Wednesday, December 31, 2008

It ain't Merry Christmas but it'll do

Instead of starting a blog about quasars or the Gaza Strip or wallpaper or God forbid Happy Holidays and having it turn into some pro-abortion cistern of bad feeling I wanted to say something about my fellow Social Conservatives here. I don't see them poking their noses into people's lives. They live by broad social conservative principles, let's say they don't have sex outside of marriage and this covers a lot of ground I never heard of a group of them conducting surveys in their local neighborhoods on your sexual habits. The chances are very very good indeed they don't know anything about what Bob or Collins are doing or what Myself is up to (if anything, I think they talk big and wouldn't surprise me if one is 18 and blogging in his basement when he needs to be cleaning his room). In my neck of the woods I have absolutely no idea who's had or been a party to an abortion and I don't see myself trying to find out. Honestly I don't think conservatives as a rule conduct sex surveys at all, wasn't it Kinsey and Masters & Johnson who wanted to know what we were all up to? I always thought the man in the M&J team looked like that guy in Phantasm with the killer ball which brings to mind what one young wag once said on the Phil Donahue show: "how come most sex therapists look like you wouldn't want to have sex with them?" Dr. Ruth may be a veritable fount of sexual knowledge but let's pretty much keep it on an intellectual level. So besides social conservatives having a broad set of philosophical and moral principles they live by or at least try to (nothing wrong with having goals) I don't see how they're poking their nose into People's Business. I'm hearing a lot of talk of late but not much backing up. Now watch this blog get a big fat goose egg for comments and I'll start a blog about stamp collecting and everybody will unload. Fair Warning though, if you want to be an asshole and post about abortion on a totally non-abortion related topic I'm gonna delete your ass as in permanently.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

I can't put my finger on it

There's a rather sizeable subgroup of people out there, they're not bad people by any stretch, you don't hate them, they don't deserve your opprobrium but there's just something about them, they're vaguely annoying, irritating in some way. Worked with a young guy once, didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't even drink coffee because it has caffeine. He came to work every single day always it seemed with a good night's sleep under his belt. I talked about it one day with someone how he's always so highly alert, efficient and she said "he doesn't abuse his body" but I found him annoying anyway with his energy/vitamin drink he always carried around with him. He seemed too perfect, the kind who lived a perfect life, never even uncorked one in a pinch, probably has a minor fortune in the bank because he always did the right thing and saved his money, never went out on New Year's and got hammered. He never came to work complaining of a poor night's sleep and for that reason alone you can't relate to him, you begin to think he's hiding some vast and dark secret, dust off the skeleton in the closet oh boy! as my friend said some people will put down gays but they'll be living weird lives themselves. I remember reading a newsletter from Fr. Bruce Ritter of Covenant House fame and how he was driving one day and on came Dr. Ruth with her "evil little chortle" as he put it (good line though) but look what happened to him. So the guy always did the same thing everyday, he'd sometimes go without his lunch maybe not so much to impress but because virtue demanded it. As a Religious Extremist I should have liked the guy but he was so perfect you began thinking if you hired a crane and tore down his house somewhere beneath the ruins would be his scat video collection or hire a PI and you'd find him going into some dungeon. You don't drink you don't smoke I'm cool with that, you don't have your cup of coffee or tea in the morning and you got my curiosity up bossman,

what's your story?

As a person...

...who feels that the majority of us do not wind up in Hell as a religious extremist I'm somewhat of a disappointment. I've always maintained it's a theological mystery and have a problem when priests or ministers go out on a limb here in their sermons. I'm not dogmatic either, it's none of the pastor's business imo how many times Lino circle-jerked on a Friday night. I find it hard not to be spiritual though and if anything anti-religious extremism is a problem. When Michael Schiavo forbade the hospice chaplain from giving Terri a drink of wine as part of the Last Rites that's pretty creepy in my book but anywho let's get to the nub or the hub shall we and define this case known in the lefty blogosphere as Religious Extremism, as it stands now it's a little vague and I invite as much bloviating and ranting as possible. If you don't believe in mermaids then why do you obsess about them?

Friday, December 26, 2008

Someone once told me the brain is like a computer

sometimes it needs to be reprogrammed. From drug abuse to disease you need to have the software put in again from time to time and maybe this will be the key to understanding modern medicine in the future. Might be a better pro-choice debate as well, had to have been some acidhead to come up with a rationale for partial-birth. Some people never sleep they're so wired, you have to shut the computer off at night you know and even then dreams are Nature's way of working out issues while you're asleep. Looking at some old black and white photographs is like googling your memory or mindbank, it's a wealth of data and I've been wondering of late why so many TV series having a new season start showing repeats about half way through, shouldn't be unless the writers are on drugs, Life gives you too much material I would think. People who masturbate your mind.

The thing I find annoying about smokers

Has nothing to do with the morality or health of the issue but a woman came over for Christmas and I'm watching her. Just in the door and she lights up and I'm fine, immediately after that she lights one up again and barely ten minutes go by and she's on her third one, another guest doing the same thing. It ain't the second-hand smoke either, I allow guests considerable social latitude it's that they ain't even enjoying it like you would a fine cigar or a pipe. Chain-smoking, hell why don't they just eat them? shove 'em in their mouth for lunch, have one coming out of the nostril and both ears while we're at it. It's a vile habit in the sense there's no sophistication involved like seeing a Cannon (William Conrad) fly-fishing in a trout stream with some apple tobacco wafting out of his pipe -- now that's living.

Monday, December 22, 2008

thoughts on a cold winter's night

musing while under the influence

They say you need to get that piece of paper to make it in Life but the real problem with Higher Education is not liberal college professors indoctrinating their class in the ways of radical leftism, WGAF?, the eggheads have a right to think and talk but the real issue is the typical liberal arts curriculum is so impractical. IMO you can't force someone to like the Bard or learn calculus and I've as yet to use higher math in my day-to-day affairs. You need to hone in and zone in on what truly interests you and that's where your trade or technical school is far better. Two years of college was enough for me, I now know who Jean-Paul Sartre was so I can now drop it in my blogging and impress everybody, yip-tee-doo! Like my chef friend says in France someone who knows how to cook is revered, over here you're kind of considered a failure, you're not up there on the same par with a clinical psychologist with a built-in pool in his backyard and a tennis court. People like you, oh you can cook? but like THAT'S IT??

Thoughts during Catholic worship. Nowadays practically 95% of the congregation goes up to Communion. Me? maybe half the time, the other half I don't feel worthy, there's something about the slime of sin, nothing major mind you but these folks who go up every Sunday without fail, are they that good?? I'm not buying it. Now the ones who sit it out, the few in the back who stick out like sore thumbs, the 40-something guy in the rear, you can't help but wonder what he did. It's none of my business but I think it involves a porno.

I have a beautiful view from my window during those bone-chilling winter nights. I can see downtown Yonkers and parts of Manhattan and there's just a gorgeous view of the GW Bridge. Life is good but I don't know why.

Seems to me they should have a system in place, some kind of heating cables under our roads right now so driving in January and February would be a breeze. Futuristic you say? well we found time to put a man on the Moon but we're like supposed to be some advanced civilization no? Of course this would cut into bailout money but you know at least have a theory in place by now.

Reminds me I have to get some eggnog, special blend later.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Buffers or the value of bad workers

EVERY place needs at least a few bad workers, there shouldn't be too many of them in any one workplace of course just one or two mind you and here's the reason why. They're buffers, let me say that again, you're working with a couple of buffers. A buffer is a bad worker but who is beneficial to you, he/she takes the boss's mind off what you're doing and onto what they're doing and it's always fun to talk about the buffer anyway, it's water cooler talk and would you rather they talk about you? The buffer just called out sick and threw a wrench into the whole work schedule so the boss starts talking about Ray as usual and you put in your two cents "yeah that Ray, what's up with that? calling out sick at the last minute. In my day..." so everybody likes to complain about Ray. What you want to do is never ever see the buffer(s) get fired, you certainly don't want to be instrumental in their firing yourself, you'll come to regret it later. Yeah the buffers get canned and you're all happy the next day but then the boss starts noticing more of what you're doing, those minor mistakes they always pick up on and you don't know what you had 'til you lost it, them were the days. Once worked with a kid, annoying as hell, always coming to work late with the most flimsy excuses but over time you find you can't hate him and that's the key to recognizing good buffer material, you don't know it yet but something tells you he's valuable as long as there's not too many of them and that's also pivotal to Z's Buffer Theory as long as they're not overly common their value actually increases. You actually become very tolerant of them whereas in the past you hated their guts, I mean it's not like the whole workplace sucks and once you recognize the practical reality of the situation you can more than deal with it, hell you might even buy him a beer. So never underestimate the value of a bad worker.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

What's up with Ann Curry?

Channel-surfing last night and came across Dateline NBC and for once they weren't talking about "and her body was found in pieces in a ditch off the Interstate" and so I watched. Had on America's best known pastor after Billy Graham, Rick Warren who penned the #2 bestseller of all-time after the Good Book called "The Purpose-Driven Life." So far so good but you just knew something's up and sure enough right before the commercial break Ann promised to tell us what Rick did to "create a firestorm among the gay community" or was that "a storm of controversy"? I forget. Anyway the tempest wasn't in the straight community just the LGBT crowd and hold the mayo. Seems the Rev. Rick donated millions of his own money to combat AIDS around the world but backed California's Proposition 8 which banned gay marriage in that state so Ann with furrowed brow and darts of fire in her eyes chastised him "don't you see how you hurt the gay community?" Now I really don't care which side of the issue you come down on but I'm from the Olde School see, journalists like Curry should just give us the news straight and not get all emotional, the poor gal had that uncomprehending look as if she were interviewing some serial killer. It was purpose-driven reporting (like that?). Hey bossman what's up? why'd you piss off Ann Curry like that?

Friday, December 19, 2008

Weather dramatists

Blizzards are newsworthy, don't get me wrong but today happens to be my day off and we're supposed to get a little mess up here in the Northeast, maybe a few inches at best and more of a rain/slush mix later on than anything. So last night I'm watching the different 10 o'clock news's in the tri-state area and they're all leading off with the forecast as can be expected. Ain't no big thing so I channel-surf for a few and come back ten minutes later and Ch. 11 is still talking about it, this in a city that just had its transit fares hiked 23%! In a nation plagued by high-blood pressure can't these weather celebrities ratchet it down a notch? I went to a local library before and they had a big sign on their front door "due to the weather library will reopen Saturday at 9:30 AM" but it hasn't even happened yet, not one flake has fallen!! If there's one thing I absolutely hate it's a lack of calm, this pall of stress that falls on people because they watch too much media. Take it easy Mr. G, we'll get through it and in the meantime pop a Zoloft.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

travelblogging, my landmark is the trump building

Had the day off yesterday and we went to the Yonkers Raceway Diner, had the Irish Breakfast and he had the Country-Style. You always have to have a cup of joe in a diner, it's mandatory and so I suggest we go to the newly renovated Greenburgh Public Library which just reopened yesterday. We work our way there, it's a meandering roadtrip as always 'cause that's how we like to do it and we pass the porno guy. He's a little shop on a busy, heavily traveled commercial thoroughfare and my friend goes "what's up with the main entrance? People go to this place, people they know can see them going in. It should have a back entrance or something, you have to go to the back of the hardware store first and then go through the sewer system." "Yeah, he can meet you midway in the ventilation duct." On the way to the fresh SuperLibrary, you can feel the pull of the magnetic structure at this point and I have a slight problem with our celebrity culture and media overexposure: "Jennifer Aniston does nothing for my life, how does it help?" We go inside the library, it's modern and hip architecture all the way, a corporate look, more spatial dimensions than anything else and it's so damn quiet. I know libraries are supposed to be this way but it's more than a tad eerie. You get that very strong futuristic sense "like some android or cyborg in a white lab coat asks if he can help you" - "I'm not John Connor." Great computer lab here though, a guy can blog his heart away. The main goal of our trip now over he says let's go over to the White Plains Mall. It's easy to go to from here, just follow the Landmark. I'm not too thrilled with this place, it's rundown and doesn't even have a FYE store but he tells the story of it's one of the original malls in the country. I think it's gangster but we go anyway. The comic and graphic books store is closed though on Tuesdays, must be the dork's high holy day or something so we hit the Japanese supermarket instead. Great seafood area, a big squid on ice with its eye looking at you, 10+ lb. bluefish, red snappers, Chilean Sea Bass, blue-claw crabs. Not too keen on the butcher section though, there's some cow tongue on display, some stomachs but I'm told it's a cultural thing, the Japanese use every part of the animal, it's their way of honoring it. That's nice but I think I'll pass on the chicken feet. We were barely in the mall for half an hour, maybe a little more and the municipal parking cost us 3 dollars!! (thuganomics). Now we're right up close to the new Trump Building in White Plains, a monstrosity, a beacon, a landmark, a tribute to EGO and my friend says he can see it all the way from the Palisades Parkway in Jersey. No matter where I drive I can see it for literally miles, it could even pass for a navigational marker for extraterrestrials. We drive past the wholesale flower place we used to work at, it's a nostalgic thing but it's now an electrical supply company, nothing lasts anymore it seems, New World Order stuff. We head on home, we could get a porno air freshener but we pass. It was a good day and you kick back and you smoke your Gispert that you bought the other day at Mom's Cigars and you ponder it. The stars are out now as it's unnaturally pitch black at 5 in the evening. Goat testicles?

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

A philosophy of work

Talking with Beth last night and we got on the subject of work. Now workaholics which seem to be reproducing at quite a fast clip these days, we agreed it's hard to work with them when you don't have the same philosophy. These chipper little Republicans act like they're working in some ER or something when it might only be an office setting and a close relative of the workaholic is the taskmaster, you know when you have 15 minutes left before you go home and want to wash up a little and rap but they find something else for you to do. Now I've always been a hard worker, I pump it out and then some but like my chef friend once said why can't you have fun at work too? Work enables me to do things in my life I wouldn't otherwise be able to do if I didn't work but for me it's not an end in itself. I don't define my life primarily by what I do which seems to be the cultural formula these days and Dennis Miller once joked in one of his books if you work at only one job you're in the minority. A guy'll come up to you at work and go "so what else do you do?" Dunno, fishing, boating, photography, a little blogging here and there, why do you ask? So what's your philosophy of work? are you one of those people who have married their jobs? do your hips start pumping into the air when a little OT is proposed to you? do you punch out at the end of the day but linger as if you can't believe it's really over and tomorrow's another day? God bless ya but if you become my boss I'm giving my two weeks.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Before I blog about OTHER things

some final thoughts on the issue (for now). Reading through the latest rantings of the choicers it's become fairly obvious to me at least that the issue of when human life begins is not a part of their moral calculus. No this is not being uncivil just an analysis on my part and so for them the value of choice trumps the value of life, in other words it is vastly more important to exercise your liberty in the form of choice even if that choice may involve the snuffing out of a nascent human life. For the RTLers life of course is the overriding concern and it is this very stark simplicity that most offends the choice crowd. They seem to revel in ambiguity and moral ambivalence, to say the issue is complex is to show one's mental sophistication and to oversimplify the issue in their view shows the mind of a social Neanderthal. Theirs is the intellect and ours is the narrow mind even after a lifetime of thinking to yourself you happen in the end to come to the pro-life conclusion. Abortion will for the foreseeable future be a tremendously polarizing issue simply because for the choicers it is factors other than pure reason that decides the issue for them (e.g. the woman's financial straits, is she really in love with him? can they make a go of it? etc).

Now there are some choicers, they may be in the minority, but you can say they're pro-life in the latter stages of the pregnancy and so if they don't find fault with the pro-life position here why is it problematic in the beginning unless to provide the woman with some sort of "window of opportunity"? So with these people you might say choice is not the overriding principle or it is at least tempered with other considerations. The abortion lobby and Obama's 100% rating from them is unique in being so outside the mainstream by adopting the mantra of choice throughout the pregnancy or most of it so why should fiscal conservatives adopt the same position at least in terms of the political strategy of never talking about the issue (but I'm repeating myself here ain't I)?

A final thought, speaking totally candidly here for the moment I honestly don't respect their position so why should I expect them to respect mine? As Joe once said abortion is a non-compromisable issue and I would add once an issue, any issue becomes debateable at least in terms of its underlying philosophical concepts it's only a matter of time before the act in question becomes morally approveable, we don't discuss the pros and cons of rape after all. For me civility means you're polite to other people as human beings although you can take issue with their positions. We're talking over each other as is often said because we adhere to different philosophical principles, for me I can't imagine believing the fetus is a member of the human species and then advocate for its destruction or at least the liberty to do so, the value of choice loses its luster for me at that moment. Post what you will but try to address the points (I know I know, I'm a comedian).

Thursday, December 11, 2008

What drives me as a blogger

Vis-a-vis abortion the choicers see it as intensely personal and so case-sensitive. Let's say they may have made this crushing decision they have to live with, it's our own personal hell, don't touch it, don't go there whereas the lifers of whom I consider myself a member rightly see it as a life being taken, for the choicers this is too abstract. I've been told at times I come across as a prosecutor, a good guy at Hannityland once said I had some good points but I come across as shrill. What drives me is pure reason and this goes a long way towards explaining why I push my points more often to the breaking point of my opposite in the debate and I probably do this more than other social conservatives. I am against abortion but even more than this I am passionately against bad thinking. Put it another way even if I was pro-choice I'd still hold my side to task. Take moral relativism and subjectivism, now I understand when you're new to an issue you have the right to think it through but eventually you have to come to conclusions so I'm not against intellectual freedom and using your mind but relativism shows a deep flaw in man's thinking, a mole in his character as Hamlet might put it. With situational ethics (relativism goes by so many different names) there's no foundation to build on, there's no possibility for some real intellectual progress, it's a kind of non-position and this is celebrated as an end in itself by the choicers. It's as if subjective morality is a permanent philosophy. I absolutely hate the illogic of the other side, not them, and it's this permanent mindset that disturbs me. I hate bad thinking and abortion just happens to be a classic example of this, it's the perfect springboard for a much needed foray into logic and to address the common flaws in how people think in general. It sounds hubristic to say one is motivated by pure reason in your blogging style, you demand an answer and if this comes across as confrontational it's simply that pure reason demands better answers than the ones we've been getting and for good measure it's also a game which makes it fun. The challenge for the choicers then is this, come up with an intellectually respectable position buttressed by unassailable points although I don't think it can be done. Abortion is a Rubik's Cube and I'm not afraid to assert I'm right, again nothing personal intended.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

They doth protest too much

Daniel has made the decision to moderate the commenters over at his blog and has closed off his most recent pro-life thread "An End to Abortion." I can understand his decision so I will address those commenters like collins directly right here. I was discussing this with someone yesterday and she said people have abortions and they do this and they do that and no wonder everyone's so unhappy these days. I don't know anything about these people's personal lives nor care to but I think what drives alot of heat on the pro-choice side these days, the almost exorcistic rantings is guilt, they doth protest too much, it's personal Beth. As the woman I was talking to said "imagine you did something like this, how would you feel?" I also sense that some of the bloggers at Daniel's and elsewhere may be working for the abortion lobby, the lines are straight out of the Planned Parenthood playbook. With the notable exception of Erik who is genuinely pro-choice in my book Bob, Myself, TR and the rest of the gang reek of pro-abortionism which is their right of course but they're not really honest about it. Mention religion and they go into some kind of epileptic seizure thing, it's amazing those well into adulthood can still talk this way and it's indeed very tempting to make a personal judgement against them and the rest of the pro-abortion movement but I'll refrain, as they say it ain't Christian. None of my points were addressed AT ALL and if you said you'd pray for them they'd get even more unhinged. Also, regarding this issue and others like it civility is overrated, needed of course and you should try but a civil presentation of your views will not convince them, they're really not looking for a better tone although they may say so, they really hate you. If anything I think pro-lifers have been way too civil for way too long and should kind of man up about it and jab back if need be. It's been too often said imo that debates about abortion give off more heat than light, I say so be it it's not the light they're after anyway. And btw when you're a guest at somebody's house and have to use the facilities flush after you're done and wipe the rim, put the seat back down and leave it as you came in, you're a guest after all. Tell the owner you had a nice meal and a good time and go home. So that's that.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Celebrity stalkers

Not a week or even a few days go by it seems without reading about the latest celebrity stalker case. Now this is either a bogus issue or I'm not getting it. I scan the pages with my morning cup of joe, I see Alyssa Milano has one now so it's probably the usual details so I don't even read it and turn the page. They're now brief AP dispatches or something. Now Milano has gone on the record as saying she doesn't believe in monogamy, that it's unnatural so even if she does say yes right off the bat you have some issues, your average stalkeroon being rather ideologically inflexible. Now a long time ago you never really heard about stalkers as such so either stalking is in vogue or concern about it is, it's hard to tell which. My friend put his usual spin on things a while back, it's a sexy scenario he said, the cops protecting the woman and some of them ain't bad looking just like in the movies. Dunno if you can Munchhausen this though.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Now playing - Abortion

Back by popular demand. Pro-lifers have always borne the brunt of social criticism, criticism of the pro-choice side is scant to nonexistent. This is unfair and unwarranted like the worker who always gets yelled at while the others are doing far worse. It's always been this way as Pro-Choice is seen as the rational, the genteel position to take. It has all the courage of a non-position and when one calls themselves "pro-choice" it really doesn't tell you much at all. Simply repeating the mantra of CHOICE doesn't make one pro-choice of course just like if I recite some ancient Hebrew texts that doesn't automatically make me a Kabbalist. Choicers reflexively oppose any and all informed-consent legislation making them paradoxically into a bunch of anti-informed choicers when they should have been the ones who proposed these things in the first place. Man as a rational creature cannot knowingly fight for something evil hence those hardcore pro-choicers who can't even imagine a world without recourse to legal abortion MUST see at least some positive social good in it after all every other social movement in history from abolition to woman's suffrage to civil rights was based on fighting the good fight so the only philosophically correct description here is pro-abortion. Erik, commenting over at Daniel's latest blog about abortion comes closest in my book to being a bona-fide pro-choicer but he's in the definite minority. It's also rather ironic that it's the choicers themselves who are so obsessed with insinuating theological issues into the debate by constantly ascribing them to the lifers when the majority of them give a very logical and non-religious approach in the public square. What is philosophically so disturbing about the so-called pro-choice mentality is that it can lead to things like Nazism, chances are it won't but theoretically it can since its main premise is the scientific issue of when human life begins is no longer relevant to abortion policy or the Woman's Decision. Even Harry Blackmun, chief architect of Roe acknowledged in a footnote that should science ever prove the humanity of the unborn then of course the abortion case collapses. This is a paradigm shift in our moral thinking and it's no wonder that euthanasia is always a close cousin to abortion, it's the exact same philosophical underpinnings at work. Abortion, people deep down know it's wrong but spend all their lives trying to justify their decisions. It's an unacknowledged moral tension against Self, an erroneous mathematical formula that undermines the logic of its own premises and that's why even those choicers who chide us lifers for talking way too much about the issue talk about nothing else themselves judging by which blogs get the most hits. No matter what side we take on this controversial and troubling issue the worm of conscience brings us back to it time and again, it's the house of dark shadows and we ignore the hobgoblin in the attic making noise aka what we know in our hearts to be true. Carry on.

Friday, December 05, 2008

From a purely practical standpoint

for those of you who keep harping on why do we blog about abortion so much it certainly seems to get the most hits, the most comments going compared to some other topics and so pragmatically speaking what's wrong with it? We can blog all day about all and sundry topics especially the non-political but if abortion is what keeps the blogosphere all afire makes sense to me. Daniel hits on the theme of social conservatives, now most people equate social conservatives with opposition to abortion and so BINGO you have yourself a hot thread. Looking at my rather meager hitmeter I am almost forced to go with the topic, it's probably the only subject here that gets tao all excited. David999 recently put us all down as being stuck on stupid and that life doesn't revolve around abortion so where's his thoughts on pets, bad bosses, recipes, music, movies and blogging in general? No Dave we all know everything in life doesn't revolve around abortion but I think you like it when we discuss it anyway. If it's "oh not again!" then seems to me the best course of action would be not to leave any comments anyway on the abortion blogs, we'll see all the goose eggs and get the message.

Ya know?

Thursday, December 04, 2008

There's some very interesting programming on at 2 in the morning

A guy at work told me this when I told him about my sleep woes one day. The majority of time I sleep well, only averaged about 2 or 3 nights of pure insomnia each year for my entire adult life but lately during this past year there was an uptick, those poor sleep nights are still in the minority thank God but they were above average for me, a sign of age? Now sleep is a sensitive issue for many, in the latest survey at least 47% of Americans said they have trouble sleeping and they ranked this as the 4th hassle next to money concerns and overwork. Talk about things not going well together that overwork and lack of sleep thing is a definite problema. Basically the thing with sleep-aids that I have an issue with is it doesn't seem like we're getting at the root of why we sleep so poorly anymore. It seems the research of that wonderful psychiatrist Dr. Abraham Low is from some bygone era no longer in vogue. The good doctor counseled his patients to just lie there in bed at night with their eyes closed and you'll have to sleep at least part of those hours, early experiments proved this he said with patients who swore they didn't sleep a wink and yet didn't respond when their names were called. I would say in my own experience if you can't lose consciousness and go under simply lie there and meditate, this will lead to some sleep and there were nights I swear there was no sleep to be had and yet a little later I remembered a snatch or two of a quick dream I just had, usually work (DRAT!). Re this sleep issue the medical experts are putting more and more pressure on the poor sleeper, the formula usually varies but the stress comes into play when you see someone on TV go "the latest medical studies conclude you need x hours of sleep per night or you will suffer a heart attack" (or some other calamity). Oftentimes x=7 hours which honestly is kind of high to aim for, I'll often reach 6 or 6 1/2 so why spazz yourself out 'cause you're minus a half? In my own case I think many of my poor nights was due to simply not being tired and getting up to use the bathroom alot during the night 'cause you had to have that SuperBeverage at the movies doesn't help. So take a teasy and if all else fails get a little Charlie Rose marathon going for yourself, even alot of his guests look half in the bag. Your dreams miss you.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Waiting

My pastor gave an interesting sermon this past Sunday part of which had to do with waiting. Somehow it tied in with the readings and he said when you stop to think about it most of our life is about waiting. You're waiting for a show to begin, for Mass to start, for work to let out, for someone to come out of the restroom, for your friend. In a way it's like being stuck in traffic, much of your life is consumed by it. You may be waiting for small things or for big things, waiting for something to happen even if you don't know what it is. Sometimes what we're waiting for takes a long time in coming or it never comes at all (success, true romance, justice). People who voted for McCain may have to wait four years or even eight. We're waiting for a pro-life culture, we're waiting for social equality, we're waiting for world peace, we're waiting for this and we're waiting for that.

The theme song to Mahogany asks "do you know where you're going to?" The drifter in Two Moon Junction says "I don't know where I'm going but I'm in a hurry to get there." Some of us wait all our lives. "I can feel it coming in the air tonight. I've been waiting for this moment all my life, oh lord!" but what's Phil Collins waiting for? It's like waiting gives Life its meaning, after all we are waiting for something and this gives us a kind of goal, a destination, a framework of anticipation. Then again some of us just scrap through our day not thinking of the Bigger Questions.

Right now I'm just waiting for some of my blogging friends to get home from work. Later.

Monday, December 01, 2008

True forgiveness means

there's nothing more to talk about.

Bipolar bosses


They're nice to you in the morning, they get you a cup of coffee and a donut but by mid-afternoon they want to chew your head off. So does everyone stage what's known as an intervention? Saying to someone they need help, chances are they'll take offense, it's dicey, it's like if someone came up to you. First off they're in denial and anyway mental issues are sensitive:

Staff: "Are we saying you're NUTS?...yeah we are."

Life usually gives you enough on your plate and then there's these bipolar bastards, switch-hitting bitches to deal with. It's a redundant agony, a pointless suffering. Say your uncle has cancer or your dog just died you have to go in and deal with a psycho who thinks he's normal.

Staff member (with a sarcastic twist trying to make light): "Walgreen's just called. You forgot to pick up your medication."

A little bipolar action, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Just pass the Prozac.