I'm having whacked out formatting problems on my blog today that I don't have the energy to fix.
So I wasn't just a little crazy, I was a little right. AKMA clued me in with this:
As you may have been thinking, the relation of Maundy Thursday to
Easter isn't coincidental --- Easter is by definition the Sunday after
the first full moon after the spring equinox. . . .
As we each read our part of the Last Supper story, a candle would go out. Those who had rallied around the man, had abandoned him in his greatest hour of need, left him to be battered, to be spat on, to be mocked, to be friendless in death. Forsaken.
The church grew darker and darker. You couldn't help thinking of people at school who you'd turned your back on, when vicious cliques had made their days a misery. You couldn't help thinking of people at work who'd been layed off and were no longer spoken of, never called anymore. Sometimes you were asked to empty their desks, shred their business cards. Your mind wandered to dark places, recalling times when you could have shown compassion to some stranger, but neglected to. Car accidents you drove away from, instead of running towards.
Finally, all the candles went out. A black cloth was draped on the large cross above the organ in the center of the sanctuary, faintly illuminated.
The moonlight poured through the windows in silvery slants. It meant something good. It gave you hope. Was the moon full? I couldn't turn to anyone to ask. I wasn't allowed to speak. We were together but we were each alone. Finally we rose. We left in silence. You could hear the scuffing sounds of our soles as we left.
Outside, it was quiet but the moon was louder still. You could hear the sudden growl of cars starting — such loud animals in the woods tonight — and then they would roll away slowly, putting the silence back in place, like heavy black furniture.
In my car, I wondered, must I leave this silent country so soon? What street must I take back to my noisy noisy life, or could I just turn down a side road, slow down and spend the night with the moon?
Was the headline writer at The New York Times asleep last night and an intern from NYU Film School wrote this fiction? I won't jump to conclusions, but one of these two headlines probably tells the real story.
"Anderson Chief Quits to Save His Own Ass"
or
Go ahead, try telling the truth. It's actually kind of refreshing. And I'm throwing the gauntlet down to you witty bloggers you — surely you can come up with something that puts Anderson and Waste Management in the same sentence, both to their detriment.
In case you needed any documented instances of this tried-and-true, age-old management stategy, read about the last honest man in Houston who warned his clients — Enron employees — on August 21 to get out of Enron stock fast, as it was deteriorating, and got fired for it.
It's in today's New York Times. An employee at UBS PaineWebber, a broker named Chung Wu, apparently warned his clients in the employee stock option program to get out of Enron stock on August 21, the same day Kenneth Lay sold $4M of his stock. Who helped shut him up and get his butt fired — the Enron guy who ran the stock option program. It's so great to have a company looking out for your financial well-being. It just makes you feel all warm and secure, doesn't it?
It's truly one of the most amazing books. Try this on for size.
"I don't know what it is, but every time I see a white guy walking towards me, I tense up. My heart starts racing and I immediately start looking for an escape route and a means to defend myself. I kick myself for even being in this part of town after dark. Didn't I notice the suspicious gangs of white people lurking on every corner, drinking Starbuck's and wearing their gang colors of Gap Turquoise or J.Crew Mauve? What an idiot! Now the white person is coming closer, closer, closer — and then — whew! He walks by without harming me and I breathe a sigh of relief.
White people scare the crap out of me."
It reminds me of a Gartner Group event I went to in Disneyworld. It ended up being such a pain in the ass to schlep from my Faux Mexican Hacienda to the conference center, past the costumed phony Mexicans (Disney employees) and furry Disney characters, (Minnie in those shoes!), I finally logged on to their site, sat in my room in my sweats eating chips, drinking soda and watching the whole thing via live webcast.
I definately have conference burnout, since I used to work for Len Kleinrock's TTI Vanguard Conference Series. To be fair, being there in person is very valuable -- see John Perry Barlow's quotation on their home page. "A five-minute conversation with the right person can be more enlightening than five hours online. The most powerful search engines out there are other people."
I know pressing the flesh and making contact is important, but sometimes, even an extroverted person like me would rather visit virtually. Thanks Doc, David and Dan.
Silence.
"Hello?"
Silence ..."Oh, hello, may I speak with (my name misprounced) or (Mrs. "my-husband's-last-name")"
I dish it right back ... SILENCE ... I repeat silently to myself, he who hesitates is lost, then, I hang up.
I can't believe any company in the world still uses that lame-o telemarketing software that greets you with a big silent hole when you answer the phone. Talk about clueless!
"Welcome to my shop, Let me cut your mop! Yes, You're Next! You're So Next! " It's all to get us in the mood for a Classic Cartoon Festival at Boston Symphony Hall today. We're heading downtown.
And they don't want the same thing they ate yesterday. They want brand NEW stuff every day.
Blogs are American. Blogs are like quilting bees. We couldn't make this large quilt without everyone else's stiches. Each link connects another story or thought or insight. Blogs embroider voices, graphics, songs, deep thoughts into their fabric. No literary form invented before now comes close to what they do. Blogs are unique. Technology has shaped a new way to communicate. Blogs aren't about the blog you are reading, but rather about the connections between all the links, referrers, blogrolls and embedded intelligence they witness.
They have begun to flourish, not coincidentally in a time when we desperately need to connect to one another. There is no accident to this.
It's hard to imagine that novels were once new. Hard to recall that someone made up sonnets. We're watching a new literary form be born, which could never have existed until now. The Web is the mid-wife of blogs. But blogs are born of our care and consideration for others, which we have finally realized is a life or death proposition.
We call Orange Juice with Calcium "Bony OJ" and refer to the pulp as "Fur". Don't recall how this got started in our house. But as usual, the marketers win. We've always got way too much OJ in the fridge and one family member busy boycotting the other family member's preferred combination. I'm a "bony orange juice, hold the fur" married to a "bony orange juice grapefruit combo, extra fur" with a son who'd rather drink water for breakfast.
I don't think the future is too far off where
most sites will turn off a lot of the freeness,"
says Foxsports.com general manager Ross
Levinsohn. "The big companies that support
Web sites are going to take a very hard look
— can we afford to continue losing $100
million to $150 million a year on this thing?"
Petty singing Stand My Ground at the 911 American Tribute to Heroes was really something. Notice the very subdued web page they put up about it. I still wish they'd put the artists names on the screen. It was a little too much — or a little too little, I mean.
If you want to take a quiet moment, read some blogs from the week of September 11. Breathtaking. We were so much older then, we're younger than that now.
I grinned as I looked at the sign. I guess I needed a big sign to spell it out to me. Thank you for the clue.
I've been reading the blog onepotmeal and marvelling at the great writing there (don't miss the lost wallet blog entry) and I've also been seeing some guy named Steve Himmer mentioned on other blog threads and discussions and he too has great ideas and expresses himself admirably. Okay, I finally figured it out, after an email cc'd him the other day, with an address @onepotmeal.com ... Steve Himmer = OnePotMeal. I don't know why I keep doing this, but I need to pay a little more attention.
But I hit a few snags and I've curbed my enthusiasm. For one thing, I tended to have user interface problems with the ordering software. Once I ordered 11 packages of hotdogs and 1 banana. Now you would think the software would have some intelligence and figure out that if I were having a cookout that required 11 packages of hotdogs, I'd probably order more than 1 banana for dessert.
It was pilot error — I'd meant to type 1 package of hotdogs, not 11 — and I thought I was ordering 1 bunch of bananas, not 1 banana. I called to try to change it, because I actually figured it out ahead of their delivery day (11 packages of hotdogs costs a lot), but they said it was too late. When they delivered the hotdogs, the delivery guy atypically was very surly. To add insult to injury, about 5 packages of the hot dogs were already expired — past their freshness or "eat by" dates -- and not by a few days, but by a few months. They must have had to really dig to find all those packages of hotdogs. They took them back, but it wasn't easy getting a refund. Anyway, I don't order groceries online anymore.
In the water the other day, swimming alone, paddling a slow breast stroke up one of the lap lanes, I was thinking how all my fellow bloggers were becoming people I carry around in my head, a bit like characters in a book you're reading, even when you put it down, they inhabit your world, like real people.
Just gotten some cool new bright blue tinted swim goggles and as I watch the graceful movements of half-submerged people, I wonder what's real and what's not, what's above the surface, what's below, who's to say my blogger world is a more or less real one to inhabit. Splish, splash.
All Together Now
Black, White, Green, Red
Can I Take My Friend To Bed?
Pink, Brown, Yellow, Orange and Blue
I Love You.
My mom had five kids and I have one. Our house was always pandemonium growing up, a chaotic vortex of books, toys, bicycles, pogo sticks and rollerskates that sucked all the kids in the neighborhood into it. Even when we Suitt kids weren't home, there were often extra kids there.
My mom used to joke that since we ate all the best food in the house or "everything not nailed down" as she'd say, that she'd been forced to come up with a special treat for herself that the kids would never touch. Her big treat was an onion sandwich — whole wheat bread, cream cheese, salt, pepper, onions. She certainly achieved her objective — none of us could stand the sight, or smell, of the thing.
My son's befriended two twin boys in the first grade who love to come to our house and have me baby them like "only" children. Since there's only one of him, he is always on the prowl to bring more kids into our house. The twins are part of an amazing family. The family of five kids has two twin boys in 1st grade, two twin boys in 3rd grade and one boy in 5th grade. They even kind of all look alike — a veritable tribe of blonde, skinny, noisy, sweet round-faced grinning Irish kids. They're great kids. I love to drop by their house since it reminds me of my house as a kid.
We had a "playdate" with the twins at our house yesterday afternoon and I took them home to their wild house around five. Their dad was there running the show. Since he is a professor and has a more flexible schedule than their mom, he is often the chief wrangler. He invited me in for a cup of tea and rummaged around in the cupboard for some cookies.
"I had to find some cookies none of them would eat," he said, in a beleaguered tone, putting a box of Lorna Doones on the table. But someone had gotten into them. Darn! The older boy had started liking them. "Wait, wait, I've got another kind none of them like." He was so proud to have prevailed. We ate some very weird Canadian maple leaf cookies and downed two cups of tea while my son ran wild and ecstatic in his new family of six boys.
Okay, I'll come clean ... but it's not easy. Yesterday when I wrote about visiting my dad in the nursing home, I quoted something I wrote to a friend in an email it looked like this:
Also, just back from visiting my dad and I need to think/reflect on it. The most frightening moment is entering the room, not sure what you'll find. It's an emotional bungy jump, and always semi-terrifies me
> --
> but of course, it's always okay, once I see him and start to comfort him.
But I had edited it, because it actually said this:
Also, just back from visiting my dad and I need to think/reflect on it. The most frightening moment is entering the room, not sure what you'll find. It's an emotional bungy jump, and always semi-terrifies me
but of course, I find my dad AND Jesus there.
Jesus is very bossy, quickly suggesting ways to
comfort my dad as soon as I enter, making my
breath-stopping moment end. He gives much needed
relief to me, by showing me how to give relief to
others.
So, here's the thing. In our very secular high-tech world, it's easier to come out of the closet as gay, admit you cheated on your taxes and owe the IRS $2 million dollars, or casually mention you've been fired from fifteen jobs in the last three years, than, God Forbid, admit you love Jesus.
Maybe life is grand on the Web because we've soulfully side-stepped our physical bodies? It's such a cumbersome thing sometimes, the human body.
And that's the stuff they just toss in for fun. Yes, episode 1313 in this 13th season about Grandpa on Viagra was not to be missed.
I go over to Barnes & Noble in Burlington today after lunch with a friend. I want to finally get a copy of Bombast Transcripts, I find about 5 other books I want to buy, but can't find it anywhere. I spend a good 15 minutes looking. I finally go ask the perky girl behind the info counter.
"Oh we have lots of those," she said, all excited.
I'm thinking, "Where, holding up the foundation of the frigging building?" I can't find any!
"In Current Events," she says, perplexed, yes, even she doesn't quite get it. I go upstairs again, and way far away from Business/Marketing/Internet (any likely categories) I find Current Events.
Okay, Rageboy, explain it to me ... you're next to the "TRUE CRIME" section and opposite "VIETNAM".
Man, if you were a Rock and Roll band this would be like putting you in the Polkas section or something. Needless to say, I did a little "rearranging", planting a few copies next to Cluetrain, a few in the Internet section. These stores honestly believe they are in the business of selling books!
I had lunch with a friend today who's written a new book, it's finally published and he worked so long and so hard on it. He's fretting about a million things and JEEZ ... hope he takes a minute or five to feel excited, proud, ecstatic about the wonderful fruits of his labor. I'm not saying I'm any good at that either, but please, everyone, especially all you non-stop bloggers, TAKE A BOW. You're brave word warriors!
Bad news, I'm having a hard time visiting him. I shared these thoughts with a friend on email and he said, put them in your blog, so here goes. Deep breath.
Okay ... subject: my dad. Quick synopsis: Adult, maybe, adulterer, definately. He spent a lot of his life philandering, that is to say, cheating on my mom, making her insanely miserable. He had a lot of fun. He was 6'4", handsome, thin, very charming. He dated a lot of the Revlon babes when he was SVP of Advertising there. Rumor has it he dated Julie Newmar, yes, the original Catwoman.
When I was growing up, I NEVER saw my dad. We lived in Connecticut and he was always "in the City" working (read:playing). When I was about ten years old and I was invited for a sleepover at my friend Nancy's house, we sat down to dinner and her dad was there. I was really confused since my dad never made dinner at our house. I asked "Why's he here? Did he get fired? Why isn't he in the City?"
We had it in our family lore that my dad would drop dead early, hopefully not in some ladies' boudoir, and my mom, the tough, strong, saintly one would live on and on, be the doting grandma and peppy senior citizen, happy to finally enjoy her life without his selfish demands and selfish behavior. Wrong.
And strangely, you sometimes wonder if only the selfish survive. I mean, no disrespect, but think about it, the people who are really out for themselves often have finely honed survival skills.
Even now at the nursing home, bedridden and 83, he doesn't lack for charm, wit and charisma. I cringe (and later laugh) when the nurses tell me on a daily basis, how adorable my dad is. He's a survivor. And you gotta love the guy.
If I liked basketball, I'd be particularly turned on that the computer I'm sitting at is near the window to the Celtics' practice court below. But I'm not a big bball fan. And I'm feeling guilty now. Okay, okay, I'll go work out.
Check out this bloggery for instance, Le cahier (notebook) de Stephanie.
La promiscuité devient une aliénation lente. Petit à petit, on se connaît mieux, on se cherche, on apprécie le temps passé ensemble, on se
comprend. La complicité et l'espièglerie nous attirent progressivement l'un vers l'autre.
Je n'étais pas venu à Nantes avec l'idée de tomber amoureux. Un soir, surmontant un reste de timidité et de réserve, je lui demande sans
presque d'espoir si elle veut dormir avec moi. Elle réfléchit, scrute le sol de ses yeux bleus, et, levant la tête vers moi, répond "OK" d'un
ton de concession mûrement réfléchie. Elle a dit oui!! Je reste sans voix. Elle est d'accord!!
On passe ainsi quelques nuits ensemble à dormir et visionner quelques films de ma collection. Ces moments hors du monde sont tendres, innocents et touchants.
Ainsi naît Ellipse, un court-métrage vidéo de 34 minutes finalement très décevant.
So rent a French film tonight or go see one. Or listen to some French music. Consider it a branding experience. Check this out. [Psssst: I wrote the "fan from Boston" review.]
This is wacky French marketing at its best. I think this means STUFF THAT CARTIER MAKES LIKE GOLD LIGHTERS THAT YOU MUST HAVE IN ORDER TO BE CHIC. This link talks about their marketing guy. The funny thing for me is the word "musts" is pronounced in a way that twists it into something that sounds like "les mooses". Jean-Yves, am I right?
Also, you can argue with me all you like but, the French have the killer brands when it comes to sex, romance, cathedrals, bread, snails, beautiful women, sexy men (but too skinny), painters, poetry, poplars, black wool hats and most luxury items. C'mon, give them some credit.
Anyway, I'm thinking up a "musts" of blogdom. It will be a daily read list and other stuff. Coming soon to a theater near you.
And as people who've lost limbs report, your mind doesn't seem to let go of the IDEA of having an arm very easily. Long after the arm's gone, you still feel it.
Thanks Elvis and especially thanks Mike Sanders who's got some soulful stuff going down at his blogtown.
The question of soul revolves around the question of "Who is the real you?" If
asked to point to yourself, most people will point a finger at their chest. But
what if a person had a brain transplant to a new body. We have an old brain
with its memories, personality traits and behavior patterns and a brand new
body. Is the person the brain or the body?
Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open yë
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages):
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
(And palmers for to seken straunge strondes)
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelonde, to Caunterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.
I'm also feasting on garlic matzos — a seasonal favorite. I put down a few gallons of borscht as well. Also, can't get enough jelly beans.
I hate instant messaging. It's the quintessence of all the bad things about email and none of the good things. The first reason I hate it, is the reason other people love it — it's so in your face.
It's the antithesis of email in terms of NOT being time-released. Email is like a little pill I make and send off to be released when it's convenient to the receiver. Email is the reason I can get a lot done in a short time with lots of time-flexibility. If I need to ask someone a question and it's my usual insomniac 4:00am, I'm sure not going to use IM, I'm going to send an email to be opened and answered at someone's leisure.
I remember when IM started, a friend was trying to tell me how great it was. "I'll even know when you're online," he said. I said, "I don't want you knowing when I'm online. I'm working when I'm online, that's the least appropriate time to interrupt me." I think email is the thinking man's IM. Email lets you think before you talk. Big difference.
I also think it's generational. I think the younger you are, the more you like IM and getting interrupted. As you can imagine, I hate people who answer their cell phones during meals too.
Is there a correlation with IM, staying up late, talking dirty and sex? I bet there is. I'm so anti-IM, I've missed that angle completely. Darn.
I hear Tom and Jeneane have weighed in on the subject and I'm sure it's brilliant stuff, so I'm off to read it.
So out of the blue on a Monday, he calls me and asks me to dinner at his friend's place in the Village, with a bunch of his colleagues, since he's a professor now. He was always kindof a shy guy, but very smart and very nice. So I go to dinner and it ends up this is a pretty swell crew of brilliant people and my friend's just written a book, in a field I know nothing about and he's suddenly getting quite famous. And I'm happy for him. We meet at this friend's loft and he gives me a rather brotherly peck on the cheek when we meet. He looks even better than I remember, much better than when I had this major crush on him.
We're seated at a long, thin rectangular table — I'm across from him. We have a lot of fun catching up and even though we're not seated next to one another, it's easy to talk and he's very funny. I'm seated next to a woman who went to my same college, so we start talking and my friend talks to the woman on his left.
And towards the end of dinner someone starts playing footsie with me. And I can't figure out who it is. But whoever it is, is very good at it. And I don't think it's my friend, in fact, it might be this other guy next to him. I look up and catch the eye of the other guy, who laughs nervously and my friend isn't looking my way, but talking to the other woman next to him. I can not seem to catch his eye.
This foot is snaking up my leg in a very sexy way. I look down at my dessert plate and give the sorbet serious consideration. This guy gives very good foot.
My friend is talking heatedly about something ... structuralism or photons or something ... to the other woman and the guy next to him stands up to get coffee at the buffet table. And, of course, it's been my friend all along. And, talk about sexy, he still does NOT catch my eye. This is turning me on.
The other guy comes back. My friend suddenly looks at me dead on and asks me innocently, "what do you think?" and gives me a cunning smile and a wink.
Think? I couldn't even talk. Everyone's looking at me for a word. I say, "I think ... yes, definately," very seriously, as if debating the issue of world hunger.
He says, "I hoped you'd agree."
Now he's pulled his foot away and starts talking to the man, semi-ignoring me. I go over to get coffee. After a few minutes, he joins me at the buffet table.
"You know, I'm really tired," I say.
"Me too," he says. "Maybe we should go."
We say our nice goodbyes, we get into the elevator — he doesn't talk to me, and we don't stand particularly close to one another. I'm thrown off again — did he forget the footsie -- am I wrong -- did he even do it?
We get on the street — it's New York — he hails a cab. He holds the door open politely. We get in. He gives the driver the address of his hotel.
"Nice dinner, wasn't it?" he says, as if we were strangers sharing a cab.
"Yes," I say. He leans over, takes my face, and says, "Say when," then starts kissing me really passionately and really well. Not too wet, not to soft, not to sloppy, just right. Pretty soon, we've fallen back into a supine kiss, no more of these sitting-up-straight caresses. This is what a cab is made for. We're making the most of it.
We come up for air. We're on Madison near 50th. He says, "I have to go to LA in the morning, I want you to come with me. I have to give a speech. Will you come with me, I hate giving speeches."
I say, "What day is it?"
"Monday, don't worry, we'll be back Thursday," he says.
"I have about ten classes," I say, the serious grad student that I am.
"I'll write a note to your teacher. Please come with me," he says. "I can pick you up in the morning." We're at his hotel, he gets out, pays the driver to take me home.
"Will you come with me to LA?" he tilts his head a bit, like 'don't make me ask again.'
I say, "I think yes, ... definately." And I did.
I've seen this before. Towards the end of my mom's life (in 1997), I saw her raging around in her unfortunate, cumbersome and useless body, trying to free her soul and take the big trip. Now to watch my dad knocking over his stall, like an angry hobbled horse, same game, other parent, is so hard. I'm not getting better at it.
Like people who've stayed too long in a rented summer cottage at the beach, they must pack now quickly and leave the body behind, only the soul may go. They have had their fun and suddenly, on a chilly September morning, they hastily tear down the sheer gauze curtains they brought with them in May. And think how translucent the soul must be after so many delightful afternoons of bleaching summer sun.
Plug yourself in buster!
It's a wonder school buses don't turn me on, since this other thing also was related to school buses. I was waiting for the bus one spring morning and no one was around, but a piece of paper caught my eye — it was dancing around in the breeze near the edge of the garden where my mom's tulips were trying to bloom.
It was a page from a paperback book. Something like page ... well, I don't remember ... but let's just call it page 269.
It wasn't just any page — it was a page from a very graphic porno novel — but hell, this was back in the fairly tame 1970's, so "graphic" meant something else then (it meant not-so-graphic.)
But, yikes, it was a find! Very hot stuff, very few clothes, full of limber limbs, and one of the girls was named Monique. It had words like "members" and "deltas". Good golly. This kind of stuff just didn't float down from heaven and end up at Connecticut bus stops all that often.
So I snatched it and smoothed it out and saved it in my social studies book and hid it in my room that night in a poetry book.
And read it and read it and read it and read it.
However, I will tell you the first thing anyone ever told me about sex when I was the "new girl" in third grade. [My genius parents figured we should move from NYC to Connecticut and start our new school on April 1 — aka April Fool's Day. Thanks, guys.]
Anyway, another girl in fifth grade who rode the Glenville bus with me wrote two numbers on a piece of paper and showed it to me and then blushed ten shades of red and of course, I didn't get it at all.
On the paper it said "69" .
She realized I didn't get it — even at nine years old, I wasn't about to admit I didn't get it, I was uncool and ask her to explain — but luckily she whispered in my ear all the disgusting graphic details of mutual hetero oral sex as only an eleven-year-old girl might describe them. Her breathe, so close to my ear, smelled like Mint Chocolate Girl Scout Cookies, since she was a lead salesman in her troupe.
I said, "why would anyone do that?"
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
