Category: Life

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So I Read The Back of a Book about Marxism…

Dusk; another wonderful day ends in corporate America. The sky is on fire with reds yellows and purples, or golds and royal plums if you like. The chemicals dumped into the sky by the industries that bring you everything you love make the sunset as glorious as the amazing life you live on the backs of peasants. Your masters in the oligarchs are pleased with your contentedness…

But lo, what is this? Across the twilight sky arcs a brilliant flash of light. What is it? You have no idea, maybe an airplane, maybe a meteor, a bolide, maybe an alien in a spacecraft. You don’t know what it is, so it is an unidentified flying object. The irony here is that you’ve given it a name, even though you don’t know what it is, so you can return to the task of removing your workshop pajamas, to put on your nightclub pajamas, in the hopes of meeting someone and eventually waking up next to them in your birthday pajamas.

A UFO, then, is just a way to explain something away. A lightning bolt kills your favorite sheep, you need to believe it happened for a reason, lest you becoming bogged down in an existential depression. So you invent and blame gods. A light flashes in the sky, and you need to make sure it’s not a hallucination, lest that good looking sex-companion in the designer pajamas turns out just to be a figment of your imagination as well. So it is a UFO.

The thing is, you are Ugly, Fat, and Old. You are a UFO as well.

I happen to know, for fact, that you’re not really ugly. You may not be on the cover of magazines, you may not star in movies, but you are not ugly. The lack of prettiness that you think you possess is not your sole identifying feature. When people think of you, you are not filed, in the network of memories their brains maintain, under connotations of ugly. I know this for a fact.

Same for how fat you are. Maybe you don’t have an athlete’s body. You’re not appearing on a box of Wheaties any time soon. According to that work of fiction called “BMI,” you are technically “overweight.” But again, the sum total of your being, in the hearts and minds if your friends and family and even the people who don’t like you, cannot be captured in the word “fat.” Maybe you think you could lose a few pounds. But you do not personify Platonic “fatness.”

And then there’s your age. Sorry, you’re not “old,” either. Age is relative—a mayfly is “old” after only 20 hours. A tortoise is not “old” even after 75 years. If you think you’re “old” it’s because of context, and trust me, there are much “older” people in the same contexts. You’re maybe not the youngest, but you certainly don’t represent all of the negatives attributes associated with “old.”

But you still consider yourself a UFO—why? Because that’s how you explain things, how you explain why you’re so unhappy, why you can’t have the things you think you want. You see what corporate America feeds you: visions of success from hard work, and the rewards are pretty, slender youths. Again with the irony—nobody who works as hard as we’re expected to work stays pretty, fit, or young. Nobody.

What am I asking you to do, here, is to quite calling yourself ugly, fat, and/or old, because every time you do, you are accepting the gestalt that your slave owners are foisting on you. The problem is, you’re a slaveowner too—you too benefit from the hard work that the unrewarded poor contribute to our gross national product. If you justify your misery by calling yourself a UFO, you also justify the crimes you commit against the poor. Stop making excuses. Accept how gorgeous you are. Own it, and let it motivate you to go get the things you deserve. The final irony: if you do, you’ll be stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. That flash in the night sky was just your imagination, internal inspiration, a spark urging you to recontextualize your existence.

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I Am Stupid

Here’s a quick personality test for you: go read this article, “Apparently This Matters: Paging Dr. Mario,” and then answer the following question.

Does this article

A) make you mad because people get paid to write drivel like this and you could do that so why isn’t someone paying you…
B) make you happy because people get paid to write drivel like this and since you could do that maybe someone will pay you to do it someday.

Personally I would answer A, and I am really trying very hard to convert to B. I am. I want to stop being such a bitter, cynical grumpy old man. It’s not even a matter of “not taking things so seriously.” Trust me, I don’t take anything seriously. But I want to stop being so darn snarky.

(And for the record, it is snarky, and not sardonic. Only very attractive women can pull off sardonic. The rest of us are merely snarky, and if we’re not careful, we might even be snidey).

A few years ago I pledged that I would stop making people feel bad for liking things. And it’s been going fairly well, except that I’ve been shifting my judgment from “you’re stupid” to “that’s stupid.” And it is such a worthless evaluation. At worst it comes across as condescending, at best, patronizing. “That thing you like, I think it’s stupid. But it’s okay that you like it! I like really stupid things too!”

Sorry, to those of you who’ve had to hear me say that. Not cool.

Who am I to judge? Well, I can judge, you know. I got credentials. I have taste (I married into having taste, anyway) and an education and enough lifetime experience that when I think something’s dumb, it’s not just a knee-jerk reaction.

But that’s not the point. Just because I think something is stupid, doesn’t mean it is, and even if it is stupid, what benefit comes from my evaluating it as such? Whatever injury I feel is being done to me by experiencing the stupidity is only made worse by my complaining about it. It takes less energy to change the channel, put down the book, click on the a different web page. Way way way less energy. I’m the one’s who stupid.

Seriously: it takes one to know one. The truth is, Jarrett Bellini had an experience and shared it and that he gets paid and I don’t is irrelevant. Entirely pointless. If I get upset, that’s on me, not him, is a reflection of me, not of him. I’m the one who’s stupid.

Which is not to say I should just be all hippie-dippie lovey-dovey about everything. I should have standards, and set expectations for high quality. But getting upset doesn’t make anything better at all, so why bother.

Instead, I should try to take inspiration from things. I should use my well-earned powers of judgment to find what is useful and good—and if I don’t find anything, then at least I got the benefit of exercising my abilities.

Or, at the very least, I got an excuse to write my own drivel and post it too. And yes, I am available for paid writing positions, if anyone’s, wondering.

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Its Okay to Walk Now and Again

This is mostly a message to myself, but if you can take some sort of inspiration or consolation from it, that would be just fine with me. I’m not trying to be a living example, or anything, however. I’m sure some people would read this and think “yeah, rationalize it, ya fat lazy baby.” That’s fine too. I mean, inspiration can come from bums in gutters as much from heroes on plinths. So if you’re running too fast and need to walk, or if you’re walking too much and need to run, you can go ahead and eavesdrop on this conversation with myself. And if you’re just fine the way you are and can accept that about yourself, if you don’t need to be listening-in on the self-indulgent ramblings of a tired old man, fine, I’ll talk to you later.

Oh, and this is about running, but it can be a metaphor for life, if you want. I think someone said that 40 is the new 30, which would be nice except I think they only said that because someone else said 30 is the new 20. And I think they only said that because all of the 20-somethings are having trouble finding jobs since the 60 somethings won’t retire and let the 50 somethings have their senior-management positions. It trickles down, and so the 30 year olds are still writing all the copy. They still want to be lauded and revered, so they’ve designated themselves the new youth. That means what 20 years old used to call “too old” (30) is not now 40. That’s me.

And just to be clear, this is not the same kind of message as when I said that you have to learn to run slowly. That was about not pushing myself too hard, even though I was capable. I didn’t mean it as a metaphor for anything, but if I did, I guess it would have to do with banking your energy and holding back just a bit, learn how to contextualize your performance, so that you shine when you shine. Tree in a forest kind of thing maybe.

(Or not, I don’t know. I’ve been drinking beer all day so I can be too drunk to drive so I can’t go to Burger King and get some onion rings because they’re bad for me. I don’t know if that’s the best solution to my problem, but that doesn’t matter—I’m just trying to tell you why I may not be very clear in what I am saying. And that totally isn’t a metaphor for anything at all.)

Running slow instead of fast all of the time is so when you do run fast it’s awesome. You know what they say: if you do it too much, it’s stop being special. Not very Zen, but then that’s where this idea of it being okay to walk now and again comes in. You run and run and something starts to hurt or the hill looms too large or you’re so thirsty you can’t spit. And then you think “Ah, what the hell’s the point of any of this.”

Well, there is no point, and if there was, maybe you wouldn’t bother anyway. Admitting you don’t want to, even if you think you have to, gives the power to choose to do so back to you, so you can run again later. Half a mile later, or tomorrow, or next week. There’s some things you have to do whether you like it or not, and you can try to enjoy turning 40 and 50, but sometimes you’re not going to.

And while you may be willing to hate a few miles now so you can love a few dozen later, when you’re well trained and ready and able, the truth is you’re no star athlete, so you’re not going to lose much walking now and again. So go ahead and walk, and learn to enjoy that too, and if nothing else, let it inspire you to write yet another goofy blog post.

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What I’ve Done On My Vacation

Fair warning: this will be a dull post. I’m just going to recap some of the writing I’ve been doing over the last few weeks (Since June 1st).

Here at Bukkhead: two short stories, three book reviews, six other pieces, one of which I also posted on the blogs at Runner’s World.

Over at Wiffli: “Oops, Forgot a Title,” “Screw You, BMI,” “Anybody Else Seen Snooki’s Boobs?” and “Gwyneth Paltrow Used the N Word (With Asterisks).” (By the way, if you want to write something on Wiffli, just let me know.)

On AntiPundit: “First Post in 2+ Years,” and “Nothing Could Be Finer Than to Be in a Vagina.” (You can post political opinion on AntiPundit too, if you want.)

Total: 17 bits, 10481 words. This doesn’t cover a few longish e-mails to friends, or a blog post I made on the internal corporate website at work. Or, ha, this post.

Also, I ran 65 miles.

For the month of June, so far, it looks like the “bad” day was June 9th—no running, and no writing at all. According to my paper journal, I didn’t do much—I watched the Mariners lose, and I hung out with some friends at The Bottlehouse. I think I mowed the lawn that day.

And all of this while suffering from Vestibular Neuritis (I am, this week, fully recovered). How? Why? I really do think it’s this lack of idle web-browsing. Granted, there was some Bejeweled Blitz in there, some Diablo III, some Hitman Absolution: Sniper Challenge, and a lot of Draw Something, Words with Friends, Wordament, and Plants Versus Zombies. But still, I got a tell you, this web-browsing fast has really upped my productivity.

I could really use a nap, though.

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Potrzebie (Without Apologies)

Con call in half an hour and I just can’t be bothered. Book to read, less than 50 pages to go, and I just can’t be. Bothered. Just watched Weird Al’s “Fat” video, followed up with Michael Jackson’s “Bad.” Laughed the whole time I was watching the MJ. Not that it’s a horrible video. Actually it’s pretty darn good. Actually, and this might be the old man in me talking, it hearkens back to a day when music videos where a thing. I don’t know if they’re a thing anymore. Have not watched Mtv in years. I guess I do see things on Youtube, so maybe they’re still a thing.

Naw, I laughed the whole time because I had just watched the Weird Al version, and during the MJ I was only able to think of the WA lyrics. That happened the other day too: we were in the car, some new remix of Bad came on, and I was singing the Fat version throughout. Al Yankovis is a genius. It’s been said before, it will be said again.

But this is a rambling blog post about how I can’t be bothered. Normally, in this mood, I’d go to Reddit, or Pinterest, or Tumblr. Woe is you, I’m writing instead. Already wrote two lengthy emails to friends this morning.

I’m STILL clicking on Facebook every ten seconds, but that’s mostly megalomaniacal, since I like it when people respond to any content I generate. That’s why I have everything linked to Facebook. I had a dream about Mark Z last night—I was at some friend’s wedding, in the hotel in the hours before it all got started. Mark Z was there, played by Justin Timberlake when he was still in N’Synch, with that bleached hair with the tight curls. Except it was orange, and he had a black goatee.

Meaningless, all dreams are meaningless, so I only mention it to entertain. Are you not entertained? Gladiator quote.

Cause that’s what most writers are, you know. Bloggers, self-incarcerated gladiators pitted against the soft-copper armor of their own ennui, their self-perceived inaquecies, and all of us desperate for that ironical insight that makes what we spew funny if not interesting.

Me for example: I sure do spend a lot of time by myself. I’ve taken to talking to myself, or, if not to myself, to imaginary interlocutors, out loud. I even had a conversation with myself out loud about it today while making a sliced-turkey-and-lefotver-satay wrap:

-Do you think I’m stupid?
-Yes.
-What?
-Yes, I think you’re stupid.
-Oh, you think you’re smart, eh?
-Yes, I do. And I think you’re stupid. Can we talk about something else, please?
-You’d like that, wouldn’t you?
-Hence my requesting it.
-What?
-And we’re back to how stupid you are again. Brilliant.
-Yeah, you’re the brilliant one.
-Your sarcasm is ill conceived I’m afraid.
-What?
-Oh god I could use some illegal pharmaceuticals.

Not that I’d know what to do with them. Lately running a little too much and writing things no one reads has been my pharmaceutical, but for what, I don’t know. I mean besides boredom. Lately, and I don’t know why, I’ve been in a really bad mood. I drive places, the radio is on, the Mariners are losing, some asshole in a Lexus is driving ten miles under the speed limit and so some other asshole in an Acura cuts in front of me to take an exit; meanwhile, I’m thinking I need to change lanes but there’s another asshole in a Prius sitting on my left rear bumper, talking on his cell phone, and then I notice the handicap sticker and I get even angrier because, handicap parking, grrr, don’t get me started.

What’s the point of all this? I don’t know. I don’t have a thesis statement. Con call in 15 minutes, Pandora keeps playing ads at me whenever I skip songs that DO NOT FIT THE STATION I AM LISTENING TO and I don’t feel like rereading this and editing it into making sense. Nothing makes sense. Nor does it have to. There, there’s your furshlugginer thesis statement.

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The Little Things are Big Things

Call me silly, but I just noticed that the time and date on the Mickey Mouse watch on the Ipod Nano page is current and correct. The second-hand moves and everything. This is 100% unnecessary and 100% awesome.

I only noticed this because I was at the website to have a gander at the font they used, to sketch an image in my paper journal. My own Nano started acting up a few days ago, so I had to schedule an appointment with the nearest Genius Bar. I was chronicling the experience.

Which was this: I made an appointment, went over there—a fella poked at my Nano for a few seconds, took into the back, then returned and said “Yep, it’s busted. Yep, it’s under warranty. Here’s a new one. Have a nice day.” I’m streamlining for the sake of brevity, of course, but my point is: wow. If only all customer service experiences could be so smooth.

I think for the most part, the vast majority of the time, customer service experiences are just fine. It’s only the one terrible one in a hundred that gives customer service, in general, a bad rap. This is why we somehow feel like excellent customer service is a gift.

As for me, I’m not such a power-user that any one device is going to suit my needs better than another. Price is going to be the main deciding factor, but I’ll tell you this: with customer service like that, Apple can continue to count on my custom, even at higher prices.

Same’s true for restaurants with a friendly waitstaff. There’s no food so delicious that it makes up for indifferent hosts and rude waiters. And personally, a PBnJ-fan like myself can eat just about anything, if it’s served with a smile.

I’m just assuming that whatever ethic at Apple established that kind of customer service is also behind the watch face on the website showing the correct time. Attention to detail, considering the experience from the customer’s point of view, balancing respect for the bottom line with a long term vision of brand loyalty.

Yeah, I’m coming across as a total fanboi right now. What can I say. That watch thing totally charmed me.

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What Would Andy Rooney Write? (Or: My Transistor Radio is a Cat)

Remember Andy Rooney? I think he died. Not sure. After I write this I’ll go to Wikipiedia and link his name. But by then I’ll have written this, and I don’t feel much like editing. Which might be more introspection than is readable, but then that’s the point of this post.

I saw Andy Rooney on Sixty Minutes a few times, and my point of view on him is the one of the popular and uninformed, the PoV fit for creating parody: that he was a rambling bafoon. Part of that is a reactionary disposition, one that rebels against good old fashioned Americana. You know, the same PoV that makes fun of Norman Rockwell and members of the VFW who wear suspenders. We’re such (young) curmudgeons (we’ll be fun to make fun of when we’re old (if we don’t all die of heroin overdoses first (or limp bizkit overdoses (because it is now ironic to listen to limp bizkit (good god time is getting compressed, innit))))).

My transistor radio, which I bought just to listen to AM stations, doesn’t get the best reception all of the time. Or any of the time, now that I think about it. Sometimes, the only place where it doesn’t whine and click is sitting right in front of me, between me and the keyboard. Which is fine if I’m just surfing. But if I want to type (crap) like right now.

“So turn it off!” I can hear you say (and here “you” is a fake person, since no one reads this blog, and if someone does, that person is a crazy person, who understands a little well why the radio can’t be turned off). Well, that’s not going to happen. I abhor silences. One of the (many) reasons I talk all the time.

The point of all of this of course is that I need to write more, a common lament that comes from me, a chronic dirge that comes after a derth of blogging. Blogging… that’s just extemporaneous writing that I’m not ashamed enough to not share in a publically accessible way. And yes, whining that I whine too much has become de rigueur of late as well. So what. Would that have stopped Andy Rooney? A veteran of opinion writing, a professional, a man with a storied career and thousands of fans possessed of and respectful of his intelligence?

I have no idea; I have not read that Wikipedia article yet (and this one-line Dave Barry wannabe end of article zinger is hereby ruined by my pointing out that it’s a failed Dave Barry-esque zinger, if only to say next time: instead of not writing anything like Andy Rooney I’ll try and I’ll fail at emulating Dave Barry).

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A Letter I Just Wrote to Author Paul Neilan

I finished reading Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children yesterday, and needed something else to read before I lost momentum (since I’m not going to write a review of it until next Monday). My e-reader suggested Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilan. It is so far excellent. I decided to write the writer an e-mail. This is only the second time I’ve ever written to a writer.

Sorry if this bugs you. I shouldn’t apologize to people I’ve never met, but then I’m asking you to do me a favor so we should start off on the right foot. I mean I should. Damn it, this is going horribly already.

Hi, writer! I’m halfway through your book. It is excellent. I wish I could show you my expert credentials, so you’d find my praise meaningful. How about this: I’m enjoying it so much, I actually feel like the audacity to write to you this overly familiar message is allowable.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed with how good something is and I have to go to the internet and research stuff. Your blog has not been updated in 4 years. You bastard.

Sorry, sorry. I’m confusing the writer with the narrator again, which is not nice. Not nice at all. But you see, I’m trying to learn humility. It helps me overcome inertia, and vote in elections. Something to do with Newton and calculus, I’m not really sure, but somehow it means I’m contributing. So. Please add my tiny voice to all the others asking you to write more.

And if you can’t write more, or won’t, or if you have but it’s not for me to enjoy, well. Okay. Fine. Whatever. I only read your book because my Barnes & Noble e-reader suggested it. No, that’s a lie. I only started reading it because of that. You know why I kept reading. You know.

I’m going to go finish reading your book now. You know how it ends, so I guess you know if I’m going to write another letter, later, asking you delete this one.

If nothing else: thanks. Sincerely.

–Jason Edwards

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Tuna and Tea

They don’t got together, but they’re two of my favorite weight loss tools.

Tuna, canned tuna to be specific, is great because it’s low cal, high in protein, filling, and not horrible to eat. I mix in some fat and some salt (mayo and mustard) and some complex carbs (whole wheat bread) and I’ve got lunch right there. One can is two big sandwiches, so I have one and save the next for the following day.

Today I tried adding some chopped red paper, which didn’t do much to it. I also spread some kind of no-cal vegetable paste that a cousin left in the house during a recent visit. It, also, didn’t do much to the taste. Lesson learned.

Another favorite weight loss tool for me is tea. I’m not the biggest fan of tea who ever lived, but the process of making a cup is a good distraction. I’m a “boredom” eater (and I don’t mean “I have nothing to do” boredom, but the other kind: “I don’t want to do what I need to do” boredom). So a cup of green tea, with all those antioxidants, is a good way to survive an hour when I’d otherwise snack.

Because snacking leads to snacking which leads to snacking. Not cool.

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Feeling Weird Today

I was going to tell you that I have low blood-sugar, but’s not true. I do feel like my head’s in a fog. But that’s not the feeling I associated with low blood sugar. I mean, think my body’s fine. When I have low blood sugar, I have drained feeling, and yeah, I feel it in my head. So my head feels funny when my body is sugar deprived, but I don’t think my body is sugar deprived, but my brain might be.

It’s times like these I depend on my to-do lists. I can’t concentrate, can’t get motivated, so it’s times like these I go to the list and just do what’s on ‘em one by one. Make the bed. Wash the dishes, fold the laundry. There’s a metaphor there. Fat me is in charge of what getting-skinny me is supposed to do. I don’t know what skinny-me’s role is. There’s probably a metaphor in there too.

Just now I had a cup of green tea while doing the Tuesday NYT X-Word using an R2-DS pen we got in some box of cereal, while listening to all of the They Might Be Giants songs I own on shuffle in my iPod touch. Now I’m writing this. Next: pull-ups and push-ups, a bunch of work stuff, 750 words at 750 words.com, floss my teeth, sort my inboxes, the daily doodle, the daily Lego photo.

And then I’m going to go try and fix a dishwasher. And then come home and eat tuna and soup. I might save the writing for after the tuna and soup.

My head is in a fog, but not a regular fog. It’s like tunnel vision but backwards, like I can only see peripherally, and nothing is easy to focus on. Don’t worry: I did the dream test, where you read something and then look away and read it again, so I know I’m not having one of those dreams where tangents lead to tangents lead to tangents.

Maybe I’m diabetic! I’ll have a piece of candy.