Abandoning
No, I'm not abandoning this blog, though I admit the thought has crossed my mind. Thoughts often just cross my mind, rarely stopping or even slowing down as they pass in one ear and out the other. Considering that I haven't felt much like writing, I should put a "school zone" sign somewhere in the vicinity of a sideburn.
(Then again, Houstonians can't be bothered to slow down for school zones, so there goes my whole metaphor.) No, I'm abandoning my title-schema. Too constricting.
It's not like I haven't had
any thoughts though. Like most people, I was thinking about the humor in the situation of some muslims burning the Pope in effigy over his re-reading a medieval text criticizing Islam. Since the repressed
(yet enlightened, go figure) peoples of the middle east aren't generally allowed access to the western press, there's no doubt that they've simply been told what to do, not understanding how damn funny it is. Since most of those people still live in the stone age, they haven't yet reached the irony age.
I also had a joke
(albeit, another bad one) mulling around in my head that maybe we in the west are equally misinformed.
What if all the IEDs in Iraq were just
1977 Ford Pintos and it's all a big cover-up by the Big-3 automakers? More likely, the exploding cars we see on the news aren't suicide bombers but
road rage incidents, and the so-called insurgents are just ordinary citizens tired of driving behind someone with his turn signal on. But you can see why I haven't been so insensitive as to publicly write those things.
Know your World Leaders:Continuing my previous series, I'd like to introduce to you today His Highness
Jigme Singye Wangchuck, King of Bhutan. If you're like most people, you had to look up
Bhutan on a map.
(If you're like me, you had to look it up more than once and zoom way the hell out.)Not only does His Highness cut a dashing figure in his bathrobe, he is also the Dragon King. If you search the web
(Ed. note: A series of tubes) you will find that he is the ACTUAL Dragon King, since
Onaga is just a fictional character.
(Sorry nerds, Mortal Kombat isn't real. Neither are the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, or male-friendly lesbians) I'll let you read the rest of the biography yourself, but I want to encourage you to follow the link to and read the article on Gross National Happiness. This is not to be confused with the western ideal of national happiness through being
gross. It's also worth pointing out that this man should be a hero to all men, scoring not just two sisters, but
(count 'em) four.
When I'm Sixty-Four
which is just around the corner, really. Assuming I make it that long. Doubtful, since I already know my mind is going. I try to keep my brain active, since I have nothing to do during the day
(aside from downloading porn... I make time for that). I am getting back into day-trading, since daddy wants a new pair of
boots (I know, I know, those are ropers... sue me) for his birthday. I also got a new high
(low) score on evil
sudoku (8:52, suck it!) which I play often to keep my mind... umm, I forget.
Oh, I know. What I meant to add to yesterday's discussion about world leaders and people who hate us is that at different times in our history, just about everyone has hated us. We've been to war against virtually everyone at one time or another and it usually seems to work out ok. The first people we came together and collectively hated as a nation were the British. 230 years later, they're our best friends
(US + UK = BFF) and we call them whenever we
(read: our army) want to go out and do something. In more recent memory, we've fought with the Germans, Italians, Japanese, and Vietnamese. Is it any coincidence that we're on good-to-very-good relations with these countries now and their native cuisines happen to be delicious? The decades-long cold war with Russia has ended, but it's an uneasy peace and I'll tell you why: Russian food sucks. This to me is proof that we can predict the outcome of current hostilities based on food, and the outlook for post-Castro Cuba is very tasty. Unfortunately, this does not bode well for our current animosities towards North Korea and Iran/Iraq.
(It was Clooney who said 'God bless the chickpea' not me.) Similarly, Syria is going to have to do better than goat cheese and baklava if they want to get off the State Department list of state sponsored terrorism.
I'll leave you with one more profile of a world leader.
Bashar al-Assad (President of Syria) and
Ken Jennings (all-time Jeopardy! grand champion):
Separated at birth?
Being For The Benefit
All that and I still don't think I managed to say what I wanted to. I think I meant to say something along the lines of "chicks just don't get me" but that sounds completely egotistical which is completely out of character for me. *grin* Oh well, better luck next time.
It's difficult to ignore the 9/11 hoopla this week and, this year unlike previous years, I haven't tried. For many Americans, 9/11 is something that happened to someone else. Tragic, no doubt, but not personal. From my own perspective, I mean no disrespect at all. Quite the contrary, in fact, if you consider how deeply moved many complete strangers are at all the ceremonies and remembrances. I watched a couple of the 9/11 programs this week as well as the President's address the other night. The only thing that stands out from the address was how, when he was talking about family
(specifically a woman's sons, one of whom died at the WTC and another just graduated from West Point), the camera pulled back just enough to see the picture of his daughters on the desk behind him. Yes, I'm sure it was planned and yes, it was tacky and obvious. Do I care? Eh. *shrug*
I do care about what continues to go on in the world though. Sometimes I wish that I could, as an ordinary citizen, reach out to people in a way that politicians don't seem to be able to. I have never believed, as many people around the world seem to think, that America wants to rule the world. I don't really think we want that responsibility because, honestly, we're just not that motivated. We do, I believe, want world stability. Basically, we're a peaceful, lazy people
(with The Bomb).Beginning with Iran, I don't think I believe
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is as crazy as he is described in the western press. I want to be very clear here, that I don't agree with his positions on virtually anything
(he has reportedly denied the Holocaust and vowed to wipe Israel off the map) but that doesn't make him crazy, just wrong. He has offered to negotiate with and debate our president, which also isn't crazy, just naive. I've never seen him get whipped-up into the frothy rhetoric and ululation of Islamic fanatics. I've never seen him brandishing a firearm from a balcony
(see also: Hussein) above a sea of fellow nutjobs. I've also never seen him wear a necktie- Come on man, you're the fuckin' President of Iran, dress the part.
(Not that I don't dig those unlined sportcoats and open collars. Very Don Johnson, Miami Vice.) He is an engineer and a highly educated man, and I want to believe that he is someone with whom we can reason, if only we were brave enough and patient enough to try
(to get him to wear a tie).
Kim Jong-il? Now that li'l fucker crazy. Interesting biography though. Born in Siberia, educated in China and Malta. And hand it to him for bringing the psychosis right back home to Pyongyang and keeping an entire country stuck in the 1950s
(see also: Castro). They revere him and are terrified of us, neither of which beliefs have any rational basis. As man, however, I can totally respect his love of Hennessy and Hos
(that is, Korean mistresses named Ho- he's got a dozen of 'em).
Hugo Chavez knows we need his oil. He has absolutely nothing to fear from the US but, like the others, grew up poor and will always distrust us and want to punish us for living on the good side of the
isthmus. His military experience is probably what enables him to act like a bully, but I believe he genuinely wants to improve his country's economic status. Since he's a Latin man, if the US would just treat him like he's got a 14-inch cock, we'd get all the oil we want.
(Based on an actual suggestion from the US State Department Handbook on International Diplomacy and Genital Relations. I can't find it online though.)
Fixing A Hole
[Disclaimer: This is so much longer than I had originally intended that my feelings won't be hurt if you skip it entirely. Unfortunately, I felt like I had to dump a lot of this stuff out so that I can move beyond it. In fact, you may as well skip it, since it's not all that good anyway.]I'm seriously thinking, yet again, of leaving Houston.
There are several reasons, chief among them are job and happiness, two subjects many people lump together as one and the same. While I don't entirely subscribe to that point of view, I do recognize that one has a lot to do with the other. In any case, I have come to the conclusion that the work I really want to do just isn't done here in Houston. There is one really big company here, very near to where I live, but they're so big that they don't hire nobodys like me. They don't have to, and I don't hold that against them. Of the name-brand, international firms that do what I love, only the retail-end of their businesses have any presence here, and I've known for a long time that although I have the capability, I don't have the desire to sell for a living. So a change of scenery is probably in order. My first stop is New York City, financial capital of the world. I've never been to NYC and about all I know of the town is what I've seen and read, secondhand reports from other peoples' perspective. I intend to make a trip up there soon, to check it out and do some of the touristy things. If I like it, and get the feeling that I could conceivably live there, I'll try to get into the spring rotation of interviews and go back. If I don't like NYC, I'll plan a similar scouting trip to Chicago, the other major financial hub.
Another big reason for my desire to change location is that I just don't feel like I belong here anymore. I don't feel like I fit in among the people, and I just can't seem to find my herd. It may sound strange, moving to another city to find friends and lover(s), but I'm a big believer in going to where you need to be. It reminds me of a debate we had in a
multinational organizations class I had a year or so ago. The professor asked us to read and comment on an article about US schools falling behind the rest of the world. Most of the class basically argued that the US had some sort of "right" to be dominant in all things, including education. My point however, specifically from the point of view of a multinational manager, was that I don't care from where someone comes. If I need the best person for the job, I don't want to limit myself to the best American for the job. Similarly, if the best schools and/or jobs for myself and my family are somewhere else, I'm going to go there. I'm sorry if that's not very patriotic. I do love this country and I can't imagine ever giving up my citizenship. If I ever do find myself living overseas, it'll be from the perspective of tough-love
(towards my home country) as well as looking out for number 1.
But I've drifted off of my second point, my American right to the pursuit of happiness. One of my primary goals in life has been to find my soulmate, and I just don't think she's here. My experiences thus far have led me to believe that the women I'm currently surrounded by
(figuratively) just aren't interested in a guy who cares. I'm not a beer-swilling, ball-scratching, road-raging...
[Note: I stopped here for a LONG time to think carefully. I thought it would be fun to list a hundred hyphenated descriptions of stereotypical guy things that don't describe me but, while I could probably go on and on (and on and on), my intent is not to insult anyone who lives here. Especially those guys that are getting some.]...publicly-farting, loud mouth sports fan. Most days I find myself wanting to lead a quiet, simple existence. However, the next thing that comes to mind is living like a monk, deprived of riches
(not just wealth) and alone, that which I dread the most. Someone recently told me how she couldn't imagine why women weren't throwing themselves at me. An exaggerated compliment, to be sure, but one not taken flippantly. And as nice as the intended sentiment, it hurts a bit to think that it might be true and what I might be missing. Then I wonder who's wrong: The one who knows me, or the ones who don't.
[Note 2: OK, I'm seriously fooked at this point, because I have no graceful dismount. No end to prattle and babble, jabber and chatter.]So is all of this garbage the result of introspection on this September 11th, what would have been my seventh wedding anniversary?
(A day of multiple disasters, to be sure.) Perhaps. My self-doubt about the women I've met and dated here could easily stem from the rejection of my wife leaving me. On the other hand, it could just be acknowledging what the universe has been trying to tell me all along: Keep moving, nothing to see here.
Getting Better
I think maybe I've forgotten how to write. I just spent an extended weekend with a wonderful woman and I don't know if I can find the words that do it justice. I suppose some of you would like to live vicariously through me and want all the dirty details. Here's where I have to disappoint you. The outline is that we enjoyed fine dining, wiggling our toes in the sand at the beach, dinner/drinks/karaoke with old & new friends, a drive-by shooting, and footlongs
(and then some) at a baseball game. There's other stuff that I won't write about because it's none of your business.
[Blogging 101: Always leave 'em wanting more.] Special thanks to J & Peach for making it all possible.Yes, you read that right: karaoke and a drive-by. I treats my ladies to a good time.
One common question from others about the new friend was,
I thought you hated that guy. I really can't remember what I must have said to give everyone that impression and I can't be bothered to go back and look it up in the archives. In any case, I hope I didn't write anything too mean/stupid, because he's a great guy and we had a truly memorable time. There are pictures of him taking advantage of me and saying "I wish I knew how to quit you."
Seems like a good place to end this entry...
