Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 655

Depressing and monotonous in bed

Last night's dreams included:

1.  A dream in which I was back in high school, riding on the shoulders of my best friend as he sprinted across a grassy field.  Holding on for dear life, I looked up into the night sky and thought about how important it was to remember this moment because someday I would be 40-years old and all washed up.

I turn forty in three months.

2.  A dream in which the truck I was driving needed gas. I stopped at a gas station, swiped my credit card and watched the digital indicators on the gas pump flash as 30-gallons of gas were pumped into the tank.

Did you get that?  I spent a portion of last night watching the numbers change on a gas pump.

As a novelist, is this really the most creative use of my unconscious mind?

Am I really that boring?

My new favorite photo of my daughter

Optimism

I may be considered a bit of a curmudgeon, but I am also am optimist. 

I have to be. 

Though it took me longer than I would have liked, I am a remarkably happy person, having realized me dreams of becoming a teacher and an author despite:

Dying twice.
Being arrested and tried for a crime I did not commit.
Living in my car.
Being robbed at gunpoint.
Sharing a room with a goat. 
Putting myself through college while working fulltime and part-time and part-time all at the same time.
Suffering an anonymous, public and slanderous attack to my reputation and career.

Seriously, how could a guy not be optimistic after a string of catastrophes like that?

Which is why I love this idea:

Aligned with the lunatics

First, I am an independent when it comes to politics.  I tend to lean slightly to the left on many issues but certainly not all.   

Second, I have many staunch Republican friends, and all of them are sane, intelligent, thoughtful people.  I have great respect for them. 

Third, I know that the Republican party is comprised primarily of sane, intelligent, thoughtful people.

That said, I can't help but wonder if Bill Maher was correct last week when he asserted that the majority of the crazy people reside in the Republican party.

Mind you, not that all Republicans are crazy.  Just that if you're a crazy person, you're probably a Republican.  He said:

When Jon Stewart announced his rally, he said that the national conversation is dominated by people on the right who believe Obama's a socialist and people on the left who believe 9/11 was an inside job.  But I can't name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11 was an inside job.  But Republican leaders who think Obama's a socialist?  All of them!  McCain, Boehner, Cantor, Palin, all of them!  It's now official Republican dogma, like tax cuts pay for themselves, and gay men just haven't met the right woman.

As another example of both sides using overheated rhetoric, Jon cited the right equating Obama with Hitler, and the left calling Bush a war criminal.  Except thinking Obama is like Hitler is utterly unfounded, but thinking Bush is a war criminal?  That's the opinion of General Anthony Taguba , who headed the Army's investigation into Abu Ghraib.

It seems like a point at least worth considering.  While the Democrats certainly have their share of problems, they seem relatively deficient when it comes to  bigots, hate-mongers, creationists, and lunatics.

A recent report, for example, indicates that 50% of the incoming GOP class to Congress does not believe in manmade global warming.  How is it that every single Democrat in Congress sides with the 98% of climate scientists who assert that manmade global warming is real while so many Republicans do not?

Does this not strike you as a little nutty?

Do we really believe that there is a liberal conspiracy amongst almost all the scientists engaged in climate research? 

Do we honestly think that every other industrialized nation is wrong in their attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

And on the campaign trail, was President Obama ever forced to defend McCain against unfounded and hate-filled claims uttered by his constituents?  Of course not.

But again and again, McCain was forced to publicly defend his opponent against his own supporters who repeatedly called Obama an Arab and a terrorist, among other things, and he was booed in the process.

Tea Party organizers must now patrol their own rallies to ensure that hate-filled signage is removed immediately, and Tea Party leaders are forced to constantly disavow the racist and homophobic claims of their more extreme members, candidates included.  This is a political movement that was centered on small government and deficit reduction but often becomes marred by candidates like Christine O'Donnell and Glen Urquhart, who recently said:

"The exact phrase 'separation of Church and State' came out of Adolph HItler's mouth, that's where it comes from.  So the next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of Church and State, ask them why they're Nazis."

I just don't hear that kind of crazy-talk coming from the extremists in the Democratic Party. 

When was the last time you heard a Democrat compare a Republican to a mass murderer?   

And you just didn't see signs like this, with such frequency, when President Bush ran for office:

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I can't help but feel bad for my Republican friends.  Like I said, the great majority of Republicans and conservatives in general are intelligent people who want to do what they believe is best for the country, but it seems as if their party has been infiltrated by a large group of exceedingly loud lunatics who often dominate the conversation and force honorable men like John McCain to disavow their hate-filled speech at his own rallies. 

It's become near-political suicide for a Republican to support gay marriage or call for the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, even though our Republican-appointed Secretary of Defense wanted the policy to end two years ago.  

It's like being a New York Yankees fan.  I love my team, but I am also forced to acknowledge that there is an unfortunate number of Yankees fans who are loud, stupid, arrogant and willing to spit on the wife of an opposing pitcher. 

I'm not happy to be aligned with these people, but I can't simply switch loyalties and become a Red Sox fan. 

And I fear that the intelligent, reasonable majority of the Republican Party feels the same way.   

Possible black sheep of the family?

Three of the five Gronkowski brothers are currently playing in the NFL.

All three scored touchdowns today.  Rob Gronkowski, the Patriot tight end, scored three. 

All three won today. 

A fourth Gronkowski brother, Gordon, was selected in the 49th round of the 2006 Major League Baseball draft by the Los Angeles Angels.  He is currently playing in their minor league organization.

Bully for the four boys who made it to the professional sporting ranks, but can you imagine the pressure on the youngest boy, Glenn, who is currently playing high school football? 

Sucks to be him.  Huh?

Clara and Owen

Owen is not the easiest cat to live with, especially since his brother, Jack, passed away a couple years ago.

He overeats and then throws up on the carpet.

He is awake at night, just waiting for the right moment to pounce upon us.

He eats wool and prefers cashmere. 

He loses his mind from time to time and turns the second floor into a battle ground, running from room to room like a maniac and throwing his twenty pound body around like a self-flagellating rag doll.  

But my daughter, Clara, loves Owen, and despite the constant abuse that he takes at the hands of my not-so-gentle little one, he treats her with kindness and tolerance.

It's probably the only thing preventing my wife from throwing him out the window at times.

And it's moments like this when all the middle-of-the-night, meowing vomit-fests seem almost worth it:

Clara and Owen

Self administered surgery

Last night I did a reading at the Millville Public Library in Millville, MA, a town adjacent to my hometown and one of two towns that sent students to my regional high school.

My wife and daughter made the trip with me, and Clara behaved like a pro during my talk.  While I read and spoke and answered questions, she played with toys and read books off to my left, so quiet that I forgot that she was there for a time.   

 

Several of my high school friends attended the event, people with whom I should really spend more time, and after the reading, we had a chance to chat about our school days together.

I'll be sharing a few of their recollections in a series of posts over the coming week.   

Amongst the conversation topics included one classmate's recollection of the time I extracted a piece of windshield glass from my forehead in a peer education class, a feat I reproduced in geometry class and on a bus during a trip to a marching band competition.  After high school, I also extracted glass from my forehead several times, including once on vacation in New Hampshire when one of my friends would not believe that there was glass in my forehead.

I tore into my forehead and pulled out a piece out of spite.   

The glass was the result of a car accident that sent my head crashing into the windshield of my Datsun B-210.  Amongst the many lasting effects of the accident was a forehead full of glass, all but possibly one piece since removed.     

If there is a doctor in the house, please tell me how the hell I was permitted to walk around for years after my accident with shards of glass in my forehead. 

Is this normal? 

Was the plan for these corn kernel-sized pieces of glass to eventually migrate to the surface of my skin and break through?

Did the doctors forget to inform me of the plan?

Did they think that restarting my heart and respiration and repairing my knees and mouth was enough work for one day?

What kind of medical care was available in 1988?

In fact, they also did a lousy job with one of my knees.  Until I had a second surgery ten years after the accident to correct the problem, my right knee would occasionally bleed, leaking like a sieve for no explicable reason.

Seriously, what kind of medical care was being doled out at Milford Hospital in the winter of 1988?

Bologna and catsup sandwiches

Elysha just gave Clara a turkey and cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread for lunch.  She cut the sandwich in the shape of a heart.

My mother used to feed us a bologna sandwich for lunch.  One slice of bologna on Wonder bread.  Never cheese. 

Being motherly, she would make a smiley face in catsup as she applied it liberally to the bologna.

A Tale of Two Cities if I ever saw one.

Dick Van Dyke rescued by porpoises?

In order for this story to be true, the following must be true:

1.  Dick Van Dyke, 84-years old, still surfs. 

Plausible, I guess.

2.  Dick Van Dyke fell asleep on his surfboard and drifted far enough into the ocean to lose sight of land.

Possible, depending upon the size of the swells and the amount of alcohol that Van Dyke had consumed just prior to surfing. 

3,  Dick Van Dyke was eventually awakened by a school or porpoises, which he initially mistook for sharks, and they pushed him back to land.

Dolphins and porpoises have been known to rescue drowning swimmers from time to time, so I guess this might also be possible.

The thing that makes the story unbelievable is the unlikely confluence of events: 

The 84-year old star of Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang manages to fall asleep on a surfboard long enough to drift offshore, only to be rescued by a school of marine mammals. 

Each fact alone is hard enough to believe.  Stringing them together makes the whole situation seem absurd. 

Not worthy of even the most fantastic of fiction. 

Right?

Large organizations with large problems

Over the past three days:

Three Pittsburg Steelers players emerged from their Monday night game with concussions. 

This is becoming a serious problem for the NFL. 

The Dallas Cowboys website went down for more than a day when they failed to renew their online registration with Network Solutions.

Let me repeat that:  The Dallas Cowboys, an organization valued at 1.1 billion dollars, failed to renew its online registration with Network Solutions. 

Are we surprised that they are 1-7?