A bouquet of amusing words

My daughter is two-years old, and as a result, she has a lot of amusing things to say.  A few gems from the past couple days include:_______________________________________

Me: Why didn’t you take a nap this afternoon, Clara?

Clara: A lion is coming. I have to tell someone.

_______________________________________

A conversation that Clara had with herself while looking in a mirror at the mall:

"I'm wearing my doggy shirt. We're both wearing doggy shirts."

"I have my hat tat (her word for hair elastics). We both have hat tats."

And the best one:

"I'm Clara. I'm Clara, too."

 

_______________________________________

While negotiating a split between football and Peep and the Big Wide World on Sunday afternoon:

Me: Okay Clara, it’s my turn to watch football now.

Clara: NO! Peep doesn’t want to watch football! Peep wants to watch me! I’m running away!

The way the Patriots played on Sunday, I would have been better off watching Peep.

Bumble-Ardy lives again

I remember this Sesame Street clip from the 1970’s quite well. In fact, though I have not seen it in almost forty years and had forgotten that it even existed, I can still recite parts of it word for word. It was written by Maurice Sendak, and he recently adapted it for his newest children’s book, his first in nearly 30 years.

I love this story, undoubtedly because I loved it as a child, but also because of it’s less than pleasant features:

• The frightening voices of the pigs
• The mother’s maniacal grin when she threatens the pigs with death
• The references to wine on a children’s television show
• Bumble-Ardy’s sneakiness and near-sadistic pleasure in mayhem

Could a video like this be made today?

I don’t think so.

In response to today’s more delicate sensibilities, Sendak was forced to make several changes for his new book, including changing wine to brine. 

Why anyone (even pigs) would bring brine to a party is beyond me.

Sendak also transformed Bumble-Ardy into a pig, which broke my heart a little.  But he seems to balance this by including a dark prologue in which his parents are eaten, leaving Bumble Ardy’s aunt to raise him.

I still haven’t read Where the Wild Things Are, but this one sounds like a gem.

Tag me in, reality television stars! I'm ready to fight!

Here’s the newest job I want: When a lunatic-intimidating-bully on a reality television show or talk show loses his or her mind and verbally assaults a weaker member of the cast, I’d like the victim of the verbal barrage to be able to hit a big, orange button and tag me in to counterattack.

I have many flaws (I've actually listed them), but verbal combat ain’t one of them.

I love verbal combat.

I am a verbal combat ninja.

I am ruthless, relentless, and well armed for almost any situation.

I am capable of some serious verbal jujitsu.

I can probably thank my evil stepfather for this skill. He provided me with a lifetime of experience in this regard.

Sadly, there are simply not enough opportunities to use this skill in my life.  Try as I might, my opportunities for verbal sparring are hampered by a tragic tendency toward reasonability, moderation. and decorum in the general public.

But not on reality television. These shows are chock full of mouthy lunatics and inarticulate, overconfident fools who manage to win verbal sparring contests through sheer force of will.

These are the ones for whom the big, orange button is designed.

Tag me in and let me take them down with a combination of logic and aggression.

Who knows a reality show producer who might be interested in my services?

TV can be as healthy as carrots and jumping jacks

A reader pointed me to a list of 5 ways to make watching television more active. I was happy to see that I do three of these already:

1. Watch socially. Social support is a very large factor in overall survival. If you can watch with family and friends, you'll be able to joke, cajole, discuss, and move around more easily. 

It is rare that you will find me watching television without my wife.

2. Use an exercise device. It can be a simple stepper or something more elaborate like an elliptical or exercycle, but you can readily move watching TV -- and still stay in place.

When I am at the gym and there is something worthy of my time, I will watch television while working out on the treadmill or elliptical.

Even better, I use the time we watch television at home to do my daily pushups, sit-ups and planks. So it it rare that I am watching television and not exercising in some way.

3. Don't eat while watching. Drink water or non-caffeinated drinks. People tend to not notice what they nosh while watching television, making it a further component of our obesity epidemic.

Unless I’m watching a football game, I do not eat while watching TV.

Then there are two that I don’t do:

4. Stand. There is no law that TV must be watched from a chair. You can stand, which depending on weight or gender, takes a quarter to 50% more calories than sitting; you can also pace if you like, which people commonly do with sports programs.

This sounds a little silly. Watching TV will milling around the living room?

But I recently express a desire to purchase (or ideally be given) a standing desk, so perhaps I could somehow incorporate this into my television viewing.

5.Talk and walk. After the program is over, go and stroll with the people with whom you watched, discussing what you saw.

This one is stupid. All it really means is that you should walk more.

No kidding.

The office jerk. Death by television. The curse of the agreeable worker. All good news for me.

Three recent studies that bode exceedingly well for me, and perhaps for you. Study #1 

Research published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior found that people who are regularly stressed out by the office jerk are more likely to take that stress home with them — and pass it on to whoever is unfortunate enough to be cohabiting with them.

Whether or not I am the office jerk is debatable. I suspect that there might be at least a few previous colleagues who could think so.

Regardless, few who know me well would disagree that I am impervious to the actions of most office jerks thanks to my previous and rather unique history with them. Think of it this way:

If the office jerk has, at some point in the past, used the office jerk equivalent of nuclear weapons in an attempt to annihilate you, the actions of the average, everyday office jerk become meaningless and irrelevant.

Silly, even.

As in all things, perspective is everything.

I survived Armageddon. And it’s hard to top Armageddon.

Study #2

Every hour of TV you watch after age 25 shortens your life by 21.8 minutes, says a study by researchers in Australia.

There are admittedly some problems with the methodology used in this study, and I have my doubts in terms of its findings as well. After all, if these results are accurate, I have friends who should've been dead ten years ago.

I might even know a few people who watch so much television that their lifespans should register in the negative numbers by now.

But putting aside my doubts, my wife and I watching remarkably little television, averaging less than an hour a day. Although even this amount is apparently shortening my life by 22 minutes each day, I am at least well ahead of the 4-5 hours per day that the average American watches, and the 80-100 minutes of lifespan that they are sacrificing in the process.

Study #3

A new study finds that agreeable workers earn significantly lower incomes than less agreeable ones. The gap is especially wide for men. The researchers examined "agreeableness" using self-reported survey data and found that men who measured below average on agreeableness earned about 18% more—or $9,772 more annually in their sample—than nicer guys. Ruder women, meanwhile, earned about 5% or $1,828 more than their agreeable counterparts.

I have saved the best for last, at least in terms of its application to me.

It is in my nature to be disagreeable, and it does not take a person long to discover this about me.

My former boss referred to me as a curmudgeon.

My mother called me The Instigator.

A college professor, in front of the entire class, once said hat I was like a minefield when comes to class discussion. “Eventually one of your classmates steps in the wrong place and you blow up.  You don’t exactly promote discourse.”

Colleagues once conducted a strategy meeting in order to plan for the likelihood that I would disagree with (and therefore be disruptive to) a new initiative.

Being disagreeable is one of my most defining attributes.

If this study is accurate, I should be rich any day now.

One in five Americans smoke. Where the hell are they? And it would appear that Mad Men gets it very wrong when it comes to smoking.

The 2009 figures on smoking were reported recently in USA Today.

I looked at the statistics and thought:

One in five Americans smoke? Who the hell is smoking anymore?

I am blessed with a large circle of friends, and thanks to my wife, an even wider circle of quasi-friends and acquaintances.

You cannot imagine the number of people to whom she introduces to me on an weekly basis. It’s a never-ending turnstile of new faces.

And yet I cannot think of a single friend or acquaintance who smokes.

Not one.

So what is going on here?

Has smoking become a regional addiction, or is there a purposeful segregation taking place between the smokers and the nonsmokers?

Are there equally wide circles of friends and acquaintances in which the majority of their members smoke?

And why in hell are kids still smoking in high school? Forget the health implications. Hasn’t the cost, the smell and social stigma of smoking served as deterrent enough?

Hasn’t smoking reached the level of uncool?

Are kids in my local Connecticut high school smoking in such large numbers, or is this once again a regional trend?

I find every one of these statistics baffling in some way.

Even the 1965 statistics on smoking.

The 1965 figures are quite interesting in light of Mad Men, the television series that Elysha and I have begun watching. The first season of the show takes place in 1960, and every single character on the show smokes.

Constantly.

Yet the statistics indicate that in 1965, less than half of all Americans were smokers.

What is going on here?

For a television show that has received much acclaim for its accurate portrayal of 1960’s America, it’s apparently inaccurate obsession with smoking would seem like a serious flaw.

A set piece taken to an unfortunately inaccurate extreme.

Thoughts anyone?

And more important, are any of my readers smokers?

Um… climate change is not real because the Moon has volcanoes, too. Right?

Did that Fox news anchor just attempt to link the presence of volcanoes to global warming? They really are just talking hair. Aren’t they?

Watch Bill Nye’s reaction upon hearing it.

Priceless.

Who knew that erectile dysfunction could be so captivating and suspenseful?

I was on the elliptical, flipping between channels on the adjacent television. On an ideal day, there is a movie, a Yankees game, a SportsCenter and a rerun of The Daily Show all airing at the same time to keep me entertained. Even two of these is great.

I stopped flipping at AMC, a channel that often airs classic movies.

I love to watch old Westerns with the closed captioning turned on. The way in which the writers of these captions describe the sounds and music from these films fascinates me.

Instead of a movie, a commercial was airing. I decided to wait for it to end.  Thirty seconds became a minute. One minute became two. Then I began to wonder if what I was watching was an actual television show. Around minute three I realized that I had been duped by an infomercial, but I was trapped.

I had been watching for three full minutes and still had no idea what product the two gentlemen sitting behind a news desk were talking about.

This was the worst infomercial ever, I thought. Three minutes and I don’t know what you’re pitching.

But then again, I was still watching after three minutes.

Around the tenth minute, I realized that the product had something to do with erectile dysfunction, but the pitchmen had yet to show the product, describe the product, or even place the product in a general category.

Was it a pill?

A medical procedure?

It was covered by Medicare (a fact that was repeated again and again), so could it be some form of outpatient surgery?

Around the twentieth minute, I gained a vague understanding of what the product was, but it wasn’t until I was at home, in front of my computer, that I was able to learn the true, horrifying nature of the product.

Even their website is exceedingly vague until you start digging a little.

And I don’t blame them for being vague. I would be to, if I were selling this product.

But it captured my attention for twenty minutes via solid production values, passionate pitchmen and the building of suspense. I had to give a nod to these infomercial producers. Even after I had a vague idea of what the product was, I kept watching, desperately wanting a glimpse of this product, and I eventually visited their website.

What more could the maker of this product ask? Especially considering I have no need for the product.

That is some seriously effective advertising.

The name of the product is Pos-T-Vac.

Click at your own risk.

Black and invisible

Quick. Name me the last three missing or murdered children who you can think of excluding Caylee Anthony.

Done?

Okay. How many of those children are not white?

And while we’re at it, how many are not female and not blond?

In fact, name just one missing or murdered child who was not white.

Or one missing or murdered person who was not white.

Just one.

Can you?

If you’re like most people, you probably named Elizabeth Smart, Madeline McCann, Jon Benet Ramsey, and perhaps Susan Smith’s nameless murdered children.

Maybe you included Leiby Kletzky, the eight-year old who was recently kidnapped and murdered in Brooklyn. If you did, he is probably the only boy on your list.

If you included adults, you might have mentioned Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy or Polly Klaas.

You probably didn’t mention Everett Conant’s three boys, who were shot and killed by their father last week, because that story, while covered in the print media, has not become a national fixation.

But Conant was a man, living in Wyoming, and his children were boys and not blond. Nor did Conant attend any parties or wet tee-shirt contests after shooting his children.

The devil, my friends, is in the details.

In fact, you were probably hard pressed to name a single African American or Hispanic child or adult who had gone missing or was murdered.

And yet there is not a lack of cases from which to choose.

For example, in January of this year, while the media was covering the preparations for the Casey Anthony trial, D’Hari Black, 27, and her husband, Keith Black, 29, of College Park, Maryland were found guilty of felony murder in the death of 11 month-old Keith Black III. They were also convicted for felony cruelty to children for the abuse of their two year-old daughter, Kyara.

Where was this story covered?

As far as I can tell, a short piece appeared in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and another in the Atlanta Examiner.

That’s it.

I was only aware of the case because I lived in College Park years ago and was thinking about using the town as a location in my next book. I was doing some researching on the town and stumbled across the story.

Some might say that the Keith Black murder case was not sensational enough.

I believe that Keith Black was not white enough.

I found the intense national interest in the Casey Anthony trial bizarre and unfortunate. Thousands of children are murdered each year, so to focus so much attention and scrutiny on one case strikes me as a twisted and gruesome form of reality television.

Not that it hasn’t been done before. But it’s no less surprising each time it happens.

And yes, I realize that the unusual details of this case compelled people to pay attention, but when you choose to focus our time and energy on a medium that refuses to acknowledge that black and Hispanic children are kidnapped in this country just as often as white children, and when you choose to tune into a medium that places a premium on cute, blond female victims, you contribute to the problem.

And there are things that you can do to change it.

Prior to the birth of my daughter, my wife and I would watch The Today Show each morning while getting ready for work, and about every three months or so, they would report on the disappearance or murder of a white girl.

In the years I watched the show, I cannot remember seeing a single one of these stories in which the victim was not white and female.

Each time one of these stories came on, I would leave the room or turn off the television, refusing to provide my attention to a news organization that is hell-bent on sensationalizing the best looking white victims of kidnapping and murder in this country and ignoring all victims of color.

Did my actions change anything? Have I helped to solve this problem?

No and yes.

No, it did not change the way in which the media continues to report these stories, but perhaps if others follow suit, things will eventually change.  Maybe the tragic story of Keith Black III will be reported by a news organization like The Today Show, or better yet, perhaps we’ll stop treating these stories as reality programming altogether.

But even if I am the only one boycotting these stories in all of America, that doesn't make my actions foolish or a waste of time. Doing the right thing in the face of blinding indifference is still a fine thing.

But yes, my decision to ignore these stories does make a difference as well.  It makes a difference in my life.

I have not followed the Casey Anthony trial.  I have not read the stories or watched the trial or even engaged in conversation about the case, and to be honest, if it wasn’t for updates popping up in my Twitter stream, I would probably know absolutely nothing about it.

I chose to invest my time and energy elsewhere.

Last week I read a book in the doctor’s office while sitting next to a woman who was reading about the case in People magazine.

I listened to music, podcasts and audiobooks for untold hours while exercising beside people who spent their workout watching the trial on television.

I discussed parenting with a friend while others around us were discussing the trial and the actions of Casey Anthony.

In the end, I feel like I made better use of my time. While so many fixated on the excessive coverage of these tragic circumstance, I engaged in activities that were meaningful, productive and a lot less sleazy.

And six months from now, when the tragedy of Caylee Anthony has been replaced by a different, white, probably blond girl and the details of the Casey Anthony trial fade into obscurity, I will ask myself:

Did I miss out on anything by ignoring the trial of that mother who probably killed her daughter?

Am I lacking any vital information?

Do I regret not tuning into the story like so many others?

The answer will be no, because the answer has always been no.

It was no with that blond girl, and it was no with that other blond girl, and it was no with that missing mother of two, and it was no with that other blond girl.

I don’t know much about any of them, which is about how much I know about Keith Black and all the other missing and murdered children who are not white and not blond and not female.

If you are going to perpetrate a fraud, please don’t be stupid about it.

While I don’t support fraud, I can understand engaging in it for profit’s sake. When there is enough reward, the risks can sometimes become reasonable.

But when there is little or no benefit to the fraud, or the risks seriously outweigh the rewards, I have to assume that anyone attempting such a thing is as stupid as they come.

The recent revelations about the cheating taking place by Atlanta school teachers is a good example of this. For the possible reward of improved test scores, increased job security and satisfied administrators, teachers and principals chose to place their careers, the public trust, and possible prison time on the line by changing answers on standardized tests and facilitating student cheating during testing periods.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

The risk-reward ratio in this scenario is ridiculous.

And I have to wonder:

Hasn’t anyone in the Atlanta school system read Freakonomics or the related literature on school cheating?  Identifying cheating has become a simple examination of the data. From the privacy of their nondescript cubicles, statisticians can look at a set of assessment data and determine which teacher is cheating and which one is not.

It is simply a matter of pressing a few buttons on a calculator.

Making the attempt at fraud even more stupid.

An even more egregious case in point:

The CBS television affiliate in Boston recently falsified the images of the fireworks display from the Fourth of July in order to improve the quality of the footage.

Boston-based executive producer David Dugar admitted that the station had shot well known landmarks such as Fenway Park, Quincy Market, and the State House prior to the fireworks show and then superimposed these images into the video footage before airing it to the public.

Dugar defended his decision by claiming that the show represented entertainment rather than news, thus placing him squarely in the same camp as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann in terms of his ability to admit fault.

Viewers began calling into the Boston Globe on Friday to say it was impossible that the fireworks could have appeared over the famous city landmarks when they were launched in the opposite direction from the Charles River.

Once again making the attempt at fraud even more stupid.

So the CBS affiliate comes across as looking foolish and incompetent, and for what?

Had they not been caught, to what advantage would the falsified video footage have served? Were the producers hoping to create a social media buzz about the remarkable quality of the broadcast in hopes of drawing more viewers next year?

Do they really think that a fireworks display on television is buzz-worthy?

Does the advertising that they sell before and after the fireworks really amount to much in the grand scheme of things?

Was there any money at all to be made had this fraud been successful?

And what did the television station risk?

In addition to the embarrassment that they have experienced on a national level, they have now transformed their fireworks broadcast into the only one that should be avoided next year. In their short-sighted and inexplicable effort to boost ratings for a blip on the programming radar, they have found a way to make their fireworks broadcast the only one in the history of television that cannot be trusted.

In addition, they managed to damage the reputation of their station in the process.

Like I said, I’m not defending fraud, and I don’t recommend that anyone engage in it.

But if you decide to do so, at least be smart about it. Make informed decisions and ensure that the risks are balanced by the potential benefits in the event that your fraud is successful.

Adding immorality to the world is bad enough. Don’t add any more stupidity in the process.

We have plenty of that already.

I only enjoy reality television when it’s imported from Korea

I haven’t watched any of these singing or talent shows since the first season of American Idol, but this clip from the Korean version of one of those shows is pretty stunning despite the language barrier and subtitles. Sometimes a story is so compelling that it surpasses any differences in language and culture.

And it reminds me of a saying that I have that goes something like this:

If you’re struggling with a a difficult situation and feeling like your problems are getting the better of you, get in your car and take a long drive. Before long you’ll come across some road kill. When you do, remind yourself that your life is still better than that mangled critter on the road.  Then drive home and get back to work solving your problems.

I actually take this advice quite often.

But if road kill makes your stomach queasy, you can watch this clip instead and remind yourself that even the most difficult of situations can be overcome with hard work and persistence.

How much television do you watch?

From a Time magazine piece:

“Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health and his colleagues report in the Journal of the American Medical Association that too much TV time was associated with increases in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart problems and the risk of death from any cause.”

But this was kind of obvious. Right? Sit on your ass for a long period of time, day after day, and you have a greater chance of dying.

The more shocking part of this study, at least for me, was this:

The average American watches about five hours of television a day.

Five hours.

What the hell are these people watching?

And where do they find the time?

There are many, many days when my wife and I don't have time to watch television at all, and we enjoy TV. Last week we didn't turn on the television for four consecutive days.

For the average American, we would’ve just reclaimed 20 hours of our lives.

And they could stand to use those hours.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Americans sleep an average of 8.5 hours per night.

The average American works just under 8 hours a day.

This means that if you combine work, sleep and television, the average American only has about 3 hours left in the day to do everything else.

Three hours for eating, commuting, exercising, reading, bathing, chores, and sex.

Three hours that is not spent at work, in bed or in front of the television.

But even more pertinent than this astounding number:

What the hell are these people watching?

There simply cannot be 35 hours of worthwhile programming to watch per week.

Right?

It’s not the song (which is great), but the time and station that matter most

Have you seen Neil Patrick Harris’s opening song to this year’s Tony Awards? It’s outstanding, even with Brooke Shield’s blatant attempt to ruin it.

But you know what I liked best about the performance?

Imagining the horrified looks on the faces of all the bigoted homophobes when they realized that this man singing this song was being aired during the so-called “family hour” of network television.

On a Sunday night, no less.

How gloriously quickly the world is changing for the better.

Not everything about Curious George is good.

The fact that The Man with the Yellow Hat doesn't have an actual name is pretty stupid.

Jon Stewart read my blog and stole my bit.

Damn that Jon Stewart. He said the same thing I did, except he was a lot funnier.

Also, did you hear that Palin supporters are attempting to edit Paul Revere’s Wikipedia page in order to make her statements slightly more correct?

Like I said, it’s not the lack of understanding about Paul Revere’s ride that bothers me.

Even I thought that Revere shouted “The British are coming!” as he rode through Massachusetts on that fateful night.

Apparently he did not.

Instead, it’s Palin’s subsequent attempt to explain the mistake away with nonsense and her refusal to accept responsibility for a historical faux pas that upset me so.

Of course, it turns out that Sarah Palin may not be at fault. Several people have suggested that she may be suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect, a condition by which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the meta-cognitive ability to appreciate their mistakes.

Sounds about right.

She was recently spurned by Margaret Thatcher, who will reportedly reject any attempt by Palin to meet with her during Palin’s proposed visit to Britain on the basis that “Sarah Palin is nuts.”

Not a good week for the former governor from Alaska.

But I promise: A little honesty would have helped her considerably.

My life trajectory in Sesame Street terms

At first I loved Ernie because there was no Elmo to love and my brother was most definitely a Bert. My brother could have been the prototype for Bert. My brother might have been Bert in disguise.

Then I fell in love with Oscar the Grouch.

I still love him to this day, though Elmo is making serious inroads now that I have children.

The two are essentially competing for my soul.

That, in a Sesame Street nutshell, has been the trajectory of my life:

A battle of wills between the Elmo in me and the Oscar the Grouch in me.

 

The single redeeming moment from a classically bad 1980’s sitcom

I’ve never heard of the 1980’s sitcom Day by Day, but from what I can tell, it was undeniably stupid (even though it was created by Andy Borowitz). But it is apparently well known for one episode that spoofed The Brady Bunch and included all the principle characters from the 1970’s sitcom except for Greg Brady.

It took me five days to watch the whole thing (I have the attention span of a gnat when it comes to online video), but I have to admit that I was slightly mesmerized watching the Brady family making fun of themselves.

Daytime television at its best

I can’t decide which is worse:

The toy, which is simply horrifying.

The behavior of the host, which was utterly bizarre.

Her face, which looks like it is being held up by invisible wires.

This is the perfect example of why no one should be watching television at 10:00 AM.   

All My Children and my mom

My memories of the time I spent with my mother during childhood are limited. I grew up in a small farm town in Massachusetts and spent most of my free time outdoors. Leave the house at 8:00, come back for a bologna and catsup sandwich at lunch, and then go back outside until dinner at 6:00. We didn’t take any vacations together and we didn’t spend a lot of time as a family. For the most part, the kids did their thing and the adults did theirs.

My mom and I played a lot of video games together for a period of three years, and when I was very young, we spent a great deal of time at horse shows, but otherwise I spent most of my childhood in the presence of children.

Brothers, sisters and friends.

Memories with my mom are truly scant.

But there was one thing that we always had:

All My Children, the ABC soap opera.

In Blackstone, Massachusetts in 1975, kindergarten was a half-day affair, and I was blessed with the morning half of the day. I would come home on the bus around 12:30, eat lunch, and sit down in the living room to watch my mother’s one and only soap opera, All My Children.

A questionable choice for a five year old boy, but my mom was never a big believer in conventional parenting.

And while kindergarten ended soon enough and half-days become full school days, my mom would keep me updated on the All My Children universe for years afterwards, filling me on on the latest news surrounding Erica Kane and a man named Adam who had a crazy secret twin brother hidden in a secret room of his mansion.

Sometimes in the summers I would even sit down with Mom on the couch and watch.

ABC announced last week that after 40 years, All My Children is coming to an end.

It’s a sad reminder that no matter how inexorable something may seem, nothing lasts forever.

While I have not watched or discussed or even thought about All My Children for years, its cancellation feels like another small piece of my mother has been chipped away.

Mom passed away in 2007, and the world has already changed in so many ways. This represents another change, a new iteration of the world with a little less of my mom included.

I sometimes wonder if she would even recognize it anymore.

Each time the world changes, I feel like the tangible reminders of my mother’s existence fade away a little more, and my grip on the memories of her fade as well.

Sometimes I wish everything would just slow down a little, and that the world that my mother grew up in and lived could last a little while longer.

Michael Scott’s final words deserved to be heard

Just for the record, I did not approve of the final moment between Pam Halpert and Michael Scott during Steve Carell’s final episode of The Office.

Like the final moment between Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation, the writers chose to leave the final dialogue between the two characters a secret, which in my mind amounts to little more than cowardice on their parts.

Afraid of the momentous task of writing the final lines of dialogue for a character of such import as Michael Scott, the writers blinked and chose the easy way out.

An unheard conversation, shot at a distance, and later summarized by Pam.

And the scene didn’t even make sense. Though we saw Michael turn over his microphone before heading to the plane, there was no reason why Pam would not have been miced at that moment, and so the dialogue should have been available to the documentarians.

And if we were meant to believe that the filmmakers had captured toe dialogue between Michael and Pam but had chosen not to air it, why would they then ask Pam what had been said?

The audience deserved the last words of Michael Scott.