stolen from Doug’s Dynamic Drivel:
The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre. —Frank Zappa
stolen from new older/wiser Blog Sister minimouse:
If you can’t convince them, confuse them.—Harry S. Truman

As Mike Golby continues to conjure a literate path through his own dark, he brings more light to some of our lives than I

Andrea posts today about two issues dear (or rather not so dear) to my heart. And in my mind they are related because they reflect the traditional competitive and controlling attitude that old-guard males tend to bring to both creation and recreation. In the workplace, it’s manifested as the ‘old-boy’ network and the old ‘X’ management style. In sports and physical fitness, it becomes ‘be better than everyone else at any cost so that you/we can win’ rather than ‘be the best you can be and have fun with the becoming.’
I like physical activity. I will stay on the dance floor until my hair’s a sweaty hank and my legs and arms feel like rubber. But I refused to take gym in high school and I flunked it one year in college. Having to compete ruins it all for me. It becomes just more work, more pressure, more stress. Physical activity is supposed to relieve stress. I’ve never been physically strong or prone to enjoy competing. That’s why I like dancing (mostly ballroom) so much. It relies on grace and cooperation and is a great stress reliever –as long as you don’t get caught up the competition circle that the dance studios promote.
That said, I’m not saying that people shouldn’t compete in sports if they want to. It is, after all a great way to release the effects of all that testosterone. I’m just saying that equal value should be given to engaging in sports or dance or any other physical activity for the sheer fun of it. I remember when b!X was somewhere around ten or eleven years old and I was working in the office responsible for the State Library and State Archives, the staff of those two organizations got together for a ‘pick-up’ softball game once a week all summer. Kids were welcome to play as well, and so I opted to play on the Library team. The only rule was that we played until it got dark and then we all went out for pizza. We sort of kept score, but there was a lot of leeway given to the younger kids and lightweights like me. Exercise, camaraderie, encouragement, fun. That’s my kind of sport.

This is my brain. Well, not really my brain. It’s sort of my skull. With my sinuses. The sinuses that have given me trouble all of my life, but no one — until now — ever figured out that I have a badly deviated septum (and resulting sinus blockage), a situation that I’m going to have surgically remedied on July 11. It’s out-patient surgery — in in the morning, out in the afternoon. There are some risks, the doctor tells me, since my deviations are pretty high up — near my eyes (those large round empty places in the X-ray). But the risk factor is very small, he says. Of course, the sinuses are also right next to the brain, so they have to be careful there, too. He has to tell me that. It’s the law.
And, since they have to give me a general anesthetic and they’re going to be poking around some dangerously delicate areas, I have to have a ‘Living Will,’ just in case I wind up a vegetable, I guess. Boy, that would sure pull the rug out from under some of my family members. Heh.
I haven’t had that many surgeries — the birth of my kids, a couple of fibrous cysts, the ankle I broke badly four years ago. I didn’t have to have a Living Will those times. Maybe it’s my age now. Maybe it’s the thing about the brain.
Oh well. I’ll either be breathing really well or not breathing at all. Even the breathing well option will take a couple of weeks, what with the splint and the packing and all. At least I’ll have a good excuse to hole up by myself for a while — which, after the kind of day I had today, I will really welcome.

You see men sailing on their ego trips
Blast off on their space ship
Million miles from reality
No care for you, no care for me
So much trouble in the world now
So much trouble in the world now
All you got to do is give a little
Give a little, give a little
One more time YE-A-H! YE-AH!
So much trouble — Bob Marley
Jeneane and b!X blog daily, voicing frustration, isolation, and caring as different as they are personal and compelling. They are my first reads each day, although not always my immediate comments. I follow the echoes of their voices until I find the beginnings of my own.
When Jeaneane posted about

Shelley’s tracking and I’m trying to figure out if I figured out the magic of it all. Did you get pinged, Shelley?

I’ve discovered some bloggers whom I’ve added to my roll because they are just such damned interesting people: Lorraine O’Connor (one of the older/wiser ones), eclectic Aussie Allan Moult, Mike Zellers (spacemonk), and Tom Bolton. I was particular impressed by Tom’s piece that picked up the thread on gender started by Frank Paynter. So, check ’em all out.

I’ve been reading so much online about the current American travesties that I can’t remember where I saw a list of criteria that are indicators of the imminent fall of an empire. If I remember correctly, my country is exhibiting all of them.
On top of that we have ravaging fires in drought-ridden parts of this country, heavy rains and flooding in areas already known to be sodden, horrific tales of pedophiliac priests rising out of the religious dark, and an increasing number of news stories of parents breaking apart their kids’ bodies and spirits.
My son ruminates online about his painful alienation from his country of birth, and we all wait to see if something awful will happen on the day on which we celebrate the ideal that America was supposed to strive toward.
No wonder we’re all depressed. There is hardly anything that is in our control anymore. It makes me wonder about what exactly IS still in our control.
Maybe all we have is all we really can expect to have as humans on this planet: the challenges of daily survival; of creating ways to connect with and love each other; of working toward and celebrating small successes because the large ones will always be out of our control; of learning how to share our successes with each other so that we can all hope beyond the daily.
Perhaps we humans have gotten too arrogant. We assume that we can control — each other, the elements, the whims of the universe. The truth is, it seems to me, that the only thing that we each have control over is our own Self. And nowhere in our upbringings or educations are we taught to understand that and how to accomplish that with love, compassion, joy, and meaningful connection.
Maybe those of us who survive what comes next will be those of us who can hunker down, live small, stay connected with similar souls, wait for it all to blow over. If it doesn’t blow us all up before we make it through.

Since I post about b!X so often, some might think that I have only one offspring with a presence on the web. Not so. My daughter — aka ‘cwyln’ –(on the verge of popping out my grandson any day now) has a website here promoting her novel, which was supposed to be published by a small press that now claims to have been so badly affected by 9/11 that it has pretty much folded. So, does anyone know of an agent and/or publisher that might like to take on this one?
Not my actual offspring, but dearly loved and much appreciated, is my son-in-law — aka ‘schmev’ — who is an amazing illustrator with stuff on his website here. He has written and illustrated the most beautiful children’s book about Esmeralda the honey bee, and that’s looking for a publisher as well. Both sites are in my Familylinks.
I’ve posted about these two before, specifically about their wedding five years ago, which sported statues of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia on their wedding cake (instead of the traditional bride and groom) and featured a life-sized Yoda cardboard figure presiding over the whole event.
We are quite a family, doncha think?

Sometimes things kinda settle into the back of your brain and you have no idea where they came from. Well, one of b!X (former?) friends gives that one true one credit for the ‘heh’ that I — and she — often use. Heh.