To hell with the fashion police; wear more spandex.

100 stomach crunches a day.  Don’t need to do them personally--still counts to supervise others.

Return Jennifer Garner’s calls.  2004 was the year of making a point, but it’s time to throw the poor girl a bone.

Enough with being bored in meetings. If no one’s saying anything interesting?  Fingerpaint.

Retire much-beloved one-liner, “I’ve got your weapons of mass destruction right here.”

No longer tolerate street mimes; actively do them harm.

Go back to putting “GREG” on those “HELLO, MY NAME IS” tags.  Scrawling web site address just gets weird looks from people.

Re-read The Davinci Code; make list of important symbols, metaphors, and themes.

Lobby for new title at work: “Duke of York.”

Fumigate.

Some parents want their babies to have extra special abilities. Therefore, sometimes the mother chooses to give birth underwater so her child will be particularly adaptable to water.

When I’m a father, I want the birth to take place both underwater and in outer space.  That way, I can be assured that my child will be a swimming astronaut.

Today I found a Christmas card in my mailbox that was meant for someone else.  Like most people, I succumbed to curiosity and opened it and read it. Unlike most people, I’m taking the extra immoral step of making fun of it on my blog.

Why?  I’ve lived at my current location for two-and-a-half years.  I also know who owned the place before I did.  This card wasn’t addressed to them.  In other words, “Jim and Becky” haven’t bothered to update their Christmas card list for something like five or six years.  They’re one of those couples who blasts half the continental United States with their annual blather, uncaring of who actually ends up receiving their form letters. Do these thoughtless people deserve any consideration? Why, no.  No, they do not.

Dear Relatives and Friends,

Sarah celebrated her 90th birthday on August 23rd.  Our four children and some grandchildren were present. We all played Baroque chamber music at home for her for three days.

I am not making this up. Let me get this straight--this tough broad survives that long and you reward her with three straight days of chamber music?  That must be one heck of an inheritance you people have coming.  Perhaps this was one of the missing solutions in the board game Clue: “Jim and Becky did it in the nursing home with the chamber music.”

We also had a family dinner with an Italian theme on our patio.

After we finished with the chamber music, we broke out the Spaghetti-os.

In September Jim accepted the music position at the Unitarian Universalist church which is only a few blocks from our house.

Good, because professional and spiritual fulfillment just isn’t worth it if you have to deal with a long commute.

The organ is the oldest organ on the west coast, but it is not functioning at present, so he uses the piano.

Again, I am not making this up.  There will be a brief time out while everyone giggles.

The choir is small, but the congregation includes a surprising number of intellectual people.

Why is that surprising?  Unitarians are people who think they’re too smart to commit to a real religion. Now, if you said you had a lot of intellectuals in the Church of Latter-Day Druids who Worship the Earth Mother Gaia or something, you might have a point.

Updates on the family.  Daughter Cynthia is a freelance violinist in the San Francisco area.

The snickering pretty much stopped for me at this point. I feel for this girl.  I find it hard enough scrounging up a few freelance writing assignments here and there. When’s the last time you saw someone advertising for a violinist on Craigslist?

Grandson Tommy is beginning his study of Chinese for preparation for diplomatic work in China next year.

Wait a second--he’s just beginning his study of Chinese and he’s going to be practicing diplomacy in a year?  Here’s hoping he doesn’t confuse the phrase “Pass the chow mein: with “We will be invading you this and every other Tuesday from now into perpetuity.”

Son Fredrick is professor of music at University of Chicago.

What I’m gathering is: heavy emphasis on music in this family. Less emphasis on updating Christmas card mailing lists.

Grandson George is an engineer at General Mills.

Grandson George is tasked with making the flakes stay crunchy longer.

And although this was something of a mean-spirited post*, I want to appropriate Jim and Becky?s final words because they do, in the final analysis, echo my own:

Merry Christmas Happy Non-Denominational Holidays and a Very Happy New Year.

Love,
Jim and Becky Geese Aplenty

*Frankly, I’m just bitter because I haven’t sent out my own accurately addressed cards yet this year.

For the second weekend in a row, I went somewhere with a female friend who met another female friend of mine and later confided to me that the second female friend was hot.  The women in this instance were completely different than the ones from the weekend before.

Guys don’t do this.  If I took my friend Jake to meet my friend Chad, Jake wouldn’t say to me later “Man, your bud Chad is smokin’.”

Okay wait, that did happen once. But generally guys who aren’t “special” in that way don’t comment about other guys.  Women do it all the time.

It made me think about how society teaches women to see other women the way men do.  Social theorists call this “the male gaze.” It forces a kind of split in female psychology, causing them to see other women from a man’s perspective.  That in turn affects the way women dress and act, encouraging them to be molded into an identity mandated by patriarchal society.

This made me think about my own participation in a patriarchal society, and how I unconsciously help perpetuate patterns of behavior that reinforce repressive social norms.

And after thinking about this, my head began to hurt.  So I started to think about what would happen if my female friends got involved in a catfight.  Are there understood, unspoken rules that govern such situations?  For example, how do they balance the delicate ratio of slap to tickle?  I think it needs to be done carefully, so there isn’t the awkward moment where one of the fighters has to actually stand up, stop the action, and say “There’s been far too much slapping.  There needs to be a heavier emphasis on tickling.”

I was just kidding, you freaks.

Michael Powell, head of the Federal Communications Commission, is actually urging restraint in regards to slapping fines on networks that showed an unedited Saving Private Ryan.  Powell will recommend that no penalties be levied against the ABC stations that aired the violent movie as part of a Veterans Day tribute--despite the fact that The American Family Association, led by Rev. Donald Wildmon, filed complaints with the FCC.

This is a big deal.  The Janet Jackson debacle demonstrates that Powell is not shy about handing out fines for indecency. It’s a known fact that in the Powell household, the wife and kids are afraid to walk around naked for fear of being asked to write Michael a check.

“But Mom, I haven’t taken a shower in a week.”

“Quiet, honey.  We can’t afford another indecency fine.  Listen, go down to the car wash and run inbetween the cars, so Daddy won’t see your naked shamefulness.  Be careful of the hot wax.”

At first I was sympathetic to the good Reverend and the American Family Association.  I mean, I saw Saving Private Ryan in the theaters and I thought it was pretty indecent too.  All those brave, upstanding soldiers sacrificed their lives--for Matt Damon? What’s up with that?  If I were those guys, I would have stuck him right back where I found him.

“Sir, we found Private Ryan.”

“Well, could you un-find him?  We can’t let him get back to civilization and make The Legend of Bagger Vance and All the Pretty Horses.”

But no, it turns out that the family organization was upset about the violence.  The violence depicted in a movie.  About war.  On Veterans Day. I understand that the world changes when you have kids and you become more sensitive to these things. But if even Michael Powell thinks you’re over the line, you might want to lighten up.

Still, I understand that some of you might be confused about what you might do when this situation arises again.  If you have children and a violent movie airs, the following recommendations may be useful:

1. Turn the TV off.

2. I’m sorry, did you not hear me over the sound of the baby crying, the phone ringing, and your self-righteousness indignation pounding in your temples? Allow me to repeat myself.  Turn the TV off.

3. Change the channel. South Park is a fun animated show for children of all ages.

4. Read to them.  Why are you having reverends and family groups file complaints anyway? Don’t you have any other form of entertainment in your house besides the damn television? Literate people ought to file fines against parents who think that TV is the end-all of their children’s upbringing.  Grab some Lemony Snicket books, sit down, and shut up.  (Except to read to them.  I meant “shut up” in a non-shutting up way.)

5. Let them watch the movie. The best that can happen is they learn about the horrors of war; the worst is that they’ll be mentally scarred for life. 

And they probably already are anyway considering what happened to Bambi’s mother.

Hey!  I’ll tell you some stuff that ticked me off. Because I never do that.*

1. I emailed a friend’s work address about three days ago and offered to give her a CD mix.  She didn’t reply.  I was vaguely annoyed, but then she called me and invited me to a party.  I said, “Do you want that CD mix?” She said, “What CD mix?” It turns out that she had just been laid off from her job and never received my message.

Is it completely unreasonable to put an out-of-office response on an ex-employee’s inbox? Or at least kill the box completely so emails bounce back and people get a clue that something might be wrong?  I’m not saying that this has to be politically correct or anything. I’ll settle for an animated image of a laughing skull & crossbones, with a computerized voice that cackles “YOUR FRIEND HAS BEEN TERMINATED.”

2. This weekend, at a place where there was red wine and dancing, everyone suddenly upped and started doing choreographed steps.  For a moment I thought I was having my recurring nightmare where I’m trapped in a Rogers & Hammerstein musical, but then my friend said it was a dance that everyone knew, “The Electric Slide.” She said, “Didn?t you go to high school dances?”

Well, yeah, but all we did was hop up and down with our white man’s overbite and try to convince girls that this was the right way to move to “The Reflex.” No one ever bothered me to teach me any kind of choreographed dance.  How did everyone else get to be six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon in Footloose? 

*Lest you think this is just another ranty post, I’ll point out that there were upsides to each of these incidents: I got invited to a party, and I got to dance and drink wine.  Which makes it a good weekend.  Much better than that one weekend that one time when I went here and I went there and then I got back home and realized my fly had been down the entire time.

Christmas is the only time you ever hear about Harold the Angel, and I’m pretty sure it’s because the other angels were jealous of his vocal work with hymns and carols.  As a result, they excluded him from all the cool projects that would have made him famous.

I’m sure Raphael said to Gabriel at some point, “No, we’re not inviting Harold to help us map the course of the Euphrates River. He gets his time in the sun every damn December.  For 30 days out of the year, all you hear is ‘Hark! The Harold Angel sings.’”

The amount of people asking me to sponsor their charity walks has been growing exponentially.  I get to work in the morning and the supplicants are forming a line before I even have a chance to sit down.  Look--I just bounded up four flights of stairs, as I do every day, but do you see me going over to your cubes and asking for a dollar per step?

Don’t get me wrong.  The charities are worthy.  I’m in favor of healthy breasts, healthy hearts, and healthy lungs.  I admit it’s a little easier to relate to the healthy breasts thing.  I often think during the day that I like breasts, and the breasts that exist should be protected.  I often gain perspective on this weighty issue by examining the healthy breasts in my range of sight. But, I mean, in theory I’m in favor of healthy hearts and lungs too, although they’re more abstract to me.  No girl has ever said to me, “Greg, can you please look at me when you’re talking to me and not my lungs?” Also, I definitely don’t like diseases and whatnot.  I’m even willing to take a stand on this and say that diseases are bad.

Charities are fine. Charitable giving is fine. It’s just the walk part that bothers me.  Yeah, what a great sacrifice you’re making--you’re going on a walk.  Paul Revere’s got nothing on you.  I would rather just give people the money for the charity and have them stay home.  Or, even better, give them the money if they start going to the gym more often.  Because wouldn’t we have a healthier nation, and possibly a few less charity walks, if people just took care of themselves once in a while?  Snap off your TIVOd library of Desperate Housewives and hop on a treadmill and I’ll write you the cheeriest check you’ve ever seen.

Maybe a compromise would be that we stop doing walks, and instead something that requires a little more symbolic sacrifice.  Something that represents a real devotion to the cause.  For example: a charity Go to Strangers’ Houses and Tear Up Their Flowerbeds Until They Call the Cops.  I’ll kick in fifty an hour for that.

You know who’s got guts? The marketing people at K-Mart.

I’m sitting there watching Lost, and it suddenly switches to a commercial showing kids in pajamas hanging Christmas wreaths.  Letters appear on the screen: “Martha Stewart Everyday Living.”

Those guys actually expect us to believe that Martha’s current “everyday living” is comprised of scenes of domestic bliss, rather than Martha being pinned against a wall by a woman named Hildy who hisses, “I’m your den mother and you’re my girl scout.”

Recruiter sends me draft of pre-screening questions for the hiring of a communications person.  One of the questions reads thusly:

Indicate what’s wrong with the lead paragraph in this press release: “The first ever packet router, expected to increase efficiencies by over 90%, is now available to technology professionals, it was announced today by Mitch Romen, Chief Information Officer for AvantForward Networks.”

4. Nothing

According to the questionnaire, the answer is #4.  I call the recruiter.

ME: Hi. I have an issue with the press release thing in the pre-screening questions.  I do see something wrong with the lead paragraph.  It’s not grammatically correct.

HE: What do you mean?

ME: I mean you can’t have a comma between “professionals” and “it.” You’re separating two complete sentences with a comma.  That’s known as a comma splice, or a run-on sentence.

(pause)

HE: I don’t see it.

ME: What you have isn’t a real sentence. You have to put a semi-colon there, or better yet, a period.

HE: Wait...you want a semi-colon where?

ME: Well, ideally you’d tighten up and revise the entire paragraph, but I’m saying that right now you have two sentences mashed together with a comma. Two complete thoughts. Subject.  Predicate. You know...sentences.

HE: I used to be a PR professional, you know.

ME: Uh…

HE: This is actually a sentence I wrote when I did press releases.

ME: Well, I’m suggesting that you should--

HE: (Reading sentence aloud) “It is now available to professionals, it was announced here today...” You know, I don’t agree with you. Putting a sentence there goes against my grain.

ME: It’s not matter of subjective opinion; it’s a run-on sentence.  I wouldn’t hire a communications professional who looked at this sentence and thought there was “nothing” wrong with it.

(pause)

HE: Well, I can put the period there if that’s really what you want.

(Co-worker enters cube)

CO-WORKER: How’s it going?

ME: Is there any tequila located on the company premises?  Anywhere?