I’ve been foiled by the evil estrogenies on my long weekend Monday, and my monthly female visitor is making its presence known. Happily, I’m now medicated.
More happily, TiVo ate some Breakfast Club and is serving it up fresh for me this morning — one of those few movies I can recite more than half. It’s surprising how many of those movies I can recite are of the John Hughes Library.
I _am_ the John Hughes Generation. I’m so sad he passed away before 60, and bitter he stopped his brilliantly insightful teen movies when he did, back in the ’80s. I always wanted to go through college with John Hughes as my guide. Thank god Cameron Crowe peaked when he did. I’ve not yet written about Hughes’ death, though, and have been meaning to say a few words.
Everyone in my crowd has their own John Hughes memory. This is the biggest of them all, for me: The Breakfast Club. Continue reading
Category Archives: Dimestore Philosophy
Social Media Pecking Order? Must We?
I believe I’ve put my foot in it, so I thought I might as well squish it around and make a real good mess. What the hell, right?
I’ve sort of smack-talked Vancouvers “social media” scene when I read the always-awesome Raul/Hummingbird604‘s blog post on same [Where is the Diversity…?] earlier today. First off, I should say I think that getting out to “tweet-ups” through Twitter, as a social tool, is one of the best choices I’ve made in years. I am making great new friends. I love what it’s doing for me.
But there’s a definitive class-system out there, and its obviousness at tweet-ups is GLARING. So I’m tackling my two cents from a different, more pointed perspective here. Continue reading
Life's Inconveniences Schools Me a Lesson
Sigh. I lost my wallet.
I cannot afford this right now, that’s the truth.
It’s been a pretty shitty lesson to learn. I just found out yesterday when I was cleaning up. “Hmm, the cycling bag’s awful light.”
So, it’s gone.* Continue reading
Writing: The Art of Digging In?
I fall out of love with writing.
It’s a love/hate relationship. I can’t live without it. I wish I could.
It’s a near-pathological need to dig, writing. For some of us. For me. Dig, dig, dig. I feel like I’m taking a stab at digging my way to China in my back yard. I’ll never finish. I’ll never even get halfway where I’m going. I know this. Thank god it’s a free passage. Taxes would kill me. And, unlike digging to China, the scenery’s interesting. Continue reading
Everything In Its Place
I sometimes forget I’m a writer. I get out of practice, and then it doesn’t occur to me that, to be true to who I am on any given day, I should be playing with a few words. Sometimes I forget that wrestling hands-on with my experiences and my past is what makes me the person I am, and it’s best undertaken in writing.
But it doesn’t always need to just happen on the page. My Sunday was an infinitely illuminating day, and just the beginning to what I think will be a strange but profoundly fulfilling experience.
I’m undertaking a MASSIVE restructuring of my home. Continue reading
Why I (Love to) Hate Facebook
There I am, second-last day of vacation, scouring my deck and cleaning my deck chairs. I bought the chairs about eight years ago now. As I scoured them down, a flood of old memories came back — drinks drunk as planes soared in across the southern horizon, headed for the airport’s runways, conversations nattered until wee morning hours with faces that still bring a smile to mine, silent moments spent alone or with others, like one sunny perfect beautiful morning spent with a coffee and a flawless and strangely-quiet empty horizon before finding out a couple planes had earlier crashed into a building and changed America’s future.
It’s just a chair. A measley little chair I see out my window every day, and yet when I really crunch the memories as I scour it down from up-close, a world I’ve lived through in eight years come washing over me. It’s just a chair. Wow.
Imagine if everything had that kind of conjuring power? But then I log into Facebook. Continue reading
Hanging Up on Hang-ups
Funny how we get so hung up on our hang-ups we sometimes don’t even notice when they’ve disappeared.*
I was fucking floored Thursday night when I realized the varicose veins I’d been loathing for the last year had suddenly vanished in the last couple months, thanks to my awesome new fitness regime. Poof, gone.
Ironically, I’d already bought some spring clothes last month — and no shorts shorter than knee-length. For what mighta been something that didn’t even need hiding. Silly, silly.
It makes me wonder how often we get stuck in our insecurities, fears, loathings, all out of habit, rather than reality. Is it as bad as we fear? Are we merely choosing to dwell in shadows rather than turn the light on and see what we’re really judging? Continue reading
Yesterday or Yesteryear?
It’s all strange.
I’m slowly trying to get a life again after taking myself out of the equation for years. Looking for people more up than down, more smart than dumb, more communicative than un, more unmarried than married.
That part’s working, it’s fun, but it’s a strange ride, especially since everyone I’ve been meeting is 34 and younger. Even if I am young-at-heart, I tell ya. These “kids” think, “Well, it’s only 10 years.” Yeah. And 220,000 hours. Just shy of 14 billion potentially life-altering anything-can-happen seconds. I’ve changed so much this WINTER, let alone the last decade. Age isn’t just a number, it’s an entity. It’s just not a be-all end-all, but it can’t just be dismissed. That said, I like youth. I’m just bridging some mental gaps, is all. Continue reading
The Struggle Between Optimism and Authenticity
Having woken up in a pretty sour mood, I got into my exercises after a pretty lengthy bit of procrastinating. While doing them, I watched Michael J. Fox’s Adventures of an Incurable Optimist, a one-hour documentary on his search to understand more about what makes us optimistic, and how it might impact things.
It’s a lot of food for thought. I found myself with a few questions. Continue reading
Miss California: The Boobs Are on the Job
I had to doublecheck my old-school calendar just now. Holy fuck, it really is 2009. Who knew?
Clearly not the folks running the Miss California Pageant.
Yeah, Miss California. You remember her? Perez Hilton went all “oh, no you didn’t [SNAP]” as a result of the ass-backward beauty’s anti-gay marriage stance she posited while she grinned and pointed her perky breasts at the —
[record scratches]
Right, the perky breasts. The now-to-be-infamous perky breasts paid for by the Miss California Pageant, so their homophobic girlie could have her cake and totally, like, not eat it at the Nationals. Continue reading