Saturday, April 30, 2005
A good memory of my grandma
Let me preface this post by saying that nearly ALL of my memories of my grandma are positive; since she's human and not a saint, she had times when she was out of sorts like everyone else does, but overall she's a good and gentle soul... which makes me wonder how she could have possibly given birth to a warped and uncaring person like my mother.
When I was growing up, my grandmother used to spend most of the summer with us every year; looking back, I'm AMAZED at how good of a job my parents did of not going off the deep end when she was around... oh, they're too psycho to be able to cover it up completely, and she saw enough to form some disparaging opinions, but the sorts of extremes that she would have had to protest, and report back to the rest of the family, never happened in front of her. Since even the non-psycho have less than perfect judgment, though, there WERE a few times that my grandmother DID feel it necessary to intervene, and this is one of them:
My mother had decided at a point fairly early in my childhood that it was absolutely necessary for me to use the electric toothbrush (and I say "the" electric toothbrush because she was too cheap to buy more than one for the household) to be fully cleaning my teeth, so every night I went into my parents' bathroom and brushed my teeth; based on nothing I could ever find out, one day when I was in my teens my father decided that it was somehow problematic for me to be going into "his" room to get to the toothbrush, and my mother, unwilling to give up the idea that I MUST use it, or to simply tell him to stop being an @ss about trivial matters, agreed to semi-appease him by imposing upon me a new laundry-list of restrictions and directives (primarily concerned with what my father might be doing, about to do, or thinking of doing at toothbrushing time, and how I was to plan my actions based on these things... I only WISH I were kidding) that, if enforced, would have made it virtually impossible to brush my teeth without transgressing. She chose her favorite time to drop bombshells on me, right before I went to bed, to tell me this news... but she miscalculated the efficacy of that tactic on this occasion, because my grandmother was in the guest bedroom at the crucial moment, and when my mother gave her spiel as I was emerging from my bathroom, which was right next to that bedroom, it was overheard. For this story, my parents will be "Jane" and "John":
Mother: From now on, when it's time for you to brush your teeth, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. (I've forgotten the actual speech-perhaps that's just as well.)
Grandma (emerging from guestroom): JANE!! Are you out of your mind?!! Why are you giving that child this ridiculous list of rules for brushing her teeth?
Mother (in the contemptuous tone reserved for immediate family members): Mother, nothing has changed.
Me: Oh? That means I don't have to do anything different.
Mother: Yes you do!! You have to blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah {etc}.
Me: Those things are all new, which means that EVERYTHING has changed.
Mother: No, nothing has changed.
Me (stubbornly clinging to logic): If nothing has changed, then I don't have to do anything different.
Mother: Yes you do!! You have to blah blah blah...
Grandma (interrupting): That's ENOUGH!! Why does this child always have to have a thousand rules for every little thing? A child doesn't need ANY rules about the brushing of teeth, so you just forget about all this nonsense.
Mother: Mother, John has decided that he doesn't like her going in there to brush her teeth, so this is necessary to...
Grandma: But Jane, this is NOT necessary; why do you let him get away with being so unreasonable?
Mother: He's going to get hysterical if she's in there when he wants her out, so this way that's avoided.
Grandma: Hysterical over WHAT, that the child needs to brush her teeth? That she needs to be in your room for a couple of minutes? That's crazy!! If you want her to use that toothbrush, you have to let her go in there when it's her bedtime and use it, and that's that; you don't need any of these rules.
Mother: Mother, he doesn't want her in the bedroom when he goes up there.
Grandma: WHY?
Mother: Look, all she has to do is blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah {etc}, and everything will be fine.
Grandma: No it won't-you can't let him dictate like this for such a trivial thing. You tell John that the child needs to brush her teeth, and he can just wait a couple of minutes for her to be done if he comes up right then, and that's the end of it.
Mother: He doesn't want her in the room...
Grandma: But Jane, she goes in there to watch TV, so what's the difference... what harm could she be doing, brushing her teeth?
Mother: Look, Mother, I've already handled this, so...
Grandma: No, I'm sorry, but you can NOT expect the child to remember and follow all these elaborate rules about the brushing of teeth; either she has to go in there and brush them, or you let her take the toothbrush into HER bathroom and bring it back, or else YOU can come upstairs and bring her the brush and take it back if you want to make a production out of it, but you can just forget about these rules.
As she always did the rare times she was thwarted by an adult family member, my mother muttered something unintelligible and dashed away.
The new rules were never enforced, or referred to again; more talk about the earthshatteringly important topic of my brushing my teeth in their bathroom was going on behind the scenes, however, because my mother eventually announced that, contrary to what she'd always claimed was an inarguable requirement, I was no longer going to be using the electric toothbrush... and no, she never used the obvious solution and bought me one of my own, not even as a "gift," because her cheapness was more powerful than her need to believe that my teeth were fully brushed.
The horrified reactions of other adults to the infinitely rule-bound universe my parents had created for me were part of what kept me sane, as they were PROOF of my gut feeling that my parents were far, FAR from normal; the all too rare times that an adult was present at a time when they could intervene directly on my behalf were indescribable in the sense of relief they gave me. Imagine how different my life would have been if I'd had relatives living nearby, such that there were ALWAYS other adults there to intercede when my parents got too psycho...
When I was growing up, my grandmother used to spend most of the summer with us every year; looking back, I'm AMAZED at how good of a job my parents did of not going off the deep end when she was around... oh, they're too psycho to be able to cover it up completely, and she saw enough to form some disparaging opinions, but the sorts of extremes that she would have had to protest, and report back to the rest of the family, never happened in front of her. Since even the non-psycho have less than perfect judgment, though, there WERE a few times that my grandmother DID feel it necessary to intervene, and this is one of them:
My mother had decided at a point fairly early in my childhood that it was absolutely necessary for me to use the electric toothbrush (and I say "the" electric toothbrush because she was too cheap to buy more than one for the household) to be fully cleaning my teeth, so every night I went into my parents' bathroom and brushed my teeth; based on nothing I could ever find out, one day when I was in my teens my father decided that it was somehow problematic for me to be going into "his" room to get to the toothbrush, and my mother, unwilling to give up the idea that I MUST use it, or to simply tell him to stop being an @ss about trivial matters, agreed to semi-appease him by imposing upon me a new laundry-list of restrictions and directives (primarily concerned with what my father might be doing, about to do, or thinking of doing at toothbrushing time, and how I was to plan my actions based on these things... I only WISH I were kidding) that, if enforced, would have made it virtually impossible to brush my teeth without transgressing. She chose her favorite time to drop bombshells on me, right before I went to bed, to tell me this news... but she miscalculated the efficacy of that tactic on this occasion, because my grandmother was in the guest bedroom at the crucial moment, and when my mother gave her spiel as I was emerging from my bathroom, which was right next to that bedroom, it was overheard. For this story, my parents will be "Jane" and "John":
Mother: From now on, when it's time for you to brush your teeth, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. (I've forgotten the actual speech-perhaps that's just as well.)
Grandma (emerging from guestroom): JANE!! Are you out of your mind?!! Why are you giving that child this ridiculous list of rules for brushing her teeth?
Mother (in the contemptuous tone reserved for immediate family members): Mother, nothing has changed.
Me: Oh? That means I don't have to do anything different.
Mother: Yes you do!! You have to blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah {etc}.
Me: Those things are all new, which means that EVERYTHING has changed.
Mother: No, nothing has changed.
Me (stubbornly clinging to logic): If nothing has changed, then I don't have to do anything different.
Mother: Yes you do!! You have to blah blah blah...
Grandma (interrupting): That's ENOUGH!! Why does this child always have to have a thousand rules for every little thing? A child doesn't need ANY rules about the brushing of teeth, so you just forget about all this nonsense.
Mother: Mother, John has decided that he doesn't like her going in there to brush her teeth, so this is necessary to...
Grandma: But Jane, this is NOT necessary; why do you let him get away with being so unreasonable?
Mother: He's going to get hysterical if she's in there when he wants her out, so this way that's avoided.
Grandma: Hysterical over WHAT, that the child needs to brush her teeth? That she needs to be in your room for a couple of minutes? That's crazy!! If you want her to use that toothbrush, you have to let her go in there when it's her bedtime and use it, and that's that; you don't need any of these rules.
Mother: Mother, he doesn't want her in the bedroom when he goes up there.
Grandma: WHY?
Mother: Look, all she has to do is blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah {etc}, and everything will be fine.
Grandma: No it won't-you can't let him dictate like this for such a trivial thing. You tell John that the child needs to brush her teeth, and he can just wait a couple of minutes for her to be done if he comes up right then, and that's the end of it.
Mother: He doesn't want her in the room...
Grandma: But Jane, she goes in there to watch TV, so what's the difference... what harm could she be doing, brushing her teeth?
Mother: Look, Mother, I've already handled this, so...
Grandma: No, I'm sorry, but you can NOT expect the child to remember and follow all these elaborate rules about the brushing of teeth; either she has to go in there and brush them, or you let her take the toothbrush into HER bathroom and bring it back, or else YOU can come upstairs and bring her the brush and take it back if you want to make a production out of it, but you can just forget about these rules.
As she always did the rare times she was thwarted by an adult family member, my mother muttered something unintelligible and dashed away.
The new rules were never enforced, or referred to again; more talk about the earthshatteringly important topic of my brushing my teeth in their bathroom was going on behind the scenes, however, because my mother eventually announced that, contrary to what she'd always claimed was an inarguable requirement, I was no longer going to be using the electric toothbrush... and no, she never used the obvious solution and bought me one of my own, not even as a "gift," because her cheapness was more powerful than her need to believe that my teeth were fully brushed.
The horrified reactions of other adults to the infinitely rule-bound universe my parents had created for me were part of what kept me sane, as they were PROOF of my gut feeling that my parents were far, FAR from normal; the all too rare times that an adult was present at a time when they could intervene directly on my behalf were indescribable in the sense of relief they gave me. Imagine how different my life would have been if I'd had relatives living nearby, such that there were ALWAYS other adults there to intercede when my parents got too psycho...
Friday, April 29, 2005
At LAST, disc 2 of the Nova program on strings
The latest stunt being pulled by the @#$%^&* Blockbuster online rental service is that it's pretty much ignoring the order of the DVD's in the queue and picking at random from the available ones to send; their excuse for this is that it allows them to send those DVD's that their system thinks will reach you the quickest (yes, I ASKED), but that's a less important consideration than being able to see the DVD's you really WANT first, without having to delete all the other available ones and re-insert them after you've gotten the good ones... especially when you've seen disc 1 of a multi-disc set and end up having to wait a month and a half to get disc # 2!! GRRRRRRRRRR
On 3-10-05, I posted about having seen "the first 2 parts of a Nova program, 'The Elegant Universe,' which is dedicated to making string theory understandable to regular people," which were contained on disc 1; now, I've seen the 3rd and final part, and I've learned that:
1) The Einsteinian view of the universe wouldn't allow for wormholes, because it doesn't allow you to tear the "fabric of space" without causing a catastrophe; string theory, in a way they didn't make clear (they have to gloss over alot of stuff that only a theoretical physicist could understand), means that the strings make "tubes" as they move around, and these tubes would somehow encase tears that appear in space and keep them from leading to disaster.
2) NO ONE knows what the "M" in "M-theory" means, including the man who created it, physicist Ed Witten, who jokingly says that it could stand for "Magic, mystery, or matrix, according to taste." Witten demonstrated in 1995 that the alleged 5 different versions of string theory were in fact all just different ways of looking at the exact same thing, and thus that there's only ONE such theory; this is probably why the terms "M-theory" and "string theory" are used interchangeably.
3) The acceptance of M-theory means that 10 dimensions isn't enough; now, we need 11... I KNEW I'd seen both 10 and 11 being used for this topic, and thought maybe there were differing views-I'm glad this got cleared up. This added dimension allows for membranes, or "branes," to exist, which could be so huge that each one is an entire universe, hanging in a higher-dimensional space... and that's where we get the parallel universes. (Do you suppose that spirits might live in one of those "branes"? Are WE the spirits of beings from other branes? Could we move from brane to brane until we get back here, and that's what reincarnation is?)
4) Why does gravity seem so weak compared to all the other forces? It may be that gravity is just as strong as electromagnetism, but doesn't SEEM to be because, unlike the other forces, it might be able to leave our brane, dissipating our perception of it. They think this could be because the strings that make up everything else are open-ended in shape and are "tied down" to our brane, but that the strings of which gravity are made, called "gravitons," are closed circles, and thus NOT tied down and so able to leave the brane. (Would souls be made of closed-circle strings too, then, or are they tied forever to our brane?)
5) The hunt is on for supersymmetry, a central prediction of string theory that says that for every familiar subatomic particle there should exist a much heavier partner called a "sparticle"; the assumption is that they'd be so heavy that they probably couldn't be detected with today's atom smashers, and that's supposedly why they've found no evidence for them yet... which has a little bit of the feel of phlogiston (the non-existent material once believed to be contained in every substance that burned) to me, frankly, but time will tell. The belief that supersymmetry exists was necessary to bring the # of dimensions of string theory down from 26 to 10 (and now 11), and the inclusion of this concept led to the name "SUPERstring theory," which is used interchangeably with "string theory" because they're not looking at the original, non-super ("bosonic") version anymore... although maybe they SHOULD (if they could clear up the tachyon and fermion problems with the original theory some other way), and not be afraid of a huge # of dimensions, which don't seem any worse than new, unseen heavy particles... unless maybe sparticles are dark matter? I just looked it up, and this HAS been thought of... but *I* made the connection withOUT a PhD in theoretical physics. :-)
This Nova series gets the 2 thumbs up from me, and has given me much to think about, especially this new open/closed string idea, which I'm now going to use to try to guess the forms of the various "hidden" kinds of karma. Do you think that closed strings might be able to move around in the "time dimension" in ways we've never thought of, and in particular be responsible for precognition? hmmmmmmmmmmmm
On 3-10-05, I posted about having seen "the first 2 parts of a Nova program, 'The Elegant Universe,' which is dedicated to making string theory understandable to regular people," which were contained on disc 1; now, I've seen the 3rd and final part, and I've learned that:
1) The Einsteinian view of the universe wouldn't allow for wormholes, because it doesn't allow you to tear the "fabric of space" without causing a catastrophe; string theory, in a way they didn't make clear (they have to gloss over alot of stuff that only a theoretical physicist could understand), means that the strings make "tubes" as they move around, and these tubes would somehow encase tears that appear in space and keep them from leading to disaster.
2) NO ONE knows what the "M" in "M-theory" means, including the man who created it, physicist Ed Witten, who jokingly says that it could stand for "Magic, mystery, or matrix, according to taste." Witten demonstrated in 1995 that the alleged 5 different versions of string theory were in fact all just different ways of looking at the exact same thing, and thus that there's only ONE such theory; this is probably why the terms "M-theory" and "string theory" are used interchangeably.
3) The acceptance of M-theory means that 10 dimensions isn't enough; now, we need 11... I KNEW I'd seen both 10 and 11 being used for this topic, and thought maybe there were differing views-I'm glad this got cleared up. This added dimension allows for membranes, or "branes," to exist, which could be so huge that each one is an entire universe, hanging in a higher-dimensional space... and that's where we get the parallel universes. (Do you suppose that spirits might live in one of those "branes"? Are WE the spirits of beings from other branes? Could we move from brane to brane until we get back here, and that's what reincarnation is?)
4) Why does gravity seem so weak compared to all the other forces? It may be that gravity is just as strong as electromagnetism, but doesn't SEEM to be because, unlike the other forces, it might be able to leave our brane, dissipating our perception of it. They think this could be because the strings that make up everything else are open-ended in shape and are "tied down" to our brane, but that the strings of which gravity are made, called "gravitons," are closed circles, and thus NOT tied down and so able to leave the brane. (Would souls be made of closed-circle strings too, then, or are they tied forever to our brane?)
5) The hunt is on for supersymmetry, a central prediction of string theory that says that for every familiar subatomic particle there should exist a much heavier partner called a "sparticle"; the assumption is that they'd be so heavy that they probably couldn't be detected with today's atom smashers, and that's supposedly why they've found no evidence for them yet... which has a little bit of the feel of phlogiston (the non-existent material once believed to be contained in every substance that burned) to me, frankly, but time will tell. The belief that supersymmetry exists was necessary to bring the # of dimensions of string theory down from 26 to 10 (and now 11), and the inclusion of this concept led to the name "SUPERstring theory," which is used interchangeably with "string theory" because they're not looking at the original, non-super ("bosonic") version anymore... although maybe they SHOULD (if they could clear up the tachyon and fermion problems with the original theory some other way), and not be afraid of a huge # of dimensions, which don't seem any worse than new, unseen heavy particles... unless maybe sparticles are dark matter? I just looked it up, and this HAS been thought of... but *I* made the connection withOUT a PhD in theoretical physics. :-)
This Nova series gets the 2 thumbs up from me, and has given me much to think about, especially this new open/closed string idea, which I'm now going to use to try to guess the forms of the various "hidden" kinds of karma. Do you think that closed strings might be able to move around in the "time dimension" in ways we've never thought of, and in particular be responsible for precognition? hmmmmmmmmmmmm
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Do you need a dream?
How about a goal? Or a plan?
Nope.
From the time we're little kids, people are always telling us that we DO need one or the other of these things, because... well, the because is always a little vague, which is a sure sign of a lack of logic to what's being said.
Let's start with the dream; this is supposed to be some BIG thing that you'd like to have, so big that it's presumably beyond your ability to achieve without a miracle, whether it's to live on a luxury yacht, marry a famous hottie, or have a platinum album. I'm all for fantasizing, but why would you HAVE to have ONE such fantasy that's the "official dream"? What benefit does that get you? If your life is so grim that you need a dream to keep you going, I suggest that you stop dreaming and change your life... and in the meantime, have MANY dreams to cheer yourself up-there's nothing magic about having ONE.
A goal, in contrast to a dream, is something beyond what you currently have that you CAN possibly achieve; it's supposed to be something very specific, AND you're supposed to have a specific time frame within which to achieve it (otherwise, it's a fantasy, NOT a goal). It's certainly admirable to want to better yourself or your life, but what does setting a goal get you that you wouldn't have had otherwise? If you do your best at work, for example, that gets you what it gets you when it's available; having a GOAL to get a promotion and/or raise doesn't alter the opinion the higher-ups have of your work, and so doesn't get you those things any faster, or make you more likely to get them at all. It's the same with ANY goal, whether it's to lose weight, save up for a trip, or whatever; all you have to do is do the work, and you'll get where you want to be withOUT having set an actual goal.
What about those people who say that if they don't have that end of the time period that's part of the goal looming over them, they can't keep their motivation up, won't work hard enough, won't make it a priority? To them I say; if something isn't important enough to you that you'll automatically do what it takes to get it in the shortest possible (reasonable) time frame, why bother making a goal about that particular thing? Why not just focus that time and effort on what DOES matter to you?
But what about those that say that if a thing is hard to achieve, playing a mind-game with themselves with a usually-arbitrary time frame (no, they don't use those exact words, but that's what it boils down to) makes them achieve more, more quickly? To them I say; one of the most important life skills is the ability to decide what needs to be done and just DO it, no matter what's going on to distract or tempt you, no matter what you feel, and no matter how hard it is. It used to be that EVERY adult had this ability as a matter of course, so it can't be that hard; just because we've become weak and wimpy compared to earlier generations does NOT mean that we can't still gain that ability, or even that we can make any valid excuse for not having it. If you choose, CHOOSE, to have that sort of dedication to what needs to be done, you can do it; if you decline to make that choice, then you'll spend the rest of your life trying to "trick" yourself into getting things done with goal-setting... and, if you're like most people, failing much of the time.
And that's another problem with goal-setting; it can set you up for failure. If the time frame you choose is less than the time you actually need to get from point A to point B, you'll feel like a failure even though you've in fact made as much progress as you could during that length of time, and so should feel like a success. If you set the goal too FAR in the future, and are using the goal time to motivate you, you'll pace yourself too slowly, because you're going for the goal rather than for making maximum progress, and so will get to point B LATER than you would have if you'd just worked hard with no specific goal. AND, if the goal is something that you can't reach directly, but must depend on the judgment of others for, such as a promotion, getting a record deal, or being allowed to buy an apartment in a fashionable co-op building, you're setting yourself up for extra disappointment if you pretend that you can make it happen by your actions and then don't get it.
And finally, there's the ever more popular concept with the self-styled experts on how we should live our lives; the plan. The usage in this case is that a plan is a description of where you want to be in all areas of your life at various points in the future, which can be as little as a few months away or DECADES away. If someone exists who was able to make such descriptions, and then ended up actually living their life as described when they got there, especially for the longer-term plans, I'd sure like to meet them; I don't know ANYONE whose life turned out like they thought it would no matter WHAT they planned it to be like, and I include myself in that statement... I could NEVER have envisioned my current life at any time earlier on.
Some people will tell you that you "can't" get anywhere in life without dreams, goals and plans; I'm here to tell you that it just ain't so, and *I* am living proof of that. I've gotten everything I could have ever asked out of life and more, more than not just my peers have at this point but more than most people far older than I am have too... and I did it withOUT having a dream, goal or plan, EVER. If there are things YOU want out of life that you haven't got now, and that are within your ability to get, don't DREAM of getting those things, don't set a GOAL to get them, don't PLAN to get them... choose, CHOOSE, to start taking the necessary steps, making the necessary effort, and devoting the necessary time to get you to those things. Forget the mind games that make you feel like you've done something when you haven't; TAKE ACTION... that's what our forebears did to get things done, and it's still all you need to achieve whatever's within your grasp today.
Nope.
From the time we're little kids, people are always telling us that we DO need one or the other of these things, because... well, the because is always a little vague, which is a sure sign of a lack of logic to what's being said.
Let's start with the dream; this is supposed to be some BIG thing that you'd like to have, so big that it's presumably beyond your ability to achieve without a miracle, whether it's to live on a luxury yacht, marry a famous hottie, or have a platinum album. I'm all for fantasizing, but why would you HAVE to have ONE such fantasy that's the "official dream"? What benefit does that get you? If your life is so grim that you need a dream to keep you going, I suggest that you stop dreaming and change your life... and in the meantime, have MANY dreams to cheer yourself up-there's nothing magic about having ONE.
A goal, in contrast to a dream, is something beyond what you currently have that you CAN possibly achieve; it's supposed to be something very specific, AND you're supposed to have a specific time frame within which to achieve it (otherwise, it's a fantasy, NOT a goal). It's certainly admirable to want to better yourself or your life, but what does setting a goal get you that you wouldn't have had otherwise? If you do your best at work, for example, that gets you what it gets you when it's available; having a GOAL to get a promotion and/or raise doesn't alter the opinion the higher-ups have of your work, and so doesn't get you those things any faster, or make you more likely to get them at all. It's the same with ANY goal, whether it's to lose weight, save up for a trip, or whatever; all you have to do is do the work, and you'll get where you want to be withOUT having set an actual goal.
What about those people who say that if they don't have that end of the time period that's part of the goal looming over them, they can't keep their motivation up, won't work hard enough, won't make it a priority? To them I say; if something isn't important enough to you that you'll automatically do what it takes to get it in the shortest possible (reasonable) time frame, why bother making a goal about that particular thing? Why not just focus that time and effort on what DOES matter to you?
But what about those that say that if a thing is hard to achieve, playing a mind-game with themselves with a usually-arbitrary time frame (no, they don't use those exact words, but that's what it boils down to) makes them achieve more, more quickly? To them I say; one of the most important life skills is the ability to decide what needs to be done and just DO it, no matter what's going on to distract or tempt you, no matter what you feel, and no matter how hard it is. It used to be that EVERY adult had this ability as a matter of course, so it can't be that hard; just because we've become weak and wimpy compared to earlier generations does NOT mean that we can't still gain that ability, or even that we can make any valid excuse for not having it. If you choose, CHOOSE, to have that sort of dedication to what needs to be done, you can do it; if you decline to make that choice, then you'll spend the rest of your life trying to "trick" yourself into getting things done with goal-setting... and, if you're like most people, failing much of the time.
And that's another problem with goal-setting; it can set you up for failure. If the time frame you choose is less than the time you actually need to get from point A to point B, you'll feel like a failure even though you've in fact made as much progress as you could during that length of time, and so should feel like a success. If you set the goal too FAR in the future, and are using the goal time to motivate you, you'll pace yourself too slowly, because you're going for the goal rather than for making maximum progress, and so will get to point B LATER than you would have if you'd just worked hard with no specific goal. AND, if the goal is something that you can't reach directly, but must depend on the judgment of others for, such as a promotion, getting a record deal, or being allowed to buy an apartment in a fashionable co-op building, you're setting yourself up for extra disappointment if you pretend that you can make it happen by your actions and then don't get it.
And finally, there's the ever more popular concept with the self-styled experts on how we should live our lives; the plan. The usage in this case is that a plan is a description of where you want to be in all areas of your life at various points in the future, which can be as little as a few months away or DECADES away. If someone exists who was able to make such descriptions, and then ended up actually living their life as described when they got there, especially for the longer-term plans, I'd sure like to meet them; I don't know ANYONE whose life turned out like they thought it would no matter WHAT they planned it to be like, and I include myself in that statement... I could NEVER have envisioned my current life at any time earlier on.
Some people will tell you that you "can't" get anywhere in life without dreams, goals and plans; I'm here to tell you that it just ain't so, and *I* am living proof of that. I've gotten everything I could have ever asked out of life and more, more than not just my peers have at this point but more than most people far older than I am have too... and I did it withOUT having a dream, goal or plan, EVER. If there are things YOU want out of life that you haven't got now, and that are within your ability to get, don't DREAM of getting those things, don't set a GOAL to get them, don't PLAN to get them... choose, CHOOSE, to start taking the necessary steps, making the necessary effort, and devoting the necessary time to get you to those things. Forget the mind games that make you feel like you've done something when you haven't; TAKE ACTION... that's what our forebears did to get things done, and it's still all you need to achieve whatever's within your grasp today.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
"Fashiontrance"
No, that's not a typo, it's the name of my new favorite show, courtesy of one of the many new channels I got with digital cable, Style Network:
http://www.stylenetwork.com/Shows/Fashiontrance/
We're so obsessed with the trashy and the trendy in this country that there aren't many places to see actual FASHION, in fact I mostly only see the good stuff in Vogue (which will only give a few selected looks from any show it covers, but is FAR better than nothing), so ANY fashion-themed TV show is going to be interesting to me; the problem with fashion TV, though, is that usually it's just a few precious minutes of actual looking at models on the runway, overlaid with the ceaseless yapping of the host, and the rest of it is interview clips with models, journalists, and random people who were at the shows babbling about what they saw... it's MADDENING. "Fashiontrance" was therefore a revelation to me; there was an opening graphic sequence with the name of the show, then, to the tune of low-key techno music, they started showing the first designer's runway show... and showed it... and showed it!! No cutting away after 5 seconds to show interviews, no host talking over it, just the models stomping up and down the runway one after the other, showing, probably not the entire collection of any of the designers, but a whole bunch of looks, with the only distraction being little bits of trivia showing up in text boxes, which was unnecessary and a tad disconcerting but really a small price to pay for being able to spend an entire hour looking at cutting-edge clothes.
How did they come up with an idea like this, to just show something going on with no commentary... I mean, for other than a porn movie? Who had the balls/ovaries to stand up and say, "Let's make an hour-long show with nothing but footage from the collections and a soundtrack?". Whoever thought of it, my hat's off to you (or would be if I HAD a hat); I sat here with my mouth hanging open, salivating madly (yeah, it got messy, lol) over fab outfit after fab outfit... it was by far my best fashion experience to date.
As always, there was some stuff that was creative but unwearable (sometimes even by the models), some of it was too basic to really count as fashion, and some of it was weird, clunky and ugly... but most of it was GREAT, especially the offerings of Donatella Versace and David Rodriguez. The coolest stuff I saw included: a long red dress trimmed with black leather, with gloves and knee-high boots also of black leather, jackets with long sleeves slit to the elbows, chic suits with just-below-the-elbow sleeves worn with long leather gloves, dresses with little slashes all over that from a distance looked like the cloth was patterned, dresses with the upper parts made of glittering embroidered mesh, a long red dress with a bunch of small flounces from the knee down that fluttered seductively with each step... ahhhhhhhh, it was a lovely show. :-)
http://www.stylenetwork.com/Shows/Fashiontrance/
We're so obsessed with the trashy and the trendy in this country that there aren't many places to see actual FASHION, in fact I mostly only see the good stuff in Vogue (which will only give a few selected looks from any show it covers, but is FAR better than nothing), so ANY fashion-themed TV show is going to be interesting to me; the problem with fashion TV, though, is that usually it's just a few precious minutes of actual looking at models on the runway, overlaid with the ceaseless yapping of the host, and the rest of it is interview clips with models, journalists, and random people who were at the shows babbling about what they saw... it's MADDENING. "Fashiontrance" was therefore a revelation to me; there was an opening graphic sequence with the name of the show, then, to the tune of low-key techno music, they started showing the first designer's runway show... and showed it... and showed it!! No cutting away after 5 seconds to show interviews, no host talking over it, just the models stomping up and down the runway one after the other, showing, probably not the entire collection of any of the designers, but a whole bunch of looks, with the only distraction being little bits of trivia showing up in text boxes, which was unnecessary and a tad disconcerting but really a small price to pay for being able to spend an entire hour looking at cutting-edge clothes.
How did they come up with an idea like this, to just show something going on with no commentary... I mean, for other than a porn movie? Who had the balls/ovaries to stand up and say, "Let's make an hour-long show with nothing but footage from the collections and a soundtrack?". Whoever thought of it, my hat's off to you (or would be if I HAD a hat); I sat here with my mouth hanging open, salivating madly (yeah, it got messy, lol) over fab outfit after fab outfit... it was by far my best fashion experience to date.
As always, there was some stuff that was creative but unwearable (sometimes even by the models), some of it was too basic to really count as fashion, and some of it was weird, clunky and ugly... but most of it was GREAT, especially the offerings of Donatella Versace and David Rodriguez. The coolest stuff I saw included: a long red dress trimmed with black leather, with gloves and knee-high boots also of black leather, jackets with long sleeves slit to the elbows, chic suits with just-below-the-elbow sleeves worn with long leather gloves, dresses with little slashes all over that from a distance looked like the cloth was patterned, dresses with the upper parts made of glittering embroidered mesh, a long red dress with a bunch of small flounces from the knee down that fluttered seductively with each step... ahhhhhhhh, it was a lovely show. :-)
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
The sexuality of doctors
Why do we believe that doctors never have sexual feelings for even the most gorgeous patients that they're seeing totally naked and touching in intimate ways?
WHY?
Can YOU turn your sexual feelings totally off, or even PARTIALLY off, like flipping a switch? No? Then why do we all believe that DOCTORS can do so, other than that we WANT to believe that because we have no choice but to endure being examined by them? Are doctors not human? What exactly do we convince ourselves that they do to doctors to make this magic possible for them? Are they brainwashed, or hypnotized, or subjected to some sort of treatment that's kept a secret from all non-doctors that allows them to not have the normal and very powerful biological reaction everyone else has to the presence of, not to mention physical contact with, a gorgeous person of their gender(s) of preference? If we can't come up with a procedure by which they'd learn to shut off their sexual feelings (and why do we assume they'd all WANT to do so, when doctors are no more pure and virtuous than the rest of us?), what reason is there to assume that such a procedure exists?
Granted, the mere fact that a doctor will see countless naked people, most of whom are FAR from attractive, will eliminate the ridiculous over-reaction we in this culture have to nudity because we so rarely see it in person other than with our lovers... EVENTUALLY. Do you honestly think that the first time a horny young male intern sees a naked woman who isn't either very old or very ugly, he feels NOTHING? For all that women are less visually stimulated (supposedly) on the average than men, I'm betting that female interns have some significant non-doctorish feelings as well... how can they NOT? They SAY they don't, and we hold doctors, even wet-behind-the-ears ones, in such high esteem, since they literally have the power of life and death over us, that we believe them... but we shouldn't, especially since, despite the existence of patients MOLESTED by doctors, the medical profession never admits that ANY doctor might fail to have achieved this perfectly non-sexual attitude towards patients by the time they graduate medical school, or, having gained it, ever have a lapse under any circumstances. Since even we non-doctors are all perfectly aware that it's not POSSIBLE for people to be given such perfect programming about ANYTHING, much less concerning the most powerful drive in the human body, we have to realize something else here; not only are their claims wrong, they're being knowingly dishonest, not to mention somewhat contemptuous of US (not an unfamiliar attitude from doctors, sadly)... and the fact that they ARE undoubtedly doing it to make patients feel less uncomfortable as well as to make themselves look more godlike doesn't change the reality of it.
Is it possible for doctors to ever get to the point of having NO reaction to the nudity of average people? Sure. People in so-called "primitive" cultures where nudity is an everyday thing do NOT go around having "woohoo baby" reactions to every non-ugly body they see, so I think we CAN assume that doctors of both genders DO reach the point that most nudity is a matter of indifference to them; I maintain, though, that the likelihood that they could ever, EVER, have a hottie of whatever type would make their hormones surge under any other circumstances walk into their office and have NO sexual response to them at all just because they're a patient, especially once they're naked, is... ZERO. They undoubtedly learn to hide it, suppress it, fight it, and ignore it to some extent, but gain the ability to turn their sexual feelings totally OFF... and then turn them ON at the end of the day when they go home to their partners, let's not forget THAT part of the myth... not a chance.
In the not so long ago days, all doctors were men, and all presumed to be straight; men as a rule have no problem with being seen nude by other men, so they had no worries about doctors, and women would have been seeing male doctors their entire lives, and so were used to it and accepted it. Once women started becoming doctors on more than a one in a million basis, though, there was a choice, and people started thinking; plenty of men decided they were totally unwilling to be examined by a woman, and there's hardly a one who wouldn't be at least a little bit uncomfortable about it (which was the end of people being automatically willing to go to opposite-sex doctors), and many women decided that they prefer to see a female doctor, or even insist on it... don't you suppose that the issue of the possible sexual feelings of the doctors was part of these decisions, if only on a subconscious level? If your answer to that is "no," ask yourself this, and maybe ask some friends of both genders for a broader perspective; would you be willing to go to a doctor of your gender who was GAY? Anyone who answers "no" to THAT question, or has any hesitation at all (which most people will), and doesn't have some sort of fear or hatred of gays, can ONLY be responding to the idea that the doctor might look at them in a sexual manner... proof that folks are finally wising up to the idea that getting handed a diploma from a medical school does NOT radically alter a person's biological nature, and that we've been a little too quick to believe that doctors turn their sexualities off like light bulbs when they see us naked.
WHY?
Can YOU turn your sexual feelings totally off, or even PARTIALLY off, like flipping a switch? No? Then why do we all believe that DOCTORS can do so, other than that we WANT to believe that because we have no choice but to endure being examined by them? Are doctors not human? What exactly do we convince ourselves that they do to doctors to make this magic possible for them? Are they brainwashed, or hypnotized, or subjected to some sort of treatment that's kept a secret from all non-doctors that allows them to not have the normal and very powerful biological reaction everyone else has to the presence of, not to mention physical contact with, a gorgeous person of their gender(s) of preference? If we can't come up with a procedure by which they'd learn to shut off their sexual feelings (and why do we assume they'd all WANT to do so, when doctors are no more pure and virtuous than the rest of us?), what reason is there to assume that such a procedure exists?
Granted, the mere fact that a doctor will see countless naked people, most of whom are FAR from attractive, will eliminate the ridiculous over-reaction we in this culture have to nudity because we so rarely see it in person other than with our lovers... EVENTUALLY. Do you honestly think that the first time a horny young male intern sees a naked woman who isn't either very old or very ugly, he feels NOTHING? For all that women are less visually stimulated (supposedly) on the average than men, I'm betting that female interns have some significant non-doctorish feelings as well... how can they NOT? They SAY they don't, and we hold doctors, even wet-behind-the-ears ones, in such high esteem, since they literally have the power of life and death over us, that we believe them... but we shouldn't, especially since, despite the existence of patients MOLESTED by doctors, the medical profession never admits that ANY doctor might fail to have achieved this perfectly non-sexual attitude towards patients by the time they graduate medical school, or, having gained it, ever have a lapse under any circumstances. Since even we non-doctors are all perfectly aware that it's not POSSIBLE for people to be given such perfect programming about ANYTHING, much less concerning the most powerful drive in the human body, we have to realize something else here; not only are their claims wrong, they're being knowingly dishonest, not to mention somewhat contemptuous of US (not an unfamiliar attitude from doctors, sadly)... and the fact that they ARE undoubtedly doing it to make patients feel less uncomfortable as well as to make themselves look more godlike doesn't change the reality of it.
Is it possible for doctors to ever get to the point of having NO reaction to the nudity of average people? Sure. People in so-called "primitive" cultures where nudity is an everyday thing do NOT go around having "woohoo baby" reactions to every non-ugly body they see, so I think we CAN assume that doctors of both genders DO reach the point that most nudity is a matter of indifference to them; I maintain, though, that the likelihood that they could ever, EVER, have a hottie of whatever type would make their hormones surge under any other circumstances walk into their office and have NO sexual response to them at all just because they're a patient, especially once they're naked, is... ZERO. They undoubtedly learn to hide it, suppress it, fight it, and ignore it to some extent, but gain the ability to turn their sexual feelings totally OFF... and then turn them ON at the end of the day when they go home to their partners, let's not forget THAT part of the myth... not a chance.
In the not so long ago days, all doctors were men, and all presumed to be straight; men as a rule have no problem with being seen nude by other men, so they had no worries about doctors, and women would have been seeing male doctors their entire lives, and so were used to it and accepted it. Once women started becoming doctors on more than a one in a million basis, though, there was a choice, and people started thinking; plenty of men decided they were totally unwilling to be examined by a woman, and there's hardly a one who wouldn't be at least a little bit uncomfortable about it (which was the end of people being automatically willing to go to opposite-sex doctors), and many women decided that they prefer to see a female doctor, or even insist on it... don't you suppose that the issue of the possible sexual feelings of the doctors was part of these decisions, if only on a subconscious level? If your answer to that is "no," ask yourself this, and maybe ask some friends of both genders for a broader perspective; would you be willing to go to a doctor of your gender who was GAY? Anyone who answers "no" to THAT question, or has any hesitation at all (which most people will), and doesn't have some sort of fear or hatred of gays, can ONLY be responding to the idea that the doctor might look at them in a sexual manner... proof that folks are finally wising up to the idea that getting handed a diploma from a medical school does NOT radically alter a person's biological nature, and that we've been a little too quick to believe that doctors turn their sexualities off like light bulbs when they see us naked.
Monday, April 25, 2005
"Let peace be your umpire"
That dazzling quote comes courtesy of Joel Osteen; what he means by it is that God will give you a feeling of peace if you're making the best choices, and you can use that feeling, or its lack, to tell you whether or not you're doing the right thing. In his sermon tonight, he described how you'll get some sort of bad feeling when you're about to do or decide something that's, not even necessarily detrimental, but even sub-optimal; he asserts that God wants you to make the best possible choice for every occasion, and will thus use feelings of peace, and of unease, to direct you to the ideal path... all you have to do is consult your feelings and obey their meanings.
I don't believe in God (nor do I DISbelieve in Him), and I've seen no evidence that anyone always makes the perfect choices when viewed with hindsight, but I've certainly had what most people would call "gut feelings" about things in advance, feelings not based on or backed up by the facts as I knew them, but which turned out to be accurate; many people have these feelings at least some of the time, and, although I think they're often based on subliminal clues we've picked up from people involved in whatever we're doing, there are also plenty of times that the feelings come seemingly out of a clear blue sky... and they're in effect a form of precognition, as they constitute knowing in advance whether something would turn out well or badly, or even for the best or 2nd-best.
I'm fascinated that, once again, Osteen has preached about something that's not in line with the teachings of traditional Christianity, but perfectly in line with my concept of how the engine of karma works; yes, he attributes everything to God, but he's clearly describing personal experience of how the universe actually works (and he almost always DOES use an example from his own life) and forcing it into the mold of his religion rather than making the all-important step of just accepting that the energies he perceives at work are what's definitely real, not his deity (who might in theory be the creator of karma, but there's no proof of that), and that there's no need to add an extra layer of explanation for what he perceives... not surprising for a man who's a pastor and the son of a pastor.
I'm such a high-strung and anxious person, programmed by my mother to not just envision but EXPECT worst-case scenarios, that I don't think I'd have much luck searching my emotions for feelings of unease from an external source as part of my decision-making process, but I'll try to notice if I'm getting any actual "at peace" feelings when I DON'T feel any anxiety; if this sort of low-grade precognition IS going on on a regular basis, that'd probably say something about the nature of time and of karma... I dunno what yet, but it'll be intriguing to contemplate.
I don't believe in God (nor do I DISbelieve in Him), and I've seen no evidence that anyone always makes the perfect choices when viewed with hindsight, but I've certainly had what most people would call "gut feelings" about things in advance, feelings not based on or backed up by the facts as I knew them, but which turned out to be accurate; many people have these feelings at least some of the time, and, although I think they're often based on subliminal clues we've picked up from people involved in whatever we're doing, there are also plenty of times that the feelings come seemingly out of a clear blue sky... and they're in effect a form of precognition, as they constitute knowing in advance whether something would turn out well or badly, or even for the best or 2nd-best.
I'm fascinated that, once again, Osteen has preached about something that's not in line with the teachings of traditional Christianity, but perfectly in line with my concept of how the engine of karma works; yes, he attributes everything to God, but he's clearly describing personal experience of how the universe actually works (and he almost always DOES use an example from his own life) and forcing it into the mold of his religion rather than making the all-important step of just accepting that the energies he perceives at work are what's definitely real, not his deity (who might in theory be the creator of karma, but there's no proof of that), and that there's no need to add an extra layer of explanation for what he perceives... not surprising for a man who's a pastor and the son of a pastor.
I'm such a high-strung and anxious person, programmed by my mother to not just envision but EXPECT worst-case scenarios, that I don't think I'd have much luck searching my emotions for feelings of unease from an external source as part of my decision-making process, but I'll try to notice if I'm getting any actual "at peace" feelings when I DON'T feel any anxiety; if this sort of low-grade precognition IS going on on a regular basis, that'd probably say something about the nature of time and of karma... I dunno what yet, but it'll be intriguing to contemplate.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Non-blog blogging trends
If you spend alot of time hitting the "next blog" button like I do, you've probably noticed that there are an increasing # of blogs that are totally at odds with the whole concept of blogging:
First, there are the "blogs" that... let's just say that if there was such a thing as a spam blog, these wastes of space would qualify. You know the ones I mean; the commercial "blogs," in which the "posts" are either advertisements or URL's to where a specific category of things can be purchased. Mortgage loans and insurance make up the content of the lion's share of these "blogs," but I've seen plenty for vacation packages, contact lenses, jewelry, investments, and LAWYERS; can you imagine anyone choosing a lawyer from a one-line post promising to get them reimbursement for... anything? Also in this category are the porn "blogs," most of which are only "teasers" for PAY sites, that assault your unsuspecting eyes with graphic images; just what the parents of blogging teens want their kids stumbling onto. Not only are these sites fundamentally worthless, you can't really call them blogs even though the info they provide IS put forth in a series of posts rather than arranged in a more traditional website layout, because ads and porn pics have nothing to do with what blogging's about.
Then, there are an amazing # of blogs used by teachers and professors to pass info or assignments to their students, and even to have them post their homework on; I've also seen a slew of blogs that individual students use to post their homework on. I'm as pleased as anyone else when any sort of technology is used to facilitate education, but what has that got to do with blogging? It's almost as impersonal as the advertising sites, really.
Lastly, there are some that you WON'T find via the "next blog" button, because they all have their own domains; nearly all of the biggest blogs, the ones that get tens or hundreds of thousands of hits per DAY, the ones that get quoted on CNN, center on politics. I think that those bloggers often provide a useful service by collecting information, perhaps analyzing it, and usually giving people a forum to discuss it, but that's not really blogging, any more than, say, being a newscaster is acting, although both newscasters and actors appear on TV shows and read lines written by other people in the way they're told to read them. (Note; this is NOT meant to apply to the NON-gigantic political blogs, which generally are done in a way that gives you the feeling of talking politics with a person rather than reading a newspaper column, and thus ARE blogs in the truest sense.)
Blogging was originally a way for folks to give whoever might be curious a glimpse into their lives, their interests, their heads, even their hearts, in other words a way for them to share of themselves with others; if you check through the various online dictionaries, some of them very specifically define blogs to be about people's lives, hobbies, and thoughts. I'm sure most of us would agree that, now that blogging has evolved and spread to all sorts of people, that definition is narrower than it should be, because there are lots of things that people like to share with others that aren't really "personal," and thus there are many terrific blogs featuring unusual stuff in the news, cool things to do online, discussions of topics and ideas, poking fun at celebs, and the like, rather than being specifically focused on the personal, but does that mean that EVERYTHING has to be squeezed into a blog format, or called a blog just because it follows that most basic form, that of having dated entries, but isn't following the substance, the SPIRIT, of blogging?
The blogosphere is currently fashionable, even faddish; eventually, though, the majority of people will tire of the idea that every single person is supposed to have a site that's meant to have regular entries, which is alot of work, and will go back to having basic websites with whatever they think is important to say about themselves that they can create and then mostly ignore, or just give up entirely the idea that everyone has to have a URL of a site that's theirs to give to people, and move onto the next online fad... sharing cellphone videos, maybe? When that happens, I hope there are still plenty of people who want to post about their favorite and least favorite things, pass along useful or entertaining bits of info, review the movies they go to and the CD's they buy, share their art, poetry, opinions, favorite jokes, stories and recipes, post the URL's to helpful sites, describe what they bought at the mall or even at the grocery store, analyze their dreams, dish about their relationships, post pics of their kids, pets and gardens, rant on about whatever's most important to them, reveal what's going on in their day to day existence and in their minds, and otherwise give us access to the stuff that normally only their friends and the other people in their lives get to enjoy, because that, THAT, is real blogging... one of the coolest things that the internet has ever given us.
First, there are the "blogs" that... let's just say that if there was such a thing as a spam blog, these wastes of space would qualify. You know the ones I mean; the commercial "blogs," in which the "posts" are either advertisements or URL's to where a specific category of things can be purchased. Mortgage loans and insurance make up the content of the lion's share of these "blogs," but I've seen plenty for vacation packages, contact lenses, jewelry, investments, and LAWYERS; can you imagine anyone choosing a lawyer from a one-line post promising to get them reimbursement for... anything? Also in this category are the porn "blogs," most of which are only "teasers" for PAY sites, that assault your unsuspecting eyes with graphic images; just what the parents of blogging teens want their kids stumbling onto. Not only are these sites fundamentally worthless, you can't really call them blogs even though the info they provide IS put forth in a series of posts rather than arranged in a more traditional website layout, because ads and porn pics have nothing to do with what blogging's about.
Then, there are an amazing # of blogs used by teachers and professors to pass info or assignments to their students, and even to have them post their homework on; I've also seen a slew of blogs that individual students use to post their homework on. I'm as pleased as anyone else when any sort of technology is used to facilitate education, but what has that got to do with blogging? It's almost as impersonal as the advertising sites, really.
Lastly, there are some that you WON'T find via the "next blog" button, because they all have their own domains; nearly all of the biggest blogs, the ones that get tens or hundreds of thousands of hits per DAY, the ones that get quoted on CNN, center on politics. I think that those bloggers often provide a useful service by collecting information, perhaps analyzing it, and usually giving people a forum to discuss it, but that's not really blogging, any more than, say, being a newscaster is acting, although both newscasters and actors appear on TV shows and read lines written by other people in the way they're told to read them. (Note; this is NOT meant to apply to the NON-gigantic political blogs, which generally are done in a way that gives you the feeling of talking politics with a person rather than reading a newspaper column, and thus ARE blogs in the truest sense.)
Blogging was originally a way for folks to give whoever might be curious a glimpse into their lives, their interests, their heads, even their hearts, in other words a way for them to share of themselves with others; if you check through the various online dictionaries, some of them very specifically define blogs to be about people's lives, hobbies, and thoughts. I'm sure most of us would agree that, now that blogging has evolved and spread to all sorts of people, that definition is narrower than it should be, because there are lots of things that people like to share with others that aren't really "personal," and thus there are many terrific blogs featuring unusual stuff in the news, cool things to do online, discussions of topics and ideas, poking fun at celebs, and the like, rather than being specifically focused on the personal, but does that mean that EVERYTHING has to be squeezed into a blog format, or called a blog just because it follows that most basic form, that of having dated entries, but isn't following the substance, the SPIRIT, of blogging?
The blogosphere is currently fashionable, even faddish; eventually, though, the majority of people will tire of the idea that every single person is supposed to have a site that's meant to have regular entries, which is alot of work, and will go back to having basic websites with whatever they think is important to say about themselves that they can create and then mostly ignore, or just give up entirely the idea that everyone has to have a URL of a site that's theirs to give to people, and move onto the next online fad... sharing cellphone videos, maybe? When that happens, I hope there are still plenty of people who want to post about their favorite and least favorite things, pass along useful or entertaining bits of info, review the movies they go to and the CD's they buy, share their art, poetry, opinions, favorite jokes, stories and recipes, post the URL's to helpful sites, describe what they bought at the mall or even at the grocery store, analyze their dreams, dish about their relationships, post pics of their kids, pets and gardens, rant on about whatever's most important to them, reveal what's going on in their day to day existence and in their minds, and otherwise give us access to the stuff that normally only their friends and the other people in their lives get to enjoy, because that, THAT, is real blogging... one of the coolest things that the internet has ever given us.
