Catch-19

Here’s how I imagine it went down:

ADVISER:    You’ve waited 8 years for this chance, what are you going to do with it?

CANDIDATE:    I’m not sure what you mean. I’m going to do what I did last time, only better.

ADVISER:    So you’re going to go out there and lay it on the line? Tell folks the hard truths about what needs to be done? Speak out against the “forces of intolerance” again?

CANDIDATE:    That’s right! All that and more.

ADVISER:    So you plan to lose again.

CANDIDATE:    –

ADVISER:    Sorry, but that’s the plan you’ve laid out. It lost you the first nomination and it’ll lose you this one. I know you think that if you just tell the truth and stand up for what you believe to be right and clearly enunciate how best to fix our problems that the people will all flock to you. Or enough of them will. But they wont. You proved that conclusively last time. Why repeat a failed formula? All that “straight talk” fell on deaf ears. It’s time for some other kind of talk, don’t you think?

CANDIDATE:    What then? Tell them what they want to hear? Or better, just tell them anything to frighten them into voting for me? Should I just do what’s been done for the last 8 years and lie to them?

ADVISER:    Maybe, yeah. If that’s what it takes, that’s what you do. If telling the truth is what it takes, then you do that. If you want to get elected–and you do– then you run a campaign for President, not a campaign to get elected “Most Honest” in your high school yearbook!

CANDIDATE:    [SIGH]    I’ve heard all this before. It’s the same–

ADVISER:    Yes, but then you weren’t listening. And then you didn’t know how bad a failure was in your future.

CANDIDATE:    Fine! I can’t win, I believe you. So should I just give up?

ADVISER:    No, you should win.

CANDIDATE:    You just got done telling me I can’t.

ADVISER:    No, I told you you can win the way you want to run the campaign. You will win the way I want you to run the campaign. You want hear it? I’ll tell you, but you have to listen. And you have to admit that you’re not going to win it any other way.

CANDIDATE:     You’re right. I’m not going to win this my way, or any other way I can think of. So yeah, I’ll listen.

ADVISER:    It’s easy: You say what I tell you to say. That’s all.

CANDIDATE:    That’s all?

ADVISER:    That’s all. You say exactly what I tell you to say. You say what I tell you, when I tell you, to whom I tell you. If I tell you to say the war is a proud moment in history, you say that. if I tell you to say that God wants you to be president, you say that. If I tell you to hug Falwell and cry  tears of joy at his endorsement, you do that. Hell, if I tell you to go out on live national TV and tell the world that you kill puppies with your teeth each night before raping babies, you say that. And if I tell you the next day to say you never said it and that there’s no proof, you say that. John, you just say what I tell you to say and you will be the next president of this great contry.

CANDIDATE:    And when you tell me to say something I find morally repugnant? Or a downright lie? How do I live with that?

ADVISER:    I don’t know. Maybe you’ll be comforted by being the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. Maybe the good you can do in the world will ease your aching conscience. Maybe you’ll start practicing self-flagelation as penance for your sins. Maybe you’ll fall into a bed filled with midget hookers and fluffy piles of cocaine every night in order to forget what it cost you. I don’t know and I don’t care.

CANDIDATE:    That’s a tall order.

CANDIDATE:    Okay. I don’t know what else to do. I’ll give your way a try.

I don’t know enough about politics to know who the adviser is, but I think the candidate should be easy to spot.

I was just feeling sorry for myself a few minutes ago. The usual stuff: fat, unattractive, unemployed, etc. But for some reason my thought took a sharp right turn to Rowen, my 10 year old daughter.

I realised that in 10 years I have never once let her go to bed without hearing me say “I love you”. Even those times when she was busy screaming that she hated me, I made sure she heard me say that. And even those times when I had my doubts about whether it was true (usually those same nights she was screaming that she hated me) I said it and made sure she heard it.

It’s a fairly small thing in the great scope of life. She wont cure cancer because of it. And not hearing it wouldn’t have turned her into a psychotic serial killer who targets middle aged men with children and murders them with princess music boxes while wearing frilly dresses.

But maybe when she’s older and having a bad day — the kind where the whole world has turned to shit and you are certain that nothing and no one has ever loved anything, let alone you — the memory of those “I love you”s, or even just the unconscious knowledge of them, will help her get through it.

I’m voting for Obama. I’m very happy to be doing so.

I’d have been just as happy to vote for Clinton. In fact, she was the one I was hoping would get the nomination. But I’m truely happy with Obama. For me, the choice between Obama and Clinton (actually, to go further back, Edwards was my first choice. I felt he nicely split the difference between Clinton’s tenacity and insider knowledge and Obama’s sincerity and passion) was like being asked which you would rather have, $1million or $1.1 million. Sure, given the choice I’ll choose the $1.1 million, but either one would be wonderful.

Eight years ago I had some respect and admiration for McCain. The way he spoke to the radical christian right was refreshing and reasured me that not all of the politicians on the right were willing to sink to any depths get votes. Now, I’ve lost all that respect and admiration. He’s just another right wing politician who will go to any lengths of pandering in order to get the power he so desperately craves. I’m saddened. I wouldn’t have voted for him anyway, I don’t agree with him on lots of things, but I really thought he was in government for the poeple and that his views were his own.

So, that’s it. That’s my politics post. I wont be posting much more on it. you know where to find the good blogs on the subject.

To California, for being the first state to come out of the dark ages and finally allow gay marriage.

There is only one reason to prevent gay marriage. Only one. Because you don’t believe that homosexuals deserve the same rights as straights. It’s that simple. And if that’s the case, you’re a bigot. That’s all.

I’m happy to see the couples lining up to get marriage licenses and planning their big events. The happiness (and heartache) of finding the one person to love should be celebrated by everyone. So… HURRAY!

This summer we got season tickets to our three local Six Flags parks: Great adventure, Hurricane Harbor (Not the best name for a fun place to play in the sun and water, is it? What was the rational there: A: “I know, lets call it Hurricane Harbor!” B: “Hmmm, a harbor in a hurricane wouldn’t really be a fun place, would it… unless you had a commemorative drink cup to go with it!” A: “Yeah!” I’d love to know what names were thrown out) and Wild Safari. Last weekend we gave them a test run and went to to Great Adventure on Saturday and Wild Safari on Sunday.

These tickets are going to be so worth it.

Not having even seen Hurricane Harbor yet we know that we will be spending far too much time there.

For me the highlight was the Wild Safari. It’s one of those deals where you drive through the park in your own vehicle and the animals are allowed to roam freely (within limits, but it was certainly more roomy than any zoo.) Seeing them unenclosed really made a difference for me. Even something as mundane as the red ankoli cattle was hugely impressive when you were that close. Those horns were massive!

It’s hard to pick a favorite thing about the trip. The giraffes
licking the top of our car, the rhino following us and making me worried about getting rear-ended, or the bear cub standing on his hind legs to interact with an adult.

But surely the hight of our trip is that which inspired the title of this post. The kangaroos. Seems that day there all a bit… randy. Actually, they were fucking like rabbits. One kangaroo lady couldn’t get enough, she found another fella to finish her off when the first guy was done. And Rowen watched it all with fascination, until she realized what they were doing. So it fell to me to have an abbreviated discussion about the birds and the kangaroos.

The truth is I don’t mind. I’ve never shied away from answering her questions and I’m not about to start just because they’ve gotten harder and less comfortable to answer. So maybe I owe the kangaroos a debt. And I say good on ya! to that kangarette. Get what ya need, babe.

I broke 265 today. I’ve officially lost 40 lbs since about August of last year. If I attain 45 or 50 lbs by the end of this August I’ll be perfectly happy with that. Nice and slow with no backsliding.

The bad news is that I haven’t been to the gym in 2 months. I still do an hour a day on the recumbent stationary bike, but I really have to get back to the gym. There are, as always, lots of good reasons I haven’t been. None of them make me very happy with myself. I’ve decided to start back next week. By then Rowen will be out of school and I she can hang out at the babysitting area in the gym for the 45 minutes we’d be there.

I’m wearing 42 in. waist pants now. That’s down from 48 in. waist pants. This makes me so happy. I’ll really rejoice when I get to 40 in. Then I’ll be able to shop at normal people stores. Plus some of my old t-shirts will fit again.

So go me!

Hi, my name is Tim.

Hi Tim!

And I’m a City of Heroes addict.

Memorial day weekend the MMO City of Heroes offered free play for a weekend to subscribers who had quit. I took them up on that offer. I shouldn’t have.

A year and a half ago I quit playing CoH. I didn’t quit because it was ruining my life, though it was certainly a shitty influence. I quit because it got boring. You see, I’m not really an addictive personality. It’s fairly easy for me to quit vices that are destructive. In the Army I drank every night, and got drunk most night. Weekends were a blur on a regular basis. But the day I left my drinking dropped to about one drink a week, right where it is today. I quit smoking on the first try and I’ve never had another cigarette since. Quitting CoH was the same. I just stopped.

Then they offered me this free weekend with promises of all this new content and I took them up on it and got hooked. So for almost two weeks I’ve been playing that damn game every day for hours and hours. Not sleeping and not working out and not cooking etc.

So I just quit again.

The truth is it’s not a big deal, but at least it explains some of why I’ve not been posting and not been tweeting. So I’ll be around a lot more.

Hi.

Not a lot of posts, huh?

Guess I’ll go ahead and, you know, post some things.

I’ve just been in kind of a funk for a while. Add that to a fairly bad cold a few weeks ago and you get a picture of what I’ve been doing. Yeah, sleeping.

But I’m not dead. I’m feeling much better now. I think I’ll go for a nice walk.

There have been a lot of stories recently about letting kids have more freedom. There was this TED talk about letting kids do dangerous things, The Daring Book for Girls and this news story about a nine-year-old going on NYC public transit by himself.

So I’ve decided it is time to loosen the reigns a bit. And I have to admit that I’ve been holding the reigns pretty damn tightly. Rowen has never gone anywhere without some sort of supervision. I’m not as neurotic as some parents-Rowen has been to sleepovers and we have a babysitter come about every other week so Mia and I can have a date. But she doesn’t play outside without me there to watch. She doesn’t ride her bike around the neighborhood unless we’re riding together. And while I’m fine with her being at a friends house without me, I don’t let her walk there alone.

So starting this week I’m letting her out of the house without my overbearing presence. We have a small park just down the street, not even 1000 feet away, and with line of sight from the house. I let her ride her bike to the park and even go to a friends house to see if said friend could come to the park. And I didn’t watch her the entire time with the telescope. Honest. I got laundry done.

I don’t expect this to have any sort of immediate effect on my little girl. but I think it’s probably more healthy than keeping her under my thumb.

Hi, I’m still setting up house, so don’t mind the mess. Once I have all the furniture in I’ll be sure to throw a party and we can get to know each other, have a few drinks, some laughs, a bunch more drinks, start acting inappropriately, get reprimanded by our loved ones, have a few more drinks, get sick in the planter, grope a stranger, pick a fight we can’t possibly win, tell the cops where they can shove it, get tazed and beaten with a baton, bailed out and slink home, then make sheepsih apologies for the next 2 months.

Sounds like fun!