The Blog

Overall, I’m a pretty lucky guy.

I seem to be healthy. I say “seem to be” because I don’t go to doctors unless I break a bone, which hasn’t happened in ten years, so I don’t have a professional evaluation of my health. I just know that a lot of my friends are sick or on medication or have had emergency surgery. I have aches and pains, but nothing compared to what my peers are going through.

I’ve complained a lot in this blog about my crummy job, and it is pretty crummy. But at least I have a job, and as annoying as it may be to get up and go make someone else rich five days a week, I’m really glad I’m not yet among the unemployed. I have a steady paycheck and a few side benefits at a time when most of the money in the United States is being reallocated to the extremely wealthy, the middle class is being converted into The Working Poor, and those working poor are becoming, simply, the poor. This hasn’t happened because I am a highly motivated self-starter: I understand it’s just luck. Because of the random way I have lived my life, I’ll probably need this job until about five years after my death. I know they’ll fire me before then, but for now — still got it.

My marriage has held up for nearly three decades. There’s been good times and bad, but we’ve gotten over. I have to say that it was me who caused the bad times and it was the patience and love and good humor of Mrs. Jones that got us through them. Once again, lucky: I had lots of chances to hook up with women who would have provided a lot more drama, and I might be on my fourth wife by now, or just a bitter bachelor. Instead, Mrs. J. and I found each other.

And even at my age, I get to play in a rock band! What I’m doing these days isn’t exactly the way I’d pictured my musical career ending, but still, there’s nothing quite like the exhilaration of playing rock’n’roll for a live audience, getting them on your side, moving them, and getting your rocks off at the same time. Even the rehearsals are uplifting. For example, I started today lethargic and with a nagging pain in my lower back, and after jamming for three hours I felt invigorated and ready for more. And that’s not to mention hauling a ton of equipment, setting it up, breaking it down and hauling it back again. It may be luck that I’m able to do this, that I have the ability to play my instrument and convince other guys to want to play with me. It may be luck, but I hope it’s more than that, that it’s related a little to my own hard work. But whatever — I still get to play in a rock band!

I’ll get back to the whining soon, of course. I just wanted to remind myself of these things.

I’ve been walking with a swagger for several days now…

…because of a pre-Valentine’s Day Love Segment I saw on the Today Show recently: Talk Show Science tells us that women are attracted to men who move a certain way when they walk. Really, the only way to describe this motion is swagger. You exaggerate the swing of your shoulders as you walk — not so much that you look like Mussolini, but just a little bit. You can read about it in the previous post — there’s a video link there, too, if NBC hasn’t taken it down yet.

I was doing the swagger initially to impress the babes, and guys, I have to tell you I think it works (previous post explains why I think this). But it turns out there’s more to the swagger, a side effect so beneficial it will probably be included in The Secret. I am not a natural swaggerer, so I have to think about it when I walk. I have to remember to move my shoulders, right should forward with my right leg, left shoulder forward with the left leg. The shoulder movement makes me hold my head up, causes my arms to swing more than usual and puts a little extra spring in my step, and the result is, I feel happy when I walk!

I like to feel happy, so that makes me want to walk more, which means more swaggering, which makes me happy again, and so on. So I’m walking and swaggering and grinning, and being positive (because I’m happy) and I’m thinking things are starting to go my way, and why shouldn’t they? I’m smart, I have medium-sized feet (again, see previous post), women are checking out my walk, I’m looking and feeling great.

But before I got too high on life, Saturday morning my computer crashed. Just inexplicably wouldn’t boot. I don’t think it’s a hardware issue, but some file in the operating system that got corrupted. The technical term is farkled, I think, as in “My computer is farkled.” I won’t know for sure until tomorrow.

In the mean time I am using another computer on the home network, because, yes, I am that geek who has a home network. But I am not comfortable on this computer, and I don’t have all my addresses and bookmarks and saved passwords and applications, so I will be spending the next few days, not swaggering, but trying to get the main machine up and running again.

I’ll be reading all of you from work during this time, so please feel free to be witty, thought-provoking, swaggering and entertaining in your blogs.

As always, I walk only for you.

I was watching The Today Show this morning, and they had a segment on what physical traits look attractive to the opposite sex, and why.

I think this was timed as part of a lead-up to Valentine’s Day, but I missed that reference, if indeed there was one. Hasn’t Valentine’s Day gotten out of hand? I mean, really, don’t kill yourself if you don’t have a date on Valentine’s Day, or if your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse doesn’t bring you chocolate or lingerie, or belly dance or do a striptease for you, or give you a back rub or take you out to a dark restaurant, a place so romantic that you can’t even see the food. I know, you’re thinking When will it happen for me? When will it be my turn to be happy? I have no advice for you except to say that you’re not a loser, and Valentine’s Day has nothing to do with True Love. It’s a Hallmark holiday, designed to boost corporate profits. You don’t have to play, and I will always love you no matter what. I know it’s not much, but it’s from these tiny trickles of affection that spring extravagant flowing fountains of fondness.

Anyway, they had like a four-minute segment featuring several scientists and researchers who told us the various paleo-bio-anthropological evolutionary bases of attraction between people. Men want women with small feet, they said, while women the world over prefer men with medium-sized feet. Possible explanations? The woman with small feet is probably of child-bearing age, while the man with not-too-small, not-too-big feet is likely to be better adapted to his environment and more likely to be able to provide for a family.

Pretty flimsy if you ask me, but I guess that’s what passes for science on the morning shows. If you’ve ever read anything about the theory of evolution you know why men would be attracted to women who seem ready and able to make a lot of babies. That’s basic continuation of the species stuff, but I couldn’t help wondering why small feet would indicate child-bearing years. They probably couldn’t come right out with it on The Today Show, but obviously the “scientists” think that very young girls (i.e., women with small feet) were prized as baby-makers. I doubt if cave men bothered to make sure their mates were old enough to commit to a relationship, so that makes some sort of (slightly perverted) sense. But the “men with medium-sized feet” — WTF? It’s hard to imagine cave women — or anyone else — making that particular leap of logic.

One that might make some sense is the shape of men’s heads. Women want a dude with a wide, symmetrical head, and really, they should have one. After all, a symmetrical head has probably not been bashed in, indicating a cave man smart enough to avoid fighting with other, possibly club-wielding cave men. Smart=survival=good. And those high, sloping foreheads? Not very evolved. Good-looking head shapes belong to Will Smith, Justin Timberlake and Brad Pitt, so ladies, that’s why you find those guys irresistible.

Also, it turns out that men are always attracted to women who sway their hips when they walk. Who knew? They had no explanation for this, so the science kind of broke down there for a moment while they showed a bunch of closeup clips of deliciously swaying hips. It was enough proof for me, but does anyone know exactly why such motion would be so provocative? The morning show scientists offered nothing. Conversely, women are attracted to men who walk with a slightly exaggerated back and forth motion of the shoulders — in other words, a swagger. As an example of this walk they showed the opening sequence of “Saturday Night Fever,” with John Travolta strutting down the street to the BeeGee’s “Stayin’ Alive.”

I tried the Stayin’ Alive Swagger on my way out to the car this morning, and I must say it felt good. Masculine. When I walked like that I felt I had the wherewithal to provide for a large family of little cave-children, borne of my lovely 12-year-old cave-babe. I may have kind of a long face, but oh, I can swagger. So all day I practiced my swagger. I’m not really all that macho, of course, since I had to consciously think about it every time I walked anywhere all day, but I think it was working on the women at the office. The company Controller walked by my office door, stopped, backed up and came in to give me Valentine cookies! In the past I have barely been able to get her to say hello to me. And I was just sitting at my desk, not swaggering at all. Such is the power of the swagger — you don’t even have to be doing it for it to work. You just have to be able to do it. Seriously, try this, guys.

I swaggered around all day. The one time I forgot to do it, I was walking toward the reception desk and I was preoccupied reading some stupid memo that someone had just handed me, and when I looked up I realized that the cute little receptionist who starts at 4 o’clock was there, and she was watching me. Watching me walk like a dork, not swaggering, and with dismay I saw my chance to make many, many babies with her go swirling down the drain of evolutionary dead ends. Sure, she’s 21, a little too old to totally ensure the preservation of my line, but she’s got small little feet and she’s so cute I would have risked it, and I might have had a shot, if only I’d remembered to swagger.

When will it be my turn for happiness, damnit?

In the spring of 2006 we had a visiting cat at our house.

You can read what I wrote at the time, but the synopsis is this: I discovered Tigger and his brother Bootsie along with an unnamed friend frolicking in our backyard, to the disgust of Molly the Cat, the only one who actually lived here. Over a period of a couple of months, Tigger decided he liked our yard better than his own, which was only two houses down the block. The other two would go home for meals or whatever, and Tigger would be there at my back door when I closed it at night, and still there sleeping on the stoop when I looked out in the morning. He disappeared occasionally for a day or two, presumably back to where he “lived,” but he was spending more and more time in our yard.

He seemed kind of stupid and he looked frail and vulnerable. His bigger, more aggressive brother would push him out of the way and eat any food they happened to find. In fact, Tigger had a habit of filling up his mouth with any food he could find, stepping a few feet away, spitting it out and then eating it off the ground, bit by bit, leaving the bigger pile for Bootsie, since he knew Bootsie would take it anyway. I estimate he weighed less than six pounds.

We found out his name (and his brother’s) and where they lived when he accidentally got trapped inside the house while he was snooping around and the door blew shut. I caught him, read his tag and called the phone number on it. We had started to think that maybe he and Bootsie had been abandoned, and we were relieved to find that they had a home just down the street from us.

But that’s when things started to get difficult.

• Mona (the “owner”) asked us not to feed her cats. This we couldn’t do, because we had to leave food out for Molly, an indoor/outdoor cat. She told us they were a year old. We were shocked: Six pounds at one year? What was wrong? Of course we made sure Tigger would “find” some crunchies every day at our house.
• In a later chat with Mona, she told us that she didn’t really know what Tigger and Bootsie ate. Just “…whatever’s on sale at the supermarket.” Not even Friskies. Generic.
• Spring drifted into Summer, which gave way to Fall. By November, it was cold and damp at night. Molly slept in the house. Bootsie went home each night. Tigger slept in the yard. He rarely went home.
• Mona told us that her husband blamed Tigger and Bootsie for the death of the third cat, who, distraught over some perceived slight by the others, had run out in the street and got run over by a car. As a result, he and she had a bad attitude about both remaining cats. We were stunned. These two were grownups?
• One day, Mona stopped by to ask us if we’d seen Tigger, as he hadn’t been home in two weeks. We didn’t know he wasn’t putting in regular appearances at Mona’s, but two weeks? Not three hours or even a day. She let two weeks go by before looking for her lost animal. I think it was at this point that we decided she was not a fit pet owner. We started thinking up different names for Tigger.
• Tigger and Bootsie both managed to lose their collars and their tags. Molly the Cat loses hers a couple of times a year, but she gets a new one within 24 hours. Bootsie’s and Tigger’s were not replaced, further evidence of bad stewardship.
• Bootsie disappeared. (Warning: This part is horrible, folks.) Mona came to us looking for him, but we hadn’t seen him in a few days. We talked for a while. I told her I’d keep an eye out, ask the neighbors, etc. Mona said she would check the city pound. I asked her to call and let me know when he came back. She called a week later. She had just checked the pound. They recognized Bootsie from her description. A neighbor had trapped him and turned him in, but she had waited too long. The city had put him down the day before. She seemed mildly pissed off at the anonymous neighbor, but not distraught about Bootsie. We were sickened.
• I went out and got a collar and a tag for Tigger. He started sleeping in the house that night. We felt cheesy about it, but what would you have done?
• Tigger grieved for Bootsie. He was confused and withdrawn. Bootsie had stolen all his food and beat him up every day, but they clearly had a bond, and Tigger was adrift without his big brother to wrestle and explore with.
• I started calling him Way Out Willie, after the first line of “Hand Jive”: I know a cat named Way Out Willie.
• His tag still has Mona’s phone number on it, but we’re pretty sure he never goes there anymore. Moreover, she never comes to see us any more. They’ve abandoned each other.

Willie has regular meals of high quality cat food every day now, plus, we suspect, whatever he can find in his travels around the neighborhood. His coat is glossy and he is thriving, at over thirteen pounds. We’re trying to figure out if we can stabilize his weight before he turns into a big Fat Cat.

He is gentle and curious, gradually exploring all the nooks in the house. He’s shy, but he likes to have company, so wherever you are in the house or the yard he’s likely to be nearby, licking himself.

He is endearingly stupid. He pushes on doors that open toward him, and he never seems to figure that out. He treats every meal not as an entitlement but as the gift that it is, looking quizzically from the dish to his benefactor until you say “It’s for you, Willie”

In deference to Molly, Queen of the House, he sleeps alone on a towel on the couch in the living room, which is like a different country from the bedroom or kitchen or office, where M. sleeps. M. won’t accept him, or any strangers, human or animal. We love her, but she is a cranky old lady at nine years old.

We know there is a confrontation looming with Mona. We don’t know what we’re going to do or say. Will she demand him back? Will she forgive our transgression? Will she call the cops? (Can she do that? I don’t know.) Will she and her husband move away, taking Willie with them — or leaving him behind? I have judged Mona and found her wanting, but Tigger/Willie belongs to her, and we both know it. For his part, he has clearly moved on from Mona, and he’s not looking back.

So that’s the update. I’m planning more updates in the future at revision99, okay?

Way Out Willie gave ’em all a treat

When he did that hand jive with his feet.

Hand jive, hand jive. Doin’ that crazy hand jive.