I do not get 'My Space'

I do not understand My Space. Oh, I understand what it is, but I just don't understand why it is. Okay, so maybe it is something a kid can be part of and share crap with their friends using that texting language they have created to mock the English language. But why is anyone over the age of 13 creating a My Space page? And why are businesses creating My Space pages?

So you will probably tell me it is a dating tool or a marketing tool to reach young people. And my response to both is that it is just wrong. There are so many avenues to create a Web page that doesn't require you to list your favorite books, music, astrological sign and slap it all together like a ransom note. I have yet to see a My Space page that doesn't make me think of a bad acid trip.

My Space also reminds me of the Jehovah Witnesses or Mormons. If you pop in to just look, they want you to join. And once you join, you join forever. Who knows, maybe someday My Space will be considered a religion. Bad as it is, at least Blogger offers the potential to be creative and share it without requiring people to join and sign on as your friend.

I guess I'm just cranky because a local transit agency just launched their own My Space page which is obviously targeted at the youth market. They even have their own You Tube video. So far they have 60 friends. What kind of geek becomes a friend on a transit My Space page? The pisser is that you can bet someone is going to pressure me to start up a My Space page for my agency. And I'll be forced to come up with this cutesy profile for our buses and trains.

I refuse. This monkey won't dance this time.

First impressions

I admit it. I pretty much lock in an impression of a person when I first meet them. And once it is locked in, I don't let go of it very easily. Most of the time, I am pretty dead on. It does save time. I don't have to "get to know" a person before I realize I don't want to.


Case in point, I was standing at the train platform this morning waiting coincidently enough for a train. There was a guy standing there talking on his cell phone loudly. That was strike one in the first impression scorecard. He had an East Coast accent…I’m guessing New York. That was strike two. Finally, judging by the conversation he was sharing with everyone within 100 yards, he was one of those guys that is an expert in everything. Strike three, he’s out of there.

The guy finally got off the phone and immediately struck up a conversation with another man who was obviously not the astute judge of character I am. So as the train pulls up, the blowhard who I’ve nicknamed in my head, “The Talking Sphincter” begins pontificating to the other man about the number of cars on the train and why the equipment is arranged in a certain way. I listened and shook my head. I work for the agency running the trains. And the guy was so full of BS that if you squeezed his head there would be brown stains on the ceiling.

So I quickly file this guy as worthless and eliminated one more person on the earth I need to be concerned with. Judgmental you say? Overly critical and petty? Maybe. But I’m willing to bet most of you would be ready to set yourself on fire if you got stuck sitting next to the guy on the train and he started explaining how he invented electricity and sliced bread.

Life is too short to endure boring and pompous people. It’s as simple as that.

Wait, where are you going? Come back. I really am pretty interesting.

Shoot. There went another one.

Mister Cellophane

Cellophane
Mister Cellophane
Shoulda been my name
Mister Cellophane
'Cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know
I'm there...
--Mr. Cellophane, Chicago, the musical

Ever now and then I get these bouts of invisibility that are seriously exacerbated as I age. Last week I was meeting with my boss in her office when my cell phone rang. It was my boss’ admin calling to see why I wasn’t showing up for my meeting with my boss. I told her I was sitting right next to my boss in her office which was right across from her desk. She said, “Oh, I looked in and didn’t see you.”

I am invisible.

I think my gray hair is partially responsible. Or maybe it is the wrinkles around my eyes. Perhaps it is the spare tire around my waist. I stand in line for coffee and the 20-somethings behind the cash register look right through me to wait on the 20-something geeks who work for Amazon.com next door.

It does not bother me so much that I am invisible when I ride the train to and from work. Most everyone is invisible on public transit. And perhaps it is better that I am invisible as I sweat on the elliptical machine at the gym.

Still I wonder when my photograph began to fade. I think it was when I turned 40. I cringe when I think how transparent I will become when I hit 50 next year.

Perhaps invisibility is the reason many people start dressing eccentric chic as they age. Maybe that flash of color or odd hat will catch the attention of the visible world. I did see the old Asian woman in the plaza this morning doing Tai Chi with a Stihl Chainsaw cap on. But maybe I could see her because we were in the same invisible realm.

I suppose it isn’t just aging that makes people invisible. The mentally ill and the street people are invisible. I think that is why many of them shout out there presence. Ironically, the louder they shout, the more invisible they become.

Invisibility is funny that way.

Galileo, Galileo

Bohemian Rhapsody is one of those classic songs out of the 70s that everyone knows but no one has a clue as to what the words really are or mean. It was written by Freddie Mercury and performed by the rock group Queen. It’s the kind of song that comes on the radio and you can’t help but sing along. But be honest now, do any of you know the words (without looking them up on the Internet)?

The introduction is simple:

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality
Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see
I'm just a poor boy
I need no sympathy
Because I'm easy come, easy go
Little high, little low
Any way the wind blows doesn't really matter to me
To me

And so is the ballad portion:

Mama, just killed a man
Put a gun against his head
Pulled my trigger now he's dead
Mama, life had just begun
But now I've gone and
thrown it all away
Mama
Didn't mean to make you cry
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow
Carry on, carry on
As if nothing really matters

Too late, my time has come
Sends shivers down my spine
Body's aching all the time
Goodbye, everybody
I've got to go
Got to leave you all behind and face the truth
Mama
I don't want to die
I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all

But then the opera breaks out:

I see a little silhouetto of a man
Scaramouche, Scaramouche
Will you do the Fandango?
Thunderbolt and lightning
Very, very frightening me
(Galileo) Galileo
(Galileo) Galileo
Galileo, figaro
Magnifico

Until I looked up the lyrics, I thought they were singing, “Gotta moose, gotta moose will you do the Fandango?” But apparently the real lyric, Scaramouche refers to a boastful character from an opera.

Now the next stanza:

I'm just a poor boy and nobody loves me
He's just a poor boy from a poor family
Spare him his life from this monstrosity
Easy come, easy go, will you let me go
Bismillah!
No, we will not let you go
(Let him go!)
Bismillah!
We will not let you go
(Let him go!)
Bismillah!
We will not let you go
(Let me go!)
Will not let you go
(Let me go!)
No, no, no, no, no, no, no
Oh, mama mia, mama mia
Mama mia let me go
Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me
For me
For me

I always thought they were singing, “Miss Miller, No, we will not let you go.” The actual lyric, "Bismillah" is an Arabic word recited by Muslims as part of their daily prayers. That makes much more sense than, "Miss Miller."

The rest of the song is pretty clear cut.

So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye?
So you think
you can love me and leave me to die?
Oh, baby
Can't do this to me, baby
Just got to get out
Just got to get right out of here

Nothing
really matters
Anyone can see
Nothing really matters
Nothing really
matters to me
Any way the wind blows

So what does it all mean? Some think it is a Faustian battle for a man's soul. Still other's think it is about AIDS (though the virus wasn't known when the song was written). I have my own theory. I think it means absolutely nothing. But it is pretty catchy.

Thunderbolt and lightning

Our heatwave took a nosedive yesterday and created a brief symphony of thunder and lightning around Seattle. Along with it came the flurry of e-mails and conversations about not talking on the phone, using stereo headphones or walking around with a long metal pole as long as lightning was a possibility.

It struck me (a thought, not lightning) that we have become a nation of worriers. I'm of the ilk that if lightning is going to strike you it will be as random an event as winning the lotto and it doesn't pay to spend too much time worrying about it.

Television news feeds our worrywart natures. Tess and I were watching the evening news last night and they ran a segment about thieves breaking into houses using a new method called lock bumping. They said they wouldn't show us how it was done for fear of tipping off thieves, but the reporter was carrying around a rubber mallet and a key blank that hadn't been cut at the hardware store. It was pretty evident that lock bumping involves shoving the key blank into a lock and whacking it with a rubber mallet to "cut" key to the right shape and then open the lock.

The reporters interviewed a chubby locksmith who named three locks that this wouldn't work on. All of them cost more than $150. Tess immediately jumped up to check our front door and declared we needed a bump proof lock. We've lived here two years and no one has bumped the lock. I'm assuming even if we did have a $150 lock they'd just kick in the door if they were real determined. But I'm willing to bet that chubby locksmith is laughing all the way to the bank now that he has planted the bump proof lock seed in a few thousand fearful minds.

My point is, ignorance is bliss. If we put all of our energy into worrying about the multitude of things that could go wrong, we aren't likely to get out of bed. Common sense is the best preventative medicine. Worrying about lightning striking you will just keep you from appreciating how beautiful it is to watch.

That is just the way I feel.

I feel like an itty bitty worm on a great big hook

Shandi has been writing about TED.com, a site that chronicles an annual meeting of great minds coming together to talk about a variety of innovative thoughts. One of them spawned www.wefeelfine.org, a site that searches the blogisphere for phrases that contain “I feel” and snatches them into a huge database of emotions. You can sort the database by gender, locations, age and weather.

I of course went to the site and searched in the categories of males between the ages of 40 and 49 living in Seattle for something that was snatched from my blog. I discovered that I apparently have never used any variation of the phrase, “I feel” in my blog.

I’m not sure how I feel about that.

I also discovered that, of the universe of males between the ages of 40 and 49 living in Seattle, very few can string together a coherent sentence. But most of them write about their feelings (albeit badly) on cloudy days. In Seattle? Go figure.

I do feel a bit put off that nothing from my blog caught the attention of this social experiment. I suppose if they had called their site http://www.butidigress.com/ I’d be all over it. I guess I don’t feel like beginning sentences with “I feel.” It is a given when you write something that it is your feeling or thoughts, so why say, “I feel, “ or “I think?”

After all, they are just:

Feelings, nothing more than feelings, trying to forget my feelings of love. Tear drops rolling down on my face, trying to forget my feelings of love. Feelings, for all my life I'll feel it. I wish I've never met you, girl; you'll never come again. Feelings, wo-o-o feelings, wo-o-o, feel you again in my arms. Feelings, feelings like I've never lost you. And feelings like I've never have you again in my heart. Feelings, for all my life I'll feel it. I wish I've never met you, girl; you'll never come again. Feelings, feelings like I've never lost you and feelings like I've never have you again in my life. Feelings, wo-o-o feelings, wo-o-o, feelings again in my arms. Feelings...

That felt good to get that out.

Decisions, decisions, decisions...

I was watching the History Channel yesterday while I was working out on the elliptical machine. They were rerunning the World War II series from HBO: Band of Brothers. It is a pretty decent series that was created by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. It is more about the human condition than about war.

Anyway, this particular episode featured a First Sergeant who was saddled with a commanding officer who couldn’t make a decision for the life of him. Actually he couldn’t make a decision for the life of his men. He froze half way through a frontal attack on a town held by the Germans. His men didn’t know what to do. Finally, the CO was relieved of command and a decisive young Captain was sent up to take over. They charged ahead and captured the town.

I do not consider myself an indecisive person. In fact, I consider myself a pretty decisive person. I make decisions all the time in my job. It’s one of the things that make me an okay manager. I don’t hem and haw about things.

I guess the question is, do I make the right decisions?

No always. But the art of decision making is simply to act. If it is the wrong decision, you make another one to correct the course. It’s not rocket science. It’s not even honors math. When faced with several courses of action, choose the best one at the time. The important thing is to keep moving and not be frozen by indecision.

Oh, and be sure and run in a serpentine pattern, too.

Where in the blue blazes?

I mentioned in an earlier post that the Fourth of July used to be right up there with Christmas for me. I was a born pyro. Fireworks were banned in Idaho when I was growing up, but everyone ignored the law then, too. When safe and sane fireworks were legalized, I was about eight or nine years old. I'd save up allowances and buy the most expensive fireworks assortment I could afford. Though none did much more than shoot out sparks, we would ultimately figure out a way to alter some to provide a more satisfying explosion at some point in the display.

Piccolo Pete's were a prime example. They were this tube you'd light and the firework would issue a ear splitting shrieking sound that begged for an explosion at the end. It quickly spread through the kid community that all you had to do was use pliers to pinch the tube near the save and sane certification seal at the bottom of the tub and the puppies would blow up nicely at the end of the whistling sound.

Despite the modifications, most of our fireworks were pretty much a bust. You could burn through a whole box of them in about 10 minutes and feel pretty much gypped. I can't tell you how many times I had to endure my parents going on about how the fireworks they had when they were growing up were much more spectacular...roman candles, cherry bombs, silver salutes and of course firecrackers. Even if you could get hold of those types of fireworks from the Indian reservations around the state, you still risked encounters with the police if you set them off in your backyards. So I never really fulfilled my fantasy of setting off real fireworks.

Now I live in Washington. Most of the cities here have banned fireworks period...even the safe and sane variety. However, the prohibition is about as effective as the one they used to have on alcohol in the US. Most people ignore it. We begin hearing the explosions in our neighborhood about two weeks before the Fourth. By the actual holiday, it is like a war zone. We generally just sit inside and ignore it.

But something hit me this past Fourth of July that made me decide to give in and play with fire, too. Maybe it was those neighborhood kids setting off firecrackers who I yelled at and told me to "...shut up old man." I was going to show them who the old man was.

So on a whim I convinced Tess to stop at one of the few firework stands left in our community. I was expecting the cones and Piccolo Pete's of my childhood. Instead a discovered mega fireworks assortments of rockets, shells and the long coveted Roman Candles. I resisted the neighborhood fireworks kit that promised $1000 value for $699 and settled on the $39.00 family kit. I through in a couple of six packs of Roman Candles and stood in line to pay for them listening to the burly fireworks employee trying to foist a $300 assortment of skyrockets on some guy. The guy said he was trying to cut back from last year, but I could tell his resistance was fading. I paid for my own little modest stash before I could hear how the sales pitch turned out. I'm betting the fireworks salesman won out.

Tess eyed me speculatively as I sat in the car salivating over my selection. "Where are you going to set those off," she asked.

"In the backyard," I said confidently, as I mentally tried to picture where I could place them without setting fire to our fence, the tool shed or the neighbor's house.

"Aren't they illegal in our city," she asked with her best teacher's voice of authority.

"Everybody is doing it," I argued. She smiled tightly and shook her head, muttering something about it being a guy thing.

When we got home, I ripped open the fireworks package and lined up my treasures just like I had when I was a kid. But this time instead of Blooming Ground Flowers and Dragon's Dancing, the fireworks had names like Thermal Blaster and Missiles of October. For the first time in years, I felt that impatience for it to get dark so I could start lighting up the night skies.

Dusk had barely fallen when I called out to Tess that I was read to start setting things on fire. She threw on a Mariners sweatshirt and came outside.

"Just don't set the house on fire," she cautioned.

I nodded and lit my first fuse. The satisfying sizzle triggered my backward run reflexes and I scrambled. In seconds balls of fires shrieked to the sky. I was a man possessed. I had a new firework in place an instant after the last one was a smoking, blackened corpse. I saved the the Roman Candles for last. My parents had been right. They were pretty darned cool.

Finally, the big guns were gone and I was down to a pack of Morning Glory's. They were one step up from a sparkler. Still I felt this surge of nostalgia. I handed one to Tess who up until this point had watched, garden hose in hand waiting for the fence to spark up in flames. Soon we were both writing our names in fire using Morning Glory's as flaming pens. We giggled and ran around the backyard oblivious to the growing number of explosions coming from the neighbors who obviously had sprung for the $300 assortment of assault fireworks.

But we didn't need the Shock and Awe bombardment to make our Fourth complete. I hugged Tess as the last Morning Glory sparked out. It was great being young again.

I am Timacus

I have always been an avid movie watcher. I have loved escaping into a good film for as long as I can remember. We couldn’t afford to go to the movie theaters much when I was a kid, so many of the early movies I watched were on our console black and white television. I don’t even think my parents bought a color television until after I left home. I remember being shocked when I saw the Wizard of Oz in color for the first time. I had assumed the yellow brick road was gray for years.

On the rare occasions when we did go out to a movie as a family it was usually a drive in. My brothers and I would put on our pajamas and pile into the family’s old 1936 Chevy. Once we got to the drive in, we’d go play on the swing sets and jungle bars until it got dark enough for the movie to start. Then we’d pile back into the car and pass around a grocery bag filled with popcorn my mom would pop ahead of time. I’d usually fall asleep before the movies ended and wake up being carried into the house.

My favorite films were epics involving sword fighting. I enjoyed films like Spartacus, Ben Hur, and the Vikings. My brothers and I would act out the films for weeks after seeing one. My father made us wooden swords and we crafted shields out of old garbage can lids. We never seemed to get tired of chasing each other around the yard whacking each other with the wood swords screaming, “Oden,” and “Vahalla!”

I also remember being fascinated by an old Disney movie called Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow. It came out in 1963 and starred Patrick McGoohan. He played a 18th century reverend in England who lead a band of smugglers who dressed like scarecrows when they moved their merchandise. I wanted to be the scarecrow. I made a scarecrow mask out of an old burlap bag and rode around the neighborhood on my bike with it on head calling out that I was the scarecrow. I think the burlap gave me a rash.

I was an odd child.

Patrick McGoohan also starred in another Disney film that came out in 1964 called the Three Lives of Thomasina. It was about a little English girl and her cat. I had a crush on the little girl. I think it was my first crush on a film character. Several years later I had a crush on Dr. Zira, the chimpanzee scientist in the Planet of the Apes.

I told you I was an odd child.

Let's get liquored up and set things on fire!

I am not particularly fond of holidays in the middle of the week. It’s like having two Monday’s in one week. Oh I suppose you could say it’s like having two Fridays, too. But that just means you don’t feel like doing anything for two days that you have to make up for on the two additional Mondays.

There is a certain logic here somewhere.

I think all holidays should be on Mondays or Fridays. I think it would improve productivity because you’d have less people calling in sick to stretch the midweek holiday into the weekend. It would also help the economy by providing consistent three-day weekends for every holiday that people could party hearty on.

The Fourth of July is an odd holiday anyway. In theory it is supposed to commemorate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence from England. But technically, the Declaration of Independence wasn’t officially signed by most members of the Continental Congress until August 2. Celebrating the 2nd of August apparently didn’t have the same ring to it as the 4th of July.

Regardless, I think most Americans think that the 4th of July is just another excuse to get liquored up and set things on fire…often themselves. Ironically most of the holidays celebrated in the United States seem to be an excuse to get liquored up and set things on fire. We even celebrate other country’s holidays just so we can get liquored up and set things on fire (St. Patrick’s Day and Cinco de Mayo for example).

Shoot, I think we need to create a new holiday called, “Get Liquored Up and Set Things on Fire Day.” It could be held on the third Monday or Friday of whatever months we don’t have another holiday scheduled in to get liquored up on and set things on fire. They may already have this holiday in many of our southern states, but I am suggesting making it a nationwide thing.

Don’t you wish I was in charge of the country?

Oh my goodness

I started thinking last night about whether or not I am a good person. I mean, I want to believe I am a good person, but how do you measure such things? Because it seems human nature to want to believe you are a good person. I imagine even Hitler thought he was a good person.

But history tells us otherwise.

I know that ‘good’ is a moral term. I am not a religious person, so I cannot measure my goodness in the number of times I go to church or pray. Though I personally do not think those things define you as a good person. Proclaiming yourself a good person does not make you one.

I wish I could measure my goodness in the number of friends I have…or the good friends I have. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people who has forged a great deal of lasting friendships in my life. So that adds to my insecurity about what kind of person I am. But whether they knew it or not, I cherished the friends I had. Then again, if I was a good person, they would have known I cherished them.

As you age, judging who is a good person becomes more difficult. It does seem easier to judge who is not a good person though. Time unfortunately has taught me to assume the worst about a person so as not to be surprised. Assuming that most people are not good makes it easier to cope when we discover that a beloved leader of our community is exposed by scandal or the quiet neighbor is a mass murderer.

I suppose goodness can be measured by good deeds. However, not all of us can discover miracle cures or save the world. I try to treat people with dignity. I say, “Thank you” and “you’re welcome,” “please,” and “excuse me.” I buy Girl Scout cookies and donate my money at the check out stand for various foundations. I don’t litter, I recycle and I use public transit. But will the little things save my soul?

It is in the quiet times in the middle of the night that my doubts are the worst. I stare at myself through the judgmental eyes of others and cower in my lack of goodness. The fingers point and remind me of things I don’t do:

“You don’t volunteer your time.”
“You don’t call your mother.”
“You don’t give enough to charity.”
“You haven’t sacrificed enough.”
“You don’t work hard enough.”
“You aren’t thoughtful enough.”

SHUT UP VOICES!

“You don’t appreciate the voices in your head enough.”

It is hard to reason with voices in your head.

Eventually I take comfort that I at least know good people. I know my wife is a good person. I know her character. I know that she is a wonderful teacher who actually cares about her students when others burn out and go through the moves. I see her always trying to do the right thing even when it is not the easy thing. I see her give of herself. So it is easy for me to see that she is a good person.

So maybe since she is a good person and loves me, then I am sort of a good person. At least she makes me a better person.

Faded summer

I don’t really like summer the way I did when I was a kid growing up in Boise. I mean, back then you had something to look forward to because you got a break from school. Since I joined the working world when I was 16, there were no more summer breaks. It just meant I had the same routine as usual, but it was hotter out.

Seattle doesn’t even get hot the way Boise did. To this day I equate the pungent smell of sagebrush simmering in the sun with summer. Boise is surrounded by sagebrush desert and brown foothills. I found it oppressive. I longed so many times growing up to live near water.

Now I’m surrounded by water every day and I’ve grown to believe that the perpetual green of this rain sodden part of the country can be almost as oppressive as the heat-impaired brown of Boise. I guess there has to be a happy medium. I did like that Boise had seasons. It literally ran hot and cold. Seattle’s season ooze into one another.

It is hard to get used to place where idiots greet you with, “Hot enough for you?” when it is barely 65 degrees. In my Boise youth, summers were in the 100s. We often spent days indoors with the blinds down, listening to the buzz of a fan and counting down the hours until evening.

I did love summer evenings as a boy. One summer my brothers and I would rendezvous with the neighborhood kids and play flashlight tag almost every night. Or we would put red cellophane over a flashlight lens and hunt for nightcrawlers to feed my father’s fishing habit. Summer nights were alive with crickets chirping and June Bugs crashing up against window screens. I don’t hear crickets in Seattle for some reason.

I miss the crickets.

I used to look forward to Fourth of July almost as much as Christmas. I’d line up my Safe and Sane Fireworks assortment in the order I planned to light them. Occasionally we’d end up with some contraband firecrackers my older brother would score at one of the local Indian reservation booths. I could barely contain myself until it was dark enough to begin our backyard show, the parents sitting in lawn chairs trying to act impressed as we lit cones and tubes with exotic names like Blooming Ground Flower and Dragons Dancing.

I caught myself outside the other night yelling at some neighborhood kids setting off firecrackers nearby. Their response was, “Shut up old man.”

Did I mention I miss the crickets?

More dreams

Since my last dream post was so popular, I thought everyone would be fascinated to hear about the dream I had last night. I was in a room with lots of people where we had to take our shoes off. We were lying on the floor listening to some speaker. Suddenly we all jumped up to go to a restaurant. Everyone left but me. I was trying to find my shoes. Then, as it often happens in dreams, the room was filled with shoes, mainly athletic shoes. I was desperately trying to find a pair that fit. Then boots started appearing. I fancied a pair. I used to wear cowboy boots when I was less than middle aged. My arches can’t quite deal with them anymore. Anyway, I kept grabbing pair of boots hoping to find a men’s size 10, extra wide, but all I could find were these thigh highs like the cross dressers wore in the movie Kinky Boots (a film about a respected British shoe manufacturer that saved itself from bankruptcy by cranking out a line of boots for transvestites and female impersonators). I didn’t want thigh high cross dresser boots. By that time I just wanted to go to dinner. Then I woke up and the cat was sitting near my head staring at me.

That’s it.

I don’t want to hear anymore Freudian interpretations, thank you.

I had a dream

I had a dream last night about throwing a party. It was in my mother’s house (the house I grew up in). Most of my dreams take place there or my grandmother’s house next door. I never seem to dream about the house I actually live in. I wonder why that is?

But I digress. In the dream I was trying to find something clean to wear to the party. I had a series of jackets in my closet. One of them was a fur coat that Tess had given me (not really, but in the dream). I felt guilty looking at it because I wouldn’t be caught dead in it. So it sat in the closet.

The party was pretty lame because I hadn’t thought to buy much in the way of party food. This is not surprising because although I’m a pretty good cook, I suck at planning parties. In fact, I really don’t like parties. I’m relatively antisocial. Ironic that marketing is my profession. Though I put marketing people in two categories -- creative introverts and slimy extroverts. I like to think of myself as more of the creative introvert, but I can be a slimy extrovert if the occasion merits it.

I don’t remember much more of the dream. I don’t think I wore the fur coat though.

Oh, but there were three or four kittens playing in my parents bedroom after the party. I love kittens.

I haven’t a clue as to where this dream came from. I was watching Robert DeNiro in Deer Hunter before I went to bed. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the inspiration. Though they do wear furry hunting hats in the film. I ate some barbecued chicken and macaroni and cheese for dinner. But I don’t subscribe to the theory that indigestion impacts dreams.

So where do dreams come from? I probably shouldn’t ask that question. Because experience at blogging has taught me that for every question, some one out there has an answer. And sometimes we just ask questions.

They treat me like family!

I saw an ad on the side of the bus last week for a local casino. It said, "THE QCC CASINO TREATS ME LIKE FAMILY." I started laughing when I thought about it. I know the copywriter meant it as a good thing. But it is kind of a loaded statement.

My family isn't close. I see my middle brother and his family once a year at Thanksgiving. I see my mother then, too. I call her ever couple of months. I rarely see my oldest brother. I maintain contact with his son, my nephew, through my blog.

It isn't that I don't care about my family. But for some reason we weren't raised with a sense of family. My father was adopted and was raised as an only child. My mother came from a family of 13 children. The opposite extremes left both of them without any real idea of what a family was.

Like everyone else raised in the 60s and 70s, I watched ideal families on television that enjoyed spending time together and went out of their way to help each other. There was Father Knows Best, My Three Sons, The Brady Bunch and Ozzie and Harriet. Father's advised, mother's nurtured and siblings talked. Ironically, today's behind the scenes nostalgia shows debunk any myths that may have been behind all of those shows.

I assume there are traditional families out there. But I think the way I was raised was pretty typical. Everyone did there own thing. My parents struggled just to pay bills. Their roles as providers didn't leave much time for being counselors and mentors. No one really talked. I was much older before I really sat down and had a conversation with my brothers. But we still didn't really talk. My father died before I could ask him who he really was. And now my mother is in her 80s and her main topic of conversation is what she had for lunch.

So ironically when I see an ad where they say a business treats you like family, I think they are inadvertently being honest. It means they treat you politely but you are still a stranger with a credit card.

Stop the music

I'm one of those people who is always getting a song stuck in his head. People go by whistling or even mention a phrase that reminds me of a song and the damned thing starts playing a continuous loop in my brain. So far today it has been You can't always get what you want by the Rolling Stones followed by Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues.

My older brother used to play Nights in White Satin over and over when he was a teenager. I think it had something to do with puberty, but I can't be certain. I desperately wanted to smash that record along with his 45 rpm of Frida Payne's Band of Gold (no one under 30 probably even knows what I'm talking about when I say 45 rpm...young people annoy me). He also played Tommy James and the Shondells version of Crimson and Clover, over and over (there is a certain irony to this if you have ever heard the song).

It's not always the annoying songs that are stuck in my head. Sometimes I wake up with tunes circling about that I listened to while exercising the day before. Tori Amos and Alanis Morissette frequently serenade me in the waking hours. Generally it is some of there more obscure stuff that sticks in my head. For example I often have the line from Tori Amos' the Waitress scurrying about in my brain (...I want to kill, this waitress...she's worked here a year longer than I). I haven't a clue what that means, either.

I suppose it could be worse. I could be listening to voices telling me what to do. But it is pretty disconcerting to hear crap like Air Supply singing "I'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you..." when I'm sitting on the toilet.

Occasionally I'll try and pass the stupid songs on to my co-workers by whistling or singing a few lines when I'm walking by their cubicles. There is a certain satisfaction when you walk by later and hear someone humming Islands in the Stream and grimacing because they don't know why or how to stop.

I'm going to leave you all with one final thought: Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.

Don't thank me.

Run, blogger run...

As with most of my posts lately, the topic of this one is not necessarily new. The title was originally, "Where have all the bloggers gone?" But after doing a Google search for that phrase, I changed it, because apparently lots of bloggers have explored the phenomenon of bloggers missing in action and used that same title.

In my three years of blogging, I've watched many blogs come and go. Funny, but rarely do I see people simply delete their blogs and hightail it out of dodge. Most of the time they leave the derelict blog floating along like one of those ghost ships abandoned on the high seas with coffee still percolating on the stove. And you start to wonder what happened and whether it will happen to you.

One guy conjectured that one of the reasons bloggers stop for no apparent reason is that they are afraid their blog will be discovered by friends and family. So they bolt. That kills me. Most of us want to be discovered, want to be read, and these people are going south when they think they are getting too much attention?

Oh, I know that many people blog about a hidden life or personality that they are terrified co-workers or family will discover. But if you think about it, unless you give people your blog address and post a bunch of personal information, your blog is the proverbial blog needle in the Web haystack. There are so many blogs out there that the odds of anyone you know randomly discovering them are pretty darned astronomical.

Not all bloggers just vanish into the ether, either. Some leave the blogger's version of a suicide note explaining they can't take it anymore. The constant pressure of posting, reading, commenting and replying takes its toll and they snap. But at least by leaving a blog swan song, they take the wondering about where they went out of the equation. But they don't take away the real "why" of why they went.

I suppose we all teeter on edge of giving up our blogs when we dwell on the seeming futility of it all. If you rely on the waxing and waning comments, stat counters and blog rolls I think you are doomed to failure in the blog world. Once, early on in my blogging venture, I equated blogging to launching the Voyager 1 spacecraft three decades ago. You launch that puppy and hope eventually it will be discovered by intelligent life.

I guess the real question is, "Does it exist, and if so, do you think it will blog roll me?"

In my father's day

It has become a tradition of sorts for me to write about my father on Father's Day. He has been dead for about 15 years now, but he still shows up in my dreams now and then. I also see him more and more when I look in the mirror.

My father was born in Portland, Oregon in 1915. He was in an orphanage until he was five years old before my grandparents adopted him and took him to live at a vacation camp resort they owned on the Oregon Coast. It was at Neah-kah-nie Beach near Nehalem, Oregon. You can't see it very well, but I believe that is my grandmother on the far left in the photo below.


I don't know the reason, but my grandparents sold the H**** Tent City and moved to Boise, Idaho in about 1925 or so. I often wonder what it would have been like if they'd held onto that property on the Oregon Coast and I'd grown up near the ocean. I definitely would have had a better view growing up and the potential for inheriting a fortune. But then again I probably wouldn't have been me then, so it is a moot point.

The photo above is the way I always remember my father. He rarely wore a shirt during the summer, but always had on long work pants covered with a paint stains. My father never cared about how he looked despite my mother's many attempts to get him to.

My father loved the outdoors. His favorite thing was to be in the mountains standing in the Boise River with a fishing rod in his hand. We scattered his cremated remains next to that river and I knew at the time he appreciated the release.

It surprises me at times how different I am than my father. I hate fishing. I would rather stay in a hotel than sleep in a sleeping bag. And I refuse to walk around without a shirt.

But then again I still feel his influence in my character. It is impossible for me to litter. I can build and start a fire with one match. I love reading (my father would take me to the library almost every weekend). I mow the lawn in an inherited pattern and I don't mind washing dishes. I also am honest and loyal to a fault.

These things come from my father.Thanks for the gifts dad. Even on Father's Day you keep giving.

The Seinfeld of bloggers

Let's face it, my blog is essentially about nothing. The upside is that when I have nothing to say, I'm on topic. The downside is that when I do have something to say, it confuses people because they come here for nothing and seem disappointed when they find something.

I guess the paradox with me is that since I blog about nothing, how can I ever run out of topics? There were none to begin with. But man, lately...I don't know? Nothing isn't quite cutting it for me. I really want to say something that means something. But nothing keeps coming out.

Let this be a lesson to those of you who are new to blogging. Free form blogging may seem like an uplifting idea when you start, but eventually, no matter how much you think you have to say, you are going to run out of topics. The temptation is to rerun some of your early stuff with the assumption that no one read it anyway. Personally I think that is a cop out. Life and television is full of enough reruns without having to read recycled blog posts.

What's worst than rerunning old blog posts is starting to blog about not being able to blog. Wait a minute, that's what I'm doing now. How pitiful. I've become the stereotypical, loser blogger writing about not being able to write about anything.

Oh well, I guess it's better than writing nothing.

Sigh.

Commencement

We attended the graduation ceremony for our nephew last night. It was held in the hinterlands of the Puget Sound in the events center of a county fairgrounds. We parked in a dirt overflow lot and made our way through the swells of families milling about before the ceremony.

There was no room remaining on the main floor of the hall when we entered, so we foraged for seats in the bleachers amongst teens and grandmothers fanning themselves with the commencement program. The high school band warmed up in the corner of the room, muffled by the general cacophony of the families waiting for their chance to snapshot the momentous occasion.

I had my digital camera in my hand as well, knowing intuitively that any photo snapped in a room designed to house gun shows and crafts fairs would fail to capture anything other than the heads of the people in front of me. But I knew how important it was for Tess. She'd helped raise this nephew and still saw a toddler posing as a awkward teenager when she looked at him through her maternal aunt eyes.

The band struck up a weak rendition of Pomp and Circumstance and the graduates began filing in with very little pomp and more casual circumstance. Tess clicked her tongue at flip flogs and tennis shoes sticking out below the graduation gowns. "We dressed up for graduation," she whispered in disapproval. I patted her hand. Inside I wondered when we had become the finger wagging, older generation.

I put my camera to my eye, ready to photograph our nephew when the line of blue and white snaked past us below towards their rows of empty seats for what they probably viewed as their last assembly. But we were so far up and the graduates were so uniformly anonymous in their gowns that somehow we missed him.

The ceremony began with a speech by the principal. Then there was a welcome speech by a boy who was obviously one of the school elite. His name was all over the program along with a smattering of other honor students and class presidents.

I felt a twinge as I listened to the speech. How is it that each generation of high school students divides themselves into groups of popular kids, jock, freaks and the invisible? Even alphabetized and robed, these kids were no different.

It struck me, too, how young these graduates were. The valedictorians highlighted the milestones of their young lives in terms of kindergarten, grade school, middle school and the pinnacle: high school. They waxed nostalgically about homecomings, cross country races and final tests as if they were now grown up and stuck in that looking back phase of life instead of perched on the edge of the beginning of it.

The restless graduates nudged each other and stifled giggles as if they were indeed at one more assembly. The speeches wound down and the moment of receiving diplomas began. The rows rose and filed by as the clusters of family and friends cheered. Some of the graduates gave victory gestures and hoots of happiness at freedom. Some were somber and awed by being in one of life's brief "center of attention" moments. Others simply accepted their diplomas and scurried off the stage into the shadows.

When our nephew's name was read, the stage lights burned out suddenly and I lost yet another opportunity to capture the fuzzy moment from my hapless perch in the bleachers. But Tess still glowed with pride as she watched the amorphous shape in the gloom accept his diploma. When he had filed off, someone found the house lights and illuminated the event once more.

We sat through the reading of the rest of the names of young people we didn't know. The heat from all of the bodies clustered in the hall was stifling. As it reached the unbearable stage the graduating class was introduced and they tossed their mortarboards into the air. Once again they formed into their last lines of high school and filed out. Our nephew's line turned the opposite direction from where we sit and my final photo opportunity disappeared. I put the camera back into my bag and we clumped our way down the bleachers towards the fresh air and to rendezvous with our nephew and his family.

Outside Tess' maternal radar honed in on our grinning nephew still in his hat and gown. Tess rushed in and pinned him between herself and his high school girlfriend (also graduating that night). I pulled out the neglected camera and snapped away, hoping every one's eyes were open (literally and figuratively).

I stood back as the strange faces of our nephew's family darted in and out of the circle. I am a relative newcomer in this family and there is no time in all the commotion for many introductions. That is okay. I'm used to being that shadow in the photographs cast by the one taking the photo.

Our nephew peeled off his gown. He was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. He pulled on a sweatshirt and Tess hugged him one last time while he impatiently looked for his escape route to go to his all night senior party.

We drove the long route home talking about the ceremony, our nephew's future and what it had been like when we graduated from high school. Some memory synapses fired in the dim recesses of my brain and I recalled that night 30-some years ago when I'd grasped that diploma folder in my hand and wondered vaguely at what had just happened and where I was going next.


"You know," I said to Tess as she squinted at the headlights and drove back to our own present, "I don't think any of those kids have a clue as to how much of their life is still ahead of them."

We drove the rest of the way home in silence.