Trying to Stop being Clever

“You will be successful in love.” It came from a fortune cookie I got once. It’s stuck in a picture frame on my desk. The photo is of my wife in a hospital bed holding our daughter the day she was born. Such an incredible day in all of our lives. Such an incredible person who made such an incredible person. I really do feel like the luckiest man alive. I realized something the other day: I am the second most important person in two very wonderful people’s lives. As it should be. Don’t read that as “favorite.” Just important. Emily and I knew each other for around 15 years before we were married. We had off-and-on romantic connections over the years. We had some of the most nuclear fights I’ve had with anyone in my lifetime. Whatever happened, we always ended up back together in some regard. So after sowing my crazy oats with the Ranch lady, I realized that I needed to find someone rational and domestic with whom to build my family. Emily was a clear choice. I already knew I could ...

My daughter turns 5 tomorrow. When my wife was 5 she kicked her father in the head for spanking her and he left. I've been wondering ever since we got married and especially since we had the kid if I would make it as far as Wayne did. I mean, I didn't go into this family with the intention of breaking it up. Who really does that? On some level they think they will make it work, that it will be good and happy and fun. But I have to be realistic. With the rate of divorce in this country in my lifetime alone, including my parents, my mom’s parents, and I guess most of my family that I know, I had to realize that there was a chance that it wouldn't last. Emily and I had had our bouts. We had been as happy and as unhappy as a non-married couple where both people survive can be expected to be. So I guess in the back of my mind I have always kept the thought that, “if it gets really bad, I can get out.” And now, if it does get bad, I just lean back a lit...

A funny thing happened to me at the supermarket. I was checking out, when I noticed a dry erase board on the wall behind the manager’s station at the front of the store under the windows. The sign said “Daniel 5:15”. So I thought, “is that reference to a Bible verse, or is it saying that Daniel’s shift will start at 5:15?” So I got out my phone and Googled it. I found that the Bible verse at Daniel 5:15 is roughly this: “Now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me to read this writing and make known to me its interpretation, but they could not show the interpretation of the matter.”  Now that’s what I call irony. So I went back to that same market the next day. The dry erase board today said “Cora 11:45.” Pretty sure there’s no book of Cora in the Bible. Plus the girl bagging the groceries at my line was named Cora. So still not sure what the sign indicates, perhaps a break. In any case, it’s probably not any reference to a holy book. Not the inspirational “Jo...

I've been realizing that I have no natural grandparents left. I don't feel THAT old, but I guess I am. Ever since 100-year-old Martha passed away, they're all gone. At least I got to know them all. But the one I knew best was Martha. Not just because she lived the longest, but because she was the most involved. From the time I was born, Grandma Martha ("Gramma" as we knew her) lived a few blocks away at 666 E. Sierra Madre Blvd. Don't look for it, it's not there anymore. She and Grampa (Stan Sr.) lived in the 2-bedroom house where my dad grew up. They had a swimming pool, where my brother and I learned to swim, dive, cannonball, whatever you could think of. In their bedroom there was a piece of furniture, old, heavily-stained to almost black wood, with a compartment on each side which had a hinged lid. The compartment on the right was known to us as the "Surprise Box" and, just about every time we went over there, there was a pair of new toys...

https://secure.avaaz.org/fr/petition/Eliminons_la_mechancete_de_lunivers/?ddBjHeb So, evil is bad. A petition to get rid of evil. Well, here’s what I think about that: those Frenchies and their sense o’ humor… the problem with eliminating evil includes this: human nature and (sad to say) that which makes us strive for new and better things includes the inclination to take advantage of the honest and generous. There will always be opportunistic, amoral people who will take what they do not earn and do harm to those who don’t deserve it for personal gain. Remove the evil and you’re opening up the human race to criminals who don’t yet know that they are criminals. It will start off slow, but soon we’ll be right back where we were. Without the inclination for evil and negativity, people would become very critical of just how good others are not. The scale would become very judgmental of anyone doing anything less than the very best possible, and then what might seem like a good deed...

I don't think I have ever been outraged at what I considered to be a racist comment by anyone on the internet. If I see a truly ignorant and shameful comment about a race or a group, I typically dismiss the commenter as just that: ignorant and shameful. I also find many of the people who cry "racist" to be ignorant or just caught up in their idea of what is right. In the exchange above I cried "racist!" only to get the ball rolling, I guess. I mean, based on what people consider to be racist these days, this definitely falls into that category. Not because it's insulting, but because it makes assumptions about a nationality (I've learned that the antiquated definition of the word "race" is now obsolete, and that racist doesn't have to deal with someone of one of the old-timey "races" of Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid. People who post things like this know that someone is going to call it racist. As soon as they see it, they...

For our "wooden anniversary" I bought a birdhouse and a set of paints and brushes that we could use together. She got me these great wood-handled steak knives. Just after our "copper anniversary" we finally got around to painting it. Afterward she realized that, if we're going to put it outside, we would need to finish it with a lacquer or shellac to protect the paint. So we stopped in at Lowe's today before our shopping trip at Sam's Club. We found a can of shellac and bought it. On our way out we were passing the entrance door on the outside when a young guy came barreling out pushing a shopping cart with two Dyson vacuum cleaners in it. He almost ran into me. I said, "woah, excuse me" and he just kept charging by. I said, "hey, small child here!" when I noticed Delilah was not stopping to let him go by. I heard him say "sorry" but he kept going. I heard someone else around us say something, either to him or to us, but I c...