There are two possibilities here:
1. He is studying the gravitational and centrifugal forces that cause the plate to wobble and fall similar to the way a scientist might study a similar phenomenon.
2. He likes to make noise.
As his father, I’m not sure which one would be better.
They both sounds pretty great to me.
Is it wrong for me to be annoyed, angered, even outraged at the idea of a non-wheelchair bound actor performing in a wheelchair bound role?
I think it might be, but I’m annoyed just the same.
Elysha and I are watching an HBO comedy called Hello Ladies, and there’s a wheelchair-bound character in the show being portrayed by a non-disabled actor.
I can’t help but think:
Why not find an actor who’s in a wheelchair to perform that role?
Apparently the same situation exists in the television show Glee. The actor playing the wheelchair-bound student in that show is actually a professional dancer.
Should I be angry about this?
I don’t think so. But I am.
I don’t think my anger is logical. I don’t think it’s justified in any way. An actor should be able to perform any role. They are, after all, actors. Their job is to pretend to be something they are not.
Still, it annoys me.
Here are the rules:
The self-driving car is self explanatory. It’s the finished version of the self-driving car that Google is currently developing. It drives the car wherever you ask it to go. You sit inside and do whatever the hell you want.
The flying car travels at regular car speeds but does not need to adhere to the limitations of roads. It can fly over traffic, rivers, forests and anything else that might be in the way, but you must be actively driving it at all times.
Which do you choose and why?
I believe that your answer says a lot about you.
I will give you my choice and my analysis of both choices tomorrow.
For the first minute or so of this Jimmy Kimmel segment, I hated it. I thought it was cruel and exploitive.
By the third minute I thought it was hilarious.
By the fifth minute I was willing to do the same to my own child.
I have no idea how or why this dramatic shift in opinion happened. Perhaps the gag is simply too funny to be thought of as cruel. Maybe the pain is worth the pleasure. Maybe I was simply being too sensitive in the first minute.
I’m not sure.
As I know is that it’s gut-wrenchingly hilarious.
My family went to a pumpkin patch yesterday. My wife sent me some photos from their afternoon amidst the pumpkins, including this one.
She’s cute as a button, and I love the photograph, but I feel like this image could be interpreted in a lot of different ways. For example:
“Bright lights came from the sky and took my Mommy and Daddy away. I don’t think they're coming back. Please help me.”
Or this:
“I see dead people. They’re living in the corn. Run.”
Or this:
“Don’t say no to me. You’ll make me angry. You wouldn’t like it when I’m angry.”
The fact that someone can actually do this astounds me.
The fact that someone can envision something like this in their mind and then create it with their hands seems impossible to me. I have heard similar sentiments about the writing process and the creation of novels and short stories, but I find the expertise, talent and vision of artists like this far more impressive.
It’s as if these people have a different set of hands and eyes than the rest of humanity.
If this doesn’t impress you, how about the postman who spent 34 years building a palace using the rocks that he found along his postal route?
People are amazing.
Dinosaur-on-human erotica or a Ryan Gosling coloring book?
Both are real. Which is scarier?
When I look back at the scant few photographs of me and my father from when I was a baby, I see the grainy images of an adult and his baby boy.
A grown man and his infant son.
I can’t help but wonder:
When my son is older, will he look back on photos like these and think the same?
Because I don’t. I look at these photos and see a big boy holding his little boy.
I know that I’m a grownup. I own a home. I have a career (or three). I’m a husband and the father of two. I’m a responsible citizen who has been living on his own and taking care of himself and others ever since he was eighteen years old.
Even so, it’s still such a stretch for me to think of myself an honest-to-goodness adult. I look back on the photos from my childhood and see real grownups in those pictures. I see serious people with serious expressions.
I see a man without an ounce of boyhood in him. My father is all adult. All man.
I look at pictures and me and Charlie, and I see none of that.
Will Charlie look at these photos someday and see the same?
I’d much rather see my son become an author like his Daddy than the book critic that seems to be his natural inclination.
Nothing wrong with book critics, but I don’t think I could stand a scathing review from my own son.
Hopefully this is just a phase.
My friend, who happens to be a physicist (so you know he’s smart) believes that women have a four degree comfort zone and men have a 20 degree comfort zone, and this explains why women are so often cold in an air conditioned environment.
I agree with this hypothesis. I have expanded slightly on his theory by identifying the average temperature ranges for both men and women.
In my experience, women seem to be most comfortable in a 68-72 degree environment, whereas men seem just fine in temperatures ranging from 60-80 degrees.
I have not conducted a formal study to determine if my friend’s theory is correct, but I know this:
In my four decades on this planet, I have never heard a man express the need for a sweater, jacket or wrap upon entering an air conditioned space. but I have heard a hundred thousand million women express this exact sentiment.
This has been enough evidence for me, but lo and behold, there is actually some research that supports this belief. Findings suggest that there is a significant difference in heat perception between men and women on average. While studies have found that women's actual core body heat is slightly higher than men's, women's extremities tend to be a lot colder.
In 1998, researchers at the University of Utah added a layer of subtlety to science's understanding of gender and body temperature. As had been found in previous studies, the researchers observed women tended to possess higher core temperatures than men (97.8 °F vs. 97.4 °F). Their hands, however, were consistently colder. A lot colder. While men registered an average hand temperature of 90 °F, the mean hand temperature for women was just 87.2 °F.
Similar studies have also found this to be true for women’s feet as well. Apparently this reduced temperature in a woman’s extremities accounts for greater sensitivity to changes in air temperature.
Thus the constant need for a sweater.
What will forever remain a mystery to me is how often a woman finds herself in need of a sweater and doesn’t have one. If you’ve spent your entire life shivering in movie theaters, restaurants and banquet halls, why would you ever leave the house without an additional layer?
I suspect that I’ll find no answer to this eternal conundrum.
I’m not complaining about having to stop for these geese, who were crossing from one side of the road to the other. It took less than a minute to allow them to pass, and frankly, it was kind of cute to watch.
But have these stupid birds forgotten that they are capable of flight?
Perhaps if there had been some baby geese included in the flock, I would better understand their decision to walk, but these were all full grown geese.
Fly, damn it.
My wife and I attended a storytelling performance recently. A guy in his late twenties took the stage and told a story. He made great efforts to be funny but was decidedly not.
We were sitting behind his girlfriend during the performance, and she spent much of the time laughing.
Elysha later said that she was happy for the guy. She thought it was good that he had someone in his life who thought he was funny and loved him for who he was.
I disagreed. I could not disagree more. I saw this as a tragedy. The guy clearly wants to make people laugh, but he has hitched his wagon to someone who shares his same unfortunate sense of humor.
Either that or is so blinded by love that she cannot see clearly.
As much as I suffer when Elysha tells me that something I have written is ineffective, unfunny, potentially offensive or lacking wit (which happens quite frequently) , I value her honesty and taste beyond measure. The last thing I want is a blind cheerleader, assuring me that everything I say and do is wonderful.
Elysha disagrees. She sees a value and a sweetness in this girlfriend’s unwavering support of her guy.
I ask you: Which would you prefer? The hyper-honest, often critical spouse who seeks to help you improve or the super supportive spouse who loves you for precisely who you are, warts and all?
And don’t tell me that you’d opt for some middle ground between the two. No easy answer allowed.
It’s one or the other in this exercise.
Choose.
On our way to Boston, we passed by a minivan on the Mass Pike. My wife looked over at the van and then back at me.
“Do you think that anyone puts a ‘Baby on Board’ sign on their car for something other than irony?”
My wife may deny it, but she is an exceptionally funny person.
All may be true, or none may be true. You tell me.
I have worn the grubbiest of clothes for Skype chats with book clubs, whereas my female author friends, based upon a sample of recent tweets and Facebook posts, would never think of doing such a thing.
Is it because I am a man and will therefore be excused of my wardrobe indiscretions more easily?
Or is it because I am a man and am less concerned (rightfully or otherwise)about my appearance than the average woman?
Or is it because I’m just an idiot who should make more of an effort to appear presentable?
Or am I simply assuming far too much based upon an admittedly tiny small sample size?
I’m honestly not sure which is the case, but my gut tells me that if my hair was a mess or I was wearing pajamas during a Skype chat, I would be excused as quirky, amusing or typically male, whereas if my female counterpart did the same, an entirely different set of labels would be assigned.
Thoughts?
My son was sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, playing with this tow truck. It looked cute, with large eyes in the windshield and a smile on the bumper.
Then he pressed down on the roof of the cap, and out popped a twin pair of machine guns from the sides.
Still the inquisitive, anthropomorphized eyes. Still the smiling, anthropomorphized bumper. Just some added fire power in the event that a disabled motorist refuses to pay for services rendered.
I’m not entirely opposed to toys like this. Your average Star Wars spaceship or action figure will undoubtedly be equipped with weapons of some kind, as will any number of similar toys. I’m fine with that.
But were machine guns really needed on this smiling, happy, anthropomorphized tow truck?
I noticed this on my key ring today. It’s like a historical artifact. A reminder of a bygone day.
Throw it away? Leave it as a reminder of a time since passed? Sell it on eBay?
Though my most recent novel, MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND, is published in England (and doing quite well), I’ve never had the pleasure of visiting the country.
But it has come to my attention (through its publisher's recent defense) that The Sun, a popular British tabloid newspaper, publishes large, color photographs of topless women on Page 3 (so ubiquitous that it is routinely capitalized) every day.
When I say popular, I mean popular. The Sun has the ninth-largest circulation of any newspaper in the world and the largest circulation of any daily newspaper in the United Kingdom.
Other interesting facts about Page 3:
After reading all this, I am confounded.
This the same country where I was required to change my last name because my publisher feared that Dicks would be considered too offensive.
Bare-breasted women intermingled with the important news of the day is apparently just fine with British audiences, but a book with the word Dicks on it, even if it’s clearly a last name, would be too much for them to bear.
I don’t pretend to understand the British psyche, but I’m also not sure if it’s even possible to understand.
I’ve often said that my father was born 100 years too late. My father was a cowboy in ever sense of the word. When I was a child, he spent more time on a horse than not.
He once brought a horse into the dining room to eat off the table.
He would’ve fit perfectly into the Old West. I suspect that if given the choice, he would’ve opted to be born at least 100 years earlier.
With that in mind, I’ve been obsessing over this question for the last week:
Do racists regret the fact that they weren’t born during a less enlightened time in human history? Do they lament the days of segregation or even pre Civil War slavery? If given the choice, would they have wanted to be born in a time when they would still possess supremacy over African Americans?
I’m asking in all seriousness.
While I’m at it, what about the bigots who oppose same-sex marriage and homosexuality in general? Delaware is on the brink of becoming the eleventh state to legalize gay marriage, and an NBA player just came out of the closet to near-universal praise.
Are bigots lamenting the days when they could still use gay slurs as a means of insult?
Are they bemoaning the fact that so many television shows and movies portray gay people as normal?
Do they wish they they had been born in another time in history when their bigotry was the norm?
I wrote a poem about my son today. I’ve been working on it for three days, including about an hour this morning. I’m ready to hear what people think.
Suggestions?
The second line was especially troubling for me (I’ve written it about three dozen ways), as was the transition from the second line into the third line.
I also need a title. I have many options. I like none of them.
______________________________________
Untitled
Watching my baby boy crawl across the polished kitchen floor,
low to the ground like a Marine traversing a field of barbed wire,
thinking he’s making his way to me,
his Daddy.
only to realize that his target
was the rogue Cheerio
on the floor beside my sneaker.
