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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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personal

Comedy, by Gilbert Gottfried

Following the 2011 Earthquake / Tsunami / Nuclear disaster, the following were jokes made by former AFLAC spokesman, Gilbert Gottfried; all jokes copyright of Gilbert Gottfried as author.

Photo (c)Kamoshida/Bloomberg
What does every Japanese person have in their apartment? Flood lights.

Photo (c)Kamoshida/Bloomberg
Japan called me. They said “maybe those jokes are a hit in the US, but over here, they’re all sinking.”

Photo: REUTERS/U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Dylan McCord
I was talking to my Japanese real estate agent. I said “is there a school in this area?” She said “not now, but just wait.”

Photo (c) Reuters
I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, “They’ll be another one floating by any minute now.”

Mood: appalled
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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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Categories
business

“Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work” – Einstein

Fell victim to the planning fall ofcy just a little while after I mentioned it.

Issue’s that I mixed up two due dates for two projects; the one due later, handed in earlier and vice versa. Normally, it’s not that big a deal, but the ice storm that just hit us means that I lose another 24 hours to get this done on time.

Thing with being in a service industry’s that if you screw up one time, you’re gone.

The kicker’s that I just need one nugget of information but the city official I call in this small town won’t give it to me. So I gotta drive up two hours on icy roads and then repeat on the way down – just for a single line of information.

This fella named Javier Pascual Salcedo said that, Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible.

That sounds about right to me.

Location: heading to kitchen for coffee
Mood: annoyed
Music: keep the chill from freezing our own free will
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personal

Procrastination and the planning fallacy

The pool at the Parker Meridien  in NYC

Last week, had to go to the courts downtown for some personal business. Very different from all the other times I’ve had to go to court.

I’ll tell you about it in a bit.

———-

Just walked in the door for some physical therapy; an old sports injury’s been bothering me more and more as the years’ve gone by so figured I’d take care of it before got much worse. PT’s a funny thing where you walk in, meet someone, shake hands, and a complete stranger then puts their hands all over your body. Interesting.

S’funny how quickly time rushes by; have a tendency to keep putting things off. Shoulda taken care of this years ago but I didn’t. Luckily, the lady said I should be ok but it’d take a few years.

This scientist named Jon Elster has this thing he calls the “planning fall ofcy” where they can’t estimate how long something’ll take to do cause they don’t accurately remember how long it took them to do it in the past and don’t take into account hiccups along the way.

Figured that I’d be much better at things and my life in general by now but I’ve got to get a move on things.

Speakinga which, on the last part of manuscript. Gonna publish in 2011 or die trying.

Gonna publish in 2011, hopefully.

Location: lying on a vinyl table in the UWS and told to relax
Mood: relaxed
Music: But there’s more to this journey than is apparent to the eye
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personal

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 fĂĽr 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

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
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Categories
dating personal

It’s the same old thing as yesterday

Couple fighting in Lincoln Center, NYC

Was taking a quick break from work this week and someone told me they saw an ex being interviewed on TV so I watched the vid. She looked good and it sounds like her job’s going well. I’m glad. Hard to believe it was over four years ago.

It’s funny, that guy that loved her so I don’t even know any more.

Douglas Adams once said, I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

We all think we’re the king of pain at one point or another. The sane people realize that we have no idea what we’re talking about.

Watched it for another minute before I flicked it off and went back to work.

———-

HG’s brother’s staying over as the first member of her family in our pad. This is cool cause, first of all, he’s a nice fella. Second of all, it forces me to get things done to free up my evening; dunno the last time I had a free evening.

Finally, we get to go out for sushi. Win/win/(win) for all concerned.

If you’re looking for me, look for the grown man in the corner stuffing his cheeks like a chipmunk with raw fish and seaweed.

Location: in fronta my desk, under a deadline
Mood: rushed
Music: I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
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