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There was a fascinating documentary a couple of years ago about a group of newly hatched geese which imprinted on a researcher--the first creature they saw upon hatching. To the hatchlings, the researcher was their parent. They followed him everywhere and he had to assume the role of an adult goose in order to show them how to be geese. When winter approached and the time came for them to migrate, the researcher learned to pilot an ultra-light aircraft in order to lead them south. Viewed from the ground, they formed the perfect V, with the researcher and his little open aircraft at the head of the V.
Though imprinting studies have mainly been done on birds, it is a factor in other species, Man included.
Imprinting is not always as instantaneous an event as bonding with one's parents. It continues slowly through early childhood and goes far beyond the usual imprinting between parents/children. Mine was a slower process, though the end result is still with me. Imagination is a very important tool in the imprinting process. It helps children learn, grow, make choices that will remain with them throughout life, and helps them understand the world as it really is. But having used the imagination to help in the imprinting process, most children make the transition between reality and make believe naturally. I never did. I imprinted early-on on make believe and on happily-ever-after and pretty much stopped there.
My imprinting on happily-ever-after is probably responsible for the fact that I spend so much of my time in frustration when things do not go the way they are supposed to go. (You'll note I did not say "the way I think they are supposed to go"--the way they are supposed to go is the way they are supposed to go. Period.) If I can do it in imagination, I damned well should be able to do it in reality.
I find it significant that even at a very young age, listening to and later reading fairy tales, it was never the princess I concentrated on (or ever, for one single moment, identified with), but the handsome prince. I never grew out of it, which I am convinced is a major reason I, sincerely, have such a hard time accepting reality.
I doubt one's sexual orientation is influenced by imprinting. I sincerely believe that being gay is no more a conscious choice than the decision to have brown eyes. However, if it were, the first person I ever set eyes on must have been the doctor or a male nurse.
And again imagination comes into play. I have always loved beauty, and grace, and charm, as I perceive them, just as I have always expected thoughtfulness and common civility as encompassed by the Golden Rule to be. I love the idea of romantic love, and yet relate it, for myself, only to beautiful (in my eyes) men because beautiful men embody everything I have always longed for. But I have never succeeded in believing myself to be beautiful--a fact verified by every reflexive surface.
There are many different types of love between humans--the love of family, the broader love of friends, and the very special love between just two humans, which is differentiated from the other forms by the element of sexual attraction. But my personal concept of romantic love and sexuality attraction includes only men. Women have always been, to me, a totally different species. But my love for women is and has always been strictly of the friends-and-family type, totally devoid of any romantic or sexual-attraction component. While I realize this is all but incomprehensible to most people--and I'm sorry to say may possibly be offensive to some--it is simply a statement of fact and has never been an issue for me.
The combination of my early imprinting on fantasy at the expense of reality, my totally unrealistic assumption that I am somehow separate and apart from everyone else, coupled with my expectations for myself being infinitely higher than could ever be realized...and the resultant self loathing that evolves from it, have produced the person writing this blog. I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad. It doesn't matter. It just is.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Stu
I learned, from the same long-lost friend who sparked my recent "Letter to a Nun" blog, that one of my very best friends from college, Stu, had died of AIDS...20 years ago! How could that be? How could that possibly be? Stu? Tall, crazy, skinny, incredibly talented, hyper-active red-headed Stu, dead? For 20 years??
I met Stu when I entered what was then Northern Illinois State Teacher's College in September of 1952. He, Zane, and I were all interested in theater, and soon became friends. (Isn't it odd that even today I hesitate to mention last names out of concern for opening closet doors?) We were something of the Three Musketeers, though Stu and Zane were far more outgoing than I. Not having to even attempt to hide the fact that we were gay when we were together was exhilarating.
During the break between our Freshman and Sophomore years, we agreed to meet in New York City for three days. I got my first direct evidence that my dad knew of my sexual orientation when, after an argument over the money for the trip being better spent in other ways, Dad finally said, in exasperation, "All right, go to New York with your queer boyfriends."
One weekend at school, Stu got hold of a makeup kit from the drama department and he and Zane decided they were going to give me a makeover. I wasn't happy about it, but went along. They wouldn't let me see their work until they were done, and when they finally gave me a mirror, I saw an eyelinered, rouged, lipsticked drag queen. I fainted. Literally.
Stu was, as I've said, multi-talented. One time he designed costumes he, Zane and I were to wear for Halloween, (Zane was to be the sun, I the moon, and Stu the stars). They were beautiful. But like everything else Stu started, they were never completed. He was the poster boy for A.D.D. before the condition had a name. He would start one project, then drop it after 20 minutes to go on to another, which would be dropped in the same amount of time.
He was totally impulsive. At one point, while I was on my two-year break from school for the Navy, he decided there was a play opening in London that he absolutely had to see. He somehow scraped together enough money for a plane ticket to London...but not enough for a ticket back...and took off. I still can't remember how he got back, but he did.
Our friendship was interrupted for the four years it took me to do my two year military service and to finish my last two years of school. When I graduated and planned to move to Chicago, Stu and I agreed to get an apartment together, which we did...six blocks and on the same side of the street as the building in which I am now living after my return to Chicago following a 38 year absence.
Stu could easily have starred in a play about Ichabod Crane, whom he strongly resembled. With his red hair and gangly frame, and his flamboyant style, it didn't take much for perfect strangers to determine his sexual orientation. People would stare at him, and it would hurt him deeply, and he would react by becoming even more outrageous. If they wanted queer, he'd give them queer.
I got on his nerves (I can't imagine how that could possibly happen, but it did). One night I asked him five separate times what time he wanted dinner. Finally, he snapped. I don't remember what he said, but he never spoke to me again, and he moved out of the apartment within a week.
Several years later, I turned on the TV and caught him on a game show...a little older, but the same old Stu. It hurt.
True friends come along very seldom in life, and I always thought of Stu, even in the years after we parted ways, as one of the best friends I've ever had, and I was so very sorry to have lost that friendship. That it can now never be rekindled fills me with a renewed sense of loss.
Here's to you, Stu.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
I met Stu when I entered what was then Northern Illinois State Teacher's College in September of 1952. He, Zane, and I were all interested in theater, and soon became friends. (Isn't it odd that even today I hesitate to mention last names out of concern for opening closet doors?) We were something of the Three Musketeers, though Stu and Zane were far more outgoing than I. Not having to even attempt to hide the fact that we were gay when we were together was exhilarating.
During the break between our Freshman and Sophomore years, we agreed to meet in New York City for three days. I got my first direct evidence that my dad knew of my sexual orientation when, after an argument over the money for the trip being better spent in other ways, Dad finally said, in exasperation, "All right, go to New York with your queer boyfriends."
One weekend at school, Stu got hold of a makeup kit from the drama department and he and Zane decided they were going to give me a makeover. I wasn't happy about it, but went along. They wouldn't let me see their work until they were done, and when they finally gave me a mirror, I saw an eyelinered, rouged, lipsticked drag queen. I fainted. Literally.
Stu was, as I've said, multi-talented. One time he designed costumes he, Zane and I were to wear for Halloween, (Zane was to be the sun, I the moon, and Stu the stars). They were beautiful. But like everything else Stu started, they were never completed. He was the poster boy for A.D.D. before the condition had a name. He would start one project, then drop it after 20 minutes to go on to another, which would be dropped in the same amount of time.
He was totally impulsive. At one point, while I was on my two-year break from school for the Navy, he decided there was a play opening in London that he absolutely had to see. He somehow scraped together enough money for a plane ticket to London...but not enough for a ticket back...and took off. I still can't remember how he got back, but he did.
Our friendship was interrupted for the four years it took me to do my two year military service and to finish my last two years of school. When I graduated and planned to move to Chicago, Stu and I agreed to get an apartment together, which we did...six blocks and on the same side of the street as the building in which I am now living after my return to Chicago following a 38 year absence.
Stu could easily have starred in a play about Ichabod Crane, whom he strongly resembled. With his red hair and gangly frame, and his flamboyant style, it didn't take much for perfect strangers to determine his sexual orientation. People would stare at him, and it would hurt him deeply, and he would react by becoming even more outrageous. If they wanted queer, he'd give them queer.
I got on his nerves (I can't imagine how that could possibly happen, but it did). One night I asked him five separate times what time he wanted dinner. Finally, he snapped. I don't remember what he said, but he never spoke to me again, and he moved out of the apartment within a week.
Several years later, I turned on the TV and caught him on a game show...a little older, but the same old Stu. It hurt.
True friends come along very seldom in life, and I always thought of Stu, even in the years after we parted ways, as one of the best friends I've ever had, and I was so very sorry to have lost that friendship. That it can now never be rekindled fills me with a renewed sense of loss.
Here's to you, Stu.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Letter to a Nun
I never cease to be fascinated by how life works, and by the astonishing intricacies of time, relationships, and coincidence.
Several years ago, now, I reestablished contact with a friend from grade school, and we have corresponded frequently ever since. Recently he emailed me with information of another mutual school-years friend--we all three had been Cub Scouts together at St. Elizabeth's Social Center in Rockford IL--and with news of one of the nuns from our days at St. Elizabeth's. I had not thought of St. Elizabeth's in years, but as so often happens, just one mention opened the floodgates of memory.
As a non-catholic, my Cub Scout experiences with the nuns was my first exposure to any form of Catholicism and, while I was even then an Agnostic, I was very impressed by their devotion.
The two nuns I still remember after all these years were Sister Marie Immaculee and Sister Ann Sebastian. Sister Marie Immaculee was probably in her 70s at the time. Tiny, with grey hair and and an almost palpable aura of love and compassion, she could easily have posed for a Norman Rockwell painting titled "The Grandmother Nun." I adored her. I remember someone telling me 25 or 30 years ago, that she died.
It is people like Sister Marie Immaculee who make me hope there is a God.
Sister Ann Sebastian was tall and rather stern, very much the no-nonsense disciplinarian--no one tried to put anything over on Sister Ann Sebastian--but never harsh. I had assumed she was long dead, but when I discovered she is in fact alive, well into her 90s and living in a facility maintained by her order, I had to contact her to let her know her influence went beyond the grounds of St. Elizabeth's.
Here, then, is the letter I wrote her.
Sr. Ann Sebastian
Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity
3501 Solly Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19136
Dear Sister:
In light of eternity, 65 years or so is but the blink of an angel's eyelash, but it was about 65 years ago that I joined the Cub Scouts, which held their meetings at St. Elizabeth's Social Center in Rockford, IL. As a non-catholic, I had never met a nun, and you were my first face-to-face encounter. Not having any idea of protocol, I remember calling you "Lady." You quickly and gently corrected me.
I have, after all these years, never forgotten you or Sr. Marie Immaculee (who I always see in my mind's eye when I think of the ideal grandmother) and the other nuns whose names I cannot now recall.
Your always-kind firmness--no one ever put anything over on you--and the joy you all but radiated have remained with me to this day, and when I learned your address through a fellow former Cub Scout, I felt compelled to write you a brief note to let you know of the lasting impression you made on one very young boy. I cannot thank you enough for the example you set for me and so very many others.
God truly loves you.
With gratitude,
Roger Margason
I do hope it gives her a moment of pleasure. She richly deserves it.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Several years ago, now, I reestablished contact with a friend from grade school, and we have corresponded frequently ever since. Recently he emailed me with information of another mutual school-years friend--we all three had been Cub Scouts together at St. Elizabeth's Social Center in Rockford IL--and with news of one of the nuns from our days at St. Elizabeth's. I had not thought of St. Elizabeth's in years, but as so often happens, just one mention opened the floodgates of memory.
As a non-catholic, my Cub Scout experiences with the nuns was my first exposure to any form of Catholicism and, while I was even then an Agnostic, I was very impressed by their devotion.
The two nuns I still remember after all these years were Sister Marie Immaculee and Sister Ann Sebastian. Sister Marie Immaculee was probably in her 70s at the time. Tiny, with grey hair and and an almost palpable aura of love and compassion, she could easily have posed for a Norman Rockwell painting titled "The Grandmother Nun." I adored her. I remember someone telling me 25 or 30 years ago, that she died.
It is people like Sister Marie Immaculee who make me hope there is a God.
Sister Ann Sebastian was tall and rather stern, very much the no-nonsense disciplinarian--no one tried to put anything over on Sister Ann Sebastian--but never harsh. I had assumed she was long dead, but when I discovered she is in fact alive, well into her 90s and living in a facility maintained by her order, I had to contact her to let her know her influence went beyond the grounds of St. Elizabeth's.
Here, then, is the letter I wrote her.
Sr. Ann Sebastian
Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity
3501 Solly Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19136
Dear Sister:
In light of eternity, 65 years or so is but the blink of an angel's eyelash, but it was about 65 years ago that I joined the Cub Scouts, which held their meetings at St. Elizabeth's Social Center in Rockford, IL. As a non-catholic, I had never met a nun, and you were my first face-to-face encounter. Not having any idea of protocol, I remember calling you "Lady." You quickly and gently corrected me.
I have, after all these years, never forgotten you or Sr. Marie Immaculee (who I always see in my mind's eye when I think of the ideal grandmother) and the other nuns whose names I cannot now recall.
Your always-kind firmness--no one ever put anything over on you--and the joy you all but radiated have remained with me to this day, and when I learned your address through a fellow former Cub Scout, I felt compelled to write you a brief note to let you know of the lasting impression you made on one very young boy. I cannot thank you enough for the example you set for me and so very many others.
God truly loves you.
With gratitude,
Roger Margason
I do hope it gives her a moment of pleasure. She richly deserves it.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Friday, October 23, 2009
A Chat
"Why are you sitting here playing solitaire when there are 10,000 other things you should be doing?"
"I don't know. Probably because I don't want to do any of the 10,000 other things."
"You have a novel to finish."
"And I will. When I get around to it. It won't be out until next year anyway. Lots of time."
"That's a rotten excuse."
"For you, maybe. Works for me."
"What about all those people you've owed emails for the past six months? You could write letters."
"I could, but it's been so long now, I'm embarrassed. They've probably forgotten me by now. And what do I have to say? All I do is write."
"And play solitare."
"No need to get nasty. Besides, my life is like an old radio soap opera minus the drama: you can go away for a year and when you come back, nothing much has changed."
"There's your blog. You can always write a blog."
"In order to write a blog, it's always nice to have something to write about. I don't have. I feel like 95 percent of those messages that show up on Twitter...God, I hate that name...: 'Had an apple for lunch.' 'Won a pair of earmuffs in Mafia Wars.' 'Martha and her kids are coming over tonight.' Snore. No, I've always believed in the advice Thumper's mother gave him in Bambi: 'If you can't say anything nice, you shouldn't say anything at all."
"Excuse me? Have you read any of your blogs? The reader has to put on a HazMat suit against the toxic stuff you spew. When's the last time you said anything nice about anything or anyone in a blog?"
"I said I liked puppies and kittens the other day."
"Oh, right. Puppies and kittens, 1; vitriol, 999. Great balance."
"Okay, okay, you win. I'll write a nice blog about world peace and doves and rose petals and dot all the 'i's' with little hearts, and end it with a string of those adorable little smiley-face 'emoticons.' That ought to induce a string of projectile vomiting."
"Well, if you're going to be that way, maybe you should just forget about a blog for now."
"Thank you for your kind permission."
"Maybe tomorrow?"
"Maybe, but don't count on it."
"Red 8 on the black 9."
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
"I don't know. Probably because I don't want to do any of the 10,000 other things."
"You have a novel to finish."
"And I will. When I get around to it. It won't be out until next year anyway. Lots of time."
"That's a rotten excuse."
"For you, maybe. Works for me."
"What about all those people you've owed emails for the past six months? You could write letters."
"I could, but it's been so long now, I'm embarrassed. They've probably forgotten me by now. And what do I have to say? All I do is write."
"And play solitare."
"No need to get nasty. Besides, my life is like an old radio soap opera minus the drama: you can go away for a year and when you come back, nothing much has changed."
"There's your blog. You can always write a blog."
"In order to write a blog, it's always nice to have something to write about. I don't have. I feel like 95 percent of those messages that show up on Twitter...God, I hate that name...: 'Had an apple for lunch.' 'Won a pair of earmuffs in Mafia Wars.' 'Martha and her kids are coming over tonight.' Snore. No, I've always believed in the advice Thumper's mother gave him in Bambi: 'If you can't say anything nice, you shouldn't say anything at all."
"Excuse me? Have you read any of your blogs? The reader has to put on a HazMat suit against the toxic stuff you spew. When's the last time you said anything nice about anything or anyone in a blog?"
"I said I liked puppies and kittens the other day."
"Oh, right. Puppies and kittens, 1; vitriol, 999. Great balance."
"Okay, okay, you win. I'll write a nice blog about world peace and doves and rose petals and dot all the 'i's' with little hearts, and end it with a string of those adorable little smiley-face 'emoticons.' That ought to induce a string of projectile vomiting."
"Well, if you're going to be that way, maybe you should just forget about a blog for now."
"Thank you for your kind permission."
"Maybe tomorrow?"
"Maybe, but don't count on it."
"Red 8 on the black 9."
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Listen Up!
Okay, people: listen up. I have had enough of this crap, and am planning a coup to take over the world. Once I do, here are a are a few of the changes that will be institutedmmediately.
As I understand it, the game of football is divided into four quarters of fifteen minutes each. Therefore, a football game should last exactly one hour, not six. Under my rule, each quarter will last exactly fifteen minutes. Once the clock is started, it will not be stopped every ten seconds for periods of up to ten minutes each. Fifteen minutes per quarter! There will be five minutes between the first and second quarters, twenty minutes for the ubiquitous halftime festivities between the second and third quarters, and another five minute break between the third quarter and the end of the game. That's it. Is that clear?
The words "under God" will be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. They were not there in the original, they are not needed, they are exclusionary and divisive. They will be out!
Baseball hats will be worn with the bill facing forward. That is why they were created...to shield the eyes from the sun. Anyone wearing a baseball hat with the bill backwards will have the hat confiscated and be issued a warning. Two violations will result in a sizable fine. Anyone attempting to be "hip," "cool," "with it," etc. by wearing the bill pointing other than directly forward will have the hat yanked off their head, filled with Crazy Glue, put back on forceably, and be marched directly to jail where they will be placed in solitary confinement until the hat falls off on its own.
All rap songs will be submitted to a panel prior to release. Any lyrics containing words derogatory to women or other minorities ("ho," "bitch," "muthafukka," etc.) will be stricken--which will leave most with no lyrics at all. "Songs" consisting of only one or two words endlessly repeated will be banned; all will be required to have recognizable sentence structure, and be sung so as to be intelligible to the average listener.
Pants will be worn so that the top is within three inches of the belly button. Those worn around the knees will yanked down to the ankles and the wearer required to wear them in that position while completing 50 hours of community service.
English will be the official language of the United States. No one will ever have to "Press 1 for English". Our forefathers came here from around the world and they learned to speak English, and they did it. To be able to become a citizen of a country it will be mandatory to speak its language.
Any corporation, company, or organization with a phone number for customers to call will be required to hire enough people to answer every call received within twenty seconds. Severe fines will be imposed for every second a customer has to sit on hold beyond the fourth ring.
"Your call is very important to us" messages will be banned. Pressing a succession of 53 buttons before being able to speak to an actual human being will be a criminal offense.
No corporate executive will be paid more than ten times the wage of the average worker. Bonuses will be limited to a turkey at Thanksgiving and a maximum $100 cash bonus at Christmas.
Campaigning politicians will, under law, be limited to telling voters what they will do to benefit their constituents, and be forbidden to criticize their opponents' records or character.
Handguns will be banned. Period. No argument, no debate. The NRA will limit itself to issues involving sport hunting, and be forbidden to engage in any form of political activity. All defensive weapons will be required to be non-lethal in nature (tazers, pepper spray, mace).
Every email message sent will be required to include the correct return email address of the sender, and stringent penalties will be imposed for obvious spam messages.
Every claim made by an advertiser must be proven to be true before it can be made.
"Don't ask, don't tell" will be struck down immediately, and penalties for hate crimes increased.
Parents will be held legally accountable for the actions and be required to actively participate in the education of their children.
Littering within 100 feet of a waste receptacle will result in stiff fines, to be doubled with every succeeding offense.
These are only some of the changes I plan to implement. I may list more later. Don't say I didn't warn you.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
As I understand it, the game of football is divided into four quarters of fifteen minutes each. Therefore, a football game should last exactly one hour, not six. Under my rule, each quarter will last exactly fifteen minutes. Once the clock is started, it will not be stopped every ten seconds for periods of up to ten minutes each. Fifteen minutes per quarter! There will be five minutes between the first and second quarters, twenty minutes for the ubiquitous halftime festivities between the second and third quarters, and another five minute break between the third quarter and the end of the game. That's it. Is that clear?
The words "under God" will be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. They were not there in the original, they are not needed, they are exclusionary and divisive. They will be out!
Baseball hats will be worn with the bill facing forward. That is why they were created...to shield the eyes from the sun. Anyone wearing a baseball hat with the bill backwards will have the hat confiscated and be issued a warning. Two violations will result in a sizable fine. Anyone attempting to be "hip," "cool," "with it," etc. by wearing the bill pointing other than directly forward will have the hat yanked off their head, filled with Crazy Glue, put back on forceably, and be marched directly to jail where they will be placed in solitary confinement until the hat falls off on its own.
All rap songs will be submitted to a panel prior to release. Any lyrics containing words derogatory to women or other minorities ("ho," "bitch," "muthafukka," etc.) will be stricken--which will leave most with no lyrics at all. "Songs" consisting of only one or two words endlessly repeated will be banned; all will be required to have recognizable sentence structure, and be sung so as to be intelligible to the average listener.
Pants will be worn so that the top is within three inches of the belly button. Those worn around the knees will yanked down to the ankles and the wearer required to wear them in that position while completing 50 hours of community service.
English will be the official language of the United States. No one will ever have to "Press 1 for English". Our forefathers came here from around the world and they learned to speak English, and they did it. To be able to become a citizen of a country it will be mandatory to speak its language.
Any corporation, company, or organization with a phone number for customers to call will be required to hire enough people to answer every call received within twenty seconds. Severe fines will be imposed for every second a customer has to sit on hold beyond the fourth ring.
"Your call is very important to us" messages will be banned. Pressing a succession of 53 buttons before being able to speak to an actual human being will be a criminal offense.
No corporate executive will be paid more than ten times the wage of the average worker. Bonuses will be limited to a turkey at Thanksgiving and a maximum $100 cash bonus at Christmas.
Campaigning politicians will, under law, be limited to telling voters what they will do to benefit their constituents, and be forbidden to criticize their opponents' records or character.
Handguns will be banned. Period. No argument, no debate. The NRA will limit itself to issues involving sport hunting, and be forbidden to engage in any form of political activity. All defensive weapons will be required to be non-lethal in nature (tazers, pepper spray, mace).
Every email message sent will be required to include the correct return email address of the sender, and stringent penalties will be imposed for obvious spam messages.
Every claim made by an advertiser must be proven to be true before it can be made.
"Don't ask, don't tell" will be struck down immediately, and penalties for hate crimes increased.
Parents will be held legally accountable for the actions and be required to actively participate in the education of their children.
Littering within 100 feet of a waste receptacle will result in stiff fines, to be doubled with every succeeding offense.
These are only some of the changes I plan to implement. I may list more later. Don't say I didn't warn you.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Magpie
I suppose if I were to be a bird, I would be a magpie, and these blogs could be compared to my nest. The magpie, as I checked the dictionary to find out, is defined as "a long-tailed crow with boldly marked (or green) plumage and a raucous voice", and the word "magpie" is "used in similes or comparisons to refer to a person who collects things, esp. things of little use or value, or a person who chatters idly."
Well, while I do not have plumage, I do occasionally have a raucous voice, and the definition of the word is pretty accurate.
These blogs are comprised of bits and pieces of my life, in no particular order and often to no particular purpose. Like the magpie, something shiny will catch my eye and will end up in a blog. Today's addition to the nest is a piece of paper which I found, quite by accident, while looking for something else.
It is the eulogy I wrote for my mother while accompanying her body back to Illinois from California. It was read at her funeral on September 12 (?) 1970. And here it is:
"Odrae Margason is dead, and if we've come today to mourn the contents of this coffin, we're here for the wrong reason. For what is in this box is no more Odrae than a milk carton is milk. It's merely the container she occupied for 62 years.
"We should rather dedicate ourselves here today to giving thanks for the love and happiness she gave each of us while she was here.
"We are sad because the death of one we love always creates a deep and painful wound; but wounds heal in time. And while Odrae would be so very pleased to realize how many people cared for her, she certainly would not want us to be sad.
"Odrae never thought much about death, until the last... and even then, in the last, difficult year of her life, she set an example of bravery and courage we all can envy. If, at the end, she was afraid, it was not of death, only of dying. And now that is past.
"One always searches for a reason why the good must suffer, and die before their time. But Odrae's death will have served a purpose if just one person who knew her will consider, before lighting their next cigarette, the only comment she ever made on her illness: "If only I'd known." Well, you do know.
"The 62 years of Odrae's life are over, but they are not lost. She leaves each of us as the guardian of the individual minutes, hours, and days of her life that are preserved in our memory. She is now an indelible part of each of us, and she will be alive as long as each of us remembers her.
"We are sad today because she is not with us, but that is selfish: I'm sure the God in whom she believed sincerely is delighted to have her home."
You never knew my mom, though I wish you could have. But maybe you might think of her every now and again, to keep her from being forgotten by everyone but me.
And I shall now find just the right spot for this entry among all my other treasures. Perhaps over there, beside the photo of mom, dad, and me by the Christmas tree.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Well, while I do not have plumage, I do occasionally have a raucous voice, and the definition of the word is pretty accurate.
These blogs are comprised of bits and pieces of my life, in no particular order and often to no particular purpose. Like the magpie, something shiny will catch my eye and will end up in a blog. Today's addition to the nest is a piece of paper which I found, quite by accident, while looking for something else.
It is the eulogy I wrote for my mother while accompanying her body back to Illinois from California. It was read at her funeral on September 12 (?) 1970. And here it is:
"Odrae Margason is dead, and if we've come today to mourn the contents of this coffin, we're here for the wrong reason. For what is in this box is no more Odrae than a milk carton is milk. It's merely the container she occupied for 62 years.
"We should rather dedicate ourselves here today to giving thanks for the love and happiness she gave each of us while she was here.
"We are sad because the death of one we love always creates a deep and painful wound; but wounds heal in time. And while Odrae would be so very pleased to realize how many people cared for her, she certainly would not want us to be sad.
"Odrae never thought much about death, until the last... and even then, in the last, difficult year of her life, she set an example of bravery and courage we all can envy. If, at the end, she was afraid, it was not of death, only of dying. And now that is past.
"One always searches for a reason why the good must suffer, and die before their time. But Odrae's death will have served a purpose if just one person who knew her will consider, before lighting their next cigarette, the only comment she ever made on her illness: "If only I'd known." Well, you do know.
"The 62 years of Odrae's life are over, but they are not lost. She leaves each of us as the guardian of the individual minutes, hours, and days of her life that are preserved in our memory. She is now an indelible part of each of us, and she will be alive as long as each of us remembers her.
"We are sad today because she is not with us, but that is selfish: I'm sure the God in whom she believed sincerely is delighted to have her home."
You never knew my mom, though I wish you could have. But maybe you might think of her every now and again, to keep her from being forgotten by everyone but me.
And I shall now find just the right spot for this entry among all my other treasures. Perhaps over there, beside the photo of mom, dad, and me by the Christmas tree.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Spamity-Spamity-Spam
I've noticed--perversely, almost to my regret, but not quite--that the number of spam messages, especially of the "Make her scream with pleasure" and "Add 14" to your manhood" variety have fallen off drastically of late. I'd like to think it is because my internet server is finally getting wise, but I doubt it.
Anyway, here is the latest culling from the cyberspace garbage, with the "come on" of the message exactly as received, and my Pavlov's dog response.
"What's this?" (Why, this is spam! I'm surprised you didn't notice it. I spotted it a mile away.)
mary LAST_NAME "are you bored lonely and wanting some spice? I'm cathy and I..." (You're cathy? You just told me you were mary LAST_NAME? It's so hard to know who to trust these days.)
"Still dislike me?" (Hey, you're pretty perceptive for a spammer!)
"You can joinUp with our dating community without a nickel-being spent!" (Or, I can not join up with your dating community without a nickel-being spent." I like that option better.)
"Will the 90 day Wealth Challenge bring you financial triumph?" (Gee, that's a tough one. Let me take a really wild guess...)
"Make her want it 24/7" ("It"? Can you be a bit more specific? You spammers are so subtle it's difficult to know what you mean.)
"and the long-eared own standing watchover a dark churchyard laughed..." (and the short-tempered writer wading through his spam messages thought this was clever, but not clever enough to make him open it.)
"Assistance..Needed. Dear Friend, I am Mr. Zhang tiejun, Foreign operations manager, Bank of China, Hong Kong...." (Do you suppose I might ask how, out of 6 billion people on the planet, you wrote to me?)
"Become a photographer from the convenience and comfort of your home!" (Uh, doesn't that sort of limit my range of things to photograph?)
"Shall Life Renew these bodies of a Truth?" (I don't know...shall it? But first, what the hell are you talking about? ...Never mind, I don't want to know.)
"You're a jerk!" (Why thank you, you silver-tongued rascal you. That's sure to get me to read your post! But we'll have to wait until hell freezes over.)
"Unable to understand you. --It Blighty praps he sees his plucks all gone...." (Whereas you are a beacon of clairty.)
"Unable to call you." (Thank God.)
"Fall asleep, fall asleep--As I walked along the hallway and down the stairs of Gateshead Hall..." (Wow! Just those few words and I'm halfway there.)
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Anyway, here is the latest culling from the cyberspace garbage, with the "come on" of the message exactly as received, and my Pavlov's dog response.
"What's this?" (Why, this is spam! I'm surprised you didn't notice it. I spotted it a mile away.)
mary LAST_NAME "are you bored lonely and wanting some spice? I'm cathy and I..." (You're cathy? You just told me you were mary LAST_NAME? It's so hard to know who to trust these days.)
"Still dislike me?" (Hey, you're pretty perceptive for a spammer!)
"You can joinUp with our dating community without a nickel-being spent!" (Or, I can not join up with your dating community without a nickel-being spent." I like that option better.)
"Will the 90 day Wealth Challenge bring you financial triumph?" (Gee, that's a tough one. Let me take a really wild guess...)
"Make her want it 24/7" ("It"? Can you be a bit more specific? You spammers are so subtle it's difficult to know what you mean.)
"and the long-eared own standing watchover a dark churchyard laughed..." (and the short-tempered writer wading through his spam messages thought this was clever, but not clever enough to make him open it.)
"Assistance..Needed. Dear Friend, I am Mr. Zhang tiejun, Foreign operations manager, Bank of China, Hong Kong...." (Do you suppose I might ask how, out of 6 billion people on the planet, you wrote to me?)
"Become a photographer from the convenience and comfort of your home!" (Uh, doesn't that sort of limit my range of things to photograph?)
"Shall Life Renew these bodies of a Truth?" (I don't know...shall it? But first, what the hell are you talking about? ...Never mind, I don't want to know.)
"You're a jerk!" (Why thank you, you silver-tongued rascal you. That's sure to get me to read your post! But we'll have to wait until hell freezes over.)
"Unable to understand you. --It Blighty praps he sees his plucks all gone...." (Whereas you are a beacon of clairty.)
"Unable to call you." (Thank God.)
"Fall asleep, fall asleep--As I walked along the hallway and down the stairs of Gateshead Hall..." (Wow! Just those few words and I'm halfway there.)
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Yesterdays and Today
If you've been following these blogs for any length of time, you know how I enjoy being able to travel back more than 50 years to my navy days, thanks to the letters I wrote to my parents at the time. I am infinitely grateful to my folks for keeping them. And as always, all I have to do is read one of those letters, and I am there.
Fifty-five years ago yesterday, I had been in the Naval Aviation Cadet program almost exactly two months, and was still in Pre-Flight training. Put today aside for the moment, and sit beside me in my barracks room in Pensacola, Florida, as I write.
Wednesday, October13, 1954
Today we saw a movie in P.T. on “How to Survive in the Tundra” (semi-arctic regions). It was one of those “how to survive on a broken compass & old fish heads” things. I thought it was terrifically funny (though it wasn’t supposed to be). Of course there were, among the six marooned men, several familiar characters. There was a George Washington Carver who could whip up a tasty dish out of a bunch of rock lichen; a Daniel Boone type, who could (and did) trap everything from a lemming (a glorified field mouse—they are delicious) to a caribou which, unfortunately, they missed—they had set up an ingenious device with two twigs and a 90-lb piece of sod, but the caribou outsmarted them (not a difficult task, I assure you); and, of course, there was the General-All-Around-Genius who could make more things out of one lousy parachute than are dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio. This latter genius also, in his spare time, made a dandy kite (out of the parachute, of course) for attracting airplanes—I expected at any moment to see him attach a key to it and discover electricity, but he never got around to it.
Now, to answer dad’s questions—I want just my one suitcase, so that when I come home Xmas I’ll have something larger than my duffle bag to pack my things in. Send them (or rather it) any time you want, just so it’s fairly soon. Yes, the band instruments are furnished, & I hope to stay on after moving to Corry Field or Whiting Field (which I’ll do on or about Nov. 26).
I surely am glad I joined the band! I told you, I think, all about what we may get to do. November 20 we are going to the Duke-South Carolina game (the Duke-Georgia Tech game would be too soon for us to be ready). We will all be flown to Durham, North Carolina for it. Last Saturday night we played for the Admiral at a football game, and he liked us so well he’s planned a “surprise” for us (which, it is rumored, may be a trip to the Army-Navy game!). Miami is still pending. Nov. 11 we’re to lead a parade in Pensacola. Four days before Xmas vacation, if all goes well, we will be flown to New York City to appear on “Toast of the Town”; then we’ll fly home from there if we want. God, I’d give my life’s blood to get to New York for four days!!
Haven’t been doing much of anything lately except study—haven’t even gone to a show in two weeks! Saturday morning we have band practice, but Saturday afternoon I hope to get downtown to pick up my picture. I hope you like it—it will have to be hung as it is too large to put atop the record cabinet.
Did the movies come? Have you looked at them yet? The large blank space at the beginning is where I had written “Welcome to Florida” in the white sand, but it was evidently too bright.
Well, I’d better close for now. I would appreciate your sending some money for new film. (Note—this is the first time I’ve ever written home for money! I’ve gotten $15 from you all the time I’ve been here, and that’s pretty inexpensive if you ask me).
I’ll try to write more this weekend. Till then I am
As Always
Roge
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Fifty-five years ago yesterday, I had been in the Naval Aviation Cadet program almost exactly two months, and was still in Pre-Flight training. Put today aside for the moment, and sit beside me in my barracks room in Pensacola, Florida, as I write.
Wednesday, October13, 1954
Today we saw a movie in P.T. on “How to Survive in the Tundra” (semi-arctic regions). It was one of those “how to survive on a broken compass & old fish heads” things. I thought it was terrifically funny (though it wasn’t supposed to be). Of course there were, among the six marooned men, several familiar characters. There was a George Washington Carver who could whip up a tasty dish out of a bunch of rock lichen; a Daniel Boone type, who could (and did) trap everything from a lemming (a glorified field mouse—they are delicious) to a caribou which, unfortunately, they missed—they had set up an ingenious device with two twigs and a 90-lb piece of sod, but the caribou outsmarted them (not a difficult task, I assure you); and, of course, there was the General-All-Around-Genius who could make more things out of one lousy parachute than are dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio. This latter genius also, in his spare time, made a dandy kite (out of the parachute, of course) for attracting airplanes—I expected at any moment to see him attach a key to it and discover electricity, but he never got around to it.
Now, to answer dad’s questions—I want just my one suitcase, so that when I come home Xmas I’ll have something larger than my duffle bag to pack my things in. Send them (or rather it) any time you want, just so it’s fairly soon. Yes, the band instruments are furnished, & I hope to stay on after moving to Corry Field or Whiting Field (which I’ll do on or about Nov. 26).
I surely am glad I joined the band! I told you, I think, all about what we may get to do. November 20 we are going to the Duke-South Carolina game (the Duke-Georgia Tech game would be too soon for us to be ready). We will all be flown to Durham, North Carolina for it. Last Saturday night we played for the Admiral at a football game, and he liked us so well he’s planned a “surprise” for us (which, it is rumored, may be a trip to the Army-Navy game!). Miami is still pending. Nov. 11 we’re to lead a parade in Pensacola. Four days before Xmas vacation, if all goes well, we will be flown to New York City to appear on “Toast of the Town”; then we’ll fly home from there if we want. God, I’d give my life’s blood to get to New York for four days!!
Haven’t been doing much of anything lately except study—haven’t even gone to a show in two weeks! Saturday morning we have band practice, but Saturday afternoon I hope to get downtown to pick up my picture. I hope you like it—it will have to be hung as it is too large to put atop the record cabinet.
Did the movies come? Have you looked at them yet? The large blank space at the beginning is where I had written “Welcome to Florida” in the white sand, but it was evidently too bright.
Well, I’d better close for now. I would appreciate your sending some money for new film. (Note—this is the first time I’ve ever written home for money! I’ve gotten $15 from you all the time I’ve been here, and that’s pretty inexpensive if you ask me).
I’ll try to write more this weekend. Till then I am
As Always
Roge
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Things to Say
After more than 400 blogs, you'd think I'd run out of things to say, but it hasn't happened yet and isn't likely to happen any time soon. At least I hope not. I do admit, however, to there being times when coming up with something new is a little difficult, like contemplating a sand box and trying to select one grain of sand to examine.
I've written enough blogs to fill a good-sized book, but realize there is a considerable difference between quantity and quality. Most of my blogs start out as top-of-the-head thoughts, and don't get too terribly much more organized from that point on.
I recently saw a delightful video of a baby girl, probably a little over a year old, in a car seat in the back of her parents' car. She is babbling on at an amazing pace, and at considerable length, with great of passion and sincerity as though she was speaking fluently in a foreign language. The very look on her face gave assurance that she was indeed discoursing on very profound matters, and fully expected her listeners to understand her every word.
I feel like that often. I babble on with passion and sincerity and become so entranced with the sound of my own voice (as it were) that I am convinced I'm actually saying something worth listening to.
Oddly, when I'm in a group of people, even among my friends, I don't have all that much to say...aloud. But my mind never stops churning, running from one thing to the next, which is probably one of the problems. It's rather like looking up a word in the dictionary. I'll start looking for it, and my eye will be caught by one of the words around it, or within the definition of that word will be a word I wonder about, and so I'll go there, and that definition may also have a word in or around it that I wonder about, and so on. Putting down a dictionary once I've opened it takes a lot of willpower--of which I have very little to begin with.
One of the problems I have is not necessarily finding something to write about, but trying to snatch one snowflake of thought out of the blizzard of thoughts constantly swirling around me, or trying to catch a greased pig at the county fair. I don't recall if I mentioned it, but I currently have at least a dozen blogs I've begun, gotten one or two sentences or paragraphs into, then been distracted by another thought. And of course there are times when I think I have something to say about a certain subject and then find out that no, I don't, really.
I'm really disturbed by the fact that I tend to dwell more on negative subjects than positive, but it's on the same principle as to why bad news always makes the headlines: we are, to our credit, programmed to accept the good as the norm. Day-to-day, garden variety good news seldom makes the headlines, and yet it is as much a wonder as earthquakes and scandals and other bad things which seem to overwhelm us. Babies and puppies and kittens are delightful, but they're like many sweet things; they're best taken in small doses--say a paragraph or two. An entire blog about them can be a bit much.
I do tend to have certain themes I keep returning to perhaps more than I should: my various frustrations, a few fingernails-on-the-blackboard irritations--internet spam, people who take physical, financial, or emotional advantage of others; the incredible gullibility of far, far too many people; bigotry, intolerance, insensitivity, anyone presuming to tell others how to think (especially those loathsome non-humans who feel they have the right to speak for God), blatant stupidity, egregious illogic, those who refuse to listen to or even consider anyone's opinion but their own; proselytizers, bottom-liners, bottom-feeders...well, you get the idea.
But I really do like kittens and puppies and babies. I just don't talk about them much.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
I've written enough blogs to fill a good-sized book, but realize there is a considerable difference between quantity and quality. Most of my blogs start out as top-of-the-head thoughts, and don't get too terribly much more organized from that point on.
I recently saw a delightful video of a baby girl, probably a little over a year old, in a car seat in the back of her parents' car. She is babbling on at an amazing pace, and at considerable length, with great of passion and sincerity as though she was speaking fluently in a foreign language. The very look on her face gave assurance that she was indeed discoursing on very profound matters, and fully expected her listeners to understand her every word.
I feel like that often. I babble on with passion and sincerity and become so entranced with the sound of my own voice (as it were) that I am convinced I'm actually saying something worth listening to.
Oddly, when I'm in a group of people, even among my friends, I don't have all that much to say...aloud. But my mind never stops churning, running from one thing to the next, which is probably one of the problems. It's rather like looking up a word in the dictionary. I'll start looking for it, and my eye will be caught by one of the words around it, or within the definition of that word will be a word I wonder about, and so I'll go there, and that definition may also have a word in or around it that I wonder about, and so on. Putting down a dictionary once I've opened it takes a lot of willpower--of which I have very little to begin with.
One of the problems I have is not necessarily finding something to write about, but trying to snatch one snowflake of thought out of the blizzard of thoughts constantly swirling around me, or trying to catch a greased pig at the county fair. I don't recall if I mentioned it, but I currently have at least a dozen blogs I've begun, gotten one or two sentences or paragraphs into, then been distracted by another thought. And of course there are times when I think I have something to say about a certain subject and then find out that no, I don't, really.
I'm really disturbed by the fact that I tend to dwell more on negative subjects than positive, but it's on the same principle as to why bad news always makes the headlines: we are, to our credit, programmed to accept the good as the norm. Day-to-day, garden variety good news seldom makes the headlines, and yet it is as much a wonder as earthquakes and scandals and other bad things which seem to overwhelm us. Babies and puppies and kittens are delightful, but they're like many sweet things; they're best taken in small doses--say a paragraph or two. An entire blog about them can be a bit much.
I do tend to have certain themes I keep returning to perhaps more than I should: my various frustrations, a few fingernails-on-the-blackboard irritations--internet spam, people who take physical, financial, or emotional advantage of others; the incredible gullibility of far, far too many people; bigotry, intolerance, insensitivity, anyone presuming to tell others how to think (especially those loathsome non-humans who feel they have the right to speak for God), blatant stupidity, egregious illogic, those who refuse to listen to or even consider anyone's opinion but their own; proselytizers, bottom-liners, bottom-feeders...well, you get the idea.
But I really do like kittens and puppies and babies. I just don't talk about them much.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Friday, October 09, 2009
Why Bother?
Here I am, again recovering from yet another Wagnerian storm of fury and self loathing. What puzzles me most is why I even bother to be surprised when something I do does not go the way it should go...or the way it would go--flawlessly--were you or any living creature with a modicum of motor skills and the I.Q. of a turnip doing it.
I suppose a bit of backstory is called for, here.
I related in an earlier blog my Friday from Hell--yet another in an endless string of examples of my cat-and-mouse game with life (I, of course, being the mouse)--in trying to get back to Chicago from my last trip to Rochester, MN after the return bus for which I held a ticket was cancelled without notice, thereby effectively stranding me 400+ miles from home with no other practical way to get back.
I had sent a letter to the bus company, Jefferson Bus Lines--remember that name--responsible for the problem, together with copies of the $226.00 in expenses I incurred as a result.
Got a reply yesterday telling me they were sorry, but it was clearly my responsibility to check to see if the bus might have been cancelled. (Excuse me?) But they magnanimously offered to refund a portion of my unused bus ticket (all of $36.00) if I sent them the unused ticket.
Now, these blogs are filled with ample evidence that I am not the brightest button in the jar, but I also am not totally stupid. So I should send them the original of the unused ticket and, when I write them after six months of not hearing from them again, I can get a letter saying "We never got it. Tough shit."
So I wrote them another letter this morning, and set about printing it out to send them.
Have you ever printed a letter using a computer? You select what you want to print. You turn on the printer. You go to "File" and select-and-press "Print" and the printer hums and whirs efficiently and dutifully produces a copy of what you requested.
YOU do that. I select what I want to print. I turn on the printer. I go to "File" and select-and-press "Print" and the printer hums and whirs and grabs six sheets of paper, wrinkles them up, and crams them just far enough inside itself for the "PAPER JAM" light to start flashing wildly. The printer's designers have carefully made the machine so that once something is caught within, it is almost impossible to remove. They did build in, however, a clever little digital display to assist the owner in resolving the problem in three easy steps.
Each of the three steps appears on the tiny screen for no longer than two seconds. Step one involves opening the door to provide an unhelpful front view of the printer's innards. Step two shows a hand pushing some sort of red lever to the left, and Step three involves closing the door. I caught on to Steps one and three fairly easily. The problem lay in Step two and pushing the red lever to the left. There is no red lever. There is no lever of any color. Just the exposed innards of the machine. I want very much to push the red lever to the left. Really, I do. I would be giddy with delight to be able to push it. If it were there, which it isn't.
I am of course by this point approaching apoplexy, exerting all my willpower to prevent myself from grabbing the printer and throwing it through the unopened window.
I eventually get the jammed paper out of the machine. Hoping for the best, I press the printer's "Off" button, planning to let it rest and consider the error of its ways, then restart it and hope it's learned its lesson. The machine stays on. I press "Off" again. Five times. It stays on. I clamor under the desk trying to figure out which one of the 247 plugs and wires under there is the one for the printer. One by one I pull out 246 of the plugs, checking to see if it is the one for the printer. It is not. The 247th one is.
I let everything rest for a minute, then plug it back in. I go to "File", select-and-press "Print" and the machine hums and whirs and politely takes one sheet of paper from the stack, ingests it, then spits it out, blank. Before I can do anything, it takes in and spits out four other blank sheets of paper in rapid succession, then stops halfway through the fifth sheet, leaving it half in and half out of the machine. The printer, both it and I know full well, is sticking its tongue out at me.
I yank it out and call my long-suffering friend Gary. He comes up to my apartment, sits at the computer, goes to "File," selects and hits "Print" and the machine hums and whirs and takes one sheet of paper from the stack and dutiful produces the letter I have been trying to print for the past hour and a half.
Gary, as always, looks at me with a sad little smile that so clearly says "poor, hopeless Roger," shakes his head, and leaves. And I sit down to write this blog and try not to cry.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
I suppose a bit of backstory is called for, here.
I related in an earlier blog my Friday from Hell--yet another in an endless string of examples of my cat-and-mouse game with life (I, of course, being the mouse)--in trying to get back to Chicago from my last trip to Rochester, MN after the return bus for which I held a ticket was cancelled without notice, thereby effectively stranding me 400+ miles from home with no other practical way to get back.
I had sent a letter to the bus company, Jefferson Bus Lines--remember that name--responsible for the problem, together with copies of the $226.00 in expenses I incurred as a result.
Got a reply yesterday telling me they were sorry, but it was clearly my responsibility to check to see if the bus might have been cancelled. (Excuse me?) But they magnanimously offered to refund a portion of my unused bus ticket (all of $36.00) if I sent them the unused ticket.
Now, these blogs are filled with ample evidence that I am not the brightest button in the jar, but I also am not totally stupid. So I should send them the original of the unused ticket and, when I write them after six months of not hearing from them again, I can get a letter saying "We never got it. Tough shit."
So I wrote them another letter this morning, and set about printing it out to send them.
Have you ever printed a letter using a computer? You select what you want to print. You turn on the printer. You go to "File" and select-and-press "Print" and the printer hums and whirs efficiently and dutifully produces a copy of what you requested.
YOU do that. I select what I want to print. I turn on the printer. I go to "File" and select-and-press "Print" and the printer hums and whirs and grabs six sheets of paper, wrinkles them up, and crams them just far enough inside itself for the "PAPER JAM" light to start flashing wildly. The printer's designers have carefully made the machine so that once something is caught within, it is almost impossible to remove. They did build in, however, a clever little digital display to assist the owner in resolving the problem in three easy steps.
Each of the three steps appears on the tiny screen for no longer than two seconds. Step one involves opening the door to provide an unhelpful front view of the printer's innards. Step two shows a hand pushing some sort of red lever to the left, and Step three involves closing the door. I caught on to Steps one and three fairly easily. The problem lay in Step two and pushing the red lever to the left. There is no red lever. There is no lever of any color. Just the exposed innards of the machine. I want very much to push the red lever to the left. Really, I do. I would be giddy with delight to be able to push it. If it were there, which it isn't.
I am of course by this point approaching apoplexy, exerting all my willpower to prevent myself from grabbing the printer and throwing it through the unopened window.
I eventually get the jammed paper out of the machine. Hoping for the best, I press the printer's "Off" button, planning to let it rest and consider the error of its ways, then restart it and hope it's learned its lesson. The machine stays on. I press "Off" again. Five times. It stays on. I clamor under the desk trying to figure out which one of the 247 plugs and wires under there is the one for the printer. One by one I pull out 246 of the plugs, checking to see if it is the one for the printer. It is not. The 247th one is.
I let everything rest for a minute, then plug it back in. I go to "File", select-and-press "Print" and the machine hums and whirs and politely takes one sheet of paper from the stack, ingests it, then spits it out, blank. Before I can do anything, it takes in and spits out four other blank sheets of paper in rapid succession, then stops halfway through the fifth sheet, leaving it half in and half out of the machine. The printer, both it and I know full well, is sticking its tongue out at me.
I yank it out and call my long-suffering friend Gary. He comes up to my apartment, sits at the computer, goes to "File," selects and hits "Print" and the machine hums and whirs and takes one sheet of paper from the stack and dutiful produces the letter I have been trying to print for the past hour and a half.
Gary, as always, looks at me with a sad little smile that so clearly says "poor, hopeless Roger," shakes his head, and leaves. And I sit down to write this blog and try not to cry.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
"Thimk!"
I suppose that for someone whose mind operates like a runaway concrete mixer, it is not surprising that when it comes to my daily life, I so seldom actually stop to think before I do something. It has been one of the banes of my existence (and my existence is filled with banes of various shapes and sizes). I never allow myself to contemplate where I might have gotten in life had I not had to spend so much time constantly going back to retrace my steps in attempting to undo mistakes made through lack of thinking ahead.
I take some small comfort in the fact that I cannot claim a patent on this problem, and that--hard as it may be for me to realize--others actually make even more astoundingly stupid act-first-think-later mistakes than I. Today's paper, for example, had an article of a woman who was filling a gas can and, in order to see how much gas was already in the can, used a cigarette lighter to look inside. Hospital emergency rooms...and morgues...are filled with similar examples. The annual Darwin Awards are absolute gems of cases of people who, by not thinking ahead, to quote the awards, "improve the human gene pool by leaving it." I take great comfort in the Darwin Awards.
Assumptions are dangerous whenever they are used, as I so often use them, in lieu of thinking. When I set my keys down, I of course know exactly where I put them. I therefore automatically assume that three minutes later I will still remember where they are. Wrong. I can and do forget them within the time and space required to take three steps in any direction. Then begins the increasingly frenzied search accompanied by mounting self-fury for being so incredibly stupid as to have lost them in the first place. I find myself looking in places I know full well I'd not been near in days. I look in the cupboards. I look in the refrigerator. I look under every piece of furniture in the apartment. I look in the pockets of pants I've not worn all week. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They have vanished.
Until they show up. And then I have a "well of course that's where they were" moment and totally forget the incident until the next time it happens. (I've always admired the "Duh!" answer to the classic puzzle, "Why is something you're looking for always in the very last place you look?": "Because when you find it you stop looking." Truly profound.)
Untold fortunes have been made on the safe bet that people will act before they think. I read, not too long ago, that the internet is flooded with some 4 billion spam messages every day--though I think that's a very conservative estimate. Fully 99.9 percent of that number are predicated on the people receiving them not taking a single moment to use one iota of logic in thinking about what the message really says. Do none of them stop to wonder why out of the world's population of over 6 billion people, the General Operations Manager of the Hong Kong Bank of China is writing to them to offer untold millions of dollars in exchange for participation in a scheme so devoid of logic that it would give a cocker spaniel pause? The spammers know full well that greed trumps logic nine times out of ten.
And I think yet again of H.L. Mencken's classic observation that "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." Why? Because intelligence requires thinking.
What I find particularly sad and infinitely infuriating is that at the core, not thinking is linked to the basic decency of each human soul, which makes people want to believe what they're told, and an inherent resistance to believe that someone might be untruthful. There are no words adequate to describe those despicable individuals who willingly relinquish every link to humanity but their DNA, and who make it their life's work to destroy the very concept of trust among those who can least afford to lose it. (I am the perfect example of why handguns should be banned, for I sincerely believe that confronted with a room full of these creatures, I would have absolutely no compunction about shooting as many of them as I could.)
Well, again it goes back to a paraphrase of the old saw: "You can lead a man to logic, but you cannot make him think."
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
I take some small comfort in the fact that I cannot claim a patent on this problem, and that--hard as it may be for me to realize--others actually make even more astoundingly stupid act-first-think-later mistakes than I. Today's paper, for example, had an article of a woman who was filling a gas can and, in order to see how much gas was already in the can, used a cigarette lighter to look inside. Hospital emergency rooms...and morgues...are filled with similar examples. The annual Darwin Awards are absolute gems of cases of people who, by not thinking ahead, to quote the awards, "improve the human gene pool by leaving it." I take great comfort in the Darwin Awards.
Assumptions are dangerous whenever they are used, as I so often use them, in lieu of thinking. When I set my keys down, I of course know exactly where I put them. I therefore automatically assume that three minutes later I will still remember where they are. Wrong. I can and do forget them within the time and space required to take three steps in any direction. Then begins the increasingly frenzied search accompanied by mounting self-fury for being so incredibly stupid as to have lost them in the first place. I find myself looking in places I know full well I'd not been near in days. I look in the cupboards. I look in the refrigerator. I look under every piece of furniture in the apartment. I look in the pockets of pants I've not worn all week. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They have vanished.
Until they show up. And then I have a "well of course that's where they were" moment and totally forget the incident until the next time it happens. (I've always admired the "Duh!" answer to the classic puzzle, "Why is something you're looking for always in the very last place you look?": "Because when you find it you stop looking." Truly profound.)
Untold fortunes have been made on the safe bet that people will act before they think. I read, not too long ago, that the internet is flooded with some 4 billion spam messages every day--though I think that's a very conservative estimate. Fully 99.9 percent of that number are predicated on the people receiving them not taking a single moment to use one iota of logic in thinking about what the message really says. Do none of them stop to wonder why out of the world's population of over 6 billion people, the General Operations Manager of the Hong Kong Bank of China is writing to them to offer untold millions of dollars in exchange for participation in a scheme so devoid of logic that it would give a cocker spaniel pause? The spammers know full well that greed trumps logic nine times out of ten.
And I think yet again of H.L. Mencken's classic observation that "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." Why? Because intelligence requires thinking.
What I find particularly sad and infinitely infuriating is that at the core, not thinking is linked to the basic decency of each human soul, which makes people want to believe what they're told, and an inherent resistance to believe that someone might be untruthful. There are no words adequate to describe those despicable individuals who willingly relinquish every link to humanity but their DNA, and who make it their life's work to destroy the very concept of trust among those who can least afford to lose it. (I am the perfect example of why handguns should be banned, for I sincerely believe that confronted with a room full of these creatures, I would have absolutely no compunction about shooting as many of them as I could.)
Well, again it goes back to a paraphrase of the old saw: "You can lead a man to logic, but you cannot make him think."
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Monday, October 05, 2009
On Colds
I don't like to brag--no, really; I don't. But there are some things at which I excel, and colds are one of them. I seldom have a cold, but when I do, I believe in going all out. If most colds could be compared to a high school production of "Death of a Salesman," my colds tend to be on the scale of a Metropolitan Opera production of "Aida," complete with elephants.
Night before last I awoke at 2:15 to the sound of my sinuses slamming shut. My mouth is dry enough under the best of circumstances, so I try to avoid breathing through it. However, the fun of taking a full 20 seconds to inhale one breath through my nose wore out quickly. Finally, by lying in one position long enough, I was able to open up enough to breathe through one nostril. But the minute I changed position.... So I didn't get back to sleep much before 3:00.
Yesterday my nose began running without my first having had a drink of water (whenever I drink water, it tends to run out of my nose, thanks to the radiation's having rearranged the inner structure of my head). I really should invest in Kleenex stock. Yesterday afternoon I enjoyed a couple 5 minute long from-the-bottom-of-my-toes sneezefests, each sneeze accompanied by the spraying about a quart of liquid. Then came the coughing.
Before bed, I scoured my medicine chest in hopes of finding some NyQuil. I did. The label indicated it had Expired 11-08. Found another bottle, nearly empty, which apparently is good until sometime next year...I saw a "10" there and assumed it meant 2010. Who knows.
Chug-a-lugged it and went to bed. Awoke approximately every 7-15 minutes, feeling like a wrung-out dishtowel, to blow my nose, cough, get up for the bathroom, etc.
This morning awoke feeling both exhausted and drugged. That I didn't wake up until 7:15 (the latest I've slept in in living memory) was significant, and I wouldn't have gotten up then except that it was blog day and I had to post it early for east-coast readers.
I must admit that reflecting on my total nobility in suffering (albeit, obviously not in silence) gives me some comfort. I like being brave and stoic, but I like it much more when everyone else knows it, too.
As is the natural progression of my colds and their effect, the above was written yesterday and here it is the third day of my piteous affliction (can I have an "awwwwww" here?) and I'm hoping I am approaching the other side of the hill. Still very little enthusiasm or energy for anything...It's Saturday as I write, and I'm working today. Absolutely no appetite, which isn't saying much since I eat almost nothing even when I'm feeling fine. (I won't wander off in that direction, since I've already squeezed as much sympathy as I possibly could get out of that one.)
But things could always be a lot worse, and I really can't complain--which doesn't stop me from complaining, of course). My colds always hit me like a freight train, but they tend to pass just as quickly, so I'll just think of this one as the 4:10 to Omaha. Ventured out to the store for a new bottle of generic Ny-Quil yesterday (that "10" I mentioned as being on the old bottle could have easily have referred to 1910...I hate throwing anything away). To bed before 10 and up just before 7:30. Slept very well, actually.
So here I sit, still a bit groggy, hoping the worst is behind me, finishing a blog I wonder, as I re-read it, why I'd ever begun. But as I say, I hate throwing anything away.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Night before last I awoke at 2:15 to the sound of my sinuses slamming shut. My mouth is dry enough under the best of circumstances, so I try to avoid breathing through it. However, the fun of taking a full 20 seconds to inhale one breath through my nose wore out quickly. Finally, by lying in one position long enough, I was able to open up enough to breathe through one nostril. But the minute I changed position.... So I didn't get back to sleep much before 3:00.
Yesterday my nose began running without my first having had a drink of water (whenever I drink water, it tends to run out of my nose, thanks to the radiation's having rearranged the inner structure of my head). I really should invest in Kleenex stock. Yesterday afternoon I enjoyed a couple 5 minute long from-the-bottom-of-my-toes sneezefests, each sneeze accompanied by the spraying about a quart of liquid. Then came the coughing.
Before bed, I scoured my medicine chest in hopes of finding some NyQuil. I did. The label indicated it had Expired 11-08. Found another bottle, nearly empty, which apparently is good until sometime next year...I saw a "10" there and assumed it meant 2010. Who knows.
Chug-a-lugged it and went to bed. Awoke approximately every 7-15 minutes, feeling like a wrung-out dishtowel, to blow my nose, cough, get up for the bathroom, etc.
This morning awoke feeling both exhausted and drugged. That I didn't wake up until 7:15 (the latest I've slept in in living memory) was significant, and I wouldn't have gotten up then except that it was blog day and I had to post it early for east-coast readers.
I must admit that reflecting on my total nobility in suffering (albeit, obviously not in silence) gives me some comfort. I like being brave and stoic, but I like it much more when everyone else knows it, too.
As is the natural progression of my colds and their effect, the above was written yesterday and here it is the third day of my piteous affliction (can I have an "awwwwww" here?) and I'm hoping I am approaching the other side of the hill. Still very little enthusiasm or energy for anything...It's Saturday as I write, and I'm working today. Absolutely no appetite, which isn't saying much since I eat almost nothing even when I'm feeling fine. (I won't wander off in that direction, since I've already squeezed as much sympathy as I possibly could get out of that one.)
But things could always be a lot worse, and I really can't complain--which doesn't stop me from complaining, of course). My colds always hit me like a freight train, but they tend to pass just as quickly, so I'll just think of this one as the 4:10 to Omaha. Ventured out to the store for a new bottle of generic Ny-Quil yesterday (that "10" I mentioned as being on the old bottle could have easily have referred to 1910...I hate throwing anything away). To bed before 10 and up just before 7:30. Slept very well, actually.
So here I sit, still a bit groggy, hoping the worst is behind me, finishing a blog I wonder, as I re-read it, why I'd ever begun. But as I say, I hate throwing anything away.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Frustration
I do not handle frustration well. I do not handle many things well, but that's fuel for a future blog.
One would think that having spent a great portion of one's life being frustrated, one would become used to it. One would be wrong.
I'm sure 20 years or so on an analyst's couch, sorting though the myriads of colorful and sometimes odorous details which make up every minute of my life, would produce the conclusion that my problem rests with my absolute conviction that the universe revolves around me, and that therefore I should have complete control over everything at all times. Well, we can save the 20 years because I know that already.
The problem lies in recognizing something on an intellectual level and acknowledging it on an emotional level. My logic and my emotions are continually in a pitched battle over which will have control. Were I you, I would not place much money on logic.
Logic tells me I am a reasonably intelligent human being, and with that thought comes loud and raucous laughter from my emotions. The simple fact is that I have never, ever been in complete control of my emotions, which as I have often said never really got beyond the "terrible twos" stage of development. When I want something, I want it, and I want it now and can see no reason why I cannot have it.
That I have never understood life, my place in it, or how I am expected to react to also plays a large role in my own little civil war. I see the world, emotionally, pretty much as a toddler sees it. If it's pretty, I want it. And I do not take "no" for an answer. My logic, which spends a great deal of its time shaking its head sadly and sighing, does its very best to explain what it has learned of the world through reading and observing other people. My emotion totally disregards it. I'm the center of the universe, fer chrissakes! How can things not go the way I want them to?
How can everyone else on the planet with 1/10th my intelligence (ego, anyone?) do things with total, effortless ease, get it right the first time and, most insulting of all to my emotions, not think a thing of it. They wouldn't write instruction manuals, or give careful, full-color illustrated "Insert Tab A into Slot B" directions for assembling a cardboard box if anyone else but me could not understand them.
And once something...anything...triggers my frustration response, all bets are off. My mind totally shuts down to the point where I would be hard pressed to tell you my own name. All rational thought ceases.
I know full well that frustration is a part of life...I'd imagine even you experience it from time to time. But everyone else seems have a built in mental safety switch which I do not have, and which kicks in, allowing them, after perhaps a moment or two of distress, to recover, calm down, and get on with their lives. I can best describe my reaction to frustration by comparing it to pictures of the World Trade Center collapse. Total, utter, instantaneous destruction with no hope for anyone's survival.
I find it ironic that my totally disproportionate emotional reaction to things which trigger my frustration is directly related to my totally disproportionate sense of my own importance. Because I am the center of the universe, how can this be happening to me? How can I be so stupid? My frustration quickly, like the falling towers, dissolves into rage and self loathing so intense it often, and sincerely, frightens me.
It just struck me that this blog may be an attempt by my logical side to subtly convince my emotions not to over-react so strongly. Unfortunately, it's never worked before, and I wouldn't hold my breath on its working this time, either.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
One would think that having spent a great portion of one's life being frustrated, one would become used to it. One would be wrong.
I'm sure 20 years or so on an analyst's couch, sorting though the myriads of colorful and sometimes odorous details which make up every minute of my life, would produce the conclusion that my problem rests with my absolute conviction that the universe revolves around me, and that therefore I should have complete control over everything at all times. Well, we can save the 20 years because I know that already.
The problem lies in recognizing something on an intellectual level and acknowledging it on an emotional level. My logic and my emotions are continually in a pitched battle over which will have control. Were I you, I would not place much money on logic.
Logic tells me I am a reasonably intelligent human being, and with that thought comes loud and raucous laughter from my emotions. The simple fact is that I have never, ever been in complete control of my emotions, which as I have often said never really got beyond the "terrible twos" stage of development. When I want something, I want it, and I want it now and can see no reason why I cannot have it.
That I have never understood life, my place in it, or how I am expected to react to also plays a large role in my own little civil war. I see the world, emotionally, pretty much as a toddler sees it. If it's pretty, I want it. And I do not take "no" for an answer. My logic, which spends a great deal of its time shaking its head sadly and sighing, does its very best to explain what it has learned of the world through reading and observing other people. My emotion totally disregards it. I'm the center of the universe, fer chrissakes! How can things not go the way I want them to?
How can everyone else on the planet with 1/10th my intelligence (ego, anyone?) do things with total, effortless ease, get it right the first time and, most insulting of all to my emotions, not think a thing of it. They wouldn't write instruction manuals, or give careful, full-color illustrated "Insert Tab A into Slot B" directions for assembling a cardboard box if anyone else but me could not understand them.
And once something...anything...triggers my frustration response, all bets are off. My mind totally shuts down to the point where I would be hard pressed to tell you my own name. All rational thought ceases.
I know full well that frustration is a part of life...I'd imagine even you experience it from time to time. But everyone else seems have a built in mental safety switch which I do not have, and which kicks in, allowing them, after perhaps a moment or two of distress, to recover, calm down, and get on with their lives. I can best describe my reaction to frustration by comparing it to pictures of the World Trade Center collapse. Total, utter, instantaneous destruction with no hope for anyone's survival.
I find it ironic that my totally disproportionate emotional reaction to things which trigger my frustration is directly related to my totally disproportionate sense of my own importance. Because I am the center of the universe, how can this be happening to me? How can I be so stupid? My frustration quickly, like the falling towers, dissolves into rage and self loathing so intense it often, and sincerely, frightens me.
It just struck me that this blog may be an attempt by my logical side to subtly convince my emotions not to over-react so strongly. Unfortunately, it's never worked before, and I wouldn't hold my breath on its working this time, either.
New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.
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