3 posts tagged “news”

It's only fitting that I do these now as I'm back on the road again, effective tomorrow. Back to San Antonio. I will not slander the town anymore, because I can be a bit obnoxious and I know it.

Anyhoo...my random thoughts.

1. Dear NFL: If you're going to pack up two teams and ship them to England for a football game, can you at least pick two teams that are hot and fun to watch? Don't get me wrong...the Giants are fun for me to watch, but that's largely because of the perverse longing I feel for Michael Strahan. The Miami Dolphins? Miami doesn't even watch the Dolphins...why punish England?

2. Dear Austin, TX: I kid about the whole United States of Texas thing, but now I'm starting to wonder. How is it that I put on the Austin 8 all day news channel, or the nightly news...and never hear one lick of news that doesn't somehow link back to our town? I mean, I'm glad to hear that Great Granny Clara just ate her hundredth popsicle...but I'm kinda thinking you might wanna broaden your range a bit.

3. Speaking of broadening...A friend of mine was lamenting about some frustrations he's having with a...shall we say...cranially-challenged lover. In exasperation, he says to her today that she needs to consider broadening her palette regarding a project she's working on. When she stares blankly at him, he goes, "Palette, you know what I mean, right?" He says she answers...

(wait for it)

"Pontius Palette, he's the one that killed Jesus Christ."

I know he made it up...but daaaaamn, I nearly peed my pants on that one.

4. For those of you that are my tweeps, you may have noticed a ridiculously high preoccupation with "candeh" last week. I never indulged. And I still have not. I've just decided to stop torturing you with it.

5. There are two days left to this horrid mercury retrograde we're experiencing. It is painful, all sorts of people slipping, falling, panicking, having mechanical issues and general fuckery. I think someone should banish merc retros and send them packing. I just do not want. I'm high strung enough...I need no celestial intervention.

6. So my livingroom tank and bedroom tank are both thriving now that I've gotten my novice experience under my belt. The bedroom tank has 4 tiger barbs, 2 albino tiger barbs, 2 green barbs and 2 blue gourami. What a fun tank that one is to watch during evenings of insomnia. The livingroom tank may have a problem. I have three albino tin foil barbs in there. Red eyes, silvery reflective body, cool fish. But um...they are growing. And...apparently after I did my research...I gasped. Audibly. These lil darlings? Can grow to be eight inches (which would explain why it seems they've grown an inch in the past month). I may have to take them back, because 24 inches of fish in a 20 gallon tank might qualify as fish cruelty. Not to mention there are three tiger barbs that are looking like they might be a little nervous.

 
7. Neighbors may not like my passive aggressive "re-transferring" of their trash to THEIR bin. But I do not give a quarter of a fuck. You make a lot of trash frat boys, I understand. But do not assume I'm not using my bin. And ESPECIALLY do not assume I'm not going to notice that your bags have wandered "innocuously" into my bin. You know by now that I'm just ignorant enough to do exactly what I did. Love ya! (not)

8. Apparently, I'm not enough of a diva for my 13 year old neighbor who bounded into my house yesterday, wandered back into my bedroom only to gape in horror as she watched me randomly trimming my hair in the mirror. When she asked me if I was afraid I might make a mistake, considering how difficult it was for me to actually see what I was doing, I replied..."It's hair. It'll grow back." Apparently, fabulous women do not say these things.

9. Ready for some shock and awe? How about some shock and euw? I've failed to mention the now mildly painful ganglion on the top of my right foot. Apparently, I dropped something heavy on my foot at some point (so sad that I've done that so many times I'm not sure which moment did it)...and over time and with running on top, I've formed this wondrous knot on the top of my foot that someone referred to as a testicle. Humph. After this series of tradeshows has ended, lil RPM must visit the podiatrist for removal or...*shudders* draining. It doesn't HURT persay, but I cannot wear any of the boots in my kickass boot collection, and this...will never do. But it's also going to mean a few weeks in a soft cast and crutchery if they actually decide to cut the thing out *faints*. That may mean no pottery for a bit (that's my pedal foot)...so let's root for drainage. Did I just say lets root for drainage? GACK!

10. I have no more random thoughts. Weren't those enough?

“You are a rude, thoughtless little pig.”
from the Times Herald Record Online.

Why is this news? And why am I hearing it over and over and over on CNN? And why do we feel we have the right to take a ringside seat to something as gut wrenching, dysfunctional and nasty as a brutal custody battle between two parents? I am really, really sick of the news.

I won't share any more quotes. I'm sure you've already heard it anyway.

There's nothing more heartbreaking to me then the erosion of a family, because the splintering shows its damage for years and years to come. Having been the adult child of divorce, I recall watching my parents over the course of their 25 year union slowly breakdown into shadows of their former selves. My father had always been a rager, but during it's worst moments, he could turn it on all of us, with disastrous results. My mother had always been a quiet manipulator, so her shifting was a lot less clear to see until I was able to look back with a clearer lens. The only audience exposed to all the gross nastiness of it all were the kids. Us. We got to have the ring side seats watching the battle and occasionally getting nabbed in some really unfriendly, friendly fire. We got to see our parents at their very best, and their very, very worst.

I was on the phone with my sister this morning as she was on her way to work, when I watched (and she overheard) the story on CNN. I hate to tell you this, but we both...laughed. I guess we're both hardened to things like that. Not because we don't believe his daughter was likely horrified, frightened and deeply hurt by this raging tirade from her father...but because we could not believe such ugly, nasty, dirty, family business was put over the airwaves. As if dealing with it privately is easy to begin with.

We laughed, because we'd been there. On the receiving end of messages and rants from our father that would have had some ladies with an uneasy constitution swooning and sliding out of their chairs. It felt familiar. Kind of like when you remember the most painful klutz moment you ever had...but chuckle because elements of it were too insane not to be funny once you were healed. Note, I said kinda. Because truly, getting reamed by a raging parent...is scary, it hurts and it can feel absolutely dehumanizing. But the wounds can be healed.

Like every other "news" event we get, we don't know the story we just get the "juicy" parts. We don't know what provoked that tirade. We don't know the context. The point of this post is...

It ain't our business.

That's family business. And the saddest thing about that whole "airing" of the American family...is that tirades like that happen all over the place in the throes of bitter, nasty custody fights and divorces. And yet...throngs of people will gasp in horror publicly, point and frown and tsk tsk tsk and speculate about all the damage he's done, label him whatever they need to and become a superior subject matter expert on all the things a good parent never does (while their own family dysfunctions fester in indiscriminate silence). We won't acknowledge that sometimes we do things we wish we could take back (big or small). We won't acknowledge that sometimes we create regrettable moments. Nah...we'll sweep those under the carpet. And if pushed we'll snap and say...'it's none of your business what goes on in my life!"

We all should have the right to endure those moments without public shame and review. We're not their therapists. And this...this is not news.

Yes. I stated the obvious. It was cheap and typical and I went for it like a rat with cheese. Eeesh.

My sister told me about it, I think she even scarred me for life by sending me an image or two...but the word is out.

Young, Daniel Radcliffe has decided to do everything he can to rattle the box that media and fans would like to keep him in as Harry Potter. I can appreciate that. But I don't want to see his naughty bits. At Hogwarts or anywhere else. I have no problem with nudity and creative artistic expression...so why is this a little disturbing for me?

If you are not a little queasy and you're so inclined, you can view the Today snippet. With another Potter flick set to film this summer, I'm wondering a bit about the timing.

At the very least, I hope it's a good play.