just another weekend in the city, starting with today. the most boring post in the world.

reading, messing around on my guitar. watching junk tv. that's what i've done this evening. oh and i had a salad and an ice cream cone.

so earlier today i did a little mini triathalon. i walked and jogged for a half hour. I rode a little stationary bike for a half an hour, and then finally, i swam for about a half hour. i won. since i was the only one entered in my little event.

before that i had my car serviced. where i was told by the guy "that's a really nice little car you've got there, you've kept it in really good shape." seems silly, but that made me proud. i really have tried to take really good care of this car (and no i'm not talking about the messy interior) because i want it to last for 15 or so years. because i'm poor and stuff.

while my car was being serviced, i went next door and had a double expresso vanilla latte. i don't usually do expresso, but when i ordered the vanilla latte, the guy there says "i think you want a shot of expresso in that." and i said "yeah, no." then he smiled and i said "ok." and then he says "let's make it a double shot." and i said "what the hell."

then after my double expresso vanilla latte and catching up with a few rounds of words with friends, i wandered over to the Whole Foods store, where i had lobster. i very rarely buy anything at the whole foods store, because they are so expensive, plus they are so creepily corporate owned, but i do love it when i wander in to find them handing out samples of lobster. i also sampled some free cheese. then i spent a little time smelling the "handmade" soaps. after that i thought about buying some peaches, because i do so love peaches. they might be my favorite fruit. but then, i remembered i still had grapes, apples, a banana, blueberries, and cherries at home. i'm only me and really i can only eat so much fruit.

before i had my car serviced, i worked for 4 hours. a pretty easy, laid back morning.

before that, i had a cup of tea, while sitting out on my tiny little deck.

tomorrow, i'm going to get up and go to apt. complex breakfast. then i'm going to do another "triathalon" while i do my laundry. then i'm going to go to the music store to get a capo. and to sign up for some lessons. i discovered on the internet tonight, that they have free lessons. how cool is that?

then i'm going to hang out with a friend somewhere in the city. she wants to go to a "symphony on the praire" event, but i don't really want to because it's one of those stupid beatles acts. not that i didn't like the beatles. just that i'm not a big fan of people playing like they are the beatles. i think that's stupid. so i'm going to see if i can talk her into something else.

then sunday, i'm going to go see big head todd and the monsters! at something called "the warm fest." yeah!

then monday. hmm. i don't really know. but i'm sure something will come to mind, by then.

me, me, me, me, me.

so today i learned that i am not a narcissist. i know. hard to believe since i yammer incessently on this blog about myself. but it's true. i'm not a narcissist. i took a quiz. that's how i know. and i have a very low score for narcissism.

i also learned today that i'm what dr. oz would call a type 3 personality. which apparently means that i'm shy, i bottle up my emotions, and i try to please people. and it puts me at risk for viruses and addictions. ha ha.
but apparently i'm not a horrible d personality. those people blow up and explode, i guess.

what else do i know about myself? i'm an intj personality. and very few of us women are. here is what is said about us: "INTJs are natural leaders, although they usually choose to remain in the background until they see a real need to take over the lead. When they are in leadership roles, they are quite effective, because they are able to objectively see the reality of a situation, and are adaptable enough to change things which aren't working well. They are the supreme strategists - always scanning available ideas and concepts and weighing them against their current strategy, to plan for every conceivable contingency. "

hmm. sound like quite a person, don't i? ha ha.

but i'm not a narcissist.

i live right by that house.

i told you a few posts back about the woman who sold her plasma to pay her bills. well, tonight, one of our students came in and asked if she could have last week's work. i told her that i was sure we could get that and told her that i'd missed her last wednesday.

she said "i'm sorry, but did you see that thing on the news about the home that the shots were fired into last week?" and i said "yeah, i saw that. scary."

(Someone sprayed bullets into a home downtown while a woman and her four children were sleeping. (Her husband was at work.) Some of the bullets were shot straight into a bedroom where her two sons were asleep, straight between the top and bottom bunks where they lay. The woman had fallen asleep in her daughters' room, but if she'd been asleep in her own, it's likely that she'd have been killed. it's dumb luck and a miracle that no one was killed. This was a nice family. A nice, poor family in a crappy neighborhood. police really have no idea the motive, but they think now that the shooters thought the house belonged to someone else.)

Then the girl continued. She said "i live right by that house. and i've been really shook up. i haven't been able to sleep or nothin' i couldn't get to class last wednesday. i haven't been able to do hardly nothin'"

i said, "wow. yeah. that's awful. i can only imagine how freaked out you must be. glad you're back tonight. we'll make sure you get your work from last week."

because what else could i say? that i knew with certainty that her coming back to class tonight, her trying to get back into her normal routine was nothing short of courageous. because it really was, i think. but it seemed to wierd to say it outloud. i don't know. but i didn't say it. just thought it really loud.

she went into class. i went to work on my stuff.

but it was a few minutes before i could concentrate. i was thinking about all the trauma in the world. happening every day. . the trauma that is experienced first hand. and then also trauma that is witnessed. or trauma that hits too close to home. or even sometimes, trauma that feels close to home, either because you realize how very randomly bad things can happen to anyone of us at any time or because you empathize so greatly with someone.

and i was thinking that so many of us take for granted that we live in "safe" places. or that we are healthy. or that we have recovered from something that shook us to our cores. that we have understanding friends and the supports that we need to make our ways in the world. that our families are ok. we most of us are very lucky, you know. we need to remember those things.

because potentially, we all kind of "live right by that house."

Call me a sap.

But I really love the "the secret millionaire" show. And if i was a millionaire, that is exactly what I'd like to do. Sans the tv show.

But really, wouldn't that be cool? To go work amongst the good people of the world anonymously, and then surprise them with cash to help them carry on? Really, wouldn't that be cool?

hard heads and thick hearts. or something like that.

so there are just some people who will never admit they are wrong.

no matter how convincing the arguments against them. no matter the expert opinions. no matter what the facts are. no matter the evidence. doesn't matter. their minds are made up.

and that's sucky.

yep it is.

but then there are some people that take this a bit further. and it seems that it's not enough to deny evidence, reason, and facts; they have to take another step.

and then it seems they will do one of two things, or sometimes even both of them. they will either parse everything for small grains of truth or fact that will fit their argument. and then offer those tiny grains up as proof. ignoring the whole loaf of reality.

or

they will simply fabricate stuff. make stuff up out of whole cloth. and then say those things with such authority and confidence, that people are fooled.

and all this is not to say i hate those people. doesn't matter if i hate them or not. but it's to say that at some point in time, you have to realize that it's always a complete waste of time to debate an issue, or raise a concern, or make a suggestion, or even discuss anything with these people.

because not only are their heads thick; their hearts are hard.

there was a john mellencamp song that i used to love. it was called "the authority song." i no longer love it. because you know what? i'm getting tired of "fighting authority and authority always" winning. because they always always do.

don't get me wrong. i'll probably always fight authority. but it's just that i'm not enjoying it as much anymore. i guess i used to always think that perhaps there was an outside chance. now, i'm beginning to see that that was just a silly dream.

you can't soften a hard heart. and you get through to a thick head.

perhaps i'll choose another john mellencamp song to love. something like "i need a lover who won't drive me crazy."

(-; something like that.

hmm

fire

what is it?

remember how i told you that something's up? that something was afoot. well i still feel that. but i still have absolutely no reason why i feel that way or what on earth the feeling could be about.

but i feel something strange is fixin' to happen. or is already happening somewhere.

it's kinda starting to make me crazy. what IS it?

oh well. in the meantime, let's see. life is carrying on here as per is the new usual. and the more i hear from my friends back "home"- the happier i am that i left that home. that just never goes away. it's not that i don't miss some of the people; i just don't miss the place. and the dullness. or the grueling work.

my son and his family are coming to visit me this weekend. i'm very happy about that. time with my grandson. it's happy.

work is skipping along. it's all good.

the weather is going back to normal from the cold spell we had. i like that.

and that's all i have to report.

for now. until i figure out what IT is.

He promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons...

I once told someone that the worst thing you could do to me was promise something to me. Because it was too hard on me when those things didn't get delivered. And there were never any guarantees. and most things never get delivered. too heartbreaking.

I have since changed my thinking on that. I think now that promises indicate intent. And it's good for intent to be declared. promises are the first step of love and delivery is the second step of love. fulfillment of the intent is the demonstration. so hey- later on, the sorting out of whether promises were fulfilled or not (and why) can be done. life, after all, rarely balances like an equation.

Because frankly, while broken promises can be disappointing, sometimes there is a good reason. And if you can see that reason, you can understand and deal with the heartbreak of a broken promise.

I went to the state fair yesterday. Corny and silly, yes, but I wanted to go. sentimental to me because in the later years of my father's life, he and i had this conversation about how we'd both never been there to this corny event and almost everyone we knew, had. and so we promised that we'd go together sometime.

well, he had a good excuse for not keeping that promise. he got sick and he died. or rather, he got sick, and he was killed by the medical establishment. anyway, he died. and of course he could not go. and could not go with me. but he wanted to. and if he'd lived, he would have.

but i decided that i would go ahead and go this year - without him. because the thing is, i remember his intent was good. no reason not to go. actually all the more reason to go. because his intent was good. and i do believe he would have gotten a huge kick out of seeing the world's largest glued together popcorn ball. and i had to see it for him.

anyway. all this is to say i'll never go to paris now. but what the hell, there's no giant ball of gluey popcorn there anyway.

something's afoot

i feel it in my bones. but i don't know what. and i don't know why. hmmm.

i guess i don't know what else to say about that. except that i have a strange feeling about something. so now let's talk about something else.


so i was driving to work this evening. and my mind was wandering. i was thinking about something that has amused me forever. just a little something that happened to me once. that has amused me ever since. and i realized that as i was thinking about it, i was smiling like a fool.

so i got to thinking that i need to make a list of the moments in my life that when i think of them, are guaranteed to bring up my mood. a list i can keep in my pocket and pull out when my mood is bad.

so here's a start to my list:

an adult i know who is haunted by a teddy bear bathmat.

the rav 4/heart attack incident

the roman vs. Fort Wayne coliseum confusion

parking garage swat

tuna can hockey night

coaster air hockey

sticky floor morning

Mother Nature lady sweeping the snow off the sidewalk in the middle of the night in the middle of the city. yes, we did see that.

"as you can see..."

barbie and ken speedboat going by

howard imitation

gum wrapper card games

dino chasing fred ornament/bolero video

pennies taped to a paper

"kristie, that's hot!"

winning at shakespeare

god not dead my home kentucky.

save the paper towels.

she ran. she ran so far away.

oh anyway. i've smiled enough for tonight. thinking of these moments. i need to save them for when i need them.

haven't you always wanted a monkey?

so today i read about a bunch of baboons (112 of them to be exact) at a zoo in the netherlands who have baffled everyone by collectively behaving in a depressed manner. turning their backs on the world and stuff.

and then i read about baboons in nakuro kenya who are scaring the residents with home invasions and attacks and looting food and such. and it seems they have figured out the security systems of the lake nakuro national park.

hmmm.

so what is up with these monkeys?


"My wife cannot shop for bread in the morning for fear of the baboons,” he adds. The baboons lie in wait near the fence and pounce on shoppers on their way home, says Gikara, amazed at their intelligence."


but here's something else that's a bit interesting. "70% of baboon death are caused by humans, mostly from road accidents and gun shots."

What becomes of the broken-hearted?

Short Answer: According to the writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald in "This Side of Paradise" they become seflish, self-aware, raging socialists. (-:

As you might have guessed, I just read Fitzgerald's first attempt at novelry. and while i desperately don't like his protagonist, Amory, I am just self-aware enough to recognize myself in him. I will give Fitzgerald credit for disguising me in terrific fashion. He made Amory a man, made him good-looking, and an ivy-leaguer. But all the same, the end of the book is a stunner for me. He comes up with the same conclusion, as I have. That i know nothing except myself.

No reading of this novel is really complete though, without knowing the history of it's writing. You see, Fitzgerald had just had his heart stomped by Zelda Sayre. She ditched him because he had no money. And he wrote the book in the wild hope that it's publishing success would win her back. And lo, and behold... it did.

and they lived "happily ever after"- NOT. actually, she went crazy. he lost her to asylumed schizophrenia. and for that, i am glad. because quite frankly, it selfishly seemed unfair to me that his acrobatics to win her back, succeeded, where mine did not. nevermind, that i didn't do anything as spectacular and productive as writing a novel. i mostly just cried, whined, begged, and lost my dignity. but still and all, it seemed unfair as all hell to me.

and quite honestly, i didn't even like the Zelda inspired antagonist of Fitzgerald's plot. She was too too shallow and vapid for my tastes. I much more liked the crazy eleanor that Amory couldn't love ever because Rosalind had spoiled love for him. that's ok. i doubt seriously if Fitgerald would have liked my "rosalind" either. we are even on that score. and now we are even on the happily ever afterness.

"This side of paradise! there is little comfort in the wise."

but there is comfort in company. misery loves it.

so anyway, that is that. and here is more. interesting to me that Amory in the end is disgusted by his own navel-gazing and owns up to his inborn selfishness. he realizes he's a selfish beast and instead of denying it, he owns it.

he realizes that in his selfish, sociopath state, where he only cares about himself, he can do much good in the world.


“I am selfish,” he thought.
“This is not a quality that will change when I ‘see human suffering’ or ‘lose my parents’ or ‘help others.’
“This selfishness is not only part of me. It is the most living part.
“It is by somehow transcending rather than by avoiding that selfishness that I can bring poise and balance into my life.
“There is no virtue of unselfishness that I cannot use. I can make sacrifices, be charitable, give to a friend, endure for a friend, lay down my life for a friend — all because these things may be the best possible expression of myself; yet I have not one drop of the milk of human kindness.”

and that my friends, is the long anwer to "what becomes of the broken hearted?"

guilt and innocence this week

what a delightful turn of events. that a wonderful reporter with the AP, Tom LoBianco, dug beneath the hyped up press releases of the educational deform movement, and exposed a weasel named Tony Bennett (my state's former superintendent of public schools) as the cheating, lying, son of a bitch that he is!

and what an interesting turn of events that these discoveries caused the lying, cheating, son of a bitch, weasel to do two things: 1. deny and lie to defend himself and 2. resign from his current position as chief of Florida's public schools.

i'm sorry, but when you're innocent, you don't just give up and resign. you stand up and you defend your innocence, knowing that when the full truth comes out, you will be vindicated. at least you try.

and my best guess is this, that he didn't actually want to resign. the guy is THAT arrogant, that he, himself, would believe that he could weather this and in a few weeks, proceed with evil business, as per usual. however, my true guess is that the powers that be, told him to resign hoping that they could minimize the damage to their heavily-invested interests in the "reform" efforts. you just can't throw away billions of dollars of profit because your little lapdog was stupid enough to leave behind an email trace of his guilt.

what a guilty bunch of bums. although i'm sure they are under the table taking good care of their little scapegoat. i've no doubt of that. and i'm sure their continued care plan trumped his arrogance. anyway what a bunch of horribly guilty awful people. the lot of them.

and then there is ariel castro. and i gotta say this. the man, crazy or no, needs to be behind bars. his crimes, were horrific. and he's guilty. but i'll also give him this: while tony bennett stood there arrogantly denying his crimes, castro really couldn't deny his guilt. and he didn't. but it's interesting that he evoked a defense of himself saying "i'm sick."

and you know, here's the thing. the fact is- he IS sick. he's not wrong in citing that as a defense for himself. he and any other abuser of children or adults are as sick as they come. they are needing to be put away forever kind of sick.

i mean, as if to prove how really very sick he was, castro then goes on to ask for our sympathy not just because of his illness, but because of his now being an "empty-nester." really, that's a very seriously ill person who doesn't have a clue as to how that sounds to his fellow human beings.

so here's where i'm perhaps askew with the rest of the world. as horrific as i find ariel castro's crimes (much more horrific than tony bennett's)- i find castro, the more human of the two. he's a very very sick man. yes. bennett, he's just a lying, cheating, arrogant pig.