Tag: discussion

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personal

Paying off debts

Someone always has to pay the debt

Her: That is the bomb.
Me: Do people still say that?
Her: No, just me.
Me: I’m totally putting this in the blog.
Her: Don’t you dare. I don’t want anyone to know how dorky I am.
Me: OK.

In unrelated news, gotta leave the country for a while.

Potentially got some work in Europe. Italy’s interesting to me cause I’m such a fan of The Godfather and there’s this whole sequence there.

There’s this scene in The Godfather book that’s not in the film – dunno why the director kept cutting out these important scenes.

Michael kills his brother-in-law, Carlo, and his wife Kay secretly leaves him. Mike’s brother tries to stop her but she says she can’t stay because she can’t be with a man that can’t forgive.

Mike’s brother says something like, even if Michael truly, truly forgave Carlo, Carlo still “had to be killed. Because treachery can’t be forgiven. Michael could have forgiven it, but people never forgive themselves and so they would always be dangerous….[Michael] loves his sister. But he would be shirking his duty to you and his children, to his whole family, to me and my family, if he let…Carlo go free. They would have been a danger to us all, all our lives.”

Said once that that a debt is created every time something shady happens. Always.

As for France, this interesting article came out about them the other day. In it, the writer says that the French are a lot nicer to Americans these days.

The general hypothesis’s that the recession’s making everyone nicer but this writer disagrees. He says it’s because all of the older French’re dying off; the ones that were alive when the Nazis came over. It was the older French that were ashamed of the fact that they (a) collaborated with the Nazis, killing a buncha their own citizens, and (b) needed the Americans to come and rescue them.

There was debt to pay and you can’t pay back a debt like that, not even if you have IVA advice from a debt manager. So came about the dirty American. The younger French feel no such burden and can afford to be kind.

That’s the argument, anyway.

I believe it. Cause it’s the debt and the deuce. Someone’s always gotta pay the debt, man.

So, France or Italy – or maybe England. I kinda speak the language in England.

Location: Crooklyn
Mood: patient
Music: e rido e piango e mi fondo con il cielo e con il fango
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The people that point and the people that run in.

Her: (glancing at clock) It’s 11:11 – make a wish.
Me: (thinking) I hope those people’ll be ok.
Her: That’s a good wish.
Me: (as clock changes to 11:12) Made it just in time. Maybe it’ll come true.

There’re people in life that you’ll meet that’ll always say a contrary position. If you say it’s black, they’ll say it’s grey. Daytime, it’s early evening.

These people aren’t necessarily bad, but they are needy. They need to feel superior, to be listened to, to matter.

A variation, however, is the pointer. The ones that feel they know some truth hidden from the rest of us. The ones that spring up at every tragedy and say, “God is punishing (insert childhood issue here)” or “Well, they really brought it upon themselves.”

In all of human history, there’s no tragedy so great where some cruel person won’t stand to the side and point, not at the calamity, but the victims.

Some, like Gilbert Gottfried, point and laugh. Some like Glen Beck, point and blame. The reason’s the same, that neediness. Coupled with an inability to do anything but point.

But often, there’s no tragedy so great where there won’t be someone else that runs past them to stand in front of complete strangers and say “Stand behind me, I’ll protect you.” It’s people at their very best.

As of this writing, 50 people keep walking back into a nuclear reactor to try to get it under control. Can’t even wrap my head around that.

Said once that troubles strip away the fat of your lives to who we really are. Sometimes, under the fat, you find a Gilbert Gottfried there, sometimes you find a hero.

Both make you shake your head in disbelief but for totally different reasons.

Location: watching this all unfold
Mood: pissed off
Music: we could be heroes, just for one day
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If you don’t wanna play the part, don’t audtion.

Haven’t been able to work out cause I injured my neck falling down all of time when I got food poisoning. Still, net-net, look about the same cause the sickness meant eating only BRATY for a while.

Caught a bita that TV show Who Do You Think You Are? This one was the one where Kim Cattrall finds out what happened to her grandfather who ditched his wife and three daughters, onea whom was Kim’s mom.

It’s always struck me as a strange thing that a fella’d do something like that. For better or worse, we all got roles we’re supposed to play. Got no respect for someone that auditioned for his role, got it, and then bolted before the act’s over.

Know nuthin about sports, don’t curse much, and I like my nice threads.

But I know what a man’s supposed to do and that’s not it.

———-

This fella named Sydney Smith once said that It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little.

You and I got a deal; I spill about my admittedly boring and nonsensical life and, occasionally, you do something for me. This is onea those times.

So, just like with Haiti, I ask that you text REDCROSS to 90999, which’ll donate $10 to relief efforts in Japan. It’ll take a sec, you’ll have something to post on Facebook, and you can feel better about yourself have paid back the aether a little for your dumb luck, yeah?

Location: running to meetings
Mood: busy
Music: Now kid I know I haven’t been a perfect man
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Watson is Skynet / Bad Robot…bad (2)

Me: This is the beginning of Skynet. It’s like no one’s learned anything from watching Hollywood movies.
Her: For serious!

Been watching the Jeopardy series which has this computer named “Watson” going against two of the best champions the show’s ever had.

Pretty interesting to see how computers are becoming more and more human-like. Was saying to someone the other day that when I went to school, people had just started using computer on a regular basis but I graduated college having never sent a single email. This was back when messages were left via blinking light.

In all seriousness, the Skynet thing is a unnerving in the sense that something else recently happened that most American’s aren’t aware of: Predator drones are now flying in US skies, something that’s never happened before. Sure, it’s a coincidence but it’s still weird.

Am pretty excited for the future and if anyone loves their electronic doo-hickeys, it’s this bright-eyed Chinese boy.

Still, gotta force myself outta the house and take a walk more often; just did that yesterday.

The real world, especially New York City, doesn’t really care if y’interact with it or not.

Her: Today was a good day for you.
Me: Why is that?
Her: Well, we made out, we had pizza, and you got to watch a computer compete against a person.
Me: Two people!

———-

Can’t believe this was four years ago – deserves another look:

Location: in fronta glowing things like always
Mood: artistic
Music: And how the days have flown too few & fast
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Friends and weddings

Missed posting last Thursday – no real reason but I’ll tell you why some other time.

In other news, been planning the wedding. Parta the issue why it takes so long is that there’re so many people in my family. My family’s side alone, we’re talking over 100 heads. It’s pretty ridiculous. As for her, she’s got far less so if anything, it’ll be crazy lopsided. We’ve been talking more and more about just up and getting hitched ourselves and doing something for our friends and family later. Suppose we’ll see.

On a related point, the thing about cutting your friends is that the friends you’re left with, you don’t have to make excuses for:

Sorry, he’s a little snarky at times.
Sorry, she’s always like that.
Sorry, he does have his good points.
Sorry, I’ve known him for years, he went through a lot.

It’s exhausting.

Not all of your friends’ve gotta be smooth as silk but I got little tolerance for poor behaviour these days. When Steel and Bryson came by to learn to cook from my dad, they didn’t know each other but we all got along great. It’s a nice side benefit for having a low tolerance of general douchebaggery.

You don’t gotta have a lotta friends. Y’just gotta have ones that’re worth it.

Location: off to physical therapy shortly
Mood: tired
Music: want to be the best I can For me for you for everyman
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When Harry Met Sally was a movie, not real life

Drinks in NYC

The news coverage on this assassin seems to paint a portrait of someone that just could not talk to a woman. He was definitely broken insteada bendy.

For me, the surest sign of some sort of mental illness is when a person cannot relate to someone of the opposite sex. One person, a female, immediately springs to mind as she absolutely hates men but despite being relatively attractive and in her 20s, she’s had almost no experience with men whatsoever.

It seems it’s pervasive on both sides and our early indoctrination in grade school with boys versus girls seems partly to blame. It makes about as much sense as saying, “OK, today is blacks versus whites.”

Hollywood reinforces this with stereotypes that have an air of truth but no real truth to them, such as the old saw: Men and women can’t be friends because sex always gets in the way.

Sheyeah, if you’re a lonely Hollywood writer, that’s probably true.

But in the real world, if you’ve got equal parts male and female friends and you had sex or wanted to have sex with everyone of the opposite sex, you’d be exhausted.

Pretty sure that a good percentage of the  crazy can be resolved by (a) finding your people and (b) finding your person.

We literally and figuratively go crazy by our lonesome. It’s a sad thing.

Location: waiting for a package
Mood: contemplative
Music: now you put me in the magic position
YASYCTAI: Try to be more bendy. Life is better that way. (time/2 pts)
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Why I don’t curse casually

Car buried under snow in NYC with a subway sign

Continuing with my last post, you can probably tell now after four years that I don’t generally curse.

Don’t think I’ve ever told you why so now’s about as good a time as any:

Up in Cornell, there’s a small gym in this res hall called Dickson. Used to go there with my buddy Eric all of time. One night, about twenty (20!) years ago, these two pretty girls were working out there and I started chatting them up – eh, it’s a hobby.

After about ten minutes, they got up and quickly left the gym and I turned to Eric and said, “What’s their #$@#$ problem?”

Eric, disgusted, put down his weights and said, “You’re kidding me right? You talk like you’re from the gutter, every word was ‘f___,’ or, ‘s___’ or, ‘m___f___’ – and you’re a English major? What’s your problem?” He stood up and left too and I sat there, mortified. Never heard myself speak before; my voice.

Sounded like what’d you expect from a fella born to penniless immigrant parents outside an industrial park in Queens, New York.

Said once that someone else’s opinion of you’s nonea your business. However, your own opinion of yourself is your business.

My opiniona myself at that moment was less than stellar.

Stopped cursing casually that day twenty years ago. Don’t hold others to the same standard; just a personal choice I make for myself.

Look, sometimes something happens where the only adequate response is WTF? But most times, another of the 880,000 words in the English language’re probably better.

Then again, this is just my opinion. And what’s my opinion, really?

———-

  • Admin note 1: Gonna start publishing at 11-12EST on Mondays and Wednesdays from now on; just the work schedule.
  • Admin note 2: If you’re reading me on loganlo.com and feedburner, I’ve got a few tech entries I’ll be posting from time to time that’s sort of separate from the regular blog. Feel free to ignore.

Location: bundling up to go shovel again
Mood: contemplative
Music: the only thing I did good was scrapping Until the end of time
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If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck

Shot of a train in NYC with a subway sign

Been reading a lot about the whackjob that tried to off the Congresswoman here in the US. Apparently, the authorities are pouring through everything this kid posted online to get a picture of who and what he was all about.

Going through this kid’s internet life – based upon his writings and videos – they’re concluding that’s he’s a full-on whackadoo.

This fella named Riley wrote that when “I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.”

In Stalker, I wrote that the only thing to believe is the words that come out of someone’s mouth. Don’t ever assume, “I’m not interested” means “please try harder.”

Bring this all up, not just because of what happened in Arizona but also cause this acquaintance of mine took it upon himself to write “bitches” and “p****y” on my FB page.

And when I called him out on it, instead of an apology, he says I’m being insulting by saying he sounds like a thug. It’s just locker room banter, he says.

He misses the point. The phrase locker room banter implies a partitioned and segregated group – men in a locker room separate from women, work, the other team, etc.

Look, my co-workers are on this social site, my old boss, my kid cousins, my fiancee’s family, etc. Got no problems with cursing, got a problem with a fella that pops on, leaves an expletive, and disappears.

Thing is, he’s not a bad fella, not at all. He just doesn’t seem to grasp, as a 40-year old, that on the interwebs, everyone can see anything you write and it never goes away. It is, in fact, the polar opposite of a locker room. When you talk like a thug, is it any surprise then when someone in the world says, “You talk like a thug.”

You are what you put out into the aether. Every word is a pixel in your digital portrait. If you write it, own it.

Said it a million times: your friends mirror you. His argument’s that all of his friend talk like this and this is how they talk to each other. Which makes sense, his friends mirror him. But don’t mirror me.

For example, also I’ve got nothing against football. Just don’t watch it. And none of my close friends are crazy into it either. Just not what we’re about – no value judgment, just not our thing.

Similarly, I don’t toss out “bitches” and “p****y” like they’re papercuts; they’re not to me. They’re at least a bullet if not more.

If a thug doesn’t use words like that, who does? Show me someone that uses those words with someone they barely talk to and I’ll show you someone that talks like a thug.

Which brings me to another saying I like: Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s rain.

———-

Write this blog with the assumption that an employer, fiancee, family member might stumble across it. And if they read it, I’m sure I’ll come across as a very nerdy, clumsy, rum-loving, former skirt-chasing, insomniac. That’s ok, cause it’s true.

Wish I was terribly smooth, rich, and lucky; wish I were taller, wish I were a baller.

But I’m ok with whatever assumption you draw from this blog, cause the words’re all mine.

OK, except for walks like a duck, don’t piss  on me, and wish I were taller, those I stole. But the rest…

 

Location: off to the garage
Mood: irritated
Music: when it comes to playing basketball I’m always last to be picked
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How to keep your 2011 resolutions

So how was your NYE? HG and I were feeling under the weather so we just stayed in and watched Inception. We’ve become a boring couple – which is a rather nice thing to be, actually. Did go out the night before to my friend Paolo’s for a pre-NYE party.l

A fella came up to me and said he read my blog. It was actually the high point of my night; it’s great when someone tells you that you did something that connected with them.

For this new year, made a list of goals rather than resolutions – after all, it’s important to have a target so you have something to aim for, yeah? I think how to keep these 2011 resolutions is to make them more specific and keep them manageable. And only have a handful.

Most times, just kept these goals to myself but when you put something out into the aether, it makes it more concrete. So here we go:

1. Finish manuscript within 60 days.
It’s been almost a decade since I started it so it’s about time; gonna slow down on other things to get this done. Inception blew me away with it’s complex storytelling. Gotta get in gear.

2. Practice German for 30 minutes a day, five days a week.
In the past decade my German has, if anything, gone down. Thought I’d be fluent by now.

3. Learn three new Chinese characters a week.
Ditto – can speak poor Chinese and German but am illiterate in both.

4. Wrestle three times a week.
Again, a decade’s gone by without much improvement.

5. Practice fencing 15 minutes a day
Think 15 minutes is manageable.

As for more general goals, plan to lose a little weight, invest more, actually have a wedding, and get more clients for the law firm. But the above are the big ticket items for me.

Just said that what we say of things in our heads make them real or not; might as well make them positive things. So, off to read some German for the next 30 mins while I get to work.

Also los!

Location: the beginning of 2011
Mood: ambitious
Music: there’s reason to believe Maybe this year will be better than the last
YASYCTAI: Make a list of manageable goals for 2011. (60 mins/2 pts)
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Aerelon: No one that was born poor wants to stay poor

Mona Lisa on a NYC Building

1983
Me: Why do I have to know what a salad fork looks like?
Him: (exasperated) Because, one day you’ll sit down with people that have a fork for salads and you’ll need to know which one to use. Now’s what’s that?
Me: Soup spoon.
Him: (beaming) Yes, soup spoon. That’s right. Good.

Thanks for taking the time to write a comment or email. Found it all really interesting the very different views people had. It’s funny but minorities & native-New Yorkers saw one thing (the second exchange) while non-minorities & non-New Yorkers pretty uniformly saw another (the first exchange).

As I wrote, that was the entire conversation; she never even bothered to respond. And rather than deal with any of the points I made, she sniffed, “Ugh, Logan, ugh! Privileged sentiments bore me.”

Like Nietzxche said, “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.” She’s so smugly certain she’s right, she has no need to respond to new information.

Switching gears, you can always tells someone that used to be fat. They lumber. They walk as if they still carry the weight.

When I did lose the weight, onea of first things I did was ask my mom to buy me a nice sweater. She brought me to Alexander’s and I picked out a grey sweater from a bin. Got it big just in case I got fat again.

Wore that sweater proudly cause I got it at a department store. At the time, we didn’t usually get our clothes from a department store. When I told Grace in school about it, she laughed and said that only poor people shopped at Alexander’s and that I probably got it from the bargain bin. So I put the sweater away and only wore it at home.

It took me years to unlearn how to walk like fat person. Just like it took me years so that people didn’t immediately say, “You sound like you’re from Queens.” And years to know that what other people think of me is nonea my business.

Still, gotta admit that “privileged sentiments” made me pause. But not for reasons y’might think.

That I don’t sound like someone born to penniless immigrant parents outside an industrial park in Queens, New York, I take as a particular compliment. No one that was born poor idealizes it, only rich folk that have no clue.

Take it as a testimony to those parents who made sure, even though we grew up with halfa nuthin, we still got a proper upbringing – jia1jiao4. They taught me manners, how to love reading, and how to figure out which one was the salad fork.

“Privileged sentiments” – gotta tell my mom. She’ll take that as a particular compliment too.

And now, geekiness:

Location: hopefully Croxley later
Mood: lethargic
Music: You got the talking down, just not the listening
YASYCTAI: Seriously, stop idealizing things you know nuthin about. NYC in 1993 is hardly NYC when it was gritty. Try five years earlier on for size. (2 mins/1 pt)
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