Alright. Here's today.
1st: Found out, after 2 months of swimming almost every day and usually swimming at least a mile a day, that I have lost, quite literally, no weight. I weigh, today, exactly what I weighed the last time I weighed myself.
Fantastic.
2nd: This girl that I'm kind of into at the moment agreed to go to this fun-sounding dance/exercise thing with me tonight. She didn't show. I called a couple times. No answer. She also did not ever call to apologize or give an excuse.
Why do I feel like the bad guy for being irritated about this?
3rd: Got rejected by the FDIC today. I currently have next to no job prospects and am just waiting for the letter of rejection from the Hutchinson firm. Surely that'll be coming in the next few days. How much fun will that be!
Look, I realize I'm kind of a douche bag. I know I throw just about as many impediments in my own way as anyone else might. But is this really my life?
God, even that sounds asinine. "Oh. Boo-hoo. Not everything in my life has been handed to me on a silver platter. Why doesn't everyone feel sorry for me?"
Maybe this is just one of those tired things. I already exercised tonight. I ate dinner. I watched humorous television shows. Typically, if none of those things work, I can go to sleep and everything will seem better in the morning.
Except this feels kinda different. Actually, a lot of my rants have been feeling different these days. Perhaps it has to do with my aging, but I'm slowly getting less weepy about life and more pissed off. I mean, sure, I've made mistakes. Every reader of this blog can attest to that. One even has recently.
But is that all there is? I make a few profound mistakes in life (another example, not getting good enough grades my 1L year) and I'm relegated to some sort of weird life that's a partial mix of has-been and never-had? I'm freaking 27! This is prime of my life territory! Why do so many things suck?
Maybe it's because of mornings. I go through an awful lot of my life content and patient. Except the fact of the matter is that content doesn't get you major life advancements. It doesn't get you a job. It doesn't get you a promotion. It doesn't get you a girlfriend. In the paraphrased (and made up) words of Freud, it doesn't get you laid.
And without those things, what is life? The collective purpose of humankind is to contribute to the whole through work and to procreate. I've managed to do neither of those things. I mean, it's not even close.
So here is to every single one of my friends. You, every single one of you, have managed to accomplish more in life than I. Kudos.
Alright. I guess that's enough of this pissed off rant that appears to be tinged with what might callously be called a mild self-loathing. As I do not consider myself a callous individual, I will choose to call it a frustration in efforts of self. Time to go to bed, so I can wake up and turn back into the nice, friendly, happy version of myself who will be embarrassed about this discourse.
'Night.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
Who won the VP debate?
I should note, before beginning, that I am a registered democrat, which means I am a communist who is always on drugs, hates America and freedom, hates babies and our troops, and feels joy when America loses as something. Just kidding. I'm just disclosing the democrat thing to disclose my initial leanings. Ahem...,
Alright, it's been a few hours since I watched the Veep debate. The dust has settled. I went drinking for a while. Things are as they ought to be.
But now I come back and I discover that maybe this debate didn't go, in the minds of those watching, the same way it went in my mind.
Let me put this in context. I watched this debate, and I saw a woman repeating talking points in an obvious way. The clearest case in point being the discussion of Obama's naivete, a word I'm guessing Palin has never said before last week. Or, at least, a word she's never pronounced as she pronounced it tonight.
The reason I think this? She used the word within a few minutes of using the word nukular. Not nuclear. Nukular. A person who says "nukular" does not also say "nigh-eve-eh-tay."
In my mind, she was a bit like a robot or recording machine, save for the insanely irritating moment when she grinned really big and wide after she thought she'd caught Biden in a gaffe.
Also, I had a great deal of trouble following anything she said. I definitely thought I was witnessing a lot of confused rambling.
Meanwhile, I thought Biden did an incredible job. Not only did he talk in clear sentences, but he actually pointed to specifics. He mentioned some actual things that would probably have to be cut because of this bailout. He was willing to point to a misconception or mistaken belief he'd had as a senator. He was, amazingly, genuine, which is a fair sight better than anything Palin, McCain, or Obama had done up to this point.
And yet, now that I return from the bars, I discover that a lot of people completely disagree with me. People, admittedly on conservative websites, are talking about how Palin wiped the floor with Biden. How she connected with people at a gut level. How she was honest and straightforward and had Biden on the ropes, cowering in the corner.
When I'd finished watching the debate, I was trying to be impartial. (Obviously, not to other people. To other people I was saying exactly what I thought.) But mentally I considered the debate and had figured that the thing was probably a tie. Honestly, before going into this debate, a democrat's best hope was for a tie. If Biden had gone in, guns blazing, attacking the crap out of Palin, he'd have been wildly castigated by both the media and the public. The veep debate of 1984 taught us that you cannot be mean to a female candidate in a debate. The nation will respond poorly.
So Biden, if you recall, did not spend a single moment attacking Palin directly. Instead, he spent his entire time going after McCain. Indeed, the only person to really highlight the differences between Palin and McCain was Palin herself.
Under that kind of scrutiny, Biden's only hope was to continue beating down McCain and placing himself in the best light he could. This I thought he did.
I've already expressed my views on Palin's performance. She did a decent enough job with what she had to work with, but there was nothing interesting or exceptional about her efforts.
And yet, now I discover a large chunk of America not only disagrees with my actual opinion, but also with my attempt at an impartial opinion. This concept borders on shocking to me.
But maybe it shouldn't. Maybe this is the very definition of what a polarized nation is. It isn't only that we have differing opinions on what is happening and what should be happening. It's also that we have differing views on what has already happened. We focus on different moments. We remember different things.
Here was my focus:
My favorite thought suggested by Biden was one that most people probably completely dismissed. He said, to paraphrase, that the way he'd try to draw both sides of Washington together was to throw out preconceptions about motive. In other words, he would go in believing that every person in Washington truly DID want to help America and truly did want to make a positive difference in the world.
Instead of believing in the inherent good or bad in a person, he would assume good in all and seek only to determine why the judgment of both sides differed.
I really thought that was an unusually uplifting ideal, as we sit here, a month away from one of the more contentious votes in our nation's history, and it is one that I will hopefully keep in mind as we move along.
Thoughts?
Alright, it's been a few hours since I watched the Veep debate. The dust has settled. I went drinking for a while. Things are as they ought to be.
But now I come back and I discover that maybe this debate didn't go, in the minds of those watching, the same way it went in my mind.
Let me put this in context. I watched this debate, and I saw a woman repeating talking points in an obvious way. The clearest case in point being the discussion of Obama's naivete, a word I'm guessing Palin has never said before last week. Or, at least, a word she's never pronounced as she pronounced it tonight.
The reason I think this? She used the word within a few minutes of using the word nukular. Not nuclear. Nukular. A person who says "nukular" does not also say "nigh-eve-eh-tay."
In my mind, she was a bit like a robot or recording machine, save for the insanely irritating moment when she grinned really big and wide after she thought she'd caught Biden in a gaffe.
Also, I had a great deal of trouble following anything she said. I definitely thought I was witnessing a lot of confused rambling.
Meanwhile, I thought Biden did an incredible job. Not only did he talk in clear sentences, but he actually pointed to specifics. He mentioned some actual things that would probably have to be cut because of this bailout. He was willing to point to a misconception or mistaken belief he'd had as a senator. He was, amazingly, genuine, which is a fair sight better than anything Palin, McCain, or Obama had done up to this point.
And yet, now that I return from the bars, I discover that a lot of people completely disagree with me. People, admittedly on conservative websites, are talking about how Palin wiped the floor with Biden. How she connected with people at a gut level. How she was honest and straightforward and had Biden on the ropes, cowering in the corner.
When I'd finished watching the debate, I was trying to be impartial. (Obviously, not to other people. To other people I was saying exactly what I thought.) But mentally I considered the debate and had figured that the thing was probably a tie. Honestly, before going into this debate, a democrat's best hope was for a tie. If Biden had gone in, guns blazing, attacking the crap out of Palin, he'd have been wildly castigated by both the media and the public. The veep debate of 1984 taught us that you cannot be mean to a female candidate in a debate. The nation will respond poorly.
So Biden, if you recall, did not spend a single moment attacking Palin directly. Instead, he spent his entire time going after McCain. Indeed, the only person to really highlight the differences between Palin and McCain was Palin herself.
Under that kind of scrutiny, Biden's only hope was to continue beating down McCain and placing himself in the best light he could. This I thought he did.
I've already expressed my views on Palin's performance. She did a decent enough job with what she had to work with, but there was nothing interesting or exceptional about her efforts.
And yet, now I discover a large chunk of America not only disagrees with my actual opinion, but also with my attempt at an impartial opinion. This concept borders on shocking to me.
But maybe it shouldn't. Maybe this is the very definition of what a polarized nation is. It isn't only that we have differing opinions on what is happening and what should be happening. It's also that we have differing views on what has already happened. We focus on different moments. We remember different things.
Here was my focus:
My favorite thought suggested by Biden was one that most people probably completely dismissed. He said, to paraphrase, that the way he'd try to draw both sides of Washington together was to throw out preconceptions about motive. In other words, he would go in believing that every person in Washington truly DID want to help America and truly did want to make a positive difference in the world.
Instead of believing in the inherent good or bad in a person, he would assume good in all and seek only to determine why the judgment of both sides differed.
I really thought that was an unusually uplifting ideal, as we sit here, a month away from one of the more contentious votes in our nation's history, and it is one that I will hopefully keep in mind as we move along.
Thoughts?
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