Lenten Sabbatical: An Update

Just over a week ago I began a endeavor which coincides with Lent.  I gave up (most) drinking and took up Thomas Merton.  More specifically, I gave up most alcoholic drinks.  And now — 196 hours in, give or take (I started early) — it is time for an update.

First sit down, because anyone who knows me even just a little will find this hard to believe, but I am breezing through it!

No one is more surprised than me.  I don’t miss the social drinks.  In fact, I am finding the break to be quite enjoyable.  I even have a little kick in my step.

I worry about my future, though.  What will become of me should I turn into a full-on teetotaler?  What will become of the people who own the bars and restaurants I frequent?  Will their kids get braces?  Will the price of Brunello di Montalcino come down again?  Will I remain irresistible and handsome?

These are questions with unknown answers and I admit that I find that rather distressing.  But here I am, more than a week in and I don’t notice any difference one way or the other.  No anxiety, no temptations, no real hang ups.  Of course I was hoping to lose a little weight, but that goal is being offset by my frequent popcorn and ice cream binges.  I think the net benefit, though, is tipping in my favor.

In due time…in due time…

When I committed to this stunt, I included several exceptions, by the way — pre-arranged indulgences in anticipation of the need — and these I shall share with you as they come along.  (Come back and look for a list soon.  Need to fix my scanner first.)

These include a birthday party that I will be attending Saturday.  But you know…I might really be off the deep end, I might sip iced tea all night.

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Maybe It Is a Haunting!

We can all agree that this Halloween is especially frightening.  Conservatives give the season an especially dreadful feel this year.  But I am more immediately concerned about the haunting that has begun at my place in recent nights.

There is a noise — no, let’s call it a presence, that sounds better — there is a presence that chooses to exist in whatever room is adjacent to the room I am in.  It is a scratchy, pecking noise, just audible enough to make you wonder…

Late last night I suspected mice in the kitchen were ruining my fresh loaf of seven grain bread, but I found no mice.  Then I was awoken from my sleep by the sound of crumpling paper.  Again, I guessed mice.  No mice.  And right now I am hearing little clicking noises coming from the kitchen.

I’m not even going to get up and check it out.  I won’t find anything, other than maybe a monster or a ghost or something because we all know this is the time of the year when ghosts and monsters muster up a sense of humor.  They’re playing with me, obviously, and I’m not in the mood for jokes.

Of course I have to consider the possibility that I might have uncorked a bottle of bad Brunello, if there really could be such a thing, and perhaps I am hallucinating.  The snaps, crackles, and pops could all be in my head, which wouldn’t be the first time.  Or maybe my cat has come back to visit me.  She is on the other side now, chasing birds in paradise…naughty birds, no doubt, set to a short stint as the plaything of cats in heaven.  (It’s a kind of purgatory for bad birds, I think.)

Whatever it is, I want to find out with as little stress, mess, and madness as possible.

So naturally I am hoping I might find a witch tonight — preferably one in sleek latex or satin and lace — to come home later and chase the demon — or demons — away.  (Sounds kind of fun, doesn’t it?)  Seeing that I am feeling remarkably handsome today, I don’t think that this plan is a bad one nor is it beyond the realm of possibility.

Telling a witch — and god, I have known a few — that I have something strange at home I’d like to show her might not sound like the best pick up line, but I’m going to give it a go.  I have to do something, after all.  Sleeping with garlic and silver crosses just feels plain old silly.

Ok, now I am going to go take a peek in the kitchen.

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Watching the Olympics, Part 1

There are so many good logos out there and London has this. Really.

I am not a very dedicated sports fan.  I like sports as an excuse to get out and be with friends, but overall I prefer to make small talk about the weather (politics too volatile) than batting averages or quarterback controversies.  I don’t know anything about either of those topics anyway.  I like hockey.

But I found myself unable to stop watching the Olympics last night.  A horrible date I must have been because at one point I had suggested that the athletes were as fit as race horses and she suggested that the rest of us — not she or me, of course — were built like hamsters.

Hamsters!  I love it.  And it is true.

What do hamsters do all day?  They munch on stuff, occasionally get up for a run on a wheel, then munch more.  If you look at the bar crowd they tend to be slouched over the bar nibbling and sipping just like hamsters.  Some of them are breeders, too, which is what hamsters are good at.  Gerbils, doubly good at it.  I know.  We supplied the school with gerbils for the class boa constrictor.

Ah, yes, there is some sport in bar watching, too, no doubt.  Identifying the swingers at the bar is as good of a sport as watching men’s rowing, for example.  Young guys from the suburbs on bad dates make for good viewing.  And every once in a while, there’s just plain simple bliss and happiness.

There’s some sadness in this bar watching sport, too, especially when you’re getting deep into your second bottle of Brunello di Montalcino.  There always seem to be the girls — I use that term in the broadest sense — who appear willing to give anything — and I mean anything — for some affirmation and attention.

Brittany Viola, USA Diver.  Lean achieving confidence.

There are many boys like this, too, but they either hide behind various manly facades or just look desperately drunk.    The phrase ‘wayward” rings entirely true.  These people catch my attention, and I watch from a distance, like a Wim Wenders angel, forbidden to contact until their time has come.

Anyway, no need to let the sadness of humanity get a guy down. I like watching the bar stool hamsters as much as the Olympic race horses.  I do think my friend is right, though; we are indeed more like the hamsters in the bar than the monomaniac athletes on television.  Until the rise of reality television I always thought that’s why we like sport, because those people were achieving something most of us cannot.  So why watch reality television when everyday blandness mixes with storied train wrecks right in your own back yard?

Often contrast is the best way to see and understand.  When seeking affirmation — remember the boys and girls? — in the familiar, people lack contrast and so fail to see and understand.  In this way I think this sort of populist entertainment — reality television, especially — that exists today is a factor in the “dumbing down” of American culture.  What can we learn from making celebrities of “reality”, especially our most mundane and sordid?  Maybe I am being snobby and short-sighted, but I can’t help but feel grateful for something like the Olympics,

something rare that goes over the top to celebrate achievement.  There is something good in that, isn’t there?

By the way, you can find me later at the bar eating a pizza with a mug of beer.  I will be celebrating achievement!

Related articles

• Are the Olympics Absolutely Fabulous? (thevibes.me)
• Barnsley stages Olympics for hamsters and gerbils (guardian.co.uk)
• Let the games begin: Eight great ways to get into the Olympic spirit (swrnn.com)
• Does Reality Television Portend The Apocalypse? (emmiemears.com)

After All This Time I Have Finally Figured It Out

Publicity photo of some M*A*S*H cast members for show premiere in 1972-Loretta Swit, Alan Alda, McLean Stevenson and Wayne Rogers.

I have always had an uncomfortable relationship with the much-loved television classic M*A*S*H.  (Or should I spell it M*A*S*H?)  I don’t like Alan Alda.  No!  I’m just kidding.  What I don’t like about M*A*S*H is so obvious I missed it.  Every line is a punchline and that is very, very tiresome.  I will give it credit for being a successful “dramedy”, even being a dark comedy, but as I think about the series, I think M*A*S*H ran about five seasons too long.

The creators of M*A*S*H relied on real stories from the Korean War (and some from World War II) to create the initial series.  After that the series became something of a critique of war, the Cold War, and the pitfalls of bureaucratic hypocrisy, but that narrative was run and rerun for too long.  M*A*S*H exposes the risk of mix mingling comedy and drama.  Once the point is made, it is made.

For the rest of tonight I think I will cozy up with a few magazines and books, tune into a movie or two, and relax.  I did enjoy a fantastic dinner.  (I should have taken a picture.)  I made light balsamic sauce for pasta and served it with steamed fresh vegetables and sliced ripe tomatoes.  And the coup de grace (wait…is that what I mean?) was a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino.

Ah, sweet rich Brunello.  The king of wines.  Almost too good and increasingly too expensive, I decided to indulge.  Sadly I also decided to watch M*A*S*H , but what the hell?  For all I know the fine dinner and the glass of Brunello cleared my head enough to figure out what I instinctively knew all along:  I really don’t like M*A*S*H  all that much.

What have you got tonight?

Related articles

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Holy Smokes…I Must Have Been Deep in the Brunello Last Night!

Peter Paul Rubens. Order of the Tulip.

Minneapolis and St. Paul business people:  I have some left over advertising promotions.  They are left in my budget at year-end and are use it or lose it and I’m about to lose it.  Contact me.  Ok, now on to today’s post.

My first post of the new year was kind of a rambling mess.  I will take that as a good sign. 

We are nearly 12 hours into 2011 here in Minneapolis and I have yet to wreck a car or ruin a sale.  So far so good.  If I can hold on I might make something of myself yet.

I remain somewhat scarred, however, from watching The Da Vinci Code.  (Yes, U No Hu, I cannot let it go.)  I find myself coming up with ideas — better ideas — for suspenseful stories and I ask myself:  What am I doing in sales anyway?  I hinted at this idea to U No Hu already.  Tell me what you think.

The story is called Rubens‘ Rebellion and it is set in modern Antwerp.  A horticulturist from the United States is giving a thought provoking lecture on the hidden meaning of tulip colors while at the same time some poor gardener is being killed with a pesticide sprayer by a zealot flagellant who whips himself with dead wedding bouquets.  With me?  As the gardener is dying, his last effort in this world is tracing an uncanny likeness of Venus in the Mirror in the pesticide dust surrounding him on the floor.  An overly suspicious Dutch detective smells a rat and randomly suspects our hapless horticulturist — who is no where near the scene of the crime because he is giving a lecture — of committing the crime and an international chase ensues as we unravel the Venus and the color of tulips intertext.  And it just gets fun and crazy after that.  What do you think?  I think Ron Howard would like it. 

I am wasting my talents in sales. 

Related Articles

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