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Exciting New Google Maps feature! You can now use Google Maps to find
all the placeswhere middle-aged men are trying to talk their long-suffering
wives into having sex with them in the cabs of their trucks.*
"A less appetizing Google feature has never been introduced." -CNET Reviews
*Not.
Greg:
Teresa and I were driving over to Lowe's yesterday in my bitchen new truck when a great idea struck me.
"Hey honey, instead of going to Lowe's, how 'bout we go have sex somewhere right now - just find somewhere shady to park and knock off a chunk right here in the cab of the truck."
You can probably already guess by knowing Teresa that the idea was less-than-enthusiastically received. I counter-pointed that the features of the 2008 Toyota Tacoma Access Cab (with Sport Package) would surely accommodate almost any position that a man of my noble dimensions and a woman of her diminutive stature could dream up. She said yeah, you go ahead and keep dreaming, Mr. Tetris.
Undaunted, I pressed on by pointing out that not only do the front seats fully recline, I had proven on more than one occasion that the jump seats afforded me more than enough room to nap (albeit in the cannonball position). And for the truly adventurous and outdoorsy, the suicide doors could be utilized to create a veritable -
"No," she said.
"Why?" I said.
She explained that here in the Age of the InterWebs that some damn satellite would whiz by and snap our picture, and there we'd be in flagrante delicto on Google Maps. She has a point, but I shan't be deterred. Besides, I am already on a quest to be the most privacy-compromised individual on the InterWebs.
Not like I haven't had my privacy compromised already. I have. My identity has already been stolen once. Back in nineteen-ought-ninety-two, I received a very politely-worded warrant in the mail from the Silverdale County Sheriff asking me to turn myself in for felony forgery. I called them up, said what the f, they said you wrote a bad check for $400, I said joke's on you, I don't have a checking account, they said so sorry to bother you - our bad, but keep the warrant as our lovely parting gift to you; but then that kinda shit kept happening until February '98 when I had to have my name and my birth certificate and my SSN card changed, and then my credit was completely dicked until about two or three years ago - true story.
But I figure in this day and age of Facebook and MySpace and Twitter and what the hell all else, the only defense you have of your privacy is to put so much information out there about yourself that eventually people will be hard pressed to figure out what's fact, what's rumor, and what's legend - you know, kinda like it is with Bigfoot, the chupacabra, and Britney Spears.
Some people might say, "Hey, isn't that called obfuscation and inveiglement?" To which I reply, "Only if you're smart and use big words". I have my own name for this tactic, and I call it "Hornswoggling the InterWebs".
So far I'm on a pretty good pace to accomplish my goal. Last time I vanity-Googled, damn near all the results on the first page were me - the real me. Oh wait - there was some English novelist who had a character named Thaddeus Gunn, a name she undoubtedly stole from me, Thaddeus Gunn.
Of course I ran this whole "hornswoggling" idea past my wife if only as a transparent last-ditch ruse to get some truck sex. She usually supports all my crazy notions, but not this time. She was steadfast in her refusal.
"And how does us - as you so eloquently put it - "slamming ham" in the cab of your truck figure in to all of this?"
She had me there.
"It'd be fun."
"No."
"C'mon. You know what rhymes with truck?"
"Yes. You're out of luck."
She said that the real danger was not really in getting snapped by a satellite or in footage of us "in progress" winding up on YouTube. That was a foregone conclusion. The world is rife with electronic eyes in the 21st century. The real danger that once the footage was posted, we'd be arrested for boring the crap out of everyone on the planet. She said that there's a good reason why you don't see porn videos with titles like "Middle-Aged Married Couple Having Consensual Sex In A Mid-Life Crisis Truck".
I suddenly lost the urge.
Seahawks place me on injured reserve list
The Seahawks made a fan-cap saving move this weekend when they placed me on injured reserve. Seems I pulled that plantar fascia thingamadeal in the bottom of my foot as I was running up the stairs to my seat in row II (as in "aye aye") in the 300 level of Qwest Field. I was quoted as saying, "Shit that hurts!" The Seahawks dispatched the Raiders 23-16 in preseason action. In response to the 'Hawks victory, I was also quoted as saying, "Whooooooooo!" and "Go Haaaaaaaawwwks!"
The Indescribable Oomph - Part 2
The search for the Best Goddamn Copywriter In The Whole Wide World continues. As it turns out, the phenomenally well-written "Look At This Fuckin' Product" series of print ads is not written by one, nor two, nor three different copywriters, but is the product of a distributed cognitive system comprised of a lot of people everywhere. (Or more precisely, all over hell and gone. -Ed.)
The latest opus from this Unstoppable Mass-Mind of Advertising has been channeled through its humble servant eon. Observe his omnipotent flex-action on life-giving fluids:
Ich Bin Ein Berserker: Seahawks defensive end Patrick Kerney
celebrates his umpty-millionth hit on Redskins QB Todd Collins.
If you squint real hard, you might be able to see me. I'm a tiny speck
of fuzz in the background.
Greg:
Sorry I haven't written for more than a month. I have been distracted by ever so many things, football among them, as well as football most recently, so why don't I just go ahead and start there and work backwards? Hmm? 'Kay?
After a completely schizophrenic season, the Seahawks are in the playoffs. So naturally I spent Saturday shrieking my ever-living 'nards off at the Hawks-Redskins Wild Card playoff game, which my beloved Seahawks won quite handily 35-14. The score was not always that lopsided, as those dastardly Redskins conspired to edge ahead in the third quarter. But lo, my beloved Seahawks pulled their helmeted heads out of their spandex-clad asses and scored - what, like 21 points or something? - in the fourth quarter, thus ensuring that they would live to play the Green Bay Meat Packers (that was their original name - nay, I poop you not) Saturday next at Lambeau Field. Quick highlight reel: Hawks defensive end Patrick Kerney, the only man whose biceps can be seen from the space shuttle, flattened the poor 'Skins QB Todd Collins any number of times even though the 'Skins defense had him triple-teamed. Triple teamed. They devoted three strapping young lads to foiling his progress, yet they could not stop this hammer-willed juggernaut of unquenchable force. (Do you write comic books...or porn, for that matter? -Ed.) Nearly incomprehensible amounts of ass were kicked, and I was not only on hand to witness it, but used my lungs to propel my team to victory. I am hoarse as heck even today, four days later. I left it all on the field. 130dB at the 50 yard line during the game.
My tiny Christmas Village has expanded to two neighborhoods this year: Lower
New New Gunnswick, and Upper New New Gunnswick (pictured above) which sits
high atop Mount PianoForte in the province of Living Room. Newly added this year
are the Fruit Market and (I shit you NOT!) Dr. John E. Wilson's Dentist Office. Plus
I threw in some moose and bears and foxes and shit just to fuck with the locals. When
Teresa saw all the new stuff, she was approximately 70% less than stoked.
Christmas was good to me. I got, among other things, a new job. I'll leave the details on that to a future epistle, but suffice it to say for now that it's a gigantic step up. I gave Teresa a string of black pearls. She was so stunned, she hasn't taken them off since except to shower. Aaron got a digital video camera, and was likewise speechless. I got Seahawks slippers, Seahawks socks, and a 2007 edition Seahawks knit cap (so I can look just like my heroes of the gridiron). When paired with my Seahawks bathrobe and Seahawks jammies, the entire ensemble makes me look like the Hugh Hefner of the frump-slash-sports fan set. I couldn't be happier.
Speaking of happier, did I say that I got a new job? Yes, yes I did. Well I'll leave off the details again, only to say that I'm really going to miss the people I work with at Real. It's sad to leave, but leave I must. As a parting gesture, three of my colleagues re-carpeted my office with astro turf while I was away over the holidays. They even put little hash marks and a goal line on it! Now every time I walk to my desk and sit down, I shout 'TOUCHDOWN SEAHAWKS!" (The lady in the office next to mine is going to stab me in the gizzard for making her jump all the time. I just know it.)
It seems like it was barely four years ago that I was sitting in Myrtle Edwards park on a bright sunny day, just across the way from the RealNetworks corporate HQ, mulling the prospect of accepting an offer to become just about the only on-staff copywriter here. I knew that meant that I'd have to give up the thrill of being a freelance copywriter-slash-bill collector. I knew it meant that I could no longer work from home in my underwear...well, not all the time. But I took the plunge. And four years later, here I am with a wicked case of carpal tunnel syndrome, a bunch of people that I'm going to miss horribly, and an office full of turf to show for all my hard work. RealNetworks now has at least a hundred and thirty eight writers, all of whom are more bitter than me. I call that progress. Adieu, mes amis! Beau heau heau heau heau! (Is that how they weep in France? -Ed.)
Inside joke to the people at Real: At least we'll have the holiday party! Oh wait, no we won't. Psyche!
By the way, congratulations on your new gig! It's not very often that you get something that uses every one of your talents. It's about time, though. You deserve it.
Cheers,
-Thaddeus
Namaste, Motherf#$%er! The Buddha of Violent Compassion drops
220 pounds of enlightenment on Cardinals kicker Mitch Berger.
Greg:
I took time off from being a mold farmer to attend Sunday's Seahawks v. Cardinals NFC West Divisional Championship Extravapalooza at Qwest Field ("Home Of The Loud Crowd"). I cannot tell you how much joy it brings me to be able to go to games, especially games where a hardcore Nichiren Buddhist like Seahawks kick returner Josh Scobey delivers the full weight of karma to Cardinals punter Mitch Berger in his own end zone, resulting in a safety for the Seahawks and instant enlightenment for the entire crowd of 68,000 (see above). Ironically, (...or not. -Ed.) Qwest Field is where the Dalai Lama will be laying down the hits on happiness and compassion next April. Believe me, I'll be screaming my guts out from the 300-level on that day, too. I predict that he will sack ignorance for a loss. I can hardly wait to see his end zone dance. (Wait, the Dalai Lama plays both offense and defense? No wonder he won the Nobel. -Ed.)
Digression: I heard this great bit in a standup routine once. "Why is it that football players blame themselves when they do poorly and thank God when they win? Just for once I'd like to hear a player say, 'I was doing great until Jesus made me fumble.'"
Which brings me to the subject of sports and religion as the two things seem to be inextricable. And I'm not talking just during player interviews. I submit as evidence Exhibit A below:
Exhibit A: The Reverend Leonard Weaver, who coincidentally plays fullback for
the Seattle Seahawks, resists tacklers like he was a solid steel I-beam rooted
in The Jesus. He had four receptions for 56 yards on Sunday as the Seahawks
beat the Cardinals to clinch the NFC West...with yours truly propelling his
team to victory by screaming his guts out from section 342, row EE, seat 1.
I mean check it out, what was that crazy basketball game those Aztecs used to play? (Mayans, but who's counting? -Ed.)And weren't all those games to the greater glory of the god Chocolatl or something? And the Olympics - weren't they also for the greater glory of the Divine Residents of Mount Olympus? And now football - isn't pretty much everything that happens in football for the greater glory of The Jesus? I have no answer for that, nor do I have further musings. Although I find it interesting how at the end of each football game, a large contingency of players from both teams gather at center field to pray. One presumes that because they're praying en masse, it is a group effort of peace and compassion. Maybe it's not. Maybe they're all praying something like, "Lord, whensoever we see these muffuckers here present up in our house, may we rain Thy vengeance upon them, and tear they muffuckin' heads off fo' sho' next time. We ask this in sweet Jesus name. Amen." (It reminds me of a line from the Civil War film Glory: "May I fight with the rifle in one hand and the good book in the other." -Ed.)
Sylvia Boorstein gives a nod to football fans in her book "It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way To Happiness". She dispels the notion that we (meaning Buddhists) are all about serenity and equanimity 24/7. We don't watch sporting events hoping that just the best team will win. Buddhists get as wound up about competition as just about anyone else, and it's perfectly okay to do so. Gelugpa monks go after theological debates like they were being televised on WWF Smackdown. Besides, there's nothing in the dhammapada about not freaking right the hell out over sporting events, like when some douchebag official destroys the sanctity of the Super Bowl by making a spate of doubtful calls. (Still bitter? -Ed.)
Likewise, I think it makes a huge difference when you choose to recognize both fandom and the game itself as dharma. Then football becomes a play that has the power to reveal the deepest values of nature, just like anything else would that you choose to recognize in that way. Football, fans and all, has no inherent reality, and is purely a contrivance based on arbitrary rules. And upon close inspection, (introspection?) I could say my life is pretty much the same damn thing. (Put. The Bong. Down. -Ed.) But in either case, it doesn't keep me from screaming my head off when I feel moved to do so, either in real life or at Qwest Field. The difference is that I often forget that real life is just a play as well.
I'm glad that I didn't forget that while my basement was flooding all to hell last Monday. As we were mopping and bailing, I said to Aaron (mostly to remind myself) that we should probably nevermind the rug, the walls, and the other tangible losses for now. I said the most valuable thing we probably had at that moment was our sense of humor. (Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how'd'ya like the play? -Ed.)
Speaking of play, I have to work now.
Cheers, -Thaddeus
Totally gratuitous photo of Seahawks'
wide receiver DJ Hackett that has nothing
to do with this letter except that he's
ossum.
Greg:
Sorry to hear about you losing your job. What a freakin' pain in the arse. And what timing, too - right before the holidays! It seems like the fourth quarter thing to do: freak out about the books (because you were a dumbasss and, oh I don't know, created a revenue shortfall or something) and fire some completely innocent person. Teresa also got notified last week that her current contract in the IT department of Starbucks would be cut short by ten months; viz., it will be ending on November 30th instead of way the hell next year some time. Good thing we all have bills and mortgages, otherwise job loss wouldn't be so stressful. Shit. Which reminds me of the classic Shakespearean rhetorical quote: "Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?"
So while we're at it, let's just sweep the rest of the woe out of the way so we can get on to happier things. A recent rainstorm has revealed that my roof leaks, and I have no means of getting up there to fix it at the moment. Nor do repeated pleas to contractors do any good. The guy who was supposed to finish the shower in my MIL in August still has not shown up, despite repeated threats to do so. I often wonder aloud what it must be like to be a contractor and be so immersed in cash that one can let work just slip away. Apparently I am in the wrong line of work. Every time I see some guy driving a shitty old truck with the words "General Contractor" on the side of it, I think to myself "There goes another recalcitrant millionaire".
Perhaps there's an upside. Perhaps by the end of the rainy season, natural hydrometrics will have given me a brand new skylight right above my fireplace.
Other stuff to bitch about: I went in for my second sleep study, the one where they strap you to a CPAP machine and then crank up the pressure until you look like Dizzy Gillespie. (No, honestly, every time the mask slipped my cheeks would inflate. It was 80% less than awesome.) When they came in to get me up in the morning, they were all "You did great! Your EEG shows that you slept a lot better and your blood oxygen was higher! Wow!" And I was all, "That was fawking hawribble! I had a dream that I was being suffocated by Dizzy Gillespie! Worst night of my life!" And they were all "Well, to tell you the truth, we do try to crank up the pressure as high as we can through the course of the night." And I was all, "Wow, I wish I could get a job where I could torture people for fun."
Since the CPAP experience was so damn fun, I decided that I'd try to attack the snoring problem by losing weight (which was a viable alternative, according to my doctor), and that I'd try to lose weight (and save some gas money) by becoming a bike commuter. So I went out and bought enough bike clothing to make myself look like a gigantic neon sausage. Then I put a bunch of blinky lights all over everything so I'd look like a 25 MPH Christmas Tree. And then I put a rack and panniers on my bike. So now that I'm all outfitted, now all I need is to grow some lungs - at least enough to do a 17 mile round trip every day. I've been practicing by doing 50-block sprints. Fortunately, there's a really nice bike path that starts only five blocks from my house and goes all the way to Everett, which is about 22 miles from here. That's nice because it means that I can actually sprint that distance without having to stop for traffic. Well almost never, that is. There are some crossings. Anyway, I've been doing this for a few weeks now and the net effect has been that I've actually gained two pounds and it looks like I've added a couple of panniers to my flanks. To wit, I am becoming mightily thick from the obliques down. If I get any thicker, I shall don a garland of acorns and look like a 25 MPH oak tree.
Gotta run. I'd love to talk more, but it's only a few minutes before kickoff (Seahawks @ Rams) and once that ball leaves the tee, my IQ plummets drastically. I become such a yawping, mouth-breathing pithecanth that I have to coat my tongue with Vaseline lest it turn to jerky.
Cheers,
-Thaddeus
Wow. Didn't see that one coming. Many of the '07 Seahawks
were off to the best year of their careers until they inexplicably
starting playing like freaked-out retards. Pittsburgh's Ryan Clark
enfolds Seattle WR Bobby Engram in the loving embrace of a bone-
crunching open field tackle during the 'Hawks 21-0 loss to the
Steelers.
Greg:
It is now week seven of the NFL season and -
Hey! Stop playing dead! I know you're totally faking it just so I'll stop talking about football. That's not even a real tailpipe you have in your mouth. Listen here, you. Football, like global warming, that staph superbug that's killing everyone, and the sudden hotness of Katie Keene, must be addressed. My team is sucking right now, and admitting that is the first step to recovery, is it not? (We admitted that we have a powerless running game, and that our passing game had become unremarkable. -Ed.) Therefore, it would be an inexcusable moral failure on my part, not to mention a complete delusion, not to talk about it. So get some toothpicks to prop your eyes open, start hitting that crackpipe like you mean business, and try to stay awake just long enough to hear my manifold lamentations.
Ahem.
It is now week seven of the NFL season and my beloved Seahawks are languishing with a completely schizophrenic 3 and 3 record. We've beaten some good teams and inexplicably lost to some completely shitty ones. We're facing the 0 and 6 St. Louis Rams (no seriously, 0 and 6, as in "they haven't won shit all year") this Sunday at Qwest Field here in Seattle (aka The Loudest Goddamn Place On Earth). Regardless of the Rams' losing record, one can in no way infer that they are easily beatable. Why? Because thus far, we've played like one-legged retards with amblyopia. Our formerly stellar NFL MVP running back couldn't average four yards a carry if he was fired out of a cannon. And our stupendously illogical play calling and devil-may-care clock management are among the most confounding mysteries to well up from the heart of man. To wit, we suck.
Yes, that's us during happier times, getting
our photo taken for a Jones Soda label during the
'Hawks win over the Buccaneers earlier this year.
Notice the full fan regalia and the upraised "We're
#1" index finger.
But why oh why, you ask, is it important at all how well (or not well) the Seahawks do this year? Ain't it just football? To which I answer that you, Dear Gregory, are woefully unaware of just how little there is to be joyful about - and conversely - how much there is to be woeful about in the sog-tastically sog-tacular Pacific Northwest between any given October and the following July. (That is the actual length of our winter and a 100% crap-free meteorological fact. -Ed.) To wit, suicidal ideation is something we do in the winter for fun. So yeah, when all your favorite hiking trails have turned into roiling crap-sluices, all you can look forward to is the warming glow of a crackling football game. And when your team is playing so horribly that even doing that is as squirm-inducing as watching The Iron Chef make Kitten Sushi - well, let's just say that without a win this Sunday, it's going to be a very long winter.
At lunch the other day, some of my co-workers who are non-Seahawks fans were giving me a yard for being one. "You're never going to get the love you deserve from the goddamn football team," they squawked. One even offered to take me in as a Bears fan (although he did admit that this year was equally as shitty a time to be one of those). I said look, it's like this. I only gots one mom. I'm only ever going to get one mom. Whether she's batshit crazy or a Nobel prizewinner, she's still my mom and I love her for that. Likewise, you only get one home team. I wasn't a football fan when I was growing up in suburban Detroit, to the Lions (God love 'em) are out. I became a football fan in 2002, my fifteenth year in Seattle (which arguably makes me from here equally inasmuch as Americans born to ex-pat English parents are from here), - ergo, I was born (allegorically at least) a Seahawks fan. Heaven knows they were nothing to crow about back then. And they may be on a long slide back into that oblivion whence they came. But that comes with the territory when you declare yourself a fan. You get the dizzying vicarious ride to glory only to be killed dead by the fall therefrom. (The same could be said of crack smoking. Perhaps you should become a fan of that sport. I've heard that it's way cheaper than buying 'Hawks tickets. -Ed.)
OK. I'm done. You can stop pretending to listen now and go back to eating your Kitten Sushi.
Cheers, and Go Hawks!
-Thaddeus
Didn't want to; had to: the doctors say that if I don't start eating fish,
my heart is going to sludge up and slam shut. And that will
seriously impinge on my ability to watch football.
Greg:
I freakin' ate a goddamn fish this week. It wigged me out more than just a little. And it was just plain bad. Wait - let me start at the beginning.
So I got all this bullshit going on where I'm getting old (apparently - I don't feel old), and my shit is coming unwired, like my blood pressure is going up and my cholesterol is freaking out and my sleep is all screwed up and I'm all "what the hell - I ate right and exercised so this wouldn't happen" and they're all "it's hereditary" and I'm all "just fuck my fuckin' genes already the bastards". You know what I'm saying? So now for the third time a doctor has said to me, "you gotta eat some fish or this bullshit will keep happening", and the first two times I was all "up your arse, fish killer!" But then - well, if three people tell you that you're a horse, you prolly oughtta saddle up.
So after eight years of strict vegetarianism (excepting that one time I swallowed a leaf hopper by accident while I was hiking in the Olympics), I have resigned myself to eating fish once a week. The Fish Friday thing hasn't killed any Catholics - none that I know of anyway. As far as I know, they all die of guilt. The thought of eating a dead animal still freaks me out, which I guess means that I'm not so much "vegetarian" as "meat phobic". But as my friend Jim "LiveWrong" Bergman pointed out, it's much easier to practice compassion and loving kindness when you're alive. Bein's I'm a grumpy old shit who labors desperately hour by hour to hold down the lid on a broiling magma geyser of hatred, I can't say that I entirely agree with that. But I do enjoy my life quite a bit and would like it to continue, so eat fish I must.
Loath to do anything on time, I launched my new Fish Friday tradition on Saturday at Ivar's Salmon House on north Lake Union. It's a swell little place, kind of a reproduction of a Salish long house. There's a dock on one side of the restaurant, too. You can bridle your dinghy and hang out on the deck while watching yacht-loads of University of Washington frat boys mend the injuries of rush week with earnest applications of alcohol. It's almost like watching the grunions run if all the grunions were male. I digress. Jump cut: I ordered a fillet of Sockeye; they served me a charred lug sole. (As in "boot" and not "Dover", I assume? -Ed.) So to make a truly horrible pun, my first fish experience went anything but swimmingly. (I warned you, did I not?) And just to plant the flag of irony on the whole thing, their vegetarian plate was incredible. No, seriously, they do some kind of magic to grilled vegetables that I haven't encountered anywhere else.
Oh oh oh - AND - here's just another discovery that I've made recently because of this whole Fish Friday thing: fish is really goddamn expensive. Meat in general is really goddamn expensive but fish in particular. How do you meat eaters do it? I'm going to have to get a night job at Starbucks just to afford one salmon fillet per week. Any more than that and I'm going to have to take out a third mortgage or go down to the river and strangle the fish myself. On second thought, I'm not so sure this whole new fish-eating thing is going to prolong my life at all. I could be crushed to death under a stack of debt.
Cheers, and send fish.
-Thaddeus
Is this bullshit really necessary? Neuroses, while they are inarguably
a pain in the fucking neck, are not actually as intractable as Big Pharma
would have you believe.
Greg:
You know what I can't wait for? Yeah, that's right - football season. I love football because it gives me an opportunity to take a gigantic emotional dump in public without getting arrested or having to buy booze. I never thought of myself as an exhibitionist or anally expulsive until I caught myself freaking out and screaming like a stone-cold lunatic at a Seahawks home game - correction - every Seahawks home game. (I hope to God you're using the term "anally expulsive" in the psychoanalytic sense and not actually firing turd javelins out of the 300 level. -Ed.) Actually going that nuts in public is so freeing that it makes me wonder why there aren't places where you can go and drop your inhibitions and just run buck-wild without having to take some kind of psychoactive substance. (There are. They're called whorehouses and football games. And neither one of them is free. -Ed.) Seems like there would be a lot less angst in the world if there was a place where you could just peel back your social mask and get batshit freaknuts without fear of reprisal. (Hmm. Well now you've ruled out football games. -Ed.)
Which brings me to neuroses.
Our talk on Sunday about neuroses - what it is and how to deal with it - got me to thinking, which is sometimes not a bad thing. Sometimes I use my brain for good and not for evil. Then again, sometimes my brain is not so good to me. Maybe it's bad to me because I have not yet given it what it wants, kinda like women I used to date who thought I could read their minds. They thought I was an incredible jerk for not simply giving them what they wanted without them having to ask for it. Maybe my brain is exactly that kind of pain-in-the-ass. Maybe my brain is in fact in my ass, like I'm some kind of latter-day brontosaurus. That would explain a LOT. It might even explain why I digress so often and so readily when I'm trying to make a point.
Oh look, a bird!
What the hell was I talking about? Oh yeah, neurosis.
I should know a thing or ten about neurosis as my neuroses are beyond multitudinous. They are legion. It's like having a petting zoo full of comically deformed barnyard animals. Pigs with antlers. Sheep with steering wheels. Goats with extra goats on them. Fortunately, neurosis husbandry for me has moved beyond affliction into the realm of hobby. In other words, it is no longer an obsession but more of a bemusement. I take a walk every once in a while down the grotty stalls of depression, anxiety, neurasthenia and phobia, stopping to pat each on the head in turn and give it a peck of oats. Each neurosis then gives a pitiful bleat and ralphs on my Wellingtons.
Suffice it to say that I know a lot about neuroses (including the fact that phrase has 40 letters and 11 spaces in it). So to answer the questions you had when we were discussing the subject, I sewed together a number of definitions from sources medical and otherwise, and came up with a definition of neurosis that just about meets everything I know about the subject. It is this: Neurosis is a functional disorder in which feelings of anxiety, obsessional thoughts, compulsive acts, and physical complaints without objective evidence of disease, all in various degrees and patterns, dominate the personality. It is a relatively mild personality disorder typified by excessive anxiety or indecision and a degree of social or interpersonal maladjustment not attributable to any neurological or organic dysfunction. (I think its intractability would be the indicator of whether it is a personality disorder or not. Sometimes it is and sometimes it ain't. It can also be transient, like in response to extreme stress or whatnot.)
Does that sound familiar at all? But wait, here's the good news. (My oil needs changing and my horse is pregnant? -Ed.) Neuroses arise from the inclination to focus on only the negative aspects of an event or situation. If you are so inclined, then you will have anxiety. You will be depressed. You will fall prey to magical thinking, believing that your rituals and systematic avoidances will have a direct influence on your outcomes. Worse yet, you will have manifold physical complaints without frank and objective evidence of disease or pathogens.
Yes it gets better! How do I know? Because thinking that way is just an inclination. It's not a certainty. It is not a truth about reality as a whole. It is a way that you have chosen to think about things, and other people would think differently about the same situation. On another day, with more sleep, I myself might even think differently and act differently in the same situation. I might see more possible outcomes than only the negative ones that I see right now.
To wit, I can be neurotic, know that I'm not neurotic every single day, and have faith that this neurosis too shall pass.
Martin E. P. Seligman one of the forefathers of positive psychology and former head of the APA lists depression and anxiety as the top two most curable neuroses in his book "What You Can Change And What You Can't". Considering that friggin' everybody and their dysfunctional uncle seems to suffer from those two things, that fact alone seems to offer a great deal of hope to humanity as a whole. Most heartening to me is the strong evidence that he presents that proves that panic does not respond to any medication and can be unlearned. UNLEARNED. When I was diagnosed with panic disorder in 1984, they told me it was intractable, could not be cured, and that I would be on medication for the rest of my life. I wasn't satisfied with that diagnosis and did everything I could to simply not ever feel like that again. And I sure as Eli Lilly didn't want to keep eating the truckloads of brain-stopping will-withering pills that they were giving me. I didn't know at the time that what I was doing by creating a program to deal with my panic was called "unlearning it". I thought it was called "how to not feel like shit every day". In the end, panic proved to be just an inclination - a patterned way of thinking, like the inclination I used to have to smoke cigarettes or order a Domino's pizza each and every goddamn day, both of which I am now disinclined to do. And just as a ten ton flatbed truck has the nearly unquenchable inclination to barrel down a 10% grade it is therefore not easy to stop, but with the right amount of force applied at the right time, it can be stopped.
Know what this means? Mm hmm. If this idea catches on, you better dump every bit of stock you have in Big Pharma.
Cheers,
-Thaddeus
Actual photo of my left leg. I don't know whether I should tan it or
baste it.
Greg:
It's early Sunday morning - Father's Day, to be exact. I find myself puttering around the house in my underwear with a cup of coffee and a perplexed look. I've been going around the house looking for something, and by the time I get to the place where I think I must've left it, I forget what it is. I never understood why our Dad did the same thing - puttered about with a cup of coffee, mumbling to himself, "Now where did I - hmmm, oh! No, that's not it." All I know is now I do it, which leads me to believe that puttering is gene-based.
I can tell you exactly why I putter without pants on, though. I'm old and my legs are hot. Hot as in temperature, not hot as in "damn!" Although, I must say that the last time I was in San Francisco - well let me just say that the fellows there know how to make a man feel appreciated. I went for a run one morning and got two - umm - compliments within three blocks. One was a rather passionate yowl from two bon vivants in a passing car. The other was when a guy walked out of a restaurant, ogled my legs and said, "WOOF! Oh honey I needed that!" This is not the same response I get when I wear running shorts around my own neighborhood, though. I stopped by my neighborhood Starbucks yesterday on the way home from the gym wearing the self-same pair of shorts that had garnered me so much praise in San Francisco. The septuagenarian VFW members in the cafe gave a few homophobic snorts and chuckles; the girls behind the counter asked my thighs if they'd like to try the new orange mocha. I suddenly understood that whole "eyes up here!" thing that women sometimes do. But I really don't mind if the girls at Starbucks only love me for my legs. They can talk to 'em all damn day if they want to. I'd be really concerned if they loved me for my wobbling mancakes (or "chesticles" if you prefer) or the wide selection of keratosii that cleave like sheaves of barnacles to my back and shoulders. I'd be even more concerned if they loved me for my ass, which is - well my ass is just wrong. That's all I can say about it. And I would gape in disbelief if they got steamed up over my pythons. When fully flexed, one looks like it has eaten a mouse; the other like it has eaten a piece of spaghetti with a knot in it. To put the whole thing into automotive parlance, I may have a nice set of rims but my upholstery is shot. Best to just gawk from the curb, ladies.
All of the above begs the question why my ex-wife spends any time trying to insult me when I already do such a good job of it myself. But then again, perhaps there are some people who aren't strong enough to kick someone unless that someone is already bound, gagged, and face down. I often think of replying to her vitriol by quoting Cyrano: "I find your vain attempts to insult rather ineffectual. If you had really wished to skewer me you could have said, oh a great many things." But even being playfully facetious means that I'd have to walk the same low road as my aggressor, and that's something I can't afford to do if I really want to give more than lip service to "be[ing] the peace that [I] want to see in the world". That is something that I really am dead-sober-serious about. Perhaps I insult myself to inure myself to insult, which is also a way to concurrently immunize myself against the compulsion to return anger and hatred in kind. Maybe not the best system in the world, but it works okay for the moment. Besides, I don't really believe that I'm all that ugly. I do, however, still have to sneak up on a glass of water. And I must say that my teeth are so yellow that I spit butter. (Thank you! I'll be here all week, ladies and gentlemen!)
I have digressed. Indeed, digression is my forte (pronounced "fort" meaning "strong point", not "for-TAY" meaning "loud"). Therefore I have succeeded in completing the metaphor that I set out with: wandering around the house in search of that thing - you know, that thing! What was I looking for again? Jesus, I can remember the difference between "fort" and "for-TAY", but I can't remember the difference between my ass and -
Hey, did I tell you a dug a hole in the ground the other day? First time in years. I even have my own shovel now. I was installing a kitchen waste composter in the back yard. Coolest thing ever. Throw table scraps in there and it turn 'em into humus in no time. Has a lock on it to keep the rats out and everything. Got it from the city. Sweet deal. Plus I got a yard waste composter from the city as well, one of those barrel-shaped deals that you throw lawn clippings and whatnot in. And let me tell you, that sumbitch gets HOT! I took the lid off and took a gander inside and it gave me a complimentary facial steam. I'm sure Aveda will be capitalizing on the dermatological benefits of compost soon.
Which brings me to my next point of digression, which is that I have found that homeowning is not so much owning an object as it is creating an enterprise. My home is a veritable factory of domestic products which include construction, organic waste disposal, small animal (dog and cat) farming, small animal (dog and cat) sewage treatment, junk mail recycling, neighborhood diplomacy, and homeland security (viz., keeping those goddamn kids from the flophouse out of my backyard). The only challenge now is to create positive cash flow from all of those pursuits, and to stem the tide of currency flowing out of the gigantic hole in the money-dike. Were it only as easy as digging a hole, I'd be set.
Hey look! I have legs!
Speaking of which, Teresa got me a manure fork for Father's Day. I am now the proud owner of yet another item on the list of Things That Make You A Man. My manure fork takes a place of honor alongside my stainless steel Coleman cooler, the cargo nets in the back of my Subaru, my 6,000 cu. in. vol. Gregory (that's the brand name) backpack, my JetBoil, and my Seneca-Wallace-autographed football. And of course my Johnson, which is the name of the tiny stuffed buffalo that I purchased in the gift shop at Yellowstone. Why, what did you think I meant?
Now I forgot what I was talking about.
Cheers,
-Thaddeus
Matt Lange, drinkin' up all the f-in' Sunny Delite.
Greg:
Now I've gone and done it. I went and signed up to be a participant in a gen-u-wine psychological experiment being conducted by the University of Pennsylvania. You may know U Penn as the home of the Quakers football team (I shitteth thee not, friend) who finished the ought-six season with a peaceful, fair and equitable 5 and 5 record against such college gridiron giants as Yale, Harvard, and the Bucknell School of Yeoman Faggot-Making. Quaker football, it appears is a veritable juggernaut of mediocrity.
But you may not know the other U Penn, home of Dr. Martin E P ("Ever Publishing") Seligman, former head of the American Psychological Association and me-proclaimed Jolliest Fucker In The Universe. He's a positive psychology maverick-slash-edifice he is, and one of my personal heros. The Authentic Happiness Website resides deep in the sunny heart of the U Penn InterWebs, and is a swell place to get a well-rounded view of what the hell all this positive psychology stuff is about.
Best of all, you can sign up as a research participant for authentic happiness studies there. If you go to the website, there's a jolly little banner in the left column asking for participants that practically begs you to click it. Of course I could not resist, and better yet did not resist, and so here I am. They gave me an assignment which I have been pursuing semi-diligently ever since. Here it is in a nutshell: (Copyright 2006 Martin Seligman, all rights reserved, I'm jolly but don't make me come down there and kick your ass you goddamn plagiarist, world without end, amen.)
It's called ABCDE. It's a journaling exercise. First you think back on an Adversity that occurred during the day and write it down. Then you write down your pessimistic Beliefs about the event, and write down the Consequences that you suffered because of those beliefs. Then you Dispute those beliefs using specific, concrete evidence, and in the end describe the Energization that you felt as a result of disputing your beliefs.Let me give you an example. For purposes of illustration, I will pretend that I am my friend Matt "Douchebag' Lange of Buffalo, New York (go Bills).
Adversity: My fuckin' sister drank all the fuckin' Sunny Delite again.Beliefs: She doesn't fuckin' care if I fuckin' die of thirst and scurvy. Where's the fuckin' love?Consequences: I got really angry and decided to take revenge by taking all her fuckin' diet pills and washing them down with her fuckin' half-rack of Tab.Dispute: Oh wait. There's the Sunny Delite. It was behind the Tab. How wrong I was. And I just ate all that... Uh oh...Energization: ENERGIZED?! ENERGIZED?! MY HEART IS ON FIRE AND THERE ARE WEASELS IN MY DUODENUM! HELL YES I'M ENERGIZED!!
See? Pretty simple. I don't know if it was because of this exercise or whether it's the nexus of all of the three exercises that I'm doing simultaneously that has caused me to chill ever-so-slightly over the last couple months. It's not that I don't get mad. I do. It's just of much shorter duration with long periods of chill in between. I got mad as a wet hen covered with wet hornets on Monday, but it only lasted exactly 17 minutes. For comparison, I once got angry in 1977 and stayed mad until 1983. This is a big improvement.I'll keep you posted on further developments.
In the meantime, go visit the Authentic Happiness site and take a few of the tests. You may find out that you're happier than you think.
Cheers,-Thaddeus
Put me in coach! That's right baby. You're looking at a genuine NFL issue on-field Seahawks home jersey - with my name on it! If we lose one more guy to injury, I may just have to play.Greg:
I know that when I mention football it makes you want to scurry deep within your tuba and feign death hoping that I’ll go away. As you recall, I started a blog specifically to talk about football with people who, unlike yourself, are actually interested in it. But my blog partner, one Matt “Douchebag” Lange, wound up as a guest of the county by trying to defy physics. I told him that it doesn’t matter how much “magical disappearing fluid” you drink, you still cannot pass your car through another car at a high rate of speed. Not on this planet, anyway. On Cartoon Planet maybe. But not here. No. But this did not deter the Lange.
So yeah, so he wound up with a fancy new pair of stripey overalls plus three hots and a cot, and I wound up short a writing partner. Thus, All Ghey For The Football hasn’t been very ghey for the football for, oh, any number of months now. But oh so much has happened in the world of football that I simply must expound upon it! And you shall hear it! Into the bell of your tuba I pour my sports-related diatribe at full Qwest Field volume!*
The Seahawks are in the playoffs! And they’ve won their first game! Why is this so amazing? I mean, c’mon, aren’t they the defending NFC Champs? Why, mais oui – however, since sportswriters take a solemn oath not to cover teams based north of 47 degrees north latitude or west of 122 west longitude, it is highly unlikely that you will ever hear anything about the Seahawks – that is unless you have a relative who writes a blog wherein he blathers on about the Seahawks all the time. Or you are a resident of Norway. So you most likely will not have heard that every single member of the team is injured. That includes the guy who stitches up their pants, the waterboy, and the folks in the back of the stadium who make the hot dogs. They’re all beat to shit. Even a number of our fans are injured. I myself am sporting quite a handsome shiner at the moment. I have no idea how it got there.
Wearing my heart on my chest. Some call 'em "man teats".I prefer the term "chesticles".
So yeah – everyone is beat to hell. Our QB had a knee sprain and was out for four or five games. Our NFL MVP running back broke a bone in his foot and was out for, like, a long-ass time. All in all, we were without 7 of our 11 starters on offense for most of the season. And then – and then! - all of our cornerbacks got shelled in the last regular season game, and none of the front office girls wanted to take the gig. So they dialed up some guy in Texas who was a loan officer (shitting you not am I), and it turns out he’s a pretty decent player. Pete Hunter’s the name. They called him in a week before the Cowboy’s game on Saturday and he stepped up big time. After a game that could be best described as myocardially infarctive, the Hawks prevailed 21-20 through some last minute defense. (To wit – the Hawks were up by one point when a snap for a Cowboys field goal was bobbled. The Cowboys’ QB then snatched the ball and made for the end zone only to be grabbed by the ankles and snapped like wet towel, leaving him lips-down on the 1 yard line. The ball was fumbled again, Seattle recovered it, hijinx ensued. Seattle won. Watch the unbelievable replay.)
So that means the Cowboys are out, done, finished, cryin’ home to mama, and the Seahawks move forward in the playoffs to face the Chicago Bears (ursus chicagoensis) at Soldier Field on Sunday, where they will play on 100% real dirt. Word on the street is that the Bears are favored by nine points and have necks like mighty beeves. However, they’ve also been known to choke like a harelip at the Wing Dome, so it’s anybody’s guess as to how this one will play out. Last time we played them, they shellacked us to the tune of almost thirty points. But since then they’ve been beaten by inferior teams. So. Well. Hell. Who knows.
But I will say this. Regardless of how the season ends, I’m mighty proud of how our defense played against the Cowboys last Saturday. Hopefully they’ll give the Bears a run for their money next Sunday. Or they could get a fresh coat of shellack. Either way, I’ll still be rooting for the Hawks.
Oh by the way – Bears wide receiver #87 Muhsin Mohammed is the reincarnation of our grandpa Teachout. No, seriously. Hand to God. But more about that later.
Okay, you can come out of your tuba now.
-Thaddeus
*From Wikipedia.org: Qwest Field has earned a reputation as arguably the loudest stadium in the NFL. Since the 2005 season, more penalties for false starts have been called against visiting teams in Qwest Field than in any other NFL stadium. At one point during the 2006 season, the New York Giants complained that Qwest Field was artificially piping in noise in order to distract visiting quarterbacks from running a count. During the 2005 NFC Championship Game against the Carolina Panthers, the decibel level recorded by Fox reached 137db.
A lupine meadow in Discovery Park, right in the midst of Seattle,Washington. Living here does not blow - not on account of the scenery, anyway.Greg:Remember how I told you about that happiness experiment that I was going to do on my brain? The one where every night before I went to bed, I was going to write down three things that made me happy that day?I've been doing it for a couple of weeks now and so far it has been going gangbusters. If the point of the exercise was to make me sleep better, then it works like a well-swung cue ball upside the dome. I sleep like a bear. In addition to that, it has reduced my predilection to ruminate on anxiety-inducing topics - at least while I'm awake, anyway. I still wake up in a froth each morning trying to perform long division on the balance of my bank accounts. But I mean, hey, who doesn't do that at Christmastime?One thing that might keep people from practicing happiness is that it seems doing so means letting one's guard down. Ergo, while you're busy being a blissed-out hippie, life will sneak up and stab you in the ass. Actually, that's not so. I know from studying this stuff obsessively that happiness and other positive states of mind are expansive, meaning that the aperture of consciousness widens to entertain more possibilities in every situation. So it's more likely that you will both perceive potential ass-stabbers and be mentally ready for them if you are in a positive state of mind. Anger, anxiety and other negative states of mind are more narrowly focused and reduce the number of perceived possibilities. Remember, the Hulk's only option was to "smash". I could go off on my usual didactic saw about emotions being a method of heuristic management. But Christ, how many times do I have to beat that goddamn topic before somebody comes up and grabs me by the heuristics and gives me a shake? You get my point.So another effect of doing this exercise is that it has made me appreciate Seattle more. Even though I've lived here for twenty years, I've always felt like an immigrant, like I have nothing in common with the ultra-dour locals here, and that they in turn despise my penchant for Sunny Jim exuberance. It seems that ennui and smoldering spite are the only two acceptable modes here. If Thumper lived in Seattle, he would've hucked himself off the Aurora Bridge ages ago. "If you can't grumble something shitty, don't grumble nothing at all." I mean, c'mon, this is the place that invented grunge, which is basically punk rock without the gumption to take a swing at you.BUT! All of that said, in the spirit of the "things that make me happy" list exercise that I'm doing right now, I thought I'd take a moment to enumerate all the things I like about Seattle. Perhaps it's just because this exercise has seeded my brain with sugar cubes. Or perhaps it's because I fear becoming one of THEM.I like the way they make coffee here: thick as blood and potent enough to shock the tits off a sphinx. Seattleites feign hatred of Starbucks. It's a faceless, blood-sucking multinational conglomerate they say, and they're quick with a rebuke for anyone who says anything to the contrary. I like Starbucks because they're the only place that makes a decent cup of black drip, so fawkoff. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. (True Made-Up Fact: One in six people in the Puget Sound region is a Starbucks barista. -Ed.) I like the Seattle Seahawks, even though they have a quarterback with the disposition of a thoroughbred and they've stumbled their way through the '06 season thus far. But you always root for the home team, right? I mean the New Orleans Saints sucked for like 100 years (and now thankfully they're getting their due), but that never stopped New Orleaneans from slathering their team with praise. Well that's not how we do things in Seattle, where schadenfreude is the major import. During the Hawks 13-win run last season, all I heard from the locals was "They got lucky. They'll start sucking again any day now." Then they made it all the way to the Super Bowl - no mean feat. And then they lost (Christ, somebody had to! -Ed.) causing the locals to reprise their glumful mantra: "See? Told ya they'd suck eventually." I say fawkoff, Eeyores of the Puget Sound! And Go Hawks! And I mean both of those things in the nicest way possible. I like Seattle because it's really goddamn pretty. On the other hand, it's like having a really hot girlfriend who treats you like shit. Sure, it rains like hell and treats you like crap for nine months out of the year. But then the sky cracks open and the sunbeams pour forth, revealing the glory that surrounds us. The only downside is that light and warmth freak the locals right the hell out, and they express their freak-outedness by being even more grumpy and dysthymic. Sunshine, it seems, is the only thing that pisses them off more than rain. (True Made-Up Fact: 78% of the people in the Puget Sound region are pissed off about something right now; 22% are actively searching for something to be pissed off about - and I mean rightfuckingnow! -Ed.)So yeah - good coffee, the glory of nature, and football. What else ya need in a town besides toilets and a decent newspaper? (Check and - well, we'll get back to ya on the second one. -Ed.)Cheers, and be on the lookout for that potential ass-stabber in the red suit. If he comes to my neighborhood, his ass is gonna have to have a word with the yakuza. Only they control the toy and goodie market in Chinatown!-Thaddeus
Home Street Home. I used to live in a '74 Mav just as uglyas this one. It didn't have a 42-inch HD Plasma, but at leastthe seats reclined.Greg:Settle down and stop weeping already. It's not what you think. I'm still going to write to you. It's just that this thing I use to write letters to you - Blogger, I think it's called - is asking me to upgrade to something called a "beta". As I am inextricably drawn with crow-like fascination to all thing shiny and new, upgrade I must. My viscera compels me. Be forewarned, though. My experience with the InterWebs has taught me that it is a capricious and multi-headed beast, and oftentimes takes all your hard work and makes it as though it never existed. So that means the hundred some-odd letters I have written to you could - and probably will - vanish as soon as I upgrade. By the way, I'm lobbying to change the name of the InterWebs to ¡Shiva The Destroyer! I'll write more about this in the future on my soon-to-be-established technology HateSite, Dubba Dubba Dubba dot I Fucking Hate The Internet dot Com. There will also be an online petition to destroy all the InterWebs, and of course the usual number of hoaxes delivered with the appropriate authoritarian air. In the meantime, enjoy this incarnation of Dear Gregory while you can because as soon as I hit the big shiny "upgrade" button, in the terlit it all goes. Just you wait and see.Speaking of in the terlit, Christmas is lurking just around the corner which means I'm not nearly done spraying the money hose on everything I see. As we all know, my shortcomings are legion, but chief among them are my ossum credit rating and my propensity for buying Christmas presents. It seems I'm equal parts miser and spendthrift. I have no problem whatsoever purchasing things for other people, but when it comes to myself, I completely freak out. Maybe it's that "deserving" thing, as in wondering if I really deserve it. I've really got that neurosis really bad. (And that one about throwing away bread, as in I can't or I freak out.) I spent a lot of time when I was younger feeling like I didn't deserve to eat. Man that's grim. No wonder I was 6'2" and 150 pounds at age 17. And it's no wonder I lived in a 1974 Ford Maverick when I was 27. But all of those cheery thoughts aside, I've been entertaining the idea of buying a new TV for some time now (no pun intended), but can't quite bring myself to pull the trigger. (TV as you know is a necessary tool for football- , movie- and PBS-obsessed persons like myself.) On the other hand, if Teresa wanted me to buy her one, we'd've had it yesterday. But no. I took six years making comparisons and test driving before I bought my car. I've only spent about 18 months comparing TVs, so I suppose I have another (...plus nine, carry the five...) four and a half years to spend comparing sets before the suggested retail drops to my Magical Rock-Bottom Ultimate Dream Price of $59.99. So yeah. And then to make matters more complicated, Aaron - who now specializes in digital video for Best Buy - told me that the best image wasn't from the plasma model I was thinking of. The best image was to be found on an LCD model which is umpteen pounds and tuppence more expensive. (Naturally. -Ed.) And then - and then! - this guy I work with, Mike Woo, gets all up in my grill about how the one I want doesn't have the right contrast ratio or some boo-shit. Daaaamn.Look, either I'm going to have to reach deep into my magical ass and pull out a couple grand to spend on myself - HORROR OF HORRORS! Or I'm going to do the unthinkable. I'm going to shitcan my TiVo and go back to reading books aloud while Teresa recreates the action with sock puppets in front of an oil lamp. You know, just like we did when we were kids.Cheers,-Thaddeus
Sky Burial: Why is it that at every party you go to everyone alwayshangs out in the kitchen?Greg:Last I heard you were moving and you were going to give me your new address. And that was definitely The Last I heard from you. Hopefully you're not living in your tuba. I can just see you burying that thing up to its bell in the desert sand, then crouching inside it like an ant lion, springing forth to snatch errant hobos as they shamble past, and pulling them down into the warren-like tubing to feast upon their tender innards. Don't tell me you haven't thought of it.If you have fallen off the social grid into main shaft of the Mines of Endless Leisure (read: homeless), then hopefully either the Reno Public Library or Reverend Dick's Gospel Shelter has Web access and you're reading this right now.So let me update you on a small family matter which also involves a change of residence: the folks have arrived on the door of their future mortuary. No, they're not dead. They're in Missouri. I don't know if you spoke to them any time during the run up to their eventual departure to the Ozarks. It wasn't the lack of intellectual stimulus or the abundance of ticks, chiggers and hillbillies that sold them on the place. It was, in fact, the absence of laws governing where and how deep one can bury their relatives. Apparently in Missouri, once a person stops whittling and the corncob pipe drops from their slackened jaws, they're fair game for the mulch pile. None of those fancy rules about "coffins" and "water tables". Don't get me wrong. Even though I'm clearly not on the Missouri Board of Tourism, I completely understand the motivation behind self-determination at the end of life. Aging is an undeniable process that robs you of functions and freedoms one by one. If you've been on life's stage as long as our folks have (over a century and a half at last reckoning), I think you oughtta be able to have a say regarding your exit. So, while we're on the subject, and El Dia de los Muertos is right around the corner, I think I'll go ahead and publish my burial instructions right here and now. They're real simple: Don't bury me.Here's what you do. Buy my corpse a ticket to Bhutan. (If I've planned things right, I should be there already when I give up the ghost. My current death fantasy is to die in Bhutan while hiking - quickly and and by accident, of course. Age of death doesn't matter. I'm in Bhutan, which is a fundamentally a Buddhist theocracy. I'm hiking and I couldn't be happier. What better time to kack?) So once I've accomplished the kacking part, I want what they call a "sky burial". Here's how it works. The undertaker hauls your corpse up into the mountains. Then he whips out his Amazing Ginsu, flenses your flesh from your bones, and pounds it into meal with a little flour. (I'd like some cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar added. The idea of being turned into a meaty cinnamon roll appeals to me.) Then he feeds the Death Dough to the buzzards who have by now congregated close by and in great number. Once they've eaten all the dough and licked the plates, the undertaker hauls the leftovers - bones and gristle and whatnot - back down the mountain and throws it all into the crematorium. (Sometimes not. Sometimes your bones get pounded into meal too, which would be fine by me. I pray for an undertaker who can swing a sledgehammer like John Henry.) And there you are. The buzzards crap you onto the bottom rung of the food chain and your ashes go in the garden. I can't think of a more wonderful and fitting end.Of course you're going to say, "It's your funeral. You won't be there. What do you care?" Yeah, so you're right. After I die, I plan to be in the bardo for the next 42 days playing single-platoon old school football with Grampa Teachout (that is until I'm reincarnated as a cold sore for my abysmally horrid karma). Let's just say I want to do this because I believe in recycling. As a matter of fact, I think I'll go have "Please Recycle" tattooed on my sternum, right next to my favorite haiku* and "Do Not Resuscitate" in twenty seven languages. I hope I have a broad enough sternum and enough skin.So yeah, when I die, be a peach and get me a sky burial, wouldja? Cheers,-Thaddeus*It is a dewdrop worldSurely it isAnd yetAnd yet - -Kobayashi Issa
Even the most mild-mannered among us may don the demeanor and raiment of King of the Grumps on Saint Churlemond's Day. After consuming a Fuji-sized mound of cocaine (a traditional holiday dish), Tony "Ever-So-Slightly Peevish" Montana celebrates the anxiously-awaited arrival of Churlemondtide with his little friend.Greg:First things first. Sorry I haven't written in so long, but it is now the NFL preseason and I have been all ghey for the football. You will notice (if you put down that greasy turkey leg and click the link in the previous sentence) that I have moved all of my football-related correspondence over to a blog (no - clog) designed specifically for that purpose. Hereafter I won't bother you with it, as it only falls on deaf ears in this forum. I often fancy that I can actually see the disinterest cloud your eyes like snow on a dead TV channel the minute I so much as mention the word "football". So there, I've done you a favor. Thank me. And I'll try to stick to my word and not mention football here. (Offer may not be valid in Seattle, and may be complete bullshit elsewhere. Check your local blogroll for details. - Ed.)May I say this, though? I have tickets to 6 of the 8 Seahawks home games, the exceptions being the two Monday night games. Don't matter none to me. In a completely sold out season, I'm happy to have what I got. Oh wait. Your eyes have gone completely back into your skull. I'll stop with the football.So - work. We're building up to a product launch. Everyone is stressed out and grumpy. And let me preface my comments that follow by pointing out that I, of all the people in the office, am King Grump of Bitch Island. I rule the grump roost because it doesn't take a product launch to make me grumpy. I'm grumpy on principle - that principle being that mere humans to not meet my exacting standards of excellence, and as such, are as annoying as clouds of stinging gnats, what with their "talking" with "words" and asking me "questions" like "how are you" and making "statements" like "boy don't you look nice today". RRRG! Jesus! Talk about knowing exactly how to piss me off! Inasmuch as I hold myself to the same standards, I also piss myself off with my "being pissed off". Grump without end, amen.So yeah, so it seems that not only are people stressed out and grumpy, it seems that the expectation of stress and grumpiness was set long before the product launch ever occurred. (Pre-postscript: I wanted to put the phrase "Don't freak out. It's only work." in my email signature just to point out what ridiculous stress levels we were maintaining, but I was told not to because that alone might freak people out. 'Zat give you any idea? In a week, people will be crapping diamonds around here.) Weeks ago, everyone was already talking about how stressful launch was going to be, and regaling each other with nostalgic tales of grumpinesses and stress festivals past. So it looks as though we're living up to that projection so far, so that means we oughtta be happy, right? Tell me I'm crazy. Things are exactly as screwed up, bass-ackwards and stress-inducing as we expected them to be, so we should revel in our astounding prescience and good fortune! Otherwise we're like people going to a bull fight and wanting our money back because the bull was too mean to that poor man.Actually, let's not screw around. Since these events seem to come with so much anticipation and folklore attached, let's just put them on the calendar as movable feasts dedicated to Saint Churlemond the Fractious, Patron of Grumpiness. Then we can all don costumes of hairshirt and steel wool, drink bile, and give each other the bras d'honneur when we pass in the hallway. I think that sounds like a capital idea, don't you? So on a final note, I'll probably get fired tomorrow for throwing this into the middle of what sounded to me like a rather, shall we say, contentious email string regarding some ball that got dropped somehwere on some damn thing or other. (I'll save you reading the rest of the string and just put in the good part.)DATE: August 17th, 2006SUBJECT: Stakeholder review - 8/17Going forward, could we change the spelling of "stakeholder" - at least in internal communications - to "Steak Holder"? I think it might make things, you know, funnier. Besides, a "stakeholder" sounds like half of a vampire-killing duo. (The other guy would be the "stakepounder" of course.) And besides... Mmm! Steak! Know what I mean?-------
Wish me luck at the welfare office, and give my best to Marie.-Thaddeus
If I were the 20-year-old Pablo Neruda,it would be almost impossible forme to suck.Greg:If there's one thing I shouldn't do, it's read. Reading only uncovers new and multifarious ways in which I suck. Take the book I picked up this morning, A Gentleman Pens A Note by John Bridges and Bryan Curtis. It's part of my collection of writing references. I'm a writer. Did you know that? But I'm not just any kind of writer. I'm a copywriter. I get paid positively scads of money to write compelling two- and three-word directives that get consumers to snap up things they probably don't need. Hell, simply writing the words "download now" nets me about $12.50. I've got the sweetest gig in the universe. Now back to what I was saying about how I suck... Bridges and Curtis, through several excellent examples, get across a very simple point. Good note writing lies in thinking about the other person. For instance, if you forgot to send a thank you note for something you got last year, their rule of thumb is that it's never too late to say thank you. "Every time I pick up the 'Kats R Krazy' mug you got me for Hannukah '03, I always get a laugh and think of your smiling face..." You don't say, "Man, I'm so sorry I'm late sending this. I'm such a douche. You're so generous - and me? Well, I don't deserve to draw a breath." The latter is about you, you and only you, and not just that, but what a dunce you are. It's as though you're trying to let everyone know that life is an unfolding drama with you as the central character. That's no way to say thank you, now is it?Which brings me to this blog, which is about me, no matter how much I'd like it to be about you. Ergo, by the aforementioned standards of etiquette set by Mssrs. Bridges and Curtis, I suck. Although this blog is called "Dear Gregory", at a glance one can see that it's mostly about how I suck at Buddhism, how ghey I am for the football, and how I'm a hack who spends his ill-gotten wealth on overpriced PataGucci hiking schwag.Forgive me. There should be more in this blog about the person who inspires it. It's worthwhile to note that I write these letters to you because I know that you "get it", not because we're related, but because you and I have a unique attunement and understanding others might describe as "shared comorbid neurotic eustress". I must also say that I shy away from bringing up things that you may or may not want out there for public consumption, like details about your brilliant invention [understandably classified], or your address [transient], or your bass-playing acuity [wicked!] which is currently being rented by a country western band [harsh!]. Most recurrent among comments that I have received while writing this blog is the question of whether you're a real person or not, which only underscores the fact that I don't write enough to you, and write far too much at you. So drop me a note, wouldja, and let me know what's fair game and what's not. In the meantime, dig your crazy readers, man!Meet Peter Darchuk!
Darchuk is not a unicorn, but he plays one on TV.Peter Darchuk currently does something or other for Disney, a job for which he can scarcely conceal his loathing. Given his druthers, I'm sure he would sooner skin cats in a Mexican rendering plant (without the benefit of union representation, even) than continue doing whatever he does for The Mouse.Alas, his job does supply him with a "connection" to the "industry" which he "milks" for all it's "worth". He's a writer, but not the bad kind like me. He's the good kind, the kind that creates works both authentic and unique, that - speaking of egregious unfairness - do not make him dime one. See for yourself.Darchuk is also the auteur who brought you "Danny Nutter's Tips For Livin'" and The Idjit's Bible.Meet Tyler Hill!
L to R: Tyler Hill, Tyler Hill, Sara Hill, Tyler Hill.I could probably hit Tyler Hill with a stick right now - if he were sitting at his desk, and if my arm were mighty enough to blast it through four walls worth of concrete. Perhaps it is, come to think of it. I'm going to shut up and let him talk while I go out and try to find a stick.What do they call you back home? Tyler, or Ty (if they are feeling monosyllabic). College buddies refer to me by a wide variety of names ranging from Spongeboy to the General.
What do you...uh...do? I'm a graphic designer and occasional illustrator. But, generally I ramble about the board game I'm designing, or how I'm going to make a comic book one day. What would you like to know about Greg? I think its important that I remain ignorant about Greg. What would you like Greg to know about you? Recently, I put my quarter-life crisis behind me, and kicked off my third-life crisis by getting a tattoo of a bee. I'm boarderline phobic of both bees and needles, so the event has tons of symbolic meaning that I don't like to focus on too much for fear of it moving from "symbolic" to "trite." Isn't it ossum on a hot summer night when you put your arm underneath your pillow and it's still all cold under there, like some kinda "coldness magic"? (yes/no) Definitely "cold magic." My wife and I just switched the sheets at our apartment from Winter Mode™ (flannel) to Spring mode™ (cotton), so its all about the cool sheets these days.(And speaking of Cool Sheet, you should go read Tyler's blog! -Ed.)Meet Elizabeth Rogers!
L to R: Elizabeth in Australia; Another sign of the impendingapocalypse; Elizabeth at 6,000 ft., above Lake Angeles.What does Elizabeth do? Well, in her own words she: "...wrangle(s) a bunch of highly intelligent, energetic and crazy people with very short attention spans. What? I said I wrangle a bunch of highly intelligent, energetic and crazy people - Ice cream! Ice cream! Ice cream! - with very short atten - Look, birds! I have a dirty hand! - tion spans. Can you roll your tongue like this - llyyaaaaayyyllyyyaaaaahhhh? Thaddeus! Settle down! Okay, I will. Now what was that first part? I wrangle a bunch... Do you like busketti? LET ME FINISH! ...ok...Ahem. I wrangle a bunch of highly intelligent, energetic and crazy people with very short attention spans. You know, creative types. During office hours I am their leader which means I mostly channel the collective energy and creative tidal wave towards good instead of evil and remind people to go to recess and write blogs when things are leaning towards the dark side. When I am not at work, I basically hole myself up with lots of sharp tools and yards of fabric. Occasionally stopping to cook and run amok in the great outdoors.What would you like to know about Greg? What is it like to be Beethoven, Napoleon Dynamite, and Thomas Edison all at the same time. AND how in God's name is that combination possible with the massive amounts of weed you are reported to have grown, refined and ingested over the years? (CLARIFICATION: Greg was not the weed-growing brother. In high school, he only smoked his tuba. She has you confused with the brothers we refer to as "John" and "Tom". -Ed.)Coldness Magic? YES.
Cheers, and give my best to Marie.-Thaddeus
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