Let a smile be your umbrella . . .

Somewhere around fifteen years ago, maybe a bit longer, I was in a meeting with some Apple Computer representatives, and one of them pointed out that in email, still at the time a fairly new form of communication, the reader didn't have facial expression and tone of voice to cue him or her. This meant that something written in jest could be misunderstood, and cause the reader to take offense. Since then I have heard and read the same thing over and over and over. Be careful! No one can tell if you're joking!

As a result of this writing paranoia two equally obnoxious phenomena have developed.

A polka dot shirt, and man, oh man . . .

This happened a little over thirty years ago. It was the early mid-Seventies, when disco was not yet a joke, or at least not an over-whelmingly embarrassing one.  The Seventies, as a decade, have so much to answer for—from elephant bell-bottoms, to afros on Midwestern farm kids of obviously Germanic ancestry, to lime green leisure suits—that disco sometimes seems to be the least of its sins. At any rate, I was working at the time as an optician, and managed an optical shop in the largest mall in the area. I think the mall has fallen on some hard times recently, but at that time it was the place to shop for three or four counties.

Sweet land of . . .

My friends have always run the full length of the cultural/political spectrum. I have known, and liked, conservative Mormons, gay Jews for Christ, Republicans and Democrats of every gradation, middle of the road Independents, born again Christians, Islamic fundamentalists, card carrying Socialists, left-wing Buddhists, right-wing Buddhists, even further right-wing atheists and everything else in between except, perhaps, an asexual, cross-dressing nihilist. The only really non-negotiable requirements I have had have been honesty and tolerance. As long as a person was truthful about their beliefs and willing to at least try to understand that my beliefs were just as honestly held as theirs, we could be friends.

Then there are the Libertarians.

Memories, pressed between the pages of my mind . . .

It was, I believe, in sixth grade that the class took a daylong trip to the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. This was the biggest field trip we had ever taken and it required signed permission slips and packed lunches. It was also, if memory serves, the first time I ever actually rode a school bus. I was a town kid, and had always walked to school or had been driven by Mom in our third-hand Plymouth the half mile or so when something was bleeding.

No colors anymore . . .

What does practically every rock 'n roll performer; whiny, little emo-brat; anime otaku; younger comedian; self-declared "sexy" woman; "dangerous" (again, a self-declared state) cowboy; neo-Nazi; acutely sensitive poet; "serious" writer, businessperson, baby-sitter, etc, etc have in common?

They all think wearing black makes a statement other than, "I'm boring."

Fight on fiercely, Harvard, fight, fight, fight . . .

At the top of the stairs going down to the Athletic Field on the nights we had a home game, one of the local farmers would sell cartons of freshly pressed apple cider. Rumor had it that occasionally some of the cartons would be left-overs from the last home game, and had turned hard in the interim. That none of the cider ever was hard did nothing to diminish the feeling that perhaps this carton was the one. Hard or not, the taste of fresh apple cider on a crisp autumn evening was unforgettable.

At that time football was, for me, a few classmates in uniforms and helmets throwing themselves against other uniforms and helmets under some garish lights on an Friday evening. More important to me was the taste of that cider, the warmth of my band uniform, and the way my date's hand felt in a wool mitten. Otherwise it was just a game whose objective made very little sense to me. I had spent a lot of time in hospitals, and purposefully doing things that could very easily put you, or the other guy, in the hospital was, in my opinion, not the hallmarks of a reasonable, or even fun, sport.

It's a thousand pages give or take a few . . . 11番

One of the more popular plot lines in science fiction involves the hero going back in time, and preventing something from happening so that in the future they came from some, even more terrible, thing will not happen. For some reason, probably one best explored while watching the currents created by the ice melting in a glass of scotch, the even more terrible thing very often is the birth of some individual. The argument goes something like this: the world, as we know it, is crap. The reason it is crap can be traced directly back to this exact person. Therefore, if that exact person is never born then, ipso facto, the world will not be crap.

I love to get a chance to play—and sing it . . .

This has been bouncing around the inside of my head—the relatively uncluttered area I hear most people use to hold a functioning brain—like the lyrics of a song you hate for sometime now, and I'm hoping that by putting it into actual words it will do what most of my thoughts do when I try to formalize them into a coherent bit of writing, and evaporate into nothingness. When I worked I would often have this problem. For hours, or days and far too many nights, I would have a thought or image hovering in my consciousness just in front of the stuff I really needed or wanted to think about. Back then these interloping thoughts were usually snatches of conversations some secret part of me wished to have with either faculty—especially department chairs—or upper management or both.

Granted the current recurring thought has nothing to do with most faculties' lack of awareness of how modern business must, by necessity, operate or how books are actually printed and distributed. ("Yes, I imagine that book would be perfect for your class. But it is published by a small monastery in Tibet that only has contact with the outside one day a week and demands unblemished, black goats for payment. I can assure you we won't be able to have it here next week for the first day of class.") Nor does have to do with being given two completely contradictory, mutually inoperable directives within the space of two sentences. ("Um, let me get this right. You want me to hire three more people, and lower my payroll by 15%. Are you even aware of what you are saying?" "I didn't say it would be easy.")

There's always free cheddar in a mousetrap, baby . . .

Several years ago my assistant and I were talking during a slow afternoon at work. I have completely forgotten whatever it was we were discussing, and it's totally irrelevant anyway, but I remember saying at one point something like, "Well, that's why I'm a Pagan."

She kind of smiled and said, "You don't believe in enough to be a Pagan."

She was right, of course.

It's a thousand pages give or take a few . . . 10番

The afternoon had been even less fun than Thomas had anticipated, and after a lifetime spent in the madcap world of academic administration his standards were pretty low. As a reward to himself for having endured two rather accurate samplings of hell he skipped the buffet and dance being held that evening, and was walking along the edge of the beach watching the surf and an occasional surfer. He brushed the sand off a bit of the wall that separated the beach from the man made parts of town, and sat down staring out at the waves, but naturally what he was really looking at was his seemingly empty past and an equally meaningless future as it seemed to be shaping up at the moment.

Dear old Golden Rule days . . .

The school I went to when I was in first and second grade, Central, was built a little before World War I, and the architects had certainly never heard of the Americans with Disabilities Act. (Probably because it hadn't been passed yet.) To get into the thing you had to go up six or seven steps, my classroom was on the second floor, and the restrooms were, of course, in the basement. The steps in the stairwells were made of some kind of stone that had been rounded by fifty some years of use. They were also slick as ice whenever there was the least bit of moisture on them.

It's a thousand pages give or take a few . . .9番

At the window stood a young girl. Well, actually, she wasn’t exactly a young girl as we know them, but we’ll get to that in a moment. She had her back to the room and the lights were out because it is much easier to sulk petulantly that way. The day had been simply awful.

It's a thousand pages give or take a few . . .8番

There was a time when traveling by plane was an event. You dressed for it, and were given a seat that was both comfortable and spacious. Even if you were traveling ‘Student Stand By’ everyone treated you with respect, and you expected to arrive at your destination within a few minutes of the moment indicated on the ticket. These are not those times.

Roger, draft dodger, sneakin' out the cellar door . . .

In October of 1964 I turned eighteen. Eighteen was that magical semi-step into adulthood for young men that meant that you were still far too young to drink alcohol, except in the state of New York, and still could not vote, but you were now mature enough to spend a few years in the Army. Several weeks before my birthday I received a large envelope in the mail from the Selective Service with a nine or ten page form I was to fill out and return before said birthday. I really don't remember much about the form except for thinking, "I haven't lived long enough to have answers for this many questions." Or something like that. That is at least the gist of my reaction which was a very complex mixture of thoughts, emotions and panic which at the time got edited down to something which probably sounded more like, "Damn!"

It's a thousand pages give or take a few . . .7番

This being the Twenty-first Century, the one that the Mickey Mouse Club had said he, and some others, would lead, Thomas had bought his tickets to San Diego online. Whenever Thomas thought about it being the Twenty-first Century he was always slightly let down. As the picture of Mickey had flashed across the screen along with pictures of the Mouseketeers tap dancing and jumping around in pantomime horses for Wild West Day, the announcer had been so emphatic. This show was for the leaders of the Twenty-first Century. Now that he was actually mired in the bloody thing he was finding out that he was anything but a leader. At least not a leader of centuries. He did lead several committees, but the thrill of ruling mimeographed handouts no longer approved for graduate classes soon wears off. Still, one committee was getting him three days at Pacific Beach, and that was ample compensation for whatever the topic of the conference was.

Yes, we have no bananas . . .

It seems that one of the hottest trends in food right now is being a localvore. As far as I can tell this means you will not eat anything grown more than 100 to 300 miles from where you are located. As far as I know there is no agreed upon distance that comprises "local," and I have heard chefs use a variety of distances. If you do a Google search for “localvore” the majority of hits come from a group in Vermont, and they seem to lean toward 100 miles; but at the moment the definition is apparently based on the individual's conception of the term, and the variety of produce available in a given area. At one time you could assume anything that could arrive within twenty-four hours of harvesting was local, but that isn’t the case anymore. This being the early days of the Twenty-first Century we first generation Mousekateers were told we would be leading, just about anything within a two hour mule ride of some kind of airport can be delivered anywhere else in twenty-four hours.

And they call it puppy love . . .

Tommy, can you hear me . . .

Today I was eavesdropping on a conversation in which one person was talking about their fears about the future. The other person listened gravely, and then said, "I hear you."

I assume the person was trying to be sympathetic and supportive, but I hate that phrase. When I am pouring my heart and soul out to you, for Crandell's sake don't go and say "you hear me." My cats hear me. Birds hear me. On some level insects hear me. I don't want someone to hear me. What I want is someone to understand me, or at least try to.

The problem with the statement, "I hear you," is that it effectively ends the conversation. There is really nothing to say in response. They heard your original statement and the implication is that anything further would be a waste of the listener's time. Perhaps it is indicative of how uncaring people have really become. They no longer feel the need to even pretend they care enough to try and understand your problems, but consider having heard your cry of anguish to be sufficient. "Yes, yes. I heard you say you're afraid of losing your job, now consider yourself loved. I usually don't even listen."

And while we're at it:

Don't say you want to share something with me, and then tell me about it. If you describe to me the wonderful flavors of the perfectly-normal-beast sandwich you had the other day you are not sharing it with me. Sharing means you give me a portion of the sandwich. Then we can share the experience. If you tell me about it the best I can do is empathize with you. So if you want to share with me the sunset over the Inland Sea you bloody well better have airline tickets and a hotel reservation, otherwise you're just going to describe it to me.

But then I'm old and stodgy enough to still think 'gay' means lively or bright.

Doctor, Doctor! Mr M D . . .

Todai hospital also turned new mom away : National : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri)

I have always known that Japan was more hide bound about following the rules than the Chairwoman of a Methodist Church flower committee. Everyone in a school or corporation dresses alike, and they all change from winter uniforms to summer uniforms on the same day, and damn the weather. But this article about a woman dying because hospitals seemed to think that the number of beds their policy manual states they will have is more important than the number of people who are actually in critical need really takes the cake.

I like bread and butter . . .

The sister-in-law, Kim, who lives up in Washington (and is a writer of some accomplishment—her last book is Ruby's Imagine) posted a tentative first chapter the other day for The Cookie Club. Reading it got me to thinking about my father, and working with him in the bakery.

My father was a baker, my two older brothers were bakers and I discovered that my great grandfather, my father's paternal grandfather, was also a baker before he enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War. When I was in high school I would work with Dad in the summer when his assistant didn't show up which seemed to be at least twice a week.