So, for instance, when I wrote and scheduled the post called, “I don’t mean to be a jerk, part 1,” I had the opening sentences of a related part 2 post sitting in the draft queue. Continue reading Bad at herding myself
Tag Archives: personal
Reverend Tutsia
That’s one reason I spent a rather large part of my late 30s buying CDs of old albums from previous decades. I really did want to own a legitimate copy, send a few royalties toward the musicians whose work I had loved so much. That’s also one reason, since going digital, that I regularly scroll through online music stores looking for re-releases of albums recorded 30 or more years ago.
One consequence of those can’t-afford-music years is that I often didn’t know or remember the titles of a lot of songs I listened to. I had a bad habit of not writing down the track names when I made a copy of a tape. My favorite tracks on a particular album I would know the titles, but several of the other songs I would wind up thinking of as “that song right after X” or I might pick a phrase that was repeated that might sound like a title.
And then, of course, there are the misheard lyrics… Continue reading Reverend Tutsia
The jerk in the closet
It was always worst right after we moved. My father’s job in the oil fields resulted in me attending ten different elementary schools in four different states. And at each new school it was never long before some of the kids (and occasionally some of the teachers) were teasing, harassing, or outright bullying me for being a sissy, pussy, or fag. Most of the times those words were hurled around in the lower grades, no one was literally accusing me of homosexuality. All they meant was I didn’t act like a “normal” boy.
In middle school it was a bit different. For one thing, everyone’s hormones were going crazy. In elementary school most of the normal boys had thought girls were icky (and one of the ways I kept being abnormal was I always got along better with the girls than most of the boys), but suddenly those same boys were trying to find a girlfriend. And the insults changed. Now “pussy” was the nicest thing any of the other boys or male teachers called me.
It’s not that they ever caught me in flagrante delicto. Well, except one bully. Though “caught” isn’t the right word. But I’ll get back to him…
I don’t mean to be a jerk, part 1
So for a second I wondered if my aunt had gotten malware on her phone or something. I sent back a message asking if she needed both our email addresses or just mine, along with a comment about our weather and asking how hers was. My intent was to make sure that she had meant to send me that message before I did anything else. When she answered she said never mind, she had found the information.
Continue reading I don’t mean to be a jerk, part 1
I hate head colds
I know when my husband’s job changed to combine both running around in a cold warehouse and interacting with random members of the public a lot that the number of colds he started catching went way up. But I think the workplace I moved to in 2008 contributes, as well. At my previous employer, most of us had our own offices. My current employer has a more typical arrangement of a small number of employees with offices, and the rest of us in a sea of cubicles. Even though most cold viruses are passed by hand-to-hand contact (and indirect hand-to-hand contact), some increased exposure happens with people more densely packed in.
Based on some anecdotal evidence of how what seems to be the same cold passed through their family, this one’s incubation time would make my most likely point of catching it at the Seahawks game I attended last weekend.
Regardless… Continue reading I hate head colds
Don’t like bandwagons?
I’ve already posted about some goals I’m setting myself, so I’ve already probably outraged or disappointed a few. I could do a really verbose and intricate summation of my 2013, but I really don’t think even I would enjoy that. But all this talk about not doing things just because other people are does have me thinking…
A new chew toy
Replace an undesired activity with a desired activity. A good dog trainer knows that just yelling at the dog for chewing on your shoe is bad, and instead giving your dog an acceptable chew toy while removing the shoe is better. Rather than beat yourself up for obsessing over that metaphorical shoe, give yourself a metaphorical chew toy to occupy yourself.
Because it’s the time of year when lots of people compile retrospectives of the previous year and/or set goals for the next, it’s difficult not to at least think about it.
I’ve been thinking about several things that could fall into the category of resolutions.
Conjuring the proper ghosts
Continue reading Conjuring the proper ghosts
Up on the house top…
I say churches, plural, because my family moved often during my childhood. My dad’s job in the petroleum industry leading to my oft-repeated description of growing up as “ten elementary schools in four different states.”
I remember, for instance, the “Up On the House Top” controversy. One of the churches ran a nonprofit day care on weekdays. While it was a church day care, it was a business open to any family that could pay the fees, so a lot of the kids came from families that attended different churches (or no church at all). One year of the day care’s annual Christmas pageant, in addition to the usual repertoire of “Silent Night,” “O, Little Town of Bethleham,” “The Little Drummer Boy,” “Away in the Manger,” “Joy to the World,” and “Jingle Bells,” one group of kids sang a version of “Up on the House Top” that included some amusing choreography.
Some of the church ladies who were not regularly associated with the day care attended the pageant, and they were not pleased. It started running around the gossip circuit in the congregation that someone had allowed Santa Claus at the day care. The tone of voice some people used, you would have thought that someone was giving the kids alcohol and cigarettes. Or even worse, allowing them to listen to rock music!
To me, I didn’t see how it was that much different than “Jingle Bells,” which is a Christmas song that doesn’t mention Jesus’ birth at all. No one ever seemed to object to that in the children’s performance. And I recall a very amusing rendition of “I’m Gettin’ Nothin’ for Christmas” at an evening Christmas concert at church that no one objected to. Not every song performed at the less formal holiday events at the church had to be a sacred hymn, obviously.
And I get that Santa Claus gets his name from American ears hearing Dutch immigrants refer to Saint Nicholas (“Sinterklaas”) back in the 19th Century. And therefore to them Santa Claus is sort of an alias for the 4th Century Christian Bishop. But the red-suited man driving a sleigh pulled by magic reindeer and filling stockings with toys is not a Biblical character. He’s very much a secular figure.
And I’m looking forward to his visit at our house soon! Our stockings are up, our tree lights will be left on all night. I’m not sure whether we’ll be leaving him eggnog and cookies this year or if it might be sherry and pork pies. But, this liberal taoist gay man and his liberal wiccan bi husband are looking forward to tracking Santa on our computers and phones with the Norad app, watching some silly Christmas shows featuring such important Christmas characters as the Grinch, a red-nosed reindeer, and ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. And I can’t wait to see what Santa leaves in my stocking this year!
No matter what holiday you celebrate, I’d like to wish a merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Shambling toward Christmas Eve
He needed to pick up some presents to give to his co-workers at their party. On the other hand, he hadn’t slept well at the hotel and really wanted a nap. So he suggested taking a nap while I watched the game, then we could go shopping. I had a sinus headache, and as we talked, realized that my throat felt a bit wrong. So I was worried I might be coming down with a cold… Continue reading Shambling toward Christmas Eve
Font Folly 