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personal

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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personal

Anxiety is the fear of the hypothetical; Urgency is the fuel to ambition

Him: So how’s married life?
Me: Oh, about the same except I have to raise my hand before I speak.
Him (puzzled)
Me: I’m kidding! (pause) She doesn’t let me speak.
Him: Funny boy. (laughs) It’s amazing she married you.
Me: I know, right?

My buddy Cain once said that when he got married, cause he was living with his wife at the time, it felt only like 5% different. That’s true. And 5%’s both a lot and a little at the same time.

I asked this once years ago – how many days do you think you live for?

Me? I’ve lived for about 13,700 days, give or take. That means that I’ve used up more than 50% of my allotted time. It’s parta what keeps me up at night: what on earth have I done with myself?

Onea my fave quotes is from this fella named Lou Gerstner who, when asked if he was worried, said, I don’t have a sense of crisis, I have a sense of urgency that never changes, whether we’re doing well or we’re doing poorly.

When I was younger, I was pretty anxious – grades, social standing, money, etc. Think the thing that’s changed the most with age for me is that it’s gone from anxiety to urgency. And if anxiety is the fear of the hypothetical, urgency is the fuel to ambition.

There’s a sense that I’m running outta time. Time to do all the things I’ve wanted to do, learn all I can. Now that sense has increased by 5%.

Got a wife now; if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get some kids some day. That sensea urgency’s only getting stronger.

Only got 12,653 days left; figure only halfa that – 6,326 days – to really get something done.

Location: getting ready to get to Brooklyn
Mood: ambitious
Music: Ticking away the moments That make up a dull day
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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
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personal

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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personal

Forgive or Relive

427 Shelby Cobra
(c) someone else

Me: Naja, Vielen Dank für Ihren Besuch.
Her: Frohe Weihnachten!

Went to church last night. It’s always nice to hear carols around this time of year. An old woman stopped by and asked me about the church – we chatted a bit when I noticed her accent. Turns out she’s from Germany so said a few words to her. Forgotten a lotta it.

Once told someone that if I remembered everything I once knew, I’d be the smartest person I’d ever met. Then again, if we didn’t forget stuff, life’d be hell. Blessed are the forgetful, yeah?

There’s an acquaintance of mine that seems obsessed with a mutual friend. They broke up a while ago but she hates him with a passion. Thing’s that I know this fella pretty well and he’s a good guy. To hear him tell it, it just didn’t work out; to hear her tell it, he was the devil spawn – but for no real reason.

From everything she’s ever said, he was, at most, just inattentive at times. They only dated a few months.

His biggest crime is perhaps that he just never thinks of her. There’s never a mention of her at all unless I bring it up, at which point, he’s always happy to hear that she’s doing well. On her side, she somehow construes every success he has in some negative term – and he’s quite successful.

The mark of an adult, I think, is to realize that some things just don’t work out. For a long time, wanted a 1967 Shelby Cobra. But it’s not really a car for NY winters – or a family. It’s not appropriate for me any longer, if it ever was.

This is not to say that she doesn’t honestly have a reason to be upset. But it’s killing her and doing nuthin to him. So what’s the pointa the poison?

This fella named Alan Paton once said that, When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive. And I once said that I used to wanna call the ex to tell her that I survived the blow. But stopped caring enough ages ago to ever bother.

Anywho, the acquaintance doesn’t read my blog but wanna tell her the next time I see her that she’s saying a lot more with her hate than she ever said said otherwise. ‘Tis the season and all that jazz, y’know?

Me: Well then, thanks for vising us.
Her: Happy Christmas!

Location: last night, singing Joy to the world on Broadway
Mood: relaxed
Music: Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older
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personal

Thanksgiving 2010

79th Street and Broadway, NYC

Me: 37. But in my head, I’m still 18.
Him: (laughing) We all are, Logan, we all are.

Hurt my neck wrestling the other day so I’ve been walking around with this ice pack around it. Man, after 35, nuthin heals the right way any more. Feel my age all of time now.

HG and I’ve been talking about my moving someday outta my pad. Moved lots in the last few years but it’s always been up or down in the same building. Been here for going on 12 years. A dozen years. Doesn’t seem possible and yet it is.

Once again, got nuthin better to say about the holiday than I said two years ago for Thanksgiving 2008.

Off to work and then to stuff my face like a fatty, fat, fat.

Happy Turkey Day, everyone!

Location: UES
Mood: in pain
Music: High time we made a stand & shook up the views of the common man
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business personal

What’s for sale?

It the cynical side of me wondering what’s for sale

PBR for far less than $40 in NYC

Here in NYC, wealthy hipsters drink PBR as an ironic statement of aspiring to the working class. Sensing a marketing windfall, the makers of the drink have decided to package the decidedly inexpensive brew as a luxury beer in China. How high end? $40 a bottle high end.

Silly Chinese – sophisticated Americans would never fall for such bald marketing.

Unless, of course, you consider that the exact same thing takes place here with Stella Artois.

It’s far closer to Miller beer than craft Belgiam lager in Europe, where it’s anecdotally considered cheap brew. In fact, it’s considered discount beer in France, called wife beater in the UK, and barely breaks 10% of beer consumption in its native Belgium.

Here, however, their marketing team went with the slogan Perfection has its price for much of the 2000s and we lapped it up. Quite literally.

Which is not to say that I’m not a sucker for slick marketing myself.

Just a month ago, said that the developers of the NYC mosque were wrong to build so close to ground zero but that it’s their right. Found that there’s already a mosque in the area and it’s been there for some 40 years with no outrage for the past nine.

This reminded me of that Stone Temple Pilots lyric that goes, What’s real and what’s for sale?

Consider what’s real with outspoken critic of the proposed mosque, Rick Lazio, who’s hoping to be our next governor. Perhaps that it’s an election year and he’s trailing the Democratic front runner in the race for governor by some 60%. It’s his outrage that seems to be for sale.

Since changed my mind about the mosque. After all, changing one’s mind in light of new information is never a bad thing. What is a bad thing is using a national tragedy for personal gain, at the expense of the national discourse. For that, despite being one of maybe two moderate conservatives in NYC, he’ll never get my vote. Ever.

Cheap beer in fancy packaging is also probably a bad thing. Then again, Stella Artois is doing quite well around the world. Regardless of geography, it seems it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s for sale – whether that be $40 beer in China or a mosque downtown.

Location: a wrestling mat
Mood: sore
Music: One time a thing occurred to me
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personal

Serif/Bad, H&M, Bad…

Location: my cold home
Mood: annoyed
Music: in your eyes All your promises were lies

NYC at night

Her
: (writing on my hand with her finger)
Me: “I love you?”
Her: (exasperated) Finally! How does it take so long for you to figure it out?
Me: Let me try. (start to write on her hand)
Her: I…L…O…wait, you can’t write what I wrote. Write something else.
Me: OK, let me try again.
Her: S…E…R…I…F. Serif?
Me: Yes.
Her: I write “I love you” and you write, “serif?” SERIF?
Me: (pause) In my defense, y’told me to write something else.

Suspect that, in some way, 2010 may not be all that radically different from 2009.

Ran out to Queens to chase down some scratch. Frick’n cold; the typea cold where y’notice if you’re not wearing the right socks.

Speakinga socks, not shopping at H&M; until they sort out their moral compass. Sucks for me since they’re the only ones that make long sleeve tees that fit me right.

They say that they donate to charity but – just cause I’m a geek and insomniac – did the math; they donate .000056477 of their annual revenue across 5 years. That’s 10% of 1% of 1% of their revenue annually, kids (.000011294 – correct me if I’m wrong).

They’re also saying that they didn’t know what their flagship NYC store was doing.

I’m saying that someone’s $9.99 pants’re on fire.

YASYCTAI: Boycott companies that’re just in it for the money. It’s easy if you star recycling properly, for example: 4 year old boys toy ideas can be made from already owned items, and we are all children at heart right?  (1 min/1 pt)

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business dating personal

Frogs and Oceans

There are oceans out there that I want to see

 

George Bailey: Oh, now Pop, I couldn’t. I couldn’t face being cooped up for the rest of my life in a shabby little office. (remorseful) Oh, I’m sorry Pop, I didn’t mean that, but this business of nickels and dimes and spending all your life trying to figure out how to save three cents on a length of pipe. (resigned) I’d go crazy. I want to do something big and something important.

Almost exactly two years ago, told you about the saying, A frog in a well knows nothing of the ocean.

Was thinking about that for three reasons:

  1. Introduced two of my successful business friends whom I trust completely to each other. Both have been screwed blue by other people but neither – cause I know ’em – would screw the other. Problem’s that, while I know it, they don’t. Annoying. S’like setting two teenagers up on a date.
  2. Been thinking of traveling moving again. Always dream of it, never do. Gonna end up like George.
  3. Another friend’s convinced that all men are scum. Convinced. Problem’s that the one common denominator in all her (truly) abysmal dating history’s is…her. She won’t change her map, though, nor herself, though, which is sad cause the holidays are a crap time to be alone with a reality you don’t want. I should know.

Man, there are oceans out there I wanna see.

Pa Bailey: You know, George, I feel that in a small way we are doing something important.

Location: my pad, having a PB&J;
Mood: anxious
Music: let’s get rich and build our house on a mountain