Killing Cats
Sorry folks, no particular organizing thread presents itself to bundle this week's installment. You'll have to sort out these updates yourselves. Or visit a more artfully drafted blog. Your call!
1. Always be dull, muted, cautious and reserved (#1). I thought it was pretty funny early last week when a coworker came in one morning and announced that he had just realized he went to school with Kathleen Turner. I never actually got the details, but I was amused since he is an extremely bright, details-oriented guy, and I thought it was funny that he had "just realized" something like that. Flash forward two days, and in the course of poking around my high school's website (which I had just discovered), I realized I went to high school with -- and shared a homeroom with -- one of the current stars of Saturday Night Live. Huh. Of course, I now find it perfectly routine and not at all laughable that a person could fail to realize such a thing.
2. Always be dull, muted, cautious and reserved (#2). The most important moral/ ethical message I (sort of) absorbed in college was probably from the book that got Brian Evenson fired from BYU. My recollection of his short story "Killing Cats," is that the point of the story, and of at least one other in Altman's Tongue, was that small concessions to proponents of an ethically gray course of action can quickly have you doing violence to innocent critters. I never actually expected to have to pause and ask myself if the van I had agreed to drive was, in fact, on a cat-killing errand (and whether I had known it). It's fascinating and troubling to watch the life stories of people I've known a long time play out in conflicting and confrontational ways.
3. Three Cheers for my Daughter (#1). She's on a trip with her mom tonight. In the past, when I've been on the road, I've told her good night and whatnot over the phone, and she has listened attentively but not responded verbally. Well, tonight she said "Hi, Daddy" and "Bye Daddy" over the phone, and as you can imagine I found this to be remarkably cool.
4. Three Cheers for my Daughter (#2). The weather has been great and in addition to enjoying the swingset we put in the shade in the back yard, she and I have gotten in the pool about three times now. Mom joined us twice and took pictures the third time. She digs it. She splashes me and mom and throws balls around. She has a little boat she'll ride in if I stay close. Cool kid. Lots of fun. Doesn't really like it when me or mom "be a fish" (swim, especially underwater).
5. Bring on the Future. Either above or below this entry there is a photo of SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X Prize. All I want to say about this is that I really enjoy living at a time when we've got photos of privately built and manned spaceships flying around. I grew up reading boatloads of classic science fiction (by which I'm intending to refer to Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein and Clarke, and the anthologies they edited). I also enjoy knowing that there are companies out there dedicated to making and selling practical household robots. (Yes, for those of you wondering but too polite to ask, I do feel sort of lousy about the fact that while people are building spaceships and robots I am sitting around having nothing to do with such projects. Whoops.) (Yes, I already looked. iRobot is only hiring patent lawyers. But I'll be noodling on this.)
6. Bring on the Past. In part because I've been a little slow at work since closing a big deal a couple weeks ago, and in part because I've been working on a licensure application that requires vast amounts of detail from my past, and in part by happenstance, I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about, recreating, and talking to people from my past. Today, in fact, I was talking to someone I had not spoken to for about 12 years and had to put him on hold to talk to someone I had not spoken to in maybe ten years, except for a brief visit maybe five years ago. On the whole, this is all very rewarding and enriching. One guy turned out to be living very near us and working just a few blocks from me. I'll confess that I occassionally "google" people to see if any clues are floating around out there as to their current whereabouts and goings on. Some people have simply vanished. Others, deliberately or not, leave no Internet bread crumbs other than entries in 10K charity races or golf tournaments or such. Some I attempt to contact. As to others, I keep to myself.
1. Always be dull, muted, cautious and reserved (#1). I thought it was pretty funny early last week when a coworker came in one morning and announced that he had just realized he went to school with Kathleen Turner. I never actually got the details, but I was amused since he is an extremely bright, details-oriented guy, and I thought it was funny that he had "just realized" something like that. Flash forward two days, and in the course of poking around my high school's website (which I had just discovered), I realized I went to high school with -- and shared a homeroom with -- one of the current stars of Saturday Night Live. Huh. Of course, I now find it perfectly routine and not at all laughable that a person could fail to realize such a thing.
2. Always be dull, muted, cautious and reserved (#2). The most important moral/ ethical message I (sort of) absorbed in college was probably from the book that got Brian Evenson fired from BYU. My recollection of his short story "Killing Cats," is that the point of the story, and of at least one other in Altman's Tongue, was that small concessions to proponents of an ethically gray course of action can quickly have you doing violence to innocent critters. I never actually expected to have to pause and ask myself if the van I had agreed to drive was, in fact, on a cat-killing errand (and whether I had known it). It's fascinating and troubling to watch the life stories of people I've known a long time play out in conflicting and confrontational ways.
3. Three Cheers for my Daughter (#1). She's on a trip with her mom tonight. In the past, when I've been on the road, I've told her good night and whatnot over the phone, and she has listened attentively but not responded verbally. Well, tonight she said "Hi, Daddy" and "Bye Daddy" over the phone, and as you can imagine I found this to be remarkably cool.
4. Three Cheers for my Daughter (#2). The weather has been great and in addition to enjoying the swingset we put in the shade in the back yard, she and I have gotten in the pool about three times now. Mom joined us twice and took pictures the third time. She digs it. She splashes me and mom and throws balls around. She has a little boat she'll ride in if I stay close. Cool kid. Lots of fun. Doesn't really like it when me or mom "be a fish" (swim, especially underwater).
5. Bring on the Future. Either above or below this entry there is a photo of SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X Prize. All I want to say about this is that I really enjoy living at a time when we've got photos of privately built and manned spaceships flying around. I grew up reading boatloads of classic science fiction (by which I'm intending to refer to Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein and Clarke, and the anthologies they edited). I also enjoy knowing that there are companies out there dedicated to making and selling practical household robots. (Yes, for those of you wondering but too polite to ask, I do feel sort of lousy about the fact that while people are building spaceships and robots I am sitting around having nothing to do with such projects. Whoops.) (Yes, I already looked. iRobot is only hiring patent lawyers. But I'll be noodling on this.)
6. Bring on the Past. In part because I've been a little slow at work since closing a big deal a couple weeks ago, and in part because I've been working on a licensure application that requires vast amounts of detail from my past, and in part by happenstance, I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about, recreating, and talking to people from my past. Today, in fact, I was talking to someone I had not spoken to for about 12 years and had to put him on hold to talk to someone I had not spoken to in maybe ten years, except for a brief visit maybe five years ago. On the whole, this is all very rewarding and enriching. One guy turned out to be living very near us and working just a few blocks from me. I'll confess that I occassionally "google" people to see if any clues are floating around out there as to their current whereabouts and goings on. Some people have simply vanished. Others, deliberately or not, leave no Internet bread crumbs other than entries in 10K charity races or golf tournaments or such. Some I attempt to contact. As to others, I keep to myself.
posted by Genki na Pengin at 10:39 PM
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