I was making myself hideously uncomfortable by not narrowing my attention to details of life which were immediately important, and by refusing to believe what my neighbors believed.
I am better now.
Word of honor: I am better now.
Happy Valentine’s Day
What do you seek, so pensive and silent?
What do you need, Camerado?
Dear son! do you think it is love?
Profiles in Management: The Tank Commander
In the military, when I was in tank warfare and I was actually fighting in tanks, there was nothing more soothing than people constantly hearing their commander’s voice come across the airwaves. Somebody’s in charge, even though all shit is breaking loose. . . . When you don’t hear [the commander’s voice] for more than fifteen minutes to half an hour, what’s happened? Has he been shot? Has he gone out of control? Does he know what’s going on? You worry. And this is what Microsoft is. These little offices, hidden away with the doors closed. And unless you have the constant voice of authority going across the e-mail the whole time, it doesn’t work. . . . You can’t do anything that’s complex unless you have structure. . . . And what you have to do is make that structure as unseen as possible and build up the image for all these prima donnas to think that they can do what they like. Who cares if a guy walks around without shoes all day? Who cares if the guy has got his teddy bear in his office? I don’t care. I just want to know . . . [if] somebody hasn’t checked in his code by five o’clock. Then that guy knows that I am going to get into his office.
Dead Poets
For after all Humboldt did what poets in crass America are supposed to do. He chased ruin and death even harder than he had chased women. He blew his talent and his health and reached home, the grave, in a dusty slide. He plowed himself under. Okay. So did Edgar Allan Poe, picked out of the Baltimore gutter. And Hart Crane over the side of a ship. And Jarrell falling in front of a car. And poor John Berryman jumping from a bridge. For some reason this awfulness is peculiarly appreciated by business and technological America. The country is proud of its dead poets. It takes terrific satisfaction in the poets’ testimony that the USA is too tough, too big, too much, too rugged, that American reality is overpowering. And to be a poet is a school thing, a skirt thing, a church thing. The weakness of the spiritual powers is proved in the childishness, madness, drunkenness, and despair of these martyrs. Orpheus moved stones and trees. But a poet can’t perform a hysterectomy or send a vehicle out of the solar system. Miracle and power no longer belong to him. So poets are loved, but loved because they just can’t make it here. They exist to light up the enormity of the awful tangle and justify the cynicism of those who say, “If I were not such a corrupt, unfeeling bastard, creep, thief, and vulture, I couldn’t get through this either. Look at those good and tender and soft men, the best of us. They succumbed, poor loonies.”
Wholesome Authority
Then there were the Romans — whose greatness was probably due to the wholesome authority exercised by the head of a family over all its members. Some Romans had even killed their children; this was going too far, but then the Romans were not Christians and knew no better.
My Favorite Valentine Movies
Atkins Died
Dr. Robert Atkins, who died last year, made a nice living promoting the effects of diet — specifically, a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet — on health.
According to his widow, however, Atkins’ own history of heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension was “completely unrelated to his diet.”
Go figure . . .
Market Recap for Dummies
Explanations of daily changes in aggregate stock market indices are among the most ridiculous, speculative, and uncertain causal inferences made by journalists.
My son was looking over my shoulder as I checked my online portfolio tracker . . .
The Dow was down, the Nasdaq was down, the S&P was down, all the stocks I own or track were down, nothing but red numbers from top to bottom.
Lewis vs. Clark
My son is doing a 5th grade research paper on William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame.
“Clark was a much better man than Lewis,” he says.
“Why do you say that?” I ask.
Paradigm Shift
One of the 5th grade girls had a birthday party, to which a select few boys were invited.
A boy we’ll call Freddie — who was not invited, even though his best friend Eddie was invited — was overheard to say:
This is not right! If Eddie is invited, I have to be invited!
It seems like only yesterday — in fact, I think it was only yesterday — that none of these boys would be caught dead at a party hosted by a girl . . .
Small Consolations
Who possesses the wherewithal for labor or love without small consolations? Who can live?
How Annoying Am I?
“You know how annoying you are, Dad?”
“Not really . . . how annoying am I?”
“You’re off the flowchart.”
Off the flowchart?!
At the Cotillion
It’s the evening of the Irvine Cotillion for January, and my son is trying to figure something out . . .
Celebrity Interviews Send Me Into a Homicidal Rage
Every once in a while, my wife is flipping channels and on comes one of these celebrity interviews . . .
Today’s Text
But now isn’t simply now. Now is also a cold reminder: one whole day later than yesterday, one year later than last year. Every now is labeled with its date, rendering all past nows obsolete, until—later or sooner—perhaps—no, not perhaps—quite certainly: it will come.
Lessons From a New Dog Owner
A puppy with something to chew on is as happy as a kid with an Xbox.
And when you come right down to it, anything can be chewed on . . .
Happy puppy!
Happy New Year!
Today is Chinese New Year. Why the Chinese can’t celebrate the New Year on January 1st like everybody else, I don’t know . . .
According to my wife, Chinese New Year is celebrated by eating good food and avoiding unnecessary work.
I try to do that every day! I’m lovin’ it!
Let’s party!
Dogfood
NEW YORK (AP) — Olivia Goldsmith, a best-selling novelist whose book First Wives Club was made into a movie starring Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler and Diane Keaton, has died. She was 54.
Goldsmith had been in a coma since last Wednesday after complications resulting from anesthesia during plastic surgery . . .
The Way We Are Living
The way we are living,
timorous or bold,
will have been our life.
Ugly in Tinseltown
It’s tough being ugly in Tinseltown . . .
Even when a movie — like Monster — requires an unattractive woman in the lead role, they cast a gorgeous woman and make her up to look ugly!
What is the point of that?!
Why not just cast an unattractive woman in the first place — like that Meredith girl from The Bachelorette, for example?