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Children of Men"
Truth in fiction? With articles about decreased sperm count in men living in industrialized countries, hormone-laden food affecting our kids' development, and now inadvertent cocktails of every drug ever administered forming from human bodily waste that filters into our water supply... One figures that whatever eventually happens in reality will defy and exceed even the extreme speculation in movies like this one.
Really, really good movie. Nihilistic as hell (until the 'morrow at the end), but very accurate depictions of human reactions under stress.
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Ξ July 29th, 2003 | → Comments Off | ∇ Fitness / HEMA |
So I’m out in the driveway, fencing with David. I see the sidesword cut come in, and I blank. My body says, “Oh, crap!” and throws up my left arm instead of my right hand (which is holding the sword).
The blow actually didn’t hurt all that much. I actually had a substantially larger bruise on my forearm, near the wrist, from an earlier deflection of a rapier thrust (meaning I slapped the rapier aside with my hand/arm).
We went in the house after we finished, and the first thing Truly said when she saw us was, “Ooh, you’ve got blood all over your arm!”
Sure enough, a metal burr on the sidesword blade (there are enough of them) must have caught me and nicked me. So Truly fussed a bit with hydrogen peroxide, and some minutes later I was eating a hotdog with a Blue’s Clues bandaid on my arm.
I’ve got a war wound now.
I am almost-but-not-quite-horrifically allergic to cats. The paper products sacrificed in the sodden line of duty lie legion upon my conscience.
Many of my friends have cats. They also have houses, and are married. I’d swear the three are connected.
And yet, I consider myself more of a cat person. I think I’m attracted to them for the same reason that I’m attracted to girls — neither one needs me, which makes me want them all the more.
And yet…
Every so often, a dog comes bounding up to me. It begs of me, “Scratch me! Rub me! Play with me! Woof!”
And it does feel good to fulfill another living creature’s desires. Forget about the cats, the women, the bosses. For 15 minutes, you are the benevolent Master — provider of bellyrubs and food unto the four-legged. It’s good to be needed.
Of course, this is alloyed with my natural tendency to adopt a defensive posture against every dog I meet. I’ve been that way ever since the Incident. Fortunately, all the bits involved remain functional, insofar as I’ve been able to empirically ascertain.
But over them all, I think an energetic two-year old trumps a full house of cats and dogs. Letting him go WWF on you (”I gotcha!” “No, I got you!” “I got you!” “No you didn’t!”), pretending to be a taun-taun for him to ride (”Boy, and I thought … they smell bad… on the outside!”), working your abs with a bouncing, giggling 40-lb weight, playing the ape (replete with my borrowed accordion), and watching Bear in the Blue House… Yeah, life is good.
Ξ July 25th, 2003 | → Comments Off | ∇ Fitness / HEMA, General |
Tonight, Grant and I left his house carrying two of my swords over our shoulders. They were sheathed in black, and the street was dark.
As we neared my truck, a grubby, bearded fellow clad in cast-offs passed us strolling in the other direction. In his hand, he held a weed-whacker, and he had slung over his shoulder a black garbage bag stuffed with the night’s booty.
He chuckled when he saw us, and sang out, “Heh-hee, y’all got some garr-bish too!”
Half a beat later, as he went past, he did a double-take. “Whoa, thass no garr-bish. You got suh-words!”
He chuckled again as he went down the street. “They got suh-words!”
Aye, goodman, and ye’ve got garbage. So we’re even.
Somehow, the experience left me feeling cheerier than it found me, waiting expectantly as I had been for a call. Thanks, Mister Weed-whacker Guy.
Ξ July 24th, 2003 | → Comments Off | ∇ Food |
O what evil doth lurk in the kitchens of Men!
My mother prepared something called a “salt-baked chicken” today. It didn’t sound particularly promising, especially since the name was not Vietnamese. It’s not because I don’t like non-Vietnamese food — au contraire. Rather, I trust my mother to make non-VN food about as much as she trusts me to make VN food.
Witness my 25-year exile from our household kitchen, for purposes of food prep. Eat, yes. Wash dishes, yes. Screw around with ice under the faucet tap, well, OK (I was in 5th grade and bored).
One wing and thigh into my meal, I can endure no more of the agony masquerading as roast fowl. It’s a first for cooking at our house — I can’t finish dinner, and asking for seconds is right out.
While I wash the dishes, I conduct an impromptu inquiry. As the facts fall out, it seems that the dish came from a cookbook.
“Well,” says I, “There’s the problem: American cookbooks are never any good.”
Volunteered information reveals that the cookbook actually covers Asian cooking.
“That’s a poser, and no mistake,” I splutter. “Then it’s the miserable foreign devil editor’s fault for misreading the original Chinese ideograms. We’ll have to throw the chicken out.”
My mother is offended — we never throw food out. Ever. Unless it’s seafood, in which case it’s thrown out at room temperature.
“All right, all right,” I assure her in a conciliatory fashion, “We’ll rinse the chicken instead. Maybe that’ll flush out some of the salt.”
As our evening’s interrogation continues, it is revealed that my little sister found the recipe some time back, and has been begging my mother to try it out for the past two weeks. So it’s not really my mother’s fault. And I can’t blame my little sister.
So I content myself with chastising my sister for poor taste, and plead with her to find a better dish for tomorrow. Preferably a low-sodium recipe.
A note to the casual reader: Do not try this approach to culinary criticism, unless you have a solid history of reassuring your mother that her cooking is quite good on many prior occasions. Even then, make sure that you leaven the evening’s negative tone with further protestations of your mother’s normally exquisite cooking. And blame the dish, not the mother.
Ξ July 23rd, 2003 | → Comments Off | ∇ Fitness / HEMA, General |
Statistically, the average child has been in at least one fight by the time the little monster reaches 2nd grade. In this regard, I got held back a few years — I got into my first knock-down fight in 5th grade. I was the knockee; the knocker was a kid with a big ego and a year or two of tae kwon do.
Bastard. But nowadays I feel really sorry for TKD.. I mean, it’s the laughingstock of martial arts in the U.S. A guy walks in, pays his dues, and can earn his black belt in 1-2 years.
I’m finally getting started in the combative arts — also fairly late, since most kids do martial arts in high school and drop it when they hit college. I had a false start which delayed my real interest for 8 years. But now I know what I want out of it, and I don’t mind being the late-starting old guy. All I ask is that they be careful with my dentures. That oral gel stuff doesn’t hold worth a damn against a roundhouse kick.
I was also behind the door when they handed out social skills. Never had a lot of friends when I was young. And it took me about 20 years to figure out the true significance of those plumbing differences in boys and girls. …Only a decade later than it takes for most kids.
Not that I mind, really. I tend to treat relationships with people as business transactions, wherein cameraderie, goodwill, and affection are the soft currencies of trade. It’s sort of impersonally personable, I guess. Like crossing Spock with Kurt Vonnegut.
Ξ July 20th, 2003 | → Comments Off | ∇ General |
At long last, after 25 years, I’ve called a halt to my quest for the grail.
…And now the trials truly begin.
Ξ July 18th, 2003 | → Comments Off | ∇ General |
Blasts from the past… A friend recently called me up, whom I hadn’t talked to in over a year. After a couple false starts (I was busy, she was busy), we finally got caught up on what had been going on. She’s now married to a great guy she’s known for years.
Oddly enough, one of the last times we’d talked was the night she was getting ready to go out with him for the first time again. She tried on a couple different things, then put on a simple, well-fitted white dress, and asked me what I thought.
Apparently, I replied, “Well, if I were him, I’d like you just the way you’re dressed now…” (I have scant recollection of the evening, but then, it wasn’t my first date.)
In the ensuing aftermath, it turns out that the first date made a big impression on the fellow. 10 months later, they got hitched. He jokingly accused her of dressing like she did on purpose, but she said it was all my suggestion (which it wasn’t, really). ..And so even though I’ve not met him yet, he’s known me for the past year as the Bra Guy.
I drove home today. All around, the world glistened and the streets gleamed wetly. Puddles like pink mirrors huddled by every curbside, occasionally shattering into rainbow sprays of droplets with the passage of heedless drivers.
The stormy sky was recently pregnant with rain. Now it has the rosy glow of young mothers or partners breathlessly savoring their post-coital shivers. Gauzy pinkness stretches across the sky; its hazy folds wrap and silhouette the darkling buildings along Westheimer, FM 1960, and a dozen other streets.
I pull into the driveway under trees purple and looming in the twilight, accompanied only by the scattered hiss and patter of raindrops from the treetops. Inside the doorway ahead, lights shine warm and orange, beckoning. I shake out my umbrella and enter the foyer.
Ξ July 9th, 2003 | → Comments Off | ∇ General |
Zo, tell Dr. Sbaitso how you really feelink to-day. What ees on your mind?
I was reading a book, wherein the author wrote a bit of dialogue for one of his characters.
Shocking, I know. But this particular passage had a different feel to it — the sort of thing that Cato might say. The gist of the passage was that modern literature is extremely good at capturing the human condition in its myriad forms and facets. To its detriment, however (in the author’s thinly-veiled opinion), modern lit paints this portrait of Man as a static object — what is, rather than the innumerable potentialities of what could be, may be, or will be.
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