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“I’m a night owl” = “I’m afraid of death”?

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My default setting is to stay up late. Go to bed around midnight to 3 a.m. No matter how many grown-up years pass that teach the hard lessons and wisdom of getting 8 hours of sleep, I petulantly stay up late.

Part of me still thinks: “Woo-hoo! I’m not a kid anymore. I can make up my OWN rules!” This may be the same instinct that causes me to see a colored bead or wayward Lego block or hair barrette on the floor of my house and think: “That’s not MY mess. Leave it to whomever dropped it there.” I have to reflect, realize: “Oh, yeah. I’m the adult now and if I don’t pick that up someone will step on it and I’ll feel badly.” Then pick that bauble up.

As soon as Friday night the habit reverts. Doesn’t matter that I wake up first with the kids 6 of 7 mornings each week. Doesn’t matter what my activity is: writing, reading, watching tv, reading on the internet about what I just watched on tv, listening to music. There I sit/lay/slouch/stretch. Brain glazing over. Yet I will not budge until exhausted.

Rationally, 8 hours of sleep is important, daylight is important. But I can’t (usually) bring myself to put cause and effect together: go to sleep at a decent hour, get decent sleep, all for a more decent day tomorrow.

Why, then, rage, RAGE against the dying of the day as if I could wait out and defeat (or at least stalemate) the rotation of the planet?

I don’t think it’s an inherent trait. People say “I’m not a morning person” and “I’m a night owl” like sharing they have brown hair and that’s just the way it is. I think it’s fear of missing something. Of making the most of good health and mind right now because tomorrow may not bring this solitude (and it is always solitude – I don’t hang out late anywhere since my mid-20s) and this ability to browse and mentally meander.

The headline to this is a little dramatic. I sleep easily. My dreams are very simple and fond. I get out of bed quickly. But even on weekends, the mornings start with tasks. Making breakfast. Pets. Read the paper. Clean house. Plan the day. Not bad, all necessary and often delightful, but not as much fun as traipsing around, or standing still, in a marsh of mental confections and the occasional alligator easily dismissed with a FLICK on the snout. [Shout out, Fanny!]

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Justin Bieber’s “Someday” stink water

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Saw this commercial earlier in the week:

Induced a mental cramp. After recuperative staring at a candle, things to unpack:

1.) The gal seems a couple years older than Bieber. Should the ad carry some kind of warning, depending on state of residence?

2.) She also leads an aritocratic existence with a ballet dancer’s build. He’s an intrusive, daring scamp in lavender tennis shoes. It’d NEVER work! [Cue dramatic music, their mad dash to a car and drive away from the grown-ups who just don’t understand/]

3.) Does it count as subliminal advertising if human anatomy is outright depicted on the container?

4.) Though I wish him no ill will, I bet Bieber repellent spray would sell better.

Poetry, Writing

Waking from a nap

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I open the window to let in the sound of the rain.
Gust falls.
A police siren.
Subsides. A train whistle to the east.
Another heavy burst. Then quiet, steady.

Passing car in the alley splays the steady runoff down the pavement.
Dry room. Fond room.
Another heave of the wind brings water through the screen,
Onto the windowsill, onto the floor.
Worry later.

Uncategorized

Fuck you, Apple, I’m STILL not going by “@me.com”

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Long, long time ago …

I bought a “.Mac” account. An easy way to create webpages, online slideshows, share files, have online storage space, download free software/updates. Didn’t use it a LOT, but it was neat when those services were rare. Oh, yeah, and I had @mac.com as my email address.

Sure, it became my junk email account immediately for online signups. But, whatever. Felt a hokey having an email address that identified me as part of a brand lifestyle. Was there ever a “@tacobellchalupa.com” email address? Again, whatever.

Then three or so years ago, Apple transitioned naming their service from “.Mac” to “Mobile Me”. Worse? email addresses would transition from “@mac.com” to “@me.com”.

Even a RAVING narcissist as myself was revolted. Sure, in theory it was part of a “Hey, sharing and caring using Apple products and our online services ain’t about US here at Apple, it’s about YOU, your life, claim it! Show the world online more about ME. I mean, er, YOU, but USE ‘me’. Hold up: what marketing numbskull wrote this hack copy?”

Now, I know demographic research into the rising generations show decreasing sense of guardedness about security, greater inclination to share with peers, propensity to seek approval of authority. Hasn’t been MY experience with Gen Y or Echo generation or whatever. Have met too many future ornery old cusses (hooray for that!) so I tend to review these PowerPoint Purveyors of generational labels with skepticism. Distrust of authority. Refusal to engage in constructive thought or genuine emotion. You know, like all Gen Xers.

Just letting you know, Apple and Google bots (and, to show sensitivity to minorities, Bing bots), that I will use “@mac.com” as long as possible. Well, okay, for junk. But it’s the PRINCIPLE, man!

Pop Culture

Not giving up on George Michael

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George Michael is a genuinely talented, witty artist and I hope he gets (has?) his shit together so he can record more music – specifically upbeat music.

In the mid-80s, my high school girlfriend had much better, broader, deeper musical taste than me and her copies of Wham!’s ‘Fantastic’ and ‘Make it Big’ album sleeves were propped against her shelves and the platters on her turntable all of the time. Their songs were catchy, but I sniffed at the covers and the videos and saw it was all fun, but I wasn’t tuned into how deliberately arch the whole Wham! enterprise was.

It wasn’t until George Michael’s ‘Faith’ album that I grokked his ambition and inspiration and keen ear and artistry. Still immaculately groomed, but crikey, what a great, hungry, assured pop album the fellow made.

More fun and great singles kept coming over the years. Could care less about his sexual pecadilloes (did he have more than just the one?) but the public intoxication and driving under the influence incidents are troubling.

Still, that he had a sustained career for many years in pop music point to a reserve of talent. He’s one of the few music artists from the 80s & 90s I’d like to hear new music from. Not re-hashes of hits, but expressions of where he’s at. Oh, and upbeat songs. His ballads and slow-tempo big-picture songs tend to be snoozers.

Here’s an acoustic performance of “Freedom 90” pulled from about 100 hours of old videotapes. This website may be a repository of these morsels. Still deliberating on what to do with this space.

Oh, and this performance is 20 years old! Eeeek! Crossing fingers for ya, ya mad Cypriot!

Parenting

Forecasting teen steam

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Oldest turned 11 today. Both kids are old and lanky enough for glimpses into how they’ll be as teenagers. Neurologically, the ability to feel empathy is at its lowest during adolescence. We all know and have lived THAT.

For years, I’ve joked that we take photos of our spawn NOW so we have something to harken back to and browse through while we’re worriedly hold vigil for their teen years late night / early morning returns. But, specifically, how horrible wil it be? Will it be mild? I look at my kids both in the moment and anticipate how I will regard the moment in the future. Trying to remember things as I will be remembering them…

What THING am I doing now that will become THAT THING they complain about to friends – on the phone or texting or chat rooms (holograms?) or in hangouts engaged in some activity they’re not supposed to be doing that will be rightfully mundane once they become of age and it is no longer illicit?

[Spawn] “Yeah, my dad totally did THAT THING again.”

[Peer] “What a drag, slick. Forget about that. Now let’s [insert proposal of resuming/initiating forbidden behavior].”

Best guess of THAT THING: critique/analysis of their pop culture consumption.

Uncategorized

Hope Hitchens & Vidal make it another year

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I have an awful feeling that two writer/media figures/heroes of mine, Gore Vidal and Christopher Hitchens, might not make it to the end of the year. Hitchens in battling severe esophageal cancer and recently lost his voice. Gore Vidal has been yellowing for some time, hasn’t emerged recently, and hasn’t moved under his own power in public for years.

To superstitiously ward this off, here’s an excerpt from an conversation between Hitchens and Anderson Cooper. CNN is rarely a place that goes deep, but I really like Cooper calling bullshit on the concept of “closure” when it comes to someone’s death, and Hitchens agreeing:

Gore Vidal was a commentator on a 3-hour documentary about Abraham Lincoln aired on the History Channel. Here he compares the severe acts of Lincoln (shutting down presses, suspension of habeas corpus) to the same acts, much less necessary, by George W. Bush.

 

Poetry, Writing

The Soul Selects Her/His Own Society

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The Soul Selects Her Own Society
by Emily Dickinson

The Soul selects her own Society —
Then — shuts the Door —
To her divine Majority —
Present no more —

Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing —
At her low Gate —
Unmoved — an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat —

I’ve known her — from an ample nation —
Choose One —
Then — close the Valves of her attention —
Like Stone —

 

Socializing when you don’t want to is a drag. Even when socializing isn’t a dreary duty, the people delightful, the occasion a privilege.

Yes, everyone feels that way at times.

I really enjoy writing. The concentration. But I need to be away from people I know to do it. If only there were some way to easily close the valves Dickinson writes of, then open them again at will without feeling/being an asshole.

Parenting

Twinkies sense & sensibility

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Last weekend at a school auction dinner with a comfort food theme (meat loaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, iceberg lettuce wedge salad) the dessert options were: 1.) Pool bids among your table for a right to jockey in a “dessert dash” for a baked treat of your choice and return it to your table; 2.) A s’mores-type fudge delivered to the table; 3.) A box of 10 Twinkies.

As a kid, Twinkies were AMAZING. In teen years, I noticed that eating them was never satisfying – the dreams of a fulfilling golden-sponge cake never dreamy and never fulfilling with a bizarre burning sensation left in the throat.

In 1991, inspired by an issue of Spy magazine, I bought a box of Twinkies and: A.) Put one in a microwave for a minute (expanded slightly, smelled like burning plastic, “cream” was blackened but the cake was fine; B.) Placed a Twinkie in jar of water (swelled to 3x its size, kept its shape until I shook it then it all dissolved); C.) Left a Twinkie outside on the apartment’s patio railing for the birds (birds came and investigated, never, ever ate any – the Twinkie eventually disintegrated after a few day’s rain living an oblong ring of goo in its wake like a spontaneously exploded golden slug).

At this auction night, I ate a Twinkie. Almost ate all of it. I sucked out the “cream” and left some of the golden sponge cake flesh/rind on the table. Still gross. Spouse ate part of mine, too. Another relative at the table ate one. Took the remaining 8 home for the kids. Spouse said “I don’t think the kids have ever had Twinkies.” then mentioned to relatives “I don’t know that we’ve ever given the kids Twinkies.” Not a boast so much as giving our kids brand-name snacks is typically something we do. A statistical oddity.

Have spent the last 5 days selling the concept of eating a Twinkie to the kids as an after-snack dinner. Visions of sun-dappled moms giving their kids a treat after Wonder Bread sandwiches and Kool Aid drinks in our backyard (why aren’t the dads ever sun-dappled? They’re only shown as frustrated at the BBQ or fucking stuff up). “How about some Hostess treats?” Carefully blended selection of showbiz kids, also dun-dappled and in intense-gamboling mode yet quite sheveled: “Yay!” Small hands from all directions removing all selections from the dessert platter. Mom pleased, smiles at the camera and gives a head shake with a “I’m such a good provider.” and “Kids LOVE cramming artificial foamy lard dollops down their gullets” look in her eyes.

Our kids have declined to eat a Twinkie each day. The expiration date is approaching (contrary to myth, they do expire) and I will happily drop all 8 of these in the garbage. My little birds are ignoring Twinkies, too.