If the United States government ever collapses, it won't be because of a Chinese takeover, our imploding debt burden or because of internal moral decay. It will be--and I feel strongly about this--entirely because of facebook.
Facebook continues to become more intrusive, powerful and annoying with each passing day.
I used to like facebook. It didn't require all the customization or creativity that Myspace did. Most of my friends were on there, many of whom I hadn't spoken to in awhile. It gave me a way to talk to people without picking up the phone, which is every introvert's dream. Signing up seemed like a good idea at the time.
Now, however, facebook is ruining my life. And pretty much running it too.
Facebook has entirely too much control over my existence. It tells me how many friends I have. It tells me when someone I thought was my friend no longer is. It dredges up unflattering photos from 20 years ago that I am powerless to delete. It provides an unerasable diary of all the intimate thoughts of my daily life.
Facebooks decides for me which of my friends update I get to see, even though I manually change the default setting from facebook's self-determined "top stories" to "most recent" every single time I sign on. But facebook insists on being the gatekeeper of my social life, nonetheless.
And if, God forbid, I ever want to run a facebook application (which I most assuredly don't), then to do so, I have to sign away the rights to all my personal information, as well as the rights to my first, third and fifth-born children, second-born cat, and probably, from what I can tell from the fine print, my immortal soul.
At this point, facebook probably has a claim on the inheritance of half of the population.
But not only has facebook become overly intrusive, it's also become really hard to figure out.
Every time I think I've learned the various contours of how to navigate facebook, the powers-that-be change something. Facebook has made roughly 237 changes to its operational system in the last four years, and every single one of them made the site just a little bit harder to navigate.
It used to be that all my information was displayed on the same page. If I wanted to see my friend list, or search for other friends, I could just click on a button that allowed me to do so. I used to have a virtual pet and a virtual billboard, but they've both been abducted into cyberspace. I ended up with something called a "timeline" despite my fervent opposition.
It used to be that if I wanted to change my profile picture, I could just click on my old one. I used to be able to edit my facebook status without deleting it entirely.
Those were the good old days.
Facebook won the social networking battle over Myspace because it was simpler to use, and once it did, it immediately decided to make itself as complicated as possible.
Brilliant.
The way things stand now, I have no idea how to do anything on facebook.
It takes me half an hour, and lots of frustrating failed attempts, to change my profile picture. If I try to search for new friends, I get five results at a time, many of which are my friends already. I can block people from tagging me in their posts, but I can't block pictures of me from 15 years ago that could still get me fired today, nor can I block people from posting I was with them at some remote location during a time when I was actually at work. Or at least was supposed to be.
I just can't win.
I know I shouldn't complain. Facebook provides me with a method to publicize my writing that wouldn't have been possible a few years ago. It's been good for the blog. So I wouldn't say anything, except that I'm not the only one in this situation. Most of my friends are far deeper into the facebook realm than I am, and it seems clear that they are never going to make it out.
Pretty soon, facebook will have so much personal information about all of us that we'll be powerless to ever leave it, or do anything but submit to its arbitrary and unreasonable demands.
For example, facebook has the rights to all your photos. If you ever want to see them again, or don't want them sold to the sex trade industry, you'd better agree to those new terms of service. Even if they include something scandalous involving a chicken.
Your friends no longer email you because facebook is so convenient. So if you ever want to hear from them again, you'd better agreed to give facebook a sample of your DNA, and sign the waiver allowing any clone created therefrom to take over your life. And, of course, your facebook account.
Because, after all, the distinction between the two grows smaller and smaller every day.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
A Man's Shopping Trip from Hell
What started as a routine trip to the grocery store ended up as a married man's version of Hell. Here's what happened:
8:30: Grab the grocery list and head to Kroger. Liz is really tired, so I offerred to do it on my own.
8:36: Notice six items on the list. Five of them are no big deal, but kinda nervous about number 6. I've never been secure enough in my manhood to feel comfortable shopping for feminine hygiene products.
8:40: I'll grab everything else first, and then grab those things at the end. That way, no one will see them in my cart.
8:42: What exactly are the difference between pads and liners anyway? I've never understood why women need two different versions of these things.
8:57: Everything else is done, so I'll grab the pads. I hope this is painless...
9:00: There are only 15 people in the entire grocery store right now, but 12 of them are hanging out in the women's hygiene aisle. And they all suddenly shift their eyes to stare at the man who just entered it. How is this possible?
9:01: I hope they move quickly. I don't want to reach around other shoppers for the sake of buying maxipads, but being creepy guy standing right outside the women's hygiene aisle is probably even worse.
9:05: Everyone has cleared out except for one group, but they've left their cart directly in front of the section I need. So I'm still lingering around the hygiene aisle, wishing I could disappear...
9:08: The group with the cart is shopping for hair products, but they've left their cart in front of the maxipad section. They aren't moving very quickly, so I'm just going to have to dive in. Wait, that came out wrong.
9:11: Hmm. Maybe I'll look less conspicuous if I pull out my grocery list and pretend to stare at it. That way, maybe people will know buying these things wasn't my idea. I pull out the list and try to weave around the cart to reach what I'm looking for.
9:12: How are there this many varieties of pads???? I'm supposed to buy regular-sized, unscented, with wings. So far I've found scented with wings, regular-sized without wings, long without wings, and regular-sized, scented, without wings. Also, there's some purple package that seems just like everything else, but doesn't look like what Liz usually buys. This is so confusing.
9:13: Why is everyone staring at me?
9:15: Crap. Here comes another set of shoppers. I'm just going to grab something that looks right and go.
9:17: These are unscented with wings, but they are extra long. I can't bring these home. I screwed up and bought these once before, and that didn't work out so well. I have to walk back.
9:18: Of course, the package won't fit back on the shelf. As I fumble with my extra long pads, still navigating around the cart directly in front of where I need to be, another set of shoppers walk by, and stare for roughly 30 minutes. At least it feels that way.
9:23: After five more minutes of camping out in the pad section, I finally found what I'm looking for: regular sized, unscented, with wings. Thank God.
9:24: That was awful. At least maybe now I can go to the self checkout and disappear into the night.
9:25: There's a really long line at self checkout, but the lines are open at the cashier. Maybe it won't be too bad.
9:27: The minute I put the pads on the conveyer belt, a 30-ish single guy gets in line behind me. He watches me put the pads on the belt, gives me a funny look, and immediately moves to another lane. I'm not making this up.
9:30: Realize I left my wedding ring at home on the nightstand. I guess that explains some of the funny looks.
9:33: Just my luck, I'm stuck with the young cashier who always talks my ear off. Usually, she tries to flirt with me. I'm guessing that's not going to happen this time. Or ever again. At least some good might come from this.
9:37: Cashier bags the pads at the very end of the process, leaving them visible for every possible second. Moments before she puts them in the bag, a young woman comes behind me in the checkout line and watches. She gives me a dirty look.
9:42: Arrive home.
9:43: "Hey honey, but how come you bought the store brand instead of Always?"
8:30: Grab the grocery list and head to Kroger. Liz is really tired, so I offerred to do it on my own.
8:36: Notice six items on the list. Five of them are no big deal, but kinda nervous about number 6. I've never been secure enough in my manhood to feel comfortable shopping for feminine hygiene products.
8:40: I'll grab everything else first, and then grab those things at the end. That way, no one will see them in my cart.
8:42: What exactly are the difference between pads and liners anyway? I've never understood why women need two different versions of these things.
8:57: Everything else is done, so I'll grab the pads. I hope this is painless...
9:00: There are only 15 people in the entire grocery store right now, but 12 of them are hanging out in the women's hygiene aisle. And they all suddenly shift their eyes to stare at the man who just entered it. How is this possible?
9:01: I hope they move quickly. I don't want to reach around other shoppers for the sake of buying maxipads, but being creepy guy standing right outside the women's hygiene aisle is probably even worse.
9:05: Everyone has cleared out except for one group, but they've left their cart directly in front of the section I need. So I'm still lingering around the hygiene aisle, wishing I could disappear...
9:08: The group with the cart is shopping for hair products, but they've left their cart in front of the maxipad section. They aren't moving very quickly, so I'm just going to have to dive in. Wait, that came out wrong.
9:11: Hmm. Maybe I'll look less conspicuous if I pull out my grocery list and pretend to stare at it. That way, maybe people will know buying these things wasn't my idea. I pull out the list and try to weave around the cart to reach what I'm looking for.
9:12: How are there this many varieties of pads???? I'm supposed to buy regular-sized, unscented, with wings. So far I've found scented with wings, regular-sized without wings, long without wings, and regular-sized, scented, without wings. Also, there's some purple package that seems just like everything else, but doesn't look like what Liz usually buys. This is so confusing.
9:13: Why is everyone staring at me?
9:15: Crap. Here comes another set of shoppers. I'm just going to grab something that looks right and go.
9:17: These are unscented with wings, but they are extra long. I can't bring these home. I screwed up and bought these once before, and that didn't work out so well. I have to walk back.
9:18: Of course, the package won't fit back on the shelf. As I fumble with my extra long pads, still navigating around the cart directly in front of where I need to be, another set of shoppers walk by, and stare for roughly 30 minutes. At least it feels that way.
9:23: After five more minutes of camping out in the pad section, I finally found what I'm looking for: regular sized, unscented, with wings. Thank God.
9:24: That was awful. At least maybe now I can go to the self checkout and disappear into the night.
9:25: There's a really long line at self checkout, but the lines are open at the cashier. Maybe it won't be too bad.
9:27: The minute I put the pads on the conveyer belt, a 30-ish single guy gets in line behind me. He watches me put the pads on the belt, gives me a funny look, and immediately moves to another lane. I'm not making this up.
9:30: Realize I left my wedding ring at home on the nightstand. I guess that explains some of the funny looks.
9:33: Just my luck, I'm stuck with the young cashier who always talks my ear off. Usually, she tries to flirt with me. I'm guessing that's not going to happen this time. Or ever again. At least some good might come from this.
9:37: Cashier bags the pads at the very end of the process, leaving them visible for every possible second. Moments before she puts them in the bag, a young woman comes behind me in the checkout line and watches. She gives me a dirty look.
9:42: Arrive home.
9:43: "Hey honey, but how come you bought the store brand instead of Always?"
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Life is Good. No Really, It Is.
Life is hard, cruel and often unfair, and I'm not just talking about the board game.
The combination of it all caused me to spend the summer wondering whether life is good.
As I wrote in this space back in May, I couldn't bring myself to wear my favorite t-shirt because I couldn't bring myself to advertise its message that "Life is Good." At that time, my brother was going through multiple surgeries and 12 rounds of chemotherapy hell, while his wife and three kids watched helplessly.
At that time, I'd just hit the 5-year mark on trying to sell the house we left in St. Louis, without success. The situation is especially ironic because I left there for better opportunities that my continued ownership of that house has pretty much stripped away.
My wife didn't like her job, and it didn't seem that stable anyway.
Four months later, things haven't changed all that much. My brother's chemo sessions ended two weeks ago, and we await further news, but otherwise, things are pretty much the same. Which is to say, things haven't exactly gone according to plan.
Maybe you can relate.
In some area of life, someone else got something that you deserved. A loved one suffers, your life feels like a never-ending parade of small catastrophes, and the one thing that could happen that would suddenly make it all ok seems as far away as the horizon.
Maybe you worked hard for that promotion that was promised to you, but it was given to someone else. Perhaps you've struggled so hard at a goal that the achievement of which just happened to just fall haphazardly in someone else's lap. Or maybe it just seems that, at some cosmic level, other people's dreams come true while yours just don't.
If these things have happened to you, I understand.
They've all happened to me too, and most of them very recently.
But if there's one thing I've learned through it all, it's that life isn't defined by its worst moments.
I've been reminded of that lesson everytime someone asks me how I'm coping with the ways life is falling apart. I think about that when I see an old friend I hadn't seen in awhile and am instantly reminded of why I liked them so much to begin with. I'm reminded of it when a difficult struggle passes. I become convinced of it in those moments I'm doing the exact thing I'd most like to be doing with the people I love most.
The memories that truly linger in our souls are the ones that bring us joy, because God wired that to be the currency of our lives.
Even if these moments don't occur as often as we'd like, the fact that better times are out there somewhere itself represents hope.
I try not to get too preachy in this space, because there are a million places you can go to find that sort of thing already. But here's the deal:
In my darkest moments, it used to bother me that God put didn't ask us if we wanted to be put here before placing us on this Earth. After all, if life is imperfect and struggles are inevitable, it doesn't seem fair that we don't get a choice whether to sign up. Sometimes I've felt like a puppy whose master threw it unsuspectingly into the deep end of a pond and then expected me to be thankful upon being helped to the shore.
But that's not really the God in whom I believe. I don't believe in a God who seeks our dismay, but I do believe in a God who'd rather walk in the desert with us than put us on the beach alone. I believe in a God who doesn't always answer my questions about tomorrow but always is there to help me make it through today.
More than anything, I believe in a God who loves me--and everyone else too. I've seen too many examples of it in my own life to think otherwise, even when there are things I can't explain.
And I just can't believe in a loving God who would give us life if that life wasn't good.
To be clear, life is full of broken dreams, disappointments and injustices against which we spend our better moments fighting.
But where there is love, life is good. Not because life always meets our expectations, but because there are people who always love us anyway.
When I posed the question in this space three months ago as to whether life was good, it never occured to me that I'd already covered the issue in a prior post.
When I re-read that post a few days ago, I knew I'd already answered my own question. So if you'll indulge me, I'll speak again here now as to why I've come to believe life is good, despite everything that isn't:
Today, the birds sing. The sun shines. It sets and returns tomorrow. And more often than not, I don't even notice.
A chirping bird might not seem like much when life is falling down around you. But its symptomatic of a greater truth. Despite its imperfection, the world is filled with beauty, if only we will look for it.
Someone around you loves you, warts and all. Someone else around you loves you more than you know, but doesn't know how to say so.
There is some bigger purpose that you care about more than yourself. Through struggles beyond what seem fair, love overcomes, because God created no force more powerful.
These are the things that matter.
When life feels like more than you or I can handle, there is someone who will listen, who has been through something like it before.
At some point, someone did you a favor for no expectation of a return, just because it was the right thing to do. Someone else forgave you for something stupid you did, and that mistake you learned from made you better for the experience.
And even on a day when we feel like life's garbage dump, someone around us celebrates something wonderful in their own seperate world. And some day, we will too.
Our problems are just a drop in the bucket of life. It's tapestry is greater and more beautiful than our temporary circumstances.
(As U2 has taught us):
What we don't have, we don't need it now.
What we don't know, we can feel it somehow.
It's a beautiful day.
Don't let it get away.
The combination of it all caused me to spend the summer wondering whether life is good.
As I wrote in this space back in May, I couldn't bring myself to wear my favorite t-shirt because I couldn't bring myself to advertise its message that "Life is Good." At that time, my brother was going through multiple surgeries and 12 rounds of chemotherapy hell, while his wife and three kids watched helplessly.
At that time, I'd just hit the 5-year mark on trying to sell the house we left in St. Louis, without success. The situation is especially ironic because I left there for better opportunities that my continued ownership of that house has pretty much stripped away.
My wife didn't like her job, and it didn't seem that stable anyway.
Four months later, things haven't changed all that much. My brother's chemo sessions ended two weeks ago, and we await further news, but otherwise, things are pretty much the same. Which is to say, things haven't exactly gone according to plan.
Maybe you can relate.
In some area of life, someone else got something that you deserved. A loved one suffers, your life feels like a never-ending parade of small catastrophes, and the one thing that could happen that would suddenly make it all ok seems as far away as the horizon.
Maybe you worked hard for that promotion that was promised to you, but it was given to someone else. Perhaps you've struggled so hard at a goal that the achievement of which just happened to just fall haphazardly in someone else's lap. Or maybe it just seems that, at some cosmic level, other people's dreams come true while yours just don't.
If these things have happened to you, I understand.
They've all happened to me too, and most of them very recently.
But if there's one thing I've learned through it all, it's that life isn't defined by its worst moments.
I've been reminded of that lesson everytime someone asks me how I'm coping with the ways life is falling apart. I think about that when I see an old friend I hadn't seen in awhile and am instantly reminded of why I liked them so much to begin with. I'm reminded of it when a difficult struggle passes. I become convinced of it in those moments I'm doing the exact thing I'd most like to be doing with the people I love most.
The memories that truly linger in our souls are the ones that bring us joy, because God wired that to be the currency of our lives.
Even if these moments don't occur as often as we'd like, the fact that better times are out there somewhere itself represents hope.
I try not to get too preachy in this space, because there are a million places you can go to find that sort of thing already. But here's the deal:
In my darkest moments, it used to bother me that God put didn't ask us if we wanted to be put here before placing us on this Earth. After all, if life is imperfect and struggles are inevitable, it doesn't seem fair that we don't get a choice whether to sign up. Sometimes I've felt like a puppy whose master threw it unsuspectingly into the deep end of a pond and then expected me to be thankful upon being helped to the shore.
But that's not really the God in whom I believe. I don't believe in a God who seeks our dismay, but I do believe in a God who'd rather walk in the desert with us than put us on the beach alone. I believe in a God who doesn't always answer my questions about tomorrow but always is there to help me make it through today.
More than anything, I believe in a God who loves me--and everyone else too. I've seen too many examples of it in my own life to think otherwise, even when there are things I can't explain.
And I just can't believe in a loving God who would give us life if that life wasn't good.
To be clear, life is full of broken dreams, disappointments and injustices against which we spend our better moments fighting.
But where there is love, life is good. Not because life always meets our expectations, but because there are people who always love us anyway.
When I posed the question in this space three months ago as to whether life was good, it never occured to me that I'd already covered the issue in a prior post.
When I re-read that post a few days ago, I knew I'd already answered my own question. So if you'll indulge me, I'll speak again here now as to why I've come to believe life is good, despite everything that isn't:
Today, the birds sing. The sun shines. It sets and returns tomorrow. And more often than not, I don't even notice.
A chirping bird might not seem like much when life is falling down around you. But its symptomatic of a greater truth. Despite its imperfection, the world is filled with beauty, if only we will look for it.
Someone around you loves you, warts and all. Someone else around you loves you more than you know, but doesn't know how to say so.
There is some bigger purpose that you care about more than yourself. Through struggles beyond what seem fair, love overcomes, because God created no force more powerful.
These are the things that matter.
When life feels like more than you or I can handle, there is someone who will listen, who has been through something like it before.
At some point, someone did you a favor for no expectation of a return, just because it was the right thing to do. Someone else forgave you for something stupid you did, and that mistake you learned from made you better for the experience.
And even on a day when we feel like life's garbage dump, someone around us celebrates something wonderful in their own seperate world. And some day, we will too.
Our problems are just a drop in the bucket of life. It's tapestry is greater and more beautiful than our temporary circumstances.
(As U2 has taught us):
What we don't have, we don't need it now.
What we don't know, we can feel it somehow.
It's a beautiful day.
Don't let it get away.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
2012: The Summer of Sweat, Llamas, and other Adventures
I can't remember if summer officially ends on September 20th or 21st, or possibly some other date, so let's just save the trouble of researching it and just say it ended yesterday.
Whether Labor Day was really the end of summer or not, it marks an even more important milestone: the return of this blog from summer break!
So what happened while I was away?
Mostly, it was hot outside. And it still is most places, especially ifHurricane Tropical Storm Tropical Depression Isaac is dumping Caribbean moisture on your city like it has on Nashville the last three days.
But you know what month was even hotter?
JUNE
June was a momentous month for our country in that it provided writers everywhere the opportunity to write the word "momentous." Also, temperatures reached momentous heights in most of the country.
Nashville, for instance, hit 107. If you are thinking that "hit 107" should be the name of a radio station rather than a phrase used to describe the temperature, you might have a point. The temperature gauge should never go higher than the radio dial.
But in the midst of an unprecedented heat wave, a rare celestial event occurred: the path of Venus crossed the surface of the sun, a feat not scheduled to happen again for another 100 years. When it happened, astronomers everywhere were shocked that upon crossing the surface of the sun Venus decided this was actually preferable to being near the orbit of the Earth, and chose to linger for awhile. It said it would leave once it found a job, but it just bought a cat and things aren't looking good. It might just say until next century.
Everyone is struggling in this economy.
Speaking of which, the United States' economy continued to struggle in June, as millions of would-be employers decided to forgo interviewing prospective hires in favor of showing up to work without wearing pants. Little did they know, things would just get worse in:
JULY
July started on Independence Day, which happened to fall on July 4th this year. Cities across the country cancelled their traditional fireworks demonstrations this year, because no one quite remembered why they ever held them to start with. Also, it was so hot outside that both fireworks and humans carried a 50 percent chance of exploding upon 12 seconds of exposure to sunlight.
Temperatures in Nashville and elsewhere across the nation's heartland rose to 109 degrees and stayed there for roughly 412 straight days. Locally, Tennessee republicans attempted to egg Al Gore's house as a show of contempt, but all such eggs fully cooked while in flight and became spongy upon arrival, creating minimal mess. The Gores may, or may not, have enjoyed a lovely brunch, however.
Meanwhile, the economy improved slightly, as employers rushed to fill vacancies left when their former employees spontaneously combusted. These gains were largely offset by employees who chose termination of employment over venturing out into the oppressive heat, however.
This didn't make national news, but a llama was spotted in the Smoky Mountains. It was in the back of a truck, or at least the back of a trailer attached to one. The truck was parked in the parking lot near the entrance to a hiking trail at a remote back corner of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Also, the llama was spotted by the author of this column.
But the sighting was remarkable nonetheless.
The spotting of the Smoky Mountain Llama raises many questions. Where was the driver ultimately taking the llama, and why did the driver stop for a lovely mountain hike while transporting it?
Why was the llama left in the trailer? Wouldn't it have been helpful in navigating the hike?
The great irony is that the llama was in one of the few places in America where it could have been put to the use for which the species has for thousands of years been bred, and it was just sitting in the truck. Did its owner forget to pull him out, just as I left my hiking stick in the trunk?
Or was it that someone with a trailer attached to their truck coincidentally happened to capture and confine a wild llama, 3,000 miles from its home territory, in route to Saturday hike?
I still don't know the answer.
I do know that the Olympics started later in the month, but we'll talk more about that in:
AUGUST
In June and July, it was too hot to go outside, too hot to stay inside, and everyone was miserable. August was pretty much the same way, except that the Olympics were on.
Ratings for Olympic swimming drew all-time highs, partly because Americans anxiously awaited to see if returning champion Michael Phelps could fuel national pride by becoming the greatest and most decorated Olympian of all-time, but mainly because looking at the water made us feel two-percent cooler.
The Olympics consisted of a stunning number of other events that can best be described in one word: dumb.
I mean no disrespect by this term. Some of the more obscure Olympic events are, undoubtedly, really hard. I'm sure the participants would kick my tail if I could somehow figure out the rules and tried to compete against them. But the fact remains that about 1/3 of all Olympic events are really silly, and appear to have originated after their founders ingested large amounts of chemicals.
My favorite dumb Olympic sport is handball. It's a game where players on each team gather up a running start, fly into the air, crash into the other team's human wall of defenders, and try to hurl a ball into the other team's net in the process.
There's an episode of "The Simpsons" where the writers illustrate how dumb Homer and Bart are by having them gain a running start and crash into each other while wearing pots on their heads. After the collision, Homer announces: "that makes 22-16." Add a ball to the equation, and this, basically, is handball.
It looks really fun.
But the game is dumb, just like how my siblings and I used to have water-drinking contests. There's a skill, a technique, and an endurance to it, but it measures talents for which there is limited outside use, and no one comes by except in curious fashion. Synchronized swimming, water polo, and something called the "modern pentathlon" (consisting of five "modern" events, including such relevant-for-the-times components as fencing and steeplechase) also fell into this category, and don't even get me started on the "sport" where the horses compete to see which is the best dancer, but humans somehow win the medals.
It's called "dressage." Look it up.
Watching it all was great fun, and everyone was sad when it ended, because it meant we had to go outside again.
August brought us more than the Olympics, though. It also brought us Hurricane Isaac, which hovered over New Orleans on the 7-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and decided it liked the town enough to stay for an extra shrimp poboy and an order of beignets.
Isaac moved about as quickly as Mrs. Fletcher, the old woman in the Life Alert commercial who fell and then couldn't get up. It soaked the entire Gulf Coast in its wake, before eventually moving on the Mid-South and Midwest and doing the same things there.
All told, the enormous, slow-moving storm brought muggy tropical air and moisture to half the nation, which had been just on the verge of cooling down as summer drew to a close. It was exactly what everyone needed to remind them that summer is, in fact, miserable when one becomes an adult.
I, for one, am glad summer is finally over.
Let's not have another one for at least nine more months.
Whether Labor Day was really the end of summer or not, it marks an even more important milestone: the return of this blog from summer break!
So what happened while I was away?
Mostly, it was hot outside. And it still is most places, especially if
But you know what month was even hotter?
JUNE
June was a momentous month for our country in that it provided writers everywhere the opportunity to write the word "momentous." Also, temperatures reached momentous heights in most of the country.
Nashville, for instance, hit 107. If you are thinking that "hit 107" should be the name of a radio station rather than a phrase used to describe the temperature, you might have a point. The temperature gauge should never go higher than the radio dial.
But in the midst of an unprecedented heat wave, a rare celestial event occurred: the path of Venus crossed the surface of the sun, a feat not scheduled to happen again for another 100 years. When it happened, astronomers everywhere were shocked that upon crossing the surface of the sun Venus decided this was actually preferable to being near the orbit of the Earth, and chose to linger for awhile. It said it would leave once it found a job, but it just bought a cat and things aren't looking good. It might just say until next century.
Everyone is struggling in this economy.
Speaking of which, the United States' economy continued to struggle in June, as millions of would-be employers decided to forgo interviewing prospective hires in favor of showing up to work without wearing pants. Little did they know, things would just get worse in:
JULY
July started on Independence Day, which happened to fall on July 4th this year. Cities across the country cancelled their traditional fireworks demonstrations this year, because no one quite remembered why they ever held them to start with. Also, it was so hot outside that both fireworks and humans carried a 50 percent chance of exploding upon 12 seconds of exposure to sunlight.
Temperatures in Nashville and elsewhere across the nation's heartland rose to 109 degrees and stayed there for roughly 412 straight days. Locally, Tennessee republicans attempted to egg Al Gore's house as a show of contempt, but all such eggs fully cooked while in flight and became spongy upon arrival, creating minimal mess. The Gores may, or may not, have enjoyed a lovely brunch, however.
Meanwhile, the economy improved slightly, as employers rushed to fill vacancies left when their former employees spontaneously combusted. These gains were largely offset by employees who chose termination of employment over venturing out into the oppressive heat, however.
This didn't make national news, but a llama was spotted in the Smoky Mountains. It was in the back of a truck, or at least the back of a trailer attached to one. The truck was parked in the parking lot near the entrance to a hiking trail at a remote back corner of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Also, the llama was spotted by the author of this column.
But the sighting was remarkable nonetheless.
The spotting of the Smoky Mountain Llama raises many questions. Where was the driver ultimately taking the llama, and why did the driver stop for a lovely mountain hike while transporting it?
Why was the llama left in the trailer? Wouldn't it have been helpful in navigating the hike?
The great irony is that the llama was in one of the few places in America where it could have been put to the use for which the species has for thousands of years been bred, and it was just sitting in the truck. Did its owner forget to pull him out, just as I left my hiking stick in the trunk?
Or was it that someone with a trailer attached to their truck coincidentally happened to capture and confine a wild llama, 3,000 miles from its home territory, in route to Saturday hike?
I still don't know the answer.
I do know that the Olympics started later in the month, but we'll talk more about that in:
AUGUST
In June and July, it was too hot to go outside, too hot to stay inside, and everyone was miserable. August was pretty much the same way, except that the Olympics were on.
Ratings for Olympic swimming drew all-time highs, partly because Americans anxiously awaited to see if returning champion Michael Phelps could fuel national pride by becoming the greatest and most decorated Olympian of all-time, but mainly because looking at the water made us feel two-percent cooler.
The Olympics consisted of a stunning number of other events that can best be described in one word: dumb.
I mean no disrespect by this term. Some of the more obscure Olympic events are, undoubtedly, really hard. I'm sure the participants would kick my tail if I could somehow figure out the rules and tried to compete against them. But the fact remains that about 1/3 of all Olympic events are really silly, and appear to have originated after their founders ingested large amounts of chemicals.
My favorite dumb Olympic sport is handball. It's a game where players on each team gather up a running start, fly into the air, crash into the other team's human wall of defenders, and try to hurl a ball into the other team's net in the process.
There's an episode of "The Simpsons" where the writers illustrate how dumb Homer and Bart are by having them gain a running start and crash into each other while wearing pots on their heads. After the collision, Homer announces: "that makes 22-16." Add a ball to the equation, and this, basically, is handball.
It looks really fun.
But the game is dumb, just like how my siblings and I used to have water-drinking contests. There's a skill, a technique, and an endurance to it, but it measures talents for which there is limited outside use, and no one comes by except in curious fashion. Synchronized swimming, water polo, and something called the "modern pentathlon" (consisting of five "modern" events, including such relevant-for-the-times components as fencing and steeplechase) also fell into this category, and don't even get me started on the "sport" where the horses compete to see which is the best dancer, but humans somehow win the medals.
It's called "dressage." Look it up.
Watching it all was great fun, and everyone was sad when it ended, because it meant we had to go outside again.
August brought us more than the Olympics, though. It also brought us Hurricane Isaac, which hovered over New Orleans on the 7-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and decided it liked the town enough to stay for an extra shrimp poboy and an order of beignets.
Isaac moved about as quickly as Mrs. Fletcher, the old woman in the Life Alert commercial who fell and then couldn't get up. It soaked the entire Gulf Coast in its wake, before eventually moving on the Mid-South and Midwest and doing the same things there.
All told, the enormous, slow-moving storm brought muggy tropical air and moisture to half the nation, which had been just on the verge of cooling down as summer drew to a close. It was exactly what everyone needed to remind them that summer is, in fact, miserable when one becomes an adult.
I, for one, am glad summer is finally over.
Let's not have another one for at least nine more months.
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