Scattered Pictures

I've found it hard to concentrate on reading. I think I've only read four books (including this and this, which aren't very hard, but are entirely interesting and fun, and she owns a Sphynx) since Christmas. Maybe it's just long narratives. I haven't had problems with a comic or two before I go to sleep.

Went and watched Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street last night. It was the second time. Yes, I know the play's better, but I liked the movie, a lot. The songs are great and the actors are marvelous and the blood flows and squirts and sprays and I enjoy every minute of it. Sure, I'm sad that Turpin's turn at singing "Johanna" wasn't included, but it wasn't enough to make me not enjoy the movie. One other thing, Helena Bonham Carter has appeared in every Burton movie since the horror that was Planet of the Apes, I'd like to say that it has something to do with the fact that they have two kids, but it's hard to confirm that because she's such a spectacular actor.

At break time I've been staying at my desk. Sometimes I do work. Sometimes I screw around on the 'net. Sometimes I stare into the corner just trying not to think.

There's stew thawing in my fridge. It's probably not very thawed, yet, and I don't want to put a block of ice in the microwave, I'd rather wait until it's mostly thawed. I made the stew more than a week ago; I made a lot of stew thinking that my brother was going to be sleeping at my place, he didn't. There are two or three more things of it in the freezer. I'll probably thaw them out next month.

Work keeps building stupid upon stupid. First we stated the bullshit "prepping" of the files at the beginning of the month. Last week, we started "prepping" the DEU files and learned that they "prepping" is based on date, so any DEU rating that was done after September 1st of last year is supposed to be "prepped" for scanning (We still haven't seen the scanners and no one, in our office at least, has been shown how they work. Hell, we were told that there wouldn't even be a monitor for the scanners, so we can't see what we're doing.), even if the rating is in a file that won't be scanned. Last Friday, a guy came in to look around an tell us how we're not up to the proper ADA standards, so some chairs and a table have been removed and we all now have to police the lawyer to make sure they don't block the door or the place where a wheelchair may be at some point in the future and people are not longer allowed to work outside the door, to keep the noise down out there. We're already having problems with this stuff, but it won't be addressed because we're moving downstairs in a few months where there will be a whole new set of problems that won't be addressed because we're only staying there for a few months because the remodel will be done and we'll be back up here with a whole new set of problems that we'll have to work out to go along with the problems that aren't being addressed now.

I've been walking at lunch, when it hasn't been raining. I just go around the corner, past the post office, and stay on that sidewalk, by a hospital, for a half hour before turning on the next block and the next, which bring me right back to the road this building is on. It's not an exciting or interesting walk, but it's not about being exciting or interesting, it's about getting away from the place I work physically since I haven't been able to do it mentally on my lunch hour. myPod plays random music on the walk and I try to focus on that.

In nine days I'm going to Cowtown for a long weekend. Hopefully my car won't break so I can actually have good time rather than being Mr. Grump the whole time.

So very, very tired...

First Album

Instructions:
1 - Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Random quotations: http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr's "explore the last seven days" http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

Put it all together, that's your first album.



The picture came from here.

I actually found this meme on Friday over here, but I don't have any good software or fonts at work so I did it at my apartment over the weekend to get it right.

Edit: Heels did one on Friday, but she has good software at work.

Fiction Friday #27

"Ewww," I said.

"That's disgusting," Karen said through the door.

"She's right," I said, nodding toward her voice.

"Stay out of this, Karen," Said Jer. "Unless you're going to let him in to use the toilette."

She snorted, "He's not coming in here."

"Then keep out of this," he said. He turned to me, I couldn't see his face clearly in the dark of the hall, and said, "Go and use the sink in the kitchen."

"Man, we put dishes in there," I said, giving the door a little push to see if I could catch Karen off guard. The door didn't move.

"It's all pipes, man. Haven't you ever peed in the shower?"

"That's different," I said. The shower washes everything down it."

"We wash dishes in there."

I scoffed, "We?"

"You. Fine," he said.

"That's right."

"I'll do dishes later. And make sure to clean out the sink, okay?"

"Fine," I said, taking my weight off of the door so it could slam shut with a surprised Karen on the other side.

"Son of a bitch," she said.

I smiled and let go of the door knob. "How do I get up high enough to aim for the sink?" I asked Jer. "I don't want to get the counter or anything."

He sighed, "You get a chair. And if you don't like that idea you grab one of the dirty glasses or a bowl or a pot or something. Jesus, just go."

He gave me a little push and I left. As I walked down the hall toward the living room, I heard a tapping. I turned and saw him knocking on the door, probably talking to Karen, trying to settle her down, telling her that I was the one who was wrong. He was on her side, I just knew it. He was telling her that everything was my fault, that I should have been more sensitive to her needs rather than my over stuffed bladder.

I hated Jer the entire time I pissed in the pot he boiled pasta in the night before, which I promised myself I'd never use again. At least Karen had an excuse for acting the way she had; she was a bitch. She couldn't help being the person she was. Jer, on the other hand, had been my friend since we were both freshmen trapped in rooms with shithead roommates. Jer's thought it was his right to kick Jer out at two in the morning so he could have sex. Mine was a freak who had night terrors. We had been united in our misery and turned it into a long friendship. The best friendship I'd ever had. The best he'd had, too.

I finished up in the pot and though about "accidentally" spilling some on the counter so he'd be stuck with the smell while he cleaned up. I thought better of that idea, though, because I knew I'd be smelling it all day long because if, and that was quite an if, Jer did the dishes he wasn't going to get to them until much later in the day. I poured my piss carefully into the sink then took the spray thing and rinsed the sink the best I could and did the same to the pot I used, which I then filled with hot water and added some soap so it could have a nice, long soak.

Jer came around the corner into the kitchen as I finished up. He wore slacks, a white button shirt and had a tie hanging loosely around his neck. He sat on one of the chairs around the table to put on his shoes.

"Leo," he said, setting one shoe on the table, "what you did this morning really sucked."

"It wasn't my fault," I said, sounding more whiney than I wanted.

"I know," he said, "but it wasn't all her fault."

"It was, too." I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall.

"No, it wasn't." He finished tying the first shoe and picked the other up off the table and pointed it at me. "You didn't have to be such an asshole. You could have waited. You could have figured out the sink thing for yourself."

"Yeah, but--"

"I'm not saying that she was right." He finished the second shoe and stood up to tie his tie. "She could have let you in and waited a minute for you to go and be done with it. Hell, she should have. You didn't have to turn it into some third grade yelling match at six on a Sunday morning. You should have been the mature one and waited."

I stood there, my mouth opening and closing like a landed trout and thought, bros before hoes, man, bros before hoes. Jer didn't see me, though. He was having trouble with his tie.

"I'm going with Karen to church," he said, looping the tail around and around the rest of the tie. "After, we're going to breakfast. She might come back with me after. I don't know."

"Give it to me," I said. He handed it over and I put it around my neck. "How long do you want it?"

He showed me and I started tying.

"You guys can't go around ignoring each other," he said. "It just screws everything up, makes it worse. I'd rather you guys have lots of little arguments than blow up early in the morning once a month."

I finished up, yanked the tie over my head, and handed it to him.

"Thanks," he said.

"Yeah," I said and headed around the corner. The bathroom door was still closed.

It's 4:15 in the PM...

...and all day I've been reminding myself that I choose to be here.

It doesn't make me feel better. It just reminds me why I work at a horribly boring job that doesn't require much brain power to do with people I would never choose to spend time with in the "real" world and a supervisor who is in a stupid hat that makes me thinK of Six from Blossom even though though it was probably Blossom herself who actually wore the hats, but I alway preferred Six, and who doesn't seem to understand that those who are, pardon the cliché, self motivated don't need the same sort of supervision as those who aren't.

Yet, I still force myself to remember that I choose to be here.

*sigh*

Fiction Friday #26

After that, there was hardly a day that I didn't see Karen. At first, we were... pleasant to each other, pleasant in only the way two people who won't speak can be. I acknowledged her existence, but wouldn't talk. I'd go around her in the kitchen to grab a plate or a glass rather than ask her to hand me one. If I saw her in the hall, I'd duck into my room or the bathroom until she was safely in Jer's room. She'd do the same, carefully dodging me so we wouldn't have to speak.

The pleasantness disintegrated early one Sunday morning, about six weeks after the first night. I had to pee, but she was in the bathroom. I had to go, really go. I drank an entire ultra-huge Slurpee before I went to bed and I'd held off as long as possible. I tapped on the door. (To this day I swear I was gentle, but when Karen tells the story it's like I swung a sledgehammer and tried to break the door down.)

She hollered through the door, "I getting ready for church."

"Why?" I asked, trying to stay polite. I still had to pee, but bothering her seemed more important. "You never believed in that bullshit before. What changed?"

"Fuck you, Leo," she said.

"How much longer?" I asked.

"As long as it takes."

"I'm not just gonna stand here and piss myself, you know."

"Yeah, what are you gonna do?"

I twisted the knob and gave the door a little push. She slammed into it, forcing the door shut. She couldn't lock it, though; I still had the knob turned. I pushed back.

"Let me in," I yelled, holding the knob with both hands, "I have to pee."

"Wait until I'm through," she yelled back.

"Who knows how long you'll be. I'll only be a minute."

"Yeah, and then the whole place will smell like piss."

"Fuck you!" I shouted.

"You had your chance, but your gun went off before you even got a look at the target!"

I nearly pissed myself at that. My ears got hot and I wanted to kick the door down, push her into the tub, and use the goddamn toilette. I didn't, though. I kept my hands firmly on the door knob and started taking deep breaths. I counted them. At fifteen I felt calm enough to speak again.

"Karen," I said, "please let me in so I can use the bathroom."

"No."

"Please? I've been waited a long time before I knocked on the door."

"No!"

"Karen!"

"NO!"

I pushed, the door opened a crack. She pushed back, the crack started to close. I pushed again and the crack sort of wavered. Nothing was gained and nothing was lost when she started to push back again.

"KAREN!"

"NOOOOOOO!"

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" asked Jer from behind me.

"She's hogging the bathroom," I said, pushing.

"He's a shithead who won't leave me alone," she said, pushing back.

"I have to pee," I said pushing again.

"Tell him he'll get the bathroom when I'm done," she said, pushing back again.

"Leo, if you break that door, you're paying for it," Jer said.

"HA!" we heard Karen say through the door.

"You're paying for it, too, Karen," he said.

"HA! HA!" I said.

"Leo, can't you use the sink in the kitchen?" he asked.

Movies

I'm going to see that movie Cloverfield tomorrow or Saturday.

Sure, I'm curious about this monster thing, but that's not the main reason I'm going.

I'm really going to watch the Star Trek teaser.

Advice My Grandpa Gave Me Before I Turned 10

"Learn to enjoy drinking warm beer, that way other people won't drink as much of your beer."

How to Rationalize Like a Comic Book Fan

Or What the Hell Happened to Captain Atom?

Why did Captain Atom decide to take over the multiverse?

What led him down the path from superhero to super villain?

Who corrupted him?

When did the turn happen?

Where was point of no return from good to evil?

How did it all happen?

I've been asking myself these questions since before the beginning of Countdown. I knew from the solicits that he'd be turning bad. I knew that he was going to raise an army out of the 52 universes which he'd use to take over the entire multiverse. And so I've wondered, why?

Captain Atom, in the DC universe at least, started out as a man, Captain Nathanial Adam, out of time. He was a military man in the sixties who had some problems and got to decide to spend years in prison or be stuffed into an egg made out of some alien alloy while bombs were exploded outside the egg to test the alloy's strength. While I would pick prison, he picked the alien egg. The bombs exploded and everything disappeared. Years later Adam re-appeared with the alloy grafted to his skin and the ability to tap into and manipulate the Quantum Field. (Don't think about the science, please. You'll only hurt yourself.) Obviously, the military wanted to use him to get good press, so he did and eventually became a real hero, not just a military shill, and eventually led the European team of the Justice League International.

Captain Atom fought Monarch (a former hero who went bad when his future self came back in time and killed his partner, who he was in love with, which sent his present day self into wacoville and caused him to kill his future self and then put on his future self's armor and go to kill all the superheroes) and they went on a wacky trip through time, with only Atom ending up back in the present. From there, after some (a lot) of time in the background, he formed an "extreme" Justice League team, fought "extreme" Wonder Twins, and even an "extreme" quantum clone of himself. Then he spent more time off the page until he sacrificed himself by flying a giant robot in the shape of the Composite Superman into a gigantic meteor made up of kryptonite. He blew up, saving the day, and dying.

Except he didn't die, he was blow into another universe. The Wildstorm comics universe. There he found an Earth full of superheroes who scared the regular people as much as, but often more than, the super villains and alien invaders who are waging war on the backwater world known as Earth. Atom gets frustrated and almost becomes as frightening as the heroes of the Wildstorm Earth, but he doesn't. He clings to his ideals and morals. He refuses to kill. He tries to convince regular folks he won't hurt them. He helps a young woman come to terms with the god-like powers she received because of the way he broke through the universal barriers. He does good and in the end he's sent back to DC's New Earth to a city that was blown up by a giant creature full of bizarre chemicals being dropped on the city, cracked and leaking radiation, which forces him into a coma.

Eventually, he's discovered being used to help breed government meta-humans, still in a coma and leaking massive amounts of radiation, by heroes called the Atomic Knights. They take him away and to keep him from going critical and blowing up the city even worse, the put him in Monarch's armor and wake him up. He's kind of angry when he wakes up and sort of blows up what's left of the destroyed city and anyone or anything left there.

After that, he's seen in Countdown recruiting alternate heroes and villains and already having a large army of normal people hidden in the bleed. He's decided to force his brand of order on the 52 universes.

I thought that Countdown would have explained this change in him by now. It hasn't.

In Countdown to Final Crisis #17 they claim to give Monarch origin in the back-up. I expected them to explain the change in Atom there. Here's what they said:

To prevent further catastrophe caused by the quantum energies seeping from Captain Aton's Damaged skin, the Atomic Knights sealed him within the recovered armor of Monarch.
His abilities enhanced but his control overwhelmed, Captain Aton became the very thing he feared and fought on that alternate Earth.
He Repaid the Knights' kindness by destroying what little remained of Blüdhaven before embracing his future as the one true Monarch...

The origin didn't explain anything, but it did remind me of the story of the armor. So I pulled out the books where it was introduced the event that crossed the annuals put out in 1991, Armageddon 2001.

Monarch's armor was built sometime in the future and had the ability to absorb nearly infinite amounts of energy, but it came back in time where the original owner was killed by his past self. His past self was a superhero named Hawk, an agent of the Lords of Chaos, who was part of a team built to balance Order and Chaos with Dove, an agent of the Lords of Order. Dove was killed by Monarch. Without her to help balance him, Hawk got mad, embraced the chaos and killed his future self. Angry and nutso, Hawk became Monarch and decided to kill all the superheroes and impose order, which is a stupid thing to do for an agent of Chaos. Of course, he was defeated (by Captain Atom, the man who was originally going to be Monarch, but didn't, due to the story leaking to the comic "press" of the day, BBSes).

A few years, our time, later, Monarch showed up again and declared that he now understood: without Dove, he was also the embodiment of Order and his power was increased and called himself Extant, a guy with an omega on his chest because, you know, he's come to end it all, and he ditches the armor.

And there, there's my answer:

To absorb the power from the Lords of Order, Monarch had to give up some of the power from the Lords of Chaos. He couldn't keep all of one and just take more of the other into his body, so what happened to the Chaos power? It was absorbed by the armor! So when Captain Atom, a hero of science, was crammed into the armor, the Chaos was too strong for him, especially since the Lords have left (or were killed or stomped by the Spectre or punched out of existence) the Chaos trapped in the armor is all there is in the universe. It just overwhelmed Captain Atom and drove him as mad as, or madder than, Hawk was when Hawk watched his future self kill Dove and then killed his future self. Hawk was created to hold and use the powers of Chaos, Captain Atom was not.

When I figured that out, I felt better, even if it's complete and utter horse shit. Still won't stop me from asking about it at WonderCon in February, though.

Fiction Friday #25

"When?" he asked.

"High school," I said.

Jer looked over at Karen. She nodded again.

"High school?" he said to himself. Then he spoke to me, "Does that mean she's..." He let it drift off.

I pushed my hair off my forehead and said, "Yeah. This is her. This is Karen."

"Oh," he said, looking at her again, this time not so cow-eyed.

"What," she said to me, "have you told him?"

"The truth," I said, leveling my eyes to hers.

"'The truth,'" she said, mocking me by making her voice higher. "You wouldn't know the truth if it crawled out of your belly button and said, 'Fuck me, I'm the truth!'"

"Yeah, sure," I said and turned to walk to my room. I wanted to let them handle whatever was going on between them.

Jer grabbed my arm, "Where're you going?"

"To my room. I don't have to deal with this." I shook his hand off of me.

Karen leaned her butt onto the back of the chair she had been sitting on and let out a long sigh. "What now?" she asked.

Jer sat on the floor, looked at me, then at her. He shrugged and looked down at his arms, which were crossed on his chest. I wondered if he was about to cry.

"What, 'What now?'" I asked Karen. "I don't get it."

"You," she pointed to me. "Him," she pointed to Jer. "Me," she pointed to herself.

"Fuck me," I said.

She grinned an evil grin at me, "Only with a chainsaw."

"Look," I said, ignoring her as best I could, "this doesn't have anything to do with me. Jer," -- He looked up at me, tears in his eyes. -- "we were bullshitting, bitching about exes. We were playing, one upping each other. How'd I know three years later you'd see her and bring her home with you?"

He looked away from me.

"And you," I turned back to Karen, "give him a fucking chance. He's not me." I paused. She didn't say anything; she just frowned. "Hell, I'm not who I was. I'm a totally new kind of jackass."

Karen smiled a little.

That's when I left. I didn't go to my room. I walked back the way I came in and out. I hurried down the stairs after I pulled the door shut and hopped on the first bus that came around the corner. It didn't matter where I was going, just as long as I was gone.

Nearly four years after we spent hours screaming at each other, almost four since I'd even seen her, and when I saw her all those old emotions came back. All the pain I felt because of what she said and because of what I wanted to do. As if no time had passed at all. If I'd stayed, I would have started again. Maybe she would have been mature enough to not fight back, but I doubted it. She always had a quicker temper than I did, than most people did. Her temper was one of the things that made her so much fun to be around; it made her more unpredictable and exciting.

So, we probably would have fought. This time in front of an audience, Jer. He didn't need to see that anymore than I needed to go through it. Besides, he'd been building her up for so long, it would have been awful to just show him her worst side. Besides, I knew, deep down, that she wasn't the horrible bitch I'd made her out to be. I didn't know who she was at all anymore.

She was, though, even more beautiful than she had been in high school. She was rounder, fuller, still dark and glistening. When she smiled when we were kids, it dazzled me, now it would probably knock me unconscious. I could see how she caught his eye. Couple her looks with the deadly sharp wit she's always had, and Jer had no chance.

I rode the bus for long enough to lose track of time. I thought about what had happened at my apartment. I thought about what happened between me and Karen then and now. I thought about who I was now compared to then. It all just rolled around and around in my head always looping back on itself.

Eventually, I wanted off. I didn't want to go back home, but I knew I couldn't sit on the bus all night long, it's run had to come to an end some time. A bar seemed like the right place to go for the night. Who wouldn't want to get drunk after seeing someone like Karen again? Bars have to close sometime. They may stay open late, but late wasn't all night long. Denny's, though, stayed open all night long.

I transferred twice to get onto the line to Denny’s; I wouldn't have had to transfer at all if I went to a bar. Still, Denny's was a better place. I hadn't dropped off my backpack, so I still had all the books I'd taken to school. Unfortunately, they weren't the books for the next day's classes; still it was something else to focus on.

I bought a never ending coffee and slowly, through the night, bought food and worked my way through a few weeks worth of homework. I left around five so I could get to the first bus of the morning. Once again I transferred twice and, in time, ended up across the street in front of my apartment.

I stood there wondering if I really wanted to go in. Did I want to know what Jer and Karen had decided? Which outcome would make me happiest? I knew what would make my life easiest, at least after Jer settled down to his normal routine.

I stood there wondering and the door opened and Karen came down the stairs. I don't think she saw me, but if she had, she would have seen me clutching my stomach, as if I'd just been punched.

Fiction Friday #24

The first time it was real weird between Karen and me was when we sort of met in college.

Jer, my then roommate and best friend who I met my first year, his second, of college, was all excited when he got home the first day of the new semester. The only thing he talked about all night was some brilliant, dark eyed, dark haired, mahogany skinned beauty he'd met in his American lit class. Unlike most students, she was already asking the professor tough questions. She asked questions about the syllabus, pressing the prof for specifics instead of putting up with his vague outline of exactly what the required reading for the course was; who in their right mind wanted to buy a copy of Moby-Dick only to have to read select passages so they could compare and contrast those passages with a short story, "Bartleby, the Schr1vner," from the class reader.

For five weeks, each day he had that class, he came home talking about her. She said this about the story we read today. She busted the teacher when he mixed up something Emerson wrote with something Thoreau wrote. She flicks her hair back with a quick motion of her head. She makes the air around her smell like vanilla. Of course, in all that time, he never spoke to her. He just listened and pined.

Then they read Huck Finn, a book that Jer had hated since he was in junior high because of the ending. All the time he was reading it at home he bitched about the book to me, but he read it from beginning to end anyway. On the day the class talked about the ending, the prof talked about how it was a brilliant portrayal of how the reconstruction of the South failed after the Civil War and how Twain was pulling the book back from the serious place it had reached to the comedy it began with to show how the USA achieved no change at all after Reconstruction had ended. Jer, in his mild way, flipped out at the teacher and said that the ending sucked. Out of the whole class the only the Dark Girl, as we'd come to call her around our apartment, sided with Jer, the rest either rehashed what the prof said or sat silent.

After that class, and pretty much being called dumb by the prof, full of rage and adrenaline, Jer and the Dark Girl finally spoke. She even came home with them so they could keep talking. When I got there, I heard the muffled voices and didn't want to get in the way so I tried to sneak off to my room. It didn't work. The voices had stopped and Jer was in the entry way before I could lock up.

"Guess who I have here?" Jer asked, smiling.

"Jesus, the guy who sells stolen hubcaps," I said.

"No," he said. "She's here."

"Who?"

"The girl from my lit class."

"Her?" I paused. "How?"

"Come and meet her." He pulled my arm so I was in front of him and then pushed me into the living room.

She was sitting in a chair so her back was to me. Her hair was impossibly black, Jer was right about that.

"I want you two to meet."

She stood up, turned around, the smile she had turned to a look of horror.

"This is Karen," Jer said to me. "Karen, this is--"

"Leo," she said with disgust.

"Shit," I said my heart trying to fall into my scrotum while my balls tried to climb up to my throat.

Karen had dated in high school during our junior year and most of our senior year, then stupid happened. I wouldn't lie to her, but she didn't want the truth about certain thing (even though she'd ask about them). So I told her something that hurt her and she said something that hurt me and it went back and forth and back and forth for a while until she was crying to hard she couldn't talk anymore and I was so angry that I wanted to throw her through a window and started to cry at that thought. Soon after, I couldn't remember who started what or even when, but I was tired of her and she was tired of me and things just ended. From then on, we just didn't speak. Our friends sort of ignored us for a while and then she seemed to recover faster and started to be fun Karen before I became fun Leo, so they drifted off toward her more than to me. Not that I blamed them, she always was more fun than I was.

She was also the first person who I almost had sex with, but didn't quite make it. She was the first girl, besides family or medical people, to see me naked. She was the first girl who was naked with me. We must have looked odd, her in her beautiful, deep brown skin gleaming in the light, and me standing there in my earthworm colored flesh, blotchy with red as my body flushed. She was the first who really let me explore her body and she was the first who explored mine. But when she stroked me as I was kissing and touching her and I burst in her hand, the experiment was over. After that, we fooled around and worked on each other until we came, but we never got that close to actual sex again.

Before we broke up, we had both chosen to go to the same college, thinking we'd be in love forever. Afterward, I know I seriously thought about not going to school at all, but I figured the odds of me running into her on a campus with twenty thousand people seemed low, so I wasn't going to stop my plans because of her. I never saw her until there, until the day my roommate invited her over to our apartment, where she just glared at me.

As she looked me over, with a deep frown on her face, she was probably remembering every horrible thing I had ever said to her or done to her and trying to figure out if anyone who was a friend of mine was worth anything at all.

"You know each other?" Jer asked, looking between us.

"We went to high school together," I said, trying to look like I wasn't looking at Karen.

She frowned deeper.

"And we sort of dated. For a while," I said.

"Is that true?" he asked her.

She nodded.

"Shit," he said.

A Softer World

If you don't read A Softer World once a week, what the hell is wrong with you?

There Was No Party on Saturday

Feels like a long time since I've blogged, but I put something up on Friday and I actually wrote a few paragraphs on Thursday. So, it hasn't even been a week. Feels it, though.

I'm really extra sick of my job.

I think I've written about how at the end of each month I box up files that were ordered from storage and then ship them back to the record's center. I didn't do it at the end of December because of my back. I want to let it get a long rest before I start lugging boxes full of files around again. I talked to SMSN about it and she said she'd take care of it. Yesterday, AOAC came up to me and asked about the files and I said she should go ask SMSN about them and she, AOAC, told me that it didn't matter, she'd work around the files.

I rolled my eyes and didn't do a thing about it.

Why? Well, it's not my responsibility and I'm tired of doing extra things that aren't my responsibility.

I know that's not the way to get "ahead," but where I work, me doing extra stuff is taken for granted and not appreciated. Hell, I was responsible enough to tell SMSN weeks in advance that she'd have to find someone else to send the files off. Weeks! I guess she didn't take care of it since it hasn't been done. I bet that once she hears about it, she'll be surprised that I didn't remind her that she said she had it taken care of even though she didn't. I am expected to let her know things like this, no one else is.

That post I wrote last Thursday about responsibility, yeah it had to do with her and the other people who are supposed to be in charge not doing their job, but me doing their job.

See, late in November some guys came to do some wiring through the floor. Shelves had to be moved. Most were empty and we were going to be moving to a different office in December, so it was a good start to that. Well, the wiring didn't get done that day and the move didn't happen, but the shelves were never put back. We didn't have much room back in November for new files on the few shelves left, by the end of December, the last few shelves were filled to bursting. Last Thursday, I got sick of it, so I readjusted where the files were and told SMSN that we need the other shelves back since we're now not moving until sometime between March and August. (That's as specific as they can get.) She wanted me to take care of it. She wanted me to get the shelves and put them back. She wanted me to put everything back just the way it was before. I wanted to throw her out a window.

On top of that, we're doing this pointless preparation to our files for scanning on scanners that they won't let us see into a computer program that isn't finished being created yet. And everyone comes to me for advice. I was given the same bullshit instructions that they were. I attended the same bullshit meetings that they did. I heard the same bullshit answers they heard. I received no training like they did and they come to me for answers that if they don't have I don't have. And then one of the judges decided to tell all the attorneys he saw yesterday that if they have any questions about what they can do to help that they should speak with me. With! Me!

The only think that I know for certain is that the fucking purple paper goes on top of the prepped work! That's not fucking much!

The thing that bothers me the most is that when I tell people that I don't know, that I don't have an answer for them, they hover over my desk with a little smile, like they thing I'm shitting them! If I knew, I'd tell you!

GL Test

Like the lady said, it was bound to happen.

Which Power Ring would come to you?

You are an exemplar of hope.You have a place in the Blue Lantern Corps. We exist to fill the universe with hope against the dark times ahead. The universe needs you.
Take this quiz!

Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

That's the ring I would have chosen, if it hadn't chosen me.

Responsibility.

I don't want to be the fucking adult. I don't want to be the one who's responsible for the bullshit of other people.

It's one of the reasons I don't want to be a parent.

It's the main reason I don't want to be a supervisor over more than two or three people. Ever. I don't want to constantly nag the shit-heads who don't do their work to get it done, but since my job performance is dependent on theirs, I'd have to because I don't want to look like a shit-head because of some other asshole.

All I want to be is responsible for myself and my tiny, insignificant place in this universe. If I fuck up, then it's me who gets fucked up the worst. My fuck-ups may effect other people, but not so badly that they can't recover and move on with their part.

I hate depending on others to get their shit together so that I can move on. I hate it!

FUCK!

My Christmastime "Adventure"

The Friday before Christmas, I woke up about thirty minutes early. I wanted time to get everything down to my car because that was the day I was headed to my parents' house for the weekend before Christmas. I got ready for work, packed up my car, and headed off to work, in my car, which I think I've only done three or four times in my 27 months working here.

See, the governator, in his infinite wisdom, had given us all some informal time off, four hours paid where we don't have to work, for the holiday. Since there's a problem with the headlights, I wanted to leave early and these extra hours were perfect. And leaving from work would get me moving twenty minutes earlier! Perfect.

I got to work and poked around. I didn't do much actual work because I didn't have any and SMSN wasn't here to be all enforcer-like, so I could play silly games and read crap. I shut down my computer five minutes before noon, pulled my sweatshirt on, and read until I could leave. When all the hands pointed up, I sped out of here. I paid for my parking, got in my car, pulled out the leftover pizza I brought for lunch and headed out of town.

Traffic wasn't bad through town. On the highway, people were going slower than they needed to, but they were close to the speed limit and I had myPod playing songs I like and know, so I could sing along. I drove and drove and got to the really narrow part of the highway and traffic became a cross between crawling and stopping. I think I spent forty minutes crawling and stopping before I saw the messy accident that caused it. (Didn't see any people, just smashed cars and glass and the CHP guys.) Even after that the traffic wasn't smooth because farther down some CHP guys had set up a detour for the people who wanted to drive to the west. I was about an hour behind my normal schedule by this time.

After that, it was smoothing sailing for about 3000 feet when the freeway started and things got pokey. Traffic didn't stop, but it was really slow and pretty tight. I kept my car to the nearly all the way right lane because my exit was only about two miles away.

Traffic though that town was pretty good. We moved at nearly the speed limit and I knew that once I got out of town speed would pick up; after all, it was only two in the afternoon.

I was right. After I got through town I hit the gas and finally, after two hours of driving, got my car to 55 MPH. That's when the car started shaking, well bouncing, really fast and I heard a "whump whump whump" sound that went along with the bounces. Stuff in the passenger seat started rattling. I took my foot off the gas and as the car slowed, the bouncing stopped and the sound stopped. I figured I would just cruise at fifty and take the rest of the trip slow and be a bit more late to my parents' house and while I was there I could talk to my dad about the problem and we could work out whether I needed to take it to someone to get it fixed.

I cruised along for a few miles when the car started steering funny and was trying to pull me into the other lane. My snow driving experience kicked in and my foot came off the gas and I tried to hold the car steady so I wouldn't go into the other lane or steer too hard off the road. It took me a few seconds before I realized that I had blown a tire.

I pulled off the road as far as I could because there's not too much of a shoulder on that highway and I wanted to feel fairly safe while changing the driver’s side front tire.

Out I climbed into the biting wind and walked to the back of the car to free the jack and the doughnut. With those in hand, I walked back to the front of the car. I set the doughnut down and looked for the right place to set up the jack. The gravel on the side of the road hurt my knees as I twisted the handle to get the car up enough so I could get the tire off. The tread on the tire had peeled away leaving it bald and thin. When I got the tire off, I found the tread wrapped around the axel. I sighed and carried the tire and the tread and tossed them into the car; I didn't want to be one of those assholes who leave their messes on the side of the road. I got the doughnut up and on and cranked the car back down to the ground.

The jack safely stowed in the back of the car, I climbed back into my seat and started the car up. It had only taken me about 40 minutes to do everything. Not bad for a guy who hates working on cars. I put it in gear, waited for a break in the traffic, and hit the gas. The rear tires spun, but the car didn't move. I tried again. Nothing. I tried going in reverse. Lots of noise, but no moving. I tried going forward one more time and when nothing happened I set the parking break, turned off the car, and sighed.

About a mile behind me was a railroad museum. I head toward it hoping to find a phone, crossing the street when the shoulder on my side got way too small. I kept thinking that at least it wasn't raining, and then I'd check the sky to make sure there weren't any clouds above me that could open up and pour. The sky stayed clear, thank you.

The sign at the museum said that it was only opened on Saturday and Sunday. Fortunately, the gate was open and there was a car parked in front of the building. I walked over and knocked on the door. A guy came and I told him what was going on. He let me come in. At first he wanted me to dial 911, but I only needed a tow truck to yank me out. He offered me his cell phone and dug out a phone book for me to use. I called for a tow, then went to the road to wait.

The clock in the truck showed four as I climbed into the cab and buckled in. I explained to the driver what the problem was and off we went. He sang along with the twangy country music that was on the radio and a minute or two later I pointed out my car. He slowed down, looked at the ground and decided that he couldn't get my car out, safely, unless CHP was there to slow or stop traffic. At the nearest turn around point, he radioed in and told them what he needed. We got back on the road and headed for the museum because that was the only place he could turn around to get going in the direction my car was pointed. At that turn around, he radioed in again to ask about when the CHP would come. The guy on the radio said no one was coming, that they couldn't help me, and there was no charge to me. It was 4:15.

I climbed out of the cab, thanking the guy for coming out and giving me fifteen minutes of warmth, and headed back toward my car and the nearest emergency phone.

At the phone, I picked it up and pushed the button to call directly to CHP. I didn't want to do this on my way down because I knew I needed a tow truck and I didn't want to bother anyone that I didn't have to. Now I had to bother them. Some woman picked up and I explained that I needed a tow and where I was and that I did understand that I'd have to pay for the tow and I gave her my information and I told her that I was going to wait at my car.

The walk back was colder. The sun was lower and there was more wind. At one point, a truck pulled off the road in front of me. I wondered if the driver was going to offer me a ride. Out of the window came an empty plastic bottle, then a McDonald's bag, then more bottles, an ash tray, and another bottle. When I got up to the window, I was offered a ride. I turned him down. Not only was my car just over the little hill, but I really didn't want to ride with someone who used the highway as his trash can. Sometimes, beggars can be choosers, they just have to know when it's okay to make that choice.

The rest of the walk was as uneventful as walking along a busy highway could be.

I climbed into my car, which was chilly, but not windy, and waited.

I was very good about not turning the key every few minutes to check the time. I only checked every fifteen minutes.

At 6:15, with no tow truck or CHP in sight, I grabbed the flashlight out of the glove compartment and set out to the other, closer, emergency phone. I figured that two hours was enough time to wait for help and not get it. In the dark, the wind had died, so it felt warmer at six than it had at four.

I got to the phone, which was on the other side of the highway, and got through to a guy. I immediately told him that I had called, from a different phone, two hours earlier. He sounded concerned that no one had come for me and took all the same information that the woman had earlier. Before we hung up, I asked him to connect me with my parents so I could tell them I was okay and that I wouldn't be there when I originally thought I would and that I'd stay overnight wherever I ended up. We hung up and I headed back to my car.

I wasn't sure where the CHP would be coming from, though. Would the cruiser stop at the phone looking for me, or at my car? It probably depended on which direction it came from. So, I parked myself on a little hill, way off the shoulder, where I could watch my car and the phone. I stood there singing.

I don't know how long I waited.

Eventually there were lights behind my car. CHP had arrived. I hurried, but didn't run, over to the cruiser. The guy rolled down the passenger window and a rush of warmth hit my face. I explained to him my problem. He got out and looked at my car. He told me to get in and he'd look to see if he could pull me out. After a couple of minutes, he walked up to my window, which I had already rolled down, and told me that I needed a tow truck. In my brain I said, "No shit you fuck-head. That's why I've been trying to get one for the past three hours." In the real world I said, "Okay." He said he'd call one from his car and told me to stay where I was and asked me if I knew that I'd be paying for the tow. I said I knew.

More waiting.

When the tow truck got there, the CHP headed off so he could turn around and slow traffic for the yanking. Once again, I explained the problem. The truck driver quoted me a price and asked if it was okay, and I said yes, I just wanted my car out so I could get moving.

He hooked his cable up to my car and had me start the car so I could steer as he pulled. Steering felt weird, like it wasn't doing any good. When the driver stopped, he came to my window and told me to let off the breaks, I said they were off and the car was in neutral. He gave the car another yank then stopped again, came to the window and said my tire was locked and I'd need to be towed. I got out and saw the trench my front tire had dug.

I gritted my teeth so I wouldn't start cursing and said it was okay. I climbed into the cab of his truck and fumed while he hoisted my car up onto its back tires.

Lucky for me, the driver also has a repair shop and he told me, as he pulled into a motel, that he'd call the next morning and let me know what was going on. I said okay and snagged my bag from my car.

I got my room and dropped off my stuff. It was after eight.

Across the street was McDonald's, so that's where I bought my dinner, which I took back to my room with me. Before eating, I called my parents to let them know what was going on and to ask them to come and get me the next day if the car couldn't be fixed that day. They said okay, so I ate and showered and watched the singing numbers in White Christmas and eventually fell asleep.

The next morning I woke up when a woman pounded on my door. She wanted to make sure I didn't need anything, she said, but really, she was the cleaning lady and wanted to do all the upstairs rooms first. I called the repair shop and spoke with the guy. He hadn't looked at the car yet. A bit later, he called me back and told me that my brake line had broken and was leaking fluid. He said that all the places he knew of to get me the part were closed and wouldn't open until after Christmas.

I called my parents and told them. My brother, and his girlfriend, had offered to come and get me. He'd leave at ten, I was told. I knew it took about two hours to do the travel, but really screwed up my math and assumed he'd get there at 1 PM, which was good because after I checked out and went to McDonald's to sit and wait, I wasn't worried when they wasn't there at 12:45. They got there a little after one.

We headed over to the repair shop. No one was there. I called the guy and he said he'd send his son, so I could get my house key and an estimate. I pulled out my spare car key and my brother and his girlfriend and I unloaded my crap into their rental car. Eventually the guy's son got there (All I could think when I saw him was that this is how a douche must look in human form.) and I got my keys and the estimate.

And we were off.

We got to my parents' house around 4:00 PM. I was only 24 hours late getting there.

Non-

The explaining that I told Heels I'd do will not be done, today. We've started the stupid and pointless "project" I mentioned, but never described, today. During this "project" blogging will only happen if I write the night before at my apartment. The odds of that happening are very, very low.

I will try to get that explanation up, Heels, really.

Tell Me

Why is Sweeney Todd playing here in two hours, but it doesn't appear to be up in Cowtown at all this week?

Son of a bitch.

Christmas Stories

I can't remember if I put these up last year, but they're back

Here's the first one:
Grinch's True End, first heard on 8 December 2003 on NPR, about 3 minutes long.
Best line: "Now I'm not sure what kind of inverted Stockholm Syndrom took place while I waited on the roof, but I do know it all could have been solved with a hard shove and a quick exit."

And here's the other:
A Fool for Christmas, first heard on 24 December 2005 on NPR about 23 minutes long.
Best Line: "Well, at the food court over fried dumplins and Butter-Bean, I'm askin' what I usually ask my dates: who kids real father is."

Anyone else have found audio stories like these?

Picture Meme!

I have nothing interesting to say here, so here's a meme I swiped from Jazz.

PS Click the pictures to see where they're from.

How old will you be on your next birthday?


Where would you like to visit?


What is your favorite place?


What are your favorite things?


What is your favorite food?


What is your favorite color?


What is your nickname?
I haven't had a nickname since Jr. High. Think of that what you will.

Where were you born?

Crazy

Friday, we had a meeting to warn us that we're going to be doing here at work. We are going to be preparing our files to be scanned in. We were given some very basic instructions about how this prepping with be performed, but it didn't really cover any of the specifics to our files. The two people who were in charge of the meeting had only just had a teleconference that was with all the other branches in the state and, like all the big teleconferences this department holds, nothing was accomplished except for the roll call. Still, they wanted to give us a heads up and let us ask questions so they could get answers for us.

Today, we were e-mailed a revised edition of how we are going to be prepping the files. A couple of things were made clearer, but not much. SMSN, who is one of the two in charge for our office, sent it to we clerks and asked us for more questions for clarification. I, having completed my work and wanting to make sure I am well prepared to do lots of busy work, immediately read the steps, broke them down, and wrote as many questions as I could citing very specific problems with the process they've given us. I e-mailed it to all the clerks in our office, since we'll all be doing the prepping and I didn't SMSN to be bothered with the same questions over and over again. I was very careful not to mention scanning in my questions because no one in our office has actually seen the scanners we'll be using, although we've had them for six months, and no one has been trained on the procedures we'll be using to scan, we're just talking about getting the files cleaned up so scanning will, hopefully, go very smoothly.

Almost right away, I got an e-mail from GICS calling the whole prepping thing bullshit, which it is. I joked back and forth with him about it, but I tried to be, more or less, positive about the stupid things because we're going to have to do this, no matter what, and at least we're being given the opportunity to help bring some logic to the stupidity. Our last The Supervisor would have kept us all in the dark about the whole thing until she insisted we had to start working on it and then she would have gotten angry when we came to her with questions because, as with way too many jobs out there in the world, the people who want this stuff put into practice will not be trying their ideas out first, to see if their ideas actually work.

And then GICS sent an e-mail to SMSN, and CC'd the rest of us, calling the whole thing bullshit to her. He pointed out how crazy it is that we're prepping these things for machines that haven't been seen and a process that hasn't been created. He asked if she thought it was a good idea to prep the files before we actually know how things work.

SMSN wrote back that she thinks the process is pretty clear and got a little snarky with him.

Then she e-mailed me and asked if I had more questions or wanted things clarified.

bored, bored, bored

I leave early today, but that doesn't stop the boring from creeping in. I held on to all the work I was giving yesterday until this morning. It didn't take long to finish. I wandered around the 'net just looking and nothing struck me.

What I really want to do is sit here and read my book, but I don't know if I could get away with that. It's not like high school where the teachers had thirty other students to watch and if one spent the whole hour reading a book, why should they care? Here, there are only a few of us and they expect us to be busy all the time, even though they know that we only get 2/3rds the work we got six months ago and a new person was hired in those last six months.

So, I try to look busy. I shuffle papers around at my desk. I keep a couple of files around. I get up and wander around (although that also helps with my sciatica crap). I type a letter to my parents. I poke around through comic archives. I roll around in my cubie area and grab my stapler as if I'm going to use it, bring the stapler back to my desk and ten minutes later I roll it back to its usual place. I cross off today on the calendar with the symbol I use to mark the short day. I eat a granola bar so I won't take the giant ibuprofen on an empty stomach. I listen to SHTK whine about stupid things and stupid people.

Still, I'm bored.

In my head I start thinking about the future. I start with the near future and the possibility of pizza for dinner. I move on to Friday and the drive to my parents' house and the brother, with his girlie friend, being there; the last time I saw him was a year ago and I've never met her. I wonder if JL and H, among others, will want to game. I skip to New Year's and think about how much I hate that holiday. Then I think farther wonder about people I may meet and places that I'll dream about visiting. I try to picture myself being visited by the spawn of my brothers, which is really hard, for reasons that I don't want to write about. I wander through the house that I'd like to own and I mow the lawn that I always wanted growing up and let much of the land go wild. I tend to an herb garden. I waltz with an old friend at her daughter's wedding. I fall asleep.

And now, along with bored, I'm a little sad, maybe more wistful.

I can't/don't picture what I used to think of as the perfect future for myself anymore. I suppose I don't believe in that movie happy ending.

Still, I'd like to live a day like that Lovin' Spoonful song "Rain of the Roof," just once.

Understanding? 2: Explaining

Remember the post I wrote with that article about changes in immigration policy in Denmark based off of the Muslim population?

Well, over the weekend, my Xanga repost got a reply, which I post in its entirety, unedited:

Your analysis obviously only depends on your feelings and not whether the article states defendible facts.

Your first response should have been check the facts of the article and having done that to analyse the facts. Only then can you decide whether the article is manipultive.

Look back in history and you will note the rise of many hateful and murderous totalitarian regimes. The first observes to warn the world of the potential horrors these regimes would visit on our world were labelled alarmist by people who where too lazy to check facts and prefered instead to slander the authors of the articles.

Having lived for extended periods in 4 Muslim countires and spent considerable time in a fifth, I can confirm simialr details as those noted in the article, Salute the Danish Flag - it's a Symbol of Western Freedom.

May I recount just one story for you? A friend of mine in the UAE awoke one morning to find the head of his 17 year old friend in the residential compound. His crime had been to question Islam as a result of a conversation my friend had had with him. His relatives, having beheaded him, had thrown the lad's head over the wall during the night.

Are all Muslims terrorists. Of course not. By stating one set of facts I am not stting anything more than one set of facts. Can I tell stories of great kindness I have seen displayed by Muslilms? Yes, many such stories. But I would have to say on balance that I cannot recall any of my friends finding the head of one of their friends in their garden except in the UAE. I do not know of any other culture that practises female circumcision other than Islamic ones. I do not know of any workers so poorly treated as those in the Gulf or Saudi, except perhaps in China or some other place you wouldn't want to work.

Please attempt next time to temper your views with facts before you allow your feelings to determine your response. If this challenge offends you then...go back and check the data before you reply. Then we can have a meaningful discussion.

Posted 12/15/2007 2:11 PM by Phillip Adams

He's not a regular Xanga user, so I couldn't check out his blog or find his opinions on other subject. I did learn, however, that his signal thing came Australia, so I assumed that he's from there.

I replied, unedited:

Phillip Adams -- I still think that the article in question is manipulative toward getting people to hating/fearing all Muslims while disguising it as an article about immigration policy. And that's what galls me. I don't like reading what I see as a manipulative piece geared toward hate that has been written as if it were an informational piece.

As I wrote earlier, a true article about immigration would have balanced itself by having information about non-Muslims immigrant groups and the problems they may, or may not, be having with integrating into the Danish culture and how the new laws (If there are new laws, since I did not go and check facts about them, that was not the intent of my post.) will effect EVERYONE who wants to immigrate to Denmark or has already immigrated there. No nation in Europe has the balls to ban just one group of people from moving into their country. (Unless they do it the sneaky way, like the US did in the late 19th early 20th centuries when they set policy to keep Italian and Irish immigrants out by making the legal numbers of immigrants allowed in be based on past numbers.) Therefore, any story about the change in immigration policy should be about all potential and existing immigrant groups, not just one very specific group.

(Pardon me if I repeated myself a few times in that last paragraph, but I thought it was necessary to get across that the purpose of my original post was not to defend the horrible things some people do or even to attack the woman who wrote this article, it was about me pointing out logical flaws and the lack of critical thinking among some people and how it frustrates me.)

As for the stuff about groups not integrating, it seems to me that every group that immigrates to the US has a tough time integrating and we, Americans, always have a problem with it. The Chinese with their braids and flat hats in the mid-19th century. Irish and Italians at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries with their Catholicism. Puerto Ricans in the 50s with their dark skin and Spanish. Vietnamese and Cambodian and other South Asian immigrants in the 70s and 80s with their slanted eyes and strange food. Russian and Ukrainian and other former Soviet Bloc immigrants in the 90s and 00s. And the Mexican and other people from Central American nations for decades. All new immigrants have a hard time integrating. At the best, when the groups that look like we do, they take only one or two generations to start to integrate with the culture. If the groups don't look like the average American (Which, lets face it, tends to be thought of as F*R*I*E*N*D*S creamy white.) they take longer because it's easier to feel like an outsider and hold on to the "old country" culture.

In the USA, all of these groups have also been accused of consuming the largest, or a large, portion of social services. Is it true? I don't know, I didn't, and haven't, looked up statistics. It sure is easy for it to feel true, though. It's a lot easier to point that person with dark skin or slanted eyes or a strange accent using government medical care or collecting food stamps or asking for workers' comp, isn't it?

How long have large quantities of Muslims been immigrating to "western" (AKA white) nations to live there, not just work? Fifteen or twenty years? So that's, what, like one generation born into that new culture? Time is what's needed for the integration to take place; until enough time has passed there will always be problems with shift from old to new. Crime goes up and hatred is spread. It's stupid and pointless and harmful to all those who want to just live their lives, but it has happened before and it's going to happen over and over again.

(Of course, being from Australia, there's never been a problem with the Aboriginal culture integrating into the European based culture, has there.)

The story you tell about what happened in the United Arab Emmirants is horrendous and I don't want you, or anyone else, to think that I would ever defend people for something like that; people should never be punished for asking questions, especially hard questions. I hate the thought that anyone anywhere could practice something like female genital mutilation. I can not and will not defend people who rape or mutilate or commit murder. Those people should be punished, no matter the color of that person's skin, the slant of that person's eyes, or the way that person prays. Terrible things are being done by some Muslims, I'd have to be insane to not see that, but I am not going to let those few scare me into hating everyone who follows the teachings and writings found in the Qur'an. If I do that, then the nasty people really have won.

Also from your story, I think I need to remind you that the UAE isn't Denmark. One has a, basically, hereditary "presidency" and was founded based on its interpretations of Islamic law and is still struggling with having elections. The other was a Christian monarchy that developed into a constitutional monarchy with a republic style parliament elected by popular vote by the people. I think, in a political context, comparing the UAE and Denmark is like comparing apples to spark plugs. Maybe one day it'll be more like comparing the apples to oranges or Fujis to Granny Smiths, but not until the UAE really moves toward true elections or Denmark's system crashes.

I won't pretend to be perfect or even necessarily right, Mr. Adams. I'm not a world traveler. I don't know what conditions are like in the Middle East, other than what I see on TV or read online or hear on the radio. I just want to believe that, for the most part, people are good and that they want peace and safety and love. (Yes, I know that's naive.)

As for "temper[ing my] views with facts before [I] allow [my] feelings to determine [my] response," I was practicing New Criticism, where a person uses the text as the source and finds the meaning (or meanings) by using what was and wasn't written in the actual text. That's why, in my original entry, I didn't get into the history of Denmark or go online to find sources about the crime rates of other immigrant groups in Denmark or even find out if the policy changes actually exist.

Being challenged does not offend me. If everyone out there thought and felt as I did, this would be a dull world. My thoughts and feelings should be challenged because I like to understand why I think and feel the way I do so I can better understand myself and my (basically) insignificant place in the world.

And I don't know what sort of data you wanted me to check before responding, since my only sources, originally, were the article and the e-mails between me and my co-worker and nothing else.

I'm going to use you're comment and my response as a blog post, just to let you know.

I still don't know if my response was good, as in well written or well argued, but I do think that the intent of the original post was more about how critical thinking is, or isn't, used out there when people read things meant to play on people's fears, and not about whether Denmark's new policies may be good or some Muslims have done and continue to do horrible things. (I also think that there are some Christians and Hindus and Buddhists and Taoists who use their religions to justify doing horrible things, too.)

Of course, talking about anything that mentions religion is like talking about abortion, people can rarely see beyond their gut reaction, even me.

Griggle-Shrnup

Tired. (Dunno why. Slept well last night.)

Angry. (Because here at work someone's personal call, on a cell phone, at his desk, about the baby's laundry, is more important than trying to sort out rules that aren't too clear.)

Sore. (Scroll down to yesterday's post.)

Didn't read all my comics last night. (Watched Batman Beyond for longer than I intended.) Wonder why Booster Gold lets Barbara Gordon get shot. (Does he change history and find it to be not better?)

Did read the end of "The Sinestro Corp War." (The prophecy is interesting. Think that Kanjar Ro will lead the Orange Lanterns, when they come about.)

Other stuff read doesn't stick in my mind too well. (Although I do remember enough of one to know that Ice and Fire are soul mates, which doesn't mean they are, or even should be, lovers.)

Rude Cactus realized he is not a realist and asked what people do to get through. (No answer from me. Not sure what I do, or why I do, but I do.)

Still have to find Christmas gifts for parents. (Do coupons for hugs and kisses still work when you're nearing 30?)

Not sure if I'm going to buy any gifts for some friends this year. (Just don't really feel like shopping for and thinking about others, I guess. What does that make me? Anything at all?)

Be on my way to Cowtown for Christmas in about 188 hours. (Not planning on hurting my then.)

Done. (The End.)

Pain in the Leg

Let me ask, how many of you have had a pinched sciatica?

Raise your hands. Don't be shy.

Well, since I can't see through your monitor, dear reader, I have no idea who of you has experienced the agony of a pinched sciatica.

Remember back before Thanksgiving when I wrote about a twinge in my back? After I got back here from Thanksgiving, it felt better. No pain at all.

On Thursday, as I was walking to work, my low back and my right leg suddenly burned and I couldn't walk any more. I stopped right where I was and stood there swearing under my breath. I hobbled over to the nearest bench and sat down for a minute, happy to know that the pain was gone. I sat for a minute, or two... or five... before I finally felt like I could stand up, which, ouch, and walk again. I hobbled the rest of the way to work, each step causing pain down the outside of my leg, from hip to heel. When I got to my desk and sat I felt better, but each time I got up, it hurt.

Friday, it still hurt, but I got up, showered, and walked to work, with a quick stop for sitting in the park, this time planned for. Still I hurt standing and walking, but not so much sitting. After work, I went to the movies (I saw The Golden Compass. It was pretty good. It sucks that they give away the mysteries in a prologue, I wish they had gone with the ending in the book, and I thought there were scenes that needed more space to breath, but Sam Elliot was wonderful and so was the bear and the bear fight was brutal. There's a moment, during the bear fight, where the audience was stunned into silence.) but had real trouble getting back to my apartment. I sat on the steps of the church near where I live and think I saw a drug deal go down.

(Although, it could just be my imagination. But I saw a car get parked near the church, the guy got off and walked away. A couple of minutes later, a car pulled up in front of the steps I was sitting on and a guy got out and the car left. This new guy walked over to the car that had just been parked and groped around on the ground near the driver side front tire. When he found something, he opened the door, started the car, and drove off. Weird, no?)

On Saturday, I had trouble sitting as well as walking. So, I spent most of the day laying down in front of the TV.

Sunday, I climbed into the shower and had a real hard time getting through it. I did, eventually, and headed out to do my laundry. I hurt, hurt, hurt all through the laundry. I didn't stay to fold; I pulled the clothes out of the dryer and headed out, to the grocery store. At the store, I leaned on the shopping cart as if it were a walker. When I got back to my apartment, I only made two trips. I made damn sure I wouldn't take anymore than two trips. Between trip, I collapsed on the floor, gasping for breath and cursing up a storm in my mind. It was around 10:30 AM when I finished putting the stuff that needed to be in the fridge in, the rest sat (and sits) in bags on the floor of the kitchen. I settled down on the floor, on my left side, and turned on the TV. I was there for an hour, with slight variation in how I lay there. By noon, the pain was so intense, I finally got the phone to set up an appointment with anyone. After getting the run around, I was told that I was put on a list and I'd be called back to set up an appointment. Someone finally called me around 3:30. I got an appointment for nine the next morning.

The next morning, my leg screaming in pain, I called into work to let them know I wouldn't be there right away, that I had to go to the doctor's. I almost didn't make it through the shower that morning, but I did and I eventually made it down to my car and into the seat. The drive there was HORRIBLE. Agonizing pain burning in my ankle, shooting right below my knee, and throbbing below my hip. Sweat beaded on my forehead. I made it to the medical center, although I can't tell you how, ten minutes before my appointment. Then I had to search for the office. I couldn't see my usual doctor because she's on vacation. I found it pretty quickly, but there was a line of eight people. I stood there, in pain, through one person and my stomach started churning and I started sweating more. I broke out of line in search of the nearest toilette. I barged, as well as I could, through the door and to the first stall I saw and heaved. Nothing came up, and I heaved again. Still, nothing. I heaved two or three more times before I finally thought about taking off my glasses so they wouldn't fall into the public water. I sat there for a little while just breathing.

Eventually, I got up and, shivering, headed back to the check in place. There were more people in line and the lady I was behind the last time was two from the counter. I pulled the line to the chairs along the wall so I could sit as I waited and waited and waited. Finally, at the counter, the lady informed me that I was late and asked if it was the line or was I really late and then she told me she had to call to make sure they would still see me. They did. I explained my problem and, really without even thinking, the doctor announced sciatica problems. Hooray! He prescribed me 800MG of ibuprofen. Hooray! I took the pill, hopped in my car and painfully drove back to my apartment.

When I got on the floor, I felt better. Not just better because I was on the floor, but better than I'd felt since Thursday. The ibuprofen was working! In time, I got to the phone and called in to say I wasn't gonna be there that day and explained the problem.

Yesterday, I woke up, took my pills, and went to the shower. After washing my legs, I fell to my knees in pain and decided I wasn't going to work, again. I finished up, called in, and turned on the TV. (I was on the last season of Angel.) The day was long, long, long. I did get to call my brother and wish him a happy birthday and chat for a while. That was really great. The rest of the day was very dull with the TV and the occasional pill and the pain and the trying to walk or sit through the pain before settling on my back, again.

Today, I just forced myself to come to work. I still hurt pretty bad, but it's not as bad as it's been. I took the huge pill and when I started hurting a lot again, I popped some fake Tylenol. I'm finishing this on my knees in front of the computer. I really look forward to getting back to my apartment.

Fiction Friday #23

OJ

Shani was up front, out in the lobby, talking to her friend, what's-her-name, again. I sat watching her and her friend talk, tapping the first button on my waist when the phone rang, "Russo, Taggart, Godwin & Rose, how can I help you?" I looked at the bottle the bottle of orange juice. It wasn't dripping anymore. I doubted it was even cold.

"Uhh, yeah," said some guys voice, "I want to talk to my lawyer."

Shani and her friend were laughing.

"And you attorney is?" I asked, rolling my eyes at Shani.

"It's Ed, darlin'," he said. "My lawyer's Ed."

Shani put her hand on her friend's arm and leaned.

"Sir, we have three attorneys here who could be called 'Ed,' can you give me a last name?" I hoped that I wasn't starting to sound irritated, but to me, my voice sounded high and pinched.

"I can't remember. Do you think you can read me their names?"

I tapped the first button to turn him off and sighed before I pressed it again and said, "Klein. Harstead. Wallace."

"No," said the guy. I pictured him in ratty red flannel over a greased up t-shirt and missing teeth grimacing and slowly shaking his head from side to side. "I don't think any of those are my lawyer, honey. Got anymore?"

Shani finished up with her friend and turned toward me. She upped her smile from genuine happy to beaming when her eyes met mine. She wanted something.

"Those are the only attorneys we have here who go by 'Ed,' sir. Maybe if I got your name?"

Shani stopped in front of my desk and leaned in. Her friend hadn't left the lobby, yet.

I cycled through the computer so I could enter the guys name.

"Joey," said the voice on the phone, "Joey Cal. What's yours?"

"Hold on,"I said, "let me check." I pressed the first button, looked up into Shani's broad smile and vacant eyes, and said, "Yeah?"

I typed his name and Shani said, "Look, I know I just got back from my break and all, and I'm sort of..." -- Her smile widened and she winked. -- "But, well, I was sort of wondering--" I cut her off with a raise of my hand. I knew what she wanted.

I hit the first button again, "Mr. Cal, we don't have you in our system. Are you sure your calling the right office?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I was just in court with Ed yesterday."

"And it was about?"

"That hit and run thing they're blaming me for," he whispered.

Shani turned away from me and sort of waggled her head at her friend. The phone rang.

"I think you want the Public Defender's office."

"Isn't--" he said as the phone rang again, I pressed the first button and then the second one and said, "Russo, Taggart, Godwin & Rose, please hold."

"I will no--" I heard as I hit the second and then the first.

"--got?"

"I'm afraid not. You've dialed 578-1683, but the Public Defender's office is 575-1683."

"Oh," he said.

Shani turned toward me and moved her hands in the "hurry up" motion.

"Lots of people make that mistake. It's okay."

"Darlin', what was that number again?" he asked.

I told him and he thanked me. After I said good-bye to him, Shani said, "Look, Cleo's here and I wanted to--"

I cut her off with my hand again and glared as tapped the second button and I said, "Thank you for holding, how can I help you."

And guy on the end of this line started swearing at me. It was almost musical, the way he did it. It reminded me of the way that Ludacris or 50 Cent got when they were on a role, all the normal curse words peppered with careful helpings of misogyny. He'd make millions.

"Sir," I said, trying to get anything in when he took a breath, "I can help you, now."

He kept going. Shani leaned over and frowned at me. I rolled my eyes at her.

"Sir, please call back when you're calmer," I said and hung up.

"Finally," said Shani.

I stood up, pulled off my headset, and unclipped the button box from my pants pocket.

"Where are you going?" She asked.

I picked up my orange juice and said, "On my break?"

"But..." she said.

The phone rang.

"Better get that," I said, waving to what's-her-name as I slipped out the front door.

At the bus bench on the corner, I opened the juice and took a long drink. It was warm and it was sour, but it was perfect.

Understanding?

I got this e-mail this morning from a co-worker, it's title is "Salute the Danish Flag (Worth Reading)":

Very interesting - worth the reading.

An interesting article on Islamic immigration and the problems created.

Salute the Danish Flag - it's a Symbol of Western Freedom
By Susan MacAllenIn 1978-9 I was living and studying in Denmark.

But in 1978 - even in Copenhagen, one didn't see Muslim immigrants. The Danish population embraced visitors, celebrated the exotic, went out of its way to protect each of its citizens.

It was proud of its new brand of socialist liberalism - one in development since the conservatives had lost power in 1929 - a system where no worker had to struggle to survive, where one ultimately could count upon the state as in, perhaps, no other western nation at the time. The rest of Europe saw the Scandinavians as free-thinking, progressive and infinitely generous in their welfare policies. Denmark boasted low crime rates, devotion to the environment, a superior educational system and a history of humanitarianism.

Denmark was also most generous in its immigration policies – it offered the best welcome in Europe to the new immigrant: generous welfare payments from first arrival plus additional perks in transportation, housing and education. It was determined to set a world example for inclusiveness and multiculturalism. How could it have predicted that one day in 2005 a series of political cartoons in a newspaper would spark violence that would leave dozens dead in the streets - all because its commitment to multiculturalism would come back to bite?

By the 1990's the growing urban Muslim population was obvious – and its unwillingness to integrate into Danish society was obvious. Years of immigrants had settled into Muslim-exclusive enclaves. As the Muslim leadership became more vocal about what they considered the decadence of Denmark's liberal way of life, the Danes - once so welcoming - began to feel slighted. Many Danes had begun to see Islam as incompatible with their long-standing values: belief in personal liberty and free speech, in equality for women, in tolerance for other ethnic groups, and a deep pride in Danish heritage and history.

The New York Post in 2002 ran an article by Daniel Pipes and Lars Hedegaard, in which they forecasted accurately that the growing immigrant problem in Denmark would explode. In the article they reported:

"Muslim immigrants constitute 5 percent of the population but consume upwards of 40 percent of the welfare spending."

"Muslims are only 4 percent of Denmark's 5.4 million people but make up a majority of the country's convicted rapists, an especially combustible issue given that practically all the female victims are non-Muslim. Similar, if lesser, disproportions are found in other crimes."

"Over time, as Muslim immigrants increase in numbers, they wish less to mix with the indigenous population. A recent survey finds that only 5 percent of young Muslim immigrants would readily marry a Dane."

"Forced marriages - promising a newborn daughter in Denmark to a male cousin in the home country, then compelling her to marry him, sometimes on pain of death - are one problem."

"Muslim leaders openly declare their goal of introducing Islamic law once Denmark's Muslim population grows large enough – a not-that-remote prospect. If present trends persist, one sociologist estimates, every third inhabitant of Denmark in 40 years will be Muslim."

It is easy to understand why a growing number of Danes would feel that Muslim immigrants show little respect for Danish values and laws. An example is the phenomenon common to other European countries and the U.S.: some Muslims in Denmark who opted to leave the Muslim faith have been murdered in the name of I slam, while others hide in fear for their lives.

Jews are also threatened and harassed openly by Muslim leaders in Denmark, a country where once Christian citizens worked to smuggle out nearly all of their 7,000 Jews by night to Sweden – before the Nazis could invade. I think of my Danish friend Elsa - who as a teenager had dreaded crossing the street to the bakery every morning under the eyes of occupying Nazi soldiers - and I wonder what she would say today.

In 2001, Denmark elected the most conservative government in some 70 years - one that had some decidedly non-generous ideas about liberal unfettered immigration. Today Denmark has the strictest immigration policies in Europe. ( Its effort to protect itself has been met with accusations of "racism" by liberal media across Europe - even as other governments struggle to right the social problems wrought by years of too-lax immigration.) If you wish to become Danish, you must attend three years of language classes. You must pass a test on Denmark's history, culture, and a Danish language test . You must live in Denmark for 7 years before applying for citizenship. You must demonstrate an intent to work, and have a job waiting. If you wish to bring a spouse into Denmark, you must both be over 24 years of age, and you won't find it so easy anymore to move your friends and family to Denmark with you. You will not be allowed to build a mosque in Copenhagen. Although your children have a choice of some 30 Arabic culture and language schools in Denmark, they will be strongly encouraged to assimilate to Danish society in ways that past immigrants weren't.

In 2006, the Danish minister for employment, Claus Hjort Frederiksen, spoke publicly of the burden of Muslim immigrants on the Danish welfare system, and it was horrifying: the government's welfare committee had calculated that if immigration from Third World countries were blocked, 75 percent of the cuts needed to sustain the huge welfare system in coming decades would be unnecessary. In other words, the welfare system as it existed was being exploited by immigrants to the point of eventually bankrupting the government. "We are simply forced to adopt a new policy on immigration. The calculations of the welfare committee are terrifying and show how unsuccessful the integration of immigrants has been up to now," he said.

A large thorn in the side of Denmark's imams is the Minister of Immigration and Integration, Rikke Hvilshoj. She makes no bones about the new policy toward immigration, "The number of foreigners coming to the country makes a difference," she¸ says, "There is an inverse correlation between how many come here and how well we can receive the foreigners that come." And on Muslim immigrants needing to demonstrate a willingness to blend in, "In my view, Denmark should be a country with room for different cultures and religions. Some values, however, are more important than others. We refuse to question democracy, equal rights, and freedom of speech."

Hvilshoj has paid a price for her show of backbone. Perhaps to test her resolve, the leading radical imam in Denmark, Ahm ed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, demanded that the government pay blood money to the family of a Muslim who was murdered in a suburb of Copenhagen, stating that the family's thirst for revenge could be thwarted or money. When Hvilshoj dismissed his demand, he argued that in Muslim culture thepayment of retribution money was common, to which Hvilshoj replied that what is done in a Muslim country is not necessarily what is done in Denmark. The Muslim reply came soon after: her house was torched while she, her husband and children slept. All managed to escape unharmed, but she and her family were moved to a secret location and she and other ministers were assigned bodyguards for the first time - in a country where such murderous violence was once so scarce.

Her government has slid to the right, and her borders have tightened. Many believe that what happens in the next decade will determine whether Denmark survives as a bastion of good living, humane thinking and social responsibility, or whether it becomes a nation at civil war with supporters of Sharia law. And meanwhile, Americans clamor for stricter immigration policies, and demand an end to state welfare programs that allow many immigrants to live on the public dole. As we in America look at the enclaves of Muslims amongst us, and see those who enter our shores too easily, dare live on our taxes, yet refuse to embrace our culture, respect our traditions, participate in our legal system, obey our laws, speak our language, appreciate our history . . we would do well to look to Denmark, and say a prayer for her future and for our own.

This is how it looked when I got it, with all that bolding and highlighting.

After I read it, I was unhappy because it seemed totally wrong to me (still does) and the woman who forwarded it to me has forwarded similar things to me in the past.

I wrote her:

Please stop forwarding me e-mails that are meant to scare me into hating a certain group of people.

She wrote back:

I am not sure that was the point of the article. I had the impression that it was geared more towards the need for tighter immigration controls. But, every one gets a different ‘take’ on everything. So I apologize if I’ve offended you, and will try not to let this happen again.

Then I tried to let it go. I know that people get different things out of what they read. I was and English major, after all. I sat and stewed because I thought that she was being blind to the whole thing. I wrote her again:

I wasn’t offended. It takes a lot to offend me. I’m just tired of things reading things that pretend to be a news item reporting about one thing, but is really trying to show how certain groups of people in this world are scary and bad.

The reason I read this "article" as being against a group of people rather about immigration policy is because it focus only on one group of immigrants. I find it hard to believe that only one group of people have immigrated into Denmark or that only that one group isn’t integrating well. I think that if this "article" had really been about immigration policy it would have talked about many different immigrant groups or just focused on the tighter controls that are being put in place.

Maybe it’s just me, though.

Then she wrote an e-mail to all the people she forwarded the original thing to:

A couple of you found this email offensive, and I apologize. I want you all to know that it in no way reflected any personal opinion of mine, and that I understand how some may think of it as racially hateful. Again, I apologize, and will be more careful of controversial content in the future.

Shortly, there was one for me:

Yes, it was biased. Good point.

And that's where it ended. With me and her, at least.

The thing is, I really don't want to believe that there are people who could possible take something like this. Logically, I know that many people would take it at face value, but I don't want it to be like that. I want them to look for the subtle and not so subtle ways they are being manipulated to fear and hate a group of people. I want them to pay attention and think.

They won't, though. That's what scares me.

Also, I don't like the way she wrote "I want you all to know that it in no way reflected any personal opinion of mine, and that I understand how some may think of it as racially hateful." I don't like it because then I don't understand why she sent it. She doesn't randomly forward every bit of crap she gets because sometimes her list is close to forty people and this one was only five people. So, if it doesn't reflect her opinion, why send it?

The world confuses me a little more each day.