Sometimes Apples and Oranges ARE the Same

Sometimes I confound myself. It gets confusing. It gets depressing. It gets messy. Granted, astrology, if you adhere to such things, says I'm a Gemini. Two of me is hard for anyone to take, whether that me is two of the same or two opposites. I tend to think of that duality as my creative side and my practical side.

Neither side was working efficiently last Sunday evening, because I sat relatively still and watched most of the Oscar show. I'm ashamed to say, that I even watched some of those 'red carpet moments' that are so gushy, so suckingly sweet, so over laden with all things demeaningly deadly that you'll end up with a new case of terminal diabetes if you don't get your finger down your own throat to up chuck your innards in time.

I have never seen so many egotistically insufferable, smirky, snarky, skanky, people posing in the epitome of bad taste clothing and jewels as they postured, gossiped, sashayed, cavorted, giggled and gushed over designer names (who should have been embarrassed to be seen there), shoe stylists, hair dressers, and the people that dressed these mannequins to poor taste because they hadn't the good sense or ability to dress themselves. And none of this applied only to the men!

One of the truly bad things about the Oscar show is that is comes during the award season. Granted some awards might be given at other times, but most of the 'in' ones are doled out during the first couple months of a new year. By the second or third award show, it's all robotics. At least this time with Oscar, they had one high point - Hugh Jackman - who is something of a song and dance Cary Grant of the old movies days. He was actually fun to watch and his ease with the foolishness of the staged show made up for the incredible awkwardness of many of the celebrity presenters.

And isn't it wonderful, that for the next couple weeks we get the Red Carpet redux on the TV Guide Channel from the most forgettable, most insipid, most idiotic hosts and hostesses they could dredge up from the pits of the best ignored. Those phony smiles, those catty comments on style, those tasteless opinions, couldn't someone just sew their lips closed?

And right after that illustrious awards show, we had the first Obama speech to the combined Congress on Tuesday. Funny how an award show could be considered an orange (maybe a lemon) and a presidential speech to Congress could be considered an apple and yet both events were nothing more or less than performances....and both with red carpets, no less.

The traditional entrance of the Prez into those hallowed halls is one of those traditions that is never question but always repeated. All the oozing love and good fellowship is so obviously empty and phony, but the glad handing and back slapping and face time before the tracking cameras seems to go on and on. I can't help but wonder if some of those vying for attention and face time aren't asking 'who are you wearing?' as the traditional strut continues.

Then there is the speech itself, and the expected reactions to it within those hallowed halls. The party in power and aligned with the Prez always stands and applauds. Those on the outside always sit in silence, hardly bothering to be polite. Once again, it's all performance....but it sure isn't performance art. There is nothing artful about it.

And once its over, we get the equivalent of the re-hash of the red-carpet moments with the opining political analysts. Now if that doesn't remind you of a TV Guide show, you just haven't been paying attention. Yep, it's all performance. Unfortunately, the audience only gets to infrequently comment, yet we in the cheap seats end up paying the greatest cost for both either in the atrophy of our intellect or the loss of our ideals.

It's not only all performance, it's fruit salad.

(It is now March 20, and I only finished this piece. I had a very hard time forcing myself to come back to it - not that I'd lost interest in the performance concept, but that it seemed such a useless thing to point toward. A friend who noticed the gap between posts asked if I'd gotten bored with posting again. I laughed. It isn't boredom that has slowed me down; its the inconvenience of it. I've had a very hard time 'settling' lately and that means a very hard time of getting anything finished. It's the old 'spinning your wheels' malady, where you start something, but then get in a rut with it and get no where. I need a long vacation in a complete different place to reconnect with my focus. And that is the hardest thing to do - get away.)

Bored or Fickle. Is That a Question?

I hate people who yawn in my face. If I'd wanted a full view of tonsils or teeth, complete with questionable aroma therapy, I'd have been a dentist. I also hate the full frontal view of people whose eyes have glazed over...the ones who zone out either because they don't know what the conversation is about, they don't care what the conversation is about, or they have an inability to hold a conversation but the ability to lock their knees and sleep on their feet. I also hate myself for the ability to emulate most of these actions. It's depressing.

I don't think I'm fickle. At least I'm not fickle in the standard definition of being flippantly changeable, but I do reserve the right and the obligation to change my mind or my viewpoint when new evidence or information is presented. People actually can change; we can change our behavior for good or ill, we can change our appearance for good or ill and we can change our attitudes and views, again for good or ill. The old adage that 'a leopard doesn't change it's spots,' is actually valid only for leopards, and when was the last time you were up close and personal with a leopard?

I also don't think I'm boring, except maybe on occasions when I opine at length about something that interests me but might not offer the same mental challenge to others. I also hate to admit that I can grow bored - rapidly. That's an unfortunate talent in that it can become a social liability. One yawns at other people and one's eyes glaze over and after a while locked knees so you can stand upright while sleeping give you a hitch in your stride when you walk away from what bored you in the first place. So many vicious circles available in life that it's actually a bore.

People, whether as a group or individuals, should never be boring simply because people are as varied and different from each other as it is possible to be. Some of life's best lessons are learned by watching, listening, or interacting with other people. You not only can learn how to do different things, but why you should do them, of in some cases, why you shouldn't. That kind of learning can be fun, ridiculous, joyous, absurd, curious and everything in between, but it is rarely routine. That's why it is so sad when people turn boring.

The most boring people are the ones who hold steadily to the same ideas and opinions at 50 that they inherited from their parents at 10. Such people rarely try anything new or different, refuse to entertain other points of view than their own, have no curiosity about other cultures or ideas, and slowly circle in the same rut they've walked for the past twenty years, staring only at their own feet. One of the most boring sub-groups in this boring people group is old young people, and one of the most interesting and entertaining sub-groups in all of humanity is the young oldster, always ready to openly approach something new.

Both ritual and rote tradition bore me. Housework definitely bores me. Religious services of every variety bore me. So do voices that drone on at the same tempo and timbre, the nasal tones of bluegrass singers, women who talk about their stretch marks and their children to the exclusion of any interesting topics, men who wouldn't recognize my face in a crowd but could easily identify my boobs in a line-up, and the bland, endless drive on Interstate 80, especially through Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kansas.

One of my constant cures for boredom is reading. I read a great deal and I read on myriad topics and although I prefer the printed page, I also read on-line news, commentary and blog offerings. As with everything, I have my favorites, but they only remain viable as long as they are fresh, creative, and well done. I had great fun with the fetish-type blogs for a while, but lately they all seem to be angst driven and predictable. Boring. Even some of the more creative writer-type bloggers and journal writers have tested my ho-hum factor lately. I mean, give me a break - if your love life is always in turmoil or roiling in anxiety or sex, lies and face-book, shouldn't you try something different? You're saying and doing today the same thing you said and did a year, or two years or three years ago, to the exact same result. And how is that working for you?

We all know that anyone with a computer and Internet access has the option of whiling away idle hours looking at or reading porn. I did my stint with the on-line games at Pogo and also did my stint with the on-line porn at various much touted sites. (I wrote that with tongue in cheek while laughing like a lunatic.) I became especially curious about BDSM, primarily because I didn't understand it. I've followed along with a good number of those blogs for the past couple years and must admit I understand it even less. I don't condemn anyone for their fetish or personal preferences, but I have to admit, even these unusual variations on sexual mores get boring after a while, and while a man might get away with wearing leather at 65, a woman of the same age dressed up like a school girl with her hair in pigtails looks downright silly. When my yawn factor goes up, my tolerance for boredom goes down proportionately.

Some of the book authors I discovered years ago also lose their place in my affections and esteem because they grow boring. So much in the world of publishing, like all profit-center areas, has become formulae, and for me that's a death knell to the creative. Stephen King is one of those. He had me with Cujo and Christine, but he eventually lost me forever with his approach to Horror Redux and Redux and Redux. John Grisham is another. What makes him think lawyers are perennially interesting? Sheesh. Nora Roberts and Howard Fast, both far too prolific to be interesting because you can practically see where everything was pre-printed and they just filled in the blanks, like character name and occupation. Of course, there are some writers I enjoyed who don't write as much as they used to. Perhaps they got bored with themselves.

Could it be that I also get bored with myself? It's a definite possibility, if not a probability. I've always tried new things, and continued with those I enjoyed without thinking a great deal about it. I've been fortunate to be well traveled both here at home and abroad although there are a few places I've missed that I'll never have the opportunity or financial resources to manage now. There are also a few things I'd always planned to try that I'll probably miss - like hang gliding and visiting Antarctica but my attempt to do either these days would be about as bad as that 65 year old school girl with the fetish. Am I being fickle?

My dreams which used to be grandiose and somewhat bellicose, too, have diminished as I've grown wiser. I still have dreams, quite a number of different ones, but they are smaller and more intimate in scope. Dreams, whether my own or those shared by others, are rarely boring, even if the dreamer is fickle. Also, dreams are the playground of those who are young in heart and mind. They are the catnip and chew toys for humans, as necessary as the air we breathe and the water we drink. Dreams expand the soul and keep us nimble. Best of all, dreams are never boring.

Because I was always active and could always find something interesting to do, even among sedentary activities, my ex-husband used to tell people I could have fun in a closet. It might have sounded like a subtle put down, but it was actually a compliment. I never needed anyone else to determine my path, or take my hand, or find something to occupy my time. I was rarely bored or had idle hands, and a closet would be a wonderful place for day dreams and play. Of course, this is also one of the reasons why I have an ex-husband. As with so much else, I never fit the normal pattern or needing to be around other people to alleviate boredom.

But, I luuuuuuv him, her, it, them.....

Was Valentine's Day originally suggested by candy makers, florists, or card makers? Whoever first determined that sex and love would help market almost anything to anyone was quite a brilliant strategist, even if he/she was as full of shit as the next person who thinks that love makes the world go round or that it can solve any problem. Makes a sane person wonder whether humans are more hopeful than they are gullible or if they're simply programmed to grasp at any straw.

When I first discovered the photo of tree frogs shown above, it immediately reminded me of moony teenagers who can stare into each other's eyes until their corneas bleed. Even the green color works, acting as camouflage for the frogs and representing the naivety of youth for the teens. There is a similarity in the concept of tree frogs just doing their thing and humans reacting to their conditioning, too. These little frogs have tiny suction cups on their feet, the better to cling tightly to branches and leaves and requiring a conscious effort to break that suction seal to pull away. Humans determined to give their all for love do pretty much the same thing, except that when they are blindly in love with the idea of love, they are capable of sucking all the air out of the room, as well.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm certainly not against love in any of it's myriad forms. In my opinion, however, love does not make the world go round, love is not a cure all for the world's ills, and love is sometimes incredibly destructive and ugly. Worst of all, sometimes the presence of love is as bad for the human condition as it's absence. It can diminish us. It can warp our hearts and our minds. It can make us dwell in the land of illusion rather than in day to day reality. Too many of us secretly want all the fairy tales we were told as children to be true. Is it hope or gullibility when you buy into the hype and drink the Kool-Aid? Oh, and in this instance the Kool-Aid has to be red because red represents passion, the blood of our hearts, and heat...of our loins, naturally.

Even as poised, aware, sensitive adults, we expect far too much of love. In fact, the concept of love just like the word 'love' defies explanation. What exactly does it mean? Is being in love different that loving? Is the depth of love best defined by lust or by sacrifice? Does sacrifice have a place within the concept of love? Does love automatically equate with balance or equality? Is it really love if need is more pronounced that want? Can one truly love anything they desperately need? Does the universe care one way or another?

Love carries no guarantees. Love is also never free. As with everything, there is a cost of loving and being loved. There is an even heavier cost to the pretense of love and loving. Love will not cure acne. If you have pimples on your chin or your ass when you first fall in love, those pimples will still be there when you fall out of love. Love is not responsible for paying your rent, for setting you up in a penthouse, for teaching your bratty kid manners. Love is sometimes the 800 pound gorilla in the room, but can also be the 90 pound projectionist for that stupid movie loop of Peter Pan walking Cinderella down the aisle that you have playing in your head during waking hours. You don't need hearts and flowers, you need Valium and a cerebral transplant.

Contrary to some of the dumbest songs to ever hit the air waves and the pop charts, you can live without his/her love. If fact, you can live without him quite easily. Really, when pop song angst tries to take up residence in your brain, take a good look at yourself in the mirror and ask a simple question: Am I truly so stupid? Is some person's absence making me ill, or am I making me ill because I have unrealistic expectations? As an adult, shouldn't I have outgrown irrational ideas like living happily ever after? In those old stories, why did we never see what ever after involved? Why did everything end so abruptly with a loving kiss? Could it all be a pipe dream? A tale to soothe the fears and confusion of a child?

Yeah. And we still feed our kids the kind of Pablum and pap that will skew their expectations, just like those stories of love ever after skewed ours. Sex is used to sell everything from muscle shirts to muscle cars to power tools to basic health care. The bulk of all profits in the book publishing industry comes from romance novels. The most popular entertainers in both numbers of followers and revenue earned are those who can be marketed with the aura of love - as lovers, as sex objects, as the happy ever after dreams.

We're obsessed. We're irrational. We're absurd. We're not happy unless we're just falling in love, or happily anguishing over love leaving us, or jealous over the apparent love someone other than us has found. We love being in love and we love being miserable without love. We love love, even if we can't define it or explain it. We live in the fairy tales we tell.

Competently Doing His Job

January 15, 2009, certainly seemed to be an extraordinary day, and it came at a time when everyone needed good news. The Hudson River, even on its best day, would not be considered a very compatible environment for an airplane, but at the hands of an extraordinary pilot and as an emergency landing pad, it was all more than a miracle in a New York minute. It was a match made on high by very benevolent cosmic forces.

The Airbus pilot, Sully Sullenburger, is far more popular that Joe the Plumber and for much more realistic reasons. His piloting experience, his glider experience, and his cool nerves in a crisis were, with the assistance of his crew of four, a form of competence that saved the lives of 155 people. In what has become his own inimitable style, Sully opined that he was "just doing my job." In my opinion, it is that simple and straight forward admission that has actually made him a hero and that has inscribed his feat on the hearts and minds of so many. As the old saying goes, timing is everything.

The safe landing of that plane has caught the American imagination for many valid reasons, but one has so far not been mentioned. A quiet, courageous man, simply did his job in the same manner he'd done it for many days and years previously during a time when many others with equal responsibility for monetary resources and for the quality of human lives, if not the lives themselves, couldn't be bothered to selflessly do their jobs. Not even the people charged with oversight of these incompetent, egotistic, and blase captains of industry and finance bothered to do their jobs. Sully saved the lives of 155 people. The financiers, bankers, commodity traders, credit gurus, and CEO's of our few remaining manufacturing industries disrupted, sullied, and diminished the lives of far more people that can be counted.

I remember so many of the admonitions that were prevalent when I was growing up and going through school. One of the most oft repeated was 'take pride in doing a good job.' One of the sayings I personally ascribed to was that I should turn out work I would never be embarrassed to sign my name to. Although we are not of the same generation, I can't help but wonder if Bernie Madoff ever heard those same admonitions, and if he did, if he ever repeated them to his sons. And what about Ken Lay of Enron scandal fame? Was his job to bilk people, or was he supposed to be running a company while meeting the needs of employees, customers and shareholders?

Reproducing a list of names for those too corrupt, greedy or incompetent to do their jobs, assuming they even knew what they were supposed to accomplish in those positions, would be far too involved and lengthy for anyone to manage, but any review of the news during the last decade would certainly leave a bad taste behind. There's one, however, that even I feel forced to mention, especially due to his appointment by another incompetent; Henry Paulson as Treasury secretary was to oversee and manage the banking bailout....all those billions of tax payer dollars to get the worst executive managers of the financial and banking industry out of the mess they created. As was typical of the industry itself, in which Paulson worked previously as CEO of Goldman Sachs, one of the culprits in greed, the money was passed around without any controls or oversight in place for its use. How bad can anyone be at a job? Really rotten, as Paulson among others proved.

So, there we all were, with the supposedly most elite and knowledgeable people within the financial/banking/credit industries fumbling around making bad situations worse and refusing (or many unable) to recognize their own culpability, while equally culpable and inept government monitoring and regulating agencies were missing or ignoring the signs of a nation sliding down the tubes into complete chaos, and five average people headed by a 57 year old self-effacing pilot calmly does something seemingly impossible as a matter of course. He does his job and does it well.

When we've been surrounded by pettiness, ugliness, greed, egoism, stupidity, cowardice, ignorance, denial, and the basic incompetence of people who were 'all hat, no cattle,' we're suddenly face to face with the reality of what we've been missing. One single act exemplifies how idolizing money, sophistication, and old school ties has blinded us to what is truly important and vital in life. We've recognized that one must take their job seriously, as well as having pride in that work and doing it as best as one can. It's really simple. It's a question of accepting and meeting responsibility. Accolades and rewards if they come will have real meaning but will also be unexpected because that is not the reason one does a job well.

That five-person airline crew is now doing the talk show circuit. That's fine. Doing a job well should get attention, particularly during this time of insecurity. But for a change, let's hope the viewing public sees the reality and the differences between the Sullys of this world and the Ken Lays or Jack Abramoffs or Henry Paulsons or Bernie Madoffs. One takes pride in doing a job well and the others are just prideful in their corruption and incompetence. We definitely need more Sullys...and we won't survive if we create or allow more of the others.

Weather Destroys Human Arrogance

There are a lot of jokes about the weather - as many as there are people who try to predict it. Besides, as the old adage says, no matter what, there will be weather. And weather has always been such a nicely safe, albeit dull topic for conversation at tea parties, cocktails hours, while standing in line or sharing a taxi. Weather's safe, right?

Weather, in and of itself, is definitely not safe. Just ask the million people in Kentucky who suffered through an ice storm that began on Tuesday, January 27, and whose effects are still being felt tonight, on February 4. Tonight's temperature is scheduled to go down to single digits, and there are still about 30,000 people in my part of the world without power. As with any weather disaster, there have been multiple human deaths, the majority of them caused by people trying to stay warm in below freezing weather but with no clue about how to stay safe. People do inadvisable things when they're desperate and/or afraid, and/or ignorant, like bringing an outdoor grill inside and lighting the coals, or putting a gasoline powered generator indoors without venting for carbon monoxide.

Everyone in our area with access to weather reports knew the potential for a bad storm and power outages was very real, but according to the 'experts,' the truly dangerous line for major ice storm damage would remain to our north. It was in the north, as they said, but it was also much further south than anticipated, and therein was our problem. It started as snow, then changed to sleet and freezing rain, and it was very audible as it hit windows and storm doors. It was far worse when it changed to freezing rain.

I had already gone to bed before my power went out, but I'd been unable to fall asleep. Naturally, I felt nervous, but in an attempt to remain somewhat optimistic, I hoped for the best. While, I lay there hoping, I could hear tree branches beginning to clack together in the wind. That sound changed abruptly with the loud cracks of breaking limbs, then the slithering, glass breaking sound of limbs falling from heights to the ice covered ground. That horrifying sound came with greater and greater frequency, and then the power went about 2 a.m.

There is nothing more humbling that lying vulnerable in the dark, knowing there is nothing you can do as living portions of your environment crumble around you. The cracks, the crashes, the heavy thuds of large trees succumbing to stress and falling to earth makes you rethink your values. It also makes you reconsider your fallible reasoning in purchasing a home with far too much glass on two levels. There is nothing more pathetic that a human suddenly faced with their human weakness. Neither fantasy, illusion or arrogance abrogates the problem.

I fared better than many, surviving without power for five days, without telephone for six, and without a functioning car battery for six. My cats and I cuddled together under blankets on the sofa during the days, where dressed in multiple sweatshirts, socks and a hoodie, I read and tickled cat bellies. I filled my stomach with cereal, tuna sandwiches, nutrition bars and instant coffee warmed over multiple tea candles. The cats feasted on their usual fare, unconcerned like me that the cupboard might grow bare. The house temperature went down to 40, but we managed, all of us under or on top of quilts and comforters on the upstairs bed. It was a shared human/feline adventure that we're all glad is over.

The real irony, of course, is that we definitely had weather. Man's arrogant assumption that he controls and dominates his environment is so much rot. When weather truly let's us know who is boss, our arrogance turns to irrelevance, irresponsibility and in most cases, paranoia because those linemen for the utilities were taking care of everyone but me. Those not particularly religious suddenly attempt to bargain with whatever they think passes for God. Personal hygiene becomes less a fetish when icy cold water is the only alternative. In about half the cases, selfishness magnifies, and in the other half, charity and a helping hand is top priority. The real lesson it in all, is that humans can prepare but they cannot control what the weather in any of its myriad forms presents.

Our last weather problem had been only four months before with the tail end of Hurricane Ike blowing down trees and knocking out power. That was a problem, but it was not deadly because the September weather was still relatively warm. That wasn't the case last week. Nor was our local or state-wide government or utilities services prepared for a problem of the magnitude Mother Nature presented. There seemed to be a great deal of after the fact preparation instead of a plan in place for resurrection prior to the storm. The local radio stations were also highly lax in their job of informing the public. Bulletins and informational reports were few and far between, normal programming prevailing which was absurd because while people were struggling to survive, Rush Limbaugh was ranting as usual. The few reports of value even ceased all together over the weekend, as though no one with a conscience worked Saturdays or Sundays.

It's probably good that Ma Nature makes these surprise attacks. It certainly cuts humans back down to size. It scares us and exhausts us and makes us quake in our boots. It makes us appreciate those local and out of state utility workers who brave the elements and 12 hour days to get things back to a semblence of normal. And I kept wondering as the trees were coming down and the freezing rain continued just how many of those tiny, twig entwined squirrel nests up in the highest tree branches were going to survive, and how the occupants, flung to the ground as the limbs broke and crashed, would survive their own terror and needs. The cats and I were lucky.