Those Episcopalians are OK in my book. They just approved another measure toward easing the path to marriage for same sex couples. That people of the same sex should be allowed to marry is a good thing. I have absolutely no idea if they will have sex as a couple, but they can do that without getting married. And since when is marriage about sex? Judging from my own experience, marriage is more about not having sex. As a bachelor, there’s no limit to the amount of sex that a rapacious pussy hound can have. (Reference the memoirs of Wilt Chamberlain.) But in the traditional view of marriage, when you tie the knot, it’s a slip knot around your dick, which is promptly squeezed off until your spouse decides on loosening the noose. I don’t know about most guys, but the older we both get, the more reluctant my SO is to loosen the old slip knot. If marriage were about sex, I trade her in for two twenties and a…

Trading down is not that easy because the bond between two people entering into Holy Matrimony should be based on more than pussy and procreating. Kids can be nice, but they just don’t hold up as a good reason for vows of eternal fidelity. And the bonds that do justify taking solemn vows can exist between any two people, including people of the same sex. When one considers that there’s no reason to assume that just because two people are a couple they’re having sex with each other, even people who oppose the gay lifestyle can still support same sex marriages.

A big part of the problem with same sex marriages is that there is no problem with same sex marriages. The problem is with grouchy old heterosexuals who can’t get over the yuck factor of two men holding hands, kissing, and… You see, I’m one of those grouchy old heterosexuals, and I can’t even bring myself to mention anything beyond hand holding and kissing. But I’m also not God or Jesus and therefore I don’t assume I have the right to make the rules for other people. That’s why those Episcopalians are OK in my book. None of the Episcopalians who voted for allowing same sex marriages were God or Jesus either, and they had enough sense to see that. Jesus didn’t make any rule against same sex marriages, and he certainly had enough time for making such a rule had he wanted to. The other denominations, at least the ones that believe in following the teachings of Jesus Christ, should be following the Episcopalian example.

As an aside...
I'm off to family reunion. Since when did these gatherings get to be so much work! And I haven't even left yet. Anyway, should be a fun couple of weeks.
 

We Americans must spend billions on medicine for curing insomnia. Why don't we all just go back to school instead. For the last couple of days, I've been reviewing math, and I can say without equivocating that this shit is boring. I don't care what stress, worries, or physical problems you may have, going back to the beginning in math will put you to sleep. I'm forced to review because I must pass a math proficiency test, and I have only a month for reviewing everything. I had forgotten how much can be done with just 10 lousy digits. And to make things worse, I had a romanticized notion of studying from my young days. Now I recall my school daze accurately. I was always falling asleep over these stupid books then too.

And speaking of books, I'm in shock. My books costs $657.00 for one semester. I was like, “You gotta be shitting me!” My friendly, baby-faced teller suggested that I buy used. I felt like telling her that I'm already being used. Why do these books cost so much? It's not like the professors writing them aren't already getting paid. I can understand it for post-graduate students, but nothing new has come along in undergraduate math for years. Why can't we just keep reprinting the same textbooks they've been using since about 1865. That way textbooks would be less than a dollar. I've already got a gazillion invested in textbooks from 30 years ago and I can't reuse them. They're not antiques or classics. They're just worthless. I am not amused. If these college professors are already sucking the blood out students through textbook sales, how come we still gotta pay them salaries?

As if the cost of books, not to mention tuition, isn't bad enough, I can't even chase coeds without being a dirty old man. Why is being a dirty young man considered cool, but being a dirty old man is considered perverted? Either way, the effect on the coeds is the same. I should say young coeds. While I was registering, some older coeds, at least I think they were registering too, were ogling me like I was a potential person of interest. Dirty old women? That's just wrong. Gave me the heebie jeebies. I got a bad feeling that this is just the beginning. In fact I got a bad feeling about this whole returning to school later in life thing. Maybe Alzheimer's isn't so bad after all.
 

I should be living a slow life, spending my few remaining hours pondering death, as it relentlessly closes in on me. I do contemplate death a little bit, but not much. And I don’t really see it weighing on me until I spot the specter swinging the scythe. I’m in my late 50’s and back in the late 50’s, I could expect, at most, another ten years of life and a fairly uncomplicated demise; heart attack, stroke, or something quick like that. These days, advances in modern medicine just keep increasing the average life span, and death will most likely turn into a real pain in the ass, stretched out over months if not years of suffering. As I reach the end of my productive work life, for me living has turned into a make-work proposition. I could probably just hang out for the next ten years, but I can’t do nothing for a span that could last another 20 to 30 years, or Alzheimer’s will surely set in. So right now, while the synapses are still firing, I’ve got to find something to occupy my time.

I’ve decided on going back to school and getting a teaching certification in math. I don’t want to teach math on a full time basis, but I think I’d be a great substitute teacher, because a sub only has to hold em down until the real teacher returns. And math is one of those subjects where you don’t have to worry about keeping up with current events. Actually, the more I think about it, I would make a great math teacher because I struggled with math. I know what math paralysis is. The problem with most teachers is that they only teach what they’re good at. That’s why there’s a shortage of math teachers. Not many people are just naturally good in math, and those that are good at it can’t relate to those that aren’t.

But what if the rule was that in order to teach a subject, you had to suck at it for a long time. Immediately there would be a glut of math and sex education teachers. Well maybe not sex education teachers, because eventually you would be required to demonstrate a mastery of the subject. The point is that you’d know what not getting it feels like. I don’t know how many times, even after I had studied for hours and hours, a math professor or TA would say to me, “You should know THIS by now.” Well I already knew I should know THAT. What I needed to be told was something that I didn’t already know, i.e. THAT, in a way I could understand IT. But they couldn’t tell me THAT because they didn’t know how to tell IT to a math dim bulb like me.

After graduating from college, I kept at it, with many failures, and at the expense of a good GPA, until I was finally comfortable with Calc, Trig, Algebra, Diff-E-Q, and all that crap. Of course, it all turned out to be useless in real life, so as soon as I learned it, except for the couple of times when I tutored friends in math, I forgot it. Well now, it’s time to dredge all those theorems and corollaries back up. It’s time for me to impart the same knowledge to others, so they can also find it useless in real life. Of course math isn’t really useless, but it is possible to know it without being adept enough to do useful things with it. That’s the point I eventually got to in Math, so it’s only fair that I should teach the subject. Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach.

And there is evidence that studying math and music helps combat Alzheimer’s. Maybe I’ve reached the end of my useful life, but I’m not going under to Alzheimer’s without a fight. But just in case this math thing doesn’t work out. I’m taking up the banjo.
 

There was a conversation going on a few days back about blogging for free on MySpace versus fee-based blogging on WDC. So in a rare fit of intellectual curiosity, I went to Myspace.com to check it out.

Holy Moly! What a site! Is this legal? I clicked on a link that said Browse People and page after page of women, many of them scantily clad, popped up on my screen. The last time I saw a line of T & A that long, it was being marched to the gas chambers. And I didn’t touch anything, Honest. The only thing I did was click on that link, and there they were, from boobylicious to bootylicious, posing suggestively. I bet you can't find anything like this in a communist country. No wonder the Berlin Wall fell.

And the best part is I'm innocent because I didn't do anything. Just clicked on a link. When I go on facebook, there’s a link over the right side of the page, See who’s looking for you. There’s almost always a picture of one or more attractive women in that link, and up til now, I wondered why these women could never find me. Well, its because I’m on facebook and WDC and they’re on MySpace.

MySpace could be dangerous for an old ticker like mine. That may be too much T & A, but what a way to go! And you can blog on that thing too?

 

One of my significant other's favorite whines is, “Why didn't you rent something we both could watch?” The artsy-fartsy garbage she wants to watch is usually so boring that I fall asleep during the opening credits, so I've learned to save the good movies for when she's out of town. She's visiting her folks right now, and last night I treated myself to Grand Torino. If I'm being honest, other than a hellatously good shootout at the end, I wasn't expecting too much from Grand Torino. It's a genre film, part of what I call the Crusty-Old-Curmudgeon Kind, or COC film for short. (Int this case, I thought it prudent, despite the homo-erotic overtones in many of these films, to omit the 'K' from the acronym.)

Here in the US, COC films usually involve some grouchy old man of one race bringing some kid of another race or ethic group back onto the path of rightousness. The wayward black child becoming all goody-two-shoes after an encounter with a white COC is an American movie and TV staple. I know of an old TV show where one white COC kept a whole basketball team of black misfits on the straight and narrow for years. The flip side of white COC/black child is another American staple, black COC/white child. In this version, some sissy-assed ninety-pound-weakling white child discovers that he loves an old black COC enough to fight for it. The whole movie is about the white child learning to fight. I don't quite get black COC/white child. If white people are such crappy fighters, shouldn't they have been the slaves? Of course, this being America, there is no end to the mixing and matching of the races, and each new race combination is presented as a new movie even though it's the same worn out idea.

In Grand Torino, the ethnic combination is white COC/Hmong kid, and the real reason I rented the film is that Clint Eastwood stars as the crusty old curmudgeon, who teaches the Hmong kid how standing up to a gang is done in America. I was used to Eastwood's snarling, growling, and scowling, that's about all he ever does anymore in movies, but the Hmong kid, his cute sister, and their crusty old curmudgeon of a grandmother were a pleasant surprise. I only had to get over the sister reminding me, a Vietnam era veteran, that the Hmong people had fought with us during the Vietnam War, only to have The US desert them when we lost. I already knew the difference between the Hmong and the Vietnamese, because, like Eastwood, I knew a Hmong girl, who chastised me for making the they-all-look-alike-to-me mistake. I could relate to her anger. I consider my self a crusty old curmudgeon, and I am often mistaken for a crabby old codger or a crotchety old coot. It hurts because beneath the crusty and cranky exterior of a crusty old curmudgeon, there always beats a heart of gold. This is America, and there is a difference between a curmudgeon, a coot, and a codger. Learn it! Know it!

I found the relationship between Eastwood and the Hmong girl very heartwarming and true to life because I was also taken with my little Hmong girl: with her perky, little breasts and her... er... ah... uh... AHEM! Well anyway, there is the required shootout at the end of Grand Torino and of course Eastwood saves the kid from being one hung Hmong and we realize that the Hmongs belong and the movie was a lot of fun and Eastwood becomes the ultimate crusty old curmudgeon with a heart of gold, deserving, in fact, of the title Crusty Old Curmudgeon King, despite being a sucker for the cute Hmong girl.

Really the only disappointment was that even though the title of the movie was Grand Torino, I had expected the car to be an Oldsmobile Toranado. That the sort of thing that would only happen to a silly old coot. Ahem!
 

I may have just confirmed the existence of God. I took a look at my family room today, and it’s in a state of general clutter. I can’t imagine why. Of course, I didn’t do it, and my SO is off visiting her parents. Eliminating the only two corporeal residents of my house leads me to the obvious answer. Some metaphysical force or entity is behind the disarray. If there are ghosts, then there is a Holy Ghost, the ghost who pulls the wool over peoples’ eyes as soon as they walk into a church. I stay out of churches, so I have no problem with the Holy Ghost, except I wish he or she would tell their little underling ghosts to pick up their shit. One of them left a beer can on the coffee table. What the hell! Now I gotta do housework because they’re certainly not going to do it.

Spirits must be henpecked or something as well. They don’t make a mess when my sweetie is around. Or maybe God is a woman after all, in cahoots with other women, so women can claim that they’re always picking up after us men, when it’s really their female poltergeist pals who are running around dropping stuff. I distinctly remember imbibing, among other things, two bottles of beer last night, both of which I poured into chilled mugs. I found the two mugs on the kitchen counter this morning, so where’d the beer can come from? The ghosts really blew it last night, and now I’m on to them.

 

I’ve already eaten enough crow in my life to know it doesn’t taste like chicken. This morning it looks like I need to eat more crow. I’ve made some pretty snide and mean spirited remarks about Michael Jackson over the last couple of days. I was not much interested in him as a person, but he was such an easy target, I couldn't resist. I'm not much interested in show biz glitz either. I have no interest in teary-eyed entertainment professionals and heat-seeking preaches, so I didn’t watch the funeral/ceremony/making-of-another-live-album affair in the Staples Center. I do, however, watch the evening news. Yesterday Michael Jackson had his defining moment.

It was a moment that everyman who is a father in his heart would die for, and in fact, does die for. It was a moment that cannot be bought, forced, or faked, and which would affirm for any man, if he were alive to experience it, that no matter his sins of omission or commission, his life was worthwhile. It was a moment through which every father who was alive to experience it lived vicariously.

Since he got his start, Michael Jackson has always stood tall among composers, singers, dancers, and other entertainment types. He may deserve the titles of greatest entertainer ever and king of pop and all the other hyperbole invoked by his name, but he never struck me as manly. That is a different kind of respect. Michael Jackson’s defining moment came when his daughter said goodbye to him the way she said goodbye. After the words and tears of his heartbroken and grieving little girl, Michael Jackson stands tall among men. He was a good father. And for me, that’ll do, Mr. Jackson, that’ll do.

 

Now that I’ve gotten my first week on facebook under my belt, I’m thinking about going back to astral travel instead. Compared to facebook, out of body experiences seen relatively tame and you meet more interesting people. So far, other than being able to see what are essentially real time pictures of other members of my family, I have found nothing of value on facebook. People tell me that they’re here or there, doing this or that, but why would I want to know every little niggling aspect of their lives? And there’s rarely anything of use posted on the site. I notice the Gaffne shooter didn’t post “I'm having such fun killing little Gaffneans” on facebook. Of course by then it would have been too late. But lots of people post where they’re going or what they’re doing before they do it. “Next week, I’ll be having such fun killing little Gaffneans” would have been useful.

Unbridled narcissism just strikes me as weird. Maybe it’s an age thing, but I like my little, old aura of mystery. For years, I wrote on WDC without ever putting my picture up, and I think the people who read my blog felt that they knew me. Before ever I wrote a word on face book, my picture was there. I don’t mind throwing a couple of photographs out there, after all, it is facebook, but I think well chosen words represent me better than any picture ever could. Naturally I’d have to write at least a thousand words, and who on facebook reads a thousand words? Is there even anywhere on facebook I could fit a thousand words?

Since I plan on exploring opportunities in writing—writing coupled with opportunities seems like an oxymoron, doesn’t it— I’m told I need to be on facebook, U-tube, and twitter. I not sure what U-tube is, but I can’t see a need for both facebook and twitter. The whole facebook thing makes me nervous. People post their profiles and request your friendship or you request their friendship. Sounded all flower child and world peace, until I got a request for friendship from some guy in the Philippines. His interests were men and women. Had he read my thousand words, which, of course, I didn’t write, he would have known I wouldn’t be adding my name to his dance card. And! my picture’s still up there.

I’m ambivalent about all this web presence. All I’m trying to do is sell a little lulu book, but the more I knock about on lulu, the more I get the feeling that lulu is not interested in selling books, except to the authors who wrote them. All the facebook, U-tube, twitter, and other internet glitter will not change that glaring and fundamental flaw in my business plan. What facebook has shown me is that many people, especially the young people, who should be in the process of becoming the readers of the future have substituted vogue-ing for reading. As a wannabe writer, and somebody who encourages serious reading and writing, I’m a soldier, pfc Morgan, in the campaign to win those people back. If the people are on facebook, then I accept that’s where we writers, wannabe or no, must also be. We just have to write pithy and succinct comments and daily posts. It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

Incidentally, I was guided in my setup by a facebook guru. She is a very attractive woman, and the idea of not having your picture in your profile is probably unthinkable for her. After all bragging rights automatically accrue to beauty. Later on I worked out that you don’t have to post your picture on facebook. Believe me, my photograph ain’t generating me any bragging rights, but in for a penny, in for a pound. And after all, you never know when a woman in the Philippines might want to be my friend. It could happen!

 

Now that I’ve enjoyed a long holiday break, I’ll be in recovery mode for this week and then maybe things will get back to normal. Oh, who am I trying to kid? Things won’t get back to normal until Much-ado-about-nothing Jackson is buried. Part of my routine is to watch about ten minutes of news while I cool down from my early morning walk. Riots in China, street battles in Honduras, a serial killer on the loose in South Carolina; and what do they spend the 1st ten minutes of the news on???... Michael Jackson’s funeral. I started off watching Good Morning America on ABC. GMA droned on and on about the will and the funeral arrangements. Then they went to the Rev. Al Sharpton, an “advisor” to the Jackson family. Well, if I wanted to watch a horse’s ass, I would simply pass by the stables on my morning walk.

I decided enough of GMA and switched to The Today Show on NBC. I got there just as the host was introducing the Rev. Jesse Jackson, an “advisor” to the Jackson family. See Al Sharpton above. With Jesse and Al taken, CBS couldn’t field any of the usual suspects. All they had was an interim mayor or vice mayor or something from the City of Los Angeles complaining about the cost of the funeral. So much for my ten minutes of morning news. Switch off.

And after Jackson is buried, there’s still the fight over the “poor” children. Of course if the children were poor, nobody would be fighting over them. A couple of days ago Joe Jackson, Al Sharpton beside him, was in front of the cameras demanding that the kids be placed in custody of the Jackson family. Hmm, a black man demanding to take care of his kids. Now there’s something you don’t see every day. These people give me the hee bee jee bees, and I can’t escape them. Other than the news, I don’t watch much network television, and file footage of Jackson with his children is always popping up. Michael Jackson playing with his kids reminds me of Sadam Hussein playing with the little, hostage children. Just gives me the hee bee jee bees. So I guess now I won’t get my ten minutes of new in the morning anymore. For the foreseeable future… Switch off.

 

Just wanted to record an entry for posterity about how sucky my life was yesterday. I screwed up my Lulu book. How the hell do you screw up a Lulu book!! I'm speechless with shame. I compressed my letter sized paper down to A5 and the print went from 12 font to like 6 font. Anyway you have to be Superman to read the damn thing. I had one more quick edit to do and it took me all day to get what should have just been a quick read through done. Now I gotta reformat the thing to A5 before I submit to Lulu, which means Word is going to repaginate the whole book, and Word never repaginates without screwing something up.

And there's all kind of white space on these pages, and...