Epistolary Dump

In which your humble narrator corresponds with entities unlike to respond or sue him.

Dear Youth of America,

Put some damn clothes on, and seriously, you're going to live to regret that tattoo one day.

Dear State of New York,

Congratulations on letting the gays get hitched. And extra special congratulations for doing it legislatively. Just don't go buck wild and let corporations get married even if Antonin Scalia thinks they're people too.

Dear People who "Make Their Voices Heard!",

Isn't sort of an exercise in futility to "make your voice heard" every damn day in a culture where exactly no one listens? I suppose it sounds better than "I like to shout my opinions all the damn time!"

Dear Peter Falk,

Rest in peace. Goodbye, Columbo.

Dear Rest of the United States of America,

I am in no way responsible for Michele Bachmann. Just because she lives 20 miles from me doesn't mean I have any insight into that big bag of crazy.

The Salience of Rain Gear

In which your humble narrator goes to the library with his offspring and is caught between opposing tides of activists in his usually quiet neighborhood.

It's raining and cold (still) so after dropping Wife-a-roo at her place of employment, I drove the children back to the neighborhood, but detoured to the library a few blocks from our house.

The library is across the street from Planned Parenthood.

Today is Good Friday. I had, of course forgotten this. A pleasant (and tiny) police officer waved us into the Library/Rec Center lot after I rolled down my window and cheerfully explained that we were just here for the picture books, thank you.

Both camps were marching around in their little penned-in enclosures soliciting honks from passing drivers and waving placards. Both children spent a fair amount of time looking at the spectacle as we climbed the steps up to the library entrance.

Child #2's only comment on the circus-like atmosphere? "Look, that lady has a pink umbrella! I like it!"

Hold your applause please

In which your humble narrator burns with righteous indignity.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you my University.

Sheesh. I'm starting to feel about my academic home the same way as one of my undergraduate Religious Studies professors described his relationship to the Roman Catholic church: "Well, she may be an old whore, but she's still my Mom and I love her."

It's National Brotherhood Week

In which your humble narrator feels a bit dyspeptic.

If you don't know Tom Lehrer, you should.

Ick

In which your humble narrator realizes that shutting down the internet for a few days after a national trauma would be a good idea.

In a time of tragedy, now is the time for all of us, as Americans, to come together to refrain from thinking before we speak, indiscriminately shoot our mouths off, try to pin the blame on the other team, refuse to take responsibility for our words, use someone else's horrific experience to reinforce our own sense of victim-hood,  form strongly-held opinions without a shred of evidence and above all refuse to learn anything from what's happened.

Job Prospects

In which your humble narrator, after a grueling semester of teaching slack-jawed, glassy eyed undergraduates, reevaluates his career prospects.

There's nothing like a lousy class to aggravate one's barely suppressed misanthropy. In my introductory Educational Psychology lecture section I tell hilarious stories, sprinkle popular cultural references and basically jump up and down in order to keep the ungrateful suburban spawn (who happen to be our nation's future educators... Hooray!) awake for a measly hour and fifteen minutes. This particular semester is seeing attendance rates at about 60% of enrollment, a lot of vacant looks and some truly depressing test scores. Adding to this festival of crap, one student, whom I'll call "Hippie Q. Flakington," actually asked my opinion of alien abduction in class.

At any rate, perhaps it's time to reassess my career options. Here are the current contenders:

• Official artificial spine implant technician for the Democratic National Committee. My job duties would involve inserting steel rods into the rear ends of the invertebrate members of the Democratic caucuses in both chambers of Congress and the White House. I will clearly need hazard pay for having to look at David Axelrod's butt.
• Lifestyle Suppression Artisan. My job duty will be to brutally suppress anyone who attempts to use mass media to disseminate their "lifestyle choices." The entire Huffington Post "Living"* section will be replaced with a single HTML page reading: Shut up.
• Language Cleaner. My job duty will be to outlaw stupid, corporate jingo and ridiculous sports metaphors that have entered common parlance. I plan to synergistically bring my A-game to this effort. Also there will possibly be a "webinar."

*Do not click this link. You will be transformed into a vegan, eco-conscious Tibetan doula that constanly emits personal finance expertise for transgendered albinos. 

Monday Morning Hate

In which your humble narrator enumerates five invidious calumnies of modern life.

• The terrible combination of hail stones and 45 mile per hour winds. Sure, I'd love to get a new roof every 18 months.What could be more fun than having workmen scurrying over your house?
•  "Angry electorate" news stories. I get it, but until Grandma gets out of her chair, clicks off Fox News and actually starts lobbing Molotov cocktails, I'm not that impressed. Let's identify the issue correctly, it's the "whiny, uninformed, proudly ignorant, cry-baby electorate."
• Unending upper respiratory infections.
• The fact that Mazda's funky little minivan is just not big enough for someone who is 6'1". Hello Toyota Sienna, goodbye youth.
• This.

Help, help, I'm being oppressed!

In which your humble narrator cogitates on the cruel vicissitudes of life.

I had to help my Mom move at the beginning of the month. My back is ruined. Our house was pummeled by quarter-sized hail and 50 mile per hour winds necessitating a massive insurance claim. We're getting another new roof, new siding and a new garage roof, all before the snow flies (fingers crossed). Child #2 was exposed to Whooping Cough at daycare, probably from some little un-vaccinated kid with jack-ass, hippie parents.

Also this month, I expect to buy a minivan. Life as I have known in is over.

Realpolitik

In which your humble narrator tries to tamp down the smoldering embers of sibling conflict which could flare into a full scale war of mutual destruction at any moment.

I should say as a caveat, both children are doing quite well. Each is charming, mostly well-behaved and pretty much delightful now that everyone has gotten over the long-lasting summer cold that's been going around.

Here are the little darlings on a recent outing to Gold Medal Park in downtown Minneapolis, conveniently located three blocks from Wife-a-roo's office. Child #1 is now using the toilet like a pro and Child #2 has found a new love of being upright and verbal.

Our recent conflict involves the unfortunate issue that Child #2 is interested only in whatever Child #1 is playing with at any given moment. Since Child #1 has a flair for melodrama, he provides massive reinforcement for Child #2's meddlesome nature by obligingly caterwauling whenever she interferes with his play things. Child #2, of course, finds his vocal histrionics absolutely enchanting and rarely misses an opportunity to irritate him. Child #1 no longer even waits for Child #2 to start messing up his train set. He simply begins fussing whenever she enters the room. Drawn to his siren-song of constant complaint, even if she wasn't in a mood to mess up his railroad, she usually cannot resist the invitation to battle over brio train tracks and Thomas the Tank Engine figures. 

Sadly, I have little interest or patience for this particular sibling ritual and usually just end up taking whatever toy has become the object of their concentrated desire away from both of them. This results in both of them howling at me instead of each other. I'm pretty sure there's a reason that I do this, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is.

100th Post Spectacular

In which your humble narrator celebrates one hundred instances of bloggy goodness with a list of lessons learned.

Here is a list of lessons recently learned that don't promise much applicability in the future.

• Terry cloth seems to be an acceptable fabric for clothing worn (in public!) by women under the age of 22.
• Presbyterians all look the same.
• Summer gives me a headache.
• People fear couscous. 
• Babies love banjos.
• There's not a noticeable difference between reading the Pioneer Press and then recycling it, and just recycling it immediately.
• The French brew beer. (Sacre brew!)
• Ohio is like, the place to be this summer, at least judging by the airfares.
• Twitter is still stupid.

Best Veep Ever

In which your humble narrator jests about our beloved vice president.

Hey, it's so hot and windy today that I feel like I'm standing near Joe Biden's mouth!

Just kidding, Joe. You know I loves me some Biden. From that one time I met you on the Amtrak between Wilmington and D.C. to last week when you told some pissant in an ice cream store to maybe not be such a bilious tax-obsessed wingnut jerk. You are the best vice-president ever, and that includes such memorable heavy-weights as Garret Hobart and John Nance Garner.

Phoney Quality Time

In which your humble narrator reflects on the plugged-in parents at the playground.

The New York Times ran a story this week about parent using smart phones and ignoring their children. The descriptions of typical interactions largely mirrored the sort of thing I've observed on the playground. Harried parents bring their offspring to the park for some quality time, and spend the entire time on their phones. On a recent morning outing, we arrived at the park to find a mother and a little girl. The mother was on her phone when we arrived, and on her phone when we left 45 minutes later. The little girl was apparently only allowed to play within a 15 foot radius of the mother. One begins to wonder: what is the point? Surely she could ignore her child at home.

Regular readers might expect a full-throttle vitriolic screed at this point. But with an uncharacteristic spirit of charity I have to admit that I understand the impulse. I don't have a fancy phone, but I do stay home with the kids most days while simultaneously trying to "work." Sometimes all I want to do is to have the kids leave me alone for five minutes so I can keep my email inbox down to a manageable size. When classes are in session I make it a point to respond to student emails within 24 hours. This can obviously take up some time during regular childcare hours.

I think part of the issue is that, as parents, we're supposed to be in a state of filial bliss at all times. Certainly the child-centric culture of the past twenty years blares its expectations of personal fulfillment through "parenting."* If your precious little wunderkinds aren't making you happy, well then there must be something wrong with you.

Or not.

Quiet, you nattering nit-wits...

In which your humble narrator listens to some drivel on the radio and condemns self-help speak to the deepest pits of Hell.

On a recent edition of the Middle-aged Liberal Ladies' Lifestyle Hour on public radio, I was brutally assaulted by an obnoxious cliche that won't seem to die the death it so richly deserves. While I only listened to the show for about seven minutes (on Lexington Avenue, between I-94 and Trader Joe's) I managed to get a full-fledged fume on by the time I pulled in to buy groceries.

The guest prattled on about her near-divorce and kept returning to the "lessons" she learned about "living in the moment." I loathe the constant drumbeat of "living in the moment." Here are some moments I prefer not to live in:

• When the dentist is busy drilling bits of tooth out of my head
• Any moment in which Jay Leno is present (live or via video)
• Black Friday at Wal-Mart
• August in the northern hemisphere
• A 14 hour plane ride where I'm sitting between Susan Sarandon and Bill O'Reilly

The pathological need to believe that everything happens for a reason may be an effective short term strategy in the face of adversity, but it cannot long endure. One rarely hears lottery winners stressing the need to learn from their sudden windfalls. We don't have any problem living in the moment if it's fun. It's the random crap that happens in a normal life that we struggle with. Trying to wring meaning from every lousy thing that happens to you is an invitation to an existence of self-involved navel gazing. Life isn't a curriculum with a syllabus full of triumphs and tragedies all custom tailored teach us important life lessons. It just is. And that ought to be enough.

Spring, when a young man's fancy turns to avoiding being hit by an Audi

In which your humble narrator marvels at the natives' Jekyll and Hyde behavior when it comes to anything with wheels. 

Minnesotans are not friendly. They are "nice." They will tell you this themselves. There's an entire cottage industry of "Minnesota Nice" merchandise and paraphernalia. There's a freakin' Wikipedia page for Minnesota Nice! But as best as I can tell, the niceness generally only means that they will grudgingly answer direct questions put to them and they generally refrain from spitting on strangers.

All bets are off when you put these people on wheels. Cars, bikes, roller blades, put a Twin Citizen on wheels... and well, you have a wheeled menace. Amazingly this extends even to shopping carts. Back in my old Rust-Belt, Ohio home, people sort of moved out of the way in the Kroger so you could pass by them. Not here. Here, people are so militantly resistant to admitting that other human beings exist in the universe (when wheels are involved) that they will park their carts in the middle of the damn aisle and pretend you don't exist while you glare at them. Then you finally clear your throat and say "Pardon me," and the nasty local glares at you, because you've interrupted her careful meditation on Frosted Spelt Germ Puffs.

Cyclists here constantly write letters to the editors of numerous local publications about bastard car drivers and how we all have to share the road. Of course I've seen one cyclist stop at a stop sign in the last 60 days. Three have failed to stop and turned left in front of my car while I was stopped at the stop sign.

And the drivers are terrible. After an awful winter, the warm weather has made people even more hell-bent on driving like maniacs now that there's no ice or snow to contend with. Drunk driving is tolerated to a degree that's both embarrassing and completely contradictory to our image as a northern socialist nanny-state. Ten people died this past weekend in traffic accidents. In a metro area of 3.5 million, that's high.

Last session, the legislature passed a ban on texting while driving. This was before Oprah's crusade too. But since we only have about 7 highway patrol officers nobody pays a damn bit of attention.

Wheels go on, brains go off.

Those Sour Grapes Will Make a Lovely Whine

In which your humble narrator pummels the body politic with his mad metaphorical skills.

I don't usually get all blog-politicky but certain events have transpired which call for three minor points to be made.

1. The Health Care bill passed. This means that my uninsured, pre-existing conditioned Mom will be able to purchase insurance again. This means that the 8.7% of my brain that is in charge of worrying about Mom being hit by a truck full of organ thieves and having tens of thousands of dollars in unpayable medical bills can now be reassigned to worrying about zombies, tornadoes and Peter Fonda.
2. For my Republican friends (and you, Grandma): It's not actually a subversion of democracy when congressional majorities pass legislation which is then signed by a president who won a clear majority of votes. When your side wins you get to start wars and send free platinum toilets to bank executives and stuff. When we win we get to do stuff too. 
3. I look absolutely smashing in the official socialist paradise jumpsuit that the neighborhood commisar delivered to the house yesterday. Long live the Apparatus of State!

Do you remember that one kid in the neighborhood when you were growing up that nobody wanted to play with because he was constantly changing the rules? If you were playing basketball and you made a shot, it didn't count because that kid would immediately call a foul or invent a rule that said nothing that touched the rim counted for a point or maybe that you were actually playing lacrosse and by making the basket you just earned -43 points. But if that kid had the ball, you weren't allowed to defend the basket because he just remembered that playing defense contravenes the Basketball Convention of 1896. So you were supposed to just lie down on the ground and let that kid take as many shots as he wanted.

That kid is now a Republican member of Congress.

They sailed away in a big cliché, to a land where a donkey goes...

In which your humble narrator declines to smell a donkey.

On today's public radio edition of the Liberal Mid-Morning Middle-Aged Ladies' Lifestyle Hour (LM-MM-ALLH) they're having yet another guest who has made the boldly innovative decision to abandon the fetid stench of the metropolis and move out to the Real America where things are all simpler, purer, more rural and everything is positively saturated with greater meaning. She lives on a farm and writes about it and stuff.

YAWN.

I've decided that I'm going to adopt the outlook that living in a 1948, post-war, ticky-tacky house on a nondescript boulevard in a relentlessly middle-class urban neighborhood confers upon me a penetrating insight into the human condition. As such, every single economic and lifestyle choice I make becomes a part of the narrative of my own personal specialness. Applications for "cult-like followers" will be accepted.

Also, this woman on the radio said she "loves to smell her donkey." 

That's messed up.

The Department of "With All due Respect"

In which your humble narrator decries weasel-speak.

Why is it socially acceptable to be insulting, insensitive or condescending if you preface your remarks by uttering "with all due respect?" I suggest we encourage our elected officials to avoid weaselly idioms.

After watching a few clips of last week's White House health summit I'm convinced we should replace "with all due respect" with, "bitches, please," 'cause you know that's what they're all thinking.*

Except for John Boehner who is thinking about cigarettes, and Joe Biden who is thinking about, oh I don't know... maybe waffles. And Amtrak.

Nickel and Dimed

In which your humble narrator spews invective in the direction of his telecommunications company.

I hate you, Qwest. I hate you so much. You are a very bad telecommunications company. Your left hand does not know what your right hand is doing. I have suffered your incompetence for years, but your avaricious "convenience" fee has gone too far.

I have paperless statements with Qwest for DSL and phone service. Once a month I log on, and pay my bill. Until this month. A new check box appeared at the bottom of the payment screen requiring me to authorize a $1.00 "convenience" fee to process my payment.

When companies start charging you for the privilege of paying for the services you purchase from them, I think we can agree that we're officially living in Bizarro World.

I, of course, wrote an angry letter. I always write letters. I wrote:

The "convenience" fee you've imposed on online payments is the last straw. I will not sign up for auto pay because then I won't be able to review my bill before paying. I sent a check for payment today. Please enjoy processing it manually.

I wish to un-enroll from online billing. We'll go back to expensive paper statements since you've decided to soak your customers for online transactions. I'm so sick of companies trying to nickel and dime me. I'll be looking seriously for a new telecom service in the next month.

I later received a form response from Qwest thanking me for contacting them and informing me that:

The fee is new and was a difficult decision for Qwest.

Oh, golly. Well I feel better knowing that you agonized over it. They continue:

Convenience fees are a common business practice that Qwest is adopting in order to operate more efficiently. Qwest approaches business from two directions: not only providing customers with world-class products and services, but also by operating in the most efficient possible way.

Allow me to translate. "Everyone else is doing it. Qwest approaches being a douche bag from two directions; not only providing outsourced, useless customer service and crappy products but also by nickel and diming your sorry butt for whatever we can get away with. Get bent, Qwest."

I wonder if Tamera McCurry of Qwest Customer Care had to go to school to learn how to do corporate double speak of if it's some sort of natural ability.

Inconsequential Truth

In which your humble narrator shares a fundamental truism of relatively little import.

It is an incontrovertible truth that it is impossible to look dignified while drinking through a straw.

Think about it. This is why you never see the Queen of England sippin' on a Big Gulp.

Mailbag Monday is Late

In which your humble narrator answers the mail.

Dear Rotten Baby,
How do I convince my mother-in-law that she is totally capable of taking care of our wonderful children (ages 1 1/2 and 3 1/2) for just 48 hours so that my estranged husband and I can go to the Florida Keys for an all expense paid trip?
                                     Needing some alone time together

Dear NSATT,
First of all: where did you get an all-expense paid trip to the Keys? I want an all expense-paid trip. I would settle for an all-expense-paid trip to Dubuque, Iowa and be very, very happy with it. Actually, you know what? I'd settle for being able to go to the bathroom without an accompanying two-year-old and the inevitable discussion of whether I'm peeing or pooping in the potty.

But I digress. When I was just a wee little boy, before I became an internet sensation known to, literally, tens of people, my Grandma said to me the following: "If you want somebody to do something for you, it works best to let them think that it's their decision. If you can't make them decide to do what you want, then you put the screws to 'em and nail their ass to the wall."

As you may have guessed, my grandma was Lyndon Baines Johnson.

For Attempt #1, "Vanity + Guilt," you try to get her to decide to do it herself. This is best accomplished by making a dual appeal to both her vanity and her guilt. Like this: "Oh mother-in-law (MIL) you're the only one I trust to care for my precious children* and... and (fake cry here) I'm just not sure that your child (your spouse, NSATT) is willing to tell you HOW MUCH S/HE NEEDS THIS." See? Vanity + Guilt

If this fails, then you move on to Attempt #2, "Ass to Wall."

"Look, MIL. Do this for me... or the next time we're at your house for dinner I'm telling the kids that you're serving Muppet."

*Feel free to sell your own Mom down the river here if you think it'll help... after all we're talking about a vacation away from the children, any reasonable court would sanction anything up to involuntary manslaughter under these circumstances.