Honesty

Honesty is not what anybody's about anymore, they're about being plugged into their i-device into they way into to work, sitting at their desk, mindlessly, shuffling TPS reports for the next eight or so hours so they can get plugged back in on their way home, snarl at their family until everyone's settled in front of whatever tube feeds their emptied minds mindless drivel so they can fall asleep and do that all over again for the rest of their lives until they die.

Nobody wants to hear honesty anymore, unless it's about Kayne West or Kim Karashdan.

Is it a bad thing that I have no Idea who these people are?

According to the world, yes, yes, it is. I have no idea what's in the news, the status of dead people on a plane or boat or storm nor who stabbed whom in Pennsylvania or Ohio or Connecticut or who raped whom, 'whom' who showed up a party, underaged, without her parents' permission, drank quite a bit and was she chaperoned? No. Was the party supervised? No. So, teens with drugs and alcohol, but we know our Johnny's going to be on his best behavior because we've been there the whole time, raising him rightly.

I have no idea of any of this going on, every day, some of it making the news, most of it not, just showing up on facebook and instagram, two more media outlets I do not frequent like our 'well-connected society' now does more than they interact with their spouses and children.

I wish I could introduce everyone the power and beauty of being able to create. Create what? 'Content'? No. Beauty. Art. You see, I'm well-connected. I come from a family of writers and teachers and poets and I married into a family of artists. You, dear reader, are probably well-connected, too, being a writer yourself, or artist.

Unlike most people. Most people? Are they content-producers? No, they are simply consumers, and their benefit to themselves, their family, and others is ... what?

What are you here for? Really?

Teens get it. Don't they? That's why they party so hard, drinking until they're numb and then killing themselves more and more frequently these days. Teens know that their lives are pointless, and they are totally useless.

And we wonder why we're losing this next generation to sex, drugs and whatever they call rock and roll these days? This is not the griping of an old, bitter man, this is my plea from me to you.

What is your purpose? Is your purpose that? To commute, then to work, then to snarl then to vege? Are you giving your children purpose? What do they have to live for? Why should they be morally upright? Your purpose is them, right? That they have it better, and live happily.

But what purpose are you give them? 'Father, give me a quest, ... a noble quest.'

Who can give their child a noble quest? Can you? And how can you give them a noble purpose if you have none?

You're purpose is them? Okay, but what role model are you? They become what you are now. Do you want them nice, safe and secure in a 9-to-5er, working for the Man, for the rest of their lives until they die, leaving their 'survived-by' family members a mountain of debt and a mess of unfinished tasked and stories never told? What noble purpose are you giving your children? What can they create? What legacy can they leave, so that two hundred years later people will say 'Grace Hopper' 'Rosa Parks' ... and your daughter. Or, 'George Washington,' 'John Adams' (arguably our most passionate and thoughtful and caring Founding Father) ... and your son.

Wow. Okay! I know where this all came from: people being 'taught' in schools what? Nothing but rote memorization, and we're all paying for that, every day we rotely go to our jobs and turn right around and go to work, because that's how we're defined now.

We need to get back to basics. We need to redefine what it is to be a person, a citizen, and we need to reconstrain what others tell us, particularly when they're telling us how to think and be and live.

The Meaning of Life

"I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m finding that ..." people are obsessively concerned that they are obsessively concerned about Death.

Why is that?

I'm concerned.

I'm concerned that people are obsessing over the wrong things, and are therefor living disordered lives. The sole end of your life, your entire 'reason' (your 'end') is your death.

And you're concerned you're concerned about that?

You celebrate the completion of something. "Completion." Guess what that means? To complete something is for you to 'kill' it and for it to 'die.'

That's why so many people never get anything done. They'd rather, obsessively, prolong, artificially, the life of something: their project at home, their dead-end job, than to complete it, naturally, 'kill' it, and move on with their lives, no longer attached to that thing.

But no, they keep feeding the external thing with their own lives so that this thing, this job, this doctor's thesis you've been working on for seven years now, this room you're going to tidy up 'when you get to it' but you never do, this just-this-one-more-level-in-this-video-game that never ends, this whatever-in-your-life-you're-attached-to that you keep feeding with your attention grows bigger and bigger in your life, until it is everything, it sucks up all your time and all your attention, it's the big, white elephant in the room, and the only thing that isn't there any more is you. Your husband can't talk with you, because he's talking to your job, not to you, any more.

Congratulations, you're not concerned about Death, you're concerned about doing a good job at your job, a perfect little cog in whatever wheel that feeds the beast ...

... by sucking out your soul.

You know when I know that I haven't reached down deep enough into me, and how I know that I really haven't opened up my heart, in my writing?

I look at my stats. If I don't see 'Death' there, I know I haven't done my work. I haven't tried hard enough. I didn't let go of this or that compulsion.

I haven't truly lived, if I don't truly die.

My daughter celebrates a birthday. Death.

I get promoted to 'Senior developer.' Death.

We have a new baby. Death.

I finish my taxes. Death.

I write a new chapter. Death. I publish that chapter. Death.

OMGosh, I finally, finally write 'The End' to "My Sister Rosalie."

Death. Death. Death. And that death, I'm scared (death), just might kill me.

Isn't that what you're afraid of? That if you actually do something, and face your fear, and walk right up to it, embrace it, and with it, move forward into that new chapter of your life ...

... aren't you actually afraid you'll die?

And, this time, the fear is justified: you actually will die. The old you will die, and the new you will be born, and you'll actually live, for goodness sake, unencumbered by that stupid, pointless thing that was tying you down to who-you-used-to-be, and because why, because you were so frikken attached to that something, that pointless thing, that nothing: that job, or that thesis, or that Mommy van and everything that it says about you (that is: everything that you think other people think about you, but nobody really cares about you, and if they did care about you, you know: really care about you, WOULDN'T IT BE LOVERLY?).

But no, you're too scared to think on your final end — you are dust, and everything you do is empty and meaningless — no, you'd rather care about your job, or about how you think other people think about you, than actually kill those things binding your life, constraining it into this tight little box that you can pretend to control, so that you can 'live' your 'life' on 'your' terms, worrying, obsessing, over everything, and accomplishing nothing.

When you accomplish something, you kill it in your life, so that it becomes free of you, and gets to live, and so that you become free of it, and you get to live.

But, oh, noes! That's too scary and unpredictable (Death), and We. Can't. Have. That.

Death.

The autocracy of 'oh, I'm not scared of death, I don't even think about it, because that so not cool!' has moved Death from ever before you, so now it's behind you, biting at your heels, the invisible monster under the bed you refuse to confront, so that, paradoxically, you nerve more and more about it: you're giving Death life, and killing yourself in the process. You're scared to die, but you won't admit that, not even to yourself, so you will never truly live.

I'd prefer to put Death front and center. And you know what? When I do: it is so liberating. I am going to die. I am going to die today; I am going to die tomorrow. I don't know when, precisely, but I do know that it will happen in my life.

So, is this thing, this little thing worthy of my time and effort? Yes? Then I will do it, and put my hand on the oar and pull with all my might and pull this ship into battle, for ... Today is a good day to die.

No? Then fuck it. This little thing is not worthy of my time nor of my attention? Fuck it, and fuck your petty fear of death, refusing to live, and refusing to let me live and revel and dance gleefully in this life I'm given. You can live your small, little, mousy life in your little, tiny box, scared of everything, but not concerned with death, because that's not P.C., but you're not going to drag me down into the sewer of your empty, grey, and only-existing-and-not-truly-living life.

I'd like to start a new trend here, standing against this wave of fear and conformity I see at present. I'd like to be the one to stand up, and to be proud of the fact that one of the things, and, most times, the primary thing, I'm concerned about is Death. I'd like to propose that when you, dear writer, check your stats to see how Buster and Kellianne, and Dr. James W. Pennebaker have to say about what you say to yourself in your writing, as opposed to how you truly think and feel about yourself (eh, you'll get there, ... or you won't), and how you see Death prominent, or even preeminent, that instead of being afraid or angry or perplexed, that ...

That you're proud.

"I'm thinking of the final things, the last things," you say to yourself, proudly.

I'm letting go of this, so that I can choose that. I'm dying, in my writing, and, projecting: I'm dying. Full Stop.

I'm dying.

I am but dust, and to dust I shall return.

How then, shall I live?

I. AM. SUPERMAN!

So, recently there was some noise about how 70% of lemon wedges garnishing drinks carry diseases, so watch out what you drink, because all you diet coke drinkers at restaurants are gonna die!

I just so love the media: they are so narcissistically strident. "Let's create another thing for people to worry themselves to death over so we can sell more page-views!"

So, my response to that was: "Well, I haven't caught a disease from all those lemon wedges from over the years, so either your information is hyperbole, or I. AM. SUPERMAN!"

I'm so well-received!

The thing is, Man of Steel came out, and it's a fun little knuckle brawler of a movie that's diverting for a few hours (nearly three), everything a good summer blockbuster should be, but then that's it, right?

Or is it?

The thing is: Krypton fell for exactly the same things that are going on in this country, and through our very active bribery, throughout the world.

Eugenics?

Man of Steel is about the horrifying ramifications of what happens when Big Government/Big Brother decides who is born, how, and for what societal role to fill.

So much the case, that natural child-birth is consider "Heresy!" (Did Lara take any drugs to assist her birth? The movie's depiction seems to say the birth was totally natural), because it was not selected from a genetic feature of the Codex.

And what happens when others play God: that is determine who gets to be, and who gets not to be, and what their fates are, predetermined and assigned to them since before their birth?

Well, we saw it on the big screen: wailing and gnashing of teeth caused by the end of the world by the fires of Hell (these flames came from the under-world, after all).

Even our own self-designated attempts to save ourselves are destined to doom: a bloody uprising from a military dictator who knows 'better' (because now he gets to choose, doing exactly what the powers that be are doing, because that's all he knows what to do), ... 'better' being the total eradication of one race to be supplanted by a self-destructive one.

The special effects were migraine-poundingly good, however, so the movie had that going for it.

You know who was missing in this end of the world scenario, who is always present in every other portrayal? (Think Superman 2) (and no, kids, I don't forgive you for having never seen it: study your history and get back to me) ...

The President of the United States.

In all these movies, the President steps forward, by, for, and of his people, so that they may not perish.

No President in this movie. At all.

Why?

Because, sadly, the current President has done everything in his power to turn this planet into what Krypton became: a centralized Totalitarianistic regime, where, of course, every woman has the 'choice' to terminate undesireable births ... which, from the worker classes, is every birth.

My conclusion.

We do need a Superman to save us from where we're headed, because as sure as shooting, as surely as the Hell we're heading to, we are driving toward our own destruction at breakneck speed, and every correction we do only drives us faster and further toward and over the edge.

"Happy birthday, Mr. President"?

Not likely. He, our hero, our savior? Not likely.

Abraham Lincoln stood up, against the whole nation, and said we will be united, whether we wanted it or not. This President says 'We will take definite steps!' against the latest attacks against our country, and then goes off to see what the polls say are the best (politically safest) steps to take.

Our current President is not a leader, nor a hero.

In fact, when the (second) Revelation comes, Jesus is going to come with fire and the sword and the heavenly host of angelic armies to wipe the face of the Earth of us.

Jesus came to save us from us, and instead we reestablish the Roman empire where we cast our babies to the wolves.

"Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me."

Anybody from the social-engineering Left remember those words?

But this post is not an attack against our current President.

It's also not an attack against the Right, who did everything in their power to pave the way right to this current situation we are in.

"Homeland Security"?

That's an oxymoron, if I ever heard one. How does one 'secure' the 'home' by terrorizing its citizenry, spying on them, and then locking them up, for interminable imprisonment and unlawful interrogation just so they can catch the one bad guy of the hundreds they detain?

Was it 'guilty until proven innocent' then? Or was it 'it is better to kill 100 innocents to get to the one guilty party'?

(Replace the word 'innocent' with 'Muslim' and 'guilty party' with 'infidel,' for trending topics and beliefs elsewhere in oppressive, terrorized regions of the world.)

I thought we were better than that. I thought we were a country of ideals, a country where you had freedom to speak and to worship as you saw fit, insofar as it first did no harm to others.

I didn't think we were a country that could invade your privacy, hold you to task for crimes you did not commit but based on your race or religious beliefs, and then tell you how to live your life, or, tell you that now (in the womb) was a good time to die, or now (that you are a 'burden' on society) is a good time to die, or now (because you are Muslim or Hispanic or Catholic, or ... anything, really) you'd better have proof of citizenship at the ready, and that still doesn't mean anything, because we'll detain you if we want to, because your four-year-old daughter goes into a terror when separated from you at the gate at the airport.

I feel so much safer from the terrorists now that the little old lady in front of me got terrorized by TSA for having nail clippers.

That actually happened, I'm sad to say.

But we're not better than that, and, every day, in every way, we are moving closer and faster to the dystopia that Krypton portrayed.

Our President didn't show up in this latest movie, although he, or she, did in every other disaster movie, because our President, in this movie, would've told General Zod, "Hey, oy! Clear off, we're doing a better job than you already!"

That's why our President didn't show up in this movie.

But it's not the President I'm attacking: neither Obama nor the Bush father-son pair.

Our Presidents didn't get us into this mess that we call our present reality and our modern-day living.

We did.

All we have to do is to look into to the mirror, and thank ourselves for eugenics, stem cell research from harvested eggs, IVF, assisted suicide, abortions that have now taken more lives, silenced more screams, than all the previous wars since the beginning of history combined, socialized medicine (Europe has 10k accidental deaths-then-organ-harvests per year), welfare state, income tax (oxymoron), and Big Government as Big Brother knowing everything that we do, and occasionally providing guidance through laws and laws and laws, court rulings and regulations.

We are the most legalized, litigious society in the World. We have near the highest per-capita income, ...

And we are rushing, pushing ourselves right to the brink of that Black Hole.

Hell, the Aztecs pushed their sacrifices into the pit, offering them to their gods.

We're voluntarily pushing ourselves over the edge into the pit, and to what gods?

The sad thing is: we are pushing ourselves, to our doom, to no god, in fact: to the NoGod.

We've shortened the Truth: "There is no God but God!"

To the lie: "There is no god!"

There's only us now, we don't need no education, we don't need no opiate for the masses.

There's just us.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

This is the part of the post where I'm supposed to offer some platitudinous (Christian) resolution.

But I despair, which is a grievous sin.

Yes, God, ... Jesus, fought the fight for us, and already won, so what is this fighting for, in me, fighting a fight that we already won?

But if we've already won, then how come there are so many losers in the world today? I'm not saying that to be derogatory to them. No, I'm saying that there are people walking around today, not masters of their destinies, but destined to be mastered by forces beyond their control: government, their health, fate, death, despair, doom. So what do they do? They're now little worker bees, little cogs in the wheels, that go along with the master plan, because there is no other plan that they can see, so they follow along, like lemmings, right up to the very end, and die alone, having accomplished nothing in their pointless lives.

This is the state of the World.

And we've won? How?

How can I say: it doesn't matter. It's just me and Jesus, and the world's gone to shit, but Jesus will take care of that. I just fix my eyes on Jesus, and all will be well.

How can I say that?

And, no, I'm not (just) a woe is me type. I've marched on Washington, D.C. I've written, and every week, I pray and pray and pray in front of God in His Majesty. I'm also a man of action.

And seen the world get worse, despite the actions I've taken.

My hope is my children, who are WAY better than I was, and that I can provide for them and my wife and protect them against the evil pull of the world up to now.

So, do I be a good daddy, like Jor-el, and save his children, and fight the good fight, and lose, and watch his world die around him?

I am sad that this may be what is left to me, to us, my brothers and sisters. That we fight the good fight, protect what we can, and ultimately see it all fall and fail, and die martyrs' deaths.

All of us believers and doers, doing what we can, but now it's too little, and too late, because most of us have taken what we've been given not as a gift of freedom and hope, but as entitlements, and we've used them up, and then traded them in for conformity, safety and security, and handed those keys to the kingdom over to ...

... people exactly like us, who know what's best for us, and start treating people like 'human resources' and use up those gifts, and eventually feeling entitled to them.

And now, ... this.

Sodom and Gomorrah.

Krypton's fate is our own. And just like Krypton, ... we're doing it to ourselves.

"No Fair!"

Reflections on life through the lens of MSR, chapter 77.

Yes, Lizzie had to do some soul-searching there ... it's a good thing she does have a soul, after all. But people presuppose that she'll learn from her mistakes, or, in fact, that anybody does.

Life is a comedy, and the comedy is that nobody learns from their mistakes, ever. They just go on repeating the same set of mistakes, over and over again, and the hilarious part is that they cry out about the unfairness of it all.

I have a daughter very good at doing this: when I impose justice, she cries out "No fair!" when, in fact, what she was doing was not fair, and the justice imposed is very fair ("put down your book until you put away your clothes on the floor, EM" EM: "No fair!").

Such is life: God provides a lesson, we don't learn it, and then there's the drama of it all.

The neat thing about this story is that both girls have chances to learn, over and over again, and they have the room to screw that up, even, and they have room to grow.

Let's see if they do.

Deus ex Machina

So, my dad called me this morning, to check up on us in the aftermath of Hurricane/super-storm Sandy.

So, this post is about, and for, my dad.

Other men, when they realize it, are blessed to have the fathers they have, and to love them, and know that their fathers loved them.

I am blessed with my dad.

Our conversation was organic, as it has developed to be over the years. One can even say, as it ranged freely over the topics both modern and ancient (cell-phones and Leonard Cohen's 'Alleluia' and the origins of the phrase 'deus ex machina'), that our conversation is 'free range.'

Oh, and to be true to that conversation, and its serendipitous nature, 'deus ex machina' is anachronistic. It is a LATIN resaying of the original GREEK phrase 'ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός' for, of course, 'deus' is not a Greek word at all, but a Latin resaying of the Greek word (they are nearly homophonious (another Greek word): 'deus' and 'θεός') are Dad was right there to point out that 'mekhane' is 'machine,' to be sure, but the original (specific) meaning was 'crane.'

Dad, when I explained all this to him, as he explained it all to me, was so impressed that he paused, just for a breath, and said, sadly, wisely, knowingly ... lovingly, 'Son, you are a man born in the wrong Age.'

Did you get that? My father, in his 73 years of wisdom, gave me the title of 'man.'

His son is not a boy any more, but all grown up, and he is so proud, and so filled with love.

Well, yes, all that, of course. Stiff upper lip and pip-pip.

AND ... he implored me not to use the word 'Luddite' ever again.

So, I ... 'tried' to promise that I wouldn't use the word 'Luddite' ... I paused, ... and was about to say 'today.'

But I knew I couldn't even last that long.

So, I told him that.

He laughed in shocked surprised at the unexpected joy of his son's utter and complete lack of propriety for this modern day's mores.

So, Dad, this one's for you. I will not use the word 'Luddite' in my blog or in conversation or three times in a sentence.

At all.

See me not using the word 'Luddite' at all today, Dad? I am so not saying that word 'Luddite.'

See?

'Luddite,' 'Luddite,' 'Luddite,' ... I ain't sayin' it at all!

Ah, well: a Man's a man for a' that and 'it is right and it is just,' and all that.

Or, yes, as expected (sung martially in the mode of Horace): 'dulce et decorum est ...'

Dad?

Yes, son (whispered sadly in the tone of Wilfred Owen): '... pro patria mori.'

I love you, Dad.

------

Epi/post/logue:

My last post was on Mothers' Day for my mother, and this next post here is for my father ... it is indeed sweet and just and right.

Yes, we are friends

So, I've joined a forum my wife has joined so I may see or participate in the activities she does. I was even flagged by the forum leader, as the forum seems to be addressing more feminine concerns, perhaps?

So, it appears I'm getting in touch with my feminine side.

*ahem*

But one of Diane's (real) friends asked: "Aren't you and your husband friends?"

You see, you become (virtual) friends on the forum with people that, I guess, you feel consonance with in the various topics addressed in the forum.

So, am I friends with my wife?

Hm.

I am happy to report that, yes, I am indeed friends with my wife. That, yes, in our 14th year of marriage, "we are still friend." I'll go a step further to add that in our 400th year of marriage, I am looking forward to that same friendship, even a deeper one than what we have now.

Yes, my wife and I are friends.

So, must there be membership then? Must we sign up as 'friends' on a forum to declare our real, deep, abiding friendship?

I guess, for others, this is the case.

So, for me to be smart, I must be in Mensa.

So, for me to be tolerant, I must be in the ACLU (one of the most intolerant and litigious organizations in the world).

So, for me to be free, I must be an American.

So, for me to be enlightened, I must be a Zen Buddhist.

Because life is very much an enrollment and membership thing.

Or is it?

Are my wife and myself, well, are we friends?

Well, how do we behave toward each other? Do we talk? Do we listen? Do we hug? Do we comfort? Do we strive? Do we try? Do we fail? Do we forgive?

Do you know?

Do I need you to know?

No, I don't need you to know.

But do you see something about us that's ... different? Weird, even? Isn't there an affection there, a childish affection that is 'only' seen in newlyweds?

Isn't there a calm, peaceful assurance each has in each other that you 'only' see in couples that have been together past their golden anniversary?

Why is that?

Well, obviously, because I've married a saint in training (just waiting on her death, a couple of miracles, and the universal acclaim of the Church in accord with the Trinity to make her a saint in fact), but I'm also trying, too. I'm trying to listen, and I'm trying to be.

Sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn't.

But I am grateful for one thing, declared or not.

Yes, we are friends.

Just a little thing

So, ...

Well, called Mom, and she sounded ... wonderful. From her latest email, she has been super-busy, but I was so glad that she could talk, and I heard the smile in her voice and her laugh, and that was such a relief to hear.

So, we, that is, my cara spoza, myself and my little girls, went to Five Guys for lunch, and had lunch. And, after eating, I noticed just a little thing. Three 'tween or teen girls where enqueued; girlfriends, obviously. A blond, a brunette, and a I-don't-know-what, because the middle, olive-skinned, girl is Muslim, as she was wearing the حجاب (hijab), or head-scarf.

And they were chatting away, as easy as you please. Just friends, you know? Just friends. Not a Muslim and two 'Infidels': just friends. Three American girls, one of them who just happened to be Muslim.

Now, I'm not going to go into the screed of what people should or shouldn't be in their adoration of God (or their beliefs concerning the presence or absence of 'Big Juju'), but I am going to say this.

Seeing that, three friends at ease with each other, where things this last decade has been more strained between the Worlds of Believers (and Nonbelievers)?

Well, do you remember when Christians and Jews couldn't talk? And I'm not talking about the Exodus/Expulsion from Spain in 1492, I'm not even talking about the Pogroms and the Holocaust (השואה), I'm talking here, just decades ago. Driving Miss Daisy, anyone? And now we can, and it's not a big deal ... it is, for we are different, but we can talk and we can listen to and with each other, גוים (goyim) and Jews alike.

Those three girlfriends? Seeing them, smiling and laughing and easy?

They give me hope for the future.

Parting is such sorrowful sorrow

It was hard to leave Mom.

I mean, in the last chemo treatment, Mom mentioned that she was hit hard the day after and then the third day after, but this time, the day after, she seemed hardly affected at all, so I was just pleased as punch, thinking that two days later when I would fly out, things would be peachy keen.

They weren't, not for Mom, that day. The chemo hit her hard on the third day, and she put up a brave front, but she pretty much had to go back to bed, because that's what she did do. She asked if Sissy, her cousin, could take me to the airport instead of Mom going with us, and I countered that I was going to suggest that to her. This eased her worry a bit, but I hurt, leaving her in this state, and I think she hurt, having me leave.

Then the American Airlines debacle consumed the rest of the day.

It wasn't a pleasant travel experience for me, going home, and I gave a blow-by-blow on my tweets (late flight from Lake Charles AP (that had free internet? Wow!), two gate changes and a terminal change at Dallas/Ft Worth AP, at the last minute, and back to the terminal from whence I deplaned? So I spent the whole layover at a sub par terminal only to have to race to the terminal where I started?) but what I didn't cover in my tweets was that I was the lucky one: there were three American Airline gates of long lines of angry customers whose flights had been canceled for one reason or another. Looking at Mommies with strollers trying to get another flight? Ick. But then, on the other side of the counter? Remind me not to apply to be a flight attendant or ticketing/gate attendant. They took all this heat and anger from (justifiably) irate customers, customer after customer, with sympathy and a smile, where it wasn't even their fault. Our airline stewardess, Tricia, a lady of a certain age, had a very sweet smile that I complimented, and she admitted that it had been a very long day, for when I deplaned from that flight, there was a long line of people waiting to get on the plane, again, for we had landed late, again, so we were running to get off the plane as others were rushing to get on.

We say: "Say thanks to our service men and women," and, indeed, we should, but there's whole sectors of service people we take too much for granted, like Rachael, my waitress at TGI Fridays at Dallas AP trying to get the meals out to many, many people gulping down their meals before skyhopping, and I mentioned Tricia and the gate attendants getting all that heat.

But then there's a whole 'nother category that Mom and I talked about at length at McDo's as I ate my single (not double) fish fillet.

School teachers.

I mean, we homeschool, so you would think I have nothing to say on the matter, nor possibly nothing good, and perhaps, reading my following screed, well ...

Well, we get our school supplies from somewhere(s), and several of the 'somewheres' is that Diane has more than three close friends who are public and parochial school teachers, and I, myself, once looked at becoming a parochial school teachers, and I have to say the following.

Wow!

I mean, do you know how much we pay our school teachers? I do, and it's a simple thing for you to look up and find out. But do you know this? 'Underpaid school teachers' is only one problem of the more than few problems that face educating our children today. But even that: what does it mean? It means, we, the people, pay our teachers so little because that is the value we place on education ... on our children's education ... on our children.

But the problem is endemic.

For not only are our teachers paid a pittance, but then, in the DC area, and I hear, too, in California, there's not enough in the budget to procure essential school supplies for our teachers to teach with (hand outs, posters, chalk/dry erase pens, erasers) or for our children to learn with (pencils, pens, crayons, paper, notebooks, ... books ... books as required by the curriculum). So what do teachers do? In Diane's friends' case, and I hear elsewhere, they take money from their salary, and go buy the supplies themselves.

And so Diane's friends own a lot of school supplies, including text books, which they have bought from their own lack.

And here's the thing, they, these school teachers and principals, are so generous. So, for example, Diane and I get more than a bit of our home schooling materials from teachers and principals that Diane has as friends, including text books, all for free and primarily due to the generosity of spirit that these teachers have (recall, that we, as homeschoolers, can very easily be viewed as 'the enemy' by traditional educators).

But it doesn't stop there. Be a foreigner here. Like from the Philippines. Try imparting your culture and its values to your children here. What happens? It gets drowned out by the message that every interaction here has, playing with playmates, (not) watching the TV, etc, etc, etc. So somebody decided to set of a school to do just that, taught on Sundays (if you are thinking 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' you are right on the money).

Who teaches these classes?

Yes.

The public/parochial school teachers. On Sunday. After a very full work week doing exactly that.

And who creates these classes, right down to the pedagogy?

Yes, again. The school teachers, spending hours each week to impart their culture in novel and interesting ways.

And who buys the supplies, paper, pencils, handouts, and snacks like juice brix, cookies, and chips, nutribran bars? Every week?

But what do these teachers get in parent-teacher conferences? A hug? A 'good job'? A 'thank you'?

Maybe they should? If you know a school teacher ... and if you have kids, I think you may ... maybe you can do that? Go to school and set up a parent-teacher conference just to say 'thank you'? Where 'parent-teacher conference' is the real deal, or taking them out to lunch/supper, or something?

I do try to say please and thank you to the people who provide me service, and this day of travel yesterday, seeing these people put up with all this pressure, but keeping their cool?

Thank God! and ... thank them for doing jobs I'd really rather not do myself.

So, yes, I made it home, with my baggage, even through a rather difficult and trying travel day, and it's thanks to people who helped me to get where I was going.

And, so now I am home, and I could complain, I guess, how my entire Sunday was just shot with not even playing catch-up, but playing 'unpack'-church-hospital run, but I won't.

Nobody likes a complainer, not even the person complaining.

Besides, I got to give and to receive lovely hugs with my cara spoza and my darling daughers.

... AND I gave Diane back rubs that helped her relax into sleep (sorry, I just had to put that in there)

And I got to spend a little time with Dad and Jan and try to make him coffee and watch him play with the girls.

And I got to visit Mike and Malou and my just born god-son Michael David Wuerthele.

And I got to breathe, and to compose a summary of my day, that is I had the breath in me, and the cognitive and physical capacity to do these things, and the material available that allowed me to, and in that regard, I am so very blessed. And that is the case in many areas in my life: I am so very blessed.

"Can't you simply be an X and ..."

My answer: no.

Or yes. Yes, I can simply be an X. It is possible in some PU ("parallel universe" ... boy is that term going to get a scathing blog entry!) and it may be possible here. Here's the recipe:

1. Remove frontal lobe.
2. Simply be an X.

I am an Auclair. We Auclairs are simply NOT simply anything. Everything we undertake is hard, in all its aspects, or we do not undertake it. When we stop to smell the Roses it's to pull off the interstate and to stop traffic in both directions and demand everyone pay the toll of smelling the roses.

Don't believe me? Ride in the car with me, or my father, or my father's father. We pull over to stop at cemeteries, and read every single gravestone.

"Can't you simply be an X and ..."

No.

And here's the other problem with 'being a moderate.'

If the other side is wrong, then compromising one's position means compromising one's position. I'd prefer not to have other people see my compromising positions.

Case in point.

Ayn Rand: people are material. You are either a producer or moocher. Bullets or dollars, those are the only true motivators. How many children to existentialists/objectivists/materialists have?

Buber: I and Thou.

Where is the compromise there? "I'll treat you like shite, but lovingly?"

That is the compromise today, isn't it? The consumeristic philosophy has reduced people to numbers, but we sure love our customers, don't we.

To be holy is to be separate. I am not holy, but I am wholly separate.

How many philosophers are moderates?

Zero.

Socrates? He'd rather die for his views then be made to alter them one iota. And he was condemned not for what he said, but because what somebody thought he said could possibly offend a rich citizen.

How would your "Can't you simply be a moderate and ..." work on Socrates?

It didn't.

I am an unreasonable man. Reasonable men see how the world works, and work within that world.

It is the unreasonable man that changes the world, and for that, we have light bulbs and penicillin. Because I am an unreasonable man, three children have found their way back home to their families.

And other things have, and have not, happened.

Also, the moderate, reasonable man does not write this messed up tale of angst and what the hell is this anyway piece of fiction called MSR, because the reasonable, moderate man does not write nor does he create.

And create what? Moderate, reasonable shite that more than 90% of the stories are on ffn?

Or beauty. Or truth. Or faith, hope, and love.

Benjamin Franklin chose the speckled ax, but he didn't. He was irascible, uncompromising in his principles and politics. Thomas Jefferson was a ... and John Adams ...?

I may or may not respect their causes or principles, but I do respect that they stood for something, against everyone, against the whole world.

I find when I don't stand for something, ... well, I'll fall for anything.

And that's the sad statement that reflects the much more than 50% of the "citizens" of the U.S.A. who do not vote nor write nor march nor anything.

"The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" happened not because of lead pipes, it happened when their "citizenry" stopped participating as a warriors, senators, and started becoming entitlement-centric slobs attending the daily circus and letting the barbarians at the gate to crash the orgies.

Hm. Decline and Fall of which Empire?

No. I can be simply an X and ... but I choose not to be simply an X.

DDR: Blow by Blow

Some of you know my tweets. Some of you don't. Well, now you will. Here's a rundown on yesterday's work-out, because you, my readers, demanded to know!

• Working out. DDR Ultramix2. Excuse me? B? on Jet World? I DON'T THINK SO. Bumped that puppy up to an A. Now, movin' on!


• You know, as much as I like to rag on it & it is ripped, there's nothing like Red Octane dance pads. Parallel Floaters on anything else? No.


• Diamond Jealousy: C? No: A! Guilty: B? No: A! Done. I guess I haven't played DDR Ultra2 in a (long) while.


• What is this, an old game save? Helpless C⇒A. Yes, please, and done.


• You know what I hate? I hate FCing a song in practice mode but not in score mode. Well, who is better? The song or me? Me. Waverer A⇒AA.


• Of course, they just have to put Real right next to R5: two 40+ kcal songs in a row. Like'm both, but I think Real is my favourite today.


• Well, that was the frist time I ever FCed Era ... in practice mode. Let's try score mode. And, yes, 'frist' is for realz, yo. A 'net meme.


• Oorah Kiruv Rechokim! (um: how do you spell that in Hebrew?) Yup: first time ... aced that Era in score mode.


• DDR done: 173#; ~600 kcal (recorded, more like more than 800 kcal). More leftovers eaten. Back to work.

(okay, seriously! Nobody has written Oorah Kiruv Rechokim in Hebrew on the 'net? But they've written Shemhamphorasch in Hebrew? The word itself (שם המפורש) and what the word actually is? All seventy-two words of it? But not the Oorah? What's with that?)

Squaring the Rectangle

Some of you know that I am a mathematical philosopher, so you may be surprised at the title. After all, all squares are rectangles.

But some rectangles are not squares, ... but they can be made thus, and here's how.

Let's take a rectangle that's 8½" x 11".

If you fold it in half one way, you have a rectangle that's 8½" x 5½".

Turn the rectangle so it's "standing tall." Fold the top right corner down to the center left side. You now have a quadrilateral. Fold the top left side down to the left center, joining where the top right corner was folded, you now, again have a rectangle, but now it's 5½" x 2¼".

This fold, by the way, is called the "I love you" fold, and many letters of love are sent folded this way.

Now, seal that love closed for your beloved by folding the bottom half up into the triangular lip. You now have a 2¼"x2¼" square from an 8½"x11" rectangle.

How do you make a rectangle into a square? It's neither instant nor easy, but, the recipe is simple: just add love to a piece of letter writing paper, and then seal that love in.

I'm a twit now.

Do you twitter that you are twittering? I'm sure this thought occurs to all twits. twitists. twitterers. Whatever they are called.

Oh, my; I've joined the Twenthieth Century ... um.

Time of death: 4:12 PM

Our cat, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy ("Mr. Darcy" for short) has been fading away this past six months very slowly, but this past week he's just went away.

Cancer.

But he was still spry, even though he could barely pull himself out of the bed. He was still there, seeking attention and affection, even though his mews were faint and complaining. The rheumatism.

Last night, he couldn't make it to the litter box anymore, and today, all he could do is lie beside me in the big bed, he couldn't manage an escape when my cara spoza came in to check on us (cats on the bed is a no-no).

It was time.

I brought him into the clinic, and, wouldn't you know it, he worked up enough energy to try to hide from me when it was time to go. I held him as the tranquilizer took effect, and it did so expeditiously. And then he got the shot. He was gone before I even felt him go. He was still warm, but his chest wasn't moving anymore, but I could only tell by looking into his eyes.

"He's dead?" I asked the doctor who looked like he was about to cry, too.

"Yes," he answered quietly, "he may gasp, but his heart's stopped."

The aide couldn't look at me as she offered her regrets and offered not to give me the receipt. "I'm sorry for your loss," she said.

"Thank you," I replied verbally, but I thought me, too.

No more hugs and rubs and scratches from our playful ocelot.

I wonder when it will hit me.

September 11th, 2009, 4:12 pm. A minute before he was leaning heavily into my embrace, and then a minute later he was gone.

Another reason for me to hate this date.

Living in History: "With the Depression On"

I wrote a chapter for my story, "My Sister Rosalie," entitled: "With the Depression On" that looked at (thematically) the philosophies of economy and abundance.

Reviewers didn't get it.

Or, more correctly, they judged that chapter and the characters' actions in that chapter as people informed by modern experience. These reviewers come at it from nearly a century's worth of experience in economics and politics: "Oh, Bella shouldn't have reused her bath water, she should have ..." "Oh, Rosalie's wasting the planet's resources, she's being much too ..."

We are forgetting something here. The Depression's on in 1934. You know? The Depression? The Depression where twenty-five percent of American people are jobless, where checks don't bounce because banks are bouncing. Where rich, rich, rich people are throwing themselves out windows of sky scrapers. Where the Wheat Belt has become the Dust Bowl. Where prizefighters queue up with the rest of us just to get a shot at hard labor for the day so they can be paid a pittance. Where the lamentation "Brother, can you spare a dime?" was made into one of the most popular songs of the day.

Where parents, if they are the lucky ones that have flats, are watching their own children fade away and die because the heat bill hasn't been paid in months, so never your mind about getting a doctor to look at the wee ones. Doctor? And pay him with what? Today's gruel? That is, the only meal of the day?

When you read this chapter, please don't judge your Bella with modern sensibilities. Put yourself into her woolen socks. Look at those rich kids over there, sharing one apple. Go up to them and ask if you can have the core after their done with the apple. Have them look at you with disdain and tell you "Nope!" as you watch them eat the core, and feel the emptiness in the pit of your stomach.

That would have been a nice dessert, a nice change, from the one meal you've had today, and yesterday, and, if you're lucky, will have tomorrow.

Put yourself into the mind of a person not too distant from her parents' immigration from the Old World, where saving was considered to be an act of Faith. Saving? Money? The Old World had its own issues, including pogroms and potato famines. The New World, the streets are paved with Gold. So what did you do when the streets weren't, but you still were getting money for work (instead of just working for the roof over your head and a meal on the table)? You horded it. You buried it in the back yard. You stuffed your mattress with it. You put it into a bank because you got 5% interest, and then the bank went belly up, so you learned a hard lesson there: hold onto what is yours with a death grip, because times are hard now, and they'll be harder later.

Now, eat off a paper plate. What are you going to do with it after you're done? Throw it away? Never. You are going to wash the paper plate, because who knows when you'll ever see another paper plate again in your life?

Do you have that mindset now, with this understanding?

No, you don't. Because, even in today's "troubled" situation (and it is troubled, but it's nothing compared to the Great Depression that our (great-)grandparents went through with no context of a prior Depression to help them weather that interminable storm), we are surrounded by abundance: cars and homes and cellphones and 50" HDTVs. You can't put yourself into a scenario that doesn't exist in your experience because you can always pull yourself out and say "Oh, well, Bella should have done ..." as you grab the remote and switch to ESPN.

But maybe you can be grateful to the people who fought in the Great War and then fought in the Second World War and who built this country up from its infancy through the Roaring '20s through the Great Depression to now where there are hot running water and heating and air conditioning. Maybe your modern sensibilities, that they earned by the sweat of their brow for you, can judge them a little less harshly, and maybe you can drink your morning coffee as you do (or don't) read your morning newspaper with a wee bit more reverence.

Yes, I do say that this is the best of all possible worlds, but, unlike Voltaire, I do not say it with biting sarcasm. I am appreciative of what I have today, and I am grateful to the men and women who committed their lives, then and now, to give me it.

---

This whole entry points to the fact (sad but real) that people do not learn from history. But we can be comforted that we do, now, have ESPN. Just like the Romans had the Colosseum. Oh, what happened to the Romans? Who knows? Who cares? Besides, the game's on, pass the chips.

Gratitude

It's the little things, isn't it?

After every meal, I make sure I thank my cara spoza for it, telling her how good it was. I may have liked it; I may not, but that really doesn't matter: I wouldn't have had it if it wasn't for the work she put into making it.

My dear heart recently told me how much she appreciates my effort in complimenting the meals, and that's when I reflected on what prompts me to do this. Surprisingly to me, it wasn't (primarily) the example of my parents. Surprising because all the good things that I am have come from their example.

No, it was from a book: Ursala Le Guin's Lathe of Heaven. In that story, the wife of the protagonist George Orr (called "Jor Jor" by his not-so-imaginary-"friends") reflects on how it makes her feel when he thanks her for the meal, especially when it turns out ... well, not so well. She reflects on what a good man he is, for many reasons, but particularly for this little thing, this nothing thing: that he eats his meal, and that he's grateful for it ... that he's grateful for her.

It's the little things, isn't it?

I recall talking with a chief in the Navy on how his wife decided he was the one. He took her out on a date to a fancy-schmansy restaurant, and they were dressed to the nines, and the waitress tripped, spilling a tray full of drinks right into his lap.

Of course the waitress was mortified, but Chief made sure she was okay, helped her clean up as best he could, and told her to forget about it, because he already had.

That's when his (to be) wife knew. I'm sure she thought: if he behaves in this way, in this situation, to somebody he doesn't even know, well, that must show how he really is deep down.

Sometimes people like to think: oh, this-or-that didn't turn out so well, and I was rather nasty to the wife and kids then, but I'll do something really big to make up for it.

But you don't, and you can't. It's easy to say, "I'm not really like that ..." or "If the situation were different ..."

But this is how you are, and this is what the situation is, and the big event is never going to come. What you are is how you are in this scenario right now, all the time, because that's all you have.

Yes, it's easy to say, "When I am the grand poobar, I'd do this."

No. The strength of a man is measure thus:

• When he is weak, does he stand for what he believes in the face of overpowering adversity? That is, does he accept martyrdom, even if it's the little death of saying, "No, boss, you're wrong, and I refuse to go along with this"?


• And, when he is strong, how does he treat the littlest of these, including the waitress, including the wife and kids?

And that is the story of the soul that God will read on Judgment Day. That is what the spiritual exercises and that is what George Washington's Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior are for: to help weak men grow into strength and to keep strong men, strong.

For, after all, it's the little things, isn't it?

Wherefore Angels?

So, last night, I told my brother Mike I have many reasons for happiness that day. The first, AOL is hiring contractors, and, with that, I can start receiving more income than sending outgo per month. That's a "plus." The second, my cara spoza doesn't have cancer; that's good, too. And, thirdly, my children are alive and not truck tire-tread road-pizza.

Like I said, a very good day.

Yeah, that last one. The setup is as follows: it was raining buckets, and I was walking my little dears to the library as my other little dear was getting her mammogram. We looked all ways, crossing that busy intersection of Burke Lake Road and Old Keene Mill Road. Surely there was traffic — there always is — but none oncoming. That is, none until we were halfway across the road, and truck the size of a Ford 150 came out of nowhere, barreling into the intersection at a speed faster than the speed limit, speeding past right-of-way traffic to make that left turn, right onto us.

I didn't even see it. And the driver didn't see us when he made the turn, but he slammed on the brakes, skidded on the rain-slicked road and did not crush EM and me and did not throw our little Iz a good distance.

I didn't think anything as this happened, anything other than getting the children safely across the street, but another driver did: she rolled down her window, shouted at the truck driver and then turned to us and apologized for his driving. I waved and stated my thanks.

But now I am thinking about it. Viscerally. I'm thinking: two little hands. One little hand in my left, Elena Marie's, that would have been crushed under the truck, and another little hand in my right, Isabel's, that may have been crushed or may have been thrown clear. But then what? She wakes up, or doesn't, in the hospital, and asks her mother: "Mama, where's Até? Where's Papa?"

And I'm thinking, how did this not happen?

As a Catholic, there's an obvious answer: guardian angels. Either the man's angel said: "Excuse me, blue jeans and sweaters on your left have people inside them …" Or our own guardian angels stopped that truck as the momentum of it and the lack of friction caused by the rain did not.

I have had discussions with other "Christians" who do not agree. They argue: what's the point to the entire set, all of them? Why have angels at all? God is sufficient unto Himself; He doesn't need angels to carry out His Work.

Why, indeed!

But that's not the real question, is it? The real question is why have us at all? I mean, it is clear that there are compelling reasons for God creating the angels, but what is not so clear is why would God even bother with us and the questions that we pose. I mean, obviously, God has more important Work to carry out that to stoop down and save two little girls that I'm rather fond of and the pater familias holding their hands, so why did He bother in this particular case, and why did He bother in the general case at all?

That's another question. And that's your homework — your essay question — "God, why did You create me?" Your life, ever second of your Now, is your answer.

But why angels? And why do angels bother with us? And why does God even bother with angels, when He can do it all Himself?

First of all, do angels exist? Answer: yes. Proof, read the Old Testament>Pentateuch/Torah, or the new Testament, or the Noble Qu'ran.

Put that one to bed. ("Oh, angels don't exist, but I believe in God and in man." Pshaw!)

Second of all, why does God even bother with them?

Now that's the real question. Because God has no need to bother with them at all, just has He has no need to bother with us at all. But He did. Why? I don't know. But I can take a guess, informed by scripture.

God thought of the angels "long" before He thought of us. Boom, He spoke, and whammo: Creation! What's the first thing out of His Mouth? The Bible doesn't put it like this, but the first thing out of His Mouth were the highest forms, Lucifer and the Seraphim. And guess what? God said, "Lucifer, how do you want to work this?" and Lucifer said, "Well, I think …"

And that was all she wrote for Lucifer. Because God was really asking: "Lucifer, you or Me? Your way or My Way?" And Lucifer lead off with the I, me, and mine, instead of the correct whatever you say, Lord, goes, or: only Thou, Lord. So, Lucifer picked up his ball, taking a third of the angels with him ("Hey, guys, b-ball at 5!") and played in his own damn court.

Literally.

But here's the miracle, God asked the Seraphim the same thing, and what did they say? Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh … or ("English"): Holy, holy, holy … or (French): Saint, Saint, Saint … or (the modern translation): OMG, OMG, OMG!

The Seraphim, the most powerful angels, were so overcome with the Presence of God, that it set them on fire, and all they can do is shout: "Oh, God!" as they adure.

And so it went with all created things, the Cherubim, the Archangels, the angelic choirs … and then us.

And why do the angels bother with us? I mean, here's Gabriel, "just" an archangel, … an archangel that, with just one feather of one of his wings spans the entire Universe … "just" an archangel that with one blow on his horn calls then end of all creation, and here's Michael, "just" another archangel, that when God said, "Um, who's going to take out the trash?" St. Michael said: "Oh, God, let me get that for you, please?" and then took the rebellious angels and threw them in the incinerator … "just" an archangel that's more powerful than Lucifer, now Satan, and all his cohorts, combined.

And with all that power and majesty, they want to help us. Why?

Some more guesses here. God says, "Um, who wants to …" And He has the entire heavenly hosts just begging at His "Feet" to do something for Him. Anything! Imagine the honour! "God needed this done, and He picked me to do it for Him!"

And to be clear, God doesn't have "need" of anything, but He allows others to do things, in accordance with His Divine Will. "You know what will really perk up Mary [or whatever a particular Angel's name is, Mary may be a popular name in Heaven, but I wouldn't know]? That she helps guide Elena Marie to Heaven. I bet she'd like doing that."

But also imagine the hardship and "disgrace" that they must endure! Here's an angel, an eternal being of pure intellect, having to interact in Time and in the (Physical) World, to enact God's Plan. I mean, you can't get much farther than God, than Time (as opposed to Eternity) and the World (as opposed to Immateriality), but they do it, they beg to do it, because it pleases God.

"Hey, I need two of you to come down with me, assume temporal physical form, 'cause I gotta tell Abraham and Sarah about Isaac, you two wanna come?"

"Yes, Lord!" said tremblingly, awed that God picked them, ignoring the coming agony of assuming physical form, a form so opposite in nature to their own, even for a short "time," because they are doing His Will.

The second reason (in case you lost count, there were two reasons angels help us) is this: so they can learn from us.

Now, wait a minute, geophf, angels are eternal and pure intellect. They don't change, so what do they have to learn? You say this so smugly, sure you've got the geophfster this time.

Yes, they don't change, do they? At the moment of Creation they picked God or they picked themselves, and now they exist, eternally, with and in that choice.

But we do change. Every second, we pick God or we pick ourselves. Every second we struggle with that choice. It gets better, doesn't it, right? Because the more we pick what we want, the harder it is to pick what God wants. But, sometimes, despite this concupiscence, we choose God.

Put yourself in the angel's place, watching this happen. Your thinking: God is God, c'mon, human, pick God, please! And the human, so stained by sin, says, ya know, I'm gonna go with God on this one.

What does the angel think, seeing this nearly lost soul reach heavenward? Maybe something like, Wow!

Why do Angels exist? No reason, as God has no need for them. But, it must be nice seeing that "little" guardian angel say wow! because it helped that soul take one more step toward God, because it helped Him in His Plan.

Why have angels? I really don't know. But today, even though I don't know, I'm grateful for their presence and their help.

First-person, plural

Adding fuel to the fire of the language-affects-thought debate. The English language has only one meaning for the first-person plural pronoun ("We" or "Us") and the context supplies (or does not supply) the rest of the information.

I'm not familiar with many other languages, but one I have some contact is Tagalog. It has three words, one for each meaning of the first person plural.

1. Tayo: "we, all of us", including the person addressed. When we (tayo) are going to the movies, you are cordially included in the invitation. It is so intrinsic to how people relate that this word is often implied and not said: "Ka-in na!" Means "Eating now" but it really means, when a younger person says it, "I'm eating now, but I'm not comfortable eating because you haven't joined me." and the older person waves a blessing for the younger person to continue. When an older person says it, it means "You will eat now." allowing and requiring the younger to sit at table.


2. Kamé: "only us", excluding the person addressed. Usually stated among equals or from older to younger "We (kamé) need to discuss your grades" means the child must steer clear of her parent's bedroom, and perhaps reread and take notes on the Noli Me Tangere before the test this week.


3. Kita: "You and I". This word actually refers to a single entity and is used in special modes of address. It refers to the (single) person that exists from the unity of the speaker and the addressed. "Mahal kita" is the most often use of the word and a loose translation is "I love you." But its deeper meaning is "This single entity that is you and I together exists bound in love." Kita has no separation between the speaker and the one spoken to, because they are one. When he says "Mahal kita," and she roles her eyes and sighs, it is the unity of one single action. There is no love being sent out by one and then received by the other. The love simply subsists in the unity of the two.

Is not kita a description of the Triune God? Father and Son, I and Thou, and the Holy Spirit, Love Divine, connecting the Three-in-One? Reflecting on the annual homily of the Trinity, I find it now humorous, and obvious, that it's so difficult to explain this mystery to English speakers (and sad correlation: how few English-speakers get the Trinity), but the Philippines has a near 100% Catholic population: they don't need to get it, they have the concept imprinted on their minds, and consequently hearts and souls, from the day they commence speaking.

"Will you marry me?"

We were at table, eating breakfast ("magic" eggs and sweet Italian sausage), when the radio began playing some sweet and pure and joyful music. I sighed. "There is no composer, before or since, like Beethoven" — it was his second symphony. Not his best one, but much better than most of the rest of the world could ever produce.

Don't get me wrong: other composers — Chopin, Schubert, Mahler, Brahms, Vivaldi, Handel ... ugh, Mozart — are unexcelled in their own ways, but you know what you're getting with them. Beethoven has something in his music that is ineffable and impossible to demystify. Beethoven's music, whether heard for the first time or the fiftieth, is always surprising. Beethoven's catalogue of music, too, spans from the Classical to the Romantic to Polyphonic chant (his last quartet in A-flat minor is eternal, and listening to it never fails to make swallowing past the lump in my throat impossible), and he is not "stuck" in a genre as the other greats were.

Okay, Bach, also, wins here.

I mentioned this to my cara spoza highlighting that even Mahler's music, in the worshipful imitation of Beethoven's, still could not ascend the heavens as did his. She mentioned that she was not familiar with his music.

Hmphf! The very first thing I ever did was to invite my beloved to was Mahler's second symphony. She flat-out refused! ... I suppose it would have been helpful if I gave her more than a few hours notice before the concert. But still.

I encouraged her to do so (learn Mahler) and told her this story.

Once upon a time, Mahler proposed to his wife, Alma (née Schindler), by composing his Fifth symphony — his exquisite Fifth Symphony. She was also a composer of note. Her response: "I didn't know you were writing a percussive symphony." Mahler listened to her. He crossed out the entire percussive section and rewrote it, toned down by half. She accepted his proposal, and now we have one of the most beautiful pieces of music in the world because of her. The End.

My sweet and dainty cara spoza tilted her head, reflecting on all that she had heard and said: "How can people not read and miss out on such wonderful moments?"

Me: "Well, I guess people are comfortable in their ign..."
She: "It. Was. A. Rhetorical. Question!"
Me, nonplussed [God! She is so beautiful with her stormy eyes]: "You should know by now that I have ready answers for questions, whether asked or unasked..."

She growled at me and stomped out of the room.

*Sigh* I just love her!

Now, my proposal to her was quite different than Mahler's to Alma; it started "simply enough" with an "I love you." But that is a story for another time.

P.S. Mama, you'll note from the lyrics it really, really, really is "Everyone know that it's Windy". Q.E.D.

DISC-world

*sigh* Myers Briggs, move aside. Apparently, there's a new quadrant available that more aptly describes personality traits, the DISC: Drive - Influence - Steadiness - Compliance.

Notice how they put my personality type last? ... Jerks.

I've known about this new assessment for a couple of years now, because every year, a few times a year, Amway (now called Amway again, thank God, and not Quixtar) sends in some trainers to Mike and Pinky Malovic's organization to help us improve. Our sponsoring rates are among the highest in the world — Mike and Pinky are very good disciples of their mentor, Rex Renfrow, who has the largest autonomous organization within Amway — but are sales rates are among the lowest in the world.

So, Amway comes in to teach us balance. For free. And then a week later calls up each participant, and interviews them for 1-2 hours to improve the course. And then they do.

Please read that last paragraph again and tell me of any other organization in the world that does the sum of those things.

One of their improvements is that brought in a successful sales distributor, Giove ("Joe") Pici, to talk about people. I like Joe; Joe is a very D direct person. If I'm going to be trained in something, it had better be somebody who is better than me in the subject matter, and they had better get to the point expeditiously. Joe does that, with confidence and with the surety of authority. Not many people get past first base with me in the "knowing the subject matter" department; Joe does. Did I mention that I like Joe?

So, I show up to the meeting at 8:55 am (breakfast starts at 9 am) with Gödel's Proof (studying the enumerable property of categories, don't you know). So, after Joe set up, he sauntered over to me in a friendly fashion and asked what I was reading. Getting to know his audience (of one, so far), as any friendly instructor would, you see. I handed him the book and explained:

Gödel's proof is a discourse about using the laws of the Principia Mathematica to show that it itself, and any system than claims completeness, is inconsistent.

As I explained, I watched his face and his jaw fall. I could read his thoughts — This is not what us eyetalian from Neu Joysy talk about over pasta on Wednesday nights... — so, instead he lied very politely by stating a fact made obvious to him: "You're really smart, aren't you."

I didn't see any point with equivocating with this guy. "Yes," was my answer. But then he did something I didn't like. He said, "Hey, Mic," calling over the conference organizer, "come over here. Doug, explain to Mic what your reading."

I sighed (I catch myself sighing often; I guess Nana was correct to call me her "Charlie Brown." God, I miss Nana. You had better be taking good care of her, please) and explained. Mic nodded, indulgently. Joe then went out to chat with Mike and Pinky, I later found out, because Mike relayed the conversation. Joe said: "There's this guy in the conference room reading a book that I didn't even understand the explanation of!" Mike's immediate answer was, "Oh, that must be Doug."

I hate that. I don't mind being recognized or praised, if my actions are worthy of such attention. But "Wow! a kid's reading a book to learn something; that's amazing!" I mean, shouldn't everybody be doing that? What's so laudatory about self-improvement. Isn't that what the purpose of this seminar was, at base, anyway?

Sandy Frazier came in with Sandy Foster (I'm still grieving; I miss Joel). Sandy (Foster) went out for some breakfast; that's when I noticed something about Sandy (Frazier). "You look happy," I told her, and she thanked me. No, that wasn't correct, so I tried again, "You seem to be radiating inner peace." She didn't flinch away, as people normally do from my weirdness. "Thank you," she said, "I got to spend some time with God this morning." Ah. I mentioned that we're told that special time is so vital, but that so few people make the effort to do that. "Yes," she responded, "of course, I read the Bible, but I've found that journalling has helped me listen more." Diane would be please with her confession: she, too, has been journalling, and I've seen the improvement to her equanimity. I agreed: "Hm. It can be easy, reading the Bible, to be an inactive participant, but journalling requires your effort." Sandy (Foster) returned, and we chatted amicably, about our plans to go to the Pink Bicycle for Isabel's birthday Tea. Sandy (Foster) asked what she should get for Isabel on her birthday, so I recommended a few books on mathematics that would help her down the road (because they would help me now). Others had arrived by then, Gene and Donna Dwyer, and Donna interrupted my monologue and Sandy' blank stare with a whispered: "Ask Diane instead!"

What I did learn at this conference was that polar opposites in the DISC types can, in fact, work together to achieve so much more than if they worked separately. Michael (the definition of a D) and Faye (the textbook of an S) Edmonson are the strongest organization in the Malovic team. Just like Bill Britt storms the castle walls, busting right through them, and Peggy follows right along, smiling at her Bill, making sure everyone's okay, Mike and Faye stormed and cruised right up to and past their level of success. Amway has taken note of this couple, and for good reason. It happened to be their anniversary, and I happened to know, because it happened to be my anniversary. So I thought it would be nice for the team to wish them well on this special day. I purchased a greeting card, and handed it off to more capable hands: Gene Dwyer's and Pinky's, both strong I's, both polar opposites to me. It took them three hours to work the crowd, discreetly avoiding Michael and Faye, but they loved every minute of it, because they like people, and they got everybody in the conference to sign the card.

That result was a vast improvement over anything I would have accomplished. They like people; my feelings about people, qua people, are the dual. I have a Comonadic relation with liking people. On the other hand, I types are impulsive — they had no idea about their anniversary, after 15 years of associating with them; calendar? planner? What's that? — whereas C types are always calculating, always sizing up the situation. Working together, we made a very nice gift for them. Mike Malovic led the singing of "Happy Anniversary" (he's a professional opera singer) for them. And then, of course, Sandy Foster, in on the game ("Doug, how did you know it's their anniversary?" "Because it's ours.") signalled for Mike's attention.

Um, no. I would not allow a well-meaning, but spur of the moment, action cheapen the gift to Michael and Faye. Sandy was going to have everyone recognize my own occasion, but I wasn't having any of that. I hsst her into silence.

But Sandy, another Über-I, is always in my good graces (I hope I could say the same for the contrapositive case). She had earlier asked Joe a question, in her inimitably I-style, about selling to an AVON™ lady; Joe's answer: "Products do not have politics."

Huh! Just simply seeing an AVON™ sticker on the back of a car gets my back up, for no other primordial reason than enemy! I just learnt something from Sandy. I leaned over to her and soto voced "Good question!" She looked pleased.

Pinky interviewed me after the conference. "Did you learn anything here, Doug? Not that I'm pushing you to build your business more. No, really, I'm not, but I was curious if you got something from today." *sigh* It seems that more than of the few people close to me are I types. I smiled at her and turned the question around, as I didn't think my answer would be helpful, having a near-perfect memory and having had this material at least three times before from these special Amway conferences. "Oh, yes," she answered me breezily, but knowingly. She's known me long enough to read my hesitancies, "I learned a lot about TINs, 30-day B2B deferred payments and sales!" So, I challenged her, "But don't you have those already set up in your business?" She smiled in return. It appears two could play the circumspection game. But, of course, my business wouldn't exist without Mike and Pinky's guidance. It was Mike who introduced me to Joel who got me my first job in software. It was Pinky who goaded me with my one successful sale, "You should order ten more and sell those." They were model train sets, deeply discounted post-Christmas from $150 to $20. I didn't sell ten more; I sold seventeen more. That's when I learnt that I am the greatest salesman in the world. And I used that learning to help me break into the field of artificial intelligence and helped me to help the company for which I'm currently working close a contract that could become a multi-year multi-million dollar. C's and I's working together. There is a God.

The happy postlude to my silence about our anniversary is that Diane was the lector for the Filipino Mass, she read from Isaiah in clear Tagalog, and then, the offertory prayers included the following:

That Douglas and Diane Auclair have a blessed wedding anniversary. Let us pray to the Lord.

As many Filipinas know us from Paaralang Pinoy, we had half the congregation wish us a happy anniversary, and then we celebrated with some bing soo at Le Matin de Paris (that is French), and so it was indeed a happy one.

Gratitude

During our last sweetie time, little Isabel passed us a picture of three little girls in a house: her até (Elena Marie), herself, and her little sister to be. Our girls desire a sibling. We all do.

Diane, my cara spoza, takes delight in this. When Isabel was reorganizing the house, adding a new bed for her new sister, Diane explained to her that the baby would be sleeping with her parents for the first couple of years of her life (attachment parenting). She warmed to the subject, as she always is looking forward to being a new M.O.M.: "When we have twins," she enthused, "Papa will need to sleep downstairs!" She cackled with that expected pleasure.

If you haven't caught on by now, then I'm happy to inform you that I'm all for it. After I reflected for awhile on her last comment, I let my dear wife know that it'd be my pleasure to become a full troll-basement denizen. I was the happiest man on earth when Diane uttered "I do." But how could I know that happiness would multiply with her continued company, and then with the addition with each of our children. I don't know how much happier I can become, but I am ready, willing, and able to find out.

But, then again, God has already given us much more than we deserve, I've been blessed time and again by the joy of my family, and if the blessing of children stopped here, I'm much more than grateful. It was a miracle that we could have even one living child, and what a miracle Elena Marie has been, and now that we have two, with little Isabel a blessing so different than her sister, but so perfectly matched with her sister, how can we ask for more than that?

Easy. When one climbs a hill, one can better see the mountain. When one reaches the mountain-top, the stars are so much clearer. Thank you for what we have. Now, more. Please.