Keep it in your pants

Merry Christmas, ho ho ho.

The world seems filled with "hos" these days, all who apparently make it a regular practice to hook up with Tiger Woods. I'm a cynic. People are rarely who you think they are, so let's not get all high and mighty when one more high-profile male can't keep it in his pants. Men are stupid. Women are too. One well know man once said "for all have sinned and fall short". Some just fall short in a more spectacular and public way, like the difference between falling off the Empire State Building and falling off a curb. The splatter (collateral damage) is more painful and spectacular when falling from a very high place.

You gotta wonder though what people are thinking. Like do you wake up one morning and say "Let's crash the President's little State Dinner honey. It'll be fun". Or "hmm, how many dead people can I stuff in my house before someone notices the stench." Or "I have eight small children, so now seems like the best time to walk away from my marriage".

Do people not have enough to do? Because my life is full. I keep pretty busy. I'm too tired to do much more than the next thing. I'm happy to keep a low profile and keep my failings off the front page of the National Enquirer. Because seriously - enquiring minds will NOT be interested in my humble life. And that's just fine with me.

Rude is In

Wow have the outbursts been exploding lately, with an equal number of apologies close on their heels. What's the deal? It's not even coming from just one industry or segment of society. Congress, entertainment, sports, journalism...everyone wants a piece of the outburst action.

I can't decide if we are becoming a society of brutes or boobs or narcissists. Or perhaps we are a bunch of over-sensitive sissies. Really, there's no excuse for Kanye West's behavior. And Congressman Joe Wilson's breach of decorum was startling. It just isn't "done". At least not outside of the British Parliament. And whichever tennis-playing Williams sister it was who berated the line judge by threatening to kill her went way beyond poor sportsmanship. All in the brute/boob/narcissist category.

Sometimes the apologies seem to fall in the sissie category though. Did the ABC news reporter who tweeted that President Obama had just called Kanye West a jackass really need to issue an apology? I guess the comment was supposed to be off the record. Turns out Twitter is not off the record.

What about the shoe throwing reporter from Iraq? He was released from prison today after doing time for his shoe-throwing outburst at a press conference with former President Bush. Or how about the guy who is suing for being arrested for flipping off a police officer. Turns out giving the finger is protected by the constitution as a form of free speech. Turns out shoe throwing is not.

"Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), tennis legend Serena Williams and recording artist Kanye West held a press conference in Washington, DC today to kick off the first annual National Outburst Week." -Andy Borowitz, Huffington Post

"Been a busy week for President Obama. I notice that he’s having Kanye West and Taylor Swift to the White House for a “root beer summit” this weekend." -Jay Leno

"Ok, so Kanye is a serial apologizer. One could say he suffers from C.A.D. (compulsive apologizing disorder)." -Amy Spies, Writer and Producer

"Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. "
Adlai E. Stevenson

Now THIS is pure class. From the Phillies game last night...

This might be worse than talking to yourself

Printer Installation: It never hurts to ask...

"If there is something to gain and nothing to lose by asking, by all means ask!"

W. Clement Stone

Junk in the trunk...and the garage...and the closet

Does your man suffer from AMJ? What is it about men and their Accumulated Male Junk. I don't mean the in-the-trunk-junk. I mean that stuff they accumulate through the years and cry about when you attempt to wrench it from their hands, prying one finger off at at time. Not that I've tried. I'm speaking hypothetically.


Continuing in hypothetical mode, what is the plan for the two large boxes of rusted 1960's era Tonka trucks? Or how about the train set? Were you holding out for the birth of a son or maybe now a grandson? Do you really need your old baseball glove, two baseballs, ancient golf clubs, old ski jacket from 1979 with lift passes still attached, hiking boots that haven't seen a trail in 25 years? You'd still have your skis and ski boots even though we haven't lived near a mountain in 27 years, if you hadn't been forced by space issues into giving them up in one of our moves, along with the collection of tennis and racquetball racquets that you planned to someday get restrung.


Then there's the accumulation of keys to unknown locks, old cans of shoe polish, pocket knives, and miscellaneous coins in your night stand. Speaking (hypothetically) of coins, you have a collection of currency from every country you have ever visited. And that's a lot. I don't think they even print Russian Rubles in those denominations any more.


Any thoughts on the trombone, the guitar, the mandolin? Don't get me wrong, I would love to hear you play any of the above. I'm just curious about why you keep them around when they haven't been touched in years except to move them out of the way to look for something lost in the back of your closet.


To find answers to these burning questions, I turned to Steve Almond, author of the article "In Defense of Male Clutter", published in the June issue of Real Simple.

In this era of geographic dislocation with people moving from city to city, unmoored from their histories, we all long for a stronger connection to our pasts...these dusty
objects are also time machines, Their value resides in the particular set of
memories and emotional associations held by their owner. They have made that hallowed passage from physical objects to, dare I say, religious relics

I suppose that's as good a reason as any to continue stepping around the AMJ in our garage (aka: the dungeon). I've got plenty of other things to worry about. If I can just move the leaf blower that no longer blows, and your father's old table saw, maybe I can get to that big box of photos I've been planning to put in an album.

Men don't think the way we do

Things they probably weren't thinking...