Monthly Archives: June 2008

Stargazing

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the man sat gazing
awed by the vast firmament
night after endless night
terrified, alone
years rolled by

friends came
friends went
his children grew
and the world changed around him
the stars, they were too many

one May evening in the endless procession of months
in an Alley
the man and a friend sat and talked
unknown to the man
something stirred in the heavens
the night sky had changed

a few days later
a single beautiful star spoke to him
“Look at me.
I shine for you.”

for the next couple of nights
the man continued to listen
to his shining star
tentatively at first he began to speak back

as Luna, his lifelong but ever mute companion, approached full
with hope and courage in his heart
the man turned his face fully
to his softly calling Starshine

Primarily written on 18 June 2008 by yours truly. I wanted to write a poem but I’m not too good at poetry. This was a (very) rough 1st draft of the ideas I wanted to convey but I quickly realized that it would take far too long to either clean this up into a poem or even into a “proper” story. So instead I wrote a haiku. And, no, you do not get to see it.

It also should probably go on a bit longer but such is life and the lack of time. [Or, one ought to work for their pay.] Then again, it ends with the event that it celebrates.

Wordle memelet

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After seeing several posts about Wordle I finally decided to play. The easiest thing for me to play with were my del.icio.us tags. Even these are not entirely representative or, I should say, not accurately representative.

Based on previous (faulty) workflow, it is the case that there are hundreds of posts in Bloglines that I commented on that never made it to del.icio.us, along with hundreds of posts that I didn’t comment on but still wanted/intended to bookmark. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as going back in and doing so as there were about 5000 items marked keep alive when I finally abandoned Bloglines.

So. My “comment” tag should be much larger, and if everything that I meant to tag was then several tags would grow, others would shrink, and some would appear. Hard to say which ones at this point though.

The first image is based on all tags and contains what Wordle considers “common words.” The second has removed the “common words.” Considering “comment” is considered a common word that is unacceptable to me. I have almost 600 items tagged with “comment” in del.icio.us and, as I said, it ought to be way more.

Wordle word cloud of my del.icio.us tags with common words

Mark’s del.icio.us tags with common words

Originally uploaded by broken thoughts

Wordle word cloud of my del.icio.us tags without common words

Mark’s del.icio.us tags without common words

Originally uploaded by broken thoughts

Hopefully the “comment” tag gives some idea of the lengths I go to to have discussions on blogs, to the limit possible by the medium, anyway. Also, it may provide some hint as to why I did not play along with the 30-day comment challenge. While I do believe that it is good to step back and question why and how you do something, I thought 30 days of such was a bit of overkill.  And based on some of the things I saw Greg, Meredith and others addressing I was right.

After playing with Wordle a bit I realized I could dump the text of some of my papers in it. The first several times I just got Java errors but it eventually worked.

The first one is from my paper for LIS590TR, “Mapping Thesauri for Interdisciplinary Work,” minus the bibliography.

Mapping Thesauri for Interdisciplinary Work

Originally uploaded by broken thoughts

I really like how “vocabulary” sits at the far left, sort of as a top term.

The next two are from my bibliography, “The Epilogue that Started It All; or, Integrating LIS (Harris and Hjørland).” I included 2 to demonstrate that Wordle seems to be treating capitalized and uncapitalized occurrences of the same word as different words, e.g. look for “Information” and “information” symmetrically opposed to each other near the right side, running vertically.

The Epilogue that Started It All

Originally uploaded by broken thoughts

Compare to this picture where all words are lowercase:

The Epilogue that Started It All

Originally uploaded by broken thoughts

Unless I’m blind, “information” does not exist twice in this one. I ran this test multiple times with different fonts and layouts and could not find any duplicates when I used all the same case. Doesn’t seem the algorithm is too bright in this respect.

I am aware that in some cases words which appear in a text as capitalized and as uncapitalized “versions” are, in fact, two (or more) different words, but more frequently they will be the same. Oh well. Can’t complain since it’s free. Actually, I’m not really complaining anyway but I would like to see one with the proper nouns capitalized and all other words in their lowercase instatiations but taking into account all occurrences.

This post has gone on far too long and took way too much time to construct, but it did force me to relearn image inclusion in WordPress. Go. Play. Wordle.

Some things seen around the Internet lately

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Drinking with the Troops

From a local blog, Urbanagora, comes “Drinks with a Soldier.” I just love how some jackass commentor tries to hide behind the shield of anonymity and call the post author a liar. Certainly there are all sorts of views on this war, including those of the troops fighting it.

Perhaps if you ever get the chance—you could try arranging the chance—you, too, should have drinks with a soldier (or sailor, airman or marine) and find out a bit about what it is like on the ground in this war.  Of course, don’t forget the millions of servicemembers still living who served in our previous wars. A patient, caring ear would do many of them a world of good.

The value of a liberal arts education

For an interesting discussion on the value, or lack thereof, of a liberal arts education and liberal arts colleges see “On Liberal Education” at the Academic Librarian blog. Wayne Bivens-Tatum critiques the views of the author of a new book on the subject, as presented in The Kansas CW.

A spirited back-and-forth between Bivens-Tatum and the book author follows in the comments. I should state up front that I agree entirely with all of Bivens-Tatum’s points and his larger argument. The book author tries to point out some flaws in Bivens-Tatum’s arguments which simply are not there. I found that rather humorous.

But the one point I was hoping Bivens-Tatum would take up was the author’s insistence that some immediately practical subjects should get substituted for liberal arts classes because students are incurring too much debt, can’t pay their student loans, have to take high paying jobs vs. the job of their dreams, have to move back home with mommy & daddy, etc. because colleges are financially predatory.

So the solution is immediately practical vocational training? Wouldn’t better financial counseling for students, laws barring credit card companies from preying on students, educational finance reform, and so many other things be helpful, too, and perhaps even more ethically important? Have a look and see what you think.

Early Mike Wallace interviews with “important people”

Via Resource Shelf comes The Mike Wallace Interview.

In the early 1960’s, broadcast journalist Mike Wallace donated 65 recorded interviews made in 1957-58 from his show The Mike Wallace Interview to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. The bulk of these were 16mm kinescope film recordings, some of the earliest recordings of live television that were possible, and that survive today. Many of these have not been seen for over 50 years, and they represent a unique window into a turbulent time of American, and world history.

See interviews with jockey Eddie Arcaro, stripper Lili St. Cyr, actress Gloria Swanson, Steve Allen, Frank Lloyd Wright, birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger, Eleanor Roosevelt, novelist Pearl Buck, and many others.

Doing the dirty fictionally

Via 3 quarks daily we get a book review in the New York magazine of Robert Olen Butler’s Intercourse: Stories. Find it in a library near you via WorldCat.

Robert Olen Butler’s new story collection, Intercourse, is, as its title suggests, totally about doing it. It imagines the thoughts of 50 iconic couples as they knock the proverbial boots, beginning with Adam and Eve copulating on “a patch of earth cleared of thorns and thistles, a little east of Eden,” and ending with Santa Claus blowing off postholiday steam in January 2008 by doing the nasty with an 826-year-old elf in the back room of his workshop. But, as the clinical tone of Butler’s title also suggests, Intercourse is very much not a work of erotica. It tends to ignore messy fluids and crotch-logistics in favor of wordplay and psychological nuance.

Civilization and cultures

Also via 3 quarks daily we get Tzvetan Todorov in the Pakistan Daily Times thinking and writing to his usual standard of quality.

But if you look at this line of argument more closely, the flaw in Barnavi’s argument is immediately apparent. The meaning of the words civilisation and culture is very different when they are used in singular and plural forms. Cultures (plural) are the modes of living embraced by various human groups, and comprise all that their members have in common: language, religion, family structures, diet, dress, and so on. In this sense, “culture” is a descriptive category, without any value judgement.

Civilisation (singular) is, on the contrary, an evaluative moral category: the opposite of barbarism. So a dialogue between cultures is not only beneficial, but essential to civilisation. No civilisation is possible without it.

[There, S, I did it. And no, neither linking to the Academic Librarian nor WorldCat invalidates my effort. ;-) ]

Some things read this week feature is over

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Back in mid-January 2007 I started a “feature” entitled “Some things read this week, …”. I have, for a long time now, been unhappy with it. I have rarely addressed the important things in the depth which they deserved and to which I would like. The date data is generally recorded in at least one other place, if not more, for all items listed in those posts, but they did serve a sort of chronological collation function for me, though, which was in a sense more easily useful for my own purposes.

Another issue which has recently arisen for me is that I have been reading a few books on a topic vastly different than what was normal for me. But our circumstances can change our reading preferences as I would hope most anyone would admit. The issue is that I, after discussion with a trusted confidante, do not feel comfortable listing and discussing them here. Actually, I feel perfectly comfortable listing and discussing them with many people.

The problem is librarians as a group. As a group, librarians are uncomfortable with this topic, as they are with many topics. Now these are books that I walked over to my local library, Champaign Public, and checked out. I was planning on putting a big (Self-)Censored heading in my post for this upcoming week before discussing the issue much as I am now.

But, based on my unhappiness with the “feature” anyway, and adding in that I am now painfully self-censoring myself, I see little need to continue it.

Rest assured that I will continue to blog about some of the things I read. But not having to worry about trying to say something about everything and feeling bad when I don’t—which was frequent—I can now concentrate on saying something of potential use to others and myself. I imagine something along the lines of The Gypsy Librarian‘s Article Notes and Book Notes features.

I honestly do not imagine anyone will miss the weekly list, except perhaps me, and I will certainly not miss the work involved in writing and constructing the blog posts.

I am a failure

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I have come to realize that I am a failure at the professional role that I have been trying to adopt for the last several years.  It is one which, in many ways, I am perfectly suited for.  For instance, I can shoot holes in most any argument presented by most anyone, preferably with the intention of helping the argument be strengthened.  I’m also pretty good at adding nuance to arguments and discussion, or at least insisting that others do so.  Unfortunately, in other ways, I am ill-suited for it.  Sadly, the ways in which I am failing are much, much harder to change than others.  I cannot simply acquire more education to fix this.  I need to change a fundamental way in which I present myself.

I am a very passionate person, about a great many things.  Professionally, my greatest passions run to our bibliographic structures, past, current, and future.  It is why I spent another 40+ hours on my education post-Masters.  A job doing something with these structures, traditional or otherwise, is what I desire.

Unfortunately, my passion, especially in its extemporaneous, face-to-face version mostly seems to come out as anger, at least to others.  I do not fully understand why that is, but it is old and deeply ingrained.  It is also somewhat connected to my coming back to life from the intensely deep chronic depression I was in when I retired from the Army.

I would give anything to change this and have desired to and have worked on it for the last several years.  It is certainly a professional handicap, particularly for the role I want to play.

Was my behavior yesterday—my comments to Michael Gorman—disrespectful and/or unprofessional?  Only you can decide.  My intended behavior was not, in my opinion.  You may well disagree.  What about my manifested behavior?  Well, I won’t say I’m proud of it.  But neither was it what I intended.

I do stand by everything that I’ve written or said on the subject, though.  Some of it I wish was expressed better, especially what I said in room 126.  But then that is the issue.

Another place where I am failing is in much of my blogging.  I frequently take a comment by someone and in my reply broaden it so greatly—kind of like riffing on it—that I am no longer addressing the comment author.  I may, in fact, specifically not be addressing the commenter.  But.  That is a dangerous thing to do because I am often unclear that that is what I am doing and, thus, some folks take my replies personally when they really shouldn’t.  Or they simply don’t believe my intentions.  Now in external appearances they are fully justified in doing so.  I cannot deny that.  Thus, I am a failure at that, too.

Another area in which I often fail is distinguishing at what level, if you will, I am talking.  I also make frequent shifts between “levels”—theory vs. practice, cultural reality vs. how I believe the world (or some portion of it) ought to, and could, be, and so on.  This one plays out frequently in my exchanges with my dear friend, Jenny.  Jenny frequently argues from the cultural reality or, at least, cultural perception perspective.  This is something she is imminently more qualified for than me and I greatly appreciate her doing so.  It reminds me of how the world really is, or seems to be, for many others, sometimes even for myself.  I, on the other hand, am often arguing for how I think the world ought to, and could perhaps, be.  Our discussion of whether or not Michael Gorman is qualified to address the topics on which he spoke is a perfect example.

Jenny’s argument (greatly simplified) is that having been ALA President does, in fact, in our cultural context of librarianship qualify anyone to address the future of libraries and other topics.  This is true. But my argument is from another angle.  I prefer a world in which real qualifications are required for something this important.  I am not saying he is completely unqualified.  That would be completely asinine.  He is highly qualified to address much of what he did, and much of it he did so eloquently.

But much of it he is not.  The fact that he was ALA President is completely irrelevant to whether he is qualified to speak about Dublin Core or metadata in general.  And the fact that he willfully and belligerently holds to a view of DC and metadata that is so overly simplistic is one prime reason why he is unqualified, in my opinion.  He is an extremely intelligent person who could easily choose to upgrade his knowledge if he chose to.  But his willful disregard for the state of portions of our field is a political move.  In fact, it is a move which plays well with many in our profession and serves a purpose.  The purpose is even one which I greatly support.  But there are far better and more honest ways to do so.

But I have a hard time expressing these things so that people will listen, especially the people I am trying to critique.  And no one, including myself, is above critique.

So.  There it is.  I am a failure.  I am, currently anyway, constitutionally incapable of playing the professional role that is most important to me.  I have no idea what I am going to do about this.  I truly don’t.  And that fact scares me.

Over time I have had many, in various ways, tell me that they appreciate what I do and that the profession needs people like me.  I cannot agree more.  But it needs people who do what I do who can do so more eloquently and either with much less passion or, at least, with that passion much better expressed.

Even if librarians and the profession don’t deserve it, those for whom we do what we do do deserve better.  Better than I seem capable of.

To anyone affiliated with GSLIS who is embarrassed or offended by my behavior—here, in person, or elsewhere—I truly and sincerely apologize. Offense is not my intention, but I do think what I am attempting to do is critically important to our profession. I just wish I could do it better, now.

[Comments are disabled for this post.]

Faux-Twitter re Michael Gorman’s visit today

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Mark thinks Gorman had some important things to say, and that anyone who meets the core competencies could have said them. He’s also disingenuous and superficial.

AKA my current Facebook status.

I also figure I killed any chance of getting a job in the UIUC Library at this point. Ah well. I refuse to listen to a pompous ass belittle and ignore my friends and colleagues while being guilty of the same and worse.

He really did say some good stuff—you’ll have to take my word for it until the audio link is up—but then anyone who meets the so-called core competencies could have said them. Without notes.

And his little quip to me that due to his retirement, blah, blah, blah, his opinion doesn’t matter anymore is a bad joke at worst. Just another place where he is intentionally disingenuous. For example, he made sure to add to his introduction that he is the incoming chair of the ALA President’s Task Force on Education. But, as he pointed out in his talk as he critiqued the almost 10 years it has taken ALA committee(s) to get to this point he remarked that it is a democratic process in which “all views no matter how idiotic are welcome.” So maybe we really don’t have anything to worry about. Except that welcome part.

I will definitely have a full post on this talk and I will try to do it soon. There is so much to critique. E.g., his willfully misguided equation of all metadata with simple DC as espoused years ago. And this is definitely the Dublin Core communities fault, but he is smart enough to educate himself on the current state of Dublin Core and other metadata schemas; his hierarchy of cataloging (top), metadata, and what’s left for search engines; and this doozy: “Every time intellectual property is digitized it is being abused.”

My comment, which I asked him to address, was regarding my frustrations with the sorry state of dialogue on issues of concern to us in the cataloging/metadata communities, e.g., using a highly superficial description of a valuable but highly flawed practice to counterargue against that which he considers superficial critique of his view. I also pointed out that his view—and much of our current theory and practice—is based on the assumption that our data is complete and accurate. And that we have never had such nor will we ever.

He gave me a bunch of fluff about improved international cataloging standards and adherence, blah, blah, blah and that we could enhance records. Except for that is, again, being intentionally disingenuous as he commented earlier on the fact that academic library directors have made careers of gutting cataloging departments. I had some follow-up but at that point it was best to shut my mouth since the fact that I cannot enhance the records I should be able to is one of my current major frustrations, if not the chief one. Grrrr. Them was fighting words Mr. Gorman.

The sad point is we agree on far more things regarding the value of quality cataloging than he or even some of my friends think.

I promise to get to the newer comments on my previous blog post soon, too, but this is my one month anniversary and I am about to spend the rest of the evening on activities that involve absolutely no thought of Michael Gorman, or even librarianship, with any luck.

What is it with UIUC and this guy

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Tomorrow, Wednesday, 18 June 2008, 2 – 3:30 PM

Library Colloquium: Michael Gorman : Are Libraries Still Vital to Research?

Why do we keep bringing him here?

And, yes, I am well aware of his connection to UIUC. But, honestly, you’d think people might have outgrown him by now. Perhaps if more of our students could learn to think for themselves and to read a bit more widely ….

This quote from the news announcement I find particularly ironic:

If you need a refresher on Michael Gorman’s fascinating career, check his entry in Wikipedia which also provides links to some of his publications and other biographical sources.

There’s something just a tad bit too delicious to think about when someone links to Wikipedia to reference Gorman’s career. Don’t you think?

Part of the lecture is supposed to be on core competencies for LIS education, a major platform of Gorman’s ALA Presidency. I am assuming this post at Doc Martens’ theorywatch is in reference to them.

What a nice laundry list that. I will be interested in hearing how and to what depth they will be measured/evaluated. Or will it be enough for ALA as accrediting agency—as it is now—for programs just to claim that they address them. Actually, now, programs only have to claim that they address what they think is valuable [Yes, it isn't quite so simplistic I know. But honestly that's about what it reduces to.]. Not sure if this is much of an improvement but I need more details first.

I could just as easily pick on any set of these competencies, but I’ll choose those particularly close to my heart:

3. Organization of Recorded Knowledge and Information

3A. The principles involved in the organization and representation of recorded knowledge and information.

3B. The developmental, descriptive, and evaluative skills needed to organize recorded knowledge and information resources.

3C. The systems of cataloging, metadata, indexing, and classification standards and methods used to organize recorded knowledge and information.

Is it going to be enough that prospective graduates of accredited programs can list some principles, some skills and some “systems” used, or will they actually have to understand these principles, apply the skills, and demonstrate knowledge and ability to apply these systems?

Here’s a cite from an email about Gorman’s visit:

Michael will address the continuing importance of libraries to researchers and will cover the nature of research, the nature of the human record today, the skills of modern librarians (this will touch on the proposed “core competences” for ALA accredited LIS programs), and the importance of the bibliographic architecture of research libraries.

I have no doubt that Gorman will address these topics. My concern is with what qualifications anyone thinks he has to address these topics, or some of them anyway. The nature of the human record today. The skills of modern librarians. This is just funny. In a sad way.

Yes. I will be there. Who could resist such a show? And, honestly, as someone highly interested in the education of “modern librarians”—whatever the heck those might be—I’m dying to hear more about the ALA version of No Librarian Left Behind.

Update: Before any comments came in I realized I ought to say a bit more but instead went for a run. While I was out 3 comments came in [for reference sake].

I want to add that I do have some respect for Michael Gorman, or more accurately for some of the things he has done, said, and written. I have read several of his books and many of his articles. I hold many of the same values as he does, particularly values in relationship to the profession of librarianship. I just think they can and should be espoused and embodied differently than he does. In fact, if you search this blog you will find several cases where I defended or, at least, supported him.

But I also lost most of my respect for him over the last couple of years based on many of the things he has said and written. I do think he has much to offer our profession still. I just have no faith that he will stick to those things, nor that he will realize that he is failing at many of the things on the proposed list of core competencies; things which are critical to the future of the profession.

And while I agree with all 3 of the commenters so far, I do not agree with jenny’s 1st point. Having been president of ALA in no way whatsoever qualifies any one to speak on the issues he is supposed to be addressing. It may “certify”, allow, or more accurately, entitle one to speak on them. But then I didn’t realize this is an entitlement profession. In fact, are not entitlement and profession, at least in the senses I mean them, exclusive of each other?

So, lest any one get confused, I am not a Michael Gorman hater. I just do not think he is qualified to address, or even willing to properly engage with, many of the issues at hand. I am also fairly certain that I can back those statements up to anyone but the most die-hard MG fans or the ostriches of the profession.

I am a patriot

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I. Am. A. Patriot—not to be confused with a nationalist—but today, once again, I loathe my country and the vast majority of its citizens.

This great and grand country and its citizens have once again sent my child to war. I will not forgive you.     Us.

Please do not in any way misunderstand this post. I am not seeking your sympathy, your empathy, your prayers, karma or anything else. In fact, I have turned off commenting on this post.

If you feel you must pray or meditate for me and my son, or whatever makes you feel better, then please start with the millions of Iraqis whose lives we have so seriously impacted—destroyed and, yes, even terrorized. Only after that can you morally begin to consider the large numbers of American servicemembers and families who have lived with the terror and sacrifice of this war.

Those of you who asked me to pass on your various sentiments to my son when I visited should know that I did and that he appreciates them.

If you feel you must express something to me then you know the usual routes. I warn you though. If we do not know each other well enough that I can fully appreciate where you are coming from then you might want to reconsider your “need” to do so.

My close friends—those at hand and those further away—will look out for me. That I do know. The next 15-months will be hard. I did not deal well with his first deployment. At all. That was only 11 months, but no one knew how long going in (initial invasion).

He has chosen to come home on mid-tour leave next May as his birthday is then. He gets no choice over which half of May, but there it is. With any luck I’ll be driving back down to central Texas to see him again in less than a year.

SFC Lindner, do your utmost to keep your troops safe and healthy. That is all anyone can ask of you. I know that you will because that is your duty and because it is your calling. Just please do not forget to take care of yourself, too. You can only do your difficult duty if you are well yourself. I love you and am so very proud of you. The ribbon is back on my backpack where it will remain until you and 4th ID are safely back home again.

[Yes, if you must know, most of this was written on Father's Day. I love my country. But. I hate Amerika!]

Living room talk

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* with a hat tip to Dorothea (see below)

In which I proudly proclaim and rant as if we were simply sitting here in my living room chatting as the friends we might be, if given the chance.

Jeremy and trip to central Texas

Again, thank you from the entirety of my heart to all who offered a place to stay, to contact family or friends on my behalf, etc. I seriously would have liked to act on several of them but the vertigo just added too much uncertainty to the trip to do so. Thank you all!

I ended up leaving here about 10 AM on Memorial Day. I still had the vertigo but, luckily, it did not bother me driving, even with whipping the head around to check the blind spot. Pretty much any other motion caused issues and it did not disappear until Thursday morning; well after the medicine had run out.

Spent the night in Joplin, MO which is about halfway and arrived in Killeen Tuesday evening. Found a decent coffee shop with wireless near Jeremy’s house so I had some connectivity while I was there.

Mostly my visit was pretty low-key but we did do a few things. [Photo set from the trip at Flickr.] We went to the new Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery, which sadly has plenty of room to grow. Did some shopping on post and otherwise. Saw the new Indiana Jones movie. Ate lots and lots of meat. Had a late lunch one day at Mission Taco where I also ate frequently when stationed there in 1996-1998. Eight tacos for $2! Not fancy tacos, mind you, but good quality ones. They simply cannot be beat!

We also went to Austin on Friday night-Saturday morning where Jeremy MCd at a party in a warehouse. There were 2 sides both playing loud music and laser light shows. It was an interesting experience and I think I’ll simply say that some Austin and surrounding area parents may have some parenting issues. Not that the kids weren’t well behaved mind you, but I also hope they didn’t leave the house dressed that way. I’ll leave it to you to see what I’m talking about by looking at the photos if you want.

I headed out at 2:40 PM Saturday afternoon and drove through the night to arrive home shortly after 7 AM Sunday morning. I wanted to surprise someone and I also knew I was taking Monday off of work to recover.

Jeremy heads out for his 2nd tour in Iraq next Tuesday tomorrow. As I said before, we’ve been very lucky that this is only his 2nd tour since his 1st was with the initial invasion. Nonetheless, that fact does nothing to relieve the horror I feel as a parent. So on behalf of all the parents, spouses, and children of all those who have been or will be deployed I want to say, “Thank you, America. We love you, too!”

I will probably have more to say on this topic tomorrow. And I can pretty much guarantee that you won’t like it. But. If you have no loved ones of your own who have deployed for this war then your opinion—which I support your right to have, with my life if need be—is not welcome here.

Girlfriend

Why did I drive straight through? What was my rush to get home? For the first time in a very long time someone—other than a boss or coworkers—was waiting for me.

Several weeks ago an amazing woman metaphorically knocked me upside the head. Seeing how clueless I was about these matters she almost had to physically knock me upside the head. No matter what happens I will always be grateful that she did.

I was divorced over 9 years ago and haven’t had a single date since. But having another chance for the possibility of a healthy, long-term relationship was one of my biggest hopes and dreams in life. Many issues involved in such were also my biggest terrors in life. Could I successfully love someone the way I wanted? Could I make it last? Had I learned anything from the ups and downs and ultimate failure of my marriage? Had it been so long since learning those lessons that I had completely forgotten them?

This incredible woman has simply dissolved all of those stark fears of mine. They just do not exist anymore. We have no idea where this is heading or for how long, but I am trying my best to keep my head about me, to enjoy every moment, to pay attention (and several women friends deserve better thank yous than I can ever express for allowing me to practice this skill with them—Miss Mo, Emily, Jacqui, and, yes, even Victoria).

Why are things so much easier than I expected? I really have no idea. I’d like to think that the effort I put into paying attention to a very few special women paid off. But mostly I think that perhaps I’ve just grown up. Mary and I were so very young and we never really got a chance to know each other. We had no idea how to talk to each other about important issues and when health issues arose and her doctor refused to discuss them with me that only made things worse.

My lady and I seem to be talking just fine; she makes me so comfortable. I have discussed things with her (even before we were actually a couple) that I have only discussed portions of with a very, very small number of people, or with no one else, ever.

I’ll kiss you on the brain in the shadow of the train
I’ll kiss you all starry eyed my body swingin’ from side to side
I don’t see what anyone can see in anyone else…but you
Here is the church and here is the steeple
We sure are cute for two ugly people
I don’t see what anyone can see in anyone else…but you

The Moldy Peaches : Anyone Else But You : Juno soundtrack

Blogging and blog spam

Based on a comment I tossed out recently, a friend wrote to ask me to not stop blogging. It is true that I am bored with much of what I’ve done recently and I see no solution or change any time soon. But that is something different from intending to stop. I may just slow down, which is what I seem to have already done. I recently renewed my domains for 2 years and while having my own domains doesn’t necessarily mean blogging I do not do much else with the space and have no present plans to do anything else with it.

As for last the 2 past week’s “Some things read …” post, I haven’t actually read much. I am reading the book which I will be writing a review of but do not think it appropriate to write about it here first. Otherwise, as Ani says, “I got distracted.”

There have been things that I really wanted to comment on here in the recent past but thanks to my bliss I haven’t bothered. Several news items really pushed me over the edge but a bit of grumbling to friends at hand saw me through.

For instance, the recent scientific report claiming that obese people are to blame for global warming and pretty much all of society’s ills is so far past offensive that I was practically apoplectic. I easily eat more calories per day than pretty much any obese person I’ve ever met and my son eats 2-3x as many calories as me. Easily. So clearly, all of society’s ills are our fault. Leave the fat people out of it. Seriously though, that report was missing so many contributing factors as to not even begin to qualify as science. There was another but I’m blanking on it at the moment. Again, I got a little worked up and then just let it go.

Blog spam has really increased lately. I used to go through every spam comment—at least a quick scan—but have pretty much stopped the last few weeks due to the amount flooding in. Thankfully Akismet is catching everything but I want to apologize if you have made a comment that never appeared. If you have never commented before I am hoping it makes it to the moderation phase. Otherwise, previous commenter or not, if you include too many links—not a high number, truth be told—then it probably got caught by the spam filter. Since my commenters rarely include more than one or two links I am taking it on faith that all caught spam really is spam. I hope I’m right.

Re the title of this post, as usual, Dorothea Salo is spot on. See her post on Context. This is my living room and that is what you get here. Sometimes I speak professionally, sometimes not. Sometimes I speak about professional issues, often not. And the respective clauses of those sentences do not necessarily go together either. Welcome to my living room. If you don’t like what I say in my own house I am sure you can find the door. No hard feelings and thanks for visiting.

Professional issues and frustrations

I was going to include some professional issues and frustrations here but decided to leave them for another post. Maybe it’ll be soon. Maybe not.

Happy Father’s Day

I want to wish all fathers a happy Father’s Day, but particularly any whose child is deployed/deploying. May it be a day of whatever peace you may find.

Some things read this week, 25 – 31 May 2008

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19 – 31 May 2008

Chia, Mantak and Douglas Abrams Arava. 1997. The Multi-Orgasmic Man: Sexual Secrets Every Man Should Know. 1st ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Bought this years ago when I had hope that it might come in handy some day. Based on ancient Taoist principles. Main takeaway is that ejaculation and orgasm are not the same thing. Is a self-help book so includes exercises. Also has a chapter for gay men and one for women, along with a couple for couples.

Sunday, 25 May 2008

“At the Jim Bridger” in: Carlson, Ron. 2002. At the Jim Bridger: Stories. 1st ed. New York: Picador USA.

 

Wednesday – Friday, 28 – 30 May 2008

Kressley, Carson. 2004. Off the Cuff: The Essential Style Guide for Men and the Women Who Love Them. New York: Dutton.

Didn’t exactly read this cover-to-cover but I did pick it up and browse through it so many times that I’m betting I read at least 90% plus. Going to count it as read.

Some folks might consider some of these outside of my normal purview but one must be prepared in life. And when circumstances change it is good to brush up on things that might matter.

Also little read this week since I was traveling and visiting my son at Fort Hood, TX before he goes back to Iraq for his 2nd tour.