Merry Christmas…Or Not

I have serious issues with Christmas.  Probably  because I’m not a Christian.  I have difficulty with the idea of celebrating the imaginary birthday of a probably imaginary person. 

I’m also not into any other g0ds.   I’m not into alternatives.

Real Life Tweets

On occasion it occurs to me that I am a very strange person.  If that has already crossed your mind, please kindly restrain yourself and and refrain from comments such as “What was your first clue?”

It’s why personality typing such as the Myers-Briggs never gets it right for me, because I am “all of the above”. 

If you asked me to say whether I was an introvert or an extrovert, for example, I would wholeheartedly answer “introvert”.  Except, of course, that isn’t true.  I’m both. 

I lead a double life so to speak–not in the sense of church deacon by day, serial killer by night–but I have a public life and a private one.  This mostly breaks down into “work” vs. “not work”. 

I would, for example, prefer to carry on my work life in the dark, quietly working behind the scenes.  I’d like to be a mushroom rather than a sunflower.  Except that isn’t how it is.  And if I’m seriously honest, it isn’t really how I would want it to be. 

Case in point:  The other day I was creeping down Adams Street in Tallahassee on my way to work, when I met up with the downtown police officer going in the other direction.  (We have our own community police officer for the downtown area.)  He stuck his arm out the window and flagged me down.  (Sometimes he flashes the lights on his patrol car to get my attention, which is a lot scarier.  It’s been 30 years since I had to hide anything in the car, but old habits die hard).  Once I stopped, he said, “Did you buy a new car?”

I and my Camaro have been a fixture in downtown Tallahassee for years now.  And although I play a meager role in the life of the city, I am very well known in downtown.  Which really puts a damper on your ability to act crazy in your private life, since as smart politicians know and dumb politicians don’t (see:  governor of South Carolina Mark Sanford), there is spillover. 

I live my (work) life in the public eye, and as long as I’m telling the truth, I love it.  Those little brief encounters with people I know (e.g., Officer Mike, as we call him), and people I don’t know are enriching to me.  They make my day.  At the end of a day such as this, I just want to go home and take a nap with my cat.  I love my life, but it exhausts me. 

So to all of you, faifthful and beloved readers, I have this to say:  Tweet.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

So they say.  And I would say that “they” are right.  Of course the degree of difficulty depends on whether you are the breakupper or the breakuppee.  I have to assume that since you’re reading this, you’re an adult who is breathing and has a blood pressure, therefore you’ve been on both sides of this equation.  I will acknowlege that it’s marginally harder to be the breakuppee, especially if you didn’t see it coming.  Which you should have.

Fakename prefers the tried and true method of drifting apart until it is a non-issue.  The no drama, no confrontation method.  However, some people don’t get the message.  To illustrate, Fakename remembers the first time anyone ever broke up with her.  Her first boyfriend in college, whom we will call “Bob”, especially since that’s his real name, cornered her in the 4th floor snack bar of the Humanities building. 

He said, we have to talk.  Okay, I said, but I gotta be in class in like 8 minutes.  Here’s the deal, he said.  I have fallen in love with your roommate Patty.  (At this point, Fakename notices Patty  hovering nervously in the hallway.)

Dang!  I sure hate that you’re breaking up with me.  Losing you is like , virtually unbearable.  What part of, I haven’t seen you in weeks and don’t answer your phone calls do you not get?  I was amused that he thought HE was breaking up with ME. 

In the interest of preserving his ego, especially since he was trying to do what he thought was the right thing, I mustered up enough fake emotion to appear wounded.  Well!, I said.  I hope the two of you are very happy together.  Gosh, look at the time.  We could talk about this longer, but  I have like one minute to get to class.

Behold the following video, which asks “Can’t we give our love another try?”  No, actually we can’t.  By the time  you ask that question, it’s already way too late.  Damn..would you look at the time? 

Statistics, Probabilities, and Math in General

Back in ancient times (aka “days of yore”), the university Fakename attended required you to take at least one math class in order to graduate with a B.A.  What I want to know is, what were they thinking? 

Naturally, I did the responsible thing and put it off until my senior year.  That’s the year when your entire course schedule consists of all the things you hate but have to have to graduate, guaranteeing that your final year of college will be filled with misery.  If you thought you wanted school to be over before…

Having scoped out the possibilities, I selected…Statistics.  In the psychology department, not in the business department, which was reputed to be harder.  In the psychology department, you were required to take Statistics in order to graduate with a major in psychology.  Thus, I started the class with about 30 other seniors, all of whom (except for me) were psychology majors and (like me) loathed the very idea. 

Now something really funny happened here.  I forgot to mention that in ancient ancient times (aka “pre-days of yore”), I had been quite good at algebra  in high school.  It’s just that I hated it.  I had to think about it very, very hard, before I grasped the tiniest shred of a concept.  I did not want to think hard in high school, preoccupied as I was by how my hair looked, and whether or not I could win the competition to make the longest chain made of chewing gum wrappers. 

So returning to college Statistics class, the field of 30 or so quickly narrowed to 13 people, and at the end of it all, I made the only A.  How is this possible?  Perhaps you are thinking, “Fakename is being modest, and is a lot smarter than she cares to admit.”  That may be a logical conclusion, but logic, like statistics, is primarily used to prove the  truth of anything, and simultaneously, the opposite of it.  The real fact of the matter is that it’s possible to be a standout in any subject, as long as the others involved have the IQ of a turnip. 

So I find it highly amusing that I have recently become enamored of people who are capable of casually discussing things like Bayes’ Theorem.  In real life, I find that logic and statistics don’t play a significant role.  Just take a look at our political discourse.  Simple math is sometimes useful, such as when you try to calculate that if gas is $2.63 per gallon, how far can you get before you meet the train traveling 85 miles per hour from the opposite direction? 

Remarkably, Fakename managed to graduate from college Magna Cum Laude, which was a huge source of pride for approximately 24 hours.  That’s how long it was immeasurably helpful. 

Let’s go back to that train thing.  If two trains leave from opposite coasts at the same time, traveling at slightly different speeds, where will they meet?  The answer is:  Omaha.  Mathwise, you can never go wrong picking Omaha.

Forever Young Redux

I don’t know if I’ve made this clear or not, but I hate sports and I hate rap music.  But I love clever TV commercials.  Matter of fact, I love clever commercials period…radio, print, whatever.  But TV is the very best.  I should have a different career.  I love advertising. 

I’ve only ever found one other person who shared this sort of weird passion I have for fun TV commercials. It was when I lived in New Orleans, which probably goes a long way toward explaining it all.  New Orleans as a city is probably pretty depressed right now, but it used to be more lively and sarcastic than it is now. 

So while in New Orleans, I saw the very best car commerials ever, under the heading “Need a Car?”  One of the ads showed a guy putting his sports car through one of those automated car washes, but the equipment goes haywire and starts breaking the windows.  Need a car?  Another showed an elderly couple unable to find their car in a vast parking lot.  Let’s just buy a new one.  I can totally relate to that last example.  I refer to it as “autoamnesia”–the inability to remember where you parked your car. 

So Will.I.Am did this great ad for Pepsi.  I’m guessing that true rap fans think he sold out.  I think he did a good deed.  “May your hands always be busy, may your feet always be swift.  May you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift.  May your heart always be joyful, may your song always be sung, and may you stay….forever young.”

Happy Birthday to Nick

Today Nick (aka eehard) is spending his first twenty-four hours being 46 years old.  Go Nick!  There was a time when I used to dread birthdays.  No, no, no, I would think.  Time needs to slow way down!  But now, I’m like, isn’t this cool!  I made it to (pick a number).  So this is cool, Nick.  You made it to 46! 47 will be even cooler!  Nature keeps trying to kill us, and we keep winning!

So yesterday I was trying to find an ecard to say Happy Birthday, which was about the best I could do since I’m still wildly sick.  And they were all stupid.  Too many cartoon characters.  Too many orchids and roses and sappy music.  Too many exclamation points.  Nick is not your sappy music kind of guy. 

Nick is a complex guy.  Mostly guy-like, in the sense that if you want to talk to him during football (basketball, baseball, fill in the blank) season, you should probably find a quiet spot and go do your nails instead.  He’s incredibly smart, but humble about it.  He has a healthy sense of outrage , but somehow manages to be diplomatic anyway.  (I should take lessons.)  And he is funny…omg, is he funny.  You’ll notice, with a few exceptions, that Nick almost never posts anything personal.  But his choices of things to post are revealing, if you’re paying attention.  I have a friend who’s been reading his posts and is offended at times by his choice of material and his language.  I’m like, look behind what he says. 

She says, Do I even know you at all?  And my answer is, if you don’t get why I think Nick is funny and smart, then no, I guess you don’t. 

It’s just the icing on the cake that Nick is tall, dark (ha ha) and handsome.  So there you go, Nick.  This is your personalized ecard.  Happy Birthday!

Losing My Religion

Huge thanks to ee, who taught me how to embed videos.  My personal WordPress support person. 

And now for the topic:  I didn’t have much religion to lose.  Did that a long time ago.  Been there, done that.  And it runs in the family.  Fakesister sent me an email today about a book she’s reading (reading  runs in the family too) called An Incomplete Education:  3,684 Thing You Should Have Learned But Probably Didn’t.  She sent an example: 

 Here is the intro to the section on religion:

Those Old-Time Religions: Divine to some, merely fabulous to others

Have you ever noticed how prophetic revelation seems to give some people a
new lease on life at about the same time others their age are gearing up for
midlife crisis? Buddha, Jesus, and Zoroaster all got the Message when they
were hovering around thirty, a birthday that signals middle age in any
culture where people start begetting as teenagers. True, Muhammad was forty
when he first chatted with the Angel Gabriel, but then Islam as a whole was
a late bloomer. So to those of you who find, after scanning the great faiths
outlined here, that the monotheisms of the West and the polytheisms of the
East all leave you cold; that you can’t really get behind karma, nirvana,
yin and yang, the Holy Trinity, or separate dishware for meat and dairy; and
that you’re as depressed and alienated as ever, our advice is: Stay loose
and keep your eyes fixed on the heavens.

[Personal note: It does seem that those revelations and intimate
conversations with angels are a purely masculine endeavor.]

I’m not sure if that personal note was that of the author, or of Fakesister.

When I was in college, my favorite philosophy professor quoted somebody (who?) saying that it’s hell to lose your religion, without losing the need for it at the same time.  I so get that.  I still have the need, but I just can’t buy any of the snake oil.

Nightmare

Let me start by saying that I don’t believe in certain things.  I don’t believe in God.  I don’t believe in astrology.  And I don’t believe that dreams mean anything.  I think dreams are the brain’s way of cleaning house, sort of sweeping dust bunnies out from under the chairs in your mind.  At least I don’t believe the specific images you see in your dreams mean anything.  I should really clarify here–there may be a “God” (or Gods for all I know) and astrology may really work.  I just don’t believe in them, and don’t guide my life by either one.  As for dreams, the images themselves don’t matter, I think, but I think the brain organizes your anxieties into manageable bits and dumps them in your sleep. 

So, last night I had a nightmare, which I define as “a scary dream that wakes you up”.  I began to wonder where the word “nightmare” came from.  I mean, does it have something to do with a female horse?  Well no.  “Mare” is the Old English word for an incubus, a male demon which visits sleeping women for the purpose of having sex, but apparently sits on your chest for a while–not sure whether it does that first or later. 

 For the record, a female demon who visits sleeping men is called a succubus.  No crude jokes here, please. 

So, a little background on my nightmare of last night.  Many (many, many) years ago, my friend Art had his own plane, a two-seater single engine Cessna–I want to say it was a 172–and we used to go flying almost every weekend.  Sometimes we would “go somewhere”, but more often than not, we would simply fly around locally and touch down at little nondescript airports so he could add to his quota of landings and takeoffs. 

And he taught me to fly the plane.  We started with keeping the plane level in the air.  Which isn’t as easy as it might sound.  Given its druthers, the plane would really prefer to nosedive into the ground.  So you have to keep the nose up–but not too far up, or you’ll climb.  Then there is airspeed.  You have to maintain a certain amount of it or the plane will start to lose altitude anyway.  All that stuff about keeping it level won’t make much difference.  You’ll crash into the ground…but at least you’re level, right? 

Once I got those two parts down, then I had to pay attention to the course, like I had to watch where I was going.  What?  Now I have to do three things at once?  This is stretching the limit for a blond.  As if that weren’t enough, then I had to start looking out the windshield for other planes.  Mostly I kept on doing my three things and hoped that the other pilot was smart enough to avoid me. 

Then we moved on to takeoff.  Takeoffs are the most fun you can have in a small plane.  Your foot is smashed to the floor on the right rudder to counteract the torque of the propeller until the muscles in your leg start to quiver and you don’t think you can do it anymore.  The plane is gaining speed.  You learn to pull back at the right time–you can almost feel it–and voila!  The plane is airborne.  You can relax your leg, which is instant relief, but even that is overshadowed by the complete rush of the moment.  You are flying!

Obviously, the most important part of flying a plane is landing it.  And sadly, that was my worst performance.  I managed to do it successfully maybe twice, but most of the time we would approach the runway and Art would be screaming “Pull up!  Pull up!”  So my plan, if I ever am in control of a small plane by myself again (highly unlikely) is to head directly for the White House.  That way I can be guided to land by a bunch of F-16 pilots. 

In my nightmare, I’m in that little plane again, only I look over and no one else is in the other seat.  Worse, I can’t remember anything about how to control the plane.  I instantly woke up.  So what sort of anxiety was my brain trying to clear away?  I have no idea.  Personally, I think it was an incubus.

I Miss Art

In exactly a week, it will be three years since my friend and one-time Great Love of My Life, Art, died.  A little less than a month from then will be the three-year anniversary of my inheriting Fakedog from Art.  Fakedog was living in a kennel in upper New York State while Art had surgery, and he continued to do so for a month after Art’s death, because getting him to Florida turned out to be a major ordeal. 

The last time I spent any time with Art, he said he hoped he died before Fakedog did, because he couldn’t bear to lose him.  And his wish came true.  Art wanted me to have the dog, because he’d seen how I handled big dogs that were scary to most people.  It’s a tribute to his family that they jumped through huge hoops to get him to me from New York. 

As time passes, it becomes impossible to sustain the level of grief you feel when the loss of a friend, a family member, or a pet is fresh.  When their memories begin to fade, your first response is to try to rekindle that level of grief, because it seems like betrayal to have let them slip from your mind.  But such is the nature of humans:  you can’t do it, even if you try.  We are programmed to survive, both physically and emotionally.  It isn’t really true that Time heals all wounds, it just forms a scab over them. 

So at the least expected moment and in the least expected place, the scab breaks open and a memory leaks through.  That’s what happened to me on Friday.  I was walking across the parking lot after picking up lunch to go from Crispers, and the lot was wet.  I guess they had washed it, because it hadn’t rained, and there were puddles everywhere, some fairly deep.  I was carefully picking my way around the puddles in my little black Antonio Melani flats, making sure that water didn’t splash up onto my ankles.  Oh God forbid!  And suddenly I could hear Art saying, “You are such a GIRL!”  I had to stop and laugh out loud. 

Of course I’m not really that girly.  Anybody who can live with a Rottweiler and a Doberman has a few guts, but Art was your basic man’s man kind of guy.  He didn’t care about clothes–his or yours.  With him, it was more about who you were as a person.  Very few people can truthfully claim that attitude, although many try. 

So here we have the blessing of memory.  It can be a curse, but without it, I wouldn’t have had that great moment of laughter in the middle of the day on Friday.  Thank you, Art.  I owe you.

Ode to the Beast

I have this small dog, at least small to me, because my history of dog ownership doesn’t include anything under about 50 pounds.  I like big dogs.  I like their laid-back attitudes, as opposed to the yappy nervous timid personalities of small dogs.  And I didn’t much like the ankle-biting tendencies of small dogs.  I never got a dog for its protective tendencies, but on the other hand, I can’t deny that I have enjoyed having dogs you can’t stomp to death. 

These days I’ve revised my opinion.  I have a friend with a rescued Chihuahua.  A little teensy thing who would run away at the very sight of me.  Now she will come up and lick my hand with her little tiny tongue, and will jump into my lap, as long as I pretend not to be paying attention. 

My “small” dog, weighs 25 pounds.  He’s a Basenji mix, and from the first day he came into my world, his plan was World Domination.  At the time, I had a Rottweiler, who was not inclined to let any other dog interfere with his personal control of our world.  When the showdown came, I missed it.  A friend of mine was visiting, and the Rottweiler picked up the Beast by the nape of the neck and slammed him repeatedly into the side of the shed in my back yard.  Rather than giving up, my friend said, the Beast continued to growl as if to say, as soon as you let me go, I will kick your ass.  Actually he crept off to fight another day. 

Now, years later, the Beast is in charge.  As soon as the Rottweiler died, he got to be Alpha Dog.  Now I find I miss his wildness.  These days he will stand in the hallway and wag his fluffy tail, and look for my approval.  Part of me is grateful.  He has finally learned to love me;  But the other part of me wants to say, Be wild!  Try to escape again!  Be the dog you used to be!