out, i have a bucket list.

i wasn't even aware that i had one one until a couple days ago, when i realized i can't remember buying groceries in minnesota.

the missus and i lived there, north of st. paul, for about three years. and while i'm pretty sure we bought food on more than one occasion during that time, i can't remember it. i have no memory of grocery stores near our house, nor any grocery chains in the state.

this is weird. i mean, i have distinct memories about every place i've lived since i was about five years old. i remember the childhood homes, the dorm rooms, the apartments, the condos, and the houses my wife and i dumped loads of money into. i can clearly see many of the avenues we drove, the offices we complained about, the restaurants we loved.

i have vivid mental pictures of multiple grocery stores in every one of these places...except minnesota. maybe because the entire state is a vast frozen food aisle.

which brings me to my bucket list, such as it is: i want to revisit our old haunts north of st. paul and see if there are, in fact, grocery stores there. my theory is that there are.

moreover, i want to revisit the significant places i've lived from age five on. i want to see the houses, the neighborhoods, the mountains, the lakes and the bays. i want to eat at the restaurants and tip a glass to the people and the places gone by.

i want to refresh the memories, one last time, before they disappear from my brain altogether.

ideally, i'd do this in chronological order, starting with the little house on albion street, from which i walked to lewis ames elementary school. we moved from that house when i was eight, but i still remember the phone number: 771-2868. see, nothing wrong with my memory.

from there we'd head to apple valley, minnesota, where the snow drifts on the north side of the house were as tall as the garage. you could build some great snow caves in those drifts. also, i'd visit the baseball fields where our little league team won a championship. and woman lake, where we fished for walleyes and (unsuccessfully) hunted ducks.

next stop, colorado, and the house where my parents still live (hi, mom). this trip would include tours of isaac newton jr. high and the high school i haven't visited since graduation. i'd like to play golf at south suburban golf course (even though i haven't golfed in years), or better yet, just walk the stream that meanders through the course, looking for golf balls. we spent many hours doing that, back in the day, and every ball we found was a thrill. it never got old. i bet that'd still be true.

we'd have to spend a couple days in boulder, taking a quick look at the williams village dorms, wandering through campus. i'd really have no choice but to knock on the door of w-7 at the grandview apartments. it's safe to say there's nowhere on earth that i laughed more, or harder, than that apartment. good lord, we cracked each other up. apparently the older one gets, the fewer things one finds amusing. or maybe too much unfunny stuff begins weighing on the scale. either way...i miss laughing like that.

i lived in phoenix for three and a half years, in five different apartments. strangely, i don't feel the need to revisit any of them.

skipping around now.

san francisco. i visit the city once a year or so, and never have time to see anything but the inside of hotels and the moscone center. i would so like to see our apartment at chestnut and broderick. with beautiful tilework and lots of room, it was a lovely place...if you could get past the deafening tour buses and the earthquakes.

the condo we moved to after one such quake was nicer still, with stunning views across the bay to the city. truly idyllic..if you could get past the squabbling skunks in the crawl space and the midnight sprayings that rolled through the ventilation system.

raleigh, north carolina. our first house was on a golf course, where we'd take long evening walks with the big dogs after the golfers had gone home. the lot (and the one we bought behind us) was quiet and dense with trees...many of which landed on and around the house during hurricane fran.

our second raleigh house was on an acre lot heavily wooded with loblolly pines. it was less wooded after several ice storms snapped off the top-heavy pines 50 or 60 feet up the trunk. it made quite a ruckus in the middle of those winter nights: snap! {silence} crash! we would've fled to a hotel, except that it was the middle of the night and, you know, the roads were covered in ice.

come to think of it, the carolina house i'd really like to see again is one where we vacationed on the outer banks. preferably not during hurricane season. first stop, provisions at the weeping radish brewery, after which...well, it doesn't really matter.

now that the wheels are grinding, more places are flooding to mind. some i'd like to see again (like the splendid house near paia on maui, and an outrageous cayman island villa); some, not so much (sorry, laramie, wyoming).

i think if i started now, and if money were no object, and if the irony gods didn't go all medieval on me, i might be able to check most of these places off the list before i'm done.

but since i can't just pick up and start now, and since money is a factor, and since the irony gods are just so hilariously ironical...there's no telling how many of these little visits will be achievable.

in which case, i'm willing to stipulate the existence of grocery stores in minnesota, in exchange for tickets to any of the aforementioned beaches.

check, please.

on the night shift

2011-10-22T17:11:00.000-07:00

"The dream is always the same. Instead of going home, I go to the neighbors. I ring, but nobody answers. The door is open, so I go inside. I'm looking around for the people, but nobody seems to be there. And then I hear the shower running..."

~~joel goodson, risky business

the act of living is fraught with anxiety. mostly about dying.

which would go a long way toward explaining recurrent anxiety dreams. what it doesn't explain is why those dreams are so bizarre and disconnected from living or dying.

for me, anyway.

i have at least three such nightmares, and while they never end in death, they also never end well. plus, the symbolism in these nacht-shades is odd to say the least.

one is a classic that many report: it's final exam day, and i've not attended class all semester. somehow i just forgot to show up until this very moment; it's far too late to drop the class, and failure is inevitable.

then i get distracted by something more important~~like the plane i'm aboard, which is flying extremely low, between power lines, just above rush hour traffic. how did i end up in a pilot's final exam nightmare?

i've also dreamed about playing tennis with jimmy connors. i find myself across the net from him, racquet in hand, with a very important problem: i don't play tennis. i used to, many years ago, but i can't even figure out how to toss the ball for a proper serve. and, it's jimmy connors.

then i get distracted by something more important, like actually crash-landing in a plane. my friend mike ditzler is usually traveling with me on these flights, and typically we walk away unfazed, as if this kind of thing happened all the time. then we wander off to begin a vacation somewhere.

somewhere like the pebble beach golf club. where it's late in the afternoon, verging on dusk, and we haven't teed off yet. there's no time to go to the driving range for a practice swing~~we have to get to the tee straight away.

inconveniently, i no longer play golf, and haven't swung a club in years. i swing badly (much like when i did play) and the ball heads into the rough in the trees on a hill next to a winding dirt path. or some variation thereof. i go to look for the ball, and darkess is falling. groups behind us are playing through, so i rush back to the fairway and try to play on. but we're now hopelessly behind.

a chance to play at a golfer's dream course (a very expensive opportunity) is frittered away forever.

what kind of anxiety dreams are these? golf at pebble beach? tennis with jimmy connors? flying, unflying, mike ditzler?

maybe these are just the symbols through which the fear of death whispers in my ear. and really, the specter could be much worse, much more frightening...so perhaps i should be grateful.

but just once...can't i stare across the net and fire a rocket down the line? can't i stand confidently over the ball and send a beautiful drive down the middle of the fairway? can't i show up for the final having attended class and actually done a useful bit of studying?

apparently not. the arc of the dreams is always the same, and i'm chronically unprepared. then i get distracted by something more important.

weirdly like real life.

ringing endorsement

2011-10-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

it was particularly uproarious recently when my phone began ringing just as i was walking into the men's room. at the moscone convention center. in san francisco.

my ringtone...

hilarity ensued.

running on...

2011-10-09T18:43:00.000-07:00

looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
i don't know how to tell you all
just how crazy this life feels
i look around for the friends that I used to turn to
to pull me through
looking into their eyes I see them running too
running on, running on empty
running on, running blind
running on, running into the sun
but I'm running behind

~jackson browne

i still don't like running.

but i'm hating it less, recently. especially today.

the difference? for one, this morning my daughter ran with me.

it was the inaugural "run the bluff" 12k/5k event held in our very own neighborhood. i ran the 12k~~she and a friend ran the 5k.

the day started rainy and cold, but improved by race time to chilly and misty. the precipitation stopped for the start, but restarted before the finish. which is to say, we got wet.

this seems like a good time to mention that 12k is 7.456 miles. if you're cruising the highway at 65 mph or so, it's nothing. it's 7 minutes of your life that you don't notice going by at all.

if you're running those 12000 meters, however, it takes a lot longer. and me, i noticed every mile.

i noticed that it's easier to run with several hundred people than to run alone. i noticed i'm not the only one who struggles on long uphill climbs. i noticed it's impossible to drink water out of little paper cups when you're running, and trying to do so will empty the cup all down your front. and onto your shoes.

i noticed that i don't like people passing me. and after the first several minutes of sorting things out, no one did. the faster people stayed in front of me, and the slower people stayed behind me. i mean, obviously.

a couple people tried to pass, but after i tripped them and told them to stay on the ground, they lost interest.

kidding.

but really, between mile one and mile seven, no one passed me. i was feeling pretty good about this...right up to the point, with a half-mile to go, where the twenty-something mom (and her child) blew past me with the baby jogger. the moment was deeply symbolic of something, but i'm not sure what.

anyway, i ran, i finished, i didn't fall down, i didn't have a cardiac event. which means it was a very good day.

the girls, meanwhile, had an even better time.

did i mention, they're ten years old and were running their first race? they are, and they were. totally nonchalant about the whole thing, running ahead of me for the first several hundred yards (even though we started together).

they finished 80th among the 171 girls/women running the 5k. the average finishing time was 36:00 minutes, they finished in 34 minutes.

they got their picture taken and their names announced as they crossed the finish line. the only thing missing was al michaels saying, "do you believe in miracles? yes!"

ten years old.

crazy.

**********************

update: several hours later, i'm tired. mostly from two hours shopping with the missus, i think. though it's possible the running may be a contributing factor.

the girl, conversely, is unfazed. smiling, wearing her event t-shirt, her race bib number pinned to her bulletin board.

we're talking about running the "seattle jingle bell walk/run" in a couple months.

it may actually be possible to enjoy running. who knew...

**********************

results:

bib number: 1813
age: 10
gender: F
location: Seattle, WA
overall place: 131 out of 248
division place: 11 out of 19
gender place: 80 out of 171
time: 34:18
pace: 11:03

Number of Finishers: 248
Number of Females: 171
Number of Males: 77
Average Time: 36:00

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

bib number: 190
age: 50
gender: M
location: Seattle, WA
overall place: 89 out of 338
division place: 8 out of 15
gender place: 62 out of 127
time: 1:02:49
pace: 8:26

Number of Finishers: 338
Number of Females: 211
Number of Males: 127
Average Time: 1:12:14

today, one dot at a time

2011-10-06T15:27:00.000-07:00

“you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in the future.” ~~steve jobs

an amazingly poignant essay on how to live.

conditional certainty...

2011-10-06T11:50:00.000-07:00

these times are so uncertain
there's a yearning undefined
and people filled with rage
we all need a little tenderness
how can love survive
in such a graceless age
the trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness
they're the very things we kill, i guess
pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms
and the work i put between us,
you know it doesn't keep me warm

i'm learning to live without you now
but i miss you, baby
the more i know, the less i understand
all the things i thought i figured out, i have to learn again
i've been trying to get down to the heart of the matter
but everything changes
and my friends seem to scatter
but i think it's about forgiveness
forgiveness
even if, even if you don't love me anymore

~~don henley

two things we know with great certainty: amanda knox is free, and troy davis is dead.

foxy knoxy, apparently the victim of a flawed murder conviction in italy, is now meandering the streets of seattle. also, she is alive. davis, apparently the victim of a flawed murder conviction in the usa, was recently executed. ergo he is dead. and not meandering.

let us stipulate that neither you nor i know if knox was innocent and davis was guilty. or vice versa. or some shade of red in between. what is clear is that the perky, affluent white chick survived the flawed conviction, and the permanently affected black guy did not.

when knox was incarcerated, many americans howled that the italian justice system was a sham. now that she's been freed by that system, we assume its image is rehabilitated in their eyes.

the u.s. justice system, meanwhile, continues to kill people whose guilt is in doubt. rehabilitate that, with a straight face.

curious, too, how many people are feting knox's return to seattle. though there's no certainty about her participation in a grisly crime, she's received a celebrity's welcome.

which is fine. she may very well be innocent.

but if you stumble across her using a butter knife in some secluded coffee shop, it might be prudent to keep a safe distance.

davis, meanwhile? dead. despite real doubts about his participation in a grisly crime. which should raise doubts about which legal system is more of a sham.

knox soon will be sorting through book deals and screenplays. her four years in prison will be worth millions. you know many people would make that bargain without batting an eye.

with great certainty we know troy davis would take it. if he weren't, you know, dead.

thanks a lot, ann...

2011-09-25T22:44:00.000-07:00

In a 1954 interview, George Plimpton asked Ernest Hemingway what was the best training for an aspiring writer. Hemingway replied, "Let’s say that he should go out and hang himself, because he finds that writing well is impossibly difficult. Then he should be cut down without mercy and forced to write as well as he can for the rest of his life. At least he will have the story of the hanging to commence with."

admit it: you get tired of setting a good example sometimes.

but you've got kids looking up to you or people reporting to you or the fate of the free world relying on you, so you do what you've been conditioned to do.

the right thing, that is. or your best impression of it, anyway.

but oooh, how good would it be to get all up in some unacceptable behavior every now and again? it's okay, you can say it. we know already.

you'd start with the alarm clock. it goes off in the morning (or worse, in the late afternoon), and instead of shutting it off and rolling out of bed, you pick the thing up, gently unplug it, and throw it into the nearest brick wall. where it explodes into a confusion of disconnected pieces.

there. didn't that feel good?

but your bad example day is just beginning.

instead of your usual healthy breakfast (the most important meal of the day!), you go to the bakery and pick up a cinnamon roll dripping cream cheese frosting. you bring it home, heat it in a 325-degree oven for five minutes or so...then throw it in the trash and pour yourself half a bottle of really expensive syrah. and go back to bed for five hours.

when you wake up, you do a quick assessment and realize you're not feeling at the top of your game. so you slam down a couple e*mergency's and advil and fish oil capsules and go for a run.

it takes twenty minutes before your neck and knees and hips stop complaining, and by that time you're long past the point where you wonder what the hell you were thinking by setting out in the first place. so you go on for another two minutes. then you puke.

after walking home the rest of the way (in the rain), you think maybe food would've been a good idea. fish is out of the question, but a leftover chicken enchilada with extra cheese sounds pretty good. with guacamole. and chips with a hint of lime.

nom nom nom nom.

you look up and realize it's been raining pretty steadily for the last hour. you notice the sunroof on your car is open. you nod and say, "fuck it," and leave it open.

by now the dogs need to be fed. you feed them. because it's one thing to set a bad example, it's another thing entirely not to feed the dogs. then you're just an asshole. they seem to appreciate the difference.

someone's calling. who is it? doesn't matter. you don't pick up. they leave a message. you delete it. if it's important, they'll call back. and leave another message. which you'll delete. because, you know, fuck 'em.

you realize you have a headache. since you threw up the advil, you take some aspirin, just in case you're actually having a stroke. you wash them down with the rest of the syrah. soon thereafter you understand why this combination is not recommended by healthcare providers.

you turn on the weather channel to see how much rain your car will be filling up with. quite a bit, it turns out. you still refuse to close the sunroof. it's a SUNroof, dammit.

looking around the kitchen, it occurs to you that some things go bad if they're not refrigerated. you throw the bananas into a ziplock bag, and throw the bag in the freezer. it doesn't seem to help. they remain black. you notice they closely resemble the leftover fish you threw in previously. you close the freezer and walk away quickly.

it's time for bed.

the bed is covered with clean laundry, which you sweep onto the floor.

you don't brush your teeth. but you do floss, for some reason.

the dogs settle onto the clean laundry.

tomorrow is another day. you think maybe you should go back to setting a good example.

this seems like a good idea.

you sleep, and dream of sandra bullock and a werewolf.

orion's svelt

2011-09-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

i can't find my belts.

this is starting to be a problem.

i distinctly remember packing them at the bottom of a box...a wardrobe or some other nondescript cardboard container. and since i personally moved said boxes, i know the belts are here...somewhere.

but all the likely candidate boxes have been searched. apparently i'll have to move on to the, "no, they couldn't possibly be in there" candidates.

rewind.

coinciding with our move, summer arrived in the pacific northwest. this brief barometric bacchanalia is too rare, too fleeting to go uncelebrated. once our eyes adjust to what in other parts of the world is called "sunlight," we get a little crazy here. we go outside in "shorts" and "t-shirts," completely uncovered by fleece and gore-tex. if you can imagine such a thing.

i confess, i participated in the blasphemy. i wore summer-type shirts (untucked! at work!), conveniently covering my lack of a belt. also, i ran at lunch (outdoors! not on a treadmill!), soaking up the free vitamin D. it was glorious.

and apparently in the interim i lost a little weight. because my pants are now too loose in the waist. i actually need my belts for something other than decoration. despite this, they remain stubbornly missing.

and now summer is missing, too. fall has descended like a dark-ages castle gate. one day it was 80 and sunny, the next it was 60 and medieval.

the hawaiian shirts are re-relegated to their sad little corner of the closet. and i seem to have a choice. buy new belts or, you know, put the weight back on.

but as some anorexic runway model once said, "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." and while i'm nowhere near skinny, i like the way i'm feeling. which is to say, lighter.

time to shop.

* * * * *

update: according to weather.com, we may get indian summer this year. they're predicting three days of sun and 70s this week. the shopping trip will be delayed until winter's inevitable arrival next weekend.

loose canons

2011-09-11T13:05:00.000-07:00

jesus is disappointed.

he can't figure out how he came to be associated with "conservative christians."

like the people responsible for the latest gop debate (if by "debate" you mean human-looking creatures throwing feces at one another, each toss applauded by the fox news crowd).

the audience (and by "audience" we mean bloodlusting zombies ravening for human flesh) at one point cheered like coliseum romans over texas governor rick perry's affinity for executions.

perry, a self-acclaimed christian, characterized the 234 executions during his governorship as "justice."

jesus, however, would like gop christians to know that he is not down with the executions.

nowhere in the bible does it say, "...and the lord jesus saw the multitudes on death row and proclaimed, 'father, these sinners have trespassed against us. you have said we are to forgive them, but we've decided instead to flay the flesh from their bones, nail them to a cross, and call it ultimate justice. hope you're okay with that.'"

perry the pious and his merry minions must be reading from a different bible.

"I think Americans are clearly in the vast majority of cases, supportive of capital punishment, "Perry said. "When you have committed heinous crimes against our citizens, and it’s a state-by-state issue, but in the state of Texas, our citizens have made that decision, and they made it clear, and they don’t want you to commit those crimes against our citizens, and if you do, you will face the ultimate justice.”

it's justice, perry insists, even when those who haven't committed heinous crimes are among the dispatched. he tried to hide one such case by disbanding the investigation and burying the findings. just as jesus no doubt would've done.

if we're being honest here, and we are, let's just call capital punishment what it is: revenge killing. a primal reaction hard-wired into human DNA to perpetuate the survival of the individual and the tribe.

and since we are being honest, let's acknowledge that this instinct isn't reconcilable with the finer sensibilities of jesus's philosophies.

the point here, to state the obvious, is that there's no having it both ways. you can howl with delight over 234 executions in texas, but you can't simultaneously call yourself a christian.

you can't love your crucifixions and love you some jesus, too.

that said, let's try to give these folks the benefit of the doubt: maybe they rationalize this revenge business another way, say, as a matter of fiscal policy. that's not really a moral foundation for state-sponsored killing, but perhaps it's enough for some.

and...durn it all. it actually costs more to kill someone than to put them away for life.

moving on, maybe some believe the prospect of ultimate justice prevents the kind of crime perry was referring to. and...wouldn't you know it? turns out capital punishment doesn't deter crime, either.

interesting note: the same people who think government is completely incompetent still trust said government with the power to execute people.

another interesting note: the death penalty is disproportionately applied to non-white people. that's probably just coincidence.

so, upon further review, it appears that today's "conservative christians" cheer for execution by the hundreds simply because...they like executions.

and we've come full circle, to a place where jesus, a well-known social and fiscal liberal, finds his face on banners waved by people who thoroughly despise those ideals.

and lo, as a matter of intellectual and spiritual integrity...jesus is not amused.

dollars for dick

2011-09-05T20:49:00.000-07:00

unjustified war. torture. treason.

for most people, these would be a ticket to prison.

for dick cheney, they're source material for a book tour.

which demonstrates that justice in america is little more than a child's fairy tale.

the time has passed when we could sit here in our comfy chairs and still believe the myth. and unless we agree that cheney should at least stand trial for his assorted transgressions, we really can't complain about anybody else's criminal activity.

we can't, for example, howl about michael vick killing dogs. or bewail the fat cats of wall street killing the economy. we can't get steamed over (insert your most outrageous injustice here), unless we agree cheney should, at minimum, be forced to answer for the crimes he has confessed to in his book and his many fox news promotional confabs.

also, he should give back the taxpayer-funded medical hardware keeping him alive.

where were we?

oh, yes, the false premise that the USA is a nation of laws. what we are, at the highest levels, is more like a band of pirates. and not the charming, funny, johnny depp kind, either. more like the kind that cuts off your hands and throws you into shark-frequented waters. take what you can, give nothing back.

or, put another way: kill one, you're a murderer, kill thousands, you're dick cheney.

"Waterboarding is a war crime, unwarranted surveillance... all of which are crimes. I don't care whether the president authorized him to do it or not, they are crimes." ~~lawrence wilkerson

wilkerson knows of which he speaks. as chief of staff to secretary of state colin powell, he was privy to and even complicit in many of the crimes of the bush administration.

like a war ginned up under false pretenses. authorizing torture. disappearing people into secret prisons for the purpose of committing torture. outing a CIA agent in a time of war (that's treason, for those of you scoring at home). if you or i committed these acts, it's safe to say we would be doing something other than peddling a book on fox news.

and yet cheney is doing exactly that, with a sneering smile on his face, and barely a whisper of protest from most americans.

why is that, do you suppose?

are we really that apathetic? or are we now okay with activities that we
prosecuted, many times, when they were perpetrated against us?

question for christians: does it offend you that these crimes were committed whilst george bush waved the jesus banner? that he very publicly proclaimed islam to be a religion of peace, then turned around and killed hundreds of thousands of muslims for no good reason?

and really, what reason would suffice for such a slaughter? so halliburton could make its annual numbers ten years straight? well, then...mission accomplished.

did you know: throughout his years as veep, cheney had a little-reported, very profitable stake in halliburton? the company raked in uncounted billions from no-bid/no-audit government contracts in iraq and afghanistan, as well as on the u.s. gulf coast, post-katrina. but, you know, oh well.

these days, death, destruction, and botched reconstruction apparently are what we're willing to accept.

and if you're dick cheney, they're just good business.

true, but not comforting

2011-09-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

dad: ...well, it sounds like you've got everything under control.

me: no, nothing is ever really under control. but i don't think we're in any immediate danger.

dad: okay. have a good weekend.

home is wherever we are, together

2011-08-25T19:23:00.000-07:00

it's empty now.

and in the silence i can finally hear the seven years of life that fill this house.

amid the walls and empty floors, it vibrates like a tuning fork pitched at a frequency only we can feel.

relative to the actual years, it seems like we've done a disproportionate amount of living and dying here. transformed are two very young children, replaced by a wary, irascible teenager and a brash, unabashed contessa in a leotard. the quiet air is full of their angst and energy and electricity.

passed on are a couple high-revving hamsters, an affectionate adopted cat, and two well-loved, still-missed dogs. they were all part of the ship, part of the crew~and when their time came, they were mourned as part of the family.

their life force is here, entwined with that of three more dogs and the very-old cat who is still with us and has been, seemingly, forever.

so many creatures, so many bright lights showing us the way...somewhere.

if only our souls could be still long enough to follow.

this is a happy place, mostly. made that way by the person who insisted she liked the house the least. with relentless resolve, the missus eventually turned an awkward, outdated little abode into a confident, elegant home. the house purred at her touch, and it occurs to me that you can't infuse a place with this much joie de vivre without loving it deeply.

**********

it's taken five days to disengage from here, a herculean effort i'm not sure will be manageable again in this lifetime. the days of hefting tightly packed boxes melted into late nights emptying a large truck long after dark. our fatigue is physical and metaphysical and to the bone.

**********

the walls echo every sound now, complaining of the emptiness.

i feel it, too.

crazy is as crazy does...

2011-08-15T09:47:00.000-07:00

could it be?

is it possible?

could michelle bachmann (R-unreality) be the next GOP nominee for president of the united states?

yes! she could! she really could!

she loves america so much, she'd like to see the country default on its debts, leading to global economic turmoil. iowa GOP straw poll voters loved her so much, they made her the straw poll queen in their recent straw poll vote.

but wait! could the nominee eventually be...rick perry? perry (R-schizophrenia) loves america so much, he'd like to secede from it! plus, rick is very pious. he uses his position as governor of texas as a prayer pulpit, leading the faithful in prayers for rain, and for the economy. he also prays for an end to healthcare reform and the environmental protection agency.

he could be the GOP nominee! he really could!

based on the recent debate in iowa, any number of really, um, interesting people could be the GOP nominee. it could be rick santorum (R-manondog), the former senator with a google problem and a host of other quirky-adorable views that endear him to the hard right.

it could be newt gingrich (R-annulment) and his marriages and affairs and messy divorce from a cancer-stricken wife. yes, it could!

could it be herman cain (R-incoherence), the fast-food financier? no, it could not. herman cain is an african-american. no matter how much money he's made, or how many fast-food pseudo-meals he's foisted on our unhealthy electorate, GOP primary voters will not make a black man the GOP nominee. no, they will not!

nor will it be tim pawlenty (R-narcolepsy). in a world where crazy is the coin of the realm, tim is entirely too placid. besides which, after a somnolent showing in iowa, the former governor quit the race. rarely do voters embrace a former governor who quits. unless her name is sarah palin. and tim, for all his quitting qualifications, is no sarah palin.

who are we forgetting? oh! mitt romney (R-youkidding)! well, to be fair, everyone forgets mitt romney. even mitt romney forgets mitt romney. there have been so many mitts over the past few years, it's hard to keep track of them all. GOP primary voters recently songified mitt's many morphs to the tune "which mitt are you?"

are you massachusetts mitt, creator of the state's beloved romneycare healthcare program? are you revenue romney, who badgered standard & poors to boost his state’s credit rating after raising taxes during an economic decline?

or are you anti-mitt, who disavows any knowledge of any other mitts, if in fact it can be proved they ever existed? that'd be the mitt who insists corporations are people too.

could this mitt or that mitt (or anyone named "mitt") be the next GOP nominee? or is the very idea too crazy? tsk, this is the GOP! nothing's too crazy!

but wait, isn't mitt a mormon? yes, yes he is.

okay, then no. GOP primary voters will not make a mormon the GOP nominee. but what if they did? rhetorical/tactical question: would mormon mitt consider making african-american herman cain his running mate? it would be an interesting approach to taking on barack obama, wouldn't it?

and it raises a corollary rhetorical/book of mormon question: if an irony tree falls in the woods, do the elders hear it?

we digress.

straw poll queen bachmann says wives should be submissive to their husbands. for example, she submissively became a tax attorney at her husband's insistence, and against her wishes.

questions about biblical patriarchy theology make her squirm, and not in a good way. which in turn raises interesting questions about roles if, say, she were president and rick perry were vice president.

bachmann: mr. vice president, i need you to go to new york for the ceremonial dissolution of the united nations.

perry: madame president, given the severe distress of our economy and the unprecedented heat wave broiling the midwest, i think it's important that i go to the heartland and lead a prayer festival and re-election fundraiser.

bachmann: but...

perry: madame president, remember, "submit yourself to your husband as you would to the lord..."

bachmann: but, you're not my husband.

perry: marcus and i were wrestling, um, with this subject just a few minutes ago, and he told me to tell you that you should go to new york. he and i will go to the heartland for the prayer thing.

bachmann: well...okay. i guess that'll work too.

so many candidates for hyperzealous right-wingers to love. how will they ever choose? what litmus test will suffice? previously it would've been the willingness to borrow trillions for war and torture and tax cuts. in jesus' name, of course.

now? if iowans are a barometer, it's a willingness to suspend disbelief and sidle up to the crazy like it's closing time at the 24-hour church salad bar.

which is to say...lettuce spray.

the nature of change

2011-08-05T22:20:00.000-07:00

"the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in dillon
are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA
we will remember that there is something happening in america
that we are not as divided as our politics suggest
that we are one people
we are one nation
and together we will begin the next great chapter in america's story
with three words
that will ring from coast to coast
from sea to shining sea
yes we can
yes we can
yes we can
yes we can..."

the song still inspires.

even now, and even after the candidate who would change everything has mostly changed our expectations by lowering them.

during the soul-on-fire days of 2008, everything was possible--and expected. because the man doing the campaigning (and those who supported him) demanded it.

in 2008, millions of people voted for more than just change--they demanded a reckoning. an exorcism of the bush demon and the damage done to a nation.

two years later millions of those same people voted for a change back to bush-brand lunacy. dozens of newly elected democrats were replaced by even newer right-wing zealots. which caused much cognitive dissonance and many questions about the intelligence of american voters.

and the president who would change everything changed as well...into a moderate
republican. snapping heads back like a right-of-center cross to the jaw.

"yes we can heal this nation. yes we can repair this world." ~~barack obama

we believed it, in 2008. we believed we could wrest the control of our destiny from those who would violate our inviolable principles. those who advocated and implemented fear and torture and unnecessary war. not to mention economic seppuku.

but a mere 24 months later we veered away from rationality and back toward darkness. since then there's been little healing, less repair, and much self-destruction.

as standard and poors put it in downgrading america's credit rating:

"The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed."

shorter standard and poors:

"america can no longer be trusted to do the right thing--or the smart thing."

as it turns out, we are actually more divided than our politics suggest. we are no longer one people, or one nation.

"nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change." ~~barack obama

this is true. and when those voices call for a weakened president undermined by timid democrats, tea party radicals, and economic hostage-takers? we get the government we deserve and the instability we set in motion.

"we have been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope...but in the unlikely story that is america, there has never been anything false about hope."

candidate obama never hit a false note. his campaign messaging was exactly what a dispirited, disillusioned nation needed to begin believing, once again, in its better angels.

president obama, in contrast, has fallen well short of the promise and the promises. instead of a reckoning, there's been incremental wreckage. instead of exorcism there's been exasperation.

it's as if the president, once elected, forgot (or blithely discarded) the electricity that swept him into office. instead of rising to the voters' mandate, he receded to opposition punching bag. not surprisingly, the hope and dreams and yes-we-can followed.

given the derangement on the right (and the bipolar nature of the electorate), it's possible that reason will re-assert itself in 2012. it's possible that a second-term obama will rediscover his savvy and his stride.

but "change we can believe in" is no longer an option, for the nation or this president.

what's required now is action we can count on.

for our next magical trick...

2011-07-28T17:30:00.000-07:00

we sold our house.

and sitting here this moment, we officially have no place to go.

the situation not *quite* dire. yet. i mean, we do have until aug. 21 to relocate our stuff. a rental house, perhaps, somewhere nearby.

or a really big storage locker.

but still...holy sh*t. we sold our house.

after six days on the market and a breathtaking rush of traffic, we ginned up three competing offers. all for full asking price and one for a wee bit more.

(note: we took the highest offer~we're going to spend the extra 50 bucks on a bottle of wine or two. or four.)

we weren't expecting this. if that's not already obvious.

background: mrs. spaceneedl never liked this house. she routinely ruminated on its shortcomings, even as she transformed it into a thing of beauty. during our seven years here, rare was the day when some update, upgrade, or upheaval wasn't underway. and honestly, it was a pain in the ass.

the metamorphosis was tedious and debilitating and costly. also, totally worth it. i would be remiss not to acknowledge the sweep and nuance of her vision. particularly now that it's been completely validated by the quick sale and the lavish praise of nearly everyone who toured the place.

well done, wife.

that said... holy sh*t. we sold our house.

and we have to find someplace new to live, ASAP. someplace that'll accommodate four people, three dogs, a geriatric cat, and a hamster. not to mention an unusual amount of accumulated stuff.

how hard could that be?

~~~~~~~~

update: we found a place to go. it's about a hundred yards kitty-corner thataway (pointing northeast). a nice house that our nice neighbor was kind enough to offer up since she's getting married, and her fiance has an even nicer place.

as a result, we don't have to entertain new neighbors, the children don't have to leave their friends, and the dogs don't have to trek thousands of miles to track us down after we move, accidently leaving them behind.

so, several problems solved all at once.

on a related note, the new place is slightly smaller than the old place. we need to host a garage sale, stat. not everything must go. but the stuff that must go can't stay.

anybody wanna buy a hamster?

the almost exorcism

2011-07-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

every time i think about it, it makes me ill.

maybe if i tell you about it, this gut-punch reaction will go away.

back in the day (make that way back in the day) on a warm summer afternoon, a friend of mine drove up in a new car. it wasn't new-new, of course. our parents didn't have that kind of money.

but it was new to him, and more importantly it was a set of wheels, which was pretty damn cool no matter how not-new it was.

i no longer remember what kind of car it was. if i had to bet, i'd say it was a 1969 chevy impala. yellow, with a black hardtop, and black vinyl seats.

but, you know, that's a guess.

the car wasn't in perfect shape. it needed some body work and some paint and four new tires. it eventually got the paint. didn't matter. my friend (we'll call him "tyrone," even though that wasn't his name, and i've never had a friend named "tyrone") was fired up about his new ride. teenage independence, and all that.

so here was tyrone, in front of my parents' house, showing off his car. we walked around it, we sat in it, we cranked up the AM radio. eventually tyrone popped open the hood so we could peer in at the engine, which looked like it had been power washed. which it probably had.

full disclosure: i'm not a car guy. never have been. i subscribe to donald sutherland's philosophy about tanks in kelly's heroes; "oh man, i only ride 'em, i don't know what makes 'em work." (his character's name was "oddball," if you appreciate the irony of such things.)

my ignorance, however, doesn't explain away what happened next, or why it's haunted me all these years. did i say it makes me ill? it really does.

tyrone was investigating something low on the car's grill, a ding or some other minor flaw that no one else would ever notice. his hand, supporting his weight, was above the grill, his fingers gripping the edge of the frame.

at that point i think i may have said something like, "are we done here?" and i think he may have said yes. so i pulled the the hood down.

heavy, spring-loaded, the hood dropped like a detroit guillotine. microseconds before it sliced through his fingers, tyrone blithely moved his hand off the car.

he wasn't even aware the hood was in motion...it was blind, preposterous luck that his avulsed fingers weren't at that moment twitching atop the engine block.

i don't really remember any more details of that afternoon. i'm sure i had a shocked look on my face, and i'm sure tyrone was equal parts relieved and annoyed. outraged, maybe. like, "what are you, fucking stupid?!?"

can't say i'd blame him. but at the end of the day...nothing really happened. and since that's true, i'd guess tyrone has long-forgotten about the whole thing.

me, i still think about it. not often...but when i do, it's as if his fingers actually had been lopped off. i get the same sick, shuddering feeling, all over again.

i think it's because i did something really stupid, something with disastrous consequences for someone else. the fact that they were almost-consequences is completely irrelevant.

when i started this little exercise, it was in hopes that i could purge the memory of that day, and never have to think of it again. second-best would be not to have to deal with the lousy feeling in my gut every time it pops back into my head.

but now i'm thinking something else. now i'm thinking maybe tyrone and his not-lopped fingers are a great reminder to wake up, pay attention, and always be vigilant about what i'm doing.

and the fact that i get this reminder without anyone actually having been hurt is a ridiculously generous gift from the cosmos. or, you know, whomever.

now that i've told you about it, i hope it doesn't go away.

having said that, i still advise caution if you drive over one day to show me your new car.

you can't be too careful.

fabulous free advice, worth every nickel...

2011-07-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

her sensual and easy motion
seems impossible to chart
in a world that needs more dancing
she's still a hula girl at heart.

--jimmy buffett

free advice...

when your wife is having an argument with herself, don't get involved.

this may be difficult, since in your role as a caring and concerned life-partner you'll likely want to help, or at least referee, as the discussion heats up.

big mistake.

because at some point you'll be compelled to pick a side (say, the side of "logic")...and that's when you lose. even though it wasn't your argument to begin with.

as it turns out, logic isn't necessarily useful (or welcome) in cases of conflicting emotions and contradictory conclusions. input that might, under different circumstances, be perfectly reasonable or obvious, may now be misinterpreted and mischaracterized. this invariably leads to said advice being tragically underappreciated. or ignored. or used against you later.

pithy observation...

as has been documented countless times in clinical studies and romance literature, women most often don't want the man to solve the problem for them. they just want the man to listen, and to empathize as appropriate. men, however, are hard-wired to help, to solve the problem as efficiently as possible (so as to more quickly move on to the sex).

this dynamic is brilliantly described in the underrated movie "white men can't jump." (note: dialogue paraphrased)

she: honey, i'm thirsty.
he: (gets out of bed, leaves room, brings back glass of water) here you go, honey.
she: why did you bring me a glass of water? did i ask you to bring me a glass of water?
he: you just said you were thirsty...
she: when i said i was thirsty, that didn't mean i wanted you to get me a glass of water. it meant i wanted you share the experience of being thirsty with me. it meant i wanted you to understand my dry-mouthedness.

at that moment, woody harrelson's character becomes angry and confused. he doesn't yet understand a woman's innate need for empathy; he only knows there's a problem to solve, and he leaps up to solve it. the poor bastard. in doing so, he demonstrates he lacks the sensitivity and depth of soul necessary to sustain a meaningful relationship with a fabulously intricately spontaneously complex woman.

to his credit, he later goes on to write a poignant song about sharing the dry-mouthedness experience, which wins back his lover's heart. temporarily.

history lessons...

there are plenty of things every guy just knows how to do. okay, a handful of things. okay, come to think of it, there might not be any. case in point: you'd think that over the millennia we would have learned something intrinsically and persistently true about the most important half of our species. other than their relentless and often-spectacular splendidness.

but generation after generation, instead of learning from our collective experience, men stagger around executing the same pratfalls over and over again. instead of handing down hard-won (and useful) knowledge, we pass along disinformation and bewilderment.

and still, to this day we can't imagine why our cheerful offers of help are not-so-in-demand. i mean, aside from a history of uniquely male behavior like misogyny and institutionalized oppression and war and other activities not compatible with life, what's not to love?

"darlin', stand back and let a man handle this [________] business. you just sit there and look pretty."

breaking news...

we're different. just as women are generally predisposed to nurture and sustain and cultivate, men are hard-wired to ejaculate. from words to weapons to wetness, we just~~plahhh~~all over everything. nothing any of us can do about it, really. it's a biological imperative writ large in crayon letters. if we were smart, we'd stand aside and let the women take charge (michelle bachmann and sarah palin excepted).

but as history demonstrates...we're not that smart.

which brings us full circle.

if i were smart, i wouldn't have insinuated myself into my wife's existential dilemma. i wouldn't have seen her plaint as a problem for me to solve. i would have maintained eye contact, nodded at the appropriate times, offered a hug now and then, and kept my mouth shut.

except to say, "dear, i trust you to follow your instincts and make the right decision. do what you think is best. meanwhile, i'll just sit here and look pretty."

after zat, zen what?

2011-07-06T16:01:00.000-07:00

"now, my girl quickly said to me
man you better watch your feet
lava come down soft and hot
you better love-a me now or love-a me not
let me say now, i don't know, i don't know
i don't know where i'm a-gonna go
when the volcano blows..."

~~jimmy buffett

the missus and i are unaware of any current volcanic activity on oahu.

unless you count the prospect of our heads exploding.

whatever we lack in zen and sigh and ommm, we make up for in steady pent-up stress.

which means we fit in perfectly with the rest of the mainlanders as they arrive in the islands.

you've seen them. you recognize the signs. the pinched mouth, the crease between the eyebrows, the shoulders drawn up like a crooked shade. that's how they get off the plane, fresh from their corporate cube farms. cringing, squinting, shading their eyes, as if they're emerging from a submarine or a root cellar or the set of "pot zombies."

and yet within hours, no matter how severe the symptoms, the process of recovery begins. one early morning walk on the beach and the tension in the neck eases. one dive into the waves, and a layer of angst washes away. one sunset something-with-rum at a barefoot beach bar elicits a spontaneous little smile and a deeply satisfied sigh that feels like the first breath after several months underwater.

in the days that follow, pieces of negative karma and dark aura and bad attitude fall off, leaving behind something fresh and clean and healthy. relatively speaking.

not coincidently, little epiphanies start happening about the same time, rolling in like gentle surf, mixed in with the occasional rogue wave to make sure you're paying attention.

"constant cold and overcast is not mandatory."

"maybe there is such a thing as a healthy tan."

"people actually live like this."

"tick tick tick tick tick..."

full disclosure: i have no idea if other mainlanders share this experience. it's quite possible they find this kind of overanalysis completely unnecessary.

what i do know is that the water is warm and blue, and the sun is shining. the missus and i are slathered up with sunscreen, and there are a couple stand-up paddle boards down there with our names on them.

less talk. more ahhhh.....

~~~~~~~~~~~

update: paddle surfing is not as easy as it looks.

watching from shore you say, "stand up, paddle, repeat. when a wave comes, paddle faster in the direction of the wave. how hard can that be?"

tsk. i am so dumb.

at least one layer of something has been efficiently exfoliated. shoulda worn my rash guard...

china syndrome

2011-07-03T13:31:00.000-07:00

according to some web site, a 20th wedding anniversary is the china anniversary.

not to be confused with the silver, pearl, or ruby anniversaries, which imply significantly more commitment, time-wise and gift-wise.

no, it's china. symbolizing "...the beautiful, elegant, and delicate nature of 20 years of love."

sure, okay. you could make a case for that. you might also make the case that once it's unwrapped, you put the china away and never use it again, leading to dust and decline...and what fun is that?

regardless, in hewing to this fascinating wedding tradition, the missus and i will commemorate our 20th anniversary with a fabulous trip to...

...not china.

because we didn't really have the time or the inclination to go to china. and we're not slaves to tradition at our house. plus, have you seen airfares recently? china is really far away, which means it's probably really expensive to fly there. which i'm sure we would've discovered, had we bothered to look into it.

we had just a couple mandatories for our momentous occasion: it had to cost somewhat less than a second home on montserrat, and it had to be warm.

we entertained monterey and santa barbara and san diego. vancouver island and banff and the okanagan valley. italy, france, spain. cabo.

long story short, and for various reasons, we decided no, no, no, no, no, no and no. and not likely.

not saying they're not all fabulous options. not saying we wouldn't love to visit all of them at some point. just saying too boring, too cold, too much, and are you kidding? $1700 to fly to cabo? in the middle of summer? what's spanish for "don't be ridiculous"?

so, after much ado...aloha, y'all.

we'll be watching july 4 fireworks from duke's barefoot bar on waikiki beach.

they don't do china at duke's. they do surfboards and mai-tais. and they do them very well.

that'll do for us.

just fine.

extinction distinction

2011-06-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

let's pretend.

let's pretend your house is on fire, and there are pets and children inside.

that's some serious shit, right? i mean, this is not the time to debate the size of the fire and who started it and what to do next.

you drop what you're doing, wade in, save the kids and the animals, and put out the damn fire. right?

are there other options i'm not aware of? is there another decision tree that makes more sense? if there is, now is a real good time to share it.

because the house is on fire, and wouldn't you know it? we're all inside.

it seems that climate change, pollution, and over-predation by humans is about to trigger an "unprecedented mass extinction event" in our oceans.

according to a report by people who don't find science to be too "sciency," countless marine species are disappearing at a much faster rate than the watered-down, politicized predictions previously estimated.

Overfishing, pollution, run-off of fertilisers from farming and the acidification of the seas caused by increasing carbon dioxide emissions were combining to put marine creatures in extreme danger, according to the report from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean, prepared at the first international workshop to consider all of the cumulative stresses affecting the oceans at Oxford.

The international panel of marine experts said there was a "high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history."

well. that's kind of alarming, isn't it? because if you follow the mass extinction on up the food chain, where do you suppose it leads? to the children and animals in the burning house, if you'll pardon the mixed metaphor and the abstractified analogy.

so, where is the alarm? where is the immediate response to this imminent disaster?

why, silly, it's nowhere, of course! rather than save anyone, let alone put out the fire, we're arguing about the existence of fire, and whether it has any negative side effects if, in fact, it were determined to exist. this is thanks to a huge, years-long campaign of disinformation by the lovely folks who started the fire, and profit greatly from the flames. hi exxon! hi bp! hi u.s. energy policy!

this campaign is helped along by politicians whose lips are so fastened to the ass of energy-producing corporations that helping the people in the house will never come to a vote, let alone actually happen. hi rick santorum, gop presidential hopeful!

never mind the volumes of peer-reviewed research documenting the effects of pouring billions of tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. or the fact that sea levels are rising faster than at any time in more than 2100 years.

nonono. none of those studies were sponsored by big oil, so therefore they must be discounted as the work of crazy environmentalists who only want to...only want to...wait, what is it the crazy environmentalists want?

oh yeah, they want to put out the fire. rescue the living creatures. maybe prevent future fires.

real subversive stuff like that.

but when there's lots of money involved, you get a certain sort of people saying, "environmentalists are evil and crazy and un-american! they want to take away your 56-inch TVs and your football games and your gas-gargling SUVs! don't mind the screams coming from that house...they'll stop real soon."

similarly, never mind the millions of dying fish washing up on shores all over the world. don't worry about the thousands of dead birds falling out of the skies. ignore the texas-size island o'trash meandering about the pacific ocean.

but the politicians and low-information voters flopping all over themselves denying the existence of fire and other sciency stuff? take their word for it. because if it ain't in their version of the bible or the constitution, then shirley it doesn't exist.

~~~~~~~~

meanwhile, and almost certainly coincidentally...

Two unusual dolphins that have never been seen in the state have been spotted cruising in waters near Olympia.

The long-beaked common dolphins were spotted off Boston Harbor, near Olympia, said Annie Douglas, a biologist with the Cascadia Research Collective in Olympia, a marine-mammal research group.

Douglas doesn't know what prompted the dolphins to cruise so far from home. She said it might have to do with water temperature or storms. "It's one of those things that's hard to say right now," she said.

"These are animals who aren't normally here and their chances aren't very good," she said.

ephemeral milestones in an existential world

2011-06-19T16:06:00.000-07:00

ELIZABETH
If you believe it, darling, then I
believe. Being young can be just
as confusing as being old. The
things that happened to me fifty
years ago are more on my mind than
what happened yesterday.

PEGGY
But I'm remembering the future.

ELIZABETH
Right now you're just browsing
through time. Choose the things
you'll be proud of. The things that
last.

this bit of quality writing from 'peggy sue got married' always gets me. it demands that i imagine similar conversations with loved ones who went before me, and those who might follow. what priceless advice would they give? and would i have anything useful to offer?

the premise is deeply moving. moreso recently, given my proximity to what some people consider a significant personal milestone. i'm not sure how significant it is, but it'd probably be unwise not to consider the prospect.

unless you're really determined, you can't help but learn a few things in 50 trips around the sun. and while my library of wisdom is pitifully limited, i have retained a handful of things...

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

people are mirrors. have you noticed? they tend to treat you exactly the way you treat them.

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

all women are beautiful...even if it's not immediately obvious. you can sometimes see it in a shy smile, or an arched eyebrow. or the clever, subtle things that elicit a laugh. or the closed eyes and slow-swaying to a smoky blues tune. or the quiet strength and poise summoned when things go sideways. regardless of her looks, that beauty is always there.

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

it's better to participate than spectate. but the longer you participate, the more likely you'll be injured, forcing you to become a spectator. excessive spectating, however, invariably leads to increased morbidity and early mortality. either way, no one gets out alive.

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

god doesn't hate fags. so she's not thrilled with the westboro baptist church. coincidently, the westboro baptists apparently will visit their vitriol on seattle's mars hill church...causing god to sigh and roll her eyes.

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

the aarp REALLY needs to stop sending me membership offers.

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

don't rush through today. it'll be over soon enough, and who knows how many more there'll be? (plus, rushing around quite often is correlated with crashing into things.)

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

whether you're the windshield or the bug, there's still a mess to clean up.

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

rioting in vancouver, bc, is like civil unrest at disneyland. nookie in the middle of the road in vancouver, however, is just kinda riotous.

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

missing three yoga classes in a row is similar to saying "beetlejuice" three times fast. bad things ensue. today was just such a day.

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

pepsi or coke? mcdonald's or kfc? halo or call of duty? what are you, kidding? none of the above. geez.

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

"An existential crisis is often provoked by a significant event in a person's life. Usually, it provokes introspection about personal mortality, thus revealing the psychological repression of said awareness."

i don't know what this means, but it doesn't sound good. better to avoid that kind of awareness altogether.

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

yes, i will have some more wine, thanks.

the only constant

2011-06-12T17:25:00.000-07:00

change is good.

it may take years to recognize it as such, exacting a shocking toll along the way, and leaving people looking like they've peered through the very gates of hell.

but the premise was "change is good," not "change is easy."

we're such silly creatures of habit. we love our routines, and we fight like honey badgers to preserve them. even when they're not particularly good for us.

we drink, we smoke, we send ill-advised photos of ourselves on the internet. not because it's smart (hi, congressman weiner!), but because we derive comfort and a false sense of control from the rituals.

and since the entire world is out of our control, sometimes we get a little nutty trying to establish order in our little corner of it. we call it "being organized," or "keeping a schedule," or "obsessive-compulsive disorder."

if we stray from our morning rituals, for example, bad things happen. we lose our car keys. or neglect to put on our makeup. or forget to drink our morning coffee, causing an extreme bout of lethargy, headache, and irritability, also known as caffeine withdrawl. and throughout the day we think maybe we're coming down with the flu or having a stroke or experiencing demonic possession.

and just as we're about to slog home, hoping not to fall into a catatonic state on the way, we remember, "no coffee today! have i lost my mind? no wonder i've felt like such utter crap for the last ten hours!"

file that under, "change is not easy, but it will help you view life in inaccurate and drama queenish ways."

when we're young, we slip in and out of routines like jeans that actually fit without saying "loose fit" on the tag. change is no big deal, because our brains are still adept at processing new information without insisting it conform to our world view. we see gays getting married and we say, "cool, people should be able to marry the person they love." and we know this is true in the same way we know the universe is continuously evolving, sliding into and out of itself, vibrating with a constant thrum of cosmic ethereal rhythmic velvet. it just is.

when we get older, however, routines become habits, and habits become health risks. our ability to dodge conventional wisdom loses a step, then two, and the next thing you know we're doing a slow, insensate waltz in the cold, rigid arms of dogma. we hear people say, "healthcare is bad," and we say, "yes, healthcare is bad, we should keep it from as many people as possible." we know this is untrue, because it feels false and contrary to every impulse we know, and yet we find ourselves locked into it without really understanding why.

file that under, "change is good because it keeps you dancing fast."

metamorphosis is inevitable. the really smart ones among us constantly reinvent themselves to stay ahead of it, surfing on the aeonian waves. the rest of us typically stand there in the surf, sometimes rising up with the surge, sometimes getting slammed into the sand.

if we're resilient (according to the japanese proverb), we get knocked down seven times and get up eight.

if not, well then we're seaweed.

file that under, "never turn your back on the ocean."

time, flying...

2011-05-30T10:07:00.000-07:00

--"There is no end zone. You never cross the goal line, spike the ball and do your touchdown dance. Never. It never ends."
--jason robards in (and on) parenthood

there's a teenager in this house.

still waiting for the sitcom hilarity to ensue. will settle for the occasional laugh track.

how is it possible? what happened to the time between the day he was born and the day he said, "i want to go bungee jumping for my birthday."

it passed in the blink of an eye.

sitting here, looking at thirteen years' worth of photos, it occurs to me...i want a do-over.

very early on (once the shock wore off and we realized we had a healthy child) we said, "now we just need to keep from screwing him up." he was perfect at that moment, see, and any imperfections would obviously be our responsibility.

we didn't do such a great job. and by "we" i mean "me."

have you heard the really good advice, "don't say anything you can't take back"? i've said things to this child that i'd love to take back. angry things that absolutely did not accomplish what was intended. somehow, despite knowing better, i've managed to reinforce negative behaviors, and undermine positive ones. i've used "parenting" tactics that i said i'd never use. almost always in anger.

i'd like to go back and erase all of them, one by one, and the hurt they caused both of us.

we went through a long period when this child would not sleep through the night. we walked through many (many) long days in a sleep-deprived fog, and i remember thinking i'd give anything to be past those days, because surely they couldn't go on forever.

they couldn't, of course, and they didn't. and sitting here right now i'd give almost anything to be back in the midst of them. because so much was still ahead, and so many of my missteps could still be avoided.

the scary thing is, as much as we've learned, and as hard as we try, there are as many (if not more) mistakes still to be made. and whatever difficulties are ahead promise to be more complex with bigger implications.

i'd very much like to spare him my continued foibles, as dealing with his own will trouble him enough. but, short of putting myself in stasis for a few years, i can't do that. and one day, further on, i'll be sitting here thinking, "wow, did i ever screw that up...and the worst part is, i knew better."

it's as inevitable and predictable and maddening as the ticking of a clock in a quiet room.

so, for my son's thirteenth birthday, i offer:

an apology--for the mistakes i've made and the ones i'm going to make
a promise to try to do better
a really cool dive watch
and a bungee jumping experience

it's not enough. but it's all i've got.

body of evidence

2011-05-24T11:39:00.000-07:00

marilyn monroe did a night shoot in a pool
posing naked for a playboy spread
she was old, but she still was cool

when they wrapped right after midnight
and the crew went to the bar
norma jean just did the backstroke
like she was reachin' for a falling star

beautiful swimmers know how to move
floatin' cross the water like a steel guitar
beautiful swimmers stay in the groove
riding constant currents near and far

--jimmy buffett

reports of my imminent demise are premature.

after a thorough (cough) physical today, it turns out i'm not (quite) as
unhealthy as it appeared last week.

during last week's routine doctor visit, my blood glucose was "pre-diabetic." today it was in the normal range.

last week, my cholesterol numbers were too low, too high, and too bad. today a fasting blood draw suggested less atherosclerotic levels. (this is the difference between a "fasting" blood draw and a post-bacchanalia draw.)

last week the scale said my weight was at an all-time high. we're talking morbidly obese. prompting me to elevate my blubber threat level to fat-con 5. today the same scale said i was 11 pounds less. no, i did not lose 11 pounds in a week.

so, was the discrepancy human error, or a message from the cosmos?

i'm taking it as the latter. which is to say, it's time for some behavior modification and bacchanalia moderation.

summer swimsuit season is just a couple months away, after all.

Sent from my iPad

mayday...mayday...

2011-05-21T09:32:00.000-07:00

may. it's the first half of mayhem.

very apt.

* * * * * *

we're only halfway through this month-gone-maywire, and there's no sign the remaining days will be any less annoying.

three people are recently gone at spaceneedl sprockets, with a fourth soon to join them.

this is in addition to two regulars going out on maternity leave, and two
contractors in to replace them. plus a new copywriter.

all this churn has caused considerable stress, turmoil, and other nonproductive activity in our midst. no one likes this. we're creatures of habit. when life changes our routine, we get twitchy. and cranky.

until the changes are assimilated. then we resume our regularly scheduled
twitchy crankiness.

* * * * * *

yesterday the boy child came home from school with a knife. he did not leave for school with a knife. but sometime during the day he acquired one. i found this to be cause for alarm. missus spaceneedl was more calm.

i took umbrage at her calmness. a disagreement ensued.

it's possible i reacted with more fervor than was warranted. i know this because i apologized to the missus this morning. i apologized to the boy this afternoon.

still, i was startled and a little scared by the random appearance of a weapon in our house. i'm not a fan of the weapons. especially when they're carried by people. bad things often result.

* * * * * *

i had a physical last week. turns out my cholesterol is elevated, and my blood sugar is out of whack. oh, and i'm 20 pounds heavier than i thought i was. this despite the fact that i exercise vigorously 5-6 times a week. basketball, strength training, yoga.

sneaky health-related surprises make me twitchy. and cranky.

on the upside, my prostate is healthy.

* * * * * *
i just saw an exxon-mobil tv spot pimping the company's oil sands projects in canada. the spokesperson insisted that squeezing oil from the earth by creating a cascading environmental disaster was something to be very pleased about. he said it with a straight face, too, the poor bastard.

for the record, development of oil sands is an abomination.

Environmental Defence just released a new report on the Alberta Oil Sands, calling it the most destructive project on Earth. DeSmogblog gleaned some facts from it:

-Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year.
-At least 90% of the fresh water used in the oil sands ends up in ends up in tailing ponds so toxic that propane cannons are used to keep ducks from landing.
-Processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes.
-The toxic tailing ponds are considered one of the largest human-made structures in the world.
-The ponds span 50 square kilometers and can be seen from space.
-Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more
greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil.

aside from these facts, the whole oil sands thing seems like a swell idea. that and building nuclear reactors in earthquake zones. my suggestion: build a nuclear plant adjacent to the athabasca project...and then detonate it. it'll save lots of time and effort.

* * * * * *

it took until may 20 to finally reach 70F in seattle. may 20. that's, like, halfway through the year. to barely scratch a tolerably temperature.

just in time for the rapture.

meanwhile, today we're back to rain and 55.

* * * * * *

my starbucks card ran out of money this morning. i was required to reload it.

* * * * * *

Sent from my iPad

state of equilibrium

2011-05-08T11:35:00.000-07:00

live blogging from the washington state level 4 gymnastics meet...

this is not quite on par with documenting the revolutions in the middle east, or the olympic games...but for dozens of 10-year old girls (and their parents), it's close.

four events: vault, bars, beam, floor. four chances at glory. or glorious failure. nothing in between.

for the parents, that is. the competitors remain happy, either way.

the falcons gymnastics team from seattle is looking serious in their purple and lavender leotards. the girls have on their game faces, if by "game face" we mean giggly smiles.

it took a good showing at the sectionals meet to qualify for state. gymnasts had to average scores of 8 or better on each event. the girl child was thrilled to tally a 33.8 to qualify. today, however, she says she's shooting for 9s. which is what it will take to be competitive, scoring-wise. not to mention parent-wise. no, the missus and i will be thrilled with any performance not resembling a fish flopping around on a small boat in high seas. also, we'd prefer that her head not make contact with the beam at any time.

the falcons first event: floor. avery is pretty good in this event. she scored a solid 8.65 at sectionals.

random observation: she's built like a gymnast. while a lot of the girls are still skinny and lanky, avery is muscular and powerful. also, fearless.

the first three falcons went 8.65, 8.6, 8.75.

avery's turn...looking cute. looking strong. no nerves (except mine, shaking the video slightly). good routine, with a little extra hop-step on the back handspring. good for an 8.675. big smiles as she runs off the floor. she's happy. i'm relieved.

event number two: vault. in which the athlete runs really fast, launches off a springboard, does a front somersault-handspring-thing and lands flat on her back on a big cushy mat. the girl is good at this, too. she scored an 8.9 at sectionals, so a 9+ here is not far-fetched.

the girls get two chances on vault, and they count the best of the two.

avery with two good vaults. she ran fast and back-flopped well. good enough for a 9.1 !! that's her first score of 9 or better. she picked a good time for it. normal breathing (mine) should resume momentarily.

this event is being held at the emerald city gymnastics center in bellevue. they have a "wizard of oz" theme going on, i believe. otherwise the chick wearing sparkly red shoes and the dorothy costume is going to have some explaining to do to security.

next up: bars. the girl is not as proficient at this event. she scored a shaky 8.5 here at sectionals. she typically practices and warms up well, but has a hiccup or two when it counts. today's warm-up: not encouraging. much under-rotating, over-rotating, and upside-down hanging. this is not what her coaches teach, in case you were wondering.

ooh, not good. practice predicted performance. a big error on the forward spin left her hanging upside-down when she should've been right-side up, atop the bar. this is a shame, because the rest of the routine, before and after, was rock-solid. she pulled it together to stick the landing. (i love that phrase..."she sticks the landing!" it always reminds me of little kerri strug on vault at the olympics. one of the most courageous moments in athletics, ever).

the error showed in her score: 8.3.

all that's left is beam. i don't feel good about this, as it's her shakiest event. she wobbled like a weeble throughout her sectionals performance~actually putting her hand on the beam at one point~and still pulled an 8.025 out of somewhere.

hopefully she feels better about this than i do, since that's all that really matters.

lots of teams and lots of girls here today. usually organization is lacking at these meets, causing the proceedings to drag on and on. and on. so far, however, the events are moving right along. this is good. my butt is starting to hurt from the sitting and complete lack of leg room.

the falcons are taking a break between events. they're on the opposite side of the gym, making it difficult to overhear their conversation. doubtless they're all locked into what they've accomplished so far, and what they need to do to finish strong. let's move closer and listen in...

bla bla bla, something something, justin bieber.

great. no one could've predicted that.

okay, break is over. the girls are up and practicing on beam. the girl
looks...like a weeble. she's falling off over and over again. this does not bode well. what's happening now? the girls are sitting down again. another break? bla bla bla, taylor swift.

okay, it's go time.

and the first falcon gymnast is off the beam. poor thing. she looked really nervous.

now it's avery's turn. i can't breathe. i can barely look. thankfully i'm
viewing her from across the gym through a teeny video lens, so it all seems far and wee. one little wobble. another little wobble. almost through it...no falls! and she sticks the landing! what just happened here? that was one of her best performances on beam ever!

and the judge screws it up. an 8.225? really? that ain't right.

but it doesn't matter. it was a great routine. she didn't fall off, and she finished with a flourish.

for the meet, she scored a full half-point higher than at sectionals, with a 34.3. and she came away with a cool new sweatshirt with her name on the back. on the front it says, "i bust mine to kick yours."

she's very pleased.

and we are giddy.

i would've liked one of those sweatshirts, though...

Sent from my iPad

the bell tolls

2011-05-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." --george w. bush, 3/13/02

it says here that osama bin laden is dead.

killed in a raid by u.s. navy seals and cia operatives.

americans loudly celebrated bin laden's demise, in much the same way we celebrate super bowls and other entertainment events. we do love our happy endings, don't we?

you can make the case that a dead bin laden is better than a live bin laden (or a zombie bin laden, as the case may be). the bush administration might disagree, as george and dick found that particular boogie man useful for years--much to bushcorp's benefit, and much to america's detriment.

finding and dispatching bin laden was obviously more important to barack obama. but while bin laden may be dead, you can also make the case that he and his terrorists won the last ten years, handily.

do you believe this? do you feel the truth of it, without reading a list of the reasons why?

what bin laden orchestrated was bad, hideous. but in the aftermath, what we did to ourselves and others was worse. let's count (some of) the ways...

two futile, unnecessary wars featuring tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) dead and countless more permanently altered. if you prefer your costs in dollars, that's $5 trillion and counting.

torture. rendition.

secret prisons. abu ghraib. guantanamo bay.

a ravaged treasury and a broken economy.

freedoms casually set aside in the land of the free.

a climate of fear intentionally cultivated in the home of the brave.

the "patriot" act.

"homeland security." warrantless surveillance. the rise, not of the nanny state on the left, but of the security state on the right. (add another $1 trillion.)

are these examples enough? there are more, you know. we could go on and on. the obvious takeaway is that in the fight against freedom, we did bin laden's work for him.

historically, america has fancied itself the "shining city on the hill," lighting the way for the rest of the world by our noble example. sadly, we self-mockerized this concept innumerable ways during the last ten years (WMDs! bring 'em on! they hate us for our freedoms! mission accomplished!). and we failed to learn from our own bad example.

there's been no national look-in-the-mirror. no reflection on our role in a world where the u.s. may be feared but not admired. we're forward-lookers, by golly, and we're americans. we write the history, we don't need to learn from it, too.

no matter. osama bin laden is dead. the world, we are told, is a safer place.

if that's true, perhaps now we can stop shooting ourselves in the foot.

‎"the ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. in fact, violence merely increases hate. so it goes. returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." -- martin luther king, jr

hey kid, stop that annoying breathing...

2011-04-28T16:45:00.000-07:00

"I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room."
--george w. bush

our gentle descent into the jungle continues.

today we're telling low-income parents that they should reconsider taking their sick child to the emergency department--because it's just too darn expensive.

and really, that kid's wheezing asthmatic fit will probably pass. eventually. maybe.

"Washington state's plan to cut Medicaid would limit emergency room visits for potentially serious conditions such as breathing trouble and more. Two-thirds of the 1.1 million state residents covered by Medicaid are children.

"...critics say conditions such as hypoglycemic coma or asthma attacks weren't considered to be emergencies. They worry that parents and patients might self-diagnose and make risky, life-threatening choices to stay under the limit — particularly since budget cuts are reducing other options."

is it not remarkable the things we'll allow so the gentry can avoid paying a few more tax dollars? washington state residents recently defeated a tax on candy, soda, and bottled water, so poor kids could lay around gasping for air while their parents agonize over a trip to the emergency department.

let's savor that a moment, shall we? we in washington state are so enamored of our heart-clogging candy, high fructose corn soda, and ocean-choking plastic water, that rather than pay a few cents more for them, we'll deprive sick children of emergency healthcare.

when did the plan to eliminate poverty become the eradication of the poor? and damn those people for hogging all the emergency care...

"...emergency rooms have only been required to treat all patients regardless of ability to pay since the 1986 passage of the EMTALA Act. And of course Republicans routinely complain about EMTALA to this day, calling it a 'hidden tax' on the insured and railing against the fact that it doesn't allow hospitals to dump illegal immigrants with heart attacks in the gutter."

so, this is what we've come to? this is how we're defining "civilized" behavior in the greatest country on earth (and make no mistake, most states and the federal government are similarly cutting funds for the most vulnerable in favor of those who need no help at all).

we're devolving into a talking-monkeyocracy. before long we'll all be jumping up and down, shrieking, and waving sticks in the air, while dolphins and border collies look at us and roll their eyes.

even "dumb" animals take care of their offspring. you'd think the least we could do is offer ours emergency care to offset all the candy and soda.

it's the civilized thing to do.

the first cut is the deepest

2011-04-17T20:20:00.000-07:00

congratulations on the purchase of your electric lawn mower!

with reasonable care and maintenance, your new mower will provide years of service (where electric power is available).

your new mower is environmentally friendly in that it produces zero emissions! (note: nuclear generator, coal-fired plant, or similar power source required.)

your new mower is effortless to start and maintain (note: some plastic pieces may detach and be caught in rotating blades. use caution when being hit by flying pieces, as unsafe bleeding may occur. disconnect power immediately and call 911 if needed.).

some assembly required; do not attempt to use mower prior to assembly.

children should not attempt to use mower. adults should use mower only with parental supervision.

when using this mower, always wear adequate ear protection, eye protection, hand protection, foot protection, and electrical protection. failure to wear adequate protection may result in injury or death.

important notes about your new electric mower:

1. this is not a self-propelled mower; user must push mower and activate blade to cut grass.

2. this is not a gas-powered mower; it may not cut through long grass. if your grass is long, a gas-powered mower may be required (where gasoline is available).

3. this is not a gas-powered mower, but it is still plenty loud. especially when attempting to cut long grass.

4. why did you let your grass get so long?

5. this mower may be used in "mulch" mode. even when not in "mulch" mode, it will leave behind residue similar to a grass smoothie (especially if your grass is long).

6. your dogs may eat and regurgitate grass smoothie-residue.

7. grass smoothie residue will cling vigorously to mower wheels, shoes, and dog paws. it is easily removed upon contact with indoor surfaces such as floors, rugs, and couches.

8. grass smoothie residue may obstruct rear bag assembly; use caution when allowing mower blades to amputate fingers, as unsafe bleeding may occur. disconnect power immediately and call 911 if needed.

9. electricity and water don't mix! do not run over exposed sprinkler heads as this may cause unsafe contact between water and electric current.

10. if water and electric current come into contact, unsafe ventricular fibrillation may occur; disconnect power immediately and call 911 if needed.

11. do not run over electric cord (user-supplied); power to mower may be interrupted. do not allow "live" end of severed power cord to touch wet grass or grass smoothie residue. do not stand on wet grass or grass smoothie residue when in contact with "live" end of severed power cord as unsafe ventricular fibrillation may occur; disconnect power immediately and call 911 if needed.

12. mower blades may become dull after cutting grass. use caution when sharpening blades as metal shavings may work their way into skin and enter bloodstream. if metal shavings enter heart or other organ via bloodstream, do not attempt to remove without supervision of a trained healthcare professional.

13. do not attempt to adjust wheel height while mowing.

14. do not attempt to clean mower blades and undercarriage while mower is plugged into a power source.

15. failure to observe these recommendations may void warranty.

stress position

2011-04-11T19:29:00.000-07:00

there's a great scene from "broadcast news" in which a hapless editor/engineer makes a mistake on an imminent deadline.

this is important only in that if he doesn't fix it, instantaneously, there's a big hole, live, in the middle of jack nicholson's evening show.

if he screws this up, he'll be fired and probably never work in news again. meanwhile, the show's type-A producer (holly hunter), is encouraging speed and accuracy while he works by loudly chanting in his ear "bobbybobbybobbybobbybobbybobbybobby..."

* * * * *

last weekend, driving to the girl's gymnastic meet, i got us lost.

by the time i discerned that the google maps directions were wrong, we were late for scheduled warm-ups. and march-in. and probably the first event of the sectionals meet.

this was important only in that if the girl didn't compete (and score well) in all four events, there would be no moving on to the state competition.

if i screwed this up, i'd be dismissed from daddy duties and probably be disinvited to some future event (such as, but not limited to, college graduation, an eventual wedding, and babysitting for grandchildren).

meanwhile from the back seat the girl was encouraging speed and additional speed by chanting in my ear, "daddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddy..."

* * * * *

at this point mrs. spaceneedl demonstrated (yet again) why she's the smart one in the family.

very calmly she got on her iphone, tapped in an address, and conjured up directions delivering us from "lost" to "found."

we still arrived late, but fortunately the girl was competing in the third session of the day...and the first two sessions ran long.

so while my heart missed several beats, she hadn't missed a thing.

* * * * *

epilogue: the cumulative score necessary to advance to state was 32. the girl tallied a 33.8. my most-favorite daddy status was restored and is temporarily secure.

* * * * *

sidebar: there is a slight but finite possibility that there was nothing wrong with the google maps directions.

what fresh hell is this?

2011-04-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

johnny, rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard
'cause hell's broke loose in georgia and the devil deals the cards
and if you win, you get this shiny fiddle made of gold
and if you lose, the devil gets your soul

~charlie daniels

there's a new devil in town.

and his name is whatever the hell you want it to be.

that's not my opinion, mind you. that's according to pastor rob bell, author of "love wins," a re-examining of the nature of heaven and hell and bedevilry.

"The actual word 'hell,'" Bell writes, "is used roughly twelve times in the New Testament, almost exclusively by Jesus. The Greek word that gets translated as 'hell' in English is the word 'Gehenna.' Ge means 'valley,' and henna means 'Hinnom.' Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom, was an actual valley on the south and west side of the city of Jerusalem. Gehenna, in Jesus's day, was the city dump.

"People tossed their garbage and waste into this valley. There was a fire there, buring constantly to consume the trash. Wild animals fought over scraps of food along the edges of the heap. When they fought, their teeth would make a gnashing sound. Gehenna was the place with the gnashing of teeth, where the fire never went out...

"And that's it."

that's it? that's hell? i mean, it would be if you lived nearby, but still... where's the branding? where's the iconography? where's the spokesperson for eternal torture?

as you might expect, rev. rob's take on cherished christian dogma is raising quite a ruckus. critics are outraged that his hell is bereft of molten effluvia and bullwhips and harsh language. they like their devil red and pointy-tailed and pitch-forky. nattily outfitted with cloven hooves, a serpent's tongue, and an exquisite black goatee.

that's a devil everyone can agree on, in the same way everyone knows jesus had long red hair, milky-white skin, and a really nice toga. just like the rest of the middle-eastern jews of his time.

despite all the upset, brother rob's hades is plenty scary. he describes a hell complete with dismemberment, murder, and starvation that would make any devil chortle with delight. but those examples are earthly, and therefore seem unlikely to instill sufficient fear to deter socially inconvenient behavior. and isn't that the point 2,000 years of hellish PR?

besides which, everyone has their own phobias to keep them hunkered down. fears that are their own work of art, panoramic plays of light and dark and nuance and cliche. yours are especially disturbing, aren't they? care to share?

okay, i'll go first. my worst fear is that i'll be forced to live on a tropical island populated with happy, smiling folks who visit for a week or two then go away, replaced by a fresh batch of people who arrive, spend a lot of money, then go back whence they came. and so on for the aforementioned forever.

but that's me. that's my fear. please, mr. devil, don't throw me into the palm tree patch.

your fears, undoubtedly, are more rational. it seems entirely reasonable, for example, that you'd be afraid of snakes. big ones, with heads the size of your fist, that bite your arm and twist and squirm and won't let go, ever. little venomous ones that slither and hide, with teeth so needle-fine you don't even realize the poison is rushing to your heart. snakes in the grass. snakes on a plane. snakes on a boat, snakes on a goat. hissssssss.....

no? not your cup o' hot steaming hell? that's fine, not to worry. there are plenty more where that came from. like...

wanting a job, but being chronically unable to get one. having a job, but living in fear of losing it.

a child, once adorable and adoring, who now doesn't like you. at all.

a disease that makes you forget what you're doing, who you are, and why that stranger is wearing a ring with your name engraved on it.

a lump that wasn't there the last time you checked.

radiation from safe, sunshine-and-rainbow reactors.

oil spewing endlessly into coastal waters, covering living creatures with a dark blankets of crude.

scary, right? and these fears are entirely available, here and now, no dying required. not immediately, anyway.

point of metaphysical clarification: if the purpose of "hell" is to keep the faithful compliant, an actual devil isn't really necessary, is it? i mean, couldn't some clever dogmatists just invent a scary "beast of the underworld," and sell the hell out of him? is the question itself heretical? yes! yes! and yes!

Bell said he wrote the book because the Christian message that God is love seems to have gotten lost.

"I kept meeting religious people who were incredibly dogmatic about heaven and hell when you die, but didn't seem to care about the fact that 800,000,000 people will go to bed hungry tonight," he told the crowd.

He said that what he called "evacuation theology," or the idea that "Jesus is your ticket to somewhere else," is dangerous because it can cause people to miss Christ's message about how to live in such harmony with God that you are creating a heaven on Earth.

"Jesus taught his disciples to pray, not 'God, beam me up,' but 'Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven,'" Bell said.

well, no wonder rob's book has got so many people so in a tizzy. that kind of jesus talk doesn't mesh well with kicking the poor and the sick when they're down. it's inconsistent with educating children and feeding the hungry. it totally doesn't synch up with the unblinking corporatocracy some are working so hard to build.

in a world with so many demons afoot in the land of the living, satan is redundant. but as brother bell probably wouldn't say, in many ways the prince of darkness might actually be preferable.

the devil bowed his head because he knew that he'd been beat
and he laid that golden fiddle on the ground at johnny's feet
johnny said "devil, just come on back if you ever wanna try again
i done told you once, you son of a bitch, i'm the best that's ever been

rainy days and thursdays...

2011-03-24T12:19:00.000-07:00

when the rain comes
they run and hide their heads
they might as well be dead
when the rain comes
when the rain comes

--john, paul, george and ringo

it's a rainy day in washington state.

not the usual kind, but rather, the kind that soaks working people.

it seems the state's budget crisis is worse than previously advertised, and the usual list of hapless targets is again being set up to pay for the shortfall.

hand it over, state employees. you too, school kids. hey, you poor people--ante up.

new taxes, taxes on the wealthy, closing corporate loopholes? don't be ridiculous. we've got this bunch of saps we can throw overboard first.

state employee unions, see, are monoliths made of money, from which chunks can be chipped away endlessly. and oooh, look at the sculptures created in the process...

it's a teacher scratching her nails on a chalkboard!

no, it's a state trooper with his hands up like he's being robbed!

wait, now it's a librarian hanging a "closed" sign on the dewey decimal system!

isn't fine art great? every time you look at it, you can see something new and teeth-grindingly different!

but, you know, whatever. if we can't afford to pay state employees, we'll just have to find other things for them to do.

like, maybe, making torches and pitchforks.

port, meet storm

2011-03-23T16:16:00.000-07:00

the crisis in japan is still dire, but at least it's not deteriorating as quickly as it was a few days ago.

but what would you expect after an unprecedented magnitude 9.0 earthquake, a horrific tsunami, and an ensuing nuclear disaster?

you might reasonably expect the united states to learn from japan's tragic experience.

but, you know, ha.

california, the epicenter of instability (geology-wise and otherwise), is home to two nuclear plants in areas of "severe seismic risk."

there is significant concern about the safety of those facilities in the event of a "larger than expected" earthquake. probably for good reason:

"...the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which sits less than a mile from an offshore fault line, was not required to include earthquakes in its emergency response plan as a condition of being granted its license more than a quarter of a century ago. Though experts warned from the beginning that the plant would be vulnerable to an earthquake, asserting 25 years ago that it required an emergency plan as a condition of its license, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission fought against making such a provision mandatory as it allowed the facility to be built."

no earthquake plan. that's nice. isn't that nice? but mitch mcconnell (R-corporate whore) says we shouldn't get all worked up about nukes and earthquakes. "I don't think right after a major environmental catastrophe is a very good time to be making American domestic policy," he said. “My thought is we ought not to make American domestic policy based on an event that happened in Japan.”

excellent points. we should wait a couple weeks, until the story is out of the news and americans have forgotten all about the major environmental catastrophe. that's a much better time. and it happened in japan, after all! that's, like, another planet! it has nothing to do with anything here.

but enough earthquake-precipitated nuclear talk. let's ignore tsunamis for awhile, instead.

the 2011 budget proposed by the house gop cuts funding to NOAA, effectively leaving the u.s. coast vulnerable to approaching tsunamis. "I think we often over-react to emergencies, especially natural disasters, before we assess the limit of the damage, and particularly with the nuclear part of this," said rep. steve king (R-far-from-any-coast).

yes, of course. no need to get all in a tizzy over emergencies and disasters. instead, let's step back, take a deep breath, and undercut our ability to respond to them at all.

it almost makes you long for the days of gop fear-mongering during the bush administration, getting all frothy about threats to "the homeland" and national security. back then billions could disappear into the sand and deficits didn't matter, because the safety of americans was job #1.

now, apparently, the opposite is true. the deficit is the only thing that matters.

and in the face of disasters of every kind--from unemployment to foreclosures and earthquakes to oil spills--americans are on their own.

an apple a day cures teh gay

2011-03-21T11:31:00.000-07:00

Apple under fire for 'gay conversion' app

"The 'gay cure' app was created by Exodus International, a religious organisation which believes in teaching 'freedom from homosexuality through prayer and practicing conversion therapy.'"

"The app is offered free on Apple's iTunes online shop and was given a '4+' rating by the company, meaning it is not considered to contain objectionable content. Apple was criticized earlier this year for approving an app that encouraged users to take a stand against gay marriage."

i don't know why everyone is getting so upset.

this is great news. i mean, if an itunes app can convert gays to straighthood, imagine what else might be possible.

for one, it should be equally possible to convert straight people to gayness. maybe even without their consent. wouldn't that be a hoot? imagine your favorite hate-monger and homophobe as a flamboyant, out-of-the-closet gay person.

then imagine throwing them to the wolves, in amongst their fellow haters, just for a little while. whoa, the manolo blahniks are on the other feet now, ain't they bubba? how's that feel?

while we're at it, how much dev time would be required to convert faux christians into real christians? whoo, would that be awkward for them, or what? i mean, to suddenly have to actually, you know, practice all that jesus stuff? for the government to spend all those trillions (trillions!) on peace and health and children instead of death and devastation? for wall streeters to have to stop stealing? for focus on the family folks to focus on actual families? crazy!

how about an energy policy app? one that would require a committment to sustainability in lieu of turning the planet into an irradiated tar pit.

a jobs app that would put people to work rebuilding this country instead of watching it fall down around us.

an education app that teaches people that being smart actually does make one elite...and that's a good thing.

a time travel app that shows you how your life is going turn out if you don't stop acting like an idiot all the time. this one could be bundled with the education app, and linked to the job app, with screen captures of the many happy alternatives available to those who embrace the possibilities.

when those apps become available, of course.

in the meantime, though, we'll apparently have to settle for the funny little gay cure app which does nothing but point out the need for many other apps that might actually be worth a damn, and might actually exist if so many idiots weren't wasting so much time on this kind of idiocity.

utah! for multiple gunshot wounds, this is the place!

2011-03-19T09:25:00.000-07:00

Utah! With its focus on family,
Utah! Helps each child to succeed.
People care how they live.
Each has so much to give.
This is the place!

Utah! Getting bigger and better.
Utah! Always leading the way.
New technology's here...
Growing faster each year.
This is the place!

-- from the utah state song

utah is a conservative place.

the majority of its residents don't approve of alcohol, or caffeine, or premarital canoodling.

they like their dogma rigid and their politicians far to the right (farther. no, farther. keep going...you're still not there).

so it probably should surprise no one that utah is out there on the leading edge in the all-american celebration of guns.

did you know:

the utah state insect is the honey bee (busy little pollenizer, honey for my decaf tea...this is the bee!)

the state folk dance is the square dance (lots of awkward white people, moving in a trance...this is the dance!)

the state rock is coal (pointed at our climate, loaded bituminous glock...this is the rock!)

and now the great state of utah is the first in the nation to have its own official handgun (30,000 deaths a year, second amendment fun...this is the gun!)

60% of utahns identify themselves as mormons. 80% of the utah legislature is mormon. that's a lot of alleged jesus admirers. how do you suppose they reconcile his message of peace with their new state weapon?

Before approving the bill, the Utah State Senate added language to acknowledge that the Legislature does not condone acts of violence.

oh.

interesting technical notes:

the M1911 semiautomatic pistol is designed for use at close range. it fires a .45 caliber round capable of blowing large holes in soft tissue. available high-capacity magazines allow the user to fire up to 14 rounds in about 10 seconds. yay, stopping power!

the sponsor of utah's new symbol, rep. carl wimmer, (R-bloodlust), said the gun symbolizes "freedom and empowerment." does it really, carl? or is a gun more about weakness and fear and a small penis?

whoops! we digress.

and anyhoo, it's done. like the song says, utah is always leading the way, helping each child succeed. but you have to wonder, which of utah's most pious family-focused legislators asked: who would jesus shoot, and what kind of ordnance would he use?

past tense

2011-03-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

she was young and beautiful and buxom.

i had no trouble believing she was once a playboy centerfold.

that was the rumor, see, about my seventh grade teacher. i had no idea if it was true--there was no internet, no viral video, no google image search. there was only adolescent imagination.

and, you know, woof.

in today's digital, new media, 24/7 world, however, proof of the past is never more than a few clicks away. every indiscretion is catalogued for future reference. on the Web or in it? there's no escaping, denying, or justifying.

this is true whether you're a pitching prospect with a rape problem, an amusive gop president-wannabe, or a teacher who once starred in porn films.

of the three, whom do you suppose was flash-fried by the spotlight?

background:

josh lueke, a minor league pitcher with major league potential, was charged with a couple disturbing crimes in 2008. a plea bargain and felony probation later, he was acquired via trade by the seattle mariners. despite the fact that the case was all over the internet, the mariners insisted they knew nothing of it.

newt gingrich famously cheated on two wives on his way to a third. he pressured one to sign divorce papers while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. these facts are important only because gingrich reportedly is on the cusp of a run for president.

then there's tera myers. sixteen years ago, a homeless mother of two, myers featured prominently in film productions of ill repute. she starred in some porn flicks. dissatisfied with the direction of her career, she joined the army, and eventually was honorably discharged. she went to school on the GI bill, and became a teacher. for awhile.

current events:

lueke is on his way to the seattle mariners. his invaluable ability to throw a ball fast apparently has spared him significant consequences, putting him in position for a big league payoff.

in a recent interview with the christian broadcast network, gingrich blamed in part "his passion for america" for "things that happened" in his life that "were not appropriate." despite being a toxic drip in america's bloodstream for many years, newt has become fabulously wealthy feeding on media exposure like a black hole sucks up light.

tera myers currently is out of a job. yes, what she did was totally legal, and sure she was homeless and trying to support herself and two children, but still...it was porn! she should never be able to join the military, go to school, get a degree, and get a job doing something other than porn, ever. i mean, obviously.

the takeaway:

always in america, follow the money.

sometimes an athlete with the potential to sell tickets and help win games for a major sports franchise can commit ugly crimes and not do the time.

sometimes low-quality people become wealthy celebrity politicians, thriving on the low-quality goals of their benefactors.

and always, always...low-paid porn stars and low-paid teachers are equally likely to get screwed.

one ticket to paradise

2011-03-09T10:55:00.000-08:00

the missus is going to hawaii.

without me.

hypothetically, if one of us is obliged to travel someplace fabulous on business, the other should be able to tag along without breaking the bank.

the hotel, after all, is paid for. as is one airfare.

business dinners dramatically reduce the cost of meals, so all that's left to cover is round-trip airfare for one.

well, that and the cost of leaving the children behind.

they're too young to stay home alone, and too high-maintenance to pawn off on neighbors. flying the grandparents in for a few days adds significantly to the bottom line. and we haven't yet mentioned the current cost of flights to hawaii, which is enough to make your ears bleed.

bla bla bla. i'm not going.

instead, i'm considering this great alternative, which is totally within the budget.

so, make it one ticket to paradise, please, and three tickets to tornado alley...

give 'til it hurts

2011-03-05T07:12:00.000-08:00

cut them to the bone. then keep on cutting.

it's nice, isn't it, that so many americans are sacrificing in these difficult times? what's not so nice is that the people doing the sacrificing are the ones who can afford it least.

here's a fun story that poses the not-rhetorical question, "have washington public employees given enough?"

the premise being, if you work for the state of washington you owe it to everyone to work for free. if you object, you're an overpaid union thug who's unfit to work for the state.

Since the recession hit, the Legislature has suspended cost-of-living increases for state workers. In addition, more than a third of state workers in the past year took unpaid days off. The number of furlough days varied by agency and job, but some workers have taken at least seven unpaid days since last year, with more coming.

(Gov.) Gregoire has proposed an additional 3 percent cut in pay through unpaid time off during the next two years...

teachers? you expect to be paid? isn't the privilege of teaching our children reward enough?

please note that the vast majority of state workers make between $30,000 and $60,000 a year. so by definition, they are not driving expensive cars, taking fabulous vacations, or living in posh neighborhoods.

rather, they are barely getting by. they live paycheck to paycheck. and they are one financial setback away from ruin.

but that instability is not enough for some.

State Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield, Clark County, argues even more needs to be done to reduce state worker costs, either by lowering wages and benefits, or cutting the size of the general government work force.

State Sen. Rodney Tom, D-Bellevue, agrees. "We can't have a world where public employees are the haves and the taxpayers are the have-nots," Tom said.

interestingly, tom's "haves and have-nots" phrase is identical to the language used by wisconsin governor scott walker during a dec. 7 press conference. walker is currently engaged in ambitious plan to break wisconsin's public employee unions, eviscerate its public schools, return women's health standards to the middle ages, and beat on baby animals with rusty-nail two-by-fours.

he's not a quality individual.

zarelli, it should be noted, introduced a strangely wisconsin-esque bill to gut collective bargaining for washington public employees. his bill was killed, eliciting howls of rage from hell.

like wooden dummies, walker, zarelli and toms are reciting the exact same lines--and it begs the question: who's yanking their strings/giving them their talking-orders? and how much have they been paid to be so pliable?

additional point of order: in what world does $30-60K make you one of the "haves"? and just for the the sake of discussion, aren't public employees taxpayers as well? if so, this would make them haves and have-nots simultaneously, creating a vacuum that nature abhors--almost as much as it hates legislators who hate government.

and really, isn't this where the corporatist, antigovernment rat-hole leads? "public employees cost too much. we should eliminate their pensions! we should bust their unions! we should privatize public services and give sweetheart contracts to our donor-cronies!"

thanks, corporatist antigovernment rats.

have you noticed? right-wingers no longer wrap themselves in christianity and family values. which is a good thing, strategically, because good luck selling any of that jesus stuff now.

in the revised gospel of right wing america, we disdain the poor and the sick and the children. sacrifices must be made. and the cutting will begin on the least among us.

* * * * *

update: the divide as observed by jon stewart...

The Daily Show - Crisis in Dairyland - For Richer and Poorer - Teachers and Wall Street
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

mediterranean err

2011-02-27T18:41:00.000-08:00

it was all going to be so perfect.

at the confluence of a milestone birthday and a milestone wedding anniversary, the missus and i were gonna fly, sans children, for a fabulous two-week holiday in spain and france.

or spain and italy. or france and italy. or, really, any one of the countries mentioned above. details were still sketchy, but the plan was mutually and enthusiastically endorsed.

the idea was to get away, just us, to someplace we've never been. someplace steeped in history. rich in culture. marinaded in exquisite local wine.

and just for fun, since we were going to be there anyway, we thought we might look around a bit and find ourselves a new forever home. one promising a more reasonable cost of living. a more civilized work-life balance. warmer temperatures. and maybe a water view.

inside of two weeks we were going to find the one spot on earth that offered all of those things (actually, we would've settled for one or two), fetch the children and the dogs, and never look back.

i mean, how hard could that be?

then the middle east happened (thanks hosni! thanks muammar!), and the price of jet fuel went exactly the way you'd expect. not coincidently, airfares to fabulous mediterranean destinations went the same way. and suddenly, for the price of two tickets to barcelona or marseille or rome, we could drive the whole family to yakima a couple dozen times at least.

important geographic note: yakima isn't anywhere near spain. or france. or italy. and while we have nothing but respect for the town and the entire yakima viticultural region, we did not envision it as our milestone celebration destination.

already we're talking about postponing our trip until late summer or fall, betting that the price of petroleum products will decline heading into winter. it's a sucker's bet, we realize, but it's the only one we have at the moment.

in the meantime there's a small but finite possibility that the missus will be required to travel for business in april to...wait for it...hawaii.

we're equally foolish to bet on that one, but it's important in this life to have something to hope for.

it was all going to be so perfect. the grandparents were going to spend quality time with the children and the dogs, costs were going to be manageable, and everyone was going to live happily ever after.

then, poof. time for plan b.

which is to say...there's always yakima.

holy hannah

2011-02-15T11:58:00.000-08:00

billy ray is bummed.

his life has gone south, literally and figuratively, and he's not certain why.

but he's pretty sure the devil is involved.

Billy Ray Cyrus says the Disney TV show "Hannah Montana" destroyed his family, causing his divorce and sending daughter Miley Cyrus spinning out of control.

He said the Cyruses and their six children were all baptized before leaving Tennessee for Los Angeles to inure themselves against evil and he believes Satan is attacking his family.

the devil, presumably, wasn't involved when little miley was riding the wave of disney stardom, raking in cash for the cyrus family. or, you know, maybe he was.

because, really, who could've predicted that a few years of celebrity, money, and uncritical adulation would adversely impact a young girl and her family in ways not akin to sunshine and bubble gum?

no, this outcome was not about bad choices and questionable parenting. heavens, no. this is a clear-cut case of bedevilry.

"It's the way it is," Cyrus said. "There has always been a battle between good and evil. Always will be. You think, 'This is a chance to make family entertainment, bring families together...' and look what it's turned into."

family entertainment. didja ever watch the show, billy ray? i mean, you must have...you were in it. remember? you played the clueless father of the disneyfied princess, who played dear old dad like a mystified chump. her character was full of adorably mouthy sarcasm and yours was full of mumbly bumbling.

hanna montana is part of a disney roster that portrays kids as worldly-wise and adults as dolts. not coincidently, the sassitude demonstrated by today's disney kids is imitated with charming precision by kid-viewers (or maybe that's just at our house).

is this the kind of "bringing families together" family entertainment you were referring to, billy ray? was the devil responsible for that expression of family values, or did you maybe just need some different writers?

but no, that might've turned off the fans, not to mention the money machine. and no one wanted that. surely a divorce and an out-of-control-spinning daughter is a small price to pay to feed the hype.

billy ray's gq interview reads like he's still the dumbfounded dad. he doesn't know how it all went wrong, only that it did and that it's his fault. or the devil's fault. or some combination thereof.

random metaphysical question: if the family's troubles were, in fact, the devil's handiwork, isn't billy ray off the hook?

since we're looking askance at disneyfied pop culture, we'd be naive indeed not to consider the possibility that the gq interview, and the attention it's generating, is well-planned. that billy ray's parenting philosophy includes the timeless classic, "any publicity is better than no publicity."

in which case we'd have to conclude that in the battle of good and evil, miley's dad has met the enemy...and it's wearing a mullet.

business travel is glam, v.2

2011-02-12T11:10:00.000-08:00

she's back.

after a week of glamorous business travel, retrieving the missus from the airport felt like picking her up from a hospital. jet-lagged, sleep-deprived, bleary-eyed, she seemed fragile as a fabergé egg.

earlier in the week she reported that her hotel in fabulous reading, berkshire, UK resembled a low-end days inn. twin beds, one of which sagged pitifully in the middle, and a restaurant whose most popular item was cheese and butter sandwiches on white bread.

twenty-some hours on airplanes crossing 16 time zones, all in the cause of catering to some auditors whose job it is to audit things. the very idea is teeth-numbingly eye-blinkingly farcical.

but let's not take our eye off the ball, shall we? the important thing is she's home, she's well, and she's resting comfortably. and all she missed while mollycoddling auditors was a couple of gymnastics practices, a couple swim team practices, several jaunts back and forth to schools, a ski club trip, dogs digging up landscaping, several decent meals lovingly prepared by her devoted husband, and three hours in the ballard swedish emergency department.

we thought the girl might've had a case of acute appendicitis, see, but it turned out to be, um, not-appendicitis. still, the excitement was palpable.

anyhoo, she's home. and swearing there will be no more trips this week. so we've got that going for us.

business travel. it's fandamnglamorous.

going, going...not gone! yet.

2011-02-04T16:36:00.000-08:00

"Extinct" Salmon Discovered in Japanese Lake
A Japanese salmon thought to have been extinct for 70 years has been discovered in a lake near Mount Fuji.

Last uncontacted tribes in the world discovered in Amazon jungle
An undisturbed civilization has been discovered on the Peru-Brazil border. BBC film shows gardens, homes, and people covered in red body paint.

Mad bovine refuses to go quietly
A cow that escaped a slaughterhouse, swam across the Missouri River, and was sent to a failing Montana animal sanctuary has lived to low another day.

you might think not-extinct japanese salmon, lost amazon civilizations and an indestructible cow would have nothing in common.

and on most days you'd be right. but today, if you scrunch up your brain in a certain way, you might discern at least one silvery thread tying them together: they all should be very afraid that "civilized" humans will kill them.

if you read the links, you see that the japanese government is "drawing up plans" to preserve the rediscovered salmon. that the peruvian and brazilian governments are taking steps to protect the lost tribes. that animal welfare groups are stumbling toward some sort of arrangement for the determined cow.

and a flickering moment of hope might light on your soul like a butterfly, causing you to smile ever so slightly as its wings tickle your karma.

if you want to keep that smile and that soul and that hope, you'll want to cease any further thought about these little stories. right about now...

the japanese, of course, are famous for killing things that should be protected. whales, anyone? despite worldwide condemnation, japanese ships continue to slaughter whales "for scientific purposes." and you know how the japanese enjoy their sushi, the more exotic and endangered, the better.

brazilians and peruvians are unlikely to sacrifice potential profits when there's a tree that can be chopped down or a strip mine that might be slashed. they're remarkably like americans, in that regard. plus, anyone peaceably wandering around a garden wearing little more than body paint should expect to be forcibly converted to christianity any moment now.

and the cow? there are entire industries dedicated to slaughtering animals in this country, not to mention the millions of pets euthanized every year because we can't be bothered to care for them, and let's not forget to forget the countless homeless people we ignore as if they were odd, unattractive furniture dumped on the side of every road.

see what happens when you read between the lines? it's no fun at all! better that we enjoy the rainbows and faeries and unicorns, then look away quick before the happy ending goes all simon cowell on us.

* * * * *

the japanese salmon were, in fact, saved. their numbers increased until a stable population was established, and biological diversity was maintained. then mount fuji erupted.

the lost amazon tribe stayed sequestered from the aggressive intrusion of logging and strip mining. they continued to live in peace until one of the tribe found an ipod left behind by an anthropologist.

the cow was shipped to india, where it wandered freely amongst adoring crowds for many years. it died after drinking from the ganges river.

the glamorous glamour of business travel

2011-02-02T14:52:00.000-08:00

the missus is going traveling again.

and again. and again.

it's the latest development in drug development, and isn't it fabulous?

hint: no, it is not.

this time it's a week in the UK, a splendid place in winter, if you don't mind hideous weather and the travel alert to u.s. citizens reminding them of the high level of terrorist threat, including the potential for attacks on public transportation systems, aviation, and other travel infrastructure.

in a strange confluence of coincidence and irony, transportation systems and travel infrastructure are the very instruments required for business travel. so as if the jet lag and wrong-sided driving and meetings and tea carts weren't annoying enough, the missus is advised to maintain a high state of vigilance and security awareness regardless of her jet-laggedness.

also, she's flying coach. because that's company policy and, really, who needs to be rested and coherent on a trip that's so important it requires one's presence on the other side of the globe? no, better that the indispensable executive be exhausted, dehydrated, sneezed-on and borderline deep-vein thrombosed.

there's an eight-hour difference between seattle and london. if conventional wisdom is correct, getting a body recalibrated to local time takes a day per hour. which means her body clock will be upside-down the entire time she's there. and on her return she will feel normal again just in time to get on another plane.

business travel to fabulous ports of call.

is it not fabulous?

hint: see above.

zen and the art of howling

2011-01-30T15:22:00.000-08:00

an elderly cherokee man was teaching his grandchildren about life.

he said to them, "a fight is going on inside me. it is a terrible fight between two wolves.

“one wolf is evil — he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority and ego.

“the other wolf is good — he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.

“this same fight is going on inside you, too. inside all of us."

the children thought about it for a minute, then one of them asked, "which wolf will win?"

the old man replied: "the one you feed."

* * * * *

i stumbled across this little parable at stumbleupon.com (which you should check out, if you haven't already). hard to say if it's actual cherokee philosophy, but it works whether it's cherokee, hindu, buddhist or pee wee hermanist.

if you follow the path a little further, you realize there's a 66% chance that the evil wolf prevails. whether it's at work, at home, or at the security queue at the airport, you feed the negative, it does an invasive full body probe of your psyche.

feed (or neglect) them both equally, the wolves tear each other (and you) apart.

which makes option three -- the care and feeding of the positive -- a biological imperative. not coincidently, it's also the most difficult to sustain. because, really, who hasn't had the overwhelming impulse to snarl at the corporate state, howl at the oil industry, or lift a leg in the general direction of the nearest republican?

but if you shut off the electronic noise, close your eyes, and embrace the silence... that's when it happens. that's when you differentiate between the ravenous howls and decide which to feed.

safety tip: the one that howls the loudest in your ear is probably the one that wants to consume you, as well.

walmart cares...but not about you.

2011-01-25T09:24:00.000-08:00

walmart wants you to know, it cares.

it wants you to believe it cares about you, dear customer, and your family and your high cholesterol and the cardiovascular disease steadily, stealthily wrapping its cold fingers around your heart.

important note: walmart doesn't care about any of those things. what it cares about is that you keep buying the cheap, sweatshop-made, environmentally rapacious products that pump up its bottom line.

"Walmart is getting on Michelle Obama's bandwagon, announcing Thursday that it will start selling healthier foods.

"The four-year plan, which company officials announced in Washington with the First Lady, includes reducing salt and sugar as well as eliminating trans fats in packaged foods. Officials for the world's largest retail chain also plan to cut the prices of fresh fruits and vegetables — and will build stores in low-income neighborhoods where consumers have few choices to buy food beyond gas stations and convenience stores."

according to a 1994 article in the american journal of public health, trans fats cause 30,000 deaths a year from heart disease. and we've known since 1988 that trans fats are correlated with a "...large increase in coronary artery disease."

meanwhile, according to the la times, "Walmart has more than 140 million customer visits each week." which means over the years the company that cares has pumped its toxic products into billions and billions of its customers' arteries.

"In outlining the changes, officials said they plan to reformulate thousands of packaged foods by 2015. Their goals include reducing sodium by 25 percent and added sugars by 10 percent, and removing all remaining industrially produced trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils."

the information that trans fats kill people has been around for a generation. why did walmart wait so long to care about its customers, one might reasonably ask. is it because they just recently heard the trans fat news, or is it something else? tsk, silly questions!

what's most likely is that the friendly, caring, concerned walmart team recently decided they could make a different kind of killing by tinkering with their product mix, with the expectation of reaping ridiculous profits whilst still ridding the country of its small businesses. and if their little experiment doesn’t meet ROI expectations, it can die, quick and quiet. genius!

"In Washington, consumer advocates praised the news. 'I applaud Walmart for using its marketplace muscle to move the food industry in a healthier direction,' said Michael Jacobsen, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

"'This announcement will virtually eliminate artificial trans fat in packaged foods and help spur food manufacturers to cut the sodium in their products over the next several years,' he added. 'Those two moves by Walmart ultimately should save thousands of lives each year that might otherwise be lost to heart disease or stroke.'"

excuse me, michael, but isn't this a bit like praising the gila monster in the chicken coop for passing up the high-cholesterol eggs?

sure the chickens are all dead, but the risk of heart disease is greatly reduced. yay, gila monster!

and by the way, michael, doesn't walmart sell cigarettes and other tobacco products? yes, yes it does. and isn't it true that cigarettes kill 400,000 americans every year? yes, yes it is. just sayin', mister walmart cheerleader.

the funny thing is, even if walmart makes available every manner of lowfat, low sodium, high omega-3 option and alternative, many of the store's clientele will take one look at the healthful array and say, "uh, no. none of that organic stuff for me and my family. that's for elitists and socialists and french-speakers. we like head cheese. pork rinds. gahddam beef byproducts! that's what's for dinner at our house!"

butbutbut...isn't it a good thing that walmart is offering healthier products, no matter how cynical and self-serving its motivations might be? sort of. if manufacturers can be pummeled into incremental product improvements by the threat of walmart's economic hammer, great. if, as a result, millions of walmart customers improve their unhealthy diets the tiniest bit, better still.

but if it's just another way for the company that doesn't really care to increase its clout--enabling it to continue its ravening, unethical, inhumane business practices--that's not so good.

clever PR campaigns and facile solutions to real problems are no reason to get all warm and snuggly with the corporate lizard.

be the ball, danny

2011-01-23T22:20:00.000-08:00

the gospel of st. hochuli

2011-01-17T09:22:00.000-08:00

"religion is the opiate of the masses." ~vladimir lenin

"the beatles are bigger than jesus christ." ~john lennon

"i'll take the seahawks plus 10 1/2 against the bears." ~jesus christ

america is suffering a crisis of faith.

we have no faith in our nominal leaders. no agreement on what defines "american values." we have little job stability and an escalating prospect we might never be able to retire.

so at a time when we trust so little and yearn for so much, what's left to believe in?

are you ready for some football?!?

in a perfect marriage between america's true religion and its other religion, some churches are combining the two in a holy communion of divine home-teamerism.

and really, in today's america, it makes perfect sense--church attendance is down, football attendance is down. so, you know, why not try an ecumenical hail-mary? "go jesus! go seahawks!"

check out the big screens at eastlake community church in the 'burbs of seattle. that is one inspirational place to watch football, isn't it? you have to think jesus would totally dig exalting his favorite team amongst the flock in a holy place like that. of course, whichever team that might be, they'd have a pretty decisive home field advantage.

losing locker room: "we were in this game all the way, but when jesus is on the side of the other team, you really have no margin for error."

winning locker room: "we made some mistakes early, and let them hang around too long, but we knew jesus was on our side, and we'd pull it out in the end."

what if he could've watched the christians versus the lions or the bears or the heavily favored romans on an array of 3D big screens! it's not hard to imagine the profound effect on sunday services.

"please power your kindalls to the book of matthew ryan, where we read 'if god so clothes the grass of the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is cast into the oven against the phoenix cardinals, shall he not much more clothe you with air conditioning, o you of little faith?' the answer, after this message from budweiser, the official beer of the nfl. remember, what would jesus drink? budweiser, the king of beers!"

do you know how many fans can congregate at eastlake? i don't either, but from the looks of things, it's more than a couple dozen. which helps explain how they can afford that kind of video technology for spreading the good word and watching slo-mo instant replays.

the ecc website says they are a "...somewhat disorganized church started by nine friends in 2005." don't you wish your church-home theater was that disorganized?

while were at it, can't you just see dr. martin luther king standing beneath some huge plasma screens, leading the cheers for the the atlanta falcons? now that americans have so completely embraced his messages of peace, justice, nonviolence, and league-wide parity, he'd probably have nothing better to do than get all geared up in a "vick" jersey and say a few words about the parallels between the gospel and the road to the super bowl.

if you follow the money, and believe in brand loyalty, you can totally see where this is heading. churches with the best viewer experience and the most spiritually enlightened cheerleaders will have the best shot at the blue-chip parishioners. by definition, they'll have the highest percentage rate in passing the collection plate. and their canonical defense will make the red zone a place no one wants to go, if you follow the metaphysical metaphor.

all that's missing is the theme song...

i got to get ready, make everything right,
'cause all my rowdy friends are coming over tonight.

do you want a drink,
hey do you want to party.
hey honey this is ole hank
ready to get the thing started

we cooked the pig in the ground, got some beer on ice
and all my rowdy friends are coming over tonight

are you ready for some churchball?!

small talk

2011-01-13T22:49:00.000-08:00

"she was a gymnast, you know."

"who?"

"the girl in arizona. the one who was killed."

"yes, she was."

"she was nine years old, and a third-grader. she was the same level gymnast as me."

"i see."

"i saw her picture. she was pretty."

"yes, she was."

"she did ballet and played baseball and swam."

"yes, babe. she did."

"why did that man have to shoot her?"

[pause]

"daddy?"

"yeah, babe..."

"why did he have to shoot her?"

"i don't know...[sigh]...he's mentally ill."

"what does that mean?"

"it means...[sigh]...it means there's something wrong with his brain."

[pause]

"grandpa don lives in arizona."

"yeah, he does."

"is he gonna be okay?"

"yes, he'll be fine."

"how do you know?"

"these things don't happen very often. the chances of it happening to him are really small."

"does it happen here?"

"not very often."

"she was a lot like me."

"i know, baby. i know."

Sent from my iPad

shut up! no, you shut up!

2011-01-08T17:50:00.000-08:00

it says here that you're a rude mother%@#&)*.

but it's not your fault. you have brain damage.

according to doug fields, phd., "A disrespectful, stressful social environment is a neurotoxin for the brain and psyche, and the scars are permanent. [The impairment] is associated with increased risk of craving, drug abuse and dependence, and a weakened ability to make moral judgments."

this explains so much.

it explains, for example, republicans. if we're being honest here (and we are), we have to agree that the gop is the party of rude mother%@#&)*s everywhere.

they're egregeously uncouth on so many fronts it's hard to sort them all, but for starters, republicans are painfully ill-mannered toward the u.s. constitution, the poor, the sick, the homeless, the environment, endangered wildlife, the economy, brown people, and countries with imaginary WMDs.

on the other hand, republicans are exceedingly polite to the wealthiest 1% of americans, wealthy wingnut media celebrities, and wealthy transnational corporations. so, go figure.

but look, it's obviously not their fault. at some point their brains must've been filled with noxious socio-environmental neurotoxins, which they can't help but pass along, generation to generation. these are sad, destructive, cringe-worthy family values, but they're family values nonetheless, n'est-ce pas?

to be fair, one needn't be a republican to be a rude mother$%#&!*. consider the many homes around the country, wrongly foreclosed on and siezed by predatory banks, forcing families into the street. and how about the man in pittsburgh whose home was mistakenly demolished by the the city while he was at work? that's some rude sh*t, isn't it?

more? mel gibson. jesse james. charlie sheen. john edwards/reille hunter. lyndsay lohan. ann coulter. sarah palin. tiger woods. all are hilarious, outrageous boors (though you could make the case that they're just barbarians).

again, not their fault. we have to assume they were raised by vampires or reality tv producers or potted poison ivy.

dr. doug, redux: "Studies have shown that children exposed to serious psychological trauma during childhood are at risk of suffering increased psychiatric disorders, including depression, anger, hostility, drug abuse, suicidal ideation, loneliness and even psychosis as adults."

that's us! is not america chock-full of people just like that? oh my, yes. which means we're constantly cultivating even more deeply disturbed people, then sending them out into the world to create more stress, more neurotoxins, and more rude mother%@#&)*s.

eventually we will be overrun with rude zombies who exist in a spiritual semidarkness that never lifts, snarling their way through each day, then scuffling home at night to sit in their home theaters of rudeness, refueling in preparation for more of the same the next day.

it is a disturbing prospect, certainly, one that must be countered with large quantities of great art, great sex and great wine. there are other antidotes, of course, including excellent food, copious sunshine, happy puppies, healthy children, and books instead of television.

interestingly, not everyone exposed to the rude is doomed to contract the disease. some people are simply immune. gravitate to them like garden plants to the sun, in the hope that some of what they have might rub off on you. literally or figuratively, whichever you can manage in good conscience.

and if it helps your state of zen, remember the rude can't help the way they are. it's not their fault.

it's the brain damage talking.

on a lighter note

2011-01-01T23:10:00.001-08:00

elvis is dead.

obviously. well...probably.

anyway, for the purposes of this discussion, it doesn't matter. because whether he staged his death and skipped off to a tropical island or died an unkingly death in1977, his music and his legacy appear to have disappeared as well.

music comes and goes, of course, and some collections hold up better than others. but didja ever think, really, that elvis would go the way of, say, michael bolton?

these days, outside some am stations in the middle of the country, elvis tunes get no play. the movies~there were 33 of them, you know~but when was the last time you saw one?

it's odd, because for at least a couple generations, elvis was a singularity. he affected light and gravity. he was everywhere and everything. all entertainment was compared to him, and no entertainment was comparable.

in another generation or so it'll be "elvis who?"

ah, well. easy come, easy go.

but i didn't sit down here to type about elvis. not really. no, that was just preamble to a review of the music of 2010. but since i have a such a limited grasp of "music 2010," this review includes only the music i added to my itunes library in the past 12 months. some of it was actually released in 2010, and some not.

i made some good choices last year. and some not. to wit...

courtyard hounds ~ courtyard hounds. this set is by two-thirds of the dixie chicks, emily robison and martie maguire, and is excellent if you like sheryl crow. which is to say, every track, as sung by robison, would sound exactly the same sung by crow. vocally, lyrically, instrumentally...it's all very crowian.

this isn't meant as a criticism. i mean, i like a lot of sheryl crow's music. and this album is no different. wait, that didn't come out right. i meant to say, this album shares many of the same qualities and characteristics of, um, excellence.

don't misunderstand, robison and maguire are ridiculously talented musicians, composers and lyricists. and there's not a thing wrong with robison's singing. so you should totally check out this album. especially if you're a fan of that other artist, mentioned previously.

the roots ~ how i got over. my tastes don't usually stray toward the hip hop, but on the recommendation of someone i know in the business, i downloaded this set. good decision. how i got over is lyrically intriguing and musically poetic, weaving funk, soul and jazz into something silky and muscular and edged. like a yoga master with a guitar made out of a scimitar strung with razor wire. which sounds kinda cool, but probably would be really hard to play.

carole king & james taylor ~ live at the troubador. these two have been around forever. literally. their earliest recordings have been carbon-dated to just after the big bang, and yet somehow they manage to sound not-old. this live set includes songs that have been part of pop culture for more than 40 years, and they still aren't past their expiration date. taylor's voice is strong and resonant, and king...well, she hits most of the high notes, and tries really hard to hit the rest.

unlike some of the reunion acts from the musical archives, this one actually works.

mavis staples ~ we'll never turn back. so i was shopping at the wine outlet on 15th ave., listening to whatever was playing on richard kinnsies' ipod, when mavis staples came on. the song was "down in mississippi," and it made me stop shopping. it made me walk over to the counter and ask who was singing, and what was the name of the song. it made me write "mavis staples, down in mississippi" on a little slip of paper, and go home and find it on itunes.

after i bought a case of wine, that is.

mavis staples wrings the guts out of a blues song. this set evokes segregation and civil rights marches and countless generations of african-americans who didn't live to see a black man become president. it makes you stop what you're doing and listen.

ten feet ~ everyday. this little group is well-known in the hawaiian islands, and possibly elsewhere, but i'd never heard of them before our stay on oahu in early 2009. their cover of jason mraz's "i'm yours" was getting a lot of airtime, and now it's forever part of the soundtrack of a memorable trip. at least i think that's how it went.

turns out the rest of the album is pretty solid as well. if you like music that emanates a relentless island vibe and transports you to the beach no matter how far away you are, this set does the trick. if you've never been to the islands, and couldn't care less about the vibe, steer clear of this band. and me. 'cause, you know, you're kind of bumming me out.

the beatles ~ help! i bought this vinyl when i was in fourth grade, and memorized every song. i had no idea who the beatles were, really; all i knew was the songs had a certain je ne sais quoi about them, and i could sing along and feel pretty damn happy about it. even if i didn't know je ne sais quoi from jenny sasquatch.

a lot of other people felt the same way, apparently.

the collected works of the beatles were made available, to much fanfare, on itunes in 2010. perhaps you heard about it. on that day, i bought help! and sang along again. i was pretty damn happy about it.

bad company ~ bad company. i bought this because i liked it back in high school. big mistake.

the archies ~ greatest hits. i bought this because i liked the archies when i was in grade school. big mistake.

also in 2010, i let my daughter download some of her favorite music. big mistake. my collection now includes several selections from taylor swift, demi lovato, jordin sparks, selena gomez, and i don't know who-all else. more seem to pop up every day. and mostly they're unlistenable.

but she's my daughter, and she's cute, and her music makes her happy, which makes me happy.

so, there it is. 2010 is over like elvis, but the music lives on.

unless it doesn't.

in which case there's always 2011.

Sent from my iPad

chemical affliction

2010-12-23T17:01:00.000-08:00

"We can never speculate as to what may happen with a drug once it goes into widespread use..."

quick quiz: are those the words of a responsible federal agency, or a two-bit drug dealer?

hint: it's a trick question.

the answer, of course, is "both."

that's your food and drug administration at work, ladies and gentlemen. how 'bout a big hand for the nice people selling us out so transnational pharma can keep raking in their billions?

yay, FDA!

but wait! the same description also fits the nice people at pfizer, the narco-traffickers responsible for "chantix," a drug that can cure your nicotine addiction by helping you kill yourself.

isn't that great? they get your money, and as a gift with purchase, you get a decorative toe tag.

random rhetorical question: if it's not the FDA's job to speculate what might happen when a drug hits the market, whose job is it? do they expect the nice people running big pharma do that? really?

fun trivia: almost half of people with depression are smokers. chantix is a psychotropic drug, the side effects of which can have a profound, often disastrous effect on depressed people.

fun fact: the people at pfizer never tested chantix on people with depression. nor was it tested on patients with histories of panic disorder, psychosis or bipolar disorder.

fun corollary: people suffering from those conditions are disproportionately more likely to attempt suicide than, say, billionaires with fresh tax cuts in their wallets. go figure.

would it surprise you to learn that the people a FDA and pfizer insist they did nothing wrong in bringing this drug to market? sorry, silly question. no one involved will ever admit "mistakes were made," or anything remotely resembling responsibility. the merest hint of same would cost them $ megamillions, maybe more, in legal complications.

instead, after hundreds of suicide attempts (over 100 successful), and more than 5,000 reports of "severe psychiatric symptoms," associated with chantix, pfizer and the FDA are kicking around the idea of maybe studying the drug a little more.

just to be, you know, safe.

spinal fortitude

2010-12-15T22:34:00.000-08:00

late last year i was diagnosed with cervical stenosis, a degenerative condition that signals decline and decrepitude.

if you believe in such things.

fortunately i'm great at denial, so a year later, after a bit of surgical legerdemain, i'm back to playing basketball and preparing for the ski season.

the osteoarthritis implicated in this diagnosis is commonly lifestyle related. if you're active and your workouts tend toward the debilitating, your spine can reap an eventual whirlwind of symptoms. but really, that's kind of a badge of honor, isn't it?

i mean, the alternative of couch-bound lassitude and cardiovascular disease is not much of an alternative at all, n'est-ce pas?

bla bla bla.

this retrospective is prelude to a recent email from a friend who says he's been dealing with symptoms nearly identical to those i experienced last year.

turns out he, too, has spinal stenosis, and he's been referred to a neurosurgeon.

as you might imagine, he's a little upset.

a review of the literature regarding stenosis is disconcerting. absent timely and effective treatment, it can cause all kinds of life-changing trouble. if you like using your arms and legs, that is.

surgery can make a significant difference. it can resolve symptoms, restore strength, and in time, return you to whatever passes for normal in your world. depending on your feel for karma and irony, it might make you better than you were, appreciation-wise.

howard...i feel you, man. i understand how seriously this might be messing with your head. and while your ski season might be over, next season will be here momentarily. and you'll be ready for it.

l'chaim, my friend.

tight christmas

2010-12-13T09:15:00.000-08:00

mrs. spaceneedl loves her some christmas specials.

from it's a wonderful life to charlie brown to white christmas to the grinch, this time of year she's all about parking in front of the tv and shushing everyone so she can hear the lines we all know by heart.

which is fine by me. we have too few traditions tying us together at our house. it's comforting to have a handful that we can point to and say, "this is what we do, for no other reason than this is what we do." it might not make sense to sit and watch reruns we've seen dozens of times, but then again, what really makes sense any more?

maybe, one day, the little needls will have their own families and their own traditions, and maybe they'll gather to watch fred claus or elf or bad santa or, you know, whatever passes for holiday programming 20 years from now. it would be nice, though, if they shushed their kids so they could hear one or two of the old school shows, because they're a reminder of a simpler time in their lives. a time when holiday movies weren't full of snark and cynicism and sentiments that make you furrow your brow and think, "wtf?"

watching white christmas this year, it occurred to me that, despite its status as an all-time holiday classic, there's no way this movie gets made today. even if you could resurrect bing and danny and rosemary and vera-ellen.

unless you were making "zombie white christmas," i suppose.

made today, white christmas would have to feature robert downey, jr. as the cia chessmaster whose people love him because of the hilariously varied ways he kills hapless terrorists. will smith and kanye west would reprise the bob wallace and phil davis roles...of course you'd have to change those names. i mean, can you imagine will smith playing "bob wallace" and kanye west playing "phil davis"? and the two of them singing "count your blessings instead of sheep"?

on second thought, that'd be kinda funny.

as undercover operatives posing as r&b artists in new york, the two of them find themselves assigned to the badlands of south dakota, battling caribbean pirates on a quest for lost incan treasure. while in sioux falls they stumble across a promising sister act performing old school christmas songs at a holiday inn express. the haynes sisters, portrayed by taylor swift and katy perry, are desperate to get out of the dakota lounge circuit and land a recording contract, so they concoct a variety of hijinx to impress wallace and davis.

meanwhile, downey has cleverly allowed himself to be captured by the pirates, who have taken control of an icbm silo. downey promises to help them aim the missile at the moon, which legend says will reveal the location of the treasure. instead, he disables the warhead and reprograms the missile to topple the main towers broadcasting fox news.

simultaneously, romantic sparks are flying between west and swift, causing smith and perry to furrow their brows and think, "wtf?"

the four get caught up in a snowmobile chase between, over and through the countless ice fishing houses on lewis and clark lake. hilarity ensues as pirates, drunken ice fishermen, and walleyes fly across the screen at high speed.

i don't want to spoil the finale for you, but it's a big fight scene/dance number involving the five heroes, a bunch of confused fishermen, and a plethora of pirates and wenches played in cameos by an army of international celebrities.

at some point the entire cast gathers to sing a rap version of a certain holiday classic, renamed "tight christmas." afterward everyone grudgingly hugs and goes their separate ways.

a series of sequels is a given.

can you feel it? i got chills. it'll be huge.

mrs. spaceneedl just rolled her eyes at me. it doesn't feel like a classic to her.

she'll change her mind when the screenplay contract is signed and the first check hits our bank account.

that'll be tight.

filling station

2010-12-04T12:32:00.001-08:00

through timeless words
and priceless pictures
we'll fly like birds
not of this earth
and tides they turn
and hearts disfigure
but that's no concern
when we're wounded together
and we tore our dresses and
stained our shirts
but it's nice today
oh, the wait was so worth it...

~ jason mraz

from the front end, ten days can stretch beyond the horizon, full of plans and promise.

but the fact is, ten days is only 240 hours, and they pass in the blink of an eye.

especially if you fill them up with life.

for example, you could roll out of bed at dawn every one of those days, because that's when you wake up and find you're ready to get your day rolling. however improbable you might've found that prospect on the front end.

and because it's already warm, you might throw on shorts and a t-shirt and walk a couple miles along the beach as the sun comes up, watching the sky change from purple to pink to orange.

you could pass a couple dozen people, who invariably smile a little smile and say a quiet good morning, because they too are experiencing something simple and clean and timeless and therefore profound.

your new routine, which in no way resembles your old routine, might include coffee that smells like coconut, and a bowlful of something healthy that includes actual coconut.

later, your day might find you out on the electric-blue water, hovering over an ancient volcanic crater or a fossilized coral reef covered with contemporary coral. you splash overboard with a tiny cylinder of portable atmosphere, putting a world of distance between you and your regularly scheduled programming. from the boat to the bottom is a matter of a few dozen feet, but the quiet that settles over you feels like a warm embrace of miles.

it's like swimming in the world's biggest tropical fish tank, pulsing with color. until you see the enormous sea turtles paddling around you, which could never fit in a tank. the honu are either mildly curious or completely indifferent to your presence in their world. they drift away in all directions, leaving much more of an impression on you than you made on them.

another day might find you clinging for life to the side of a volcanic ridge, high above a tropical valley floor. your position is made more precarious by the early morning fog and mist swirling around you. each step is an opportunity for a foot to slip. every reach up is a chance to lose your grip.

photos never do justice to the steepness of this climb, or the consequences of an uncontrolled descent. you don't really get it until you're 10 or fifteen minutes up. that's when it hits you that if you fall, you die.

you keep going up, because the thought of not finishing is unacceptable. in fact, the goal is to get to the top quicker than the last time. for no particular reason.

when you get there, you catch your breath but you don't really celebrate. because you know that the trip down is actually more difficult, and now it's raining. en route, how many times does your foot slip off its designated step? four? six? how does that shot of adrenaline feel, every time?

after what seems like hours, you reach the bottom safely. and you're already thinking about repeating this foolishness on your next visit. which means you're an occasional adrenaline junkie, and therefore not very smart.

ten days seems like a long time, except on day nine. that's when you realize how pitifully short it is. and in a time-warped moment of clarity you can see ahead to a day you might be at this place again, after the children have grown and gone. you think back to this trip, when they were here, running around acting like children...and you wonder where the time went.

you feel that moment with perfect lucidity, and find it dusty and sepia toned. it's not adrenaline you experience then, but something else moving and powerful.

ten days is only 240 hours. and they pass in the blink of an eye, whether you fill them up or not.

better to fill them up with something. if you're lucky, it could be something timeless and priceless.

and so worth it.

Sent from my iPad

none-too-friendly skies

2010-11-20T22:50:00.001-08:00

we're flying tomorrow.

which means we'll have to go through security at seatac airport.

i really hope nobody tries to grope us.

* * * * *

i haven't packed yet. but really, how long can it take to throw some shorts, t-shirts and a swimsuit into a carry-on bag?

besides which, this day-before was full up with last-minute busy work. from the coffee shop to the hardware store to the barber shop to the dive shop to the fred meyer to the post office back to the hardware store to the grocery store and finally, home.

where there was still plenty more to do.

* * * * *

whoops, forgot the bakery and the book store. and the eyeglass repair place.

* * * * *

the forecast was right: it's turned cold in seattle. and windy. this is not a happy combination. wind chill factor is not something i want to deal with. current temperature, 37. feels like: 32. dew point: 23. which means it could get damn cold tonight. forecast for the next three days: snow flurries developing. highs in the 30s. lows in the 20s.

seems like a good time to be leaving town.

* * * * *

movie tonight on comcast channel 650: "how do i look?"
movie on channel 651, same time: "coyote ugly"

* * * * *

crystal mountain and mount baker ski areas are already open. skiing this season is going to be amazing. and, unlike last year, i get to participate. working-from-home snow days also looking promising.

* * * * *

so, i've downloaded "50 first dates" from itunes. why would i do such a thing, you might ask? because it was shot on oahu, that's why. many of the places we'll be going to featured prominently in the movie. sealife park, where adam sandler's character worked. chinaman's hat, near where forgetful lucy lived. kaneohe, waimea, waimanalo...oh, i also thought the movie was pretty funny. i plan to watch it on the flight over. assuming we get past the gropers.

* * * * *

also shot on oahu: "from here to eternity," "tora, tora, tora," and "pearl harbor."

"jurassic park."

the opening shots of "gilligan's island."

"hawaii 5-0."

"lost."

if you like that sort of thing.

* * * * *

10-day forecast for honolulu:

high: 82
low: 71

repeat, 10 times.

*****

we're flying tomorrow.

why am i still awake and typing?

Sent from my iPad

four orders of good to go

2010-11-15T08:32:00.000-08:00

"if you never did, you should. these things are fun, and fun is good."

~ dr. seuss

we're t-minus one week to oahu.

the prospect is so good, it's hard to keep in the here and now.

we're constantly recalculating the minimum required to stay functional any given moment, so as not to interfere with our pre-trip prep and general euphoria.

which is to say, we're making plans. oh my, yes.

plan a: scuba diving. the boy is on the brink of scuba certification, and so four dives off southeastern oahu are scheduled and paid for.

these dives will differ dramatically from his experience in puget sound, where the water is 50F year-round. he'll be able to see, for one thing. there's not a lot of light around here these days, so visibility is about six feet. in the bright midday sun off oahu, we expect to be able to see most of the way to san francisco. which will be good...we'll be able to see the dorsal fins circling us.

there will be surfing. the rest of the family took lessons in maui a couple years ago, and they're ready to give it another go. shoot, i may even try it myself. you haven't really lived, after all, until you've been hit in the head with a surfboard or nibbled experimentally by a shark.

speaking of nature's perfect predator, there will be an excursion in a shark cage. last time, sailing out of haleiwa, the boy and i spent 25 minutes within touching distance of a swarm of galapagos sharks. they looked impressively predatory, but word on the boat was that they're bottom feeders. which means they may bite you in the ass.

other sharks sometimes seen on these trips include tigers, gray reef sharks, and pelagic hammerheads. all are described as "aggressive to humans." but we'll be, you know, in a cage. what could possibly go wrong?

10 more very good things to get giddy over in oahu (in inverse order from top to mid-list, then in reverse...)

1. ten days of highs in the mid 80s, lows in the mid 70s.

2. running five miles, barefoot, on kailua beach.

3. açai extravaganza bowls from lanikai juice.

4. grilled shrimp with rice from the lunch truck across the street from keneke's family bbq in waimanalo.

5. hiking up to the lanikai pillboxes.

6. climbing the ha'iku steps.

7. paddle surfing to the mokoluas.

8. jumping off "da big rock" at waimea bay beach park.

9. thanksgiving at the beach.

10. endlessly, pointlessly contemplating how we can stay and live the island life.

and...(this list goes to eleven)

11. duke's on sunday.

these things will be fun, and fun is good, while it lasts. to that end, we'll invoke the corollary that if a little fun is good, more is better.

music playing happy songs
everybody's getting along
dancing in the sunshine
sipping on that rose wine
good times will set you free
oh, this is the place to be
on the beach at waikiki
that's where you'll find me
here on the south side
beach boys paradise
duke's on sunday
duke's on sunday
duke's on sunday

~ henry kapono

* * * * *

update: this just in from the national weather service, for western washington...

... A CHANGE TO MUCH COLDER CONDITIONS IS POSSIBLE FRIDAY INTO NEXT WEEKEND...

COLD AIR IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP OVER WESTERN CANADA DURING THE UPCOMING WEEK. THERE ARE STRONG INDICATIONS THAT CHANGES IN THE WIND FLOW ALOFT TOWARD THE END OF THE WEEK WILL ALLOW SOME OF THIS COLDER AIR OVER WESTERN CANADA TO FILTER INTO WESTERN WASHINGTON FRIDAY OR SATURDAY.

WEATHER GUIDANCE ALSO SUGGESTS THAT THERE IS A RISK OF SNOW... OR MIXED RAIN AND SNOW SHOWERS OVER PORTIONS OF THE AREA FRIDAY OR SATURDAY.

the fun just does not stop.

Sent from my iPad

early to rise

2010-11-07T21:31:00.001-08:00

"Gotta get to bed so I can get up at 2 to re-set my clocks. I really don't understand why we can't have these time changes at a more convenient hour."

~ david hutchinson

and so, darkness descends on the northwest.

here, the end of daylight savings time is the beginning of months of getting up and driving to work in the dark, returning home in the dark, and ingesting fistfuls of vitamin D in between.

it's a time of people taking on the healthy pallor of zombies, along with a corresponding level of brain activity. seasonal affective disorder wraps us up in its clammy embrace, broken only by forced exposure to UV light or fistfuls of pharmacology.

it hardly seems worth it, but at least on the day we fall back we get an extra hour to spend however we like. there's no consensus on the best way to seize the carp and fully exploit that time, but the options are characteristic of the soon-to-be-deranged...

1. sleep in (the desperate act of the desperately sleep-deprived)
2. run around the grocery store muttering "the end is near," while loading the cart with wine
3. plunge into puget sound's 50-degree waters, imagining they're warm, and you're warm, and that hypothermia builds character
4. go to your favorite restaurant and wander through the bar saying "donner, party of 20..."
5. have mind-bending, toe-curling sex with julianne moore (assuming you actually know julianne moore and she finds you sufficiently intriguing)
6. avoid taking your car to the local car wash for the sixth straight month, because every time you wash you car, it rains (also, when you don't)
7. obsess over politics, even though the recent election ensures nothing worthwhile will happen for the next two years
8. obsess over sports and television, even though nothing worthwhile ever happens in either case
9. go outside at lunch for a glimpse of that dim star low on the southern horizon
10. go shopping, buy things you don't really need, because it makes you feel better, however briefly
11. stay home, save your money, because it makes you feel better, however briefly
12. drink the wine you bought at the grocery store; go buy more
13. buy food, while you're there
14. hug your children
15. yell at your children, tell them to shut the hell up so you can hear yourself think
16. realize what you're thinking isn't particularly interesting or important
17. pick up a book, begin reading; get the feeling you're reading the same few pages over and over
18. find a way to work the word "ennui" into as many conversations as possible
19. exercise, compulsively, because if you don't you feel fat, which is depressing
20. stare blankly into space while daydreaming about sunlight, pondering the prospect it might never return

some of these things might take more than an hour, but not to worry. there's a long, bleak winter extending endlessly before you. you have plenty of time to savor them at your leisure.

that, or you can sail to lahaina.

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post-game 2010

2010-11-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

"violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

~isaac asimov

it's funny, really, how different liberals are from conservatives.

conservatives in the u.s. have their fingers on the trigger. literally. if they don't get their way via the ballot, they're prepared to use other means to achieve their ends. do you need examples, or have you been keeping up with current events?

despite the right wing's professed love of the constitution, it's a love of convenience. "free speech" only applies when it applies to them. in all other cases, the practitioner may be silenced by physical assault, police intervention, or hostage-taking. or all of the above.

constitutional protections regarding church and state? only christian churches need apply. all others are subject to bombing, verbal and otherwise, at any time. jesus must be so proud.

at social gatherings, conservatives demonstrate the failures of public education in myriad ways. spelling, grammar, historical comparisons...all wrong. if you're going to refer to the president as hitler, he cannot, at the same time, be kenyan. nazis, it turns out, were not fond of black people. (note: "kenyan" is not the same as "keynesian.")

also, if obama is muslim, it's not possible that he is also married to michelle. i mean, have you seen how she dresses? that said, she could even make a burka look good.

liberals, meanwhile, have a slightly different vibe. at their gatherings, no one gets beaten, kidnapped, or otherwise violated. worst case, a conservative interloper might be subjected to some tough rhetorical questions.

these comparisons may be important as conservatives even more conservative than the last batch take control of the u.s. house, as well as several state governments. the last bunch, you may recall, helped wreck the world economy, drive the u.s. into two intractable wars, and endorse torture as official u.s. policy.

and yet somehow millions of americans today saw fit to return them to positions of power.

go figure.

perhaps the takeaway is that you get the government you deserve...but not necessarily the government you need.

and that today would be a really good day to restock the wine racks.

good day, sunshine

2010-10-19T22:03:00.001-07:00

everywhere you go
you always take the weather with you
everywhere you go
you always take the weather
everywhere you go
you always take the weather with you
take the weather
take the weather with you

~jimmy buffett

there's no such thing as "sunny san diego."

it doesn't exist. i know this because i was just there for four days, and the sun showed up not once the entire time.

the overcast was low and dark and oppressive. a light mist fell, off and on, morning, noon and night. trees drooped low and dripped on passers-by.

san diego is, in fact, seattle with palm trees. wet palm trees.

sunny? pfft. don't believe it. don't believe the brochures and the reviews and the tv spots featuring blue skies and blue water and scantily clad, sunshiny people. the reality is all gray, all the time.

*****

on day three in san diego i hauled myself out of bed at o'dark-thirty to do the "run for the warriors," a 5K fundraiser for wounded vets of the iraq and afghanistan wars.

pre-race activities began predawn, made darker still by the falling mist and the fact that there is no sun in san diego. none of which mattered to the participants~~i'm convinced everyone there would've run in a hurricane at midnight if asked.

i haven't run in a timed event in years. it's just not something i care to do, any time of day, let alone at such an uncivilized hour. the last time may have been the bay-to-breakers event in san francisco, circa 1989. that's a 12K course up and down some notorious hills, traversed by tens of thousands of people who are either there to run or to dress in attire appropriate for their most outrageous fetish and fantasy. it's the perfect race for those of us who don't really like running, since the wild array of costumed and festooned and unpantalooned people totally distracts you from the fact that you're running.

a buddy and i, running in this fashion (but not that fashion), finished in just over an hour. getting stuck behind some roller skating nuns and a posse of cowgirls wearing chaps (and little else) added several minutes to our time, if you can imagine such a thing. go ahead, imagine it, i'll wait.

anyhoo, moving right along...

given my physical state this time last year, i'm quite pleased to be running at all. not because i enjoy it, mind you, but because i can.

managing my goals and expectations accordingly, i figured i'd go out at a nice, old-guy post-op pace. nothing too ambitious, just a happy-to-be-here half-hour to cover the 3.1 miles.

i didn't stick to the plan.

when the horn sounded, and the people in front of me started to pull away, i got competitive. not "i want to win this thing" competitive, of course. i mean, i'm not totally delusional. no, it was just a "hey, why are all these people passing me?" kind of competitive.

so, despite my pre-race plan, such as it was, i kicked it up a notch. the rate of people passing me decreased, and i actually caught and passed some people in front of me. that felt good.

i finished in 26 minutes flat. that felt good, too.

*****

the flight back to seattle took off into the clouds, and eventually broke through to sunshine. many of the passengers cringed away from the windows like vampires.

a couple hours later we landed, in darkness.

it was still sunnier than san diego.

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something fishy

2010-10-19T21:32:00.001-07:00

well the sun's not so hot in the sky today
and you know i can see summertime slipping on away
slipping on...
a few more geese are gone, a few more leaves turning red
but the grass is as soft as a feather in a feather bed
oh, darling
so i'll be king and you'll be queen
our kingdom's gonna be this little patch of green
won't you lie down with me right now
in this september grass
won't you lie down
september grass...

~james taylor

the cohos are running.

from the pacific through the straits of juan de fuca through puget sound through metro seattle to little north creek~~not two minutes' walk from my office.

at lunchtime, people gather at every bridge to marvel at the fish slowly moving past. gaggles of them form, meander awhile, dissipate, then form up again a while later, a ways further down.

the shocking reds and greens of the cohos' final days are washed out and dull by the time they arrive at this tributary. the fish are battered and spent, and seem barely able to hold their own against the current. it isn't that long ago, a matter of a few weeks, that they possessed the strength to carry them through a long, unforgiving course of obstacles. to arrive here, a place that may have been their destination, or may be a long way from where they intended to go.

the reds and greens in the water are pale reflections of the bright, changing leaves overhead. but the leaves themselves are on a similar arc, and it won't be long before they too fade and fall.

this little drama plays itself out in similar fashion in countless ways and places every year. it's part of nature's genius that we still find it so compelling, no matter how many times we've seen it. and because it's so timeless, so cyclical, it really shouldn't make me sad...but it does.

their time is so short.

time is so short.

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moving to center

2010-09-27T02:45:00.000-07:00

at the core of every idea, emotion and sentient being is truth.

if you can get to it.

most often, it seems, the truth at the core hides or is trapped inside a maze of shifting walls and and funhouse mirrors.

the funny thing is, we build the labrynth ourselves. to prop up and defend the version of reality we desperately need, so we can continue to be the people we present to the world. the people we say we are.

that narrative, of course, is maybe one part real to every four parts fabrication, depending on how complicated we've made ourselves. how many masks we wear beneath the hats we put on in the course of a given day.

say, just for fun, that today, to get through the day, you need to be a boss and a colleague and an underling and a spouse and a parent and a friend. and, come to think of it, you're gonna need to be an administrator, too. and an accountant. and a public speaker. and a referee. and a counselor. and a creative problem-solver. a grammarian and a spell checker and a critic.

and a diplomat. and an advocate. a strategist and a tactician, simultaneously. andandand...

we'll say that's what's required today (even though there's probably more), and we'll stipulate for the record, your honor, that it's a fair representation of a typical day in the life.

say, just for laughs (because it really is funny), that this (or a variation of it) is the person you've constructed over the years. so obviously this is who you are required to be today (a different person likely will be required tomorrow, so be ready).

is it not expected that you will be good at being all of these things? is that not what you expect of yourself and what others expect of you? that all these moving pieces and interlocking components will transition one into the other and back again without a glitch? that this finely woven fabric will stretch seamlessly across the day and into the evening and right up to the point where you fall asleep and dream the weird-but-all-too-lifelike dreams?

of course it is.

random rhetorical question: how likely is it that we can actually be good at all these things, all the time, all at the same time? that the expectation and the reality are in synch and humming along on all cylinders as often as we tell ourselves they are?

we are all of us complicated people in a convoluted world. and each day adds another layer to the coats of paint we slap on to keep the whole edifice looking like new (or a reasonable facsimile thereof). meanwhile, the quiet truths of what we believe, what we feel, and who we are at our core tend to get drowned out by the roar of our own machinations, and those of everyone else we deal with.

so we madly cobble together the maze du jour and the requisite sort-of-truths as best we can, always accompanied by a vague unease that we can't put our finger on but which might be the gap between what we typically do and what we know, at our core, is what we should be doing. if you follow the winding thread.

which leads to an inevitable logical corrolary: don't believe everything you think. i mean, obviously. it's just good common sense, and it keeps you humble.

look at this...a huge pile of words about complication and convolution, all leading to what?

i don't know. i forgot my memory foam pillow, so i'm less sanguine than usual about drawing hasty conclusions...

oh! it's this. simplify.

amputate the clutter. pull the plug on the noise. keep the walls from shifting long enough to locate the core, then run frantically to get there.

make it unnecessary to be all of those people, all at once, but if you must, don't insist that you be good at all of them, because you can't. and even if you could, what's the point?

more importantly, are you being good at the right things? the things you know, at your core, are the ones that matter? one day you will have a moment of clarity, that moment when you shed the many layers and say, wow, did i ever screw that up. if only i had focused more on thisandthisandthis, and less on THAT. everything could've been different.

that moment will come. wouldn't it be nice if it were sooner than later?

of course it would. and for those of you who already know this and are staying close to your quiet center and can actually hear yourselves think...i'm envious.

envy, of course, is another shifting wall clattering around my personal maze.

but i see you there, sitting in your zone of serenity, and i want to be there too, metaphorically and metaphysically speaking. which is to say, to be more like myself. i'm in here, somewhere. i'm pretty sure.

so, i'm looking.

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may the patron saint of the blessed cell phone smile upon you

2010-09-20T22:46:00.001-07:00

it's a minor miracle.

and it's here on the table next to me. care to guess what it is?

hint: it's not a piece of toast with the image of jesus seared into it. it's not a cornflake in the shape of the virgin mary.

it's certainly not a former colleague of smokey robinson.

no, it's a check for $124 from the state of washington. a refund for the ticket i got for talking on my cell phone while driving.

the beauty part is, i was absolutely guilty. i was talking, i was driving. talking, driving. talkingdriving. one hand was free, but the other one held the phone firmly to my ear. the conversation was really important, though. a matter of life and death.

no, not really. the conversation was completely extraneous.

did i mention that i was guilty? yeah, totally.

despite these facts, which are not in dispute, the state has decided to give me back my money. because of some glitch in the technicalities of the fine print of the nuances of the legalities of the law.

which is to say, the state screwed up.

how often does this kind of thing happen? seriously, how many times in your life have you gotten your money back for something like this? i mean, never, right? it just does. not. happen.

and yet...there it is. an official check signed by the treasurer of the state of washington, jesus buddha muhammad.

i can get used to the idea of the occasional minor miracle. especially when the proof is on the table, close enough to touch.

but the pilgrims milling about our yard have to go.

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postcards from teabagger hell...

2010-09-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

the lunatics are inside the perimeter.

from utah to delaware to louisiana to new york...and points elsewhere in between...the crazy is eye-popping and jaw-dropping and head-scratching and tooth-drilling. without novocaine.

in what regard, you might ask, if you had a morbid curiousity about the most hilarious humanity has to offer...

how about the mad percolations of the teabagger machine? hard-right candidates who once would've been considered the most lunatic of the fringe have won gop primaries across the country. their victories are driven by a raucus combination of faux-christian values, faux-conservative fiscal hypocrisy, faux-sympathy for the unemployed, and a deep, damp love for the bank accounts of the hyper-wealthy.

oh, and racism. (did you know: the president is black.)

you want to test their belief in all-american ideals like free speech, freedom of religion and property rights? propose building the muslim equivalent of a ymca in new york, and watch their heads explode.

you want to see how much they really believe in fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction? suggest letting tax cuts expire for the richest of the billionaires, and watch them hyperventilate.

you want to know how they express their christian values and love of their neighbors? listen to the reverend mike huckabee throw the sick and injured under the nearest haybailer.

these are the kind of people who demand all the perks of being an american~roads, police, firefighters, teachers, schools, and the right to worship the military branch of their choice~but they don't want to pay for any of it. somewhere along the way they believed their political doppelgangers who told them they could have it all at no cost whatsoever. taxes? nonsense! it's not the government's money, it's ours! tax cuts pay for themselves, and deficits don't matter.*

(*actual claims and contradictions courtesy of right-wing fabulists!)

note: taxes actually are the government's money~it's in the constitution. and no, tax cuts don't pay for themselves. and deficits appear not to matter only when run up by borrow-and-spend republicans.

the analysis of the rise of the teabagger right says, "they're angry." and they want to take back the country. and they want to restore honor. it doesn't say where this anger was during the bush administration, when "their money" was being wasted by the trillion in unnecessary and unsuccessful wars. when their government was sullying u.s. honor by killing tens of thousands, committing torture, and ravaging the constitution. when tax cuts were the answer to every question, heralding the transition from a healthy economy into the great recession.

didja notice? not a peep out of them during those fun times.

and now they want to put back in power the people who were responsible for all those hijinks, or better still, folks who are even further out on the crazy meter. just imagine the hilarity!

fun fact: christie o'donnell (R-celibacy) once "dabbled into witchcraft," but she didn't join a coven. sure she didn't. and bill clinton didn't inhale. o'donnell's pious supporters are likely to be horrified by this sacrilege~but they will forgive her this and any other heresy rather than vote for a democrat. self-respecting wiccans, meanwhile, are likely to be, uh, disconcerted by the thought of o'donnell in their midst.

america may be a great mixing pot...or it may be the world's largest and most inefficient insane asylum. if we're honest with each other we agree, at least, that what's going on these days is the kind of derangement only the lunified could love.

turns out the inmates are not just in our midst.

they are us.

breakfast club

2010-09-10T12:01:00.000-07:00

fred macmurray was so very wrong.

somewhere in tv-land, in a charming episode of "my three sons," uncle charlie is serving breakfast...and fred is hungry.

fred: where are my eggs, charlie?

uncle charlie: here, you can have what ernie didn't eat. that's all that's left.

fred: i see. well, as long as we keep the germs in the family...

in the second half of this two-part episode, e. coli spreads throughout the douglas household and runs rampant across bryant park. eventually uncle charlie is brought up on charges. hilarity ensues in the courtroom, as the jury succumbs to the pandemic.

* * * * *

i don't really think i have e. coli. but it's definitely something. something disturbing and debilitating and demoralizing. ebola, maybe.

this is what happens when the children go back to school and return with all the latest bacteria. they share. and we are the beneficiaries. or the incubators. as the case may be.

seeing the light

2010-09-07T22:13:00.001-07:00

pack up all your dishes
make note of all good wishes
say goodby to the landlord for me
sons of bitches always bore me
throw out those LA papers
and the moldy box of vanilla wafers
adios to all this concrete
gonna get me some dirt road back street...

~ jerry jeff walker

the missus and i have had an epiphany.

so we're moving.

we're not sure where, or when, but we're moving.

this is not a "move to a bigger house in magnolia" kind of move. this is the kind of move where we leave the neighborhood entirely, on our way out of the country.

catalonia, maybe. or the southeast of france.

we're not sure of the destination yet, pending scouting expeditions starting the first half of 2011.

back to the epiphany, which upon further review isn't particularly epiphanous. it's that corporate america would like to bleed us dry and kick us to the curb at its earliest convenience, and take its healthcare along with it.

meanwhile republicans, who by all accounts are poised to take back control of congress, would like to give huge tax cuts to the wealthiest americans and spending cuts to everyone else. most credible economists agree this is exactly the wrong thing to do, economic policy-wise, and will deepen the current recession brought about by republican economic policies.

this, according to nobel-prize winning economist paul krugman, has a real chance of setting up a japan-style lost decade of long-term unemployment, cash hoarding and deflation. which means we'll be lucky to stay employed during the next ten years, while the value of our assets declines.

the missus and i aren't up for riding out a lost decade. and really, what's the point? if the best we can hope for is to keep working for the privilege of being allowed to keep working, suddenly the whole "american dream" contrivance doesn't seem so dreamy.

it's not rational to keep participating in a game in which the winners (the very wealthy) are predetermined and everybody else gets to stay poor.

so, we're leaving.

we're not sure when. we're not sure where. we just know it won't be anyplace that worships corporate gods or the elected representatives who serve them.

somewhere civil rights are respected and healthcare is a human right.

someplace civilized.

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brownie bites...

2010-08-28T14:59:00.000-07:00

michael brown sees dead people.

and he thinks, "i can make a pile of money off of those corpses."

the bodies in question would be those of the people of new orleans who died of an acute case of ineptitude inflicted by brown and the bush administration.

those facts are not in dispute, so we'll not relitigate them here. more currently, however, brown is attempting to rewrite history, returning to new orleans to broadcast his radio show and to pimp his upcoming book.

“This is a part of my life. This was a very significant part of my life. Everybody in the world knows it was a part of my life. So I’m going to show up.”

no matter how many died, no matter how many lives were wrecked, it's still all about brownie, who's showing up five years after he watched an american city drown.

as the head of a major government agency designed to help in times of emergency, it seems a shame that he didn't show up in a meaningful way when it might've made a difference. but brown takes no responsibility for any of it, including the part where he was completely unqualified to hold that position in the first place.

by brown's own description, his book will attempt to deflect blame for a delayed and pitifully inadequate FEMA response; to deny mismanaging the resources that were available; to bury the formaldehyde-laced trailers sent to house the thousands of homeless. and typically, to blame government for the corruption of an administration that raised haplessness to an art form...
"Whatever your persuasion is, we have to recognize is that this federal government of the United States is so large and cumbersome that we really can’t and should not expect it to be this kind of well-oiled, well-running machine. It’s not."

of course it's not. especially when it's peopled with grotesque incompetents who live to prove how useless government can be. note to those who like democracy: never vote for people who brag about how much they hate our government.

sidebar: remember this one? "no one could've predicted the failure of the levees"? yeah, that was a lie, too.

even with the benefit of five years' reflection, brownie insists the real problem in katrina's aftermath was not a failed response, but rather, bad PR.

Brown said one of his regrets is not being more straightforward with the public. "Even though we told the facts, we didn't tell it in the right context," Brown said. "We should have said, 'This is what we are doing, but its taking longer ... than we expected it to."

funny how everything takes longer when you have no idea what you're doing.

but that no longer matters. five years is forever ago in a country that can't remember what happened last week, let alone during the last administration. and hey, history notwithstanding, life's all good in brownie world...

"I'm on the number-one station in Denver, I have one book that's in print now, a second book that I'm starting to work on already, I still speak around the world, I have clients around the country, I have a company here in Denver, I have two grandkids. What's the problem?"

feed me, seymore

2010-08-24T21:44:00.001-07:00

the little needls are away at camp.

so the routine of "turn off the tv, shut down the DS, wash your hands and get in here for dinner" is temporarily suspended.

in its place is a new routine, a completely random assortment of "what are you hungry for, i don't know what do we have, we have leftovers, i had that for lunch, we need to eat this before it goes bad, and is there more wine?"

each night the missus and i scurry around cobbling together a meal generally characterizable as healthy, tasty, but mostly hasty.

tonight's menu, such as it is, includes leftover fresh pasta, leftover soup, leftover salad, and a better-than-good italian zinfandel. when the wine is good, the food gets better. this is not a coincidence.

we worry the children, by comparison, are losing weight. the list of foods they consider edible is about four items long. if the camp dinner wagon is serving up something not on the list, it's a safe bet the little needls ain't eating it.

another possibility we suspect, but cannot confirm, is that their dietary habits change away from home. that when they get hungry enough they temporarily expand their menu by an item or three. surely these children would not be that intellectually inconsistent.

but, it's camp. what doesn't kill them makes them complain louder.

programming update: the leftover salad on tonight's menu has been replaced by stir-fried brussels sprouts. the leftover pasta has been replaced by fresh bread with cheese, olives and roasted tomatoes. we now rerturn you to your regularly scheduled torpor.

the children are away four more nights. in that time we plan to make this new routine permanent.

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tough on the outside

2010-08-15T21:30:00.001-07:00

my wife is a tough chick.

the toughening started early, as the youngest of five children~four of them girls. her parents were hoping to add one more boy to the mix, see, and her mother, so disappointed by the announcement ~ "it's another girl!" ~ allegedly was despondent.

i'm not saying the child was subesquently neglected, but if she didn't finish the bottle quick enough, her mom gave the rest to the dog. her hand-me-downs came from a pack of javelinas. and on cold swim team mornings, she was the child voted most likely to test the water temperature.

somewhere along the way her mother told her, "you'll never be pretty, so you better be smart." nice, huh?

unfortunately, my wife believed it. and even though she grew up to be quite lovely, she's always seen herself as the ugly duckling. she also turned out to be a biomedical engineer, so at least her mom was half-right.

mrs. spaceneedl grew up in the arizona desert at a time when sun exposure was maximized and sunscreen was unheard of. years of cumulative skin damage eventually manifested itself as a series of basal cell carcinomas. on her arm, her back, her shoulder, and her face (three times).

off to the dermatologist she'd go, for assorted cryosurgeries, excisions and grafts, endured matter-of-factly.

sidebar: we've been together a long time-~26 years, if you can imagine~further proof of her courage. the years have been good, mostly, with enough bad to make us appreciate the difference. the missus has stoically dealt with adult-onset asthma. a thrice-broken tailbone. four miscarriages. the loss of her mom to cancer. three primary cancers for her dad.

there's more, but you get the idea.

last week she went in to have another basal cell growth removed from her nose. it was supposed to be a relatively quick procedure...excision, a couple sutures, a few uncomfortable days. no big deal.

turns out, it was more complicated.

the growth was larger than expected, so the doctor had to remove more tissue from a place where there isn't much excess to begin with. this meant that the fix was more involved, as well. there were a couple graft options, one of which was invasive and barbaric-sounding. the other was no picnic, either, but seemed slightly less horrific.

she came out of the hospital with a large white wrap on her nose, swollen cheeks, and eyes just starting to blacken. so much for the minor procedure.

this morning it was time to change the bandages.

"i dreamed there were just three little Xs on my nose," she said, "and i thought, 'wow, that's not so bad after all.'"

standing at the mirror, i told her, "this is not the time to assess how it looks. two months from now you can make an assessment. this morning is as bad as it's going to be. from here on it gets nothing but better."

she paused, then peeled back the gauze. her nose was criss-crossed with stiches and red, raw-looking tissue. it looked intensely painful, and you could see her calculating how ugly it'd make her by her mom's standard.

after a few quiet moments, she cried.

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plan B

2010-08-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

plan A never goes according to plan.

most often, plan A goes sideways the millisecond after you put the finishing touches to it. good thing you've got a back-up plan, huh?

nuh-uh. same thing applies to plan B and plan C and so on through the alphabet.

because no plan can account for the many variables you can think of, and all those you'd never conjure up in your most intricate anxiety dream.

so while planning is very conscientious and comforting and human, it's mostly an exercise in delusion. the next time you think you're in control of the situation, no matter how innocuous the situation may seem, take a step back and allow yourself the languid terror of imagining how many ways you might be wrong.

it won't make you feel better, but it'll bring you into the moment like a rake handle between the eyes.

and what could be more fun that that?

let's say, by way of example, that you have a deep, oppressive fear of flying. despite your fear and your careful avoidance of airplanes, some improbable set of variables aligns to absolutely require air travel. so you suck it up and get on the plane. settling into your seat, every sound you hear~from the loading of bags to the closing of the cargo door to the hissing of the ventilation system~confirms what you already know: the plane is seriously malfunctioning and inevitably going down.

take-offs and landings, you know, are the most dangerous. so as you roll down the runway, gaining terrifying speed, you hold your breath and wait for the end...which doesn't come! yet.

in flight, you're quite certain that every bump is the one with your name on it, the one that will put the plane into an unrercoverable dive. next thing you know, however, the captain is asking the flight attendants to prepare for landing. already? is it possible? still, you're not ready to be grateful, as the landing will shirley be disastrous.

but no, the landing is flawless, and as you taxi toward the gate, you're ecstatic. everything went according to (somebody's) plan. you take a deep breath and smile. almost simultaneously, you hear shouting. there's a disturbance behind you. people are fighting!

is it 9/11 all over again? the world goes dim, and you faint... only to learn later that the hijacking was just a flight attendant having a hissy fit and exiting the plane. down the escape slide with a couple beers in hand.

not part of the plan. and now you're traumatized in a whole new way.

moving on, let's say you're sitting in the waiting area of a local hospital. it's quite luxurious, really, compared with, say, the rest of the world. you got your comfy chairs, your cable tv, your multiplicity of outlets powering everyone's wifi-enabled devices. hungry? there's a nice internet cafe. bon apetit.

there are so many creature comforts and distractions, it's almost possible to completely compartmentalize where you are and what might be happening just beyond the big gray door over there on the right side of the room. almost. because someone you care about is having surgery right through that door.

and if you accidently allow yourself a stray moment of high alert~entirely appropriate given the surroundings~you remember that anything can happen the next time that door opens and someone in scrubs walks through.

it's a slow-motion moment in which you can hear yourself breathe and feel the blood moving through your veins and you experience the same feeling your ancestors did when they realized the wolf pack had caught their scent and was turning in their direction.

not part of the plan.

this is not to say that every plan goes upside down whenever the wind blows, ushering in an epoch of suffering and darkness (the bush administration notwithstanding). most plans play out just he way they're constructed, blithely unperturbed by the infinite variables whizzing past. any one of which could send the planet spiraling into the sun, but somehow doesn't.

no, this is simply to say that as responsible as we all are, planning and forecasting and predicting with such adorable certainty...there's really no such thing. and the sooner we realize that plans A through Z have gone hilariously awry, all through history, the sooner we get to beer o'clock. metaphysically, that is.

speaking of which...

ahhhh.

it's good to have a plan.

Sent from my iPad

this side of history

2010-08-09T17:17:00.000-07:00

you almost have to laugh.

at a time when teabaggers and racists and hatemongers of other varying stripes are campaigning viciously against anything and everything not lily white, it turns out we're all africans.

that's right, billy bob...you're one of them coloreds.

in this context one could stipulate the "color" might be that of the sitting u.s. president, or of immigrants from anywhere but western europe, or of those marching under a rainbow banner.

but for the moment we'll stick to the science at hand, which suggests that all of humanity is descended from a population of homo sapiens, perilously close to ice age extinction, on the extreme southern tip of africa.

is it not a laugh riot? is it not a screaming outrage? is it not at least a deep (dark) shade of ironic?

take, for a moment, the long view of that premise. that all seven billion of us currently overwhelming this fragile little planet can trace our lineage back to a small band of humans hanging on by their gnawed-to-the-bone fingernails at the far end of some long-melted glacier.

in africa.

that means you, bobbie jill, are royalty. in that you're related to queen latifah.

how do you like you now?

despite this collective brush with greatness, some are still having trouble processing.

you there, waving the "obama, monkey see monkey spend" poster...if the harvard-educated president is a monkey, what does that make you? wait, don't answer. it's a trick question! it makes a monkey out of you, too! only more so!

and you there, stoically holding the "god hates fags" sign. setting aside the presumption that you know what god thinks, if he does hate fags, guess what? he hates you, too! whoops! boy, are you gonna look silly sharing a sauna in the gay section of hell, huh?

and hey, does this sound at all familiar?

"We need the National Guard to clean out all our cities and round them up...They have no problem slitting your throat and taking your money or selling drugs to your kids or raping your daughters, and they are evil people." (Chris Simcox, co-founder of the Minuteman Project and president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.)

hey, chris! you sound exactly like a historical figure from the last century who also thought it'd be a great idea to "round them up and clean out our cities"! any chance you're related? wait, don't answer. it's a trick question! you actually are related! ain't science grand?

americans (like every other nationality) are a confused, conflicted people. we don't know who we are or where we come from, let alone where we're heading. but one thing we do know is that we hate the people who are trying to destroy us...and they're everywhere. most of them are muslims. and blacks. and browns. and gays. and democrats. and socialists. and teachers. and firefighters. and cops. you know, real subversives. and they all want to build a religious community center near your house.

that, as we all know, can't be allowed under any circumstances. the ground surrounding our homes is hallowed, and the building of a religious structure anywhere within a 100-mile radius is a grave insult.

psyche...it's a ymca. ha ha.

random question from a true american: "is guatemala close to greece? they both begin with G..." no, seriously.

elena kagan. nancy pelosi. harry reid. judge vaughn walker. barack hussein obama. the list goes on and on...they're not like us, you know.

well, except for the fact that they are us. literally.

it's an african thing, bubba. turns out you would understand after all.

Sent from my iPad

very little ado about nothing

2010-07-31T23:16:00.001-07:00

the ipad and blogger.com don't get along.

it's one of the few things an ipad won't do elegantly, conveniently, and better than anything originating in redmond, wa.

like many things in this life, however, there are workarounds. in this case, it's the ability to put up a blog post straight from email. i compose said email, send it to a specific blogger.com address, and viola. instapost.

* * * * *

the excruciating, months-long implosion of the seattle mariners continues with nauseating predictability. it goes like this: the starting pitching is stellar, giving up two or three runs. the offense doesn't score at all. mariners lose.

in the alternative, the starting pitching gives up bunches of runs, but the offense accidently puts up bunches plus one. the bullpen then blows the lead in gut-wrenching walk-off fashion. mariners lose.

another, less frequent, aberration: in a riveting pitchers duel, the game goes into extra innings. seattle puts hundreds of runners in scoring position in every frame, but can't push anybody across. eventually, inevitably, mariners lose.

today, seattle ace felix hernandez gave up three runs in the first inning, then dug in and allowed nothing through the next six innings. the offense responded with familiar futility, picking up their teammate by scoring...zero runs. mariners lose.

somewhere in the middle of a 6-23 july, a player went berserk in the dugout and showed up the manager on national tv. the front office responded by saying...nothing. the player wasn't even reprimanded, let alone suspended. the manager, we assume, isn't long for his job.

i know: it's only excruciating if you let it be. still...damn.

* * * * *

the seafair torchlight parade made its way through downtown seattle tonight. the highlight of the evening was the seafair pirates, who glowered and waved swords and fired their cannon and said "arrrgh!" in a pirate-y way.

the crowd applauded loudly for the police, fire department, and military drill units that went by. oddly, they cheered the guys cleaning up after the horses just as loudly. no idea what to make of that. the mayor of seattle was neither cheered nor jeered as he rolled by in a red corvette. given his environmentalist credentials, he must've been conflicted about riding in a corvette. given that he's a politician, he must've felt odd about the total apathy he inspired.

* * * * *

it's late. mrs. spaceneedl is asleep on the couch. the dogs are snoozing in their various spots around the living room. the little needls are asleep, finally, after spending last night at a "lock-in" sleepover at boys and girls club...where they apparently slept not at all. not coincidently, they were surly all day today.

* * * * *

tomorrow: a walk to the village for coffee, followed by yoga, laundry, grocery shopping, and listening to new music (downloaded to the ipad) while cooking dinner.

lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.

Sent from my iPad

survivors guide to living

2010-07-23T20:03:00.001-07:00

just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone
suzanne the plans they made put an end to you
i walked out this morning and i wrote down this song
i just can't remember who to send it to

oh, i've seen fire and i've seen rain
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end
i've seen lonely times when i could not find a friend
but i always thought that i'd see you again

won't you look down upon me jesus
you've gotta help me make a stand
you've just got to see me through another day
my body's aching and my time is at hand
and i won't make it any other way

* * * * *
in "deep survival" laurence gonzales writes there are two kinds of people. survivors and victims.

survivors, he says, are rule breakers. they are independent in mind and spirit. in a tough situation, they do better than people who follow the rules and stick to the plan, no matter how badly the plan has gone awry.

"when a patient is told that he has six months to live, he has two choices: to accept the news and die, or to rebel and live. people who survive cancer in the face of such a diagnosis are notorious. the medical staff observes that they are 'bad patients,' unruly, troublesome. they don't follow directions. they question everything. they're annoying. they're survivors.

"the tao te ching says, 'the rigid person is a disciple of death...the soft, supple, and delicate are lovers of life.' "

boys, quite often, don't fit that last description. not on the outside, anyway.
the boy at our house is soft-hearted and emotionally susceptible, but he wants
the world to believe he's wizened and grizzled and hard-shelled.

we're willing to play along, sometimes. to that end, we recently sent him to a
week-long ymca b.o.l.d. (boys outdoor leadership development) camp in the north cascades.

the idea is to cultivate confidence through the development of wilderness survival skills, some of which might be applicable elsewhere in life. or to just hike around and do some fishing outside the city. whichever.

the boy came back complaining bitterly about a week of privation and forced marches and giant mosquitos and an epic failure, fish-catching-wise. and yet on his return, he was inexplicably exhuberant, as if he'd passed a great test of pre-adolescenthood.

there's no telling what of any long-term value he may have internalized, but maybe he picked up one insight that'll help turn him into a survivor.

maybe somewhere down the road he'll stop and think, "you know, when i went in the lake with my boots on, my feet got wet and stayed that way for two days. that experience taught me that it may not be a good idea to pee on this electric fence, or to pet this pit bull, or to get in this car with my drunk friend."

all we can do is put him in position to learn, and hope for the best.

* * * * *

my friend kary was a survivor. life handed her a raw deal several months ago, but instead of accepting the bad news, she stood and fought.

she endured chemo and bone marrow biopsies and seizures. she ignored an indifferent doctor who told her she had a week to live, and lived on. she kicked a dangerous lung infection so she could undergo a bone marrow transplant, which was cause for much hope.

but acute myelogenous leukemia is a bitch of a disease, and eventually it fought kary to a draw. life's rulebook tells us that in case of a tie, death wins. but kary never gave up, never let the specter change who she was. she showed us what it means to be a survivor instead of a victim.

since no one gets out alive, that's about the best example any of us can set.

at sea

2010-07-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

several years ago i fell in love with a painting.

(which is something i hardly ever do.)

it's a riot of blue in a spray of hues and textures. the color explodes off the canvas like a serene bay befrenzied by a hurricane. the eye is frantically led across the scene, top to bottom, corner to corner, but never finds a safe place to land. the patterns we all instinctively seek to help us make sense of our world are nowhere to be found. the chaos is as profound as the very human need to either organize it or escape it.

to that end, in the midst of the bedlam, my eye sees the suggestion of a sail. there's no encouragement that the ship it might be attached to will find its way to safety... just an inkling that such a thing might be possible.

the painting was created by a friend who was going through a difficult time, and to me it exudes the powerful emotions she might have been feeling. i was mesmerized the first time i saw it, so much so that i offered to buy it. (purchasing art -- something else i hardly ever do.) i think eventually i might've offered two or three times, but she wasn't ready to part with it.

flash forward several years to a couple weeks ago, when this note came from my friend...

"So, I have been thinking for the last week and a half that I need to ship the blue painting to you. It's been really strange -- a really strong feeling that I should give it to you. So, dammit, I am. :-)"

i will tell you i stared at those words for a long time, trying to paste together a narrative, a logical explanation for why they came when they did. sitting here tonight, i still can't do it. because the timing coincided with the waning days of another friend who was transitioning through the last stages of leukemia.

she died the day before the message arrived.

i have no idea what metaphysical forces swirl around us. i can't say, "i was feeling pain for a friend, and another friend on the other side of the country came along at exactly the right time to pick me up in a way that defies rational thought."

i don't know what any of this says about anything. but knowing how much i don't know...i'm willing to go with the flow.

and to be grateful for friends, across time, and in the face of the unknowable.

* * * * *

the painting arrived at our house yesterday. it's as beautiful and moving as i remembered it. thank you, maggie.

* * * * *

for kary and frederica

anadarko stormy night

2010-07-09T10:21:00.001-07:00

so i'm sitting here looking out the window at a hummingbird.

it hovers, moves in for some breakfast, backs out, takes another look, goes back in. and so on.

and i'm thinking, "what an amazing and startling and beautiful adaptation. fast yet maneuverable. delicate and absurdly strong. nature does some nice work, doesn't she?"

and then i think, "wouldn't it be neat to dump a couple barrels of oil on that hummingbird? and all the flowers in our yard, while we're at it? after that, we could set the whole scene on fire."

that would be fun.

if you're BP. or halliburton. or the aptly named anadarko. they love that kind of spirit-obliterating overkill. why dump one barrel of oil on a hummingbird when you can dump two?

or two billion?

i'd be a little vexed, however, if hell's oil hounds wouldn't at least let us take a few photos of our newly and gloriously besludged homestead while it was still smoldering. i mean, if you're going to go to all the trouble of despoiling and defiling and de-lifing an ecosystem, no matter how large or small, why not take a little pride in your work?

inexplicably, that's what's happening on the gulf coast. anadarko (one of the hosts of the gala in the gulf) is scuttling away from its friends like a crab off a rotting sea turtle. they're refusing to help pay for damages, insisting BP is the reason for the goo-covered season.

BP says it is disappointed by the announcement and will evaluate its options about what to do next. "They have failed to live up to their obligations," BP spokesman Mark Salt said in a statement.

if you can see the incongruity of BP scolding anyone for failing to live up to obligations, perhaps you can appreciate the irony of sending Salt to bemoan BP's wounds.

but back to the hummingbird.

you know what'd be really fun? if the bird fought back. not in a global warming kind of way, which is gradual and imperceptible and totally unsatisfactory, justice-wise.

but in a "carrie" kind of way, in which nature, drenched and demeaned and debauched one time too many, just. plain. snaps.

in our little dramedy, we'd cut to wide shots of countless deepwater oil rigs all over the globe. without fanfare, all of them are sucked down in violent whirlpools, disappearing without a trace.

next, we'd cut to mid-shots of oil executives, sitting in obscenely plush board rooms, sipping black pearl brandy, laughing about "the little people." they spontaneously combust (the brandy, however, is spared).

at this point, we cut to a long shot of a massive sandstorm enveloping the athabasca oil sands. the project sign is broken off and comes to rest on top of a dune. the project itself is buried, impenetrably, forever.

the music builds as we see a horrifying, extreme close-up of dick cheney. his face gets increasingly red as he reads rolling online reports of the demise of his favorite hobby (after war profiteering and torture). his head explodes.

outside cheney's window a hummingbird appears, hovers briefly, then turns and flies away, toward a panoramic wide shot of the wyoming mountains at sunset.

dissolve to a medium close-up of the hummingbird, accompanied by the sound of a symphony of strings, flying high over the earth, surveying the beginnings of the healing.

fade to a clean, gauzy white.

the end.

* * * * *

yes, the fantasy would be fun. a lot more fun than the reality we're getting instead.

apropos nothing, this evening i saw an eagle flying low over our neighborhood.

* * * * *

h/t to pete wung for the atlantic link.

knee jerk

2010-06-26T13:10:00.000-07:00

a year ago i was young for my age.

now i'm old for my years.

my, how time flies when it's artificially accelerated.

it was a year ago, see, that i tore my ACL, which led to a couple surgeries, which led to a dramatic change in lifestyle.

weights and basketball and general knuckleheadedness have been replaced by walks and yoga and a bosu trainer. the knuckleheadedness remains constant.

the 9 to 5 desk has been replaced by a sit-stand work station, at which i never sit. I no longer own a pair of basketball shoes. and my clothes have been replaced by the wardrobe of someone significantly less corpulent than i.

the upside, however, is that my knee is now a more dependable predictor of rain than the weather channel.

I think the changes were long overdue, and will be to my benefit for the long haul.

but I miss the old normal.

iown. ilike.

2010-06-20T09:06:00.001-07:00

i've never been a gadget guy.

i've never felt the need to be the first on the block to own the latest widget.

that said, i'm prepared to be insufferably pleased with my new ipad.

it was a birthday/father's day/pick a holiday gift, and i'm typing on it right.this.second.

standing here on the end of technology's diving board, with billions of life-enhancing apps a short download away, i have just a whisper of remorse about this amazing toy: i wish the geniuses at apple had named it something else.

"ipad" sounds like a feminine hygiene product.

they could've gone with itablet or islate or irobot. something. anything. ipad? you can't tell me the focus groups were excited about that one.

but iquibble. the folks in cupertino got so much else right. the unpleasantness with adobe notwithstanding, of course. and the unfortunate lack of USB connectivity. and the strange absence of a web camera.

besides that, i mean.

first task at hand: getting off the work computer.

the thing's a piece of PC junk. compared to an apple product, it's awkward and inelegant and uninspiring. not to mention the fact it doesn't belong to me. that makes it a bad place for vacation photos, the music library and other nonwork stuff.

once that transmogrification is done, there's lots of exploring to do. i'm not big on user's manuals, but then again the ipad doesn't have one. not an old-media version, anyway. so i guess i'll just have to dive in and swim around awhile.

what will it do? is there an app for yoga and wine and travel and novel-writing and boat-buying? sure there is. i just have to go find it.

what won't it do? tsk, silly question. it'll do anything clever people can imagine. if developers were into such things, it'd probably cap the deepwater horizon well, clean up the gulf, and convert the world to a rainbows and faeries-based power supply.

it'd cure cancer, locate missing children and put the 'yes we can' back into barack obama.

it'd find god, ask her if she has any good app suggestions, and implement them with a couple subtle improvements.

it might even bring summer to the pacific northwest. nah, let's not get crazy here.

sidebar: it just occurred to me that the spaceneedl family is getting all appled up. between us, in the last year or so we have acquired a macbook pro, an iphone, an ipod touch, a nano, a shuffle and this ipad. it happened over time, so gradually that we didn't even notice.

but here we are. it's an apple world. and we're living in it. what happens now?

no, don't tell me.

like this new device, let it be a pleasant surprise.

whatever. write.

2010-06-13T19:32:00.000-07:00

"write drunk, edit sober."

--ernest hemingway

the thing about writing is, there's never a lack of subject matter.

sometimes there's too much.

at such times, the brain can fail to process the wealth of options. the keys can stop working. the words get stuck and scrambled.

this is one of those times.

i can trace this trend back about three weeks to the spaceneedl family gathering in the arizona desert. one, there was no wi-fi where we were staying. so two, i didn't bring my computer with me. and three, it was an emotionally charged series of days that i still haven't sorted out.

in no particular order there was a wedding, relatives who hadn't seen each other in years, a 50th anniversary celebration for my parents, and a vigil for my father-in-law's cat, which was on its last legs.

on the upside, we did get to fly there and back in first class. the wine, while not good, was free.

the following week, i was off to san francisco, for a string of days with colleagues and several thousand of my closest urology friends. and by "friends" i mean people i've never seen before and whom i don't expect to remember even if i see them again.

those kind of friends.

while there, as previously reported, one of our cats died.

despite that, or perhaps because of it, i was overserved some excellent wine during the evening events. a bunch of us climbed california street to the tonga room at the fairmont hotel. think tiki bar meets 80s cover band. i rode a cable car for the first time ever (despite having once lived in san francisco). and we wandered, wide-eyed, through the california academy of science. the exhibits were interesting, but nearly overshadowed by the open bar, the heavy hors d'oeuvres, the cirque du soleil performers, and the tim burtonesque characters from alice in wonderland.

turns out, those urologists really know how to party.

last week there was the camp experience. about it, i tweeted thusly:

chaperoning 6th graders at camp sealth. think 'lord of the flies' in heavy rain.

getting eight sixth grade boys to work up a camp skit? sure, no problem.

sixth grade camp, day two. oh, look, kids...it's raining. again.

camp, day three. let's take a look out the weather window where it's...raining. for a change.

those observations don't entirely sum up camp. in between the tweets there was the dangerously failed archery debacle, the utterly unchallenging challenge course, soggy s'mores by the smoky campfire, and KP in the mess hall on spaghetti night. and lest we forget, ants in the beds.

there was no alcohol at camp, for a number of very good reasons. so while everyone got soaked, the adults dried out. isn't it ironic...

random rhetorical question: if the technology had existed, would hemingway have tweeted?

nevermind. stupid rhetorical question.

through these many days of joy and sorrow and celebration and melancholy and laughter and reflection and too much wine and not enough wine, i notice that i wrote nary a word about any of it.

it wasn't for lack of content, so it must've been something else.

i have no idea what.

olivia, adieu

2010-06-01T22:14:00.000-07:00

hold on, hold on to yourself
this is gonna hurt like hell

hold on, hold on to yourself
you know that only time will tell

--sarah mclachlan

olivia died this past weekend.

we don't even know why.

she was only eight years old or so, still young for a cat.

so we were prepared to go too far, spend too much, to get her healthy again. we've done it before, for the big dogs, and we were ready to do it again.

but we never got the chance.

she died overnight, at the emergency vet clinic, and we found out the next morning.

the children were sad that next day, but they seem to have gotten over it. the missus and i, however, unlearned long ago how to let go so easily.

it's not that there's a lack of life in the house. we have an abundance of the two-legged and four-legged variety.

it's that olivia was part of the fabric of that life. it's that she had a well-defined place amongst us, a vital space that is gone empty.

it's that we expected her to fill that space for many years to come.

and it's that i didn't even get the chance to say goodbye.

i'd rather be stayin' in

2010-05-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

headin' out to san francisco
for the labor day weekend show...
and honey i didn't know that i'd be missing you so
come monday, it'll be alright
come monday, i'll be holding you tight

i'm heading out today for a different kind of show. over a different holiday. but i'm heading to san francisco nonetheless.

i'll be there over memorial day, and the boy's birthday, to boot. no, i'm not kidding, and i'm not amused.

true, we had an early birthday celebration for him, and all the spaceneedls were together in a far-flung place last week. so it's not like this is a tragedy.

but there are times when the work-life balance is all effed-up. and it never seems to be in favor of the "life" part.

funny how that works. ha ha. and yet, as previously noted, i am not amused.

desert update

2010-05-17T20:03:00.000-07:00

apropos nothing, today the seattle city council voted to boycott arizona.

not me. i'm still not boycotting.

until after this weekend.

gold in the desert

2010-05-16T21:06:00.000-07:00

politically, i would prefer to boycott arizona.

instead, we're just a few days from hosting an event in scottsdale.

go figure.

in addition to the wedding we're attending on saturday, all the spaceneedls near and far are gathering sunday for a celebration of my parents' 50th anniversary.

so, on this auspicious occasion we're setting aside the political for the personal and the parental. despite the fact that we'll be behind the lines, amidst a retinue of right-wing relatives.

for this celebration of the half-century, i'm totally prepared not to talk immigration law and ethnic studies and the "we're all arizonans now" gibberish spouted by the unemployed half-term governor from alaska. these opportunities don't come along every day, after all.

i can make this proclamation as long as no one on the far right runs their mouth without engaging their brain. if that happens, no one would blame me for gently inserting a stray fact or two into the mix. verdad?

where was i? oh, yes...setting aside politics. i can totally do that. i can simply bask in my parents' enjoyment, as well as the sunshine forecast for the event. i can turn my face to the sun while turning the other cheek. i can avoid politically charged topics while recharging my solar batteries.

i want to set a good example for the newlyweds, after all. not to mention for the happy couple married almost as long as i've been alive (kidding, mom!). come to think of it, my children will be in attendance, too. that's good examples for three constituencies at least...not that i'm counting.

what could possibly go wrong in that scenario?

my pledge to my parents: in the heat of the desert, i'll leave the heated rhetoric to others. worst case, i'll referee and send everybody to the bar...after which everybody flies back to their respective corners of the country.

after 50 years of parenting, it's the least i can do.

maybe one day my children will do the same for me.

where was junior?

2010-05-12T09:10:00.000-07:00

it’s ken griffey junior’s fault.

if he hadn’t been asleep in the clubhouse, the mariners wouldn't be in an unrecoverable tailspin. they wouldn't have lost 10 of their last 12 games.

and the players wouldn't be freezing out a longtime beatwriter who had the nerve to report pesky facts about junior sleeping in the clubhouse during yet another season-killing loss.

we in america demand more from our sports icons.

where was junior when the oil rig blew up? sleeping in the clubhouse.

where was he when the arizona legislature passed its odious racial profiling legislation? snoring on his sofa.

didja know tiger woods pulled out at the players championship? and by that i mean "he walked off the course during the fourth round complaining of a neck injury." where was junior? putting on a sleep apnea clinic.

if the mariners want to pay the guy $5 million to be ichiro's designated tickler, that's their prerogative. if don wakamatsu doesn't think junior's a good pinch-hitting option over a catcher hitting a terrifying .140, hey, he's the manager.

but if junior's gonna be aleep at the switch while the rest the world falls apart around him...

well, he's no role model, that's for sure.

week and weary...

2010-05-04T15:19:00.000-07:00

the oldest person in the world died this week.

The world's oldest person, a Japanese woman on the southern island of Okinawa, has died a week before her 115th birthday, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Kama Chinen, who witnessed three centuries, was born on May 10, 1895.

i don't think it was "her time to go," necessarily. i think she was just pissed off and wasn't going to take it any more.

after several decades to think about it, she might've been increasingly annoyed that yet another generation of kids was growing up with no respect for tradition. she might have been in high dudgeon that an unruly teenager would run onto the field during a baseball game. even so, surely she was shocked to learn that the penalty for running around the outfield during the all-important phillies-cardinals game is to be hit with a few thousand volts of electricity.

did you know that hundreds of people have died after being tazed? it's true! so it's entirely possible that the penalty for teenage foolishness at a ballgame might've been death. gee, baseball's a tough sport, isn't it?

speaking of capital punishment, sort of, cops in oakland blew away bambi this week.

"...under orders to "dispatch the deer," officers shot it seven times before it died. Animal control officers were also on the scene.

Officials said the deer was gunned down because 'it was acting disoriented in an urban environment.'"

kama chinen might've been disturbed to learn that the penalty for being confused in an urban environment is death. if that's the standard these days, the vast majority of city dwellers will not only not live to be 115---many of them won't last the week.

as someone said, if you were lost in the woods, you might be acting disoriented as well. good thing bambi and his friends aren't packing heat, then, huh?

do you think kama chinen remembered hurricane katrina and FEMA director michael brown? was she cursed, like the rest of us, by an indelible memory of the half-wit president saying, "brownie, you're doing a heck of a job"?

(if by that he meant brownie was doing a heck of a job killing people, as if he were holding their heads underwater himself, then yes, brownie did one hell of a job.)

that memory alone might've been enough to push kama chinen past her breaking point. but no, there was more. brownie wasn't done killing crowds with his laseriffic perspicacity. squinting conspiratorially on fox news this week, he said the obama administration may have welcomed the damage from the river of oil (still) pouring into the gulf of mexico. because...secretly, the administration didn't support the oil companies, and wanted to shut down offshore drilling altogether.

j'accuse!!

brownie, it should be noted, is an incoherent boob whose next intelligent syllable will be his first. the fact that he's expert at arriving on the scene of a bad situation and making it much worse makes him the perfect sort to feature prominently on fox news.

how grateful are the people of nashville that brownie wasn't first on the scene of their current disaster?

Amidst the news of a car bomb attempt in New York City and the oil slick inching towards the Gulf Coast, the flood that has devastated Nashville, TN and the surrounding areas got lost.

National news outlets are reporting the story, but the damage is far, far worse than viewers are hearing.

as bad as it is, it could be worse. the brown reaper could be there wading through the streets, swinging his scythe from the grand ol' opry to dollywood. waving a "mission accomplished" banner as flood-drenched, half-drowned residents flee in panic, leaving the city a shell of its former grandeur, to be replaced by an ersatz, disneyfied replica for the tourists who go home and say, "new orleans has really bounced back, we had a great time there!"

did i say new orleans? i meant nashville. obviously.

the list of the week's pernicious events goes on and on. and on. any of them could've been the last straw for someone frail and diminutive and exhausted by humanity's changeless idiocity. let's face it, when you're 115 years old, it probably doesn't take much to rush you up to the end of the diving board...and just a little bit beyond.

the way things are going, if this week hadn't gotten little kama chinen, the next one shirley would've.