Days Turn Into Weeks....

And I realize I haven't written a thing. I sail through the weeks these days: work, school, work, work, school, work, work. I need to schedule more breathing and pooping time. Oh yeah, and then maybe post something here in between. Heck, I have wireless internet. I can multi-task: blog and poop at the same time! I just hope I don't run out of battery time on the ol' laptop. What, too much information? Damn, out of paper! I hate when that happens.

Is Coping the Answer?

There's a lot of talk about 'coping' in self-help. This is supposed to be a positive topic, how people are taking charge of a negative aspect of their life and learning how to deal with it. Actually, I would say, coping is actually not as grand a feat as one would assume. For many situations, there's nothing you can do. If you have cancer, then yes, you have to cope with cancer. But if you have problems in your life, you don't want to cope with them... you want to attack them and work toward eradicating them. There is a sense of futility in the notion of coping.

With pain and injury and other medical conditions, there are three levels of management. There is palliative care, which means the condition is not going to go away and in fact is going to worsen. Therapy and treatment targets attempts to alleviate the outward pain and keep the patient as comfortable as possible for as long as possible. Then there is managed care. While the condition is not going to go away on its own, it can be dealt with and effects of it can be managed or alleviated so that the condition does not severely disrupt the life of the patient. Then there is therapeutic change. By working on the problem, it can be not only managed but changed and even eradicated.

Coping in many areas of self-help is a giving up any possible chance for therapeutic change and relegating the situation to managed care. How can I manage in this situation? We go too quickly to coping strategies. Too many times the situation is not looked at for the potential of eradication. Remember when 'coping' used to be real... when you asked someone, 'how are you doing,' and they said, 'I'm coping,' it was usually a sad but hopeful situation. Now people consider themselves victors when they say, 'I'm coping.' Careful. As soon as you stop thinking about the fact that you're 'coping,' you suddenly find that you're not coping anymore, and the original problem is still there.

Massage

Well, kids. I'm sorry sorry. 16 days without posting?

I've started a new venture. I'm training to become a massage therapist. So far, so good. We're working on Swedish massage techniques. We've worked on face, scalp, neck, arms, hands, legs, feet, and last night, abs.

Now I've never had a massage therapist work on my abs before. I can't remember any even asking me if I wanted that area incorporated into the massage. Well, certainly like everyone else, I was apprehensive.... for both working on someone in that area and in having my abs worked on.

Let me tell you. This is an area that you should not neglect. And if you ever pay for a Swedish massage, make sure you have the therapist work your abs. Several of the key benefits of massage in general are prevalent in the abs. Today I feel better posture and more relaxed in the areas of my stomach, waist, and sides. I'm holding my abs more erect, giving that better posture, but even more obvious, holding your abs firm means... I'm holding my stomach flatter!

One of our first classes we went over the benefits of massage. There are over a dozen. One is maybe a little bit more... esoteric than the rest, but for me, it seems to be one of the most prevalent. I'm more aware of my body and its parts. Now granted in the training sessions we're doing for class, we are concentrating on a single body part for ten times as long as it would receive attention in a typical one-hour long massage, but today, I'm so aware of my abs and how they are supporting my torso, I am 'aware' of them doing their job, and yet, they feel relaxed, not stressed.

More to come on the topic of massage. New direction for me here and not in keeping with what I named this blog. Perhaps I will end up with another one, rename this one, or heck, just deal with it... :)

Channeling Parents

A friend of mine just channeled my father the other night. It was an amazing thing, particularly since Dad is still alive. Who knew you can channel the thoughts of a living person! I thought it was something that could only be done across the planar boundaries into the other space. No, you can channel from town to town within the same state, too. Or it could be something only possible in New Jersey.

Me: My furnace won't come on.
Friend: Well, what's wrong with it?
Me: Um,... it won't come on.
Friend: Well, did you call somebody?

Office Mentality

We have so many meetings here that require the attendance of so many different people that in order to keep it all straight season after season, we have a meeting to schedule all the regular meetings that take place through the business cycle. It's called the Meeting Meeting. Now of course, you would think that this type of planning would cause less confusion, but we still have conference room booking problems, find out later certain people are unable to attend certain meetings, cancellations, postponements.

At a job I had many years ago for a large corporation that shall remain nameless, we had so many standard forms, there was a form you had to fill out to order standardized forms. One of the listings on the Form Form was a line item to order more Form Forms.

My only question is: what if I'm unable to attend the Meeting Meeting? What if I run out of Form Forms -- how do I get any more?

Sorry Faithful Readers

Went offline there for a while and realized I haven't chimed in in a while. So hello. I haven't had much in the way of inspirations for posts though. I promise I'll try harder to extrapolate meaning from the world at large and disburse my witty insights. But you know, sometimes, I just don't think the world is really that deep at all. Sometimes it's just wake, work, pee, poop, snooze, snore, repeat. And every now and then, I masturbate.

Wasn't It Enough?

Seriously. Wasn't it enough that to be a celebrity you had to be a good actor; you had to have a good agent who would get you in for the best parts; you had to deal with your fame -- you give up being able to walk to the grocery store without paparazzi stalking you; you had to appear with creepy men like Jay Leno and David Letterman; you had to have cool friends and sign your name on posters and cards and in little stationery books. For some movies, you might have to learn how to fence; you might have to go live somewhere stupid for 6 months; you might have to learn a foreign accent, wear uncomfortable clothes, and have prosthetic skin or hair or alien antennae attached to your body for 10-14 hours a day. Then there's the press junket. Wasn't that enough to ask? Now celebrities have to be good at poker, too. And of course, they have to have a pet charity.

White Wedding?

I heard a rumor that Mary Kay Letorneau and her groom-to-be are registered at Macy*s. What do you get the happy couple if you're a wedding guest? One wine glass and one sippy cup?

Words

Remember in your box of 64 Crayola that color 'burnt umber?' Who went around and set fire to all the umber? What, they didn't like the color of it, so they thought, gee, this would look much better on fire. I mean, seriously, remember that color? I think they were just making it up, cuz I don't really know what umber is, but I'd imagine burnt umber wouldn't really look that color. Whatever umber is, I bet burnt umber would look like anything else burnt... kinda ashen, kinda, well, black.

Did you ever realize... there's no adjective for 'ennui?' I think we really need one. Ennuish? ennuiish? Ennuiesque? What if you were feeling ennui but mildly annoyed, too? Would you be feeling ennoyed?

Anti-Valentine's Day

In college friends of mine and I started a tradition. For all of us who were single, we would celebrate February 14 as Anti-Valentine's Day. A day devoted to kvetching and bitching about being single. So Happy Anti-Valentine's Day to everyone. Yeah, well, at least we don't have to waste our money on flowers in the middle of the winter when they are all forced blooms and won't last more than 3 days. Ha!

I can't take credit for this joke, but I don't know where it originated. A friend told it to me the other day:
I was in the Hallmark store the other day, and I saw a Valentine's card that said, "You're my One and Only." But it was sold in a box of twelve...

Poor Artie

Ah, poor old Arthur Miller is dead. My friends and I had the great privilege of meeting him once, if only quickly. He was gracious and witty and charming, even when surrounded by a bunch of silly college students who had just finished producing one of his plays, American Clock. He was often annoyed with the world at large when he would be interviewed, because notoriously they would ask him about his former wife, Marilyn Monroe, with more interest than his work. But he told us an amazing story about her that to this day is so memorable to me. He told us that Marilyn was orphaned as a young girl, and as an adult, she could walk into a room, look at people, say hello, and she would know instantly those that were orphaned as she was. So there, for one last time, Mr. M., in discussing you, we talk of Marilyn instead.

Brooklyn is full of tomatoes.

A funny comment from the funny papers...

I saw a lovely Valentine's Day card. It said, "You're my One and Only." But it came in a box of twelve.

My Most Brilliant Post Yet!

This morning I was on the train into work, and as I was walking through the aisle to get to the door, it came to me. This spark of wit with a clear new perspective on something that was downright hysterical. And I vowed that when I got here to work, I would share it here. It's the most ironic thing I've ever come up with. The whole walk to work I was smiling in anticipation of adding to fagblog. It really was funny. And it left you with that 'Oh wow, I never thought of it that way before' feeling. Um, but I forgot what I was going to say.

And Another Thing....

Why do people always say 'The Outer Banks of North Carolina?' How many Outer Banks are there? I've never heard of any others.

The Trouble with Books Today

They say there are only about 24 possible plot summaries total. You remember in creative writing classes how they used to talk about 'man vs. man;' or to get more detailed: 'boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl back;' or there are 'quest' stories.

Maybe it's the issue that every story has already been told before using different names and locales. But it seems like today's authors and publishers are stretching it a bit. Does every book have to include multiple issues of the day? The descriptions of some books are humorous enough... a young girl born to a poor family comes of age on the Outer Banks of North Carolina while dealing with an abusive alcoholic mother, oh and she has Tourette's Syndrome, oh and a hurricane threatens to destroy their home.

Ah... the minds of youth...

I remember back when I was a child that I was awestruck by the notion of the president. If the president were on television, I would be wide-eyed thinking, oooh, that's the president, and he's talking. I had no idea what a political party was. I had no opinions on issues that matter. I just looked at him and thought, wow how cool would it be to take a picture with him.

I felt that to an extreme about the pope. We were taught that the pope was Christ's figure-head on Earth in the modern day. We discussed his infallibility and what that meant. So if he's infallible, how can he retire and have a successor named? What if those two living men disagree? How can you no longer by Christ's figure-head on Earth, no longer fallible because you've retired. Infallibility doesn't seem to be something you can give up.

Now as an adult, if the president were to come to my blue state, I'd be more inclined to protest loudly against him than be awed by any possibility of seeing him and honestly shiver in rage at the very thought of being photographed with him. If the pope were to croak tomorrow, I can't say I'd pray for his soul, given all he's done throughout the global spread of AIDS to oppress safer sex education, all he does to impede the rights of women, equality and acknowledgment of the humanity and naturalness of homosexuality, the realities of our sexual existence, and the closing off of the church from all but the most closed-minded of followers who would rather make excuses for the establishment in the name of their faith than work strongly and loudly for change within it.

Mr. Pope, Mr. President, you don't impress me like you did when I was 8. I could say more if you want...

Words to Live By

They say the early bird gets the worm, but a lot of good it did the worm.

So remember, the second mouse gets the cheese.

Sleep late.

You know...

...it's like Jesus used to say: "Thank Daddy it's Friday."

The Funniest Thing Ever

The groundhog in Pennsylvania appears on a hill called... Gobbler's Knob.

Did You Ever Notice?

The countries that obsess over working hard are all in cold climates. Which is proof I'm right when I feel: give me a nice warm sandy beach, and I'm happy.

Whenever your boss says, "I don't think of us as a department or as coworkers... I think of us as a family." Yeah, she only says that so she can treat you all like children.

Whenever someone says, "To make a long story short..," it's usually after they've been talking for like 5 minutes non-stop.