Category: Daily Life

Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.

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The Day Thus Far

So far:

Next:

  • Wash dishes
  • Buy a shotgun (daughter going to her first prom tonight) (can you believe it? Time flies!)
  • code/program…a lot!
  • See daughter off to her prom (can you believe it? Time flies!)
  • Go to a sweat lodge
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Internet has ruined nudity!

The human form, particularly the female form, is beautiful! All shapes sizes colors. It doesn’t matter. They hang in our art galleries, appear in photographic journals, hang on the walls of our homes (most fun thing to say at a friend’s house “so, is that your wife?” answer “yes”), are used in advertisement, sculptures, and so many other places. Nudity is art. I think religion was first to try to ruin the human body. Granted, some Pagan religions actually celebrate nudity. But the Internet succeeded where religion failed. How? Religion made it taboo and that raises curiosity actually making the forbidden object/fruit/alcohol/drug more desirable. The Internet threw it in our faces making it meh.

When I was a child to understand the human body, you had to sneak a peek at your friend’s father’s 2 or 3 adult magazines (if you could find them), or squint your eyes at the fuzz on the scrambled Playboy channel (how do you think The Magic Eye pictures were discovered?), we read National Geographic hoping the photographer that month had visited Africa, examined medical books (thank goodness Mom was studying nursing!), looked at how to take photography books (thank goodness my grandfather was a photo nut!), and found clubhouses in the woods with walls plastered with pages from Hustler, Playboy, Oui!, and other magazines (and yes, the woods had these treasure troves..what do children do without woods now-a-days? Oh, right, they have the Internet!).

What brought me here today? A leg cramp. Last night my left calf spasmed nearly bringing tears to my eyes. I sat up in bed and grabbed my leg pressing my palm hard against the muscle. I tried stretching the muscle and relaxing the muscle, pointing the toes down and up, and it laughed in my face and wriggled beneath my palm as if infested with a thousand alien worms. I needed water and a banana. This seemed to go on forever and deemed a post. I sought a picture to accompany the post by Googling calf muscle. Clicked a link (NSFW). And uttered these words aloud: Oh, I like the bridge! Apparently, I now see dolphins again.

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Rabbit, rabbit

I toyed with superstitions as a child. The common ones: walking under a ladder is bad luck, always put your right shoe on first, breaking a mirror will get you 7 years bad luck (I still twitch at the thought of breaking a mirror), 4 leaf clovers are good luck, and I even owned a rabbit foot (not so lucky for the rabbit). There were some other more ritualistic superstitions I had but they’ve slipped my brain. I challenged the walking under a ladder by setting one up and intentionally going under it 100 times or so (which is probably part of why my life as unfolded the way it did). I used to find it very relaxing to sit in a clover patch and seek out a 4 leaf clover. When I’d find one, I’d stick it in the L section of the dictionary on the page that had the definition for luck. Will we have to buy two Kindles in the future to press flowers?

Today, KristyK taught me a new one when she published "rabbit, rabbit" on Facebook. I almost let it go as someone just being silly on the Internet but she had a comment talking about remembering to say it. Why would you say it? Thanks to the power of Google and Wikipedia, I now understand.

…a common superstition, held particularly among children. The most common modern version states that a person should say “rabbit, rabbit, white rabbit” upon waking on the first day of each new month, and on doing so will receive good luck for the remainder of that month. [Source, Wikipedia, Rabbit rabbit]

Dare I teach "rabbit rabbit white rabbit" to my children?

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Parent mistake #78314

Inheritance

There are a few things I inherited from my father. He is still alive. I am talking about genetically and behaviorally. For instance, I have his hair. Fortunately for me he still has his so odds are baldness is not in my future. Not that I’m saying anything about hairlessness. Bald is cool. Shoot for the past week I’ve been thinking about shaving my head. It’s the economy stupid. I also got his intelligence even if my wife cannot see it. The words "god damn" came from him. Despite my efforts to remove that from my vocabulary, I seem intent on passing that legacy to my children. It’s reflexive particularly when the stress is up. Ever since I started taking blood pressure medicine, I have become acutely aware of when the stress is up. Don’t get me wrong. Before the blood pressure medicine I was well aware of my mental state and knew when the stress was up. But now I feel it differently. Yesterday I could feel the blood coursing through my veins. Prior to the blood pressure medicine I was less aware of the tension in my arms and chest but it was there and constant. I should fart more. Or get the wife to calm me down more frequently.

Yesterday, knowing my blood pressure and stress were up, I struggled to keep myself in check. This morning, I overslept and was simply not awake enough to be responsive instead of reactionary.

I’m bigger and louder than you so I’m right

Amy will be seven in just over a month. Her sister, who turns 16 in June, has taught Amy teenager behaviors that she shouldn’t know. Then there is the inheritance thing. After all, she is my child. And she has my temper. And stubbornness. And those pretty blue eyes. This morning I had but one focus: get Amy ready for school and out the door on time. Considering I overslept, we were pressed for time. I was so focused on doing my job of being a father I forgot to actually be a father. After I dropped a teary eyed child off at school, I finally realized that this morning Amy needed to be in control. In control of what? Anything. It wouldn’t have mattered but instead of being that television dad who instantly has the wisdom and humility to help his child, I became the unruly dictator and drill sergeant who bullies his children as objects instead of sensitive beings. I yelled, I cursed, I threatened to throw toys away, and I produced tears on demand from what minutes earlier had been two happy, joyful children. Yes it was abusive. And wrong. And unnecessary. And I feel horrible. She had a need and did not know how to express it. She needed to be in control. She took this control by taking her brother’s toy. All I had to do we redirect her and give her the chance to make some choices and decisions and, in effect, be in control. Instead I taught her that you can be in control by raging, raising your voice, cursing, and threatening. I get no dad points today. Raising children is tough but you shouldn’t raise the dead and wake the house in the process. Last week I secretly vowed to myself to never raise my voice in anger to the children again. No. It wasn’t just the children. I vowed to never raise my voice in anger to anyone ever again. I failed. Can I have a Mulligan? Amy, I’m sorry.

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What’s your working environment like?

I’ve just been stabbed with two light sabers and now am watching a laundry basket be dragged up the stairs then dropped down the stairs followed by a cackling laugh. Rinse. Repeat. I wonder how many times he has to do this before he realizes he could be sitting in the laundry basket when it goes down. Thank goodness the hospital has free wifi.

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He said, “Let there be pizza!”

…and there was Domino’s, with their Two-fer Tuesday online coupon. And I was all over that. (Dominos on Tuesdays has become a tradition that the children have come to expect and all because of that coupon) Domino’s has an excellent online ordering site albeit a little slow. You can also order from a regular mobile phone or smart phone with an Internet connection with ease. Domino’s impressed me!

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Losing My Google-fu

Yesterday Cathy had the great idea to post the Human H1N1 Swine Flu Map. (there are dozens but this one in particular by a person nicknamed Niman is particularly excellent) I followed her lead and also posted the map because I assume that Domestic Psychology and Reality Me have slightly different audiences albeit with some natural overlap. Her post stayed off the radar and mine jumped to the number one position in Google’s search results, Dogpile’s search results and CNN’s search results for the keywords "swine flu map" which was pretty cool. The post even hit digg (a first for me). The Internet is a fickle place. At the time I began composing this post, I was in 4th position on Google and not even on page 1 for CNN or Dogpile. By the time I finished typing this I was in 5th position on Google. The programmer in me wants to jump over to Cathy’s site and figure out why mine seems to have SEO’d well and hers didn’t. The marketer in me is kicking me for not having redesigned the appearance of Reality Me yet to make it more inviting for visitors to want to continue reading. The bounce rate on this moment of fame was incredibly high. Basically, the landing page gave the visitor no reason to stay on the site. That will have to be fixed…in June. Never judge a web developer by his own site. My time needs to be spent on my clients’ sites. Now back to work!

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Spring is here! Stay outside!

Yellow jacketYellow jacketAs a home owner, I have frequent battles with nature. Mother Nature’s latest assault appears to be a yellow jacket nest near the house. Not the cute tiny yellow jackets that make you curse loudly when you run over their nest with the lawn mower but these are kind that need Rico, Dizzy and Rasczak to show the Orkin man how it’s done. We’ve had 3 of these in the house in the past week:

I know their nests typically have 2 entrances. They return to their nests at dusk. They fly faster than I can run. They tag you with a pheromone when they sting that alerts the rest of the nest that you are a bad guy. They don’t die when they sting like honey bees. And traps near the entrance work as well or better than gasoline down the holes but take longer. One evening this week we will do battle.

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My Eyes Hurt

The children have been with the grandparents all day. Cathy and I are home alone and instead of joining the rest of Knoxville at the Rossini Festival, and believe me they were all there!, we stared at our respective computers all day. It was productive but stomachs beg for food and my eyes need a serious break from the screen.