The Eye and the Brow Furrow

My parents were not into public displays. My dad would have simply given me the dead eye and brow furrow and as soon as I knew it, I would have shut up and sat down. There would be no intervention from a nice lady, I would have been dead. I hate bubble gum ice cream. The bubble gum is all hard and not nice and chewy and it is just....ewww... Definitely one of those things that doesn't slow me down at Baskin Robbins. I wish I was as sure of my life choices, as I am of my ice cream choices. I mean take me to the BR counter, and I will quickly get through the choices. Hmmm...show me the brown ice creams, ok, show me the browner ice creams that have fudge in them, ok, now if that didn't narrow it down all the way show me the one with nuts, and voila, my ice cream choice is made.

Last night my nieces were acting the fool. It is interesting watching Kelie go through the older awkward stage. I wonder if it will foster depth or simply resentment. Hopefully depth...I don't want shallow relatives. I had a weird dream about Gayle last night, and it was combined with Lions and Tigers and Cheetahs all wandering around, like they were in a nature preserve...YIKES

Circle-Chase

"I'm whitening my teeth as I write this," she tittered gleefully. I picked up my personalized, tooth-shaped trays this morning at the dentist. They fit perfectly, as if they were made for my very teeth! I'm bleaching them right now. I felt proud when they compared my current tooth-color (for purposes of before-and-after) to a set of yellow-to-really-really-yellow sample teeth. I was at the way low-end of yellow. Does that mean they would have refused me the service if my teeth were just a bit less yellow?

We're getting free Italian lunch today from Filomena's. I hope we are getting raviolis personally made by that old slave lady they keep there... Ugh. Back from lunch. So full-up on sausage lasagna.

HAHA! Jeff came by talking about root beer floats and other junk food. He mentioned how awesome bubble gum ice cream is because it has the real bubble gum pieces in it. It reminded me of one of my favorite stories of my brother that I'd totally forgotten. So he's like 5-years-old, and gets his usual bubble gum ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Well, after examining it closely, he yells, "That motherfucker only gave me three gumballs!" Well my dad gets so awesomely pissed off that he yells, too. "I'm gonna kill you!" And the circle-chase in Baskins Robbins begins, weaving in and out of pink chairs. Some lady, scared that the delightful little boy is about to be pulverized (a distinct possibility), calls the police. I don't know what happens from there, but I bet the policeman then circle-chased my dad around the B&R.

I wish I did cool things like that as a kid.

Oh, Bit, you hairy? (said with Cockney English accent)

That was a nice obituary! I want mine to say:

AFW passed away on ____, __ 20__. She doesn't care how you remember her because... she's dead! Her husband, General/Chaplain M.S.W., states she was a happy little elf and she never grew taller than 5'0". Her best friend in the world, AK, recounts how she took naps everywhere. [See pictures below.] Her daughter Lilly, who is pale with long, dark hair, grew up happier and stronger than AFW. Her son, Leo Israel, who has lots of curly, light brown hair, is sweet and pure and looks after people. She says to tell you all that she finally figured out the meaning of her life, but can't share that with you at the moment. Her world champion yo-yo skills and far-from-best-selling novel were her proudest accomplishments. That, and suing the GOP for... one billion dollars!

I think it would make me happy if you chewed a finger off! Then I can think, as I pick my nose, "Not everyone is so lucky." And I'll sigh with happiness.

by the way...

The whole time I've known you, I have wanted fairy tale land for you too, but the problem has been, I don't know what your fairy tale is....so often I want to ask you if you are happy, b/c I don't know...I don't know what it is that makes you happy, and what it is that makes you unhappy...I get the most scared when I can't tell. B/c I would chew off one of my fingers, to make you happy...only I'm afraid after I did, you would say...the only thing that made me happy was that I had nicer fingers than Alex did, and now Alex doesn't have any fingers, so I can't be happy. But if you ever have an idea, and you want a push in some direction...just tell me the direction and I will do all that I can.

I feel a little sick

Well first off, let me apologize for being six blogs or so behind...it's a tough life mine...making playdough, getting up at 10...you know. But anyway...i have been thinking alot about you this week. I don't think its wrong to take the middle, especially if you don't see tons of net value...in fact it would be counterproductive to live in a fashion that didn't promise any better results, particularly if you reached the best possible outcome and still didn't like the results. As for me, I have the mentality that says there is something, something big that you have to achieve, or you aren't worth much of anything. And you have to do that while juggling all your thoughts and your family and everything else. But I don't know what the hell it is (google or no google) -- and today I saw that associate had died, riding motorcycles for the first time. And I read her obit and I thought that is so very sad to me. Her obit was just a few words, and I wonder if she thought about herself that she would like what they said, or if she would think, I am so much more, or I am not that at all...so what would I want my blog to say.

Alex King

Died on __, __, 20XX. Ms. King is survived by two children, and her loving husband, five grandchildren, her siblings, and her best friend annie. Ms. King was known for her work with children and was instrumental in changing laws effecting most of our nations children. In her earlier years, Ms. King worked tirelessly, while raising two well-behaved, mentally fulfilled, happy children, and she loved her husband in the best way she could -- as he needed to be loved.


Ms. King changed jobs six times in the past sixty years, and each time, she was noted for her excellent work, and contribution to mankind. Despite working so much, she made sure to visit her parents, who after much therapy and schooling, became happier, individuals. Her nieces and nephews, often spent summers with Alex and Andrew and later said that this was some of the happiest time of their lives.

All in all, Ms. King left no stones unturned, she loved well, and she was loved well. She will be missed.

magic-happy-fairy-rainbows

I keep thinking about how you said my risk-taking involves selling out potentially high payoffs (or really low payoffs) for middle payoffs. (I stick by claim that this is the exact opposite of taking risks, BTW.) So I'm left in the middle, not too unhappy and not too happy. I think that's exactly right.

I don't know how to feel about it, though. I told The Rapist about it, and she was basically like, "And what's wrong with that? What's wrong with giving up heroine for food and exercise?" And I was like, "No, it's more like giving up an internet start-up dream for a government job." I don't remember that the conversation went anywhere productive from there.

The thing is, I don't know if I respect people who take big risks. Most big risks fail and they're usually not for a good purpose -- for huge money, or fame, or for some other undefinable thing that will make it all right. I don't think they ever find what they're looking for. They will likely fail, but even if they wildly succeed, they still will wonder why it isn't enough. On the other hand, I respect that their brave enough to give failing a shot and I condemn myself for being a fetal-positioned wuss.

So, yeah, I feel empty, and maybe it's because I'm always taking the safe ground. But who doesn't feel empty in at least some respects? I think people who don't feel that way are rare and it has very little to do with what they have, what they've achieved, etc. I think they just have the ability to be satisfied. But I guess I don't really respect that, either. Why should they be satisfied? It seems sort of docile and stupid, since the truth is that, well, life is not that satisfying. But, then, of course, I think at myself, "You whiny little shit, you have just about the best life a human could have in history -- constant food, money, safety, and leisure. What the fuck do you want?" And what answer do I have? There's nothing I can name that I want. Which makes me feel like a child on summer vacation who whines about being bored. Kids spend all year looking forward to summer, so of course they're bummed out when it's not magic-happy-fairy-rainbows the whole summer. And we spend our whole lives looking forward to food, money, safety, and leisure, so of course we're bummed out when it's not magic-happy-fairy-rainbows.

SQrL, I'm bummed it's not magic-happy-fairy-rainbows. Really, really bummed.

E-motions, Schmee-motions

Do you think you can change your emotional makeup after your formative years? I picture that you form your emotional makeup in adolescence, and, after that, you can change it, but only through intense therapy, hard work, and delusion. But The Rapist thinks I've shut off access to all my emotions. And I think that can't be right because when I was an adolescent I was always yelling with anger at my family, crying and gnashing teeth alone, chasing some boy with the emotional fervor of a rabid bunny. Basically, an emotional wreck.

So the only time I can imagine this happening was between John and Mason. I went pretty train wreck after that A-Rab, and went slightly train wreck after breaking up with the Tennis Boy Wonder. But both of those were about a million miles from the intensity of the John-Hiroshima. But all that was already when I was incapable of being angry, which has been at least since law school began. So maybe Mason was my out from the drama of boys, and anger was already gone, so that leaves anxiety. I'm still pretty good at anxiety, but, you know, if I handled my finances and work better, I could get rid of that, too. And then I would be like Mr. Spock... And all this way after adolescense! An adult victory!

So her point is that progress is not to be had unless I feel and deal with all these underground emotions. I'm just not sure I like this. How many times has almost every person wished they could just offload their emotions and be free of them. And The Rapist is saying I'm a high-achiever on that front. Is it smart to give up a talent? And lack of emotion is probably highly adaptive in our current world. The Rapist claims the opposite; that emotions are needed in order to function effectively. I dunno about that.

You and Internet Will Conquer All

Who's job is it to show you the proper path? It's the internet's job, silly. Your job is simply to use the right search terms and all will unfold. Ta-da! Thank you, Al Gore!!

Well, my spiffy new book says that we suck at predicting what will make us happy, and, in fact, falsely remember what made us happy in the past. So really I guess you gotta just try shit out. And I realize there's the problem of "mortality," and that trying careers out takes time, but, well... yeah. Since we can't seem to predict anything that will make us happy, I guess we're free of the false-prediction burden. Shew, that's a lifted weight.

You know what I love lately? Diet root beer and butter. I mean, not together. But lately I'm obsessed with butter, and find diet root beer an uplifting change from Diet Coke. I'm totally barfed-out on Diet Coke. The thought of it makes me feel all acidy. As for butter, I want it on everything... mmmm.... chocolate-covered butter stick... oh wait, that's cake.

Tertl Head made me try putting salt water through one nostril and out the other in order to get rid of allergies. I don't know abou it actually working, but I think it's funny that you can put liquid in one nostril and have it come out the other. Weird.