The Times They Are A-Changin’ (Part Three)

An audience hardly prevents me from using profanity, of course, but I like to consider my audience, as it were.

If I’m hanging out with old friends, I’ll swear as I find artistically appropriate provided this doesn’t bother them.  Because it does bother some people, out of courtesy I avoid profanity around them unless it’s required to get their attention.  (It usually isn’t, but I was once told that you’d never get anywhere with a phone company rep if you couldn’t say “hell,” and I’ve never had any reason to doubt it.)  And I really avoid profanity around Bu because some words you need to know exactly what they mean before you start using them.

Of course, I can be startled into using profanity by the social equivalent of having one’s thumb hit with a hammer, but my point is that I make it a point to not make a habit of using profanity in front of a general audience in public, because the more people in the audience, the more likely that somebody in the audience will be bothered by my profanity, and I don’t like bothering people unless it’s my intent to bother.

Nothing terribly unusual about that.

What is apparently unusual is that I consider social networking sites public.

The Times They Are A-Changin’ (Part Two)

But sticking to the topic at hand, the best way I can think to explain my attitude toward just about anything I say or type, is that it’s pretty much the same attitude I have toward my use of, for lack of a better word, profanity.

When in private, I reserve the right to use whatever word I think is most appropriate to describe something no matter how “obscene” the word is generally considered.  For instance, this frequently comes out when I’m assembling or repairing something, because everybody knows some mechanical things refuse to cooperate until you’ve insulted their nonexistent parentage for a while, and as long as I don’t have an audience, I do this freely.

But an audience, be it an audience of one or one billion, changes things for me.

The Times They Are A-Changin’ (Part One)

Some things, it seems, require further explanation.

Apparently my last entry was one of them.

For a start, let me explain than my protest that somebody doesn’t know me well enough to say “that” (whatever “that” may be) about me is an ancient one.  Some observations I find perfectly acceptable upon first meeting (“I say, you appear to be on fire!” comes to mind.), while others generally require a longer association before I will grant them any chance of validity, and it may take an even longer association before I will find them welcome . . . or at least inoffensive.

This quirk of mine has generally been harmless enough (It once manifested in front of a girl I barely knew at the time, and I ended up living with her for several years, for instance.), and in the past was almost never noticed amidst my legion of other quirks, but it’s starting to stand out more when cast against the backdrop of what has become the norm in the age of social networking.  While this has led to some occasional moments of awkwardness, all things considered, I’d rather have this quirk becoming more noticeable than some of my others.

Some of those would be really hard to explain.

So Try Reading Here For A While And Get Back To Me

Look . . . I’m neither rich enough to be called “eccentric,” nor twisted enough to be called “peculiar.”  Give me some more time, then maybe, but for now the most I’ll accept is being called “quirky.”

But never from someone whom I just met.  At first meeting you just flat out do not know me well enough to say something like that to/about me and expect me to smile about it.

Two Wrongs That Are Just Not Right

One of the more unpleasant truths about any creative field is that there are going to be those within those fields who believe their talent (real or imagined) entitles them to vast undeserved privileges.  It’s any even more unpleasant truth that so long as there is profit to be made from pandering to such a bloated ego, there are going to be those eager to do the pandering.

Glorious Indeed

Language . . . has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone.  And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone. 

– Paul Johannes Tillich

This Is Funnier If You Say It Out Loud

So having officially reached the post-Halloween/post-Bu Birthday season, life is blissfully returning to something at least resembling normality.

But last week was hard on me.

So much so that, inspired by the late, great Red Skelton, I started telling people I had employed the services of one Miss Helena Crie to assist me on the things I didn’t have time for, like handling any and all complaints.

“If you feel the need to voice a complaint,” I told people.  “Feel free to go to Helen Crie about it.”

A Clarification

In the hopes of erasing from my mind the look of horror my mother shot me when I mentioned Friday’s Candles & Curses to her, I want to make it clear that the situation I mentioned on Friday was a hypothetical one for the sake of example.  I truly didn’t have anyone specific in mind when I wrote that, and have never actually used those words to express my opinion of anyone.

Well . . . not all in the same sentence, at least.

Better For Him To Figure It Out For Himself So He Can MEAN It

Now that L. is officially past the one year mark, it also means it’s time for me to take my habit of watching my words around him to a whole new level.  Pretty much from the very beginning I’ve been aware anything I said carelessly ran the risk of being “baby’s first word,” so I started practicing caution early on, but now it’s time for me to be aware that soon enough anything I say may not merely be repeated, but repeated at the most awkward moment possible.

For instance, just because I hold the personal opinion that someone’s ideas about ________ are, say, proof that the best thing they could do for their children is to commit suicide so that somebody with a soul and a functioning brain could raise them instead, doesn’t mean I want that opinion parroted to the person in question during a social function just because I voiced that opinion in a moment of (supposedly) private anger.

Year One

One year ago today, L. was born.

As I recall, at this exact time one year ago today I had run out of easy “Welcome to the world” chatter as he and I waited in the hospital nursery for a room to be prepared for his mother.  At this point I think I was discussing politics.  That may sound strange, but it put him to sleep, and that was the idea.  (It tends to have the same effect on me, after all.)

People keep saying things like, “Can you believe it’s been a full year?”

Yes.  Yes, I can.

365 days and approximately 1095 missed hours of sleep aren’t that hard to count, you know.