Whether you like someone or not is irrelevant. Everyone on the planet deserves a safe place to exist, a sufficient amount of food to eat, healthcare without prequalifications, personal dignity (respecting how they identify), and love.
You don’t get to deny them these rights. They don’t get to deny you, either. That’s the way it has to be.
IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, THAT’S JUST TOUGH. SIT THERE AND BE BITTER BUT STAY THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY.
FOREVER.
Today is the first official day of practice and qualifying open to the public at IMS. I’d tell you to not bother going and instead spend your money somewhere more deserving, and it bothers me when you don’t listen. Qualifying this afternoon is for tomorrow’s Sonsio Grand Prix. Who the hell is Sonsio? They’re the people who’ve been trying to reach you about your car/home’s extended warranty. It’s an insurance company and they damn sure don’t need your money. You’d be better off putting your premiums in a passbook savings account. I’m sure around 15,000 people will still be there because they have money to burn and no conscience for the rest of the world. It’s sad, really, how little these people give a shit.
It was 50 degrees when I took the dogs out this morning. Temps are on the low side all weekend and there’s a chance of showers every day, mostly in the evening/overnight. I’m looking at the calendar trying to figure out the best time to mow. Looking at the forecast, Sunday would be the best day, but that’s Mother’s Day and I’d rather the kids not be all sweaty when Kat gets home.
Interested in “eating the rich?” Be aware that there’s a showdown coming as the 2017 tax cuts for the super-wealthy are due to expire. I would tell you to contact your legislators but we all know they don’t pay a damn bit of attention because they know you won’t vote them the fuck out as they deserve. The American public is spineless. These tax cuts shouldn’t have happened in the first place and I don’t see any of you shouting out against them.
Oh, and get this: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he doesn’t give a shit if the US doesn’t send bombs for them to drop on Rafah. They’re going to invade and wipe out the border city anyway. This is how much of a bitch Netanyahu is. He doesn’t care how Israelis feel. He doesn’t care how the world sees the conflict. He’s a power-mad authoritarian who is turning history on its ear by engaging in the same form of atrocities against Palestine as the Germans did against Jews a century ago. Anyone who is not supporting a two-state resolution to Gaza is wrong and you’ll never convince me otherwise.
If there is any question that popular music has gotten worse over the past 50 years, here’s the proof. New research suggests that music since the 80s, including all of Taylor Swift’s eras, has become more negative, angrier, and more simple. Perhaps that’s why older music is still preferred by almost everyone with a brain. Or, it could be due to the fact that the world you’ve created is more negative and angrier and the music is reflective of that. Either way, ’70s music still rocks.
Oh, and just in case you’re buying into the claptrap that Elon Musk and other GOP mouthpieces are spewing, no noncitizens cannot vote in federal elections.
I’m in a mood this morning and coffee alone isn’t going to fix it.
Try sleeping late on a Saturday morning when all the animals in the house are accustomed to the 6:00 AM weekday schedule. The dogs aren’t really that much of a problem. I took them outside late enough that they were comfortable waiting on me to move first. The cats, on the other hand, are less patient. They began invading the Recovery Room when I hadn’t fed them by 7:30. They climbed on top of me, nudged me, licked me, and mewed in my face to let me know that they were going to starve to death if I didn’t get up right now. Fortunately, Kat was already awake so the impact was minimal. Still, there are days when the cats’ alarms need to turn off.
The first message I saw this morning was from a college friend, one of the smoothest tenor voices I’ve ever heard, letting me know that he, too, has now been diagnosed with cancer. I guess we’re all at that age where our bodies turn against us. Whether it is a familial inclination that plagued the generations before us or the aggregate compound effect of life’s choices, we see more of our friends fighting health battles that keep them from engaging in the things they love. We work all our lives, practice, study, and perhaps even experiment with our craft, trying to become the best we are capable of being, wanting to be one of the wise elders who is respected as we pass information down to subsequent generations. Yet, when we’re at that point in life when we should be enjoying the fruits of our labor, we get hit with some disease that strips away all that glory and leaves us with a shell that struggles to survive. We may still live but not at the timbre we did before.
I made the mistake of watching Anne Hathaway’s new movie, “The Idea of You” last night. It was a mistake not because of the quality of the movie; as rom-coms go, it was rather decent. But it highlights the challenges of not only finding love as we get older (in this case, “older” being a whopping 40 years old) but also what happens when you find it in someone significantly younger. For the movie’s characters, the solution was simply to wait five years when the social effects were less severe. Whether it’s inadvertent or not, the movie also demonstrates the degree to which finances play a role in finding these exceptional forms of love. Had the younger male character not been swimming in cash, had the female not been independently financially stable, the romance would never have happened in the first place. Money put them where they were.
There are always people in our lives who will say, “I love you.” How they mean that changes over the years. Much of the time, the definition is along the lines of, “I appreciate your place in my life and value your presence.” That’s nice, and it keeps us from being able to complain that no one loves us. What we lose, though, are those people who would define their love as a soul-level experience, a desire to be an intimate and constant part of who we are, what we’re doing, and wanting to join their lives to ours for everyone’s pleasure. That love? Yeah, you can kiss that goodbye as you get older. Companions become tolerated because, if not them, who? Even then, for how long? The deep connections we have with people erode with time. We’re no longer exciting to be with. There’s nothing new in our relationships as we become set in our ways and, we like being set in our ways.
At the end of the movie, she’s 45 with a daughter happily in college. He’s 30 with a new solo album. As the movie ends, the producers would have you believe that their relationship picks right back up with the same level of passion as before. You and I both know that’s not the way it works, though. Things happened over those five years. Everyone changes. Five years, especially when you’re twenty-five, is a long time and our emotions change dramatically. We might remember former loves tenderly, even longingly, but the day-to-day is going to have less passion, less heat, and more illness and doctor’s visits and disparities between our desires. Maybe he wants a family. She already has one. He wants to keep that jet-set life. She’s anchored to the business she owns. As the movie fades to black, the relationship inevitably falls apart.
Maybe what’s disturbing is that ending: all our lives slowly fade to black. We still want that high, the fiery love that we knew when we were young and healthy but it’s no longer something we can maintain. Not only is the other person letting go, but we let go of ourselves because who we are now is not the person we thought we’d be.
Or maybe I’m just an old man babbling in a pool of loneliness. I really shouldn’t watch rom-coms.
Don’t try telling me you don’t have any “outside the norm” sexual fantasies. I’ve seen what you write on Facebook (you don’t dare share pictures) and I’ve seen what you post on Instagram and SnapChat. [Better start sweeping that shit off TikTok now.] Curiosity is part of our nature. We always wonder, “What if…” A fairly large percentage of Americans indulge, and for many, that’s the best-kept secret they’ll ever have. Suppose you knew what I know… (cough, cough). Sex is something that longs to indulge our wild side.
Google Trends recently surveyed 2,000 people across the country, covering every state, asking them what their primary fetish is. I’ll be honest, 2,000 people per state would still be too low a number for me to consider the results accurate. We also have to consider that of the people who indulge in fetishes, most have more than one, and choosing one as primary over others can be difficult. So, take these results with only a couple of grains of thought. I’ll be honest I saw a lot more rubber play in Georgia than I have in Indiana, but things change with the times and I don’t get out much anymore. 😪
Take a look at the infographic and, if you’re brave, tell me what you think!
The House of Representatives has been busy today. First, they passed the massive funding package for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. You might hear some people talk about the “bipartisan” effort in passing the bill. What they mean is that the Republican “majority” was so divided that the bill wouldn’t have passed without Democrats supporting it. The final vote was 311 to 112. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “Traditional House Republicans led by Speaker Mike Johnson have risen to the occasion. We have a responsibility to push back against authoritarianism.”
That authoritarianism would be ultra-conservatives who wanted to attach US border legislation that would have rendered the bill DOA when it arrives in the Senate next week. Three of those ultraconservatives, Greene of GA, Massie of KY, and Gosar of AZ, are ready to attempt to oust the Speaker for working with Democrats to pass the bill without the addendum.
Those ultra-conservatives may see such a move backfire. Democrats could vote to keep the Speaker in power, OR they could make Jeffries a contender who would only need four Republican votes to become Speaker himself. Either one would be seen as a strong rebuttal and shaming of Greene and other pro-Putin traitors.
In the same session, the House passed a bill by a vote of 360-58 that could lead to a ban on TikTok in the US. The bill is primarily a sanctions bill against Russia and Iran. The sanctions aren’t likely to stop wars that either country is running, but it looks good on the campaign trail. Tucked deep inside the small print, however, is a part that requires TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, to sell its stake in the video platform to a US-based entity within nine months or face a ban.
Don’t go crying about the loss of the app just yet, though. IF the bill passes the Senate without the ban being yanked out, there’s an inevitable First Amendment battle ripe for arguing for years and could possibly win in a Supreme Court that’s likely to change a couple of members before the issue would get to them. It’s also possible that the Senate could modify the bill to allow any NATO member country to purchase ByteDance’s shares, and that could also be challenged in multiple international courts which could delay any result even longer. This issue is far from over. In the meantime, feel free to go ahead and learn that dance in the confidence that we are all going to laugh at you when you post it.
Now, here’s the question: Which is more important, free speech or national security? The whole reason this issue was squeezed into a totally unrelated bill is the fear that the Chinese-owned company could use the app to spy on Americans. ByteDance says there are precautions in the software against that, that the Chinese government has never requested such data, and that the company has strong rules against data sharing with any government entity. Forcing the removal of the app would have a huge First Amendment effect on the millions of US-based users and US-based advertisers who rely on TikTok influencers to help spread the word about their products.
Without strong evidence of China being up to something, supporters of the measure could find themselves not only barking up the wrong tree, but alienating younger voters who frequently use the app.
Personally, I’m too old to be on TikTok so I’m not directly impacted either way. It seems like a real stretch to try and make it a Homeland Security issue.
If you’re not celebrating today, or at least thinking about celebrating if you’re not physically able, then can you really be my friend? Of course, I can’t partake, either. Not only is it not legal in Indiana [insert stifled guffaw here] it can interfere with my meds. There are some edibles that I can tolerate, but since Kat’s not here for the weekend I’ll have to make do with coffee. 😪 We have to give up some of the best things because of cancer. I’m not liking that part at all. I guess if I wanted to give up something this would be the time to do it. But I’m too old goddammit. Now’s the time to be indulging in all the pleasures we’ve put off earlier in our lives. No one over 60 should have to say no to any form of pleasure. If it kills us, at least we went out doing something fun instead of lying in a hospital strapped to tubes.
I tried to get a lot done yesterday, but it didn’t happen at the rate I wanted. Part of that was because I couldn’t get the pictures to do what I wanted. There are times when even the best technology available isn’t sufficient to read my mind and deliver the image my brain is seeing. After a couple of hours of arguing with Adobe over what is and isn’t a violation of the terms of service, I just gave up. So help me, their censors are apparently offended by people having a chest at all.
Just in case you missed them, though, we posted the following articles yesterday:
I mean, we try to be entertaining even when we’re feeling like whatever that was the cat just threw up on the floor. We want to give you something to do besides playing with that tear in your underwear; you’re only going to make it worse.
We investigated more apartments yesterday but came up empty. Too many listings don’t tell you if all utilities are paid. I’m assuming if they don’t mention it, they’re not. There are also far too many listings for studio apartments that are two or three times what I make in a month! WHAT THE LIVING FUCK! That doesn’t make sense for any apartment, I don’t care where it’s located or what amenities are included. And at that price, someone had better be bringing me breakfast each morning. Ya’ll are kinda stupid if you’re paying that much. Seriously! What a fucking waste of income!
One of the issues that I can’t seem to get past is the fact that once I take the chemo meds, I have a little less than two hours before I’m dead asleep. This does not make me happy. I have to take the meds with breakfast. I can only put off breakfast for so long before my body starts to complain. The hungrier I am when I eat, the shorter period I have after taking the meds before I’m completely knocked out. This drives me nuts because midmorning is one of the best times of day to get things done and where am I? In bed, surrounded by these two dogs, as sound asleep as if it were the middle of the night. Trying to juggle the timing so that I can get things done is unnerving.
Oh, here’s the ridiculously stupid headline of the day: Woman Who Didn’t Get Raptured Demands a Refund on Her Generous Tips. There’s stupid, and then there’s “Oh my god, do you even have a brain.” This certainly falls into the latter category. I can’t imagine ever going back and asking a server to return all or a portion of a tip you’d left. Just how fucking brain-dead does a person have to be to do something like that?
If I had limitless income, which I don’t, I would buy every woman on the planet a copy of Wonder Woman #8, the issue where Wonder Woman is under the influence of a religious (Christian) nut job. It’s only 30 pages, extremely well illustrated, and easy to read. My hope would be that women with religious assholes for husbands would find themselves in this story and find their own path to escaping the mind games men and churches use to keep them bound in marital slavery where they’re not respected or valued as anything more than property. If you know someone who is in this trap, maybe buy them a copy and slip it to them in between the pages of the Bible they’re forced to read. Consider it a mission of mercy.
Okay. I really need to eat now. Ugh. Check back with me after I wake up this afternoon.
I think most of us, at least those over the age of 40, grew up being told, with great confidence, that the United States was the best country in the world, and there was little to refute that statement. All that has changed now. It doesn’t take a social scientist with a Harvard degree to realize that the US is far from being the best. We certainly have punted on being the best at democracy, as the multiple criminal indictments of a past president indicate. We’re far from being the best at healthcare. We’re not even close on human rights. Those are just some of the major points where the United States is failing badly.
As I was doom scrolling through one bad news story after the other, I came across a BuzzFeed headline that caught my curiosity. BuzzFeed isn’t exactly known for being any bastion of journalism. They don’t even try. But they claimed to have a list of 43 “cool” things that prove the US is lagging behind on the social front. 43? Really? That seems an odd number, don’t you think? Certainly, this mandated some level of inspection.
Mind you, these are strictly social elements, things that the US could do but hasn’t. None of these things would require an act of Congress. Well, maybe one or two when it comes to infrastructure funding. Most, however, are simply a matter of having entrepreneurs step and and give the concept a try. Are Americans ready for this kind of advances or are we too busy arguing with each other over who is American enough?
I don’t find all 43 items on the list that amusing, either. So, I narrowed it down to ten, starting with:
Bikes with airless tires you can rent, so you don’t have to worry about tires deflating.
The list refers to Singapore’s bike rental industry, which is kinda cool but something several US cities have. What we don’t have are airless tires. There’s nothing quite as lame as renting a bike and having a tire go flat. Whose responsibility is it to change the tire? How do you even report a flat tire to the rental company? Do you get your money back? The problem of flat tires is not an issue that needs to happen. Airless tires have been around for a long time. The technology isn’t even that difficult. It is well past time that we stepped up to the plate on this issue.
Traveling movie theaters so remote areas far away from movie theaters can still catch the latest releases.
Having been raised in rural Oklahoma, I feel this one to my core. Going to the movies was never easy, and if you were including a meal, it was even more difficult. Chances are you had to go to the late showing and wouldn’t be getting home until the wee hours of the morning, and that’s not including any time of hanky-panky. Traveling movie theatres in Scotland are essentially tractor-trailers whose sides expand out once parked. They can set up in a parking lot at a park or store, seat up to 100 people at a time, and give everyone the chance to see current movies not yet streaming. This could be especially important for the thousands of people in the US who don’t have reliable Internet service, either. Someone needs to take advantage of this quickly!
Solar-powered buses
With all the arguments (it’s not really a debate because it’s mostly yelling and short on facts) about the fuel impact of public transportation, Hong Kong seems to have found a reasonable solution. The fact that it’s working in a demonstrably dense urban area is all we need to know. Say goodbye to exhaust fumes and charging stations. The only place where I see this possibly not working is in the Seattle, WA area, where the sun has an obvious dislike for joining whatever party they’ve got going on up there. For everyone else, this solves not only the question of fuel but also the question of costs since, ta-da, sunshine is free! There’s a pretty decent chance that high-speed rail could be operated similarly.
Make the whole traffic light rod light up, so there’s no mistaking when the light changes.
Was that light red or not? Americans may not be the worst drivers in the world (have you been to India?), but we certainly qualify among the worst. We have this bad habit of insisting that we’re right 100% of the time. Any time there’s an accident at an intersection, someone is screaming, “But I swear that light was green!” Let’s put that to an end, or perhaps a reduction, by lighting up the whole lighting structure. Yes, this is an infrastructure cost and no one wants to spend money on things we need, like infrastructure. This is also a safety issue, though, and the number of pedestrians being hit in crosswalks hasn’t gone down anywhere. Light things up, maybe even make crosswalks more visible while we’re at it, and let’s see how many fewer dead bodies we have to scrape from the pavement.
“Confectionery-free checkouts” with no small candies or snacks, so you aren’t tempted to buy anything. These would also be a lifesaver for parents of kids with grabby hands.
This is apparently a popular idea in Australia. Apparently, folks down under actually care about giving their customers a pleasant shopping experience. I can’t imagine how grocery stores in the US would operate without indulging that last-minute “I deserve a candy bar” craving or giving in to the persistent screaming of the two-year-old sitting in a basket. Think of the revenue that would be lost! Why, this sounds absolutely un-American, and it is. We’re too fucking greedy to ever give this idea a decent shot, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a worthwhile concept.
Lights showing which bathroom stalls are occupied.
Imagine walking into a public restroom, especially in a crowded club or restaurant, and not having to peek through the cracks to see whether a stall is occupied! This is the reality in Taiwan and there’s absolutely no reason it shouldn’t exist everywhere. Not many people like being spied on while they’re in the bathroom, especially if that shrimp you had for dinner wasn’t the freshest. A light panel just inside the doorway saves all the questioning and allows one to go straight to the nearest empty stall which is what you wanted to do in the first place. Now, if they’d just add better ventilation to that…
Vending machines for things other than snacks or drinks.
The vending machine concept is far from new, so why is it that the US hasn’t started using them for things more than snacks or drinks? Looking around the world, there are vending machines for used books, wine, flowers, cakes, and many other things that one might want to grab on the go. The technology is easy and could be set up at places such as bus stops so that one could get what they need without having to wander all over town. This could be especially advantageous in places that are currently food/resource deserts. Think about entire individual meals, health products, and even resource guides at the ready! Bonus points if they’re paired with Foodstamp cards for those in need.
In-store signs that warn you about shrinkflation.
Again, I don’t see this happening in America because we’re too bent on allowing ourselves to be fooled so that we spend more than we should. France finds such signs a part of doing an honest business. American companies would find such signs an attack on their revenue. What that says about American business and shoppers alike isn’t flattering. But then, it’s been a long time since Americans gave a shit about honesty. We’re much too greedy for that.
Braille notices on canned goods and drinks
How do blind people shop? For the most part, they need someone else to do it for them. Telling the difference between a bag of potatoes and a bag of oranges is almost impossible. But what about when they get home? They may know what was bought, but if you’re feeling around the refrigerator, how do you tell the difference between soda and beer? In Japan, there’s braille on the top of cans that tell you! This simple kind of stamping would be extremely easy to implement, but less than .01% of consumer-oriented goods make any kind of allowance for blind or vision-empaired customers. This is an idea that is long overdue and one we need to get behind.
Public points to get help for people with dementia or autism issues.
Anyone with autism issues knows what it’s like to be out in public and suddenly become overwhelmed by any number of sensory issues. Maybe it’s sound. Maybe it’s too many people, Maybe it’s too many lights. I have family members who experience such moments and their bodies simply shut down, right there, unable to do anything to help them get to safety. Now, take those same feelings and apply them to people with dementia. They might have been just fine for days and in a place they know well, but all of a sudden they’re lost. Americans talk about caring for these people, but we do a lousy job of actually doing anything about it. Multiple Asian countries, however, have established copious help points, quiet rooms, and emergency assistance staffed around the clock just for these situations. They provide paid professionals who can make a quick assessment of the problem and find the appropriate help so that no one gets hurt. These are countries that actually care about their citizens, including those with neurological disabilities. The US does little more than talk, and there’s a severe lack of sincerity in our conversation. We have yet to put any real effort into addressing the many issues.
These ten things are just the edge of all that is happening around the world to make people’s lives better. We are so behind these trends that I’m a little surprised anyone at BuzzFeed thought to take a look at them. I’m guessing it’s someone who travels a lot internationally and was starting to feel a little jealous. Americans have let our international dominance slip so far that we’re afraid to take the steps necessary to start moving back up the ladder. We don’t want to spend the money. We don’t want to be bothered with someone else’s problem. We don’t have the spine to stand up and do what’s right.
I hope you’re feeling ashamed. I do.
Today marks 19 years since I moved from Atlanta to Indianapolis. I’ve lived here longer than anywhere. I have more connections here than anywhere. Yet, there is this eternal, nagging feeling that this is not home. I constantly question whether I’m doing anyone any good by being here. Two weeks in, I knew I had made a horrible mistake, but I was contractually obligated at the time, and by the time that contract was over, I was too broke to move back. That condition has remained the same ever since, and now Atlanta’s changed so much that I can’t see myself returning there. I’m not sure there’s anywhere now where I’m going to feel at home.
There is no way today is a good day. The rain kept me in pain, tossing and turning all night. I’ve had the headache from hell all night but I can’t take more pain meds until after 7:00. I gave up and decided to sit at the desk a little after 4. The dogs started pawing at me around 4:30, but I tried putting them off until at least 6. When they paw, they scratch, and my skin is fragile enough that it bleeds. So, at 5:00 I finally relented and let them out. When we came in, as per routine, I fed them and the cats. If I don’t feed the cats they get loud. Apparently, that was a mistake. The dogs eating woke Kat up and now she’s pissed at me.
The rain will continue to fall all day. My body hasn’t liked rain for years because of the arthritis. In my current condition, all pain levels are elevated. I can’t sleep. Eating is difficult. Walking is difficult. Sitting isn’t comfortable. There’s nothing about this existence that’s going to feel good no matter what I do. I’ve shut the door to the Recovery Room and will do my best to stay away from other people so that I don’t ruin the day for everyone who has to put up with me.
19 years ago, I was contractually obligated to be in Indianapolis on this date. That meant I had to leave on Ben’s 10th birthday. There was a big party going on in his grandparent’s yard when I had to say goodbye. He seemed annoyed that I was interrupting his fun. After all, it was his birthday. There were more important things than Dad leaving, right?
I didn’t get to talk to him yesterday. I messaged him, left him a voicemail, but his life still has too many other things going on. I hear from Ben the least. I’m not sure where he’s working or what’s going on in his personal life. From his perspective, it probably doesn’t matter. It never has. Even when his mom and I first separated, I’d call in the evening and after a couple of weeks Ben told me, “Dad, you know you don’t have to call every night.”
What I did get was a very attractive picture of Gabe, my third in line. His hair is about the same length as mine now, only more full, like mine was when I was young. He turns 26 next week. My leaving hurt him the most. He didn’t understand that I wasn’t coming back for his birthday. The phone call I fielded that afternoon still hurts me today. I wasn’t there for my baby. I should have broken the fucking contract and gone back.
Now, I worry how much I’ll disappoint G and Tipper. I need to find someplace to live where someone can take of me without being stressed, if such a place exists. I’ll be leaving two more kids that I love. Maybe they’ll be like Ben and it won’t bother them that I’m gone, that I won’t be here in the morning or when they get home from school. After all, they have their own friends, do their own thing, spend a lot of time in their rooms on the phone or in games. If I’m lucky, they won’t miss me.
Groceries yesterday totalled a touch over $330 including a 44-pound bag of dog food that I struggled to wrangle into the house. One of the issues with having groceries delivered is that it is only right that the shopper be tipped. A 15% tip on yesterday’s order was just short of $45. I would have rather paid a friend to take me and walk with me as I did the shopping myself. It would have been more productive. 12 items were substituted out of a list of 30. That’s over 30%. I have trouble believing that the only substitute available for frozen french fries was “potato puffs.” When I ask for a frozen family meal, an individual meal is not an adequate substitute. Isn’t that just common sense? Apparently not.
Food items and their costs are only going to get worse. There’s nothing I can do to stop that. Earlier this morning I was reading that more companies are looking for ways to reduce the amount of cocoa in their products, including candy makers such as Mars and Hershey. Global warming and disease are to blame. Resources have diminished so dramatically that it is not sustainable for companies to continue using high-price ingredients even if they raise the price. They know that there’s a limit to how much people are willing to pay for a 2.5-ounce candy bar.
The problem isn’t just with cocoa, though. Last year, coffee prices took a huge jump after supplies ran dangerously low. That’s why you’re paying $6 for a six-ounce cup of your favorite brew. Part of the issue is that competitive alternatives, such as mushroom coffee, still contain bean coffee in some form. By the time you add in the cost of the additional processing, the alternatives cost more than the original, making them not so much of an alternative for anyone who’s on a budget, and who isn’t on a budget? More and more of the things we at are being affected by the weather and the result is we’re paying higher prices at the store.
Of course, it would be insensitive of me to not mention that at least we can get to food. There are still millions upon millions of people around the world for whom food is a pipe dream. They keep hoping for relief and each day their hopes are dashed. The problem isn’t so much a lack of food, but a lack of desire to solve the fucking problem. As I mentioned a couple of days ago, billionaires could eliminate hunger completely by 2030. They just have zero motivation to do so.
There is no sunshine today, only gray. This has taken long enough that I can take more pain meds now. Maybe I’ll be able to sleep. I’m not expecting anything to be any better later in the day, though. Why would it? Life is little more than a string of pain punctuated by disappointment.
Take a good look at the photos below and tell me if you see a problem:
The problem? Each of these looks has been touted in my newsfeed this morning as being “inappropriate.” This type of thing happens almost every day (I get some really weird things in my newsfeed). From the red carpet to work to school, everyone seems to have some opinion about what other people should be wearing, and, a lot of the time, they don’t like it. If we were all polite, reasonable-minded people, those opinions would be kept to themselves, as they should be. But no, the Internet exists and heaven forbid we fail to share our displeasure.
Dear fashion trolls: Take your unqualified and unworthy opinions and shove them up your ass so far as to need surgery to remove your fist.
I have a number of reasons for thinking that dress codes of any kind in any place are wrong. I see all this fashion shaming coming from people who have no fashion sense themselves and it makes my blood boil. Let’s consider what is wrong with this whole “inappropriate fashion” idea.
Fashion Doesn’t Appear Out Of Nowhere
Have you ever stopped to consider what it takes to get a piece of clothing into the store where it’s purchased? Whether it’s a name-brand fashion designer such as Versace or some Chinese knockoff found on the floor at Walmart, everything you wear started somewhere, on someone’s drawing board. Those drawings are based not only on the creativity of the designer but on a deep understanding of what is likely to sell. No designer, known or unknown, intentionally creates a garment that no one wants to wear.
Once the garment is designed, it’s shown to buyers. Buyers represent all the stores that are likely to sell the garment in their stores, whether off-the-rack or couture. The buyers know their customer base well and reject any design that is going to take up space and never sell. They only place orders for what their customers want.
Department stores, such as Saks Fifth Avenue, which have multiple stores, have multiple levels of buyers, each of whom makes a decision as to what to carry in their store(s). By the time any garment reaches the final consumers, as many as 20 different people have made a yes/no decision about whether to sell the piece. All these people have determined that the wardrobe they are providing is appropriate and desirable for their customers.
All these people are infinitely more qualified to determine what is appropriate than some overweight troll sitting on their couch snarfing their eighth box of Girl Scout cookies.
Fashion Is A Matter of Free Speech
What you wear makes a statement. Anything that makes a statement falls under the umbrella of free speech. Among other things, fashion choices say things like, “This is who I am,” “This makes me feel secure and comfortable,” or “This is how I want you to see me.” Fashion, at its best, should be a statement of pride in oneself.
Yet, there are too many times when people wear clothes that they don’t like, more layers than could ever be comfortable, because someone has shamed their fashion choice and labeled it “inappropriate.” For example, my 14-year-old daughter always wears multiple shirts and baggy pants to school because of comments she received two years ago. She no longer feels comfortable in the dresses she loved when she was younger. Her speech has been muted by what other people think.
Such invasions into one’s life are despicable displays of immoral character. Sure, you may have the right to criticize someone else, but should you? Do you ever stop to think of the long-term consequences that come with opening your damn mouth? How dare you shame someone who is simply enjoying the clothes that make them feel good?
Censoring Fashion Sends A Negative Message
I have long held the belief that when fashion is censored those doing the censoring are sending an inappropriate message: “There’s something wrong with your body.” There’s a conflict that comes with saying, “Your body was made in God’s image,” and “You need to cover more of your body.” Bottom line, your body is beautiful and clothing should enhance that beauty, not hide it.
How many millions of people look in their closet or dresser every morning and wish they could wear something more fun and exciting? How many people are forced to wear someone else’s idea of what is appropriate? How many people are forced to identify as something/someone they’re not because of the clothes they’re mandated to wear?
The worst censorship of all is the tired line of one’s clothing being “distracting” or “causes people to have inappropriate thoughts. WRONG! You are never responsible for what someone else is thinking or how they act based on those thoughts. If someone has sexual thoughts based on what you’re wearing, that’s a them problem and they need to adjust their thoughts accordingly.
Our society has a difficult time with the old-fashioned and not-appropriate-in-the-first-place idea that if a woman wears something that causes a man to have sexual thoughts she must somehow be “asking for it.” This utter piece of bullshit has dominated our society for far too long. The more we publish ill-conceived articles about someone’s clothing, we give ammunition to the people who would use it as an excuse for sexual assault.
No, there’s nothing wrong with you or your clothes, and it is never your fault if someone else can’t deal with your choices.
Trolling Fashion Shows Your Ignorance
As a photographer, I covered the fashion industry from New York to Paris for a long time; longer than some of you have been alive. One of the many things I’ve learned is that there’s a difference between honest, intelligent design critique and speaking blindly out of ignorance. There are people who get paid well to understand fashion and critique it responsibly. Everyone else is a wannabe.
One easy way to tell the difference is how the person talks about the fashion. The legitimate critic looks at the fabric, the stitching, how the garment moves, how comfortable it may be, how it compares with previous seasons, and how buyers will likely receive it. The asshole says things like, “It’s too daring,” “I can’t imagine anyone wearing that out in public,” “That is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” and “No one should be seen in that.”
Ignorance abounds on the Internet and too often it goes beyond the drivel of unrequested opinions filling the servers on the X platform. X trolls are their own brand of stupidity and most people know to ignore them. What hurts are websites parading around as “news” or some other form of legitimate media without any real form of knowledge about any topic they cover. All they do is repeat the nonsense found on X and dare to try passing it off as journalism. I’ve not linked to any of them because that only gives them more oxygen. It is best for everyone if they shrivel up and die.
When it comes to red-carpet fashion, especially at awards shows, one needs to understand that fashion choices are not made in a vacuum. Conversations are held between stylists and designers with consideration given to where a person is seated, the type of seating provided, who they are sitting with, whether the desired fashion has been worn on a similar red carpet, and how the fashion reflects on the personality and style of its wearer. There are no accidents in the choices made.
I have no problems with any of the fashion choices I’ve seen of late. In fact, I quite celebrate the fact that the “year of sheer” has found a delightful home on red carpets around the world. I hope that the trend continues until everyone everywhere feels proud enough and secure enough to wear similar things in their lives.
But for that to happen, the trolls need to shut their fucking mouths and mind their own business, and let people wear what they want to wear.
By the way, have you noticed how no one’s saying much about Morgan Wallen being arrested for throwing a chair off a building and into a crowd last night? Yeah, let’s focus on the actual bad behavior for a change.
Here is an interesting if not somewhat disturbing statistic: Among married women ages 15-49 years who haven’t had a baby before (live birth), roughly 1 in 5 are unable to conceive after a year of trying. While I’m tempted to ask who the fuck is marrying 15-year-olds and getting them pregnant, the greater issue is the rate of infertility. There are plenty of reasons why infertility rates are increasing, what’s interesting is the odd place from which some surprising relief is coming: Ozempic.
To be specific, it doesn’t necessarily need to be the brand-name drug. Any GLP-1 Agonists seems to do the trick, but Ozempic has the advantage of name recognition and is popular for another reason other than its popular intent: losing weight. GLP-1 Agonists were originally designed as anti-diabetic drugs specifically treating Type II diabetics. Even now, the clinical requirements for prescribing a GLP-1 Agonist start with diagnosed Type II diabetes. The idea is that GLP-1 Agonists are a backup medication when Metformin and other standard diabetes medications haven’t worked, leaving one with an A1c over 6.5. The list of GLP-1 Agonists includes:
A couple of years ago, however, it was noticed that the use of Ozempic and similar drugs resulted in significant weight loss in a number of patients. Who doesn’t like the idea of taking a shot to lose weight? It certainly beats the hell out of dieting and sweaty exercise. The FDA approved the use of the drug for weight loss in 2021 and the number of prescriptions has skyrocketed to over nine million, driving prices up.
Drug maker Novo Nordisk isn’t complaining.
Now, it seems a second off-brand benefit is coming to the forefront: pregnancy, even among women previously diagnosed with infertility. While studies of this effect are still too new to consider a universal response to the challenge of having babies, the research is promising.
The reason for this increase in unplanned pregnancies is that the medications slow down the process by which the stomach empties, changing how food and medications are absorbed. The result is that oral contraceptives are rendered practically useless. If you don’t want to get pregnant, you may need to talk to your doctor about non-oral options.
The effect on infertile women is still too recent to be certain but seems to be connected to weight loss. Even modest (less than 5%) weight loss can increase metabolic health, allowing conception to occur. Many patients with high BMI do not ovulate, some have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and many just don’t ovulate regularly. With the drug-induced weight loss, regular menses and normal levels of fertility return.
While this is far from being a cure-all, this could be good news for women who have struggled to become pregnant.
Of course, the opposite is true for women who do not want to be pregnant.
Either way, if you are using Ozempic or any of the related drugs and become pregnant, you need to contact your doctor immediately. Your body is not playing a joke on you. There are serious risks to taking the drug while pregnant. Not nearly enough studies have been done to give doctors a solid plan of action for treating pregnancy under these conditions. This new phenomenon can dash hopes just as quickly as it raises them.
Still, if you’re taking Ozempic and think that you may be pregnant, don’t be surprised if you’re correct. Call your doctor. Now.
Stupid people have always been in existence. We tend to not hear of them in terms of history books because other people were too embarrassed to talk about them. Who ate that bad batch of mushrooms that told us they were poison? Oh, some random guy who put his stomach before his brain. We can learn what not to do from stupid people, but until recently we didn’t do things like making them internet famous or electing them to Congress. Here are just a few examples that came across my newsfeed today.
We noticed a few weeks ago that one of the windows at the Wing Stop on 10th Street was boarded up. Here’s why: Two people, one inside and the other outside, were shooting at each other. Over wings. Apparently, the in-store POS system was down and the customer was told they’d have to order and pay via the app. That didn’t set well and the customer went outside and decided to shoot up the store. Someone inside the store decided to shoot back. This is exceedingly embarrassing because who in their right mind gets that upset over Wing Stop wings?
Representative Marjorie Taylor Green has been a national embarrassment since she was first sworn into Congress. There’s no way to be sure, but she could be the stupidest person to ever occupy a seat in the legislature. Today, she filed a motion to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson because she didn’t like an appropriations bill the House passed to keep the government open. If a vote was taken today, the motion would lose significantly. What she fails to realize is that there is no true majority in the House at the moment. Whichever direction the Democrats vote is which side will win because the Republican party is too fractured to agree on anything. This makes it likely the next speaker could be a Democrat.
Being able to Zoom into funerals that are, for example, too far away to travel, seems like a nice perk, doesn’t it? But actually using Zoom safely can sometimes be a tricky affair and if you’re not on point, it can get embarrassing. A congregation in Barnet, north London was attending the service of a man who had died of cancer. A business acquaintance clicked the Zoom link not realizing that her camera was on. The entire church got to watch her take a shower.
Oh, and don’t forget the former president who looked at an eclipse without using solar glasses. It’s embarrassing anyone still mentions his name.
Seriously, let’s make stupidity embarrassing again.
One of the things that drives me nuts is when the phone rings while I’m taking a nap and I can’t tell who it is. There are enough spammers and scammers out there that if there’s not a name I recognize attached to the call, I’m not answering the damn phone. Ever. The technology for listing a company name with a phone number has existed forever at this point. There is zero reason for your company name to not show up anytime anyone from your company calls someone else. There’s no legitimate reason for you to hide who you are.
I don’t understand why it is legal to mask your phone number. I especially don’t understand why it is legal to use someone else’s name on the number you’re masking. From my perspective, the entire practice seems to have absolutely no purpose but to commit fraud. So, why in hell would I answer one of those numbers?
The problem is, that I’m apparently missing calls from insurance and healthcare providers because there’s no identification when they call. I had a letter from my insurance provider a couple of weeks ago that started, “I’ve been trying to reach you by phone…” Okay, explain to me why, then, when I compare your listed phone number with the list of recent missed calls, there’s nothing remotely similar on the list. You work for a large company. When you call, I should see the name of the fucking company! If I don’t, then I’m going to assume that you’re not legitimate.
The FCC posted a warning in 2022 regarding what they call “spoofing.” Their first suggestion for avoiding spoofing is: “Don’t answer calls from unknown numbers. If you answer such a call, hang up immediately.” See? Even the FCC agrees you shouldn’t answer unidentified numbers! Their page also includes a form for filing a complaint, though I’m not sure it works since, for some stupid reason, the practice is illegal.
WHY is this legal? If you know, please explain it to me like I’m five. Okay?
On Monday, we published a long read about exclusivity in which we used Apple as an example of a company that relies heavily on the exclusiveness of its product to boost the company’s value. Well, low and behold, that practice has backfired. Earlier today, the Justice Department hit Apple with an antitrust lawsuit for unfairly monopolizing the market. At first glance, this might raise some questions because there are millions of people, like me, who don’t use any Apple products. My Samsung S22 Ultra works just fine, thank you very much, and has plenty of features that Apple doesn’t offer.
The phone market isn’t exactly what has the Justice Department concerned, however. In the filing, the Justice Department alleges that Apple used “a series of shapeshifting rules and restrictions in its App Store guidelines and developer agreements that would allow Apple to extract higher fees, thwart innovation, offer a less secure or degraded user experience, and throttle competitive alternatives.
Specifically, the complaint accuses the tech giant of boxing out smaller competitors by blocking the expansion of apps that allow for multifunctional use; disrupting messaging formats and capabilities between Apple and non-Apple devices; and monopolizing the use of tap-to-pay functions on iPhones so that they only use the Apple Wallet.
Here’s the rub: Apple made over $400 billion in revenue last year. There is no way in hell that this lawsuit is going to put the company in a financial position so severe that they dramatically alter their practices; it’s not going to happen. Sure, Apple will fight the lawsuit because they have a fiduciary duty to do so, but the move doesn’t scare them any. They will continue to be the tech juggernaut that they are. They will continue to overprice their products. They will continue to make sure life is difficult for their competitors. That’s the Apple way.
And you help them every time you buy their shit.
Yeah, if this kind of stuff doesn’t drive you a bit mad, I worry about you.
Why do people try to be as loud as possible at the most inconvenient times of the day? Last night, the guy in the souped-up Dodge was doing donuts in the intersection next to the house. This morning, a guy in a modified pickup truck with a rusted-out bed made as much noise as he could as he raced toward the stop sign. At least he stopped but then resumed making more noise on up the street. I’ve never understood the fascination with noise. Show me stealth, make it down the street without waking the dogs, and I’ll be impressed.
Tipper is excited this morning because the feet to her furry shoes are coming today. We’re less than a month from her 14th birthday so she’s okay with these being a birthday present. Given the price, there wasn’t much other choice! She’s made as much of her furry costume as she can. The parts she can’t make are expensive!
G made jello before going to bed last night. We’re just now on day three of his two-week spring break and already he’s bored. I’m not sure how we’re going to keep him from turning the house upside down by next week. I love his energy, though, and wish I could borrow some. I’m having trouble staying under 16 hours of sleep per day.
I’m going to miss the kids coming in and chatting before and after school.
A new issue has popped up over the past two days and reoccurred again this morning: my eyes have been watering when I go outside. At first, I thought it was just the wind and the cold. That would make sense. But it happened again this morning with only a slight breeze and a comparatively balmy 42 degrees Fahrenheit. Is this a late-arriving chemo side effect or is something else going on? Trying to tell the difference is almost impossible. It feels like there’s something new every couple of days.
A friend mentioned that she was having a BLT for dinner last night and as I’m sitting here this morning, I think that would make a great breakfast. Unfortunately, we have none of the ingredients for making one. Not even the bread. Getting through the next month before my social security comes through is going to be difficult.
I have some questions for you this morning. Feel free to use the comment section to answer them.
Why does anyone care if another person has an OnlyFans page at this point? The site has been around long enough that no one should be shocked when someone uses the platform to generate some extra cash. If anything, when an employer finds out someone is making more money on OnlyFans than they are at their “normal” job, they should be embarrassed. There are too many people, especially teachers, who have to resort to second jobs to pay their bills and OnlyFans tends to be a good choice. Either let them be or pay them more money, asshole.
Do you know what “phubbing” is? It’s the “practice of ignoring one’s spouse or romantic partner to pay attention to one’s phone or other mobile device.” And apparently, according to some, it’s grounds for divorce. I’ll be honest, if you’re paying more attention to your phone than you are to the people you care most about, you have problems and I’m not sure it’s just the phone. I understand this especially applies to younger generations who can’t imagine life without a phone in their hand. Can we say “emotionally insecure?”
File under Bad Headlines: “2 ex-college Hockey Players ID’d as Victims of Murder-Suicide, Killer Was Dating One Of The Victims.” Go ahead, read that again. Mind-boggling, isn’t it? This comes from People magazine online. I almost want to ask the writer which victim the killer was dating. There are no copy editors anymore, so shit like this slips through all the time.
According to one questionable source, Hooter’s is now supposedly gay because Kristen Stewart was photographed visiting one. Uhm, hello? Lesbians are as much about boobs as teenage boys. Gay people of any gender have loved places that flaunt boobs. That doesn’t make Hooter’s or Twin Peaks or anywhere else gay. Gay people exist. Gay people love food. Gay people love boobs. How is that different from anyone else?
I have other questions as well but perhaps it’s best I save those for another time.
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Apple, the computer company, was initially designed to be exclusive. It uses parts not used in other competing products. It uses different software than competing products. It’s sold specifically through Apple channels. Even the power cords and headphones are exclusive to Apple. They’ve found a way to make exclusivity work for them.
While it can offer certain advantages like unique access, loyalty benefits, or premium positioning, exclusivity also has its share of downfalls. These disadvantages can impact both businesses and consumers in various ways. Consider these points:
While exclusivity can be a powerful strategy for creating perceived value and differentiating offerings, it’s important for businesses and policy-makers to carefully consider these potential downfalls and strive for a balance that maximizes benefits while minimizing negative impacts.
While that’s all well and good, I’m not exactly known for being a business guru, am I? So, why would I go to all this trouble of defining the problems with exclusivity?
Because the same problems apply when we start talking about our personal relationships. There has been, as long as relationships have existed, a sense that exclusivity is a critical and unwavering part of our relationships. We talk about loyalty. We grow angry at the idea of cheating. We refer to our partners as “my” boyfriend or girlfriend. We use the language of possession that has been passed down for centuries even as we proclaim that we are independent individuals capable of being our own people without the influence of a spouse.
Furthermore, we enjoy applying exclusivities in the process of dating, our ways of “culling the herd” in hopes that we might find a partner who best fits with what we expect, and what we demand in a relationship. We don’t want any odd person who we might happen to bump into on the street. No, we exclusively want to partner with people of a certain height, or body mass index, or a given race, or specific religion. We use these levels of exclusivity to narrow the list until we believe we have found one that sufficiently meets our needs.
Consider, if you will, the possibility that exclusivity in relationships holds many of the same pitfalls as one sees in matters of business. The dangers are definitely there. In fact, exclusivity can doom our chances for long-term relationships before we’ve had the first date. Unlike business relationships, where committing to certain changes in operation or product is not unusual, asking someone to make a personal change in order to be with another is less likely to be stable. Time may prove that one’s ability and/or desire to change is not adequate and, when change fails to occur, the relationship dissolves.
Furthering society so that we might fully experience our whole selves requires putting aside the sense of exclusivity we apply in many of our relationships. This is not a perspective that is normal in Western society. We like to think we can improve upon the existing model without giving up the portions that don’t work. We want a good relationship without giving up the bad habits. Put away the old-fashioned concepts of romanticism and let’s look at how exclusivity is bad for relationships.
Limited Choice
One of the first things that exclusivity does is limit our choice of partners. The instant we think, “I’m only going to date people who _______,” we limit the possibilities of what could be. We think we’re eliminating traits that are not compatible with what we want in a relationship, but what we are doing is generalizing, putting people into categories with the assumption that they’re all the same.
A frequent limitation is religion. I have personal experience with this one. Growing up as a pastor’s son, there was immense pressure to only date someone who was of the same Christian denomination as my parents. This expectation was so intense that anytime I mentioned being interested in a young woman, my mother’s first question would be, “Is she Baptist?” I’m not sure my mother would ever have accepted anyone from any other belief system as a daughter-in-law.
I know I’m not the only one who has faced similar limitations with expectations of exclusivity that may not be our own. Some cultures have made such exclusivity so severe that social shunning, disinheriting, and even death may occur if the exclusivity isn’t upheld. For some, the explanation is that they must “uphold and continue the bloodline,” but of what real purpose are such bloodlines other than to deny rights to those outside those bloodlines?
One philosophy exists that says we cannot know who/what we truly love until we blind ourselves to the limitations we’ve put in place. If we remove our inherent prejudices and consider the whole individual, we open ourselves to finding a partner/s with whom we’re genuinely compatible.
Legal and Ethical Issues
As incredible as it may seem, societies remain that encode in law which one may marry. Primarily, these laws exist in places that are under theocratic control, which itself is a severe ethical issue. They primarily perpetuate the notion that women are property and have no control over their lives. As they see it, this restriction is necessary to continue the growth of the religion. In a couple of cases, bloodline comes into play as well, but even within that exclusivity, religion is a primary ingredient.
Such limitations are inherently in violation of a person’s human rights. When stating that one has the right to believe, one must include that one also has the right to not believe. Anything else violates that person’s humanity. Governments and religions, corporations, and political parties have no right to make demands that violate personhood. It is sad that even in the US, the right for people of different races to marry has existed for fewer years than I’ve been alive. The right for people of the same gender to marry has existed in the US for less than a decade.
When we try to apply any form of exclusivity to sexuality and relationships on a large scale, we flirt with the possibility that we might infringe upon the civil and human rights of one or both parties. How is that a stable way to start a relationship? This goes beyond the question of personal preference. When matters of exclusivity become law, we are denying rights to the group of people affected.
Potential for Complacency
I’ve known people who could eat a cheeseburger every day, from the same restaurant, and never grow tired of it. I’ve known other people who wouldn’t think of eating the same thing for two days in a row. When we set exclusivity limits in our relationships, we are essentially doing the former, deciding that we are good at dealing with the same person with all their faults and shortcomings, because we like who they are at the core. Some call this love. Others call this settling. Either way, the potential for complacency is there and it can destroy relationships.
Complacency doesn’t set in right away, of course. One has to commit to the repetition, not just of the who, but what. Being with the same person day after day doesn’t get old if what we get from that person changes. Using the restaurant example again, one can go to the same place, the same coffee shop, the same burger joint, every day but not get tired because there’s more than one thing on the menu that you like. When I go to my favorite coffee shop, the barista knows that I’m going to choose between strong black coffee and a carrot cake chai, depending on how I’m feeling. If I ever grow tired of those choices, there are other options. That minimizes the chances of complacency.
When we are with people who grow, people who challenge themselves, and people who reach beyond the borders of the norm, then we are significantly less likely to become complacent. But when we are with people who do the same exact thing, even if it starts out thoughtful, every day without changing, we start taking things for granted.
For example, I once knew a young man who brought his bride a single red rose starting immediately after they were married. Every day, on his way to work, he would stop by the local florist, pick the most perfect rose he could find, and have it sent to her. Sounds sweet, doesn’t it? At first, it was lovely; she gushed with excitement each time a rose arrived. Over time, though, especially on days when she was busy, the roses weren’t as special, she began to neglect them, wouldn’t treat them as gently, and threw away the dying ones sooner than she had before.
One day, as they were arguing over something trivial, she told him to “take your stupid roses and shove them up your ass.” His gesture had become ordinary and unappreciated. Their relationship had become complacent (not only regarding the roses).
Our lives yearn for variety. We want things to be different, preferably better. We long for excitement that exclusivity doesn’t provide. When this happens, we get bored, cranky, and dissatisfied with the very things that once we found attractive.
Just as companies with exclusive contracts have to continually improve their product and their service, relationships, even the best of them, have to grow and improve to prevent becoming mindless habits that we do simply because we don’t know how to do anything else. Relationships end because they no longer feel worthwhile. The value is lost, so we start looking elsewhere.
Barriers to Market Entry
Young people of many generations were raised with the idea that their primary goal in life was to get married and have babies. What else was there to do? In the centuries when women were discouraged from working, the dream was to find a husband who wouldn’t beat them too often and might provide them with a comfortable place to raise their children. The bar was set pretty damn low. For men, the goal was to find a wife who would be the perfect accessory to their lives, look good at social events, bear beautiful and intelligent children, and always have a delicious meal ready at the end of the day.
These ideals were so engrained that if one reached the age of 16-18 and did not appear to have any prospects, then anxiety and worry began to set in. If none of the people from the preferred group met all the exclusivity criteria, such as the correct religion and an honorable family, then one would have to look at the next group down on the social ladder, and then the next, and the next. The problem with this approach was that with each subsequent group, the chances of finding someone who met the exclusivity requirements grew more difficult. Looking for a virgin? Good luck! Looking for someone who cooked like your mother? Probably not going to happen.
Soon, a thought creeps in: what if I don’t find anyone? We start feeling desperate. We look at our list of exclusivities and begin removing barriers we are willing to live without. As soon as we find someone who is willing to go on a second date, we start planning the engagement and wedding before they have a chance to change their mind.
How much better is it when we toss the idea of exclusive traits and personalities out the window before we even start looking? One of the improvements among some younger generations is that they were empowered to not give in to the dangerous relationship norms of their parents and grandparents. The world is different, so focusing first on employment isn’t a social horror. Putting off having children is generally considered an intelligent move. Not having children at all actually becomes attractive. And who wants someone who doesn’t have a clue what they’re doing in the bedroom?
Even today, some 40 years after the fact, I still wonder what would have happened, how my life might have changed, had I dropped my own exclusivity barriers and dated the girl to whom I gave my senior ring. My reasons for dropping her seem petty now. I was being too exclusive and might have missed out on a wonderful relationship… or a complete nightmare. We never know at the beginning exactly how things in a relationship are going to turn out, but if we are exclusive in our dating habits we automatically eliminate what could be the best relationship of our lives.
Dating multiple people, possibly at the same time, also needs to be more of a norm. When we latch our hooks into the first person who makes it to the third date and makes the relationship exclusive, we cut off access to those who might be a better fit. Unfortunately, there’s a double standard in dating around. For men, the habit is considered normal, considering his options, sowing his “wild oats,” and waiting for just the right person to “take home to Mom.” Women, on the other hand, are slut shamed for dating too many people. What bothers me even more is that it is often other women who do the shaming. Doesn’t a woman have every right to be noncommittal? Setting up artificial barriers to entry through this kind of exclusivity is a sign of immaturity and narcissism. Who in their right mind wants that?
Dependence on a Limited Customer Base
“You can only date people who are of the same sect of religion as your family.” Growing up, I heard this all the time. “You can’t date a catholic, they’re not a real Christian.” “You can’t someone from the Assemblies of God because they speak in tongues.” “She seems like a nice girl but her church believes you can lose your salvation.” The list went on and on and on. I was expected to exclusively date Southern Baptist girls. From the outset, I had to deal with a limited “customer base.”
The choices grew more narrow from there. Could she cook? Could she sing? Was she suitable for a life of ministry? With each question, the pool grew more and more narrow, and finding someone who liked me as much as I liked them, and was willing to admit that in public, grew increasingly difficult.
Around the world, young people are facing the same demands from their families, their mosques, their synagogues, and their friends to look within such an exclusive group of people that it is no wonder some prefer to rely upon arranged marriages. The pool of people they might be compatible with is so small that the best match may never be found.
Forced exclusivity is also dangerous. When we are forced into such limited choices, the chances of partnering with someone who is ultimately controlling and abusive go up considerably. Religious cults operate heavily this way, making it almost impossible for an abused woman to leave a dangerous relationship. Even more frightening is that in many religions, failure to adhere to the exclusive expectations can result in more abuse and even death. There remain plenty of countries in which fleeing from family and religion can become a self-imposed death sentence.
Interestingly, religion survives on such exclusivity. Take away the forced marriage requirements and most religions quickly fall apart. Young people are smart enough to see the fallacies of their teachings, the limitations to their personhood and individuality, and the lack of freedom that these religions impose under the guise of “god’s will.” Providing them safe means of escape is difficult but a laudable venture.
Customer Alienation
“They need to get that fucking stick out of their ass.”
Are people saying that about you? In an age of online dating and social media, managing how other people perceive us can be a full-time job. Are we posting too much or too little? Does my hair look good? Is this the best filter? Do I look fun and exciting?
Sadly, one fairly common attitude is to make oneself look as exclusive as possible. I understand wanting to match with someone who has the same goals and interests, but some of these other barriers border on being ridiculous. Here are a few that I’ve seen:
There are so many ways to try to make oneself look exclusive, but when we do we need to be aware that not everyone is going to find your exclusivity attractive. In fact, the more exclusive we try to make ourselves, the more likely it is that reasonable people will turn up their noses and walk away. No one wants to be with someone difficult to please. I think of this every time I see someone on social media complain about how difficult it is to find someone who meets their criteria. Perhaps, my dear, you’re making yourself too difficult to be likable.
High Costs
Some people’s lists of exclusive demands are so severe that being in a relationship becomes expensive. For example, there are plenty of people who insist on only dining in the best of restaurants. They would never consider even a mid-market eatery such as TGI Fridays or Applebee’s. Every once in a while, nice restaurants are fun, but every night? Really? That’s a little too exclusive, don’t you think? And no, sweetheart, you don’t deserve it.
Life is expensive, especially if you’re under 45. Expecting the person in your relationship to do things like pay half your rent when they’re not living with you, buy you expensive presents, and take you to expensive concerts and vacations, without you compensating in like form isn’t only an impossible level of exclusivity but it’s just mean.
Being able to appreciate the simpler things in life is an admirable characteristic that makes one more attractive. Can you be happy with homemade tuna salad sandwiches? Bonus points. Do you drive the same car until the wheels fall off? Bonus points. Are you not afraid to shop at Goodwill or vintage boutiques? Bonus points. Do you do your own shopping? Bonus points.
There’s nothing wrong with appreciating and enjoying the finer things in life. We appreciate nice things more, though, when they’re not an everyday thing. As I’ve already mentioned, when we get nice things all the time, we become complacent and increasingly narcissistic.
Such exclusivity is horrible for a relationship. What happens if the economy takes a downturn and all that money is lost? What happens if your partner loses their high-paying job, or any job for that matter? What happens if, heaven forbid, your partner becomes ill or disabled? Are you so intent on being exclusive that you’d kick a person to the curb for not being able to keep up with your financial expectations, or would you stick with them through the struggles even if it causes you stress?
Giving in to exclusive demands hurts us just as much. When we give in to unreasonable requests, we lose part of our autonomy. Do that enough times and you lose your identity, becoming nothing more than “that person’s partner.” What is the cost of your individuality? Are you willing to completely give up who you are to be part of a relationship? Being in an exclusive relationship should never feel as though you’ve sold your soul to the devil or anyone else.
Limited Market Reach
If it wasn’t obvious before, it should be by now that exclusivity in relationships is limiting in ways that are unhealthy, undesirable, and unsustainable. When we make our relationships exclusive, we turn away from other options. As we see fewer people, fewer people see us. The fewer options we’re willing to consider, the fewer options we have for ourselves.
The world is full of people and even if you’re compatible with only 0.5% of the people on the planet, that is somewhere around 368,000,000 people for whom you might be the perfect partner! With an opportunity like that, why would anyone want to limit the options with unnecessary rules about who you will and won’t consider? Sure, you may not have the time nor the means to get to know 368,000,000 people, but 3,680 makes a reasonable pool size, don’t you think? Why limit yourself with these exclusionary rules? Wake up and embrace the possibilities! There’s no sense in making a life more difficult than it needs to be!
Exceptions
Sure, there are some exclusions we all need to make. No one needs to be stuck in a relationship with anyone who puts their life in danger. People who are abusive, manipulative, narcissistic, demanding, demeaning, derogatory toward you, isolating, insulting, and/or gaslighting need to be kicked out of the relationship pool altogether. Even if you made the mistake of saying, “Till death do us part,” don’t let yourself be trapped. If a relationship becomes dangerous for you at any point, it’s time to leave. If you can’t leave on your own, find help. It’s out there.
Exploring the Options
You’re never too old to try something, or someone new. The options are myriad. You can have relationships with more than one person. You can have relationships with people of multiple genders (or no gender). You can swing. You can play. You can explore within set safety limits. All manner of options are out there if you choose to explore something other than exclusivity.
What’s most important is that we first be honest with ourselves: what makes us truly happy? If we don’t know, then it’s time to find out! To hell with being exclusive! See what really makes you happy and go for it.
I don’t particularly have any difficulty hearing. In fact, at my last physical, I was told that my hearing is surprisingly good for my age. That isn’t always a benefit. Sometimes I hear my children using language and talking about topics I would rather not hear from my 13- and 15-year-old. When I’m trying to get to sleep tonight and every little billow of the wind outside assaults my ears, I wish I was able to turn the noise down a notch or two. But when I’m watching any type of video, that’s a different matter altogether.
I’m not the only one who has difficulty hearing the dialogue in movies, YouTube videos, and pretty much any type of digital video. Granted, it’s not as much of an issue in the movie theatre, but I’ve not been to one of those in four years now. At home, hearing what’s on the television or streaming on my computer can be extremely difficult.
The solution, it would seem, is turning on Closed Caption. I use captions so often that I get a bit upset when I come across a video that doesn’t happen. Even when I’m home alone and turn the volume up as much as I wish, I still use closed captions because there’s too much that I miss without them.
Turns out, using closed captions is a thing a lot of people do now. Chances are, in fact, that you’re one of those people. I found this story from CBS Sunday Morning extremely interesting.
One doesn’t have to be as old as I am to remember a day when fast food burgers were the most inexpensive way to feed yourself or a family. Burgers were under a dollar. Fries might cost 85 cents. Drinks were maybe 50 cents if you got the large size. Those days have been gone for quite a while, but an article I was reading this week brought home just how much the cost of those fast food meals has increased. So much so, that in some cases, it can be cheaper to dine indoors with seated service, even with tip included.
Case in point, Chili’s has a deal called 3-for-Me, an entree, side, and drink, for a relatively low price. There are three burger combinations included with the deal that are listed as only $10.99. Understand, this is a decent-sized, well-complimented burger (equal to a double-meat burger in most fast food places), a healthy serving of fries, and a soda, with seated service and refills on the drinks. Even with tip and tax, you’re getting out for under $15 and don’t have the stress of trying to eat in the car, or waiting until you get home and having to warm up your food in the microwave.
How does this compare to fast food? I thought the best way to compare this is to make a table. We’re using a burger, fries, and drink or something equivalent for comparison. Take a look:
| McDonald‘s Big Mac meal with large fries and soda | $9.89 |
| Burger King Double Whopper meal with large fries and soda | $12.19 |
| Hardee’s Super Star Combo | $11.78 |
| Sonic Double Cheeseburger combo with large fries and soda | $10.89 |
| Five Guys Cheeseburger, large fries and soda | $18.77 |
| Arby’s Double Beef ‘N Cheddar meal | $10.99 |
| KFC Three-piece chicken combo with side and drink | $9.19 |
| Applebee’s Neighborhood burger with fries and soda | $14.98 |
Caveat: These prices are accurate as of March 14, 2024, in certain Midwest markets. Prices vary by location.
Sure, all of these places have cheaper options. However, we’re comparing burgers to burgers and it’s clear that fast food isn’t always your most economical choice. Fast food is really only advantageous if you have a legitimate time crunch. Otherwise, consider going inside and letting someone bring the food to you. Doing so is going to be less stressful, the food is going to be hotter and fresher, and you’re more likely to get the burger cooked the way you want it. Not to mention the fact that the burger may be healthier than what you’re picking up through the drive-thru. Who knows how long that Big Mac has been sitting there?
I’m not making any endorsements but be sure the next time I don’t feel like cooking, we’re going to consider our options a bit more carefully.
With the weather sitting at sunny and 75 degrees, it would have been a waste of an afternoon to not take the dogs out for a bit of a romp. I might have put my hat on, but my hair was looking good, in my opinion, so I left it off. Unfortunately, I think this is the last day we’re going to have such a pleasant environment. Rain is supposed to move in overnight and then the temps cool down a bit. By Monday, the forecasted high is only 38 degrees. I’m pretty sure the dogs are more than ready for Spring.
There are a lot of conversations around our house about Comic Con next weekend. Tipper couldn’t be more excited. When I ask her what she’s looking forward to seeing, though, she doesn’t have a clue. She’s going for the experience and to spend time with friends. Celebrities? She’s not as interested in that.
Perhaps it’s a good thing she’s not. They’re pulling a large number from the geriatric section of the Screen Actors Guild. You would have to be over 40 (or near it) to recognize a number of these. Here are a few samples of who’s scheduled to attend.
A couple of these I’m surprised to find they’re still alive. Of course, the danger in booking older celebs is that you never know when one of them is going to croak. You just hope they don’t do it at the event!
Oh, and if you want a picture with one of these folks, be prepared to shell out an additional $60-$100 for the privilege. I guess this is pretty much the only income some of these old-timers have because older TV shows before 2010 didn’t offer anything in the way of streaming royalties. This puts them in the position of having to soak everything they can out of events such as these.
Still, if most of the attendees are younger, are they really going to make that much money?
Self care is a popular piece of what I call hashtag philosophy. While the topic is a legitimate form of psychological study and treatment, its popularity exceeds its actual scholarship and far too many people (in my opinion) are claiming self care around activities and actions that do more harm than good, for themselves and others. As a result, when someone claims they’re acting out of self care, others are more likely to respond dismissively than supportive, diminishing any benefits.
We all have elements of self care to which we have to attend. Here are some of mine:
My situation drives my self care needs and those needs, in turn, are the basis for the boundaries I set. Whether those needs are met is almost exclusively my choice. Even when the dogs escape, I’ve learned that running after them is typically not the most efficient response; it leaves me winded, and I’m putting myself in danger. The dogs will come back once they’ve had their little romp. If I choose to ignore a self care boundary, I do so knowing the risks.
However, actions I undertake to keep myself safe and healthy should not get in the way of the fact that I am, as we all are, part of a community. My community is considerably smaller now than it once was due to my limitations, but regardless of the situation, my self care should not cause me to lose empathy, impose undue restrictions on others, avoid responsibilities, or make unreasonable demands.
I saw a meme recently that said, “Telling your partner where you are, who you are with, what time are you coming home is not being controlled, it’s RESPECT.”
I don’t necessarily disagree (despite the fact it’s a poorly phrased expression). Clear communication of expectations is necessary for a healthy relationship. However, to demand absolute adherence to that statement is a) presumptive, b) lacking in trust, and c) aggressively controlling. If one is demanding this information of their partner at every juncture, they’re being manipulative and potentially abusive.
For example, my partner is not home as I write this. I know where they probably are and who they probably are with, but if they’re not where I think they are, I’m not going to get upset. They are an adult. They know how to set their boundaries. I’ve seen them walk away from situations that are physically or emotionally threatening. I’m not their parent. I don’t need to know what they’re doing and who is keeping them company every minute of the day. If I were to start texting them or calling them demanding to know all the little details of their life, I’d be an asshole.
This topic is top of mind at the moment because I’ve been made aware of multiple situations where genuine assholes, one of which I formerly called a friend, are exhibiting narcissistic behavior and calling it self care. I didn’t want to say anything until I’d at least checked for literature on the topic. Turns out, there’s almost no literature, especially from peer-reviewed sources of any authority.
What I did find was a self-published article by a Cape Town, SA psychologist, Joan Swart, titled “The Dark Side of Self-Care.” I’m not qualified to confirm anything she says, but there are a couple of statements I think bear quoting.
“The line between self-care and narcissism can become blurred when the practice of self-care devolves into an obsessive focus on self. When an individual is so engrossed in meeting their own needs that they start neglecting the feelings and needs of those around them, self-care starts morphing into narcissistic behavior. This could manifest in consistently prioritizing personal needs over those of others, even in situations where others are in a state of greater need.“
…
“This tendency of avoidance can seep into emotional processing as well. Self-care activities, if employed as a constant escape route from tough emotions, can inhibit emotional growth. A person might turn to yoga, meditation, or their favorite TV show each time they experience sadness or anxiety, seeking distraction rather than confrontation. While these practices can offer temporary relief, they may not address the root cause of these emotions. Over time, this could result in an accumulation of unresolved emotional issues, leading to more intense emotional distress.”
Again, I’m not a clinician nor do I possess the credentials to pass authoritative judgment on Dr. Swart’s article, but I see a lot there that rings true based on my anecdotal experience.
One particular ongoing situation of which I am aware is a couple who share two young children. Earlier in their relationship, she had a decent-paying job, a house in her name with the title clear, and her own transportation. He brought little more than companionship and sperm count to the relationship. Now, with the kids both of school age, she is no longer employed, does not have transportation, and is financially responsible for all utilities and food. He has a decent-paying job and transportation via a company vehicle. Common sense dictates that he participate in paying a portion, if not all, of the utilities and food.
Instead, he spends over $300/month for cigarettes and soft drinks for himself, nothing for groceries, and only $10 since October 2023 for utilities. The house is such a mess that there is a possible cause for the children to be removed from the home. He comes home from work and plays video games. That’s it. His excuse? Self care. “I’m tired. I need a break. I work, I shouldn’t have to do anything else (such as take care of the kids).”
See the problem? His concept of self care has dissolved into a level of avoidance and narcissism that is endangering both the relationship and the children.
Given all the pitfalls, (Dr. Swart outlines a few quite nicely) one might wonder what the difference is between healthy self care and unhealthy behavior. Let me give you a few examples. SC = self care, UB = unhealthy behavior.
SC: I need x hours of sleep so I create an environment for myself that facilitates that with minimal impact on others.
UB: I need x hours of sleep so everyone better shut the fuck up and leave me alone so I can get it and it’s your fault if I don’t.
SC: I have medically necessary dietary needs. I purchase my own food and if necessary prepare it separately so as to not impose upon the desires of others.
UB: Coffee and soda are prohibited in this house because they’ll make me sick and irritable. Don’t you dare bring that stuff in here!
SC: I have social needs so I make arrangements with friends to meet up in ways that accommodate both of our schedules.
UB: I don’t want to leave the house, it makes me anxious. Why don’t you ever come over to visit?
I’ll assume that’s enough to make my point. With true self care, the responsibility for my needs is mine. I don’t expect or demand others to go out of their way to meet my needs. I am empathetic to the needs of others and do not impose my limitations inappropriately.
Taking care of yourself is a necessity. So is being responsible for yourself. Don’t be the asshole who makes your self care everyone else’s problem.
Editorial note: The decision to not hyphenate Self Care was intentional because, in my opinion, it does not meet the the grammatical qualifications for hyphenation.
Personal note: Writing this has severely taxed my mental acuities this afternoon. I started thinking I was coherent enough to make an intelligent statement. By the time I was halfway through, I was having to look up several words that are a normal part of my vocabulary because I couldn’t remember them. This is part of the fun of being on Chemo.
Multiple people in the family are sad this morning that Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball comics, has died at age 68. My older boys especially were obsessed with Dragon Ball when they were younger. It’s frightening how often creative lives run short.
I’m trying to settle in for a day of rain. Normally, that means extra pain meds to try and keep the arthritis at bay. This morning, oddly enough, it is only the end knuckles on three fingers on my right hand that are giving me fits. I’ve no idea why I’m getting this particular segmentation.
Reading through the reviews of last night’s State of the Union address, I’m convinced that the people in Georgia who elected Marjorie Taylor Greene must be as equally disgusting as she is. Otherwise, they would have had her out of office by now. She’s an embarrassment to a political system that does a good enough job of embarrassing itself.
How the hell do tires fall off an airplane? It happened to a United Airlines flight leaving San Francisco shortly after 11:30 yesterday. The tire fell into an employee parking lot, damaging several cars. This absolutely blows my mind. Why the fuck do we still fly when it’s increasingly obvious no one’s maintaining the damn planes?
My brain is not working well this morning. The number of corrections I have to make to my typing is disappointing. Maybe I’ll write more later.
If there is one thing the past few weeks have taught us it is that we never know when our lives are going to be upended in ways we never imagined. Home has suddenly become more than a place where we sleep, visit with family, and perhaps occasionally catch a quick meal or two. Home is now where we work, where we socialize, where we create, where we eat every meal, and where we sit on social media fondly remembering those times where it was safe to go out. At least, we thought it was safe. We rarely gave a second thought to what might happen if we left home.
Now, though, we’re home, or we’re supposed to be, and despite all that talk about opening things back up so that the virus can spread even more, the truth is we’re likely to remain at home a lot more than what was formerly our norm. If we are going to spend more time at home, then it only makes sense that we want home to look more like someplace we really want to stay at more than a few minutes. We want home to be comfortable, fun, inspiring, entertaining, and relaxing. What we’re realizing some 4-6 weeks into quarantine is that our home spaces really aren’t any of those things. The good news is that now we have the time to change that.
For our house, that means Kat painted the kitchen. I can’t claim to have had anything to do with that. While the kids helped her a little bit, and at least one of the cats dipped his paws in the paint, she did most of the work while I was unconscious. She did consult me on the color, but for the most part, this was one of Kat’s moments where she saw something she didn’t like and she solved the problem. She has plans for solving other problems as well if the stay-at-home order continues.
As we’ve discussed completely re-working the living room, one of the topics is where to hang art. This is complicated by the fact that I have more art sitting behind the couch than we have wall space. It’s all framed and ready to go, but you didn’t buy it so now I have to do something with it. This problem is all your fault. Don’t try to weasel your way out of it. Given that the majority of that art involves nudity in some form, that raises a question: can we hang that in our living room?
The short answer is Yes, we can. You can, also. Any prohibitions against doing so died several years ago, actually. We perpetuate them out of an unreasonable fear that we might offend someone or because we have children in the house. Both of those are nonsense arguments. First, few people ever have anyone over to their home in the first place and that number is likely to decrease now that we’ve grown accustomed to social distancing. Second, those who do have people over to their home tend to choose people who have similar tastes and values. Third, children actually benefit from having art of every kind in the home. No, it’s not illegal, we have had multiple assurances on that front, as long as it’s not explicitly pornographic. There are benefits to having nudity in your home, and at least one person thinks children should participate in nude art classes. You can hang nude art in your home!
Eventually, this begs the question, how does one hang nude art in their home. Do you put it up high so the kids don’t see it? Do you put it in a separate room so those non-existent guests aren’t offended? No, and no. Nude art can and should be hung using the same advice given for hanging any kind of art.
See? Not difficult at all! I think the biggest challenge to hanging nude art at home, once we get past the ridiculous concept that there’s something wrong with doing so, is that it is difficult for us to imagine how that might look. So, let me help you out here. Below are some pieces we’ll be adding to our gallery on Saatchi Art, hopefully sometime in the next week or so. I’ll add links to the art when we do. We’ve mocked up different ideas for how the art, all sized at 16×20 inches before framing, might look on a wall. Take a look at these, and then compare how they look on a wall versus the pieces we showed you last week. The biggest difference is that these pieces are all black-and-white.
There really are no excuses. You can hang nude art in your home and if it is something that you enjoy, something that inspires you in some way or makes your space more pleasurable for you, especially now that you’re stuck in it 24/7, then you should hang nude art in your home.
Take a look.
Note: I didn’t bother with changing matte colors in creating these mock-ups because of the time hit. With darker walls, especially, I’m personally in favor of using mattes of a contrasting color. If you’re using a particularly decorative frame, double matting might not be a bad idea. These are all matters of personal preferences, of course. The point is that you can hang nude art on your walls at home.
Just make sure it’s not in the background of your office Zoom meeting. It’s not going to be considered work safe. No point in fighting it. You should probably be using a fake background anyway.
Enjoy! Create! Make you’re home the place of comfort and pleasure you want it to be!
Pakistan doesn’t like Valentines Day. More specifically, the Islamabad High Court’s order prohibits all Valentine’s Day festivities in government offices and public spaces. Immediately. No cards. No candy. No streamers. Nothing. Conservative Muslim groups are considered to be behind the ban.
Pakistan has a very interesting view of Valentines Day. Whereas most Americans think of it as a day to celebrate love and to give sweet gifts of chocolate and nonsense to someone you care about, conservative Muslims in Pakistan see it as an example of Western decadence.
The petition on which the High Court issued its verdict claimed that Valentines Day “promotes immorality, nudity, and indecency under the cover of spreading love.” Kinda makes you wonder what Valentines Day party they were invited to, doesn’t it?
The ban covers any public display and even encouraged national media to not talk about or promote Valentines Day in any form.
Last year, Pakistan’s President Mamnoon Hussain denounced Valentines Day, saying it is a Western tradition and not part of Pakistan’s culture. His words didn’t carry any force, however. It was just sort of a suggestion. Separately, local officials in Kohat, in northwest Pakistan, banned the sale of Valentine cards and goods, and Peshawar local council banned celebrations last year as well.
However, today’s ruling by the High Court affects the entire country. You can’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, which is likely to displease a number of people. The day has become extremely popular especially among Pakistan’s younger and more secular population.
The ban does not necessarily affect card shops and restaurants. However, whether a shop or restaurant is able to get away with any kind of Valentines Day promotion is likely to come at the discretion of law enforcement.
So, if you love someone, don’t plan on spending Valentines Day in Pakistan. Try India. I’m sure they’ll welcome you. [insert evil grin here]
Raoul Peck’s stirring documentary about the late James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro, opens nationwide in theaters tomorrow. Every person in the United States needs to go see this movie. We need to understand. We need to know. This may very well be the most important film you see all year.
James Baldwin was a profound and sometimes incendiary writer, poet, and speaker. His words struck a nerve not only within the black community of the 1960s, but among white people who were afraid of the civil rights movement. Baldwin’s words were strong and resonant because they were accurate and true, whether anyone wanted to believe him or not.
Baldwin’s story comes to life in ways never before seen in Raoul Peck’s documentary, I Am Not Your Negro. Peck was given access to the FBI’s extensive file on Baldwin and using that information, along with miles of film footage that hasn’t been seen since the 60s, he brings Baldwin back to life juxtaposed against the Black Lives Matter movement and the groundswell of white nationalism currently taking place across the US.
Here’s the trailer for the movie:
Watch the trailer for James Baldwin’s #IAmNotYourNegro, the film critics are calling “essential viewing for all Americans.” In theaters 2/3. pic.twitter.com/fHETX60JPw
— I Am Not Your Negro (@IAmNotYourNegro) January 5, 2017
In light of the unforgivable gaffes the president made in yesterday’s statement on Black History Month (where he praised the work Frederick Douglass is doing) and his stated intention to declassify white supremacy groups as violent extremists, we need this movie now. I worry that far too many white people are going to dismiss it as “a black thing.” This is not “a black thing.” This is an us thing. You and me. Regardless of our skin color. This is about who we are and who we have always been as a nation.
Because I’m reasonably sure 98% of those reading this have never seen a James Baldwin poem, I’m giving you one now. It’s long. Read the whole thing. Consider what he’s saying. The words may have been written before some of you were born, but they are still just as applicable now as they were 50 years ago.
I always wonder
what they think the niggers are doing
while they, the pink and alabaster pragmatists,
are containing
Russia
and defining and re-defining and re-aligning
China,
nobly restraining themselves, meanwhile,
from blowing up that earth
which they have already
blasphemed into dung:
the gentle, wide-eyed, cheerful
ladies, and their men,
nostalgic for the noble cause of Vietnam,
nostalgic for noble causes,
aching, nobly, to wade through the blood of savages—
ah—!
Uncas shall never leave the reservation,
except to purchase whisky at the State Liquor Store.
The Panama Canal shall remain forever locked:
there is a way around every treaty.
We will turn the tides of the restless
Caribbean,
the sun will rise, and set
on our hotel balconies as we see fit.
The natives will have nothing to complain about,
indeed, they will begin to be grateful,
will be better off than ever before.
They will learn to defer gratification
and save up for things, like we do.
Oh, yes. They will.
We have only to make an offer
they cannot refuse.
This flag has been planted on the moon:
it will be interesting to see
what steps the moon will take to be revenged
for this quite breathtaking presumption.
This people
masturbate in winding sheets.
They have hacked their children to pieces.
They have never honoured a single treaty
made with anyone, anywhere.
The walls of their cities
are as foul as their children.
No wonder their children come at them with knives.
Mad Charlie man’s son was one of their children,
had got his shit together
by the time he left kindergarten,
and, as for Patty, heiress of all the ages,
she had the greatest vacation
of any heiress, anywhere:
Golly-gee, whillikens, Mom, real guns!
and they come with a real big, black funky stud, too:
oh, Ma! he’s making eyes at me!
Oh, noble Duke Wayne,
be careful in them happy hunting grounds.
They say the only good Indian
is a dead Indian,
by what I say is,
you can’t be too careful, you hear?
Oh, towering Ronnie Reagan,
wise and resigned lover of redwoods,
deeply beloved, winning man-child of the yearning Republic
from diaper to football field to Warner Brothers sound-stages,
be thou our grinning, gently phallic, Big Boy of all the ages!
Salt peanuts, salt peanuts,
for dear hearts and gentle people,
and cheerful, shining, simple Uncle Sam!
Nigger, read this and run!
Now, if you can’t read,
run anyhow!
From Manifest Destiny
(Cortez, and all his men
silent upon a peak in Darien)
to A Decent Interval,
and the chopper rises above Saigon,
abandoning the noble cause
and the people we have made ignoble
and whom we leave there, now, to die,
one moves, With All Deliberate Speed,
to the South China Sea, and beyond,
where millions of new niggers
await glad tidings!
No, said the Great Man’s Lady,
I’m against abortion,
I always feel that’s killing somebody.
Well, what about capital punishment?
I think the death penalty helps.
That’s right.
Up to our ass in niggers
on Death Row.
Oh, Susanna,
don’t you cry for me!
2
Well, I guess what the niggers
is supposed to be doing
is putting themselves in the path
of that old sweet chariot
and have it swing down and carry us home.
That would help, as they say,
and they got ways
of sort of nudging the chariot.
They still got influence
with Wind and Water,
though they in for some surprises
with Cloud and Fire.
My days are not their days.
My ways are not their ways.
I would not think of them,
one way or the other,
did not they so grotesquely
block the view
between me and my brother.
And, so, I always wonder:
can blindness be desired?
Then, what must the blinded eyes have seen
to wish to see no more!
For, I have seen,
in the eyes regarding me,
or regarding my brother,
have seen, deep in the farthest valley
of the eye, have seen
a flame leap up, then flicker and go out,
have seen a veil come down,
leaving myself, and the other,
alone in that cave
which every soul remembers, and
out of which, desperately afraid,
I turn, turn, stagger, stumble out,
into the healing air,
fall flat on the healing ground,
singing praises, counselling
my heart, my soul, to praise.
What is it that this people
cannot forget?
Surely, they cannot be deluded
as to imagine that their crimes
are original?
There is nothing in the least original
about the fiery tongs to the eyeballs,
the sex torn from the socket,
the infant ripped from the womb,
the brains dashed out against rock,
nothing original about Judas,
or Peter, or you or me: nothing:
we are liars and cowards all,
or nearly all, or nearly all the time:
for we also ride the lightning,
answer the thunder, penetrate whirlwinds,
curl up on the floor of the sun,
and pick our teeth with thunderbolts.
Then, perhaps they imagine
that their crimes are not crimes?
Perhaps.
Perhaps that is why they cannot repent,
why there is no possibility of repentance.
Manifest Destiny is a hymn to madness,
feeding on itself, ending
(when it ends) in madness:
the action is blindness and pain,
pain bringing a torpor so deep
that every act is willed,
is desperately forced,
is willed to be a blow:
the hand becomes a fist,
the prick becomes a club,
the womb a dangerous swamp,
the hope, and fear, of love
is acid in the marrow of the bone.
No, their fire is not quenched,
nor can be: the oil feeding the flames
being the unadmitted terror of the wrath of God.
Yes. But let us put it in another,
less theological way:
though theology has absolutely nothing to do
with what I am trying to say.
But the moment God is mentioned
theology is summoned
to buttress or demolish belief:
an exercise which renders belief irrelevant
and adds to the despair of Fifth Avenue
on any afternoon,
the people moving, homeless, through the city,
praying to find sanctuary before the sky
and the towers come tumbling down,
before the earth opens, as it does in Superman.
They know that no one will appear
to turn back time,
they know it, just as they know
that the earth has opened before
and will open again, just as they know
that their empire is falling, is doomed,
nothing can hold it up, nothing.
We are not talking about belief.
3
I wonder how they think
the niggers made, make it,
how come the niggers are still here.
But, then, again, I don’t think they dare
to think of that: no:
I’m fairly certain they don’t think of that at all.
Lord,
I with the alabaster lady of the house,
with Beulah.
Beulah about sixty, built in four-square,
biceps like Mohammed Ali,
she at the stove, fixing biscuits,
scrambling eggs and bacon, fixing coffee,
pouring juice, and the lady of the house,
she say, she don’t know how
she’d get along without Beulah
and Beulah just silently grunts,
I reckon you don’t,
and keeps on keeping on
and the lady of the house say
She’s just like one of the family,
and Beulah turns, gives me a look,
sucks her teeth and rolls her eyes
in the direction of the lady’s back, and
keeps on keeping on.
While they are containing
Russia
and entering onto the quicksand of
China
and patronizing
Africa,
and calculating
the Caribbean plunder, and
the South China Sea booty,
the niggers are aware that no one has discussed
anything at all with the niggers.
Well. Niggers don’t own nothing,
got no flag, even our names
are hand-me-downs
and you don’t change that
by calling yourself X:
sometimes that just makes it worse,
like obliterating the path that leads back
to whence you came, and
to where you can begin.
And, anyway, none of this changes the reality,
which is, for example, that I do not want my son
to die in Guantanamo,
or anywhere else, for that matter,
serving the Stars and Stripes.
(I’ve seen some stars.
I got some stripes.)
Neither (incidentally)
has anyone discussed the Bomb with the niggers:
the incoherent feeling is, the less
the nigger knows about the Bomb, the better:
the lady of the house
smiles nervously in your direction
as though she had just been overheard
discussing family, or sexual secrets,
and changes the subject to Education,
or Full Employment, or the Welfare rolls,
the smile saying, Don’t be dismayed.
We know how you feel. You can trust us.
Yeah. I would like to believe you.
But we are not talking about belief.
4
The sons of greed, the heirs of plunder,
are approaching the end of their journey:
it is amazing that they approach without wonder,
as though they have, themselves, become
that scorched and blasphemed earth,
the stricken buffalo, the slaughtered tribes,
the endless, virgin, bloodsoaked plain,
the famine, the silence, the children’s eyes,
murder masquerading as salvation, seducing
every democratic eye,
the mouths of truth and anguish choked with cotton,
rape delirious with the fragrance of magnolia,
the hacking of the fruit of their loins to pieces,
hey! the tar-baby sons and nephews, the high-yaller
nieces,
and Tom’s black prick hacked off
to rustle in crinoline,
to hang, heaviest of heirlooms,
between the pink and alabaster breasts
of the Great Man’s Lady,
or worked into the sash at the waist
of the high-yaller Creole bitch, or niece,
a chunk of shining brown-black satin,
staring, staring, like the single eye of God:
creation yearns to re-create a time
when we were able to recognize a crime.
Alas,
my stricken kinsmen,
the party is over:
there have never been any white people,
anywhere: the trick was accomplished with mirrors—
look: where is your image now?
where your inheritance,
on what rock stands this pride?
Oh,
I counsel you,
leave History alone.
She is exhausted,
sitting, staring into her dressing-room mirror,
and wondering what rabbit, now,
to pull out of what hat,
and seriously considering retirement,
even though she knows her public
dare not let her go.
She must change.
Yes. History must change.
A slow, syncopated
relentless music begins
suggesting her re-entry,
transformed, virginal as she was,
in the Beginning, untouched,
as the Word was spoken,
before the rape which debased her
to be the whore of multitudes, or,
as one might say, before she became the Star,
whose name, above our title,
carries the Show, making History the patsy,
responsible for every flubbed line,
every missed cue, responsible for the life
and death, of all bright illusions
and dark delusions,
Lord, History is weary
of her unspeakable liaison with Time,
for Time and History
have never seen eye to eye:
Time laughs at History
and time and time and time again
Time traps History in a lie.
But we always, somehow, managed
to roar History back onstage
to take another bow,
to justify, to sanctify
the journey until now.
Time warned us to ask for our money back,
and disagreed with History
as concerns colours white and black.
Not only do we come from further back,
but the light of the Sun
marries all colours as one.
Kinsmen,
I have seen you betray your Saviour
(it is you who call Him Saviour)
so many times, and
I have spoken to Him about you,
behind your back.
Quite a lot has been going on
behind your back, and,
if your phone has not yet been disconnected,
it will soon begin to ring:
informing you, for example, that a whole generation,
in Africa, is about to die,
and a new generation is about to rise,
and will not need your bribes,
or your persuasions, any more:
not your morality. No plundered gold—
Ah! Kinsmen, if I could make you see
the crime is not what you have done to me!
It is you who are blind,
you, bowed down with chains,
you, whose children mock you, and seek another
master,
you, who cannot look man or woman or child in the
eye,
whose sleep is blank with terror,
for whom love died long ago,
somewhere between the airport and the safe-deposit
box,
the buying and selling of rising or falling stocks,
you, who miss Zanzibar and Madagascar and Kilimanjaro
and lions and tigers and elephants and zebras
and flying fish and crocodiles and alligators and
leopards
and crashing waterfalls and endless rivers,
flowers fresher than Eden, silence sweeter than the
grace of God,
passion at every turning, throbbing in the bush,
thicker, oh, than honey in the hive,
dripping
dripping
opening, welcoming, aching from toe to bottom
to spine,
sweet heaven on the line
to last forever, yes,
but, now,
rejoicing ends, man, a price remains to pay,
your innocence costs too much
and we can’t carry you on our books
or our backs, any longer: baby,
find another Eden, another apple tree,
somewhere, if you can,
and find some other natives, somewhere else,
to listen to you bellow
till you come, just like a man,
but we don’t need you,
are sick of being a fantasy to feed you,
and of being the principal accomplice to your
crime:
for, it is your crime, now, the cross to which you
cling,
your Alpha and Omega for everything.
Well (others have told you)
your clown’s grown weary, the puppet master
is bored speechless with this monotonous disaster,
and is long gone, does not belong to you,
any more than my woman, or my child,
ever belonged to you.
During this long travail
our ancestors spoke to us, and we listened,
and we tried to make you hear life in our song
but now it matters not at all to me
whether you know what I am talking about—or not:
I know why we are not blinded
by your brightness, are able to see you,
who cannot see us. I know
why we are still here.
Godspeed.
The niggers are calculating,
from day to day, life everlasting,
and wish you well:
but decline to imitate the Son of the Morning,
and rule in Hell.
I am not an athlete. One look at me pretty much lets one know that. Not that I didn’t try, though. All through Jr. High I did my best to fit it. I tried ’em all: football, baseball, and basketball. One coach even let me on the basketball team in eighth grade. I played for the last three minutes of one game where we were already losing by 18 points. Other than that, I did my best to be encouraging from the bench. Because of my experience, however, I have an incredible amount of respect for those whose eye-hand coordination is sufficient to allow them to be successful at a sport or two.
When I got older, I tried my hand at some other sports that weren’t quite as dangerous, such as tennis and racquetball. Uhm, did I say they weren’t dangerous? That would be an error. One of my worst sprains ever came from diving across a racquetball court and missing the damn ball. It was fantastic exercise, mind you, but I was repeatedly covered in bruises and spraining something, which probably contributes to the arthritis pain I have now.
Sports are wonderful. I can sit and watch football for as long as the chips and beer hold out. I can watch baseball live if there are plenty of hot dogs, and I can sometimes even tolerate an NBA game as long as 1. I didn’t pay for the seats, 2. We start drinking upon arrival, and 3. I don’t have to drive home, ‘cuz I’m not going to be sober by the time we hit the fourth period. I have absolutely no axe to grind with sports in general. I’ve even been out on the golf course and am pretty sure the solution to doing well is taking four or five Xanax before hitting the course. Although, that probably violates some rule about athletics and drugs.
So, given that sports are sports and involve getting all sweaty and worked up and physical in one way or another, I am totally perplexed why entire athletic organizations would get so freaking upset by being told that they’re not arts. What the literal fuck? How can anyone in their right mind even begin to put the arts and sports in the same basket? Why would you even want to try? They are both two very distinct and different things with two dramatically different purposes. Why are we even having this conversation?
Blame Meryl Streep.
When I wake up each morning, one of the first things I do is check to see what’s trending on Twitter. I try to prepare for our 5 Things You Should Know article before I go to bed each night, but there’s always the chance something can happen while I’m sleeping. I went to bed Sunday night before the Golden Globes because, 1. we had been up 17 hours already and was exhausted, and 2., find awards shows to generally be a complete waste of time. Monday morning, however, I get up to see that not only is #GoldenGlobes trending, so is #SportsAreNotArt and #MerylStreepForPresident. That was my first clue that something of reasonable significance had taken place.
Sure enough, it didn’t take long to discover that Ms. Streep had pretty much eviscerated the president-elect, who deserves every last bit of the condemnation heaped on him last night. That was a big story in of itself. What was getting just as much attention, at least on Twitter, was when Ms. Streep had said that football and MMA are not art.
Oh. My God. You would have thought that Ms. Streep had plunged a dagger into the very heart of the planet and that we all were about to die. The President of MMA even wrote and posted a huge ass response trying to convince Ms. Streep and the rest of the world that there is something remotely artistic about two people stepping into the ring and proceeding to pummel each other to the point of concussion and, most likely, permanent brain damage. Yeah, some people apparently think that there’s an art to bleeding.
Now, before we go too much further, we should take a look at Ms. Streep’s words in context. So, here’s a larger version of what she actually said:
I was born and raised and educated in the public schools of New Jersey. Viola [Davis] was born in a sharecropper’s cabin in South Carolina, came up in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Sarah Paulson was born in Florida, raised by a single mom in Brooklyn. Sarah Jessica Parker was one of seven or eight kids from Ohio. Amy Adams was born in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy. And Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem. Where are their birth certificates?
And the beautiful Ruth Negga was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, raised in — no, in Ireland, I do believe. And she’s here nominated for playing a small-town girl from Virginia. Ryan Gosling, like all the nicest people, is Canadian. And Dev Patel was born in Kenya, raised in London, is here for playing an Indian raised in Tasmania.
So Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. And if we kick ’em all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts. They gave me three seconds to say this, so. An actor’s only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us and let you feel what that feels like. And there were many, many, many powerful performances this year that did exactly that — breathtaking, passionate work.
The longer point Ms. Streep would go on to make is how the president-elect continually demonstrates a lack of regard for anyone who is not white and rich and that the press needs to habitually call him out on his nonsense. Like the opinion or not, Ms. Streep has a right to it and since she had the platform to make that opinion heard she had every right to take advantage of that situation.
What she said about football and mixed martial arts not being the arts, however, is correct. They’re not the arts. They never have been and they never can be in their current forms. Moreover, we really don’t want to think of them as art. To put athletics into the art basket would require fundamentally changing their reason for existing. We wouldn’t like most sports if they concentrated on being artistic. We want them to be the physical display of training and skill in a competitive format that they are. We like them that way.
The MMA world seems to be much more upset about Ms. Streep’s remarks than is anyone in the NFL. Bellator CEO Scott Coker even took the time to write and tweet a response which says in part:
Please be my guest at the LA Forum on January 21st and you will see that Mixed Martial Arts is truly artistic – which will feature fighters from all over the world competing at a world class level.
Now, in case you’re not a huge MMA fan, which I am not, we looked up the event scheduled for the LA Forum on January 21. The multi-bout card includes the following people beating the living hell out of each other: Tito Ortiz and Chael Sonnen, Georgi Karakhanyan against Emmanuel Sanchez, Paul Daley against Brennan Ward, and Ralek Gracie against Hisaki Kato. The event is broadcast free on the SPIKE cable network. All the young men on the card are big, tough, and athletic. I’m sure they will all give their best in the ring. Those who enjoy watching this type of competition will be thrilled. However, not a damn thing about this event is going to be artistic except, possibly, the singing of the national anthem.
Why? Because sports are not arts. In case you were sleeping during your humanities class, or completely skipped out that semester, the are five basic arts: painting, sculpture, architecture, music and poetry. Those have existed since the beginning of time and deserve to be respected as such. As society developed, somewhere along about 3,000 BCE, theatre and dance were added to the list. As part of that gradual progression and the development of technology, film was added as an extension of the theatre. Photography, video production/editing, design, sequential art, conceptual art, and printmaking have been added as an extension of painting. Arts related to painting, sculpture, and architecture as generally classified as visual arts while those related to music, dance, and theatre as classified as performing arts.
Now, please, take a close look. Do you see anything in that list that looks like a competitive sport? Granted, dancing is extremely athletic, which probably explains why I suck at that, too. Still, a dance performance isn’t a competition like a sport is. No one keeps score. There’s no audience hoping that the prima ballerina pulls a hamstring so that the understudy can win. Dance is not a sport. Sport is not an art.
While I could spend hours nit-picking all the minute details that hold arts apart from sport, the primary difference is that one is a competitive exhibition whose purpose is to determine a definite winner while the other is a presentation for the visual and visceral pleasures of its audience over that of those creating. Athletes want to win, to beat their competition. Artists want only to please an audience in some form or fashion. There’s no contest. In the case of visual arts such as painting, sculpture, and architecture, there’s not even an end point so long as the works still exist. They can go on and deliver pleasure and expression for centuries provided they are given appropriate care.
To be art the work has to attempt some significance outside itself, either through its impact on society and culture or to the greater art itself. There must be an aesthetic element to the work and contain an element of emotion that varies from artist to artist and work to work. Art requires no participation of anyone outside the artist and yet is fulfilled in its exhibition. If one is an Art History major, one classifies art through both form and function. Art requires a unique creative act whose interpretation is variable by either the performer or the audience, and sometimes both.
I suppose, if one really stretches the definitions, one might claim that some sports figures are artistic in their work, but then we still come back to the fact that sport must, inherently, be competitive. Sport is a contest; there is a constant adversary. The fundamental of success in sports is that one follows the rules for their function within their sport or one is disqualified and penalized. Even in a sport seemingly as benign as golf, one must still exhibit some form of aggression against that stupid little ball if one hopes to ever win. None of those things are appropriate for art.
And none of this explains why anyone would bother to be upset that the two are distinct and separate entities. I don’t recall ever seeing anyone trying to turn art into a sport. Most artists I know would bristle at the very idea. So why would a sport try to portray itself as an art? What is the purpose of such an attempt? Are athletes feeling left out that, despite their million dollar salaries, they’re somehow left out or cheated by being portrayed as artists? If football players want to feel more like real artists, then perhaps they could start by attempting to get by on one-tenth their current salaries; that would still have them being paid more than most artists. I simply cannot imagine why anyone in sports would be offended by Ms. Streep’s comment.
The only thing I can surmise is that the athletes who are upset are simply jealous that there’s an arena from which they are excluded, which is interesting since I’ve known multiple athletes who were also wonderful artists in genres that are actually art. It’s not that the person can’t be an artist, but more that the sport itself isn’t art.
Sports are sport, and they’re a lot of fun and have an important place in our society. The arts are art, and they’re a lot of fun and have an important place in our society. Yet, art and sport as distinct, separate entities occupying different spaces that have no need to overlap. Together, with other fields such as science and math, and philosophy and literature, they make our world a very wonderful place to be. We don’t all need to occupy the same space. Be cool with what you are and let others be what they are and we’ll all get along much better.
Moms are great. Moms are a fountain of knowledge. We get a lot of our basic information about life and the world around us from our parents. We trust what they say and are woefully disappointed on the rare occasion they happened to be wrong.
Our parents do their best to equip us with everything we need to be responsible and functional adults. However, they know so much about life that they sometimes forget to fill us in some of the finer points. Sure, they make sure we understand the big stuff, but the itty bitty details sometimes are lost. Don’t blame them, it’s not their fault. There’s a lot to know and its not like anyone gives them a checklist.
So, in the interest of helping out everyone’s parents just a little bit, here are a few things that might have escaped their attention before you went out on your own.
That isn’t chicken in that nugget
Desperate parents do desperate things and sooner or later we’re all desperate parents. So, don’t judge that frazzled looking mom sitting in the drive-thru or picking up that blue box that claims to have cheese in with the tiny little macaroni pieces. Processed food exists for one reason only: to make the lives of parents easier. So no, there is no real chicken in the nuggets or cheese in the mac and that’s not really anything resembling meat on that frozen pizza. That’s okay, though. You survived. Your kids will survive, too. Just try to give them a home cooked meal every once in a while.
No one notices your underwear when you’re in an accident
It’s a necessary lie parents tell us when we’re little to make sure we’re actually wearing clean underwear. If you’ve had children, you understand the problem and have probably repeated the lie. The fact is, however, if you’re in an accident that is serious enough for someone to see your underpants, then underpants are the last thing anyone is worried about. I mean, you’ve lost your pants for any number of horrible reasons, you’re probably bleeding profusely, and you could possibly die. No one cares about your damn underwear. If you’re just going to the doctor for a checkup, though, then yeah, by all means, wear something clean or buy something new.
You don’t have to be nice to everyone
Parents do their best to raise friendly, well-adjusted people. Despite their best efforts, though, not everyone in the world is nice. When we encounter people who are not nice, we are not obligated to be nice back. Sure, we want to try a few times, give them the benefit of the doubt. But when someone is consistently an asshole you do not have to be nice. In fact, it is probably better for everyone if you are not nice. One of the primary reasons assholes continue being assholes is because people keep trying to be nice and they take advantage of that. You don’t have to put up with bullshit.
Beware of friends who never read
A little bit of fine tuning: there’s a difference between people who can’t read and people who don’t read. If you have a friend you can’t read, then they need help with that issue more than anything. If you have a friend who is perfectly capable of reading, though, and they don’t, then you have a problem. People who don’t read are ignorant. Their reasoning skills are underdeveloped and their logic is flawed. Even reading fiction improves one’s mental abilities and acumen. Reading not only broadens our mind, but it spurs our imagination so that we are able to expand beyond what is our direct realm of experience. You don’t need friends who are ignorant. They are dangerous. Be careful.
If it costs more than you make in a week, buy the extended warranty
It’s always that question lingering in the back of your mind anytime you’re making a major purchase: do you buy the extended warranty? The old saw is that if you buy the extended warranty you’ll never need it, but if you don’t buy it you’ll wish you had. So, what do you do? The solution is a matter of finances because the ultimate question is whether you can afford to easily replace whatever it is you’re buying. If you’re making a purchase for which you had to save and save, then by all means, buy the damn warranty. If something happens, you’re screwed. You can’t afford to get it fixed or buy a new one. If you’re making a purchase that represents pocket change, however, then maybe it’s not so important. The general rule is that if it costs more than you make it a week, buy the extended warranty. Better safe than sorry.
A good pet is worth the trouble
Some people grow up with pets and learn the responsibility of caring for one. Some don’t. Some go their lives without pets. Some have pets thrust upon thanks to a spouse or lover. Pets can be a lot of work and some of them can be an incredible amount of trouble. They poop where you don’t want them to poop. They eat things you don’t want them to eat. They knock things off tables and shelves and annoy the hell out of guests, especially if one of those guests starts nuzzling up close. Guess what: they’re worth every second of trouble they cause. Sometimes, all we remember are the number of times a parent cursed at or about an animal. What we don’t see are the moments when a pet was curled up in that same parent’s lap. They give soooo much love in little ways that, as children, we never see. Take a chance and feel the love.
It’s okay to be happy when mean people die
Our parents tell us to respect the dead, that people dying is not a good thing. We’re generally taught that we should not rejoice over the death of people we don’t like. Bullshit. As I’m writing this, officials in California are pretty much waiting for convicted murderer Charles Manson to die. When he does, there will be a lot of people who are happy. Not only are nine people dead because of Manson and his “family,” he left behind a wave of influence that was violent and frightening. Him being dead is a good thing that, quite honestly, should have happened a long time ago. Mean people such as Charles Manson don’t deserve our respect. He’s not dead yet, but when he goes feel free to throw a party.
It’s okay to pee in the shower
I know, I know, that flies in the face of everything your mom told you when you were growing up. You know why she told you that? Because it took for freakin’ ever to get you to go in the toilet in the first place. She’s damn sure not going to risk ruining that habit by telling you it’s okay to pee in the shower. Now that you’re an adult, though, you should know that not only is it okay, some people claim it’s actually healthier than peeing in the toilet. It’s cleaner, it’s more hygienic, and it even saves water to boot. There is a limit, though. Only do this when you’re showering alone. Not everyone thinks peeing in the shower is cool and if you’re in there with someone you like a lot you are probably putting that relationship in danger if you pee in front of them. When you’re alone, though, by all means, go for it.
Sex sometimes hurts
Granted, if your parents were anything like mine, sex wasn’t a topic that came up very often. They got through the birds and the bees thing with a certain amount of anxiety. The last thing most of our parents wanted to do, though, was provide any details about sex. They tell you it feels go and can be a lot of fun, but that’s about as detailed as they want to get. The problem is that sex doesn’t always feel good and it isn’t always fun. There are dozens of reasons why sex can hurt, most of which are not life-threatening or even controllable. Not every body provides enough natural lubrication. Stress can cause normal sexual activity to feel painful. It’s not your fault and most the time there are things you can do to change the situation. It happens, though, so be ready for it. Don’t run screaming to the Dr. just because you got into a tight (literally) situation you weren’t expecting.
Cursing is sometimes a very effective form of communication
“That’s an adult word. Don’t say it.” Did your parents ever tell you that? Did your mom ever wash out your mouth with soap? Most parents are very concerned with the language we use growing up. They want us to be respectable adults, not someone people shy away from because they can’t complete a sentence without an expletive or four. For the most part, your parents are right: don’t say those words. They’re rude and often demonstrate a lack of civility and reasoning. However, there are times when cursing is totally acceptable. If you smash a digit with a hammer or in a car door, for example, know one is going to fault you for letting a few fucks fly out of your mouth. If you need to dramatically emphasize to someone just how fucking serious or angry you are, an expletive here and there helps make your point. Most the time, yes, you want to be polite and use words that are not offensive. But every once in a while … go for it.
That’s our short list. We actually have several more things like this in my book, Now That You’re 18 … which you can buy by clicking on that link. If you live close, I’ll even autograph it for you. There are a lot of things parents either don’t have time or don’t think of telling us. It’s okay. We’ll make the same mistakes and probably add to the list. We’re human. Go with it.
CARB DAY/RACE DAY PARKING ETIQUETTE
PLEASE READ IF YOU’RE USING ALTERNATIVE LAWN PARKING OUTSIDE THE SPEEDWAY.
Race day must be just around the corner. How can we tell? Sanitation trucks have been going through the neighborhood setting up portable toilets throughout the neighborhood. There are more of them than last year, but it still won’t be enough. It never is. People utilizing parking outside the speedway is something of its own tradition and the track secretly relies on in, though they don’t want to actually acknowledge it. The speedway accommodates parking for roughly 100,000 people. That sounds like a lot, and it is. I’m sure back in the 1940s when the Hulmans were building the thing they never dreamed of filling it all up. Race attendance for this Sunday, however, is estimated to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 250,000. They all need somewhere to park.
Homeowners around the track have made their lawns available for both Carb Day (Friday before the race) and Race Day for decades. Prices have varied over the years, depending on the anticipated demand. The 100th running brought significantly higher prices than we’ll see this Sunday. People living in the neighborhoods around the track consider this small compensation for all the traffic and noise we have to put up with. You are not necessarily welcome, but for many, it is a way to help the rent for June. We see a lot of bad behavior, so if you’re going to park on anyone’s lawn, please take these items into consideration.
SPECIFIC TO PARKING WITH US
As much as I fuss about the race, I do hope you enjoy the day. Know that every year is a little different, though. Take your time. Plan well ahead. Be flexible, especially with the weather. And don’t come running to me if you get struck by lightning. That’s not part of the track’s evacuation plan.
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