'Tis a gift to be simple.
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I've broken out in a rash of podcast listening. This feels like the next step in my case of progressive compulsive computer use, which began with signing up for this blog so I guess there's poetic justice in hearing a podcaster refer to her first blogpost launched her into technoaddiction and having that send me back to the first post in this blog. While the podcaster has boldly gone to new frontiers of expression, somehow a nostalgic look back to February , 2004 has brought me back to this old tired blog. While the podcaster sounds filled with tentative enthusiasm for Pointy Sticks, I'm not so sure about Simplelsie. But looking back reminds me of how many gifts this place gave me--a chance to stretch cramped writing muscles and to read interesting and sometimes amazing writing done by other people, getting to know about the world that is distant from my own place in distance and style, and in time blogging brought friends into my life, some who have moved on and some who I'm thankful to still have in my life. The whole thing has been enough fun to make me cackle and real enough to make tears. I'd thought maybe I was done with this. Lord knows there are few of the old blog gang still around and therefore the fun level has definitely plummetted. But on the other hand, when I started this I didn't think other people would really visit my blog or that I'd have anything to say to them if they did. BlogBrother showed me how wrong I was about that, but even without that I would have written along in solitude for who knows how long before I decided it wasn't doing me any good. So I'm back to this. My life is different than it was and I'm different in some ways as well. There's no claim that this signifies improvement in any way. I'll just do as I've always done and see how it goes.
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4.7.07 21:11
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Yesterday was Independence Day, a rolicking rambunctious holiday. The parade route is just over that wide field from my house and I'd left the windows open so I woke up to the peal of brass, beat of drums and bagpipes call and the engine rumble from the annual low altitude fly over by three huge blank-faced military planes, their line passing over unbidden and unrepeated. That trio is supposed to fill my heart with pride and gratitude, I guess, but it's detached and monumental mask chills me every year. The rest of the Fourth of July was punctuated by firecrackers, illegal though they are here in Bfield. The kids just can't contain themselves as they wait for the Big Boom of fireworks that can't start until the long, long summer day turns into dark night. I'd always take kids over for the show, a nice walk from my house, but the spectacle has been moved to the newer park and the kids have grown up to want to see the pyrotechnics with their friends. Jean went off with old friends from high school days and Parker's people gathered here. The school field may be several miles from the ground displays, but from the baseball bleachers you can see fireworks from little cities all around here. I shuttled kids home at midnight while Parker, Chris, and Brian stayed out until the last show was over and then stayed out just because staying out is cool. They came in ready for dinner at two--Parker cooked the grub I'd bought for the whole group and around three I went to bed while the boys settled down to some serious movie watching. The special effects blasted, but I fell asleep anyway. And today life is back to quiet. The boys are still asleep at nearly eleven in the morning. Jean has been at work since six, despite being out until almost two. My neighbor's young houseguests--two girls on just either side of becoming teenagers and their mother--are out playing a game involving throwing beanbags through holes on a target board. The game is oddly old-fashioned and quiet and I think that Parker and his horde must give my neighbor fits. I have a post-boy-feed kitchen to reclaim from the mess they left it in and everyday chores that are ignored on holidays to get back to. Here it is July already. It's too bad it only gets 31 days. Has anyone asked March if it would be willing to give up a few of its days for a good cause?
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5.7.07 16:50
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Hercules probably had a good reason for undertaking his herculean task. I can't say the same for me; I had a good reason for signing into Yahoo! Answers the first time--I needed to know some bit of music trivia--but as for the other umpteen times I've done it, I can't really come up with anything other than curiosity and then having a niece be impressed with my point count, and then having all the young people who lived here then be amused, but begrudgingly admire the dorkiness of me, and finally having racked up a pretty good record and wondering to myself if I really can scale to the rarified air of the highest level on the site--the heady Level 7. Answers has some real value besides the information--largely unverified--that is put there. Like blogs, Answers offers a sneaky peek into how others live. It's a fascinating world of urgent needs and idle curiosities, an unbelievable range of intellect and interests, and evidence that yes, spelling and grammar are doomed! We are all ignoramuses* and the English language is doomed, though people from all over the world do insist on asking questions in poorly phrased and spelled English. East Indian people in particular ceaselessly inquire about where their test scores will land them and the questions stand unanswered since no one really knows. I've become a pretty steady member of the Yahoo! Answers mob. Yesterday a guy was challenging the world to answer a question and though no one else would nibble at his bait, I chomped down on it and wrote an answer I so enjoyed writing that I'm going to post it here. 
john m
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Downsides to being a guy?
can someone give my a pretty long list of the downsides to being a guy
1 day ago - 2 days left to answer. - 1 answer - Report Abuse
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* LC
* Member since: December 16, 2005
* Total points: 12,466 (Level 6)
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LC
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This is right up my alley! I'm not a guy so who would know more about it than I do? (That's a joke, of course.)
As I see it some of the drawbacks of being male are:
Facial hair that has to be shaved too often. What a drag! Of course a guy can opt to let it go and have a beard, but if that doesn't suit his look, he's stuck either being unattractive or having to scrape his skin with a razor.
That whole groin vulnerability thing, the paralyzing pain if someone gets unsportsmanlike with their aggression is definitely a handicap. I'm glad I don't have to be so mindful of my anatomy.
And that brings us to penis size. I guess that would be a positive of being a man if you're satisfied with your endowment, but it's a negative if you're insecure about it. Judging from my spam email folder, there are a lot of insecure men out there.
This would be a good time to mention that the idea of urinating in the midst of others is pretty much a nightmare idea to a woman, but is a fact of life for a male of any age.
Guys generally have a more limited palette to work with in their clothing and more limited styles available. You could see that as a downside, I guess. On the other hand, women's clothing manufacturers often hide the size tags INSIDE the garment, making shopping more difficult. Guys just wouldn't put up with having to do that much work when they shop.
Let's see...there must be more serious things than that.
Well, in male-female relationships, the man is often the one who has to make the flagrant first move. The woman may be flirting her behind off with him, but as far as the invitation to go out, it usually is extended by the man. And it must take a lot of courage to risk having the woman say, "No, thank you" or even worse, "Are you nuts? I wouldn't be caught dead going out with you." And if she says "Yes", the guy most often pays for the date.
In divorce situations (see how quickly we went from first date to the dissolution of an unhappy marriage?) men seldom get fair treatment in being able to spend time with their children. Even if the guy is a better parent, there is a pervasive favoritism shown to the having the children stay with the mother and that can mean that it's used by her to punish her ex.
And in this unkind life, men seldom get to show emotions. Sometimes men are portrayed as not having deep emotions, but I haven't found that to be at all true. What I have found is that men don't get to voice them to others and therefore do without the support that women give each other in times of trouble. I've heard that men only get to show two things: rage and sexual appetite and with that narrow scope, sometimes those two things get intermixed. I've heard that the crowd at a strip club is a rowdy, somewhat scary group and the odd mix of aggression and sexual urge is the reason.
I've read that men often feel that women act fearful of them if they happen to be out at night and a woman is also out alone at night. Perhaps they are each out for a jog or are waiting for a bus; a woman's vulnerability makes her fear being alone with a man she does not know in a place where there are not others around.
Let me leave you with a couple of advantages of being a man, lest you be a man who is now thoroughly discouraged about being one or lest you be a woman who is a bit too pleased about not being a man.
The first advantage is not having to find a bra that really fits, which is horribly difficult and can be expensive.
The second is that men can pee standing up, very handy on wilderness hikes. They seldom pee on their own shoes and can even write their name in the snow.
And yes, this is how I'm spending some of the precious hours of my summer off from work. * The correct plural form of "ignoramus", as cited by Houghton Mifflin on this Yahoo! page: http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/ignoramus, Yahoo! Answers encourages people to cite their sources, nudging me to a new and higher standard of blogposting.
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20.7.07 18:28
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