Have you ever watched a film, or read a book that truly moved you? One that made your heart swell in your chest, but didn’t stop there…it made your life swell? I just watched such a film: Meet Joe Black
Granted, this film is now eight years old, so I should have seen it by now, but I hadn’t, until today.
It’s a daunting film, running just shy of three hours, with very little action…this is a film about the last days of a man’s life, a man who knows that Death could take him at any moment, and yet it lingers over tiny, exquisite details.
I had a busy week, this week, traveling for business and meeting with compatriots who mostly think of me as an oddity, a genius-cum-crackpot, a heretic. As is the community’s habit, they dismissed months of my work out of hand, without a whole lot of discussion. We’re not comfortable with this, they say, when they say anything at all. It is disconcerting to propose an elegantly simple solution to a complex problem and be met with neither disdain nor acceptance, but merely…silence.
My boss reminded me that this community is famous for doing just that, and that a good many of the current practices were once met with disapprobation. Heresy is important to progress.
After seeing a film like Meet Joe Black, I find myself taking stock of my life, wondering if I’ve done all I can, if there’s anything more I can or should be doing. Is it enough that I helped coordinate a wish for a Make-a-Wish child? It was just the once, after all. Is it enough to have served as a rape crisis advocate? Is it enough that people often rely on me when they feel they have no place else to turn?
There are times when I withdraw. I say I’ll call, and then I don’t. I forget a meeting or fail to come through with the help I offered. Is it enough to simply apologize, to admit that I’m not perfect? Isn’t there more? I always feel I can do more.
People have helped me so often, have sacrificed in large and small ways to bring me to this point that I feel that I should earn the things they’ve done for me, and I will always wonder if I’ve done enough. It is a powerful drive that comes almost entirely from the uncertainty in my center.
Perhaps that is what makes me a good man.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Good Things
Have you ever met anyone who, without trying, or even meaning to, changes your life? Not just your life, but the way you view your life?
It’s hard to quantify, the effect we have on other people’s lives. It can be even harder to say, “Your presence in my life makes a difference.”
A couple weeks ago, someone suggested to me that we boycott Valentine’s Day, we solitary people. I responded by proposing the opposite – that she be my Valentine. I sent her flowers today…virtual flowers, actually, because I’m a dork.
See, I don’t think that Valentine’s Day ought to be just for lovers, or people who want to be lovers, or even people who simply want to encase their lovers in chocolate. I think it’s about communicating to those around us that we appreciate the changes they bring about in us.
To all of you who read this blog, a late-evening Happy Valentine’s Day. And thank you. You’ve helped me to trust in my skills as a writer, and that makes a difference.
And what happy changes have been brought about by my Virtual Valentine? That’s a question I’ll answer only for her.
All good things.
TSC
I’d like to apologize for not writing more. I haven’t forgotten you all! Far from it: I’ve been incredibly busy over the last couple weeks.
In the meantime, you may recall that I asked for your prayers for my unborn niece, who was diagnosed last month with Tuberous Sclerosis Complex.
I’d like to direct your attention to this web site regarding Tuberous Sclerosis, and ask again for your prayers.
My sister and her husband are meeting with another specialist on Thursday, to discuss the results of last week’s MRI.
In the meantime, you may recall that I asked for your prayers for my unborn niece, who was diagnosed last month with Tuberous Sclerosis Complex.
I’d like to direct your attention to this web site regarding Tuberous Sclerosis, and ask again for your prayers.
My sister and her husband are meeting with another specialist on Thursday, to discuss the results of last week’s MRI.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Because Prayer Helps
…and because Meg asked:
If you pray, pray for Ruth, Rowland, Emily, Marie, Jamie, and Loni -- for comfort, healing, and peace. It's important. And pass it onto your friends. Thanks, guys.
If you pray, pray for Ruth, Rowland, Emily, Marie, Jamie, and Loni -- for comfort, healing, and peace. It's important. And pass it onto your friends. Thanks, guys.
Tilapia Is The New Cod
In honor of completing my Five Weird Things post, I took my daughter to Red Lobster…thought it would be a fitting tribute, since Sherri loves the place so much. For that very reason, I will not mention the vague contempt which I, a New Englander, have always held for seafood restaurant chains. I will say that I remember very clearly how nice it was that I used to be able to get live lobsters for a buck seventy-five a pound, or a buck and a half if I happened to catch a lobsterman in the parking lot at the seafood stand.
The service we received tonight was noteworthy, as I shall attempt to relate:
“Good evening, sir, my name is Gabe, and I’ll be taking care of you this evening. Can I offer you something to drink?”
Heidi orders a Coke, and I order iced tea – no lemon.
“Excellent. Would you care for an appetizer this evening?”
“No, thank you.”
“Alright. Would you like to hear the specials?”
“No, thank you. I think we’re ready to order.”
“Great,” says Gabe, turning his attention to Heidi. “What can I get for you?”
“I’ll have the shrimp Caesar salad.”
“Excellent. And for your choice of vegetables? We have mashed potatoes, rice pilaf, steamed vegetables, or cole slaw.”
Heidi and I exchange quizzical looks.
There is a moment of bemused silence, with Gabe’s pen hovering patiently over his order pad. I recover first, and ask the obvious question, “There’s a choice of vegetables with a salad?”
Gabe smiles benevolently at us, his apparently uber-bumpkin patrons. “A salad comes with the shrimp, yes.”
Still bewildered, I frown slightly and ask again, “But she ordered the shrimp Caesar salad. Doesn’t that pretty much already have vegetables?”
“Oh!” exclaims Gabe. “Of course.”
Gabe scribbles a dozen horizontal lines on his pad, then writes furiously. While I cannot see what he is writing, I imagine it to be, confused chick gets SHRIMP CAESAR.
He then turns to me. “And you, sir?”
“I’ll have the Sam Adams battered fish and chips.”
“Excellent. That comes with chips, which are actually French Fries. You can order another side of your choice, if you like. We have mashed potatoes, rice pilaf…”
“Another side? Sounds great. I’d like the cole slaw, please.”
Gabe fixes me momentarily with a glance that, in retrospect, should have seemed significant, but at the time could have meant…confusion? Disbelief? That he’ll be blogging this later?
“Great,” he says, “I’ll be right back with your drinks and cole slaw.”
And he is off before I can ask, What did you say? Did you just say that you’d be right back with our drinks and cole slaw?
I ask Heidi instead. She agrees, that’s what he said.
Couldn’t be, I postulated. It’s noisy here, and we must have misunderstood.
When he brought our drinks (and my dinner salad), he hesitated for a moment before asking, “Would you like me to bring your cole slaw now, or with your fish, sir?” He fixes me with a look of concerned confusion, as though I had ordered a steak with chocolate sauce.
I see his confusion and raise him a puzzlement and a confloption. (He doesn’t realize it at this point, but I can see that he’ll be flummoxed at the turn.) “With my dinner will be fine,” I say. I am in no mood to have cole slaw with my salad.
When dinner arrives, he sets down Heidi’s Caesar salad, and then turns his attention to me. He places the side dish of cole slaw at my left, and sets the basket of fish in front of me.
It is a large-ish basket of fish.
There are no chips.
It is a basket containing only fish.
“Is there anything else I can get for you?” Gabe asks. From the look on his face, it is clear that Gabe wishes to escape us and what clearly seem to him to be bizarre requests.
“Yes,” I say. “Where are my chips? I thought fish and chips would come with actual, you know, chips. French Fries. Pommes frites.” (Okay, I made the “pommes frites” part up.)
Gabe casts his eyes about in a manner reminiscent of a garden-raiding rabbit caught snacking by a Rottweiler for whom the moment carries no real urgency. “You ordered cole slaw instead of chips, sir.”
“I did?”
“Yes, sir.” He wheels over a chalk board and proceeds to draw a flow chart of our initial conversation, in which it seems I did, in fact, order fish and chips, hold the chips, add a side of slaw.
The service we received tonight was noteworthy, as I shall attempt to relate:
“Good evening, sir, my name is Gabe, and I’ll be taking care of you this evening. Can I offer you something to drink?”
Heidi orders a Coke, and I order iced tea – no lemon.
“Excellent. Would you care for an appetizer this evening?”
“No, thank you.”
“Alright. Would you like to hear the specials?”
“No, thank you. I think we’re ready to order.”
“Great,” says Gabe, turning his attention to Heidi. “What can I get for you?”
“I’ll have the shrimp Caesar salad.”
“Excellent. And for your choice of vegetables? We have mashed potatoes, rice pilaf, steamed vegetables, or cole slaw.”
Heidi and I exchange quizzical looks.
There is a moment of bemused silence, with Gabe’s pen hovering patiently over his order pad. I recover first, and ask the obvious question, “There’s a choice of vegetables with a salad?”
Gabe smiles benevolently at us, his apparently uber-bumpkin patrons. “A salad comes with the shrimp, yes.”
Still bewildered, I frown slightly and ask again, “But she ordered the shrimp Caesar salad. Doesn’t that pretty much already have vegetables?”
“Oh!” exclaims Gabe. “Of course.”
Gabe scribbles a dozen horizontal lines on his pad, then writes furiously. While I cannot see what he is writing, I imagine it to be, confused chick gets SHRIMP CAESAR.
He then turns to me. “And you, sir?”
“I’ll have the Sam Adams battered fish and chips.”
“Excellent. That comes with chips, which are actually French Fries. You can order another side of your choice, if you like. We have mashed potatoes, rice pilaf…”
“Another side? Sounds great. I’d like the cole slaw, please.”
Gabe fixes me momentarily with a glance that, in retrospect, should have seemed significant, but at the time could have meant…confusion? Disbelief? That he’ll be blogging this later?
“Great,” he says, “I’ll be right back with your drinks and cole slaw.”
And he is off before I can ask, What did you say? Did you just say that you’d be right back with our drinks and cole slaw?
I ask Heidi instead. She agrees, that’s what he said.
Couldn’t be, I postulated. It’s noisy here, and we must have misunderstood.
When he brought our drinks (and my dinner salad), he hesitated for a moment before asking, “Would you like me to bring your cole slaw now, or with your fish, sir?” He fixes me with a look of concerned confusion, as though I had ordered a steak with chocolate sauce.
I see his confusion and raise him a puzzlement and a confloption. (He doesn’t realize it at this point, but I can see that he’ll be flummoxed at the turn.) “With my dinner will be fine,” I say. I am in no mood to have cole slaw with my salad.
When dinner arrives, he sets down Heidi’s Caesar salad, and then turns his attention to me. He places the side dish of cole slaw at my left, and sets the basket of fish in front of me.
It is a large-ish basket of fish.
There are no chips.
It is a basket containing only fish.
“Is there anything else I can get for you?” Gabe asks. From the look on his face, it is clear that Gabe wishes to escape us and what clearly seem to him to be bizarre requests.
“Yes,” I say. “Where are my chips? I thought fish and chips would come with actual, you know, chips. French Fries. Pommes frites.” (Okay, I made the “pommes frites” part up.)
Gabe casts his eyes about in a manner reminiscent of a garden-raiding rabbit caught snacking by a Rottweiler for whom the moment carries no real urgency. “You ordered cole slaw instead of chips, sir.”
“I did?”
“Yes, sir.” He wheels over a chalk board and proceeds to draw a flow chart of our initial conversation, in which it seems I did, in fact, order fish and chips, hold the chips, add a side of slaw.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
At Last, Five Weird Things
Five weird habits. Sherri wants five weird habits. Of mine. Actually, it’s five more weird habits, because, evidently, in Sherri’s mind, the ten weird habits I already wrote about aren’t enough. (But I think she owed me a tag, anyway, so she’s forgiven.) (Not that she needed to be. I’m just saying, is all.)
So here goes.
1. I obsess about things…just not for very long.
Dennis Miller refers to this as ADDOCD: I keep changing the things I obsess about. Work projects will do it for me. I’ll get focused on a problem at work, then bring it home with me (in my mind, not on paper), and lay awake that night working on a solution. The next morning, with or without a solution, I will find something else to be concerned about. I have been known to go from losing sleep about a satellite communications issue to ranting for half a day about finding the coffee pot empty even though I was the third coffee drinker to arrive that morning. The vast amount of energy I poured into online dating some months ago is now almost entirely devoted to flight simulation. If I lose focus on one thing, I have to compensate by giving far too much of my attention somewhere else, as though my freaky little world is defined by some Newtonian Law of Conservation of Obsessions.
2. I am insanely defensive about my computer.
This one has two parts, one for work and one for home. At work, I have a system of placing files that makes sense to me and I don’t give a Yugo mechanic’s expletive whether anyone else can find one of my PowerPoint presentations or not. If someone adds an icon to my desktop or changes the content of a database, my customary reaction is to unleash a passionate string of colorful and highly original invective. At home, keep your grubby dick skinners off my machine. I built it from parts, and it is unique. No, you do not know how to fix the problem, so shut up and go back to watching TV. That whole thing in Chaos Theory about a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon and the weather changing somewhere else? Absolutely true. Hurricane Katrina began shortly after I vented my…er…opinion…to the atmosphere because a friend “just checking e-mail” tried to replace my unresponsive wireless mouse with a standard PS2 mouse instead of telling me so that I could change the wireless mouse’s batteries. Seriously, the IAEA could rid themselves of a huge problem if they quietly suggested to Iran that it should surprise me by up-clocking my motherboard.
3. I am often stunningly creative in my expletives.
Granted, sometimes I resort to whatever fricative comes immediately to mind, but there are moments of sublime inspiration when I should really stop in mid-rant and write some of this shit down. Anything less than fifteen syllables and I’m just doing it for laughs. I am not at all unlike the Old Man in A Christmas Story, who, as we know, worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay. And thanks to Erica, I have a colorful new addition to my arsenal – er – repertoire: corn-speckled dog turd. Which leads me to the fact that…
4. I collect colorful phrases.
I discovered a long time ago that if you’ve got an unexpectedly descriptive phrase at the ready (and these are not necessarily profane), people might actually remember a point you’re trying to make. For example, gathering a large number of minute details for a particular project might be referred to as sweeping the marbles. Any project that is doomed to collapse under the weight of its own ineptitude is a self-licking ice cream cone. That idiot over there doesn’t need to pull his head out of his ass, he needs a rectal craniotomy. If I’ve just said something terminally embarrassing in a crowded and noisy room, it is inevitable that I time it so that the room will be as quiet as a mouse pissing on a Q-tip.
I actually write some of these down.
5. I flush the toilet while I’m still peeing.
Yes. I know. I have no idea why I do this, but I catch myself at it at least once a day, and the mental conversation goes something like this:
No-no! No! Awwww!
Why did I just do that?
I don’t know. To mask the sound of my urinating?
But no one is home.
To save time?
Yes. That’s it. I’m saving time by flushing twice.
Thank you. It’s nice to know my efforts are understood.
So here goes.
1. I obsess about things…just not for very long.
Dennis Miller refers to this as ADDOCD: I keep changing the things I obsess about. Work projects will do it for me. I’ll get focused on a problem at work, then bring it home with me (in my mind, not on paper), and lay awake that night working on a solution. The next morning, with or without a solution, I will find something else to be concerned about. I have been known to go from losing sleep about a satellite communications issue to ranting for half a day about finding the coffee pot empty even though I was the third coffee drinker to arrive that morning. The vast amount of energy I poured into online dating some months ago is now almost entirely devoted to flight simulation. If I lose focus on one thing, I have to compensate by giving far too much of my attention somewhere else, as though my freaky little world is defined by some Newtonian Law of Conservation of Obsessions.
2. I am insanely defensive about my computer.
This one has two parts, one for work and one for home. At work, I have a system of placing files that makes sense to me and I don’t give a Yugo mechanic’s expletive whether anyone else can find one of my PowerPoint presentations or not. If someone adds an icon to my desktop or changes the content of a database, my customary reaction is to unleash a passionate string of colorful and highly original invective. At home, keep your grubby dick skinners off my machine. I built it from parts, and it is unique. No, you do not know how to fix the problem, so shut up and go back to watching TV. That whole thing in Chaos Theory about a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon and the weather changing somewhere else? Absolutely true. Hurricane Katrina began shortly after I vented my…er…opinion…to the atmosphere because a friend “just checking e-mail” tried to replace my unresponsive wireless mouse with a standard PS2 mouse instead of telling me so that I could change the wireless mouse’s batteries. Seriously, the IAEA could rid themselves of a huge problem if they quietly suggested to Iran that it should surprise me by up-clocking my motherboard.
3. I am often stunningly creative in my expletives.
Granted, sometimes I resort to whatever fricative comes immediately to mind, but there are moments of sublime inspiration when I should really stop in mid-rant and write some of this shit down. Anything less than fifteen syllables and I’m just doing it for laughs. I am not at all unlike the Old Man in A Christmas Story, who, as we know, worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay. And thanks to Erica, I have a colorful new addition to my arsenal – er – repertoire: corn-speckled dog turd. Which leads me to the fact that…
4. I collect colorful phrases.
I discovered a long time ago that if you’ve got an unexpectedly descriptive phrase at the ready (and these are not necessarily profane), people might actually remember a point you’re trying to make. For example, gathering a large number of minute details for a particular project might be referred to as sweeping the marbles. Any project that is doomed to collapse under the weight of its own ineptitude is a self-licking ice cream cone. That idiot over there doesn’t need to pull his head out of his ass, he needs a rectal craniotomy. If I’ve just said something terminally embarrassing in a crowded and noisy room, it is inevitable that I time it so that the room will be as quiet as a mouse pissing on a Q-tip.
I actually write some of these down.
5. I flush the toilet while I’m still peeing.
Yes. I know. I have no idea why I do this, but I catch myself at it at least once a day, and the mental conversation goes something like this:
No-no! No! Awwww!
Why did I just do that?
I don’t know. To mask the sound of my urinating?
But no one is home.
To save time?
Yes. That’s it. I’m saving time by flushing twice.
Thank you. It’s nice to know my efforts are understood.
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