I'm going to try and revive the "songbook" here and there, with songs that crop up on my mix CDs (or in the case of some of them, crop up and crop up and crop up...I must've went through a phase when Travis' "Sing" was my favorite song, judging how many times it crops up, usually at the beginning).
Anyway, this was something that I got off a mix CD from a friend I'd made online, at a forum devoted to The Office. Swapping music is perhaps the most fun and/or disarming thing to do for someone, because it's saying "this is me, based on my record collection." And once upon a time, I'd be wary of anyone who had James Taylor in his or her record collection.
But the song itself, like much of Taylor's work, is deceptively simple, and it's a great example of the "I'm not really good with emotions" genre of literature, something that has been the cornerstone of Nick Hornby novels and so forth. Romantic longing in men is sometimes trvialized in pop culture, because women assume quite rightly that often times the heart we're thinking with is in our pants, but guys do have feelings. We just sometimes can't communicate good, and junk.
I have been guilty as much as any modern man in letting good things slip away, or trying too hard and running people off. And I don't just mean romantic possibilities; many former friends probably cringe when I crop up on their Facebook feed simply because I updated my status with a "witty" saying or decided to "like" yet another Walker Percy novel. I get it, I can be intense and needy and eager to please and about as annoying as a yapping dog at your heels if you don't pay attention, then wonder why you're mean to me. It is my curse.
But sometimes, you have moments of perfect clarity, and I had one about a year ago today. I was at work waiting to use the restroom, and a girl that I'd known since I started there, a girl that I'd admittedly had a crush on without thinking anything could come of it (because she was devestatingly attractive and therefore dating someone when I met her), was petting the dog of a mutual co-worker. I don't remember our conversation much, it wasn't anything memorable, but I knew that, at that very moment in time, there was nowhere else I'd rather be. And the beautiful part of it was that all the anxiety, all the trying hard that I normally do, that didn't crop up at all. I was just there, watching a beautiful girl pet a dog, and I was set.
I don't know if there's a future there with that particular girl (a lot has happened since then), but I'm working on it. And if it doesn't come to pass, there's always the opportunity of someone else, even if I'm not yet ready for that. The thing I've learned this year, what with Jeopardy and everything else, is that as long as you're still trying, you might have a chance to do something really awesome, to have a positive impact on someone who might have never known you existed otherwise. That's a pretty good thing to know, and keep within sight, when all the crap of the world intrudes on those perfect little moments.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
A Fan's Note
Well, if you know me, you know what team I follow, college-wise, when it comes to the sporting life. And thus, you're well aware that I might understandably be in less than a great mood this past week.
Because my team got beat.
Not abysmally, at least (not like last year), but our in-state rivals do indeed have something called "bragging rights" over us for the next year, as they've had the previous three times the two giants of the college gridiron have met. Bloody hell, you'd think the opposing team's fans would learn to be classier about it.
But you can't teach class to some folks...
In the end, I feel a weight lifted off of me, in this respect; I can watch other teams in the college sporting world and not give a damn one way or the other about the situation, because when you don't have a dog in that fight you can sit back and watch two teams try their mightiest not to repeat the Alabama-LSU "Field Goal Competition" of last season. That was an underwhelming four hours of my life I'd like to have back.
Being a sports fan is a bit like being in a cult; after a while, the kool-aid doesn't work anymore and you wake up with a sense that maybe you could be doing more with your life. Books could be read; families could be together; life could be richer and more meaningful.
Then the next season begins, your team starts to do good, and you get sucked in all over again.
Thank goodness for Jane Austen; I've been reading Persuasion this past week, to take my mind off the football mess (sports books are no longer appealing to me, might be a while before I want to read any), and as ridiculous as I find some of the aspects of her books (people in the nineteenth century sure didn't know how important a good punter could be to pinning the opposition back beyond their own twenty-yard-line, for instance), they're just diverting enough to get the sour taste of defeat out of my system. And hey, I still got my New York Football Giants; they crushed the Packers Sunday night. Go Big Blue!
Oh good, it's not even bowl season yet...
Because my team got beat.
Not abysmally, at least (not like last year), but our in-state rivals do indeed have something called "bragging rights" over us for the next year, as they've had the previous three times the two giants of the college gridiron have met. Bloody hell, you'd think the opposing team's fans would learn to be classier about it.
But you can't teach class to some folks...
In the end, I feel a weight lifted off of me, in this respect; I can watch other teams in the college sporting world and not give a damn one way or the other about the situation, because when you don't have a dog in that fight you can sit back and watch two teams try their mightiest not to repeat the Alabama-LSU "Field Goal Competition" of last season. That was an underwhelming four hours of my life I'd like to have back.
Being a sports fan is a bit like being in a cult; after a while, the kool-aid doesn't work anymore and you wake up with a sense that maybe you could be doing more with your life. Books could be read; families could be together; life could be richer and more meaningful.
Then the next season begins, your team starts to do good, and you get sucked in all over again.
Thank goodness for Jane Austen; I've been reading Persuasion this past week, to take my mind off the football mess (sports books are no longer appealing to me, might be a while before I want to read any), and as ridiculous as I find some of the aspects of her books (people in the nineteenth century sure didn't know how important a good punter could be to pinning the opposition back beyond their own twenty-yard-line, for instance), they're just diverting enough to get the sour taste of defeat out of my system. And hey, I still got my New York Football Giants; they crushed the Packers Sunday night. Go Big Blue!
Oh good, it's not even bowl season yet...
Monday, November 19, 2012
A Manson Family Thanksgiving
I face a moral dilemma, folks: I want to read the book Silver Linings Playbook because the ads for the movie have caught my interest (and not just because of Jennifer Lawrence, though when I see her I feel emotions I've not felt for a long time towards an actress I will never meet...I've said too much!), but the only copy of it I've found so far has smartass Bradley Cooper's mug on the front cover. I do not care for Mr. Cooper, while acknowledging that his dickhead persona is very effectively used on the big screen.
Anyway, Thanksgiving approaches and, like a motorist passing a wreck on the freeway, I can't turn my head away from what promises to be a truly terrible Turkey Day. I say that in the hopes (perhaps) that by doing so, I will cause the opposite to happen (i.e., my family will not devolve into a hate-filled room of banshees screaming and yelling about things that happened long before I was even a gleam in my mother's eye). I doubt it, though.
At any rate, though, I am sure anyone here can relate to the way in which the end of the year approaching has a way of causing you to reflect, especially (what a shock!) what you're thankful for. I'm thankful for my family, as crazy and upsetting as they can be, and I'm thankful for my friends. I'm thankful for my job, my bills (hey, they keep me from blowing my money on stupid stuff, like more stuff that requires bills), and I'm thankful for the opportunity I got this year to try out for Jeopardy in New Orleans. I'm waiting for your move, Trebek...
Anyway, Thanksgiving approaches and, like a motorist passing a wreck on the freeway, I can't turn my head away from what promises to be a truly terrible Turkey Day. I say that in the hopes (perhaps) that by doing so, I will cause the opposite to happen (i.e., my family will not devolve into a hate-filled room of banshees screaming and yelling about things that happened long before I was even a gleam in my mother's eye). I doubt it, though.
At any rate, though, I am sure anyone here can relate to the way in which the end of the year approaching has a way of causing you to reflect, especially (what a shock!) what you're thankful for. I'm thankful for my family, as crazy and upsetting as they can be, and I'm thankful for my friends. I'm thankful for my job, my bills (hey, they keep me from blowing my money on stupid stuff, like more stuff that requires bills), and I'm thankful for the opportunity I got this year to try out for Jeopardy in New Orleans. I'm waiting for your move, Trebek...
Thursday, November 8, 2012
It's a Marvelous Night for a Moondance
Whew, America...just, wow. Thank God.
The election is over, and I'm not afraid to say it: I'm damn-glad-ass happy Barack Obama is back in office, for four more years. No, he ain't perfect. Yes, he's fucked up along the way, and there is still a lot of work to do. I just feel better about that work getting done with him in charge.
Nothing against Mitt Romney (who, let's be honest, is probably a salt-of-the-earth guy, even if his salt is a little more refined and harder to get for people outside of his tax bracket. I kid), but I really wasn't sure about an America in which we said no to Obama after only one term. It was a ground-swelling event for him to get elected the first time; I remember arguments with family members who, while not racist in their hearts, probably took the idea of a black man being in charge about as well as you would expect white Southerners of a certain age and generation to take it. I related to Obama because I grew up without a dad in the picture, just my mom and her parents, my maternal grandparents, as my family (well, we've got a shitload of relatives, but in terms of immediate family, for a long time it was me, my mom, my grandparents, and my aunt and uncle who were only a few years older than me and thus like older siblings).
I stayed up until two o'clock in the morning to watch Obama's speech because on some level, I didn't want to go to sleep and wake up to Florida in 2000, when the shit hit the fan and we entered what would become, in my humble and well-informed opinion (I'm a history buff), the worst period in the history of our nation. At least Nixon got close to getting impeached; George W. Bush was inexcusably inept except in the arena of making us more divided. That shit-turd jackoff will rot in hell for starting the Iraq War. I took his victory in '04 even harder, which is why I can sympathize on some level with the torrent of self-abuse and grief on the GOP side of things. But shit happens.
Sean Hannity, who really isn't relevant anymore anyway, now blames America for re-electing Obama. Donald Trump is apoplectic, Bill O'Reilly is splotchy with a chance of rain, and the entire right-wing movement in this country has to be shaking its collective head in disgust at what it sees. God, it's great to be an American right now.
Patriotism is not a provinince of one party or another; as someone who first would've classified himself as a Republican (everybody else was around me, and I grew up when Reagan was president, so it was only natural) and then found himself more in line with the Democrats (Bobby Kennedy is a personal hero of mine), I know there are good, decent, hard-working and ethical people on both sides of the debate. Then there's your Rushs and Glenn Becks of the world. If I seem more aware of the right-wing hypocrites, it's not because there aren't any on the left. I just can't think of any prominent ones. By all means, let me know what left-wing equivalents there are to Sarah Palin and her ilk.
The Germans have a word for taking pleasure in other people's pain (schadenfreude, I think that's how it's spelled); in that case, Fox News is my bitch. You have never seen a more low-rent and distasteful enterprise in your life (the old Star Wars line about Mos Eisley comes to mind). To see them weeping and gnashing their teeth...well, I just wish Hunter S. Thompson was around to see it.
Four more years, no they're not going to be easy. And no, I don't think everyone will be farting lollipops and unicorns by the bushel. But I have hope for America, a hope that took a beating over the past election cycle because it seemed like cynicism was going to win. For now, that tide has been beaten back, and if we're lucky we can outgrow the downright childish behaviour that certain political hacks mostly on the right seem to feed on. It's our country, dammit, now let's make something of it.
God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America!
The election is over, and I'm not afraid to say it: I'm damn-glad-ass happy Barack Obama is back in office, for four more years. No, he ain't perfect. Yes, he's fucked up along the way, and there is still a lot of work to do. I just feel better about that work getting done with him in charge.
Nothing against Mitt Romney (who, let's be honest, is probably a salt-of-the-earth guy, even if his salt is a little more refined and harder to get for people outside of his tax bracket. I kid), but I really wasn't sure about an America in which we said no to Obama after only one term. It was a ground-swelling event for him to get elected the first time; I remember arguments with family members who, while not racist in their hearts, probably took the idea of a black man being in charge about as well as you would expect white Southerners of a certain age and generation to take it. I related to Obama because I grew up without a dad in the picture, just my mom and her parents, my maternal grandparents, as my family (well, we've got a shitload of relatives, but in terms of immediate family, for a long time it was me, my mom, my grandparents, and my aunt and uncle who were only a few years older than me and thus like older siblings).
I stayed up until two o'clock in the morning to watch Obama's speech because on some level, I didn't want to go to sleep and wake up to Florida in 2000, when the shit hit the fan and we entered what would become, in my humble and well-informed opinion (I'm a history buff), the worst period in the history of our nation. At least Nixon got close to getting impeached; George W. Bush was inexcusably inept except in the arena of making us more divided. That shit-turd jackoff will rot in hell for starting the Iraq War. I took his victory in '04 even harder, which is why I can sympathize on some level with the torrent of self-abuse and grief on the GOP side of things. But shit happens.
Sean Hannity, who really isn't relevant anymore anyway, now blames America for re-electing Obama. Donald Trump is apoplectic, Bill O'Reilly is splotchy with a chance of rain, and the entire right-wing movement in this country has to be shaking its collective head in disgust at what it sees. God, it's great to be an American right now.
Patriotism is not a provinince of one party or another; as someone who first would've classified himself as a Republican (everybody else was around me, and I grew up when Reagan was president, so it was only natural) and then found himself more in line with the Democrats (Bobby Kennedy is a personal hero of mine), I know there are good, decent, hard-working and ethical people on both sides of the debate. Then there's your Rushs and Glenn Becks of the world. If I seem more aware of the right-wing hypocrites, it's not because there aren't any on the left. I just can't think of any prominent ones. By all means, let me know what left-wing equivalents there are to Sarah Palin and her ilk.
The Germans have a word for taking pleasure in other people's pain (schadenfreude, I think that's how it's spelled); in that case, Fox News is my bitch. You have never seen a more low-rent and distasteful enterprise in your life (the old Star Wars line about Mos Eisley comes to mind). To see them weeping and gnashing their teeth...well, I just wish Hunter S. Thompson was around to see it.
Four more years, no they're not going to be easy. And no, I don't think everyone will be farting lollipops and unicorns by the bushel. But I have hope for America, a hope that took a beating over the past election cycle because it seemed like cynicism was going to win. For now, that tide has been beaten back, and if we're lucky we can outgrow the downright childish behaviour that certain political hacks mostly on the right seem to feed on. It's our country, dammit, now let's make something of it.
God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America!
Sunday, November 4, 2012
If the Mitt Hits the Fan
My sis asked me if I was planning to move to Canada if Mitt "I'm smiling to hide my death-ray apparatus behind my eyeballs" Romney wins this Tuesday and gets into the White House. It's a fair question, but I don't think it will be too bad if Mitt gets in.
George W. Bush set the bar pretty damn high when it comes to presidential incompetence. I think any idiot with half a brain could do a better job than that peckerhead.
No, the election isn't bothering me too much, not because I think it'll be a slam-dunk for my boy Barack (I wouldn't put too much stock in white people forgetting how much they hate black people when they get into the voting booth in certain states, including my own), but because in the grand scheme of things, it's rare that anyone beyond the people who have to deal with a new president (Congress, the media, DC's finest escort services) are directly affected by such a sea change. And when they are, brother, it's because either the guy in charge kicks ass (FDR, JFK) or because he kicks ass in a bad way (Harding, Nixon, Dubya).
Just go out and vote, dammit. No matter who you're voting for (even if you're writing in "Ron Paul"), you don't get to bitch and complain about it for four years unless you do. Obama is the first president I helped to elect (I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm the one white guy in Oconee County who voted for him in '08), and while I don't think he's done a super-fantastic job, he's not the root cause of the dysfunction in this country.
Big pause:...we all are the reason.
Think about it: we live in a culture of instant gratification. You send an email or a text message, you expect a prompt response (even if the person you're sending it to is in the middle of operating on someone's heart). You want your food and you want it now, and waiting an extra 2.5 seconds is un-freaking-acceptable. I'm just as guilty of it as the next guy (especially the texting part: anyone who has the misfortune to have given me their phone number after I discovered texting can testify to this). We are often the cause of our own misfortune.
So I don't blame Obama for my shitty economic outlook (he wasn't the one who got me fired from the library, for instance. That was Classic Trevor Self-Destruction). Though I do blame him for my shitty romantic outlook: all the women I fall for are in love with him.
Just kidding...anyway, Donald Trump has gone a long way towards proving that, when it comes to jackasses, there's not a lot of difference between him and the much-poorer guy who says stupid-ass things to get attention (such as your humble blogger). In case you didn't hear, he made some bullshit threat for Obama to release his college transcripts and he'd donate five million to the charity of Obama's choice. Here's a thought: give that five million to New York, New Jersey, and the surrounding burroughs affected by Hurricane Sandy. Then shut the fuck up.
You'd be doing the world a favor if you got rid of that comb-over as well, Trumpy.
George W. Bush set the bar pretty damn high when it comes to presidential incompetence. I think any idiot with half a brain could do a better job than that peckerhead.
No, the election isn't bothering me too much, not because I think it'll be a slam-dunk for my boy Barack (I wouldn't put too much stock in white people forgetting how much they hate black people when they get into the voting booth in certain states, including my own), but because in the grand scheme of things, it's rare that anyone beyond the people who have to deal with a new president (Congress, the media, DC's finest escort services) are directly affected by such a sea change. And when they are, brother, it's because either the guy in charge kicks ass (FDR, JFK) or because he kicks ass in a bad way (Harding, Nixon, Dubya).
Just go out and vote, dammit. No matter who you're voting for (even if you're writing in "Ron Paul"), you don't get to bitch and complain about it for four years unless you do. Obama is the first president I helped to elect (I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm the one white guy in Oconee County who voted for him in '08), and while I don't think he's done a super-fantastic job, he's not the root cause of the dysfunction in this country.
Big pause:...we all are the reason.
Think about it: we live in a culture of instant gratification. You send an email or a text message, you expect a prompt response (even if the person you're sending it to is in the middle of operating on someone's heart). You want your food and you want it now, and waiting an extra 2.5 seconds is un-freaking-acceptable. I'm just as guilty of it as the next guy (especially the texting part: anyone who has the misfortune to have given me their phone number after I discovered texting can testify to this). We are often the cause of our own misfortune.
So I don't blame Obama for my shitty economic outlook (he wasn't the one who got me fired from the library, for instance. That was Classic Trevor Self-Destruction). Though I do blame him for my shitty romantic outlook: all the women I fall for are in love with him.
Just kidding...anyway, Donald Trump has gone a long way towards proving that, when it comes to jackasses, there's not a lot of difference between him and the much-poorer guy who says stupid-ass things to get attention (such as your humble blogger). In case you didn't hear, he made some bullshit threat for Obama to release his college transcripts and he'd donate five million to the charity of Obama's choice. Here's a thought: give that five million to New York, New Jersey, and the surrounding burroughs affected by Hurricane Sandy. Then shut the fuck up.
You'd be doing the world a favor if you got rid of that comb-over as well, Trumpy.
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