WonderBlog

I finally visited Descanso Gardens. Chris has been bugging me to do this for a long time, maybe the entire year I've been here. It's not that I didn't want to, it's just having the time and energy.

For both of us.

Today, we went at last. It was so beautiful! The Rosarium, and the Camellia forest, and the Japanese tea house with Bamboo. We saw so many flowers! There is also an audobon bird observatory, where they provide a telescope to look at birds that are far away.

We looked to see an Egret, with long black, knock-kneed legs.

There was a waterfall, in the middle of the redwoody and ferny part. Later on, we saw some extremely placid deer, who kindly let us take a lot of pictures of them. We were respectful and did not make sudden movements, but even so, they were extremely patient.

at the end of our three or four hours there, we decided to join. That way we get in free for a year. We had to pay their fee, but it is so close to where I live, that I think it will be worth my while.

We didn't even see half of it.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:52 PM | Permalink

This recall of the California Governor has us thinking about the ridiculousness of politics.

I have other reasons to think about politics:
PERSONAL politics

Things can get so scary so fast between people. Misunderstandings build up and then become an impenetrable wall.

Sometimes you can walk away.
Sometimes you can't.

I try to go back, chase the tangled ends of the thread. What happened? What went wrong? What did _I_ do, so I don't do it again?

HOW can I fix it?

When I was younger, I was convinced that I would be able to fix these things. That I would work HARD and FIND the problem and MAKE IT RIGHT.

As I get older, I realize that what I had formerly thought of as apathy in those around me was not quite that. To state it right out:
Sometimes, you just have to let things go, do nothing and let time ease you past.

Because that can really work sometimes! Amazing how so little effort can actually result in a big payoff.

But it doesn't work all the time.

So I'm back to pulling on the threads of the knotty problem.
Do I leave it alone?
Or do I worry it a bit longer?

I don't know.

What I _do_ know is that I've run across this problem before. And I also know that if you see a problem twice, the thing that is the same about those two problems is YOU. So what have I done to cause this problem?

was I just worrying it again?

These things make me so uncomfortable.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:16 PM | Permalink

Carpe Diem and Rock and Roll!

Eric Olsen had reason to metion John Donne while talking about the Rolling Stones, the Spirit of Rock'n'Roll and Living Life fully to the end.

I am a fan of John Donne, so I thought I would take up the thread and say a little more on the subject.

Remember the Movie, Dead Poets Society? I can't remember exactly, but the super-cool English teacher teaches the boys the meaning of Carpe Diem-Sieze the Day! He says it was the poets anthem.

It was the anthem of a certain SCHOOL of poets, not all poets. They were the Cavalier poets, or the Metaphysical poets. And that other thing that Robin Williams said, that the real reason for poetry was to woo women, was really true of these guys.

That was almost all they did. They came right AFTER SHakespeare, and were constantly writing poems to get the ladies to give it up. But it was part of their Credo, Live now! Live large!

Sounds a lot like Rock'n'Roll to me.

Check out this bit by Donne:
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind

Remind you of anyone? Dylan? Hendrix?

When John Donne is young, he pretty much devotes himself to pursuit of chasing tail. His poems are almost entirely seduction poems.

But he gets older. He passes 30. And he gets religious.

But he doesn't leave it behind. "It" being the passionate intensity. If you ask me, and maybe it's because I'm a jaded female who is not impressed with seduction attempts, the religious poems are much more powerful than his earlier carnal works.

Here is my favorite:

Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

The driving energy of that is just as much as a head-banging drum line or a squealing guitar riff. Rock on, John Donne!

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:29 AM | Permalink

You know how when you were young, you came up with all kinds of "in" words for things.

I remember we came up with all kinds of strange meaning for the colors of M&Ms. Green was supposed to have aphrodisiac powers. If you offered a green M&M to the young man of your dreams, and he accepted, it was a potent love spell.

I think the guys were completely unaware of this.

I knew one guy who referred to overly available women as puppies. Have no idea where that came from. It took him a long time to tell me that what he meant when he called a girl a puppy.

Weetzie Bat, by Fransceca Lia Block, takes that to an extreme. This very L.A. book is for young adults, a sort of fantasy coming-of-age story where there are special words to mean everything, and of COURSE everything works out in the end.

It was cute. I started reading it in the bookstore, and could have finished it there. But I was honest and bought the darn thing. It made the world feel very exciting and possible.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:26 PM | Permalink

I spent the weekend at the California State fair. I love the fair! I was a little 4-Her when I was young. I had pigs, cows, rabbits and a big dog.

Not all at the same time.

But I would take my animal to the fair and put it in the show and see if I could win something. When you take your animal to the fair, you have to stay and take care of it. So I would be there all week long taking care of my crittur and seeing all the sights.

I got to see everything, since I was there all week. Because I was exhibiting, I got it free!

Fairs are pretty much as good as the community they are in make them. I thought that the state fair would be much larger than the Los Angeles County Fair, which I visited last year.

It really wasn't, but it was pretty good. I saw a 600 pound performing pig, I learned how to milk a cow or a goat. I saw bunnies and cows. No pigs or sheep though. They were the week before.

We were all looking for the Deep Fried Twinkies, but they had vanished. My brother saw Deep Fried Oreos, though.

I settled for Funnel Cake.

The food at the fair seemed to be anything "on a stick." There was Catfish on a stick, frozen cheesecake dipped in chocolate on a stick, chinese food on a stick.

This made us consider how you could put other kinds of food on a stick. I thought that a yarn-like skien of noodles would be good.

Then, the problem of how to make nachos on a stick was tackled: make it a thick stick, with a plunger that could be used to push up the cheese sauce onto the tortilla chips, which would be arranged around the stick like a pine tree.

Next year, we'll need a booth.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This collection of short stories, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, blows me away. The author is an Indian female living in my old neighborhood, the San Francisco Bay area. The stories talk about husbands, children, work, school, love and ambition. They are the most modern feminine stories I have ever read.

Maybe it's because the idea of an arranged marriage strips away the necessary "happily-ever-after" fairy tale we have in the west, maybe because the Indian women feel the pull of family and children so strongly..I don't know. Maybe we have heard the feminist views here in america so long that our sincere concern for children and mothers and brothers as equally important to our personal ambition feels like a guilty secret.

The emphasis on societal pressures reminds me a lot of Jane Austen. That, and the very pragmatic view of marriage. Let's be real, kids. Marriage is very much a practical affair. Love waxes and wanes, but the solidity of married life has to remain.

I find this book affirms the real details of female life. The scariness of having children, or not having them. The struggle to evolve as a person without disrupting the lives of your loved ones. Others' expectations of you, and your expectations for yourself.

The stories are beautiful, utterly practical, and haunting.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:28 PM | Permalink

My new bus route is a little scarier than the old one. It starts out in a nice area (the area where I live..Imagine! me in a nice area!) but then heads off into the hinterlands of silverlake and echo park.

There are more interesting specimens of humanity on this route. Last week, there was a pungent gentleman with a huge growth on his thigh. I'm sorry, but it made me ill. I couldn't even look at him. The thing was, though, he was yakking up a storm with the driver. Hard to ignore.

Yesterday, on the way home, the bus was really full. People were getting on and off, and sometimes people had to stand. There was a beautiful older Asian woman holding onto the rail at one point. I thought, Maybe I should stand up and let her have my seat. But then I realized that the seat next to me was empty anyway. She could sit if she wanted to.

And then she did. She sat right next to me. And she turned to me, trying very hard with all the small bit of English she could muster, asking if I knew Jesus.

I stifled a spasm of laughter, and told her yes, I did.

"Are you go to Heaven when you die?"

"I hope so," I told her.

That was chink enough in my armor! She plunged in with her evangelical message. God Bless her, she was extremely earnest, if rather unintelligible.

Don't you love that evangelical certitude that they are hell-proof? 100% inspected, guaranteed brimstone- and hellfire-free, just sign on the dotted line. Extra credit and jewels in your celestial crown if you can shed a tear or two.

I remember beginning those witnessing classes when I was 14. Evangelism courses at the church on weekday nights, teaching us to be brave and uninhibited about butting in on people. They had pre-fab answers for ALL the possible excuses people gave for not asking Jesus into their hearts.

Each excuse had a folded tract explaining and dismissing it. Things like, "What about all the pygmies in Africa who haven't heard about Jesus? Are they going to hell?" Of course! and here's a tract about it.

Most of the questions in the set of tracts were ones I'd never thought of. I was a little worried about them, for a minute or two. But then I had much bigger things to be worried about-I actually had to approach strangers and wrangle them into saying the Jesus prayer.

Years later, I would run into these "Are you going to Heaven?" roadblocks. I thought I should give them a little thrill. Ever hear of a secret shopper? The random customer that goes to the stores and checks out the customer service? I was the secret sinner!

I'd give these evangelical wannabees a line they shouldn't be able to refuse, "So, if I wanted to become a Christian, what would I have to do?"

They would wig out. "Umm...Um...You should read this..!"

"Well, okay, but can't you just tell me?"

"You should come to our meetings, they could explain it a lot better."

Both these things went along with the same training I'd recieved: push out literature, and get them to come to church. But I was disappointed, why didn't they try to move in for the kill? It was humiliating to know that I was probably as inept a missionary as they were.

I had actually realized this at the time. In the middle of trying to evangelize my hometown, I figured out that this was not the way to do it. Mostly, my efforts were rebuffed, and the very few times I managed to "lead someone to the Lord," we would smile blissfully at one another for a moment afterwards and never see them again. "Hey it was nice to meet ya! See you in Heaven!"

It was so not fair! How did they get off so easy? I had to go to church and give up worldly things all the time. THEY just got off scot free. Happy on their merry way.

I had my doubts about that being all there was. Did it count, if you just said a prayer once, and then lived your life no different?

Besides, it seemed wrong to just walk up to strangers. Shouldn't we be friends with people? Show them love and be involved in their lives? Why should they listen to a total stranger? We lacked credibility, I thought.

The evangelism class instructors admitted that "friendship evangelism" was the most effective kind. But that put me in a bind-I wasn't allowed to know anybody that wasn't a Christian.

Back to the mall with my wallet of tracts. That is, until I gave up on the whole idea as flawed. Tracts weren't in the bible! Knocking on the doors of people's home and staying completely uninvolved with their lives was wrong.

That still didn't mean I was allowed to make friends with them. Because they would drag me down into their sinful ways. One bad apple makes all the rest rotten! Despite my protestations, I was defenseless before the evil lure of the world.

It's been a while since I've been witenessed to. I almost thought it had gone out of style. I asked the woman on the bus where she was from.

"Korea!" she said.

"Where do you go to church?" I asked.

"Presbyterian."

"Which presbyterian?"

It took a while for her to understand what I meant. She at last told me it was a presbyterian church on Wilshire.

After a moment more of her discussing the perils of sin and death, I tried to let her off the hook. I told her I'd known about Jesus for a long time, ever since I was a child.

"You go to church?"

"yes!" I said.

"Presbyterian or Baptist?"

I wonder why she picked those two denominations in particular? I told her Orthodox, which did not satisfy her. She gave me a japanime-looking cartoon tract which spelled out exactly what I needed to do to go to heaven. She had a selection of several languages.

I read it as she sat next to me silently. It was hard not to laugh out loud. The girl and the boy and the talking dog were pretty funny. The dog really was rooting for the boy to go to hell. And the girl wouldn't get "involved" with the boy until he got saved.

I finished it before she got off, and I was thinking I should maybe hand it back to her. But I thought she might be offended.

She handed the bus driver another one as she got off.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:03 AM | Permalink

They had a Gene Kelly movie marathon on this weekend. Oh man oh man...I love those musicals!

On the Town
An American in Paris
Singing in the Rain
Summer Stock

Summer Stock is one i hadn't seen or even heard of before. But it has the COOLEST dance scene in it. You know how STOMP is a performance with all kinds of sound-making objects?
Gene Kelly does this dance that incorporates a creaky floorboard and the way a newspaper on the floor makes his tap shoes sound. My god, it is thrilling!

On the Town explodes, and it has the stellar voice of Sinatra in the harmonies. It's great! And I love the strong female roles.

An American in Paris is one I'm going to have to sit down and watch carefully again. It was very artistic. Yes, it's a light musical, but there are incredible interpretive moments that grab your attention. Dance is art, not just entertainment, and Kelly wanted the viewers to see that.

And Singing in the rain has no rivals. It's a classic for all time.

I am thinking that it is a crying shame that I have reached this stage of my life without learning to tap dance. Something must be done about this!

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:39 PM | Permalink

I seem to always want to do more than is humanly possible to do.

If you asked me, and I didn't think about it, I would tell you that I spent a very quiet weekend.

But then, If I think about it, I did a LOT!

On friday night, I was exHAUSTEd. I had been up since 3:30 am dealing with the blackout on the east coast. I staggered home from the bus stop at 4:30ish, I think...and FELL into bed.

But I didn't want to stay in bed. I wanted to be up and about. So I woke up, tireder than when I fell asleep, about an hour later, and slapped myself awake.

Oh yes! My friend had sent me a really good book, "Arranged Marriages". I had an Amazon box waiting for me at the door. In my dazed state, I was trying to remember if I had ordered something lately. Then I thought, "I bet Bonnie sent me a present!"

She did, and that was a wonderful thing. I will write about the book later. Suffice it to say for now, that I really like it.

But I woke up all groggy, and forced myself out of the house. I needed to buy a microwave. It's hard to make food for one person when you don't have a microwave. I had priced a good one at Walmart. Barely 50 bucks, and the right color and wattage.

But I live in a walmart desert. It was 13 miles to the nearest walmart.

I have to say, 13 miles means something different here. There is SO MUCH in between one mile and the next, it's an ordeal to get through it. 13 miles should only take 15-20 minutes, right?

WRONG!

Man I don't undestand it, maybe I never will, but with this many people and THINGS in the way, miles are farther. It is like an obstacle course. In big cities, cars are not always the advantage you think they should be.

In any case, the great deal on the microwave had sold out by the time I got to Friday. I shopped again (thanks, mysimon.com) and found one at Kmart. Kmart is closer.

So I shoved myself out the door, in pursuit of a microwave. I woke up pretty fast when I started driving. And I went down the main drag which is right my my new place, and saw the Salvation Army thrift store. I peeled to a stop. Well, not really. But I was very excited to stop and look at this place. I'd known it was there, but I'd never had a chance to look inside.

Oh! Thrift bliss! I bought two pretty shirts and two pretty dresses for 12 dollars! I'm so pleased. I love thrift shopping. All the stores near my old place were RAGGEDY. ew. This one was perfect. You can bet I'll be visiting it at least every week. I love clothes, but I need to save money now that I have a mortgage.

Then I ran off to the Kmart, and found my micowave. It is a GOOD microwave. Amazing what proper wattage can do. My old place had a LOW power microwave. It took 4 MINUTES to make popcorn, and the corn always came out stale and half unpopped. This one takes less than two minutes. It's beautiful.

All that was just friday.
Saturday, I went to a invitation only designer clothing sale with a friend, bought and read a whole book for my book club, had dinner with Chris, went grocery shopping, and in between put more boxes away. Sunday, I went to church, took a nap, read more, went hiking in a beautiful park with Chris, had ice creams afterwards, watched a Gene Kelly Marathon ( i LOVE musicals!), made dinner FOR chris, ironed and fell BAM into bed.

It was wonderful. I am starting to feel more like myself.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:40 AM | Permalink

The whole east coast practically is DARK!

This is a problem for my time-zone striding profession. I have a feeling that we won't be doing video conferences tomorow.

I'm worried about New York City. I just had a very pleasant blackout at my home in Glendale on Tuesday. I am afraid that NYC is not having such a nice time of it.

NYC has had two other big ol' blackouts before, one in 1965 and one in 1977. The one in '65 was a widespread one like the one right now.

"At 5:27 p.m., November 9, 1965, the entire Northeast area of the United States and large parts of Canada went dark. From Buffalo to the eastern border of New Hampshire and from New York City to Ontario, a massive power outage struck without warning. Trains were stuck between subway stops. People were trapped in elevators. Failed traffic signals stopped traffic dead. And, at the height of the Cold War, many thought Armageddon had arrived. One pilot flying over a darkened New York City stated, "I thought, 'another Pearl Harbor!'" By 5:40 p.m. that evening, 80,000 square miles of the Northeast United States and Ontario, Canada, were without power, leaving 30 million people in the dark.
...
Despite the confusion and disarray, New Yorkers spent the night in peace. There were no riots or widespread looting. Instead, New Yorkers helped each other. Some directed traffic. Others assisted the New York fire department as they rescued stranded subway passengers. In many cases, New Yorkers just shared extra candles and flashlights with neighbors, reveling in the opportunity to get to know the people who lived across the hall.

By 11 o'clock, the power was restored in 75 percent of Brooklyn, and by 2 a.m., the borough was fully equipped with electric power. By midnight, much if the Bronx and Queens were lit. And, at 6:58 a.m., almost fourteen hours after the massive blackout struck New York, power was restored citywide. "

The one in 1977 was just the city:
"On a hot July night in 1977, the lights went out in New York City. The purr of air conditioners, cooling millions of New Yorkers, was replaced by stultifying silence-and then the sound of breaking glass. Faced with the second blackout in twelve years, New Yorkers responded with resilience as well as violence. Many stories emerged from the night of July 13th that revealed New Yorkers' divergent feelings about the city in which they lived. In some places, neighbors helped neighbors, and strangers helped strangers. Yet, at the same time, neighborhoods throughout New York exploded into violence. Stores were ransacked, looted and destroyed. Buildings were set ablaze. And the police, for the most part, stood helpless. In these stark contradictions, an unusual yet definitive moment left its mark on New York history-the night the lights went out.
...
In other parts of the city the experience was starkly different. News broadcasts reported outbreaks of violence, looting, and fires. Areas of Harlem, Brooklyn, and the South Bronx experienced the most damage, where thousands of people took to the streets and smashed store windows looking for TVs, furniture, or clothing. In one report, 50 cars were stolen from a car dealership in the Bronx. The police made 3,776 arrests, although from all accounts, many thousands escaped before being caught. 1,037 fires burned throughout the City, six times the average rate, while the fire department also responded to 1,700 false alarms. Regardless of where you where when the lights went out, New York's streets teemed-and sometimes burned-with life.
...
While the lights would not be turned on in some neighborhoods for another twenty-five hours, the blackout led many to question the reliability of New York's power system. Ironically, this attitude was partly the result of unusually high expectations for power reliability on the part of metro area consumers; Con Edison had (and still has) the least interrupted electrical service of all utilities in the nation. "

Posted by Murphy Horner at 03:14 PM | Permalink

So, from my new house, I take a new bus. My old bus stop was directly in front of my apartment complex, and it dropped me off almost exactly in front of my office building. My new bus is 5 blocks from my house, and five long blocks from my office.

Well, 5 blocks is not exactly a marathon. I am still willing to walk that far. It takes about 10 minutes to walk it. Well, 15 to the office. Not that long, not that far.

Except when you add it up, I'm walking 40 minutes every day.

I'm gonna quit my gym! This is serious exercise!

I don't know how I will feel about it when it is raining, but right now, that is not a problem.

The real problem is that there is MAJOR construction on the downtown end of my walk. Two very long blocks of dust paths and broken concrete, tall gravel piles and pipes and ditches. That is when I think of the song "NObody walks in LA."

But i'm walking in LA. Downtown LA, where the courthouse and my big tall office building is. Guess who else is walking in LA?

Suited men with expensive neckties. A single-file ant column of them, walking purposefully and swinging their briefcases through the dust and ditches.

It is so surreal it makes me smile.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:56 AM | Permalink

So, I spent time unpacking all my things yesterday. As I was getting things put away, a "click" sounded, and everything went quiet.

And dark.

The power went out. It was about 6:30. uh oh. It was still light enough to see. I thought I remembered a little flashlight in one of my boxes. Oh good, here it is! While I was there, I unpacked some more of that box.

I remembered a candle too. But I didn't remember where the matches where. I wondered for a little bit whether my car would be locked in the garage if the opener didn't have power. Hmm...

But then I thought I had better put together my bed before it got dark. I didn't want to sleep on the floor. I put the bed together...Where is that dust ruffle? Oh well, I'll find it later. It was nice to lay down on the bed for a moment.

Chris came by later with his dinner. By that time the power was back on. He and I worked to get my home stereo/theater system set up. We used my old shoe rack, a piece that is essentially narrow shelving made of nice red wood. It matches the rest of my furniture, so why waste it in the closet? That garage sale I bought it from has been good.

We racked everything on the shoe rack. Then came wiring. Bless Chris's heart! He sat down on the couch and said, "I'm glad my girlfriend is a video conferencing expert. You know what to do."

How many guys would step aside and let their girlfriends wire the stereo? Wiring this stuff is my JOB, but still, most guys would shove me out of the way. He is very secure, thank heavens.

When I was almost done, he pointed to the window. "Look!" he said. A beautiful flaming pink sunset was all across the sky.

That was MY view.

Chris and I sat on my couch for a moment and looked at the beautiful sky. It faded quickly, I was glad we stopped to see it.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So, I got the keys to my new place on thursday. What a big thing huh?

It had been an exciting week. This was the week my boss hit the panic button, which means that he took me into his office for the last hour of every day to rip into me. Thursday was the worst day. He took special aim and let loose with a scattershot volley of conflicting and irrational statements about my abilities, my intelligence and my unwillingness to do work.

Just run-of-the-mill stuff for offices in tall buildings. But that doesn't mean it doesn't get to me. I spent thursday evening in tears. ALL thursday evening and part of early friday in tears.

BUT! I got my homeowner keys on thursday. And I had it all planned out: I would grab the keys and rent a Rug Doctor, and get to work on those "as-is" carpets I'd just bought.

My honey-sweet boyfriend met me at the building. He took a photo of my bleary self opening the door with my own keys for the first time. Isn't that wonderful? Then he gave me a long extended hug as I wailed.

But I had cleaning to do! The doctor is IN.

I filled up the big red machine with soap juice and water. Chris (did I mention how sweet he is?) ran out to get some food for dinner. Me and the Doctor were going into consultation.

Fire that puppy up. Here we go. Pull and squirt, Push and suck.

Stupid Boss! How dare he talk to me that way.

VRRRRR

I don't know what he expects from me, he wants perfection but in the next breath he admits that it's not possible.

VRRRRshlllp

What am I going to do? I don't have the time or the resources to stop the failures from happening, but his solution is just to give me more work!

SHLLLmmmm

I DON"T EVEN WANT TO BE THINKING ABOUT THIS! I SHOULD BE HAPPY TODAY!

RRRRRRRR

Man, I feel totally hopeless. I'm the one that has to face the users and be on the front lines when conferences fail. I am the one who is bringing attention to the problem in the hope that it can be fixed. But I'm not getting any help, I'm only getting blamed.

MMMMmmmmm

SIGH
My back hurts.

I finished most of the rug, I had blisters and a sore back, and very red eyes.

My darling man brought me a yummy McDonald's salad, so I ate a little dinner, even though my stomach was still upset.

I had to come back the next day to finish that last little bit. Friday. I wanted to stay there that night, but I had no energy.

And i needed energy, because MOVING DAY was approaching.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:34 AM | Permalink

I have gotten more interest in my post about Queer Eye than almost any other post I've ever done. This just illustrates that the show kicks butt!

Bravo, Bravo!

First of all, Carson is the star. He is the witty quipper of the show. Love him! And I loved the episode where he tried on the speedos. Oh my! And he says he doesn't work out! Liar liar pants on fire...

But my second favorite is Ted, the food guy. He does have very good food ideas, and he's so nice. I mean, he comes up with little digs every once in a while, but he is very careful to try and get food things that are what the straight person likes. I can't believe he sent to florida to get kosher Foi gras! Is that sweet or what? He's so earnest and I like his deep voice.

The rest blur a little for me...Except Kyan, the grooming guy. He ATTACKS the bathroom for styling products.

But here are the questions that must be asked:
What happened to the black guy? THere was a black guy, a culture guy, on one or two of the episodes. Did he disappear? I found no mention of him on the website yesterday. Umm...what is going on?

I thought that maybe they were doing a rotating thing, bringing on a "guest Gay guy." That would be cool, don't you think? I'd like to see the gay guys flirt with each other a little...You know? Add some chemistry. Right now, they are mostly teasing the straight guy. That's funny too, but the more the merrier! I could totally see having a guest gay guy working out.

Take a clue, bravo!

I will say, I am thinking more about my own home now. What would Kyan think of my bathroom? I know Carson would not approve of the things in my closet right now. I need to go shopping.

And I need to redecorate.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Man, there are a million crazy things for sale on TV. We are crazy crazy shoppers. And we watch a lot of TV. What a better marriage of ideas in American culture:
shopping while watching TV

I personally have a rule:
Never buy anything on TV while watching the infomercial.

Hence, I have never bought anything I've seen on TV. Sometimes I think about the stuff I have seen, though. Because that's another rule I have:
If I see something I think I want, walk away. If I think about it later, maybe then I really did want it and I will go back and get it.

But a lot of the time, there are things that you may be very excited about while under the spell of the infomercial, that you really have no earthly need for.

There are some things I still would like to try. That Epil stop 'n' spray stuff...Does it really work? Or does it peel the skin off the sprayed area right after the camera stopps rolling?

And that REVO hair styler...It looks so cool. But there is NO WAY that would actually work. I mean, the mechanics of it probably would take the curl out of my hair. But then I would be left with highly staticked fly-away hair.

Maybe straight-hair people don't realize that most curly-hair people are blessed with very fine hair. They associate curly hair with pubic hair, which is usually coarse. But curly HEAD hair is usually very fine.

Anyway, the seductive REVO hair styler is doomed to fail. The hair-dos would be destroyed with the first breath of air that hit them.

Those Minwax commercials make me start eyeing my furniture. Hmm...Does that need to be refinished? It's SO EASY!

And there is a commercial for a STEAM BUGGY. Wow, what a great device! Not only does it clean all your entire house without harmful chemicals, it can iron your clothes. That one really had me fascinated. I am against harmful chemicals. First, because they kill us and make babies come out funny. AND because they cost so darn much! The power of STEAM can revolutionize the world.

Man, that was hard to resist. But the almost $200 price tag helped me out.

What else?

Oh yeah! The FOOD SAVER! This is really the coolest thing. I may eventually buy this, really. Really!

Of course, this is the last infomercial I saw.

It VACCUUM SEALS the food in your whole house, keeping it safe from all kinds of buggies, and worse from going stale. You can make up a plate of food, stick it in a FOOD SAVER baggie, suck all the air out of it, and then freeze it for a whole year. Homemade TV dinners!

All the money I could SAVE with this $120 device.

I don't know. I'm gonna wait a little while longer. We'll see if I'm still excited about it after I see the next infomercial.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

i have been working so hard this week. And last week too.

Maybe I'm a wuss. I know there are those people who work 60 hours a week on a regular basis. I'm losing my mind with 50.

Part of my problem this week is that I had my expectations raised. I HOPED for stuff. Expectations are crazy stuff. I think I'm better offf having expectations, HOPES. It keeps me reaching to be the best I can be.

However, expectations never never never never turn into exactly what you expected. THis is the beauty of life, really. We are surprised at every turn. We expect that stream of hot water in the shower, but it is always wetter somehow that we expect.

Life is so FULL. Sensorily full, yes. And at the same time it is even fuller, more rich and complex than our senses can grasp. There MORE out there. More..more..I can't point to it, I can't say what, but I can see bits of it through the chinks.

And so I am fascinated by the chinks. Sometimes it is frustrating to focus on the REAL HERE AND NOW.

ugh...I was happy being muse- ical. Don't bother me with facts! Detach, relax and ride through like a spectator.

Except, once in a while, I actually want to do something. It grabs me and becomes really important. Maybe it's something I want to do from inside myself. Or maybe it's something other people push upon me.

Like work. It becomes very important at work to do something, enough that it makes me really want it. And then I work really hard to make it happen; I'll stay long hours and think and examine and try. I'll get frustrated and stay awake when I should be sleeping, pushing and prodding at the things in the way of me getting what I want.

When it's a work thing, it pisses me off. I am not employed at my dream job. This thing I do for a paycheck is not the thing that moves my soul.

And yet. Picasso still had to clean his brushes. Life is full of things you must do that are not high and lofty. My job is certainly a good one. There are many aspects about it that I enjoy.

I have learned that it's best not to get too involved in work. Things have a way of working out. I can become desperately impatient. My intensity should be reserved for other things, not the corporation.

Some corporations inspire that kind of intensity. Remember Apple Computers in the 80s? Maybe the attorneys where I work take that kind of joy and thrill out of their work; I am sure it can be very challenging. They pull the 50-60 hour weeks. I hope they do enjoy their work.

Well, once in a while, the corp. asks me to do something that is HARD. It takes concentration, it takes intensity. Those are the times I lose sleep. It's also those times that I get frustrated with work. "Why can't they give me what I WANT? What i NEED?"

I wouldn't get frustrated if I didn't need stuff. And I could think better if I weren't frustrated. Thinking more clearly would help me figure out how to get what I need.

See the problem here?

There is a fine line here. Holding, but not grasping. Balance.

Makes me think of the Tao. I love the Toa Te Ching! Great great work. You have to let it go.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)