Month: October 2012

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personal

Do you actually do any work?

When you make things look easy, people think it’s easy

Traditional double-edged razor, shaving mug, shaving brush, and standWas planning to post last Friday but a buncha ConEd people showed up early Friday to open up a gas pipe in front of my building and asked me if they could tap into the gas in my apartment. Very strange.

Afterward, hobbled down to Chinatown to meet up with the CEO of a bank and RE Mike, which doesn’t sound like fun but it was one of the best 90 minute meetings I’ve ever had. We mostly ended up talking about television shows and growing up the in big city.

There was this very young secretary at a firm I worked at once that didn’t really understand what I did all day. To her, it seemed like a lot of lunches and drinks.

Secretary: Do you actually do any work?
Me: (amused) That guy that just left? The one wearing the flip-flops and over-sized tee-shirt? He just hired us for a $19 million deal. So I would say, “yes.”

There’s this throw called the Harai-Goshi which, when done correctly, looks effortless. But to be able to get to that stage takes years of work. Ironically, it was that throw that the newbie was trying to do that put me outta commission last week.

But that’s neither here nor there.

In any case, took me forever to get back home because of my bum knee and then later that night, injured it even more trying to kill a mosquito. Could barely walk the next day.

Still, the weekend picked up dramatically after that. Went out with my wife for another date night around the way although even that took forever with my knee.

Her: Logan, if this were the animal kingdom, I would have already eaten you and found another mate.

Ended the night drinking wine and watching Forks over Knives on Netflix, it’s also on Showbox if you have that – btw, if you enjoyed Food Inc, you’ll probably enjoy this as well.

I’d tell you more about the date itself but she’s got her own blog now so you can click it and see for yourself.

She did take a really nice shot of me, which makes me look better that I really look. Those are the best kinda shots.

Since I’ve got the time, I’ll be posting tomorrow too. See you then?

Location: still home with a bum leg
Mood: fat
Music: I know she’s gonna leave this broken man behind her
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Categories
personal

Saying things give them life

Have you left no sense of decency?

A strange bag of junk - or dog poop - tied to an awning in NYC

Before Tom Hanks was a major star, he was in this film called Splash where Daryl Hannah’s character picked the name “Madison” off a street sign because she didn’t know any better.

As of 2012, it’s the 4th most popular name for girls in America.

And then there was recently this fake news article by the Onion that the official Iranian news agency essentially copied and put up as true.

Finally, in the story of creation in both the bible and Greek mythology, a higher power – God in the former, Prometheus (or Athena) in the latter – takes clay and literally breathes onto them to give them life.

There’s something about words that live independently of ourselves. These throwaway things we say and do continue on without us.

Do you remember the pink slime thing I wrote a few months ago? As I thought, the price of beef is dramatically higher now. Another fake news story with very real world implications.

I’m much more careful about the stuff I put out into the aether cause I know that words put out into the world manage to take a life on their own. Even if we just want things to be hot breath and lies.

Write this because, as the political season heightens, I’m finding my online world being filled with more and more with things that are completely untrue – on both sides of the fence.

And I wonder if anyone feels at all even slightly bad about doing whatever it takes to win.

Cause what really is winning if we’re left with ridiculous names, high beef prices, and lies as truth.

What kinda prize is that?

Joseph N. Welch: Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

Location: still home with a bum leg
Mood: (really) slothful
Music: I’ll settle for one day to believe in you
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Categories
personal

Old Man Logan

Struggle is the meaning of life

A lone bicycle in NYC

Me: (watching a contestant on X-Factor) I find her really annoying.
Her: I wanna kill myself.

The wife got me a cane for my injury, which made life immensely better for me although I do think it makes me look slightly ridiculous.

A recent Wall Street Journal article entitled Dirtier Lives May Be Just the Medicine We Need notes that while we’ve destroyed a litany of diseases (tuberculosis, polio, cholera, malaria, etc), we may have replaced them with modern illnesses (asthma, eczema, hay fever, Crohn’s disease, etc).

The hypothesis seems to be that the body must struggle against something. And if it has nuthin to struggle against, it begins to overreact to the things around it.

As an aside, reading my FB feed, I’m starting to think I know a lotta crackpot conspiracy theorists. But I digress…

Bring this up cause my mom is – justifiably – upset that that I got injured yet again.

Her: Why can’t you do something safer? Like cycling?

And of course, nothing is ever safe.

Was gonna tell her that the nature of man is to struggle against something. That there’s this Swahili saying that goes: Life has meaning only in the struggle. Triumph or defeat is in the hands of the Gods. So celebrate the struggle.

And without the struggle, the body and mind will find its own thing to struggle with.

But my Chinese isn’t good enough, and I don’t have the words. So instead, told her I’d consider it.

My wife’s taken to calling me Old Man Logan and took the picture below for her blog.

It’s hard to argue against that characterization.

Columbus Circle before the rain

Forgot to mention that, after I left the gym, took a cab back to my pad. When I got out, a stranger holding two grocery bags looked at me trying to hobble outta the cab.

Him: Can I help you?
Me: No, it’s fine.
Him: (walking to me and leaning down) I insist.
Me: (Putting arm around him) Ah, the kindness of strangers. I’ve got to remember I’m not 17 anymore.
Him: (laughing) You and me both, friend.

Location: home, for the past five days
Mood: slothful
Music: Don’t go looking for trouble, it’s looking for you
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