Musings directly from my muse

Hot Cross Bunnies!

Dear Blog:

After three times of trying to make the 2nd letter to you tonight  "feel right," I've given up for now.   Perhaps tomorrow.

M

Posted by: Windhazel at 23:07 | link | comments |

Dear Blog:

Really, I want to tell you about my time tonight.   Although by 4 p.m. I felt like I might be asleep, I managed to wake up and have a pretty good time anyway. 

Here's the short version:  I got out of work early, since I had an American Society for Quality (ASQ) dinner meeting in the Quad Cities.   M took the bus to my house, and we left from here.   (Incidentally, I had a sweeeeeeeet bunch of Russel Wright dishes waiting for me when I got home.   I'll have to take pics and share it with you later).   Drove to the restaurant in the Quad Cities where the meeting would be held.   On a whim, I bought $5 worth of raffle tickets (7 tickets). 

At the meeting, I heard a great presentation on Friction Stir Welding.  Really, I had no idea (and didn’t care) there was such a thing or what it was for – turns out it’s a way of welding metals like alloys and even aluminum.   I thought the presentation was going to be about fault analysis in the ski industry, but it was still interesting.   M was even interested.   Had dinner.  WON THE RAFFLE THREE TIMES!  I got two books on quality, “The Way of Strategy” and “The Transformation to Agile Manufacturing,” and a cup that says Quality.   M won too, but when she won, only crap was left on the table, so she got a can coozie or something.

Drove M home, hung around for a bit, then came home to my daughter.   Busy night.

Okay, Blog, that’s the letter I meant to write in abbreviated form.   Next letter is the letter I promised.

Talk to you later.

M

Posted by: Windhazel at 21:47 | link | comments |

For an indication of how pointless sex without love is, check out a related women's perspective here.

Posted by: Windhazel at 20:48 | link | comments |

Dear Blog:

So, when did I become so judgmental?   I mean, suddenly any kind of stupidity just bugs the shit out of me.

Let me give you an example:   dick talk.   "Dick talk" bugs the piss out of me all of the sudden.   I guess I've just reached that point in my life or of comfort with my own body that the size of my member has ceased to be an issue.   Every morning I wake up to the nationally syndicated talk show, "Bob and Tom."   Now, it's not because I like Bob and Tom, but because I find it so incredibly annoying I have no choice to shut it off quickly.    I don't want to be in my 40's and just thinking about getting laid or a nice set of breasts.  

I don' t know...maybe there is a point where you realize that if your life is focused around sex, that you will always lead unfulfilling relationships.   Now I do think sex is great, don't get me wrong, but it's not the only thing.   Sex without a committed relationship -- sex without meaning -- is just basically a hollow shell of sex compared to that with a loving partner.    It's the difference between a McDonald's burger and prime rib at a swanky restaurant.   Sure, I might want a burger NOW, but it will never replace candlelight, peering into someone's eyes over a glass of wine, or sampling a partner's perfectly cooked food.    Oh, sure, the Mickey D's burger is a lot cheaper, but you get what you pay for.   And, really, you'll never tell anyone about the night you spent at Mickey D's and how it enriched your life.   That is something that only a savored, thoughtful, quiet and rich experience will give you.   Being in a loving relationship is something that you'll want to tell your kids about; you'll never want to tell them about the night you slept with that guy or girl whose name you can't remember.  One brings you pride, one causes a sense of shame.   Sex without love and romance is pointless and ultimately unfulfilling.

But, back to dick talk.   I don't know what goes through guys heads that makes them think that phrases like "Hey, baby, I'm hung," "I've got your mocha latte right here," or, the ever popular, "Yeah, I'll split your ribs" is even remotely attractive.   Is anyone ever attracted to this (outside of a morbid curiosity -- like your eyes are attracted to a traffic accident.)?  

Case in point, an Axe Body Shampoo commercial came on the TV while I was writing this.  It was the one where Morgan Fairchild is washing someone in the bathtub, and basically talking baby-talk to the person.   Who she is washing is off camera.   She asks, "How old of a boy are you?"   You hear a voice from the bathtub, "22."   "Yes, you are," she says.  

Okay, outside of a 14-year-old boy's mind, who thinks this is actually sexy?   Not that baths with your partner ISN'T sexy, but to pretend that it's some woman seducing her man because of his body scent, the size of whatever, or any other superficial thing is insulting to what it means to be a good, honest, loving man. 

I've heard the argument that at least these people are entertaining.   Oh, really.   I am a huge believer that if you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.   I also think if you encourage dogs to be dogs, they never become anything more than dogs.   To give them implicit or explicit permission to act like dogs is to condone them to treat you, your friends, or your kids that way.   And, remember, if you're not willing to correct them, you who know better, you are partially to blame for their actions.   Friends don't let friends be jerks.

Speaking of jerks, another thing I've outgrown are women who are jerks.   Teasing is entertaining, but if you aren't delivering, take a hike.  If you are trying to play to my baser emotions in order to get free drinks, an ego rush, or whatever, just beat it.   I've lost all patience with that sort of playing as well.   Either you want to talk, or you don't.  I wouldn't be surprised if some of the women who say, "I just can't find a good guy," aren't just playing games.  The heroines of the world are living their lives, being true to themselves, and dealing honestly with the world around them.  THOSE are the women who get the guys who hang around and who are good to them.

Here is the bottom line...

If you want a good woman, be a good man.   If you are anything less:  childish, stupid, or a playa; you deserve what you get.

If you want a good man; be a good woman.   If you hang around with moronic, base people, that's how people on the outside will see you -- as one of your crowd.   Pick the best people to hang around with and always be true to that Athena within.   Anything less, and you sully your own good reputation, and you are worth more than that.

Above all...

Be honorable.   Be true.   Be good.   Do those things that you want to tell people about because they make you proud to be a human being -- they are things you proud to tell others you've experienced and been a part of.

And guys, drop the dick innuendo.   The kind of woman who finds the name like "Boa in the Pants" exciting probably has the depth of Brittany Spears, except without the classy trailer to take you back to.

Take care of yourself, Blog.   Give your deepest, innermost depths a kiss for me.   But, hey, no pressure.   (See, it's a diving joke...man, I have to explain all of these!)

M

 

Posted by: Windhazel at 20:43 | link | comments (2) |

Dear Blog:

Okay, maybe I'm wrong here, but I need to vent for a few seconds, or minutes, or however long it takes to write this.   So, I go into my room, and there on my bed is a collection of clothing that used to be in a laundry basket on my floor.   It consisted of clean, folded clothing that either 1) wasn't mine, or 2) consisted of mis-matched socks pining for their mates.   Now, the fact that my daughter went into my room and violated my clothing is one thing.  I could live with that.

Now, I've lived in a lot of different places in my life.   A lot of them have been close-knit communities of people who have at least a tentative respect for one another.   Part of that respect is taking care of one another.   So, let's say that someone's clothing is in the shared dryer.   Upon coming upon the situation, I would think "How rude...their clothes are dry and they left them there."   My first instinct is to pull them out and dump them on the top of the dryer.  But then, I would think about all the times I left my clothes in the dryer,  and somebody dumped them on top of the dryer, and how wrinkled they were.   I know I don't like wrinkled clothing, and so I take care of them and go ahead and fold their clothes.   And, really, with the guys I share this building with now, they take care of me when I forget to pull my stuff out.   But, it took me making the first step and folding a load or two of theirs, and being willing to do it again, before we got to that point.   Somebody has to be the big person, and it might as well be me.

So, do I try to impart this sort of wisdom to my daughter, or do I let it go?  The answer is:  I tried to impart it.  My daughter:  totally nonplussed.   But, hey, I tried.   Hopefully, someday she learns that life is a give and take and that the relationship has to be a two-way thing -- a give-and-take -- and not just a blissful walk through life without a care for building a community.  

I guess this brings me to why I blog so much.   It's really a "relationship" in some senses.   It's a relationship with my own mind, for one.  (After all, it was one of the imperatives on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in ancient Greece -- "Know thyself!")   It's a commitment to this community in some senses.   I feel a little bad if I don't write to you, Blog, every once in a while.  I'm sharing my thoughts, hopes, frustrations, and dreams with you and I hope you are sharing your thoughts, hopes, frustrations, and dreams with me in return.   We fold each other's mental laundry, and we hope that someone is there to help keep the wrinkles out of our own things.   Or maybe we're just proud of our own folding job, and we like someone to recognize that we respect ourselves and our stuff, and maybe they are just a little inspired by that, and decide to fold their own laundry.

Well, I'm not sure when laundry became an analogy for mental housekeeping, but I'm not too disappointed.   An ordered mind, an ordered house, a commitment to helping others get that way -- when you get that, you're able to wildly throw your clothes on the floor and dance naked with reckless abandon.   After all, when you are tired of dancing, you'll know what clothing is dirty and what's clean, eh?   It's only by knowing yourself and the entire wardrobe inside your skull that you can properly accesorize for any occasion -- clean or dirty.

Okay, before I get any more metrosexual, I should probably wrap up here.   Good talking to you again, Blog.   Take care of yourself.   Give your suspenders a big kiss for me.   If they have any style, they won't belt you for it.  See, suspenders...belt...anyway...

Talk to you later, Blog.

M

Posted by: Windhazel at 19:03 | link | comments |

Dear Blog:

Wow!   You sure are getting a lot of attention from me, eh?  Yeah, well...I'll tell you that this letter will be full of the same tripe as every other letter I write to you.   Sounds like fun, huh?

I am seeing a lot of advertisements for the long-awaited sequel to the movie Saw.  Okay, the original only came out last year, so it's not exactly LONG awaited.   Well, and I saw the original in the theater, and it was okay, so maybe "awaited" is not the right word either.   Anyway, this is the sequel to that movie.

I'm hoping that this whole "tool" theme catches on.  I can see how it could really branch horror movies into new markets.   It could be like a cross between HGTV and the Amityville Horror, with power tools "attacking" a particularly difficult flooring project.   For extra suspense, it could be very hard wood -- say, mahogany. 

Here are my ideas for this new genre of horror movies that build on the mild popularity of Saw:

Hammer - An obvious choice.   In this movie, lots of 20-somethings pretending to be teenagers go to a spooky camp and get banged and nailed by some psycho killer.

Screwdriver - A terrified carton of orange juice is pursued by a liter of Popov vodka.  

Monkey wrench - A whole group of scared chimpanzees must escape from a killer that threatens to twist them in half.

Crescent wrench - The same group of chimpanzees is chased by a killer that threatens to twist them in half, but only if the moon is less than full.

Allen wrench - Different group of chimpanzees, and all of them are named Allen.  As a subplot, the monkeys are useful for putting together futon couches. 

Crowbar - A bunch of ravens are stalked by a myserious killer at their local tavern.   Not sure who dies first in this horror movie, considering ALL of the characters are black.  (I'm only kidding!  Yeah, yeah -- I'm going to hell for that one.)

Sandpaper - An abrasive killer rubs everybody raw.

Vacuum gage - all we can tell you about the movie is that it sucks.

Well, Blog, those are all the movie ideas I came up with after a solid 5 minutes of thinking.   I'm really hoping that this style of movie catches on.  I feel that tools have been second-, and sometimes third-, class citizens for far too long.   It's about time that they entered the mainstream and left TLC and HGTV behind as part of their old TV days.

I should wrap this up before I get the shit kicked out of me.   Take care of yourself, Blog.   Give your tool a big kiss for me.  Of course, if you can kiss your own tool, you aren't wanting for affection.

Talk to you later.

M

 

 

 

Posted by: Windhazel at 18:16 | link | comments |

I just saw this on a stall wall in a gas station bathroom...

"Poop if you hate Bush."

So, I guess your choices here are to 1) hate Bush and poop, or 2) like Bush and get an impacted bowel.   Decisions, decisions!

Now wonder the president's popularity is suffering.   I guess people just want to poop.  

Anyway, enough of that crap. 

Posted by: Windhazel at 13:04 | link | comments |

From the Dilbert Newsletter.   I thought I would share.

MY OWN DILBERT BLOG

===================

When I see news stories about people all over the world who are experiencing hardships, I worry about them, and I rack my brain wondering how I can make a difference. So I decided to start my own blog. That way I won’t have time to think about other people.

People who are trying to decide whether to create a blog or not go through a thought process much like this:

1. The world sure needs more of ME.

2. Maybe I’ll shout more often so that people nearby can experience the joy of knowing my thoughts.

3. No, wait, shouting looks too crazy.

4. I know – I’ll write down my daily thoughts and badger people to read them.

5. If only there was a description for this process that doesn’t involve the words egomaniac or unnecessary.

6. What? It’s called a blog? I’m there!

The blogger’s philosophy goes something like this:

Everything that I think about is more fascinating than the crap in your head.

The beauty of blogging, as compared to writing a book, is that no editor will be interfering with my random spelling and grammar, my complete disregard for the facts, and my wandering sentences that seem to go on and on and never end so that you feel like you need to take a breath and clear your head before you can even consider making it to the end of the sentence that probably didn’t need to be written anyhoo.

If that doesn’t inspire you to read my blog, I don’t know what will. You can find the Dilbert Blog at

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/

Posted by: Windhazel at 09:15 | link | comments |

Well, it turns out that blue jays and other small birds aren't the only ones who like the critter food.   Now, if I can only figure out how to work my camera in low light!

 

Posted by: Windhazel at 19:31 | link | comments |

Dear Blog:

I know it hasn't been that long since I talked to you, but this is probably the last time for tonight.   I'm starting to feel pretty wiped out and I'm not sure I'll be staying up much longer.  I have to make it at least another hour and a half in order to pick up my daughter at one of her friends, but I think it might be beddy-bye time for good ol' Windhazel not too long after that.  I guess it all depends on when my sheets get out of the drier.

Anyhow, Blog, do you remember when we were younger?  You probably remember that I used to be very obnoxious and crude back in my early- to mid-twenties.   The idea of ripped pants, tank tops, and heavy metal pretty much defined who I was back then.   But, things aren't that way now.

To tell you the truth, I don't really know when it happened for me that I started to long for the sublime.   Maybe it was my last few years in the Navy.   I joined when I was 17 years old (with parental permission), so I felt pretty good being the youngest guy around.   When I got into submarines, it was more of a pain in the ass, since almost everyone in my shop was 21 or over, and I wanted to go hang out in the bars like they did.   I guess some of the older ones (old being above 28) really taught me a lot about work, commitment, and never quitting.   I still was crude, but I learned through these guys that you have to work hard in order to play hard.   There are no free rides, and eventually laziness always catches up to you.

But I digress.   We started out talking about how I came to be such a "class hound," not about how I learned to work.

The point is that I was very young when I joined, but by the time I was a petty-officer second class and running my own watch section, I was already 25.   Twenty-five isn't exactly old, but when you are leading a group of people who are fresh out of their additional training ("C" school), you are pretty much the oldest guy there.   Soon, I came to see myself as the dad, and the rest of the section as my family.  So, as dad, you have to set the example, let them know that you do care about them, and help them to achieve their dreams.   I think I did a pretty good job at being dad back then.

So, here we have this "fatherly attitude," and this fatherly attitude isn't really consistent with being a bad person or a wild child.   You need to grow up a little bit.   You need to be the one to have class and poise and show people what that looks like.

Oh, even as dad, you have your "slips."  After I got divorced from the one-who-shall-go-unnamed (Supermom!), I went back to the party life.   As you know, Blog, once you're older, you can't party at 28 like you can at 19, 21, or even 25.  Partying sticks to you more as you get older and it slows you down a bit.    Anyway, I did the party thing for a while, but eventually I ran down.  

Then I met this girl.  This isn't the one who taught me so much, but another one.   And she liked jazz.   Now, at that point, I was listening to hip-hop and gangsta rap, so we didn't mesh all that well musically.   She had a great voice for singing jazz; and, through her singing, she introduced me to Ella Fitzgerald, and more importantly, to Bobby Darin.  From the first time I heard "Mack the Knife," I was hooked!  Here was a song I could actually sing, and I liked it!  How cool is that?!

And this is where my journey into "classy Mack" actually begins.  From Bobby it was a quick hop-skip-and-jump to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Tony Bennett.   Here, in their lyrics, were songs that talked about heartbreak, treating a woman like a lady, and the gentlemanly side of love...all mixed into a martini of a melody, with an olive of you'll-never-take-me-alive attitude for garnish.   I wanted to know more what it meant to be a gentleman, to have style and class, and to just be timeless.  

Now, I'm not saying the rat pack, or Bobby Darin, were perfect people or that they never did anything wrong.   Oh, no no no!     It was more about attitude, about living who you are, about opening doors and always keeping an extra large umbrella for your date.  It was about chivalry and panache and no one would ever talk bad to your "dame" while you were around-- oh, no, buster!   You'd never want to do that with Frank, Dean, or Sammy around!  That would get you a one-way ticket to Hurtsville!

Of course, by then, I had already developed this idea of being a knight, of doing the right thing, of my own sense of chivalry and duty.   This just moved it out of the middle ages and into the middle 50's.   It was easy to slip on the armor kindly supplied by "the boys," and see how well it fit.  It was a perfect match.

So, here I am now.  I like the finer things in life.  I like nice candlight dinners.  I love my "new" Russel Wright dishes (circa 1940 -1960's).  I wear a sports jacket and nice wool slacks to work everyday, and I don't ever want to look frumpy if I'm out in public.  I learned how to ballroom dance.   I love lots of jazz singers and players, both old and new.  I shave every day because I want to be clean cut (who ever heard of a frumpy knight), and because I care for the girlfriend I'm with.  I'd never would want a girl I dated to have to endure stubble-burn!  To force stubble-burn on someone isn't what Frank would do.  I decorate my place with the furniture, pictures, and style of the 50's.   Everything must be classy!

Now, I know that things like dishes and furniture don't define who you are.  They are just stuff.   But, it can serve as a reminder of where I am, what I've been through, and where I am going.   For me, to put on some soft jazz throughout the house, light some candles, turn on the Christmas lights (they wrap around the circular stairs), and open up a bottle of wine is a mellowing, centering experience.  I feel at home and I feel good about who I am.  And, nothing is more important than that, I guess.

Sorry this has gone on so long, Blog.   I just wanted to share some things about who I am that you may have missed in the past few years.   I've worked ever-so-hard at being a good person and to live up to the knight's image, and I haven't always made it.   I can say that I've changed more in the past year than I had in the prior four, though.   It may not be much consolation, but it does mean that I can still change.   As long as I have the ability to change, I can always become a little better than I was today.

So, that's how I became the 35-year-old jazzy, working-on-being-classy gentleman that I am today.  In some ways, I've evolved, and I can see how stupid I looked being who I was back in my 20's.  I've learned about dignity and pride and being the kind of person that others look up to.   If I do things that help bring honor to myself and to those I'm responsible for, I guess that's pretty okay.

Well, a few tears later, I guess I should wrap this up.   Don't forget to take care of yourself, Blog.   Give your martini a big, wet kiss for me.  It was looking a little dry last time I saw it.

Talk to you later.

M

 

Posted by: Windhazel at 17:30 | link | comments (1) |

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