Shuddup. Dinni tell you
there were going to be some changes around
here?
By the way, thanks to Greyhawk
for the traffic spike - practically everything is under the "read more" link,
just in case that wasn't sand-poundingly obvious.
Brad Pitt has apparently bought a house in
neighboring Del Mar, and of course the Del Martians are all a-twitter. Some
pretend to be unimpressed, others merely wonder what, if anything, this will do
for property values. The local watering holes I suspect will see an up-tick in
volume, as the curious attempt to see Brad (and Jennifer?) out tripping the
light fantastic.
Which is a truly
obscure metaphor, when you think about
it.
--------------
Saw
a movie last night on DVD, at the recommendation of Son Number One, who's home
for Spring Break, except for those times where he isn't.
Donnie Darko, it was yclept, and I found myself
wondering at the end of it whether or not it would be worth seeing again, and
right away. The plot was more than passing strange, and it seemed to me a coin
toss whether it would become any less opaque on a second viewing.
I mean, it was intriguing, but I had
the sense that viewing it again might lead to more questions than answers - like
maybe it was all an elaborate charade, which would only become apparent once far
too much time had been spent in analysis.
Worth a look, though, if you haven't
seen it. I gather it got rave reviews from the critics while in theaters, but
only a dozen actual people saw
it.
---------------
Reading:
The World of Christopher Marlowe, by David Riggs. A fascinating insight into
the world of post-Reformation, renaissance England. Shakespeare, who ranks
highest in my secular pantheon, also lived in these times, but Marlowe was
first, right up until the point when he was murdered - a bar fight or an act of
state? Dunno, I'll tell you what Riggs thinks when I get to
it.
Recently finished:
Citizen Soldiers, by Stephen Ambrose. Ambrose is the master
of accessible history, and despite the accusations of plagiarism that haunt his
scholarship, I find him to be the most routinely fascinating read on history
since William Manchester, whose Last Lion bios of Winston Churchill essentially
turned me on to the genre. Anyway, if you're at all interested in the history of
the US and particularly the US Army at war (and you probably ought to be, given
the times) I think you'd find Citizen
Soldiers a compelling read, and useful
historical perspective.
Recommending:
Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi. An exceptional book about
getting along and maintaining dignity in the tyranny of the modern Iranian
mullahcracy. She's pretty strong on English literature,
too.
----------------
Took
the Hobbit to dinner at a nice Italian place with the clan last night, it being
our 16th or so celebration of her 29th birthday. Good food, great company and I
think a wonderful time had by all. I'd done the necessary on the way home from
the ship, and got birthday cards for all of us, the Hobbit setting great store
by these formalities. SNO dropped a line in about the Kat doing Pop Warner,
which left me momentarily nonplussed.
"Football?" I cried, querulously.
The Kat is a wee, little thing, and for all that she's an unassailable force of
moral nature, the boys would make short shrift of her on the playing field.
Flashing lights and the smell of emergency rooms passed across the fevered
canvas of my imagination before my misperception was
corrected:
"Cheerleading," I was
informed.
Oh.
The
Biscuit, age 14, the apple of my eye and love of my life, but with whom I have
recently had a rather tempestuous relationship, saw the words forming on my lips
and shot me a warning,
"Don't."
Excuse
me?
"Let her do it - when you told me
in 5th grade that I couldn't, you broke my
heart."
Ah.
See,
we've been through this before: The Biscuit was enraptured with the idea of
being a cheerleader back when, and stood against her. My logic is still (to me)
irrefutable - Girls, I thought, should not be spending their pre-teen years
dressed in skimpy costumes to add decorative glitter to the athletic performance
of pre-teen boys. They should be out there on the pitch, getting dirty
themselves, competing with other girls. I felt that way then. Still
do.
And that's the way it went for
the next few years, until gradually the Biscuit dropped out of all of that. And
about the time that happened, we started to quarrel about, oh - everything.
Which classes to take, what to wear, when she had to be home, etc, etc. Not
knock-down, drag-out quarrels, but the weary sense of an impending disagreement
surrounding every issue more consequential than the
weather.
And although she's probably
had enough of being my daughter, I'm nowhere near ready to stop being her
father, which is a continuing source of
friction.
So after dinner, we lagged
behind the crowd walking back to the car, by mutual and unspoken consent, which
was interesting, and she told me what she thought of all that, and all this. And
I admitted that, while I hadn't changed my opinion on this cheerleading issue,
that I was willing for the sake of argument to stick a sock in it, and let
matters take their course with the Kat
in
re: Pop
Warner.
But interestingly, today we
were headed over to her high school to register for freshman year of high
school. I'd talked her out of Earth Sciences (an elective) and into Biology
(college prep, core), but was unable to get her to sign up for honors English,
which would be truly playing to her strengths. And I mentioned that she was
stressing way too much over this course selection business, and she responded
that it was me who was stressing and she was replying in kind.
Which made me
think.
And I finally replied that
what
really
stressed me out was knowing that if I, as a college graduate and veteran of some
30 more summers than herself, had an idea about what might better prepare her
for life, that sharing that idea with her would be a certain invitation to civil
skirmishing, if not outright war.
Which made her
think.
I don't know. Maybe we're
getting
somewhere?
------------------
EBay
is absurdly easy to use, and can save you many hundreds of dollars, as I found
out today when I registered for the first time, and placed a ridiculously low
bid against a set of Mizuno MP-32 irons I've been lusting after for
quite some
time.
Sold.
Now
I've got some 'splaining to do. Because even when they're hundreds of dollars
below retail, they're not cheap, and after all, whose birthday is it
again?
Right.
-------------------
Happy
Easter, to those who celebrate it.
Posted @
03:25 PM
|
Posted in
""
|
Sendit
|
Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
