The Best of Craigslist

It would bw nice if I had two words to rub together, like in the old days, but until such a time as that happens again, I give you this excellent posting from a fella in Detroit. I laughed, I cried.

My women

Date: 2008-08-13, 6:40AM EDT



Laura. You were hot. I was not. You let me fuck you because I was funny. Thank you.

Kim. We smoked a lot of weed and drank all the time. I don't remember much.

Sarah. You were hot. But a total bitch. I could have done better. You treated me like shit. I put up with it because you had a great vagina. Beautiful.

Another Kim. You thought you were smart. You weren't. I was bored.

Charlee. I liked your name and the way it was spelled.

Rachel. You were really sweet and nice. Stop emailing me. It's been fifteen years. It's creeping me out and pissing off my wife. Fucking classmates.com.

Megan. I wanted you since highschool. I was kinda dissapointed when it happened.

Jennifer. What the hell was I thinking? What the hell were you thinking? You smelled kinda funny too. Your dad was a dick.

Jill. You had HUGE nipples. Couldn't feel a thing though. Shame all that nippleage going to waste.

Michelle. You were a drug addict. You have to be pretty fucked up for me of all people to say that.

Another Megan. I lost your number.

Laura. I did it for the novelty of going out with a girl that I went out with ten years before. You were still hot. I got kinda hot. We were better matched. Thanks again. Sorry I dumped you. You were a shitty tipper. I had no choice. Some handsome and cool shitty tipping guy probably grabbed you. Or some funny wanker.

Another another Megan. I've dated a lot of Megans. This one was no prize.

Debby. You were really smart except you had no self esteem. Be careful or some asshole is going to own you and that would be sad. You're smart and pretty and have great tits. Smaller tits can be awesome too.

Sophia. Liked your name. Liked that you worked out a lot. You seemed nice but you fucked up my credit. User.

Andrea. You had that adorable petit look that I can only call the "Penelope Cruz" look. Too bad you didn't have her personality.

Emily. NOBODY FUCKING CARES YOUR FAMILY IS RICH. You'd be okay if you were not preoccupied with wealth you did not personally aquire.

Dr. Sanderson. You worked to much. You were kinda cold. I thought you were cool though but you are so career motivated you probably did not give a shit about anything else. I got drunk once and thought about asking you to marry me though. I still wonder if you would have.

Elizabeth. You are my wife. My wife is perfect. My life is perfect.

Violet. You are my daughter. When I looked in on you tonight I had that rush of feeling so strong that a shiver went through my whole body and I had to move my hands really quickly to dissipate it's physical effect. Before I met you I was a "kids are no big deal, everyone's got kids and they're not that fucking special" kinda guy. You fucking ruined me. I'm gay for kids now. I love you so much baby.

My unborn 6 month old fetal daughter. If you come out retarded or ugly as shit I'll still love and protect you.

This Takes the Cake

...and it takes it literally.

The Kooky and The Creepy

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Ah, Wasilla!

“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious."

- Oscar Wilde

“ Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

-Mark Twain

Be A Good Jedi

My old college bf discovered this fellow (and released early tracks by Eminem). Apparently he's making a bid for Prez. Here's his platform. Fairly amusing, really. Hope none of the names dropping clunked you the head.

Bear Hug

I've brought you down this road before, with a slide show, but check out this video. Sweet as honey:

I think she had wet feet

Worst Best Man Ever @ Yahoo! Video

It's about people helping people

eh, Huck?

Truck Tips Other Truck @ Yahoo! Video

“ Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much."

Oscar Wilde

Life is a Cabaret

This is, in effect, the same reason some people don't give money to indigents, cause they'll just spend it on booze.

Am I supposed to be grateful that they decided to cancel their most recent sojourn to the spa-like conditions of the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay?  What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow/  
Out of this stony rubbish? Save the last decadence for me, AIG.

Doggedness

A quick update:  The surgery went well, they removed some fibrous tissue and he had some bleeding, enough to make him cold coming out of anesthesia, but not enough to require transfusion.  Neuro Doc is optimistic and pleased, and I'll be hearing more tomorrow.  Hope the buddy is not too frightened.  Actually, he's probably too drugged for that, but you should see how he pants and shivers in the car these days, because he knows it's vet time.  I, in the meantime, am dying of consumption.  If anyone can send laudanum...

(Not really him, yet exactly how he looked at 4 months.  Btw, at 6 months, he was closing in on 90 lbs.  Monster.  I kid you not.)

A Little Heartbreak

Someone in the Philippines* found my blog today after Googling this:

what is the point of of loving someone when it will just end in death?

It gave my heart a little twisting ache for them, as I wondered what the story was driving their inquiry.

(*Btw, did you know that the name Philip means "horse-lover"? Phil(os)+Hippo, is how it breaks down. I love that.)

See Duff Run

After three and a half long months of nursing my lame dog, and endless internal debate over what was best for him and for me, I have a diagnosis and a course of action.  I finally sucked it up and took him in for an MRI last week, which showed that his C5 disk is seriously compressed and bulging up into his spinal cord, suppressing neural communication. Not so much that he can't move his legs, but enough that he cannot make the move to stand.  Tomorrow at 8 a.m. he goes in for surgery to cut the offending tissue away enough that he will, in all likelihood, be able to walk again.  The neurologist is highly optimistic (a conservative 75% chance, she gave it), and when I asked about recovery time (she assures me he will need to be kept still for a time), she answered that it can vary a lot, but she's seen dogs in his situation get up the same day.  She also praised me, for she said it was clear I had taken amazing care of him over the summer.  This was a tremendous relief, because you can have no idea how I've worried that I wasn't doing right by him, keeping him alive in this state.  

She gently admonished me for taking him off the pain meds and steroids (main squeeze vet and I don't agree), but conceded that due to his good care, there was almost no fibrosis or scar tissue, or even much swelling in the area of the trauma, as one might have expected after three months of this. I'm sure that the acupuncture twice a week is largely responsible.  The colostrum has probably helped, too.  She previously had been concerned that we had waited so long, but the MRI showed that he was in great shape for surgery.  My vet subsequently informed me he's relieved we didn't send Duff right away, because he truly believes, given the really poor state Duff was in in June (I mean, the poor guy couldn't even use his bladder), that there is little chance he would have made it through the operation.  He says they almost surely would have put him down.

The cost is ridiculous, and would amply carve away a good chunk of debt for me, but I feel completely devoted to this sweet fellow, who has been the best companion I've ever had.  We take them in for our own selfish purposes, now don't we?  Is is not my responsibility, as well as my desire, to see him provided for as long as he can have a decent standard of life?  And, you know, I just love him.

So do me a favor, if you can spare the time, and wish him a little extra luck.  It will be good to see him charging up the hill once again.  ...And on that beat, he just sat up.  You should see how he acted when I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk last week.  Sounds cruel, I know, but I had to see where he was at.  He raised quite a ruckus, and bludgeoned the mattress with his great otter tail, he was so excited by the notion.

Now Starring as Dr. Doolittle

Samberg has Wahlberg down pat.  I laughed harder the second time.

Justice Is Served con Queso

Thank God they've preserved the rights of the taco truck, because Los Angeles without the Roach Coach is like New York without pizza by the slice. And all I can say to those whiny local restaurateurs is, if your food isn't good enough to outdo some super greasy carne asada tostada, you got no business staying in business.

Viva Zapata!

Liberal vs. Conservative & A Psychology of Heroism

Part 1 - Liberal vs Conservative

I can just hear the thundering protest now, and I confess that though I fall in the "liberal" category for the most part*, I felt myself strongly resisting the stereotypes set forth here. In any case, try and relax your knee-jerk reflex and take in the entire presentation, because this ends up being pretty compelling and supportive of both points of view. I'm not convinced you can bifurcate these positions so cleanly, though I concede that Prof. Haidt doesn't have a lot of time here for variations. Still, I can't say I really disagree, but I'd love to hear what you think.



And just so you don't think I'm picking on anyone in particular, which given Haidt's direction to cultivate moral humility, I should not...

Part 2 - A Psychology of Heroism

Here is Philip Zimbardo, Prof. Emeritus at Stanford, famous for the Stanford Prison experiment, on why people of any stripe do good and evil. I found myself questioning him on his participation in that study, which for me falls into the same tangled terrain of "evil." This matter is addressed and wow! what a lovely surprise ending. Be prepared, if you chose to watch, that there are upsetting photos from Abu Ghraib you might not want to see.



"Promote the heroic imagination in kids." Indeed.

(*more by his definition than the bogus dem-rep split.)

Dark Humor Moment

No need to go all stygian when we refer to the Grim Reaper; I've recently begun calling him The Hearse Whisperer. I think there's serial potential here.

City air makes people free*

This post is inspired by a recent Bulletholes' offering.

In the late 90s, I read The Geography of Nowhere and Home From Nowhere, by James Howard Kunstler, which greatly informed my understanding of architecture, civic structure and what was dysfunctional about the post-modern blight of our American landscape. These books resonated with what I already felt aesthetically and instinctually. Make no mistake, aesthetics, and more specifically classical architectural conventions, have a functionality that surpasses their joy-giving properties, which is arguably function enough.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a city that was fairly well designed and clearly well-cared for by its denizens. Portland has been a darling of The New Urbanism, for which author James Howard Kunstler is a grumpy cheerleader. Cranky, curmudgeonly, cantankerous, these are words which describe him well. Yet, it's precisely the sort of aggressively opinionated and humorous point of view that made me enjoy his books. There is great value to what he has to say:

"Community, as it once existed in the form of places worth caring about, supported by local economies, has been extirpated by an insidious corporate colonialism that doesn't care about the places from which it extracts its profits or the people subject to its operations. Without the underpinnings of genuine community and its institutions, family life alone cannot bear the burdens and perform all the functions itself." - from Home from Nowhere

A basic principle of classic civic structure is that it has a center - the town square, the public meeting house, a place for people to gather and engage in the discursive functions of a democracy. This is a principle of civic structure, and gives cities strong creative prowess, and principal Aristotle recognized as vital to and defining of a city. In fact, his notion of 'ideal cities,' needed variety and plurality, and intimacy amongst its citizenry, for "they must know each other's characters." Kunstler believes that America is suffering a 'crisis of place.'

You be the judge.



Here is a litany of complaints set forward by Kunstler regarding Modernism and the damage done:

- by divorcing the practice of building from its history and traditional meanings
- by promoting a species of urbanism that destroyed age-old social arrangements and, with them, urban life as a general proposition
-by creating a physical setting for man that failed to respect the lives of other living things and the consumption of natural resources, or to respect the lives of other living things
- by creating a crisis of human habitat -
- cities ruined by corporate gigantism & abstract renewal schemes
- public buildings and spaces unworthy of human affection
- vast sprawling suburbs lacking any sense of community
- housing in which the un-rich cannot afford to live
- slavish obeisance to the needs of automobiles and their dependent industries at the expense of human needs

(*a medieval German maxim. Aristotle said that "men come together in the city to live; they remain there in order to live the good life," but "if it overpasses the bounds of growth, absorbing more people than it can properly house, feed, govern or educate, then it is no longer a city.")