I'm the Original!

I've been watching some. Parks and Recreation - and just saw an episode where there was some discussion and making up of band names!

I will not have it! I am the first and the original and been doing it for years!

Red Shirts, Robert Bloch, and Netflix

I'm a big Trekkie - mostly by overexposure to the original series growing up, and then living my life feeling like I was an alien. Hah! Oh, and its total awesomeness.

Netflix has recently added Star Trek the Original Series (1966 - 1968) to its streaming selections. I've been watching some of my favorites and revisiting ones I barely remember.

Some observations from today:

Most everyone knows the ultra-short life expectancy of those who beam down wearing a red shirt. Episode 13 from season 2, "Obsession" must have the highest red shirt death toll of them all. In the episode 8 red-shirts, I mean security officers, beam down to the planets surface. Four are killed outright, one later dies of his wounds, and another is gravely wounded. I never learned if he made it or not. I'll keep you informed if I learn of any higher count episodes.

Additionally, Episode 14, "Wolf in the Fold," was written by my dear Robert Bloch, and in which the "wolf" brutally murderers three women. I should not have been surprised, I suppose.

In an amusing note, the following episode (Episode 15) is "The Trouble With Tribbles," a vacation from horror to overwhelming cuteness. I appears that television programmers even back in the day were sensitive to traumatizing their audiences. I know that I'm still recovering from seeing Janet Jackson's nipple one fateful Superbowl Sunday. Although, now that I think of it, a cargo bin full of dead Tribbles is not that cute or horror-free.

The Eleventh Hour

I spelled out eleventh hour because I'm fancy. :)

The rhetoric is getting worse, the hate speech horrific, and the cognitive dissonance turned up to . . . . . . eleven, as the political right in America frothes and foams at the mouth without a hint of shame.

Victory is at hand.

The brilliance of the Constitution continues to be realized inasmuch as the "all men" in "all men are created equal" is interpreted to mean EVERYBODY. As equality, compassion, and understanding continue to become mainstream, those enjoying unexamined privilege and power, i.e., old christian white guys, are examined and lose power and privilege.

Old Christian White Guys are coming undone.

An all male Congressional panel, forced to confront the duality of women's health and birth control; GOP presidential candidates sputter and stutter as they are asked to interpret the outrage over Rush Limbaugh's mysoginistic poison -- and are at a loss for words because in their hearts they wholeheartedly agree with him; bills proposed in Congress that are so outrageous in limiting choice on women's health spawn a "life begins at ejaculation" response.

Victory is at hand.

Expect it to get worse before it gets better, but whatever you do, keep the faith. National health care a reality, gay marriage a reality in many states, and Congress called on the carpet about women's health.

Keep talking. Keep posting and liking posts. Keep your head high. There's no twelfth hour because once we've made it through the eleventh hour, we don't need to count any more.

Victory is at hand.

Got Band Names?

A word hobby of mine (or compulsion, or obsession or sickness): I snatch words or phrases from conversation and turn them into hypothetical band names, or biographies, or collections of poetry.

I want them to have a section (page) all their own, once I figure out how to do that.

Together, we'll eventually hone the list to nothing but the best. In the meantime, these are pulled from my most recent note scraps:

Leprechaun orgy

Nucleus of a plan

Altered expectations

Fumbling desperation

Horrific intimacy.

Enjoy! And if you happen to make use of one of these, or are inspired by them, possibly under a rather bizarre set of circumstances, please share it here. Thanks. Oh, and royalties would be nice. :)

Welcome Back!

Hello again. :)

Writing are hard. Rather, I find writing consistently and writing well are hard.

But I'm back. I've always found that not writing is harder. What I've found recently is not writing "out loud" has become harder still.

The political climate lately - the "culture wars" as some have dubbed it, although I hesitate to use the term as you may define it differently, are starting to make me ... furious! I've been experiencing the war, if you will, through Facebook.

However, that's not a proper forum for ... this much anger and frustration. Reading here is much more a choice than if I post or comment on FB and it puts it right in yours and everyone's face. Which is where it belongs! In everyone's face, that is. But not on Facebook, yet. The conversational value is diminished there, inasmuch as most go to FB for entertainment, not truth or rants (terms that are not mutually exclusive).

I write a lot in my head. Envision articles or opinion or education pieces in magazines or journals. My problem is they stay in my head, or if they are lucky, they make it onto an index card (which I carry in my pocket), or onto my iPhone notes. Where they stay. No longer. That stops now.

I am setting free my ideas and honoring the commitment I made to write here. This is where I'll put my scraps of paper scribblings. Because the transfer to shannopedia.com hasn't happened and I've "owned" the domain for a year or so, and the regular articles and posts haven't happened since last year either-no more excuses or waiting for the perfect time or place or final draft.

Thus, no long articles or essays (or even short ones, really) for you or me. For a while, for sure. Such writing is not something I can do consistently, thus I've not tried, hence this wasteland of blog :)

Let's chat. If you're willing. I expect I'll post a lot of short posts some weeks, and other weeks, not so much. It's a re-start, if nothing else. Welcome back.

The Math of Death

"The Math of Life" might have been a more appropriate and positive title, but definitely less dramatic.

My Mom passed 76 days past her 68th birthday. Given my morbid predilictions, I contemplated what that might mean for my life.

If I die 76 days past my 68th birthday (including leap years), I will die at 1:08am on March 31, 2034. As of today, this is 22 years and 331 days from now.

My brother hipped me to an idea of putting a marble in a jar for each "Saturday" you have left, and then each Saturday, remove one of the marbles. On one hand repulsively macabre, on the other -- a Nietzschean awareness of the edge (and talk about pressure to help me meet deadlines!).

Unfortunately, this would mean I would need approximately 8,361 marbles. And a jar to hold them in. If I allow for weeks I have left, I'd need 1,194.43 marbles. Hmmm. Warmer. Months is 278.7 marbles.

I'm inclined to go for the weeks. It is 915 marbles more, but I believe removing a marble every week would help be more conscious of the time I have left to get things done. The purpose of the activity. I wonder how many marbles come in a bag?

It doesn't have to be marbles, though, does it? It could be pennies. Or little plastic skulls. Or....do you have any ideas?


* I did these on the back of one of my pocket index cards and the help of my iphone, so feel free to check my calculations.

Dedicated to Mom, on Mother's Day. The journey begins.

Hi,
I'm getting this off the ground on Mother's Day, May 8, 2011. This is the first Mother's Day since my Mom, Madolyn S., passed from breast cancer on December 28, 2010.

I'm dedicating this day by opening this blog to her. Mom always encouraged me in every idea, endeavor, project or wish. Never once did she say I couldn't do something, nor fail to support me.

I've always (since teens, anyway) had an obsession with death and dying and final words and what I would think or do in those final moments. I've been afraid of dying while my song was still in me. My Mom passed with still so much to give, and was taken far too young at 68. I don't want this to happen to me.

In so many ways I'm not sure what truly lasts on this ball of dirt, but I know that the energy I (we) put into the world matters. There's no reason that my song has to wait until I'm ready to write that book, or that article, or that posts for this blog be edited and polished for me to publish them. There's no reason that it has to come out all at once.

Thus we begin. Thank you, Mom.
This is my song.