Man Martin's Blog, page 153

Going to Sleep

There may be a dulcet "bang"
followed by a melodious trickle
of profanity.  That is all.Nancy and I go to bed at the same time.  We do not, however, go to sleep at the same time.  There's the rub.

An expeditious sleeper, me.  I am asleep as soon as the body hits the mattress if not sooner, but not so Nancy.  She will sit up and read, which I am too generous-hearted to mind.  True, the light is on, but that's no big deal, and at times it seems she has to turn pages with astonishing force, but these are things I can live with.  Sometimes, however, she discovers she has some urgent business at the other end of the house and must leap from the bed to see to it.  Whatever this thing is, I've never inquired, but evidently it requires she stomp all the way to get there.  I suppose for some reason she has to avoid sneaking up on it.  She also stomps all the way back.  If she uses the bathroom, and this I really cannot explain, the flush is extraordinarily loud.  I do not know how she accomplishes this.  Some sort of amplifiers in the water tank, I suppose.

I know this is not all in my imagination because I am quietness itself when I get out of bed in the morning.  The fog that comes in on little cat feet has nothing on me.  A butterfly's shadow floating over a velvet cushion would make more noise than I.  What little sounds I do make serve rather to enhance the silence rather than disrupt it.  The toilet, when I flush, makes a soft whispery sound, like a gentle zephyr wafting through a green canyon.  On the occasions, usually no more than three times per week, that I stub my toe or bang my shin against the unforeseen corner of some immovable object, there may be a brief, dulcet, "bang," followed by a melodious trickle of profanity, but that is all.

When Nancy arises from her peaceful slumber, she would probably be unaware I had gotten out of bed at all, were it not for the few little tokens I leave behind, like a stealthy magical creature of folklore such as the tooth fairy or the sandman: a few coffee spills on the counter and floor, perhaps.  Possibly some packets of sweetener that failed to land in the trashcan.  A sodden towel lying in the middle of the bathroom floor, maybe.  Perchance, a dollop of yogurt on a seat cushion.  Just these, and nothing more.

Why can't everyone be like me?

Another Reason I Never Made it as a Cartoonist

"I prefer to think of it as dumbing-up."

What You'll Need to Bring with You to Mars

WASHINGTON — A group of volunteers hoping to become the first human Martians congregated in one spot for the first time Saturday (Aug. 3) to discuss their hopes to join the Mars One mission, a project to send colonists on a one-way trip to the Red Planet. - Tanya Lewis, Huffington Post

Okay, folks, listen up, now!  Settle down, settle down.  You in the Darth Vaader mask, do you mind taking that off,  it's kind of distracting.  So here's a list of things you'll need if you're one of the lucky ones chosen.  Remember, we will only select four.  (Boos.)  Settle down, now.  First of all, sunglasses, obviously.  And comfortable shoes.  Comfortable shoes are a must for walking on the beach, and basically Mars is all beach.  And ladies, I don't want to be indelicate but Mars has two moons, and one of them rises three times a day.  We have no idea how this will affect human physiology, so don't skimp on the panty liners.

Now when the rocket blasts off, you'll be in space around seven months, so it's very important you use the bathroom before you leave.  By the way, sending you there will cost six billion dollars, that's billion with a b, people, so you'll be allowed one carry-on and one personal item, that's it.  Each additional bag you check we're going to charge you seventy-eight million dollars.  So pack light.  

When you get there, you'll have specially-bred fast-growing seedlings to provide nourishment and replenish the oxygen supply.  Like that's going to work.  I personally recommend you also bring a candy bar or some beef jerky or something.  When the plants all die, and rations are running low, in the days before the colonists start resorting to murder/suicide/cannibalism, a single Slim Jim will have enormous bargaining power and could be parlayed into a situation where, if you're clever and unscrupulous, you might be the last to die, mumbling maniacally to yourself about "my Precious" or something.

Of course, we hope it doesn't work out like that.  With luck, the four of you will survive and reproduce, and your children will interbreed, and your children's children, until Mars is covered with entire cities of your grotesquely mutated offspring who have developed their own nightmare culture of Nietzschean "uber-men" smoldering with envy and hate of the feeble earthlings who marooned their ancestors on this cold barren rock and plotting the day when they can return in great glory and armored spaceships to reclaim their birthright and seize their homeland by right of conquest.

Good luck.  

Questions?

Love Song of an NSA Official

WASHINGTON—National Security Agency officers on several occasions have channeled their agency’s enormous eavesdropping power to spy on love interests, U.S. officials said. - Siobhan Gorman, Wall Street Journal

You may leave me, darling, but I will always be there.  I will be the sunrise in the morning and the moon at night, and when you look into the mirror, it will be my face that you see.  I will be the unmanned surveillance drone overhead, the spy satellite in geosynchronous orbit taking pictures of you as you go to the gym or get ready for a date for that so-called best friend of mine, Barry.  

Call me a hopeless romantic, if you wish.  Call me a loser, and a psychopath, and a stalker, and a creep.  It's okay.  I have it all digitally recorded, and will use it in evidence against you later.

I will be in the fields of wildflowers that seem to whisper as you pass, "Come back to me, come back to me."  Each of those flowers is equipped not only with itty-bitty speakers but also tiny little microphones, no bigger than ladybugs.  So please speak clearly and distinctly.  I will be the white utility van with tinted windows that always seems to be parked across the street from your apartment.  

The neighbors' dachshund that greets you each morning with wagging tail, that's me, too.  I had the dog kidnapped and replaced with a specially designed robotic dachshund, so realistic no one can ever tell the difference.  Ha ha.  Which shows how much I love you.  And the little girl with the red tricycle and red hair and the adorable lisp, you know the one.  She's one of my operatives now, I turned her.   

And most of all, I am in your heart.  That's right, if you look deep in your heart, you will find me there.  When you broke up with me, I had you anesthetized, and a team of specially-trained NSA surgeons put a GPS microchip in your heart.  But you can't have it removed without killing yourself, so don't even try.

I love you forever and ever, and I'm watching over you even now.  Don't wear that sweater, darling, you can see your bra right through it.

XX OO

You Know Who.

Me vs the Squirrels, Update

Day one of setting my hav-a-hart trap, I caught nothing.  Something had been in there, alright, the birdseed was gone, and the little doors were shut, but the trap was empty.  This, I could not understand.  I have seen these things in operation, and they are escape-proof.

The next morning I saw a dark ball sitting in the trap, but not a squirrel.  A rat.  I don't want to exaggerate, so I am an giving a cautious estimate when I say she measured eight inches from nose to tail.  Again, I am claiming no behemoth rodent here; the tail accounts for half that.

She seemed calm until I lifted the trap, and then she scampered back and forth, hoping to find an exit she'd overlooked the night before.  The funny thing is, if I'd seen her loose and she'd run across my foot, or if I'd found her in a conventional trap, her neck broken under a steel bar, I'd have been repulsed, but seeing her safely caged, where I was safe from her, and she from me, I felt - oh, Lord, you will think me such a sentimental sap - pity.

I considered whether I should put a towel on the floorboard before setting the trap in my car.  She was already quite nervous, and, quite understandably, she might pee from the sheer excitement of taking her first car ride.  But then I reasoned she'd probably emptied her bladder the night before and had nothing to drink since, so off we went.

I called her Iphigenia, which I now realize was a mistake.  I should've named her Danae, but once you apply the wrong name, it's too late.  In my mind she could never be Danae.  In mythology Danae had been locked in a box and thrown into the sea by her evil father, Acrisius, with the rationalization that her fate - life or death - would be decided by Poseidon.  Which is kind of like saying, fathers locking daughters in boxes and throwing them in the sea don't kill people, sea gods kill people.  Iphegenia was sort of similar, except her father, Agamemnon, wrapped her up in heavy chains first.  Say what you will about Acrisius, he was a sweetheart compared to Agamemnon.

But like those women of myth, the little rat was to be cast away in some strange place for fate to run its course.  She might make a burrow, find a mate, and live a full and happy life.  She might run into a snake and be a morning snack.

I got to Arabia, set the trap down at the verge of the woods, and opened the door.  She needed no coaxing.  I saw her bound once above the tall weeds, and she was gone.

Walk for the Cure

My daughter Spencer is doing the Susan G Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure for breast cancer, and this blog is a naked attempt to solicit support for her.

Here's the link if you wish to contribute: http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/2013/WashingtonDCEvent2013?px=6521413&pg=personal&fr_id=1823

The next thing I will write may sound preposterous, but hear me out.  I believe the most human organ is not our brain, not our opposable thumb, but a woman's breast.  Surely it is the breast that makes us mammals.  We are named for that gland, not for example, the penis.  Even a praying mantis has a penis.  But the breast defines us as more than merely mammal.  The fact that human mothers feed babies from their bodies, rather than letting them fend for themselves like baby crocodiles, or even regurgitating into their mouths like baby sparrows, makes us human.  It is that essential tender bonding moment that teaches us love, which we receive quite literally with mother's milk, that gives us the inklings of compassion and joy in one another which is our finest quality.  A woman's breast makes us not merely mammalian, not merely human, but humane.

A recent trip to Philadelphia has me thinking of the founding fathers, and an account I read about John and Abigail Adams.  Their beloved daughter, named Abby after Abigail, and fondly nicknamed Nabby, had breast cancer and endured an 18th Century-style mastectomy.  I append a picture so you will have an idea of the gruesome procedure she endured, without anesthetic.  Essentially, her breast was pinched off by shears.  She died in surgery.  Excruciating torment on top of the excruciating torment she'd endured already.  And the torment of her parents.  Her loving parents.

You might recoil at this, how could a physician, a healer, do such a thing to another human being?  But I tell you, that doctor was a great man, and Nabby's horrible death was not in vain.  That was a tiny stepping stone to the cure.  Last year an actress, for whom I've had undisguised contempt, became beautiful in my eyes because of her great courage.  Her bravery was made possible in some small way by Nabby's bravery.  First diagnose.  Then learn to treat, however unsuccessfully.  And last, God willing, find the cure.

 My eyes sting even now thinking of how much John and Abigail must have loved their daughter.  And now Spencer Martin, my own lovely daughter, is walking to raise money to find that cure. I am so proud of you Spencer, and I love you so much.

Help save the most precious of all human organs.  For our mothers.  Our daughters.

Here's the link:
http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/2013/WashingtonDCEvent2013?px=6521413&pg=personal&fr_id=1823

Curiosity vs Cats

A Curious Cat in the 17th CenturyIn a student questionnaire, I asked my class for their favorite saying.  One girl responded it was "Curiosity killed the mockingbird."  It took all of my powers of suasion, plus that of at least one of her friends, that there was no such saying, or at least there hadn't been until she'd come up with it.

That got me thinking about the original saying, however, and wondering why curiosity had such legendary and mortal powers over cats.  A bit of research confirmed my suspicion.  Originally curious did not mean inquisitive, but careful and meticulous.  A curious tradesman wasn't someone who pried into your family secrets, but someone who did his work with diligent attention to detail.  The curiosity that killed the cat was being too careful.  A variant of this saying was "care killed the cat."
A Curious Cat TodayShakespeare alludes to this when Lady Macbeth chides her husband for letting "'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,' like the cat i' the adage."  The cat's problem is being cautious and shilly shallying.  By the way, shilly shally is derived from "will I, shall I?" a question a cat in an adage might ponder as he let "I dare not" wait upon "I would."  Shilly shally's cousin, dilly dally, is derived from dally, which is related to delay.  The dilly was added just to make it sound silly.

All this is to say, it's much more likely for a cat to be too curious, in our modern sense, than too careful and cautious.  I've never seen a cat getting in trouble for hanging back and weighing consequences.  As for the mockingbird part, my student conflated the saying with the title of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.  It's bad to kill mockingbirds because they are songbirds that do no harm to anyone and are inedible besides.  I do not know of a mockingbird who was ever killed for being too curious or too cautious.

So why did I bother researching how the saying, Curiosity killed the cat, came over time to have almost precisely the opposite meaning as it originally did?

Just curious, I guess.

Me vs Squirrels

I observe from a place of concealment
as a squirrel unwittingly approaches the trapThe squirrels in our yard have gotten completely out of hand.  In years past, they ate ripe tomatoes.  This year they began eating the green ones.  Nancy and I have seen with our own eyes, a squirrel pluck a green tomato, sit on top of the tomato cage as he took one or two contemptuous chaws, and then throw the rest away.

We got not a single tomato this year.  Not one.  Thank you squirrels.

Now that all the green tomatoes are gone, the squirrels have gone after the suet cages we have hanging from the eaves.  The little bastards climb up on the roof and then onto the cages where they cling while nibbling suet.  Yesterday one of them knocked down and broke one of my hummingbird feeders.

I have spoken aloud a plan to get a daisy b-b gun and wait in ambush to plug squirrels.  A neighbor of ours used to do that, and I thought he was comic and eccentric, but now I'm starting to see his point.  "I really mean it," I'd say to Nancy, holding a mutilated green tomato, the latest victim of squirrel rapine.  "I'm going to get me a gun and kill me some squirrels."  (There's something about blood lust, even if it's just squirrels, that makes my grammar more colloquial.)  "Yes, dear," Nancy said patiently.  "Go do it."

She knew I was bluffing.

The reasons I would never fire on a squirrel are (A) I am a lousy shot.  (B) I don't have time to sit out during the day plugging squirrels. and (C) I have this weird Puritan ethic that tells me if I kill something that isn't actively attacking me, I have to skin it and eat it.  No thanks.  I don't object o squirrel meat per se, but the thought of me taking a bowie knife to a squirrel carcass and then presenting the remains to be fried up in a skillet is just too ridiculous.  So the squirrels are safe from gunfire, at least from me.

So I went to the hardware store and got a humane trap.  If the squirrel steps inside to taste the yummy birdseed I've left, two aluminum doors pop down, locking him in a little cage.  If I catch one, I will drive that rascal with me to work, Arabia Mountain High School, which is thirty miles distant and on the other side of not one, but two busy interstates.  Get home from that, sucker.

Arabia is on acres and acres of wooded land.  I have seen wild turkeys strutting there.  Deer are not uncommon.  There will be plenty of forage for the squirrel.  There are hawks and foxes also, animals not as squeamish about raw squirrel as I am, but that is nature's way.

I'll keep you posted.

Ben and Me

This morning Nancy and I are visiting the Franklin Institute.  Yesterday we visited Franklin's grave.  One the way home, we took a wrong turn and got on the Franklin Bridge.  This is called the City of Brotherly Love, it should be called the City of Benjamin Franklin.  Philabenjamin.

Ben Franklin has always been a personal hero of mine.  In his own time he was compared to Newton, but that was sheer hyperbole.  Franklin was no Newton polishing and polishing his Grand Theory until it was perfect.  Whenever Franklin attempted a Grand Theory, it always seemed to lay an egg.

As a young up-and-comer in Boston, he got into a public dispute with an elderly Cotton Mather (he of the witch trial fame) over whether it was advisable to inoculate people against smallpox.  And Franklin was wrong!  Franklin, the budding scientist, said it made no sense giving people a disease to protect them from it; it was Mather, the author of that bizarre justification of the Salem Trials, Wonders of the Invisible World, who said, whether it made sense or not, it worked, and there was a duty to save lives when possible.

Franklin seemed to take this early humiliation to heart and was reluctant ever after to announce any Grand Theory or Design unless he was backed into a corner.  He formed a philosophical society, one of the rules of which was you could make no statement without first saying, "It seems to me" or "perhaps."  You couldn't hold up anything as an incontrovertible fact.  One of his contributions to the Declaration of Independence was replacing Jefferson's portentous phrase "sacred and undeniable" with the milder "self-evident."  Careful and moderate, Franklin was: not one for radical ideology or any ideology.  An agnostic, he supported Christ Church because even if it was silly, it didn't do any harm and might do some good.  (He admired a local religious sect that had no written "Bible" at all.)  A philosopher, he never wrote a book of philosophy, but compiled a list of simple practical maxims about saving pennies and stitches in time.  He knew his sphere was in the humble world of earthy affairs.

Nevertheless, he made significant scientific contributions, especially in the field of electricity.  In the French court, they called him Monsieur Electrique, which sounds a lot better than "Mr. Electric."  Franklin, like many other 18th Century scientists, figured electricity was a fluid that flowed in a "current" from wherever there was too much to wherever there was too little.  He said the place with too much electricity was "positively charged" and the place with too little was "negatively charged," giving us the term "battery" and the nomenclature to go with it.  Except he got it backward!  The side he dubbed "negative" which is the side he thought the current would flow into, is where it flows from, and the "positive side," which Franklin thought the wellspring of the current is actually its delta.

Franklin would have laughed.  The greatest trait of a great man is not putting too much stock in his own greatness.  I stood at his grave, and was touched and puzzled to see the stone covered with pennies and nickles.  Why had people put them there?  Were they the "pennies saved?"  A tribute?  Making a wish?  Because other people had put their pennies there?

In a famous, and possibly apocryphal dispute, Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin argue over what should be the national bird.  Adams pumped for the bald eagle; the Adams boys were always a little on the bloodthirsty side; they envisioned America as a new Sparta.  Jefferson, naturally, wanted it to be a dove.  Hippie.  Franklin thought it should be the turkey.  Good old Franklin.  Pick something native, wild and cunning, and - in a pinch - edible.

I smiled to see the coins on Franklin's grave, shook my head, and walked away.  Then I wondered, what would Ben do?  He would say it was silly, of course, but it couldn't do any harm and it just possibly might do some good.  I asked Nancy for a penny and left it behind.

Dating People Versus Married People

I'm in Philadelphia as I write this.  Nancy's on an extended business trip, and since I've never seen the cradle of liberty (or is that Boston?) I came to join her for the weekend, and we're going to do all the touristy stuff.  We're on a date.  I won't go into details, but there's something invigorating and naughty-feeling about being with your wife in a strange hotel room, and it made me think about the difference between being married and dating.

I admit to being an inveterate eaves-dropper in public paces.  I love hearing one side of enigmatic phone conversations, I like observing petty familial arguments, but the most amusing thing for me is watching people on dates.  I can tell precisely how many dates a couple have been on.  The first date is like sparring in a boxing match: they're feeling each other out - it's awkward and artificial.  Later dates lose their awkwardness, but they remain just as artificial.  When people are dating, they put on their best selves for each other.  They're more interested in what each other has to say.  They laugh at each others' jokes.  They work at coming up with fun stuff to say to each other.  They smile.  They strive to send the message, "Stick with me, and I'll make the world one sweet song."  They believe the other person will make life one sweet song for them.

Married people on the other hand, are natural with each other.  They talk, but it's more likely to be about tile grout or the dog's ear infection.  They see nothing wrong with not making eye-contact if there's something more interesting to look at, such as the tv, a newspaper article, or empty space.  They feel free to be critical of each other.  They talk about kids, about bills, about irritable bowls and bunions.  They know life is not one sweet song, that there are plenty of good moments in it, yes, but lots of bad ones, too, and that it's handy having someone at your side through good and bad.
Certainly married people are wiser, and not only wiser but more honest, than first-daters, and that first-date glow can't last, but here's a thought nevertheless.  Once in a while, you don't have to do it often, strive to be the person you were on your first date.  Find your spouse fascinating, try to be fascinating for her, be not only courteous but hyper-courteous, fetch her stuff, ask after her desires.  Praise her.  Look at her.  Smile.
Just a thought.  But think how much fun it would be in a restaurant to make the other tables roll their eyes and think, "First date!"