The STFU Files: On Not Being A Weiner

Begging your pardon, dear readers, I must veer off into current events (of the American political variety), so please bear with me while I get this out of my head. Kind o f like passing a mental kidney stone.

(Ahem)

First of all, let me say up front that Anthony Weiner (you know the one) is a dumbass of the first order.  But it isn't so much for the "media transfers" he made.  To me, the pictures and the texting aren't the main issue.  It's the lying about it that really kills me.

Have none of these guys learned anything, anything at all in this era of New Media and the 24/7 news cycle?

Lots of things get texted and sent that, in the hands of someone with malice or righteous justice on their minds, could have a lot of hay made out of them.  Agendas abound in the information age, so its best to make yours clear and stay ahead of the curve.  Or the pack, if one has reason to believe one has a lot of ill-wishers out there.

I reckon a lot of people are horrified on moral grounds, too.  And a case can be made for that, I suppose, if moral purity were the sole arbiter of fitness for office.

But.

I. Don't. Care.  It's fruitless and boring.  Boring.  

If one is looking to politicians for moral role models, perhaps one should recalibrate one's notions of a role model.  People will argue that poor decision making in personal life automatically translates into poor decision making in professional life.  True?  Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the individual.  Just because someone is imbued with a supposed true moral compass, by themselves or by their followers, does not mean the decisions they make are the right or good ones.  Don't believe me?  Then refresh your memory by looking back to all the bad decisions based on bad and wrong information (and right information that was flat out ignored) that got the country involved in the mess that was Iraq.  That people lied and so many died...Somehow, that's more obscene to me, in light of the lives destroyed, resources squandered, in a war that was prosecuted on falsehoods.

Nothing Weiner did rises to the level of national security risk.  He needs to apologize to his family, friends, the women with whom he was involved and to his constituents, not the world.  This is why the nature of his offense doesn't really interest me.  I don't expect anyone to live their lives without doing something that will most likely be considered as stupid, especially in the political arena.  What I would hope they wouldn't do, is lie about it if confronted with something, justified or not.

After all, isn't it supposed to be an admirable trait, to own ones' supposed transgressions?

To paraphrase Dieter from Sprockets, "This habit of exposing yourself has become tiresome!"

Gork, or Stylin' with Irish Gumbo

Well, dear readers, its confession time.  I am, it seems, a geek.  Or maybe a dork.  Perhaps both.

Aha!  I'm a GORK!

"Hey, Irish, don't be hatin' on yo'self!  Why you think that?"  I can hear you say.  Although why you would say it that way, I don't know.  It amuses me, I guess.

Anyway, as to why.  Two things have made me think I'm a gork.  To wit:

ITEM THE FIRST:
Earlier today I finally did my taxes for the year.  I had been dreading it, so I put it off as long as I thought I could.  The weird thing was, once I got into them...I enjoyed it.  You read that right: I enjoyed it.  Best I can figure, I enjoyed it because I turned off the radio and the TV, sat down and really focused on something for a while, and got it done.  No interruptions, no distractions, I FINISHED A THOUGHT, for the first time in months.  Hooray!  What's wrong with me? 

ITEM THE SECOND:
How many of you have two pairs of glasses, one regular for most tasks and one tinted for outdoors/driving?  Show of hands...good!  Those of you who do, listen up, I am about to offer a lifestyle tip.

If one wants to appear self-assured, cool, even, then make sure that when you get in the car and you go to put on your driving glasses...that you remove your regular glasses beforehand.  Trust me, it will save some embarrassment, and no one will point and laugh at you flailings and pokings.  Not that it has happened to me...within the past week.

So there you have it, dear readers, two of the many steps on that steep slide into gorkdom.  Take your time, be careful, I'll be waiting for you at the bottom, wearing my two pairs of glasses...

Sound of Semi-Silence

Another quiet night here at the homestead, finally, after more time running myself into the ground, full up on activities and work and stuff.  The radio is off, had to give my ears a break.  I was listening to the iPod all day, then put a CD in the player while driving hither and yon.  Slow traffic makes for interesting listening sometimes, and in this case I was diggin' the grooves laid down by Cut Chemist and Shortkut, two California-based DJ's who reminded me that turntable scratch, in the right hands, is just good stuff.  A colleague of mine loaned me a CD of a collaborative project they did back in 1997, and it is earworthy, no doubt.

So, as I was saying, a quiet night.  The noises are refrigerator hum, an airplane and faint wind plus traffic.  Soothing in their own way.  Funny, on nights like this, I don't often think of the click of the keyboard as 'noise'.  It most certainly is, though.  I wonder why.  Maybe its like fish think of water: it's there, all around them, they are fully immersed in the stuff...so it ceases to register.

Writing is like that for me.  No, its more accurate to say typing, but typing as a function of writing.  When I write for myself, which is a lot, I tend not to notice the clicks.  When I'm typing at work?  Then the clicking really starts to grate.  Fortunately, I am home, and writing.

And listening.

To the cars outside.  The sound of my breath.  The hum of the appliances.  In this house, when the radio is off, the sounds tend to fall off faster than I had come to expect, from living in newer apartments and houses prior to this one.  Maybe its the plaster interior walls, or the mass of the brick and stone.  Whatever the reason, I like it.  This place is, on average, a lot quieter than my previous house and certainly over the apartment I lived in last year.  It makes me feel calm.

Which I need.  Calm, that is.

The calm makes me introspective in a way different than being wired or anxious.  It's slower, more contemplative.  Earlier I looked at myself in the mirror while trimming my beard, and in the snicksnick of the scissors I flashed on the notion that my life is not really under my control, nor is it completely out of my control, and that I really don't know where I am regarding just who I think I am, what I want, and how to figure it out.  To wit, in the past five days, I felt like running away to Rio, becoming a potter, learning how to weld stuff, staying home and doing nothing but cook good food and taking up the art of DJ'ing.  Go figure.

At that realization, I looked at myself again in the mirror, just stared.  I had the feeling that I didn't really know that person staring back at me...but I felt like I really wanted to know him.  To make that happen, I suppose I'll have to sit down with him and listen, really, truly, listen.

There's something going on in there, behind those blue-gray eyes...and I want to know what it is.

A Case of the Vapors

I write this on a Friday night, slowly decompressing whilst sitting on the couch. A long week of tired, my Wee Lass is in bed and I am soon to follow. I'm in a bit of a brown study, to go a bit old school. Old school, like 14th Century type old school.

Physical fatigue plays a part, surely, in this flirtation with melancholy. Being tired increases the degree of difficulty in keeping a stiff upper lip, the lights on, a smile on the face. Sometimes, I'm just too tired to try. Mental fatigue is a whole other matter, and that is what has me sitting still and quiet and just letting the mind breathe without trying to digest.

The trigger event occurred on the ride home from work. I was intent on picking up my daughter from school, and traffic was moderate, so I was focused without being blindered. Somewhere around the halfway point, I was seized by this thought:

I forgot at least three story ideas today. Three. I swore I would remember them, they seemed so clear and bright, there was no way...but I did forget.

This after telling myself for the umpteenth time that I didn't need to write them down because they were so strong and vivid. Pffft. Like Balzac supposedly said after having sex "There goes another novel", I allowed the distractions and demands of the World In My Face to displace a few notions of mine. Except I did not have the precious luxury of sex, it was the daily grind of work. Fatigue and reality, a hurricane in the head...

This happens to me a lot. I have a phrase pop up in my mind, or I see or hear something inspiring and I tell myself it would make a good story or essay and I'll write about it when I get home, this is going to be great! 

Fail. Fail. Fail.

It irritates me to no end, that even with multiple notebooks stashed in my briefcase, my car, my nightstand, that I am frequently too lazy to simply put a few words down for reminding myself later. I even carry a pen in my shirt pocket most of the day, and have one at hand when I am home.

So the net result is, I end up writing stuff like this. Because I cannot fight the push to write that balloons in my head, every day all day on occasion. I must. I have to write...I wish they could all be diamonds, but sometimes they are only coal.

On Not Being Russian

I must not be Russian, because I lost my ‘pov’.

Arrggh. It is a bad joke, I know, but it leapt to the fore of my consciousness when I sat down to tap out my thoughts this day. It was another play on words among the thousands that have branded my hide with the mark of ‘dork’, almost from day one of me being able to speak English.

I fear it to be true. I am afraid I have no ‘point-of-view’. POV has escaped me. Sigh.

This mildly disheartening epiphany blossomed in my po’ lil’ head bone as I dallied in the upper reaches of the blogosphere, skimming on the currents, drafts and vortices that the lovely Interwebs offers to them that cares to read. I was dipping into some of my favorite blogs, catching up on reading, and just generally digging the flow of information.

The more I read, the more I sensed a somewhat common thread to many of the blogs oozing across the screen: themes. Many of them have a theme, even if unstated. By theme I mean that core set of ideas, guiding principles or vibe that gives them a digital “fingerprint”. The subjects vary, but in most and certainly in the best, I can recognize the voice of the author. Sort of like listening to music by U2 or Bob Dylan, or reading a book by John Thorne or Cormac McCarthy. I dig that sort of thing.

I’m not so sure it diggeth me. I was on and off of Irish Gumbo a few times in my travels, and it slowly dawned on me that I wasn’t getting that same sense on my own blog. I mean, I know what to expect, because I write the spooge that ends up getting posted. But I would be hard pressed to describe to someone who had never read this blog, what it is that defines it. What’s the hook? Humor? Sex? A fresh take on cruciferous vegetables (“…consider the broccoli rabe, the surly cousin to good ol’ broccoli…”)? I think maybe a better analogy is, how would I pitch this blog, if it were a book proposal? What is it that is the “voice”?

I find it mildly upsetting that I don’t seem to know.

There are so many fine folks out there who can do so many things so well, so much better than I that I often feel like I’m looking through the window of the bakery. Every so often, the door opens up and a pleased customer rushes out, baguettes tucked under the arm. I stand there swathed in the yeasty goodness that is the aroma of fresh baked bread. The door shuts, my hand is too slow to hold it open, and I am left wondering how I will ever bake my own.

My Big, Ugly Mug

The objects that matter to us as people, do we find them or do they find us? How do we end up with all the bits and pieces, odds and ends that seem to multiply when we have to gather them up and move them?

My Big Bro piqued my curiosity a few weeks back, when were jawing about music. I had just sent him some requests to burn digital versions of some songs to disk; I had this cockeyed idea for a compilation that had been swirling around in my head. Not having access to iTunes at the time, Big Bro was my main source for said digital delights. (No, he wasn’t pirating anything. Arrr!). After having burned the disk, he asked me, “Where do find this stuff?” – I think the song in question was “In The Pines” by Leadbelly – “How do you know where to get it?”

My response was on the order of something like “I don’t for sure. I think that like seeks out like, and over time, if you know what you like, you develop a sense of how to find it. Plus, you’ll be more likely to have a receptive mind when you come across something new, you’ll be more willing to listen”. At least, I think that is what I said.

Over the years, I have accrued a number of objects that seem to have just shown up, and have followed me across nearly nineteen years of my erstwhile architectural career. I know this because I had to clear out my desk when I was laid off about two weeks ago. When you have to move a lot of crap, is when you notice you have a lot of crap. Herewith is a sampling of the flotsam and jetsam I have inventoried:

-Small collection of plastic triangles, for pencil drafting (Ha! Computers, man, the latest rage!)
-Bizarro templates for drawing toilets and sinks and other doohickeys
-Really weird plaster sculpture of what looks to be a mutant trying to gouge his own eyes out
-Hand-blown glass bottle I recovered from a renovation project site in Washington, D.C.
-Tiny brass desk gong complete with a little brass rod for striking the gong
-Ceramic sake carafe, grey, with painted blue bamboo stalks and leaves
-Tiny clay brick, promotional trinket I got at a trade show years ago
-Notepad holder made out of a giant steel hinge, the word INTEGRITY stamped on one leaf
-Notepad holder made out of recycled corrugated galvanized metal roof panels
-Clipboard made out of little chunks of cedar glued together, sanded, sealed and polished
-“Sculping”, a chunk of slate the size of a large brick, really HEAVY and pretty
-Textbooks leftover from my college days (Uh, time to ditch ‘em, yeah?)
-The letter “K”, 2” tall by 1” deep made out of anodized aluminum
- Small pennant with a picture of that Taco Bell dog on it, says “Viva Gorditas!” on it

That last one is one of the weirdest things I still have that I cannot seem to just get rid of. Some items that have gone AWOL are an 8” square glass brick (3” thick and solid) and a coffee mug with the logo of the former KGB silkscreened on it. Oh, wait, the KGB mug bit the dust about ten years ago when I dragged it off my desk top with a phone cord.

The last one I had to pick up today, from my (former) office, because I had forgotten to pack it up when I left. It is a giant mug, ceramic, brownish, kinda homely. This mug probably holds 3 regular cups of coffee. I have been brewing tea in it for years, so it has acquired a ‘patina’ on the inside that defied washing away. Probably made the tea taste better anyway. What amazed me was just how…naked(?)…I felt without that mug in my hand in the morning for that first cup of tea. I was antsy without it. I had a ritual associated with this mug when I came into work in the mornings. And when I picked it up this afternoon, I realized that it wasn’t just the mug or the ritual I was missing. It was the people that were usually present when I was drinking my tea. The people who always teased me about the humungo size of the mug:

“Where’s the tanker?”
“Got enough to drink there?
“Is that a soup bowl, or a helmet?”

And my favorite:
“That thing is the size of your face!”

So when I picked up my mug, and I saw some of the people I am beginning to miss, I think I understood something of what these objects mean. The things we acquire, the trinkets and curios of the lives we live, stick with us for a reason. They mean something to us beyond the mere fact of their existence. They gain power through their constant presence and use. They carry with them, in subtle and critical ways, the memory of the people and places and circumstances that make us the human beings we become.

I like my big, ugly mug. It carries tea, and my life.