Thank You, Susan Boyle

Sung to the tune of I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables. (Sorry for the extra verse.)

I dreamed a dream of future clear,
Of boyhood plans and vague ambitions.
This thing that I would call “career,”
With cowboy hats and lunar missions.

But then there came the bills to pay,
And dreams were something one did sleeping.
My goals for life I’d put away
Deep in my brain, for safer keeping.

My harshest critics roll their eyes,
Betraying lowered expectation.
And so it comes as no surprise
That I would join in their negation.

The life that I have been denied,
I see so many others living.
Times I thought I’m satisfied
I can count upon one hand.

But then this woman, near my age,
Without a job, with modest dressing,
She sings a song, and she’s the rage,
The night she shows the world her blessing.

On hearing this, the time has come
To face that I’m my only critic.
I must cheer for my own team
Before I kill
The dream I dreamed.

Lest you haven’t yet seen the video, here’s a link. (They’ve disabled embedding.)

Sully and the Law of the Sea

Currently, the TV networks are getting their face time with Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot of the US Airways plane that made an emergency landing in the Hudson River January 15. America can’t get enough of him, and that’s a noble instinct.

I’m Not Afraid of a Colonoscopy (Nor Should You Be)

I couldn’t help using the “Finish This Tweet” meme to my own advantage. What I spent the better part of two days not being afraid of — as best I could — was a colonoscopy. Before you ask, it was routine; the occasion was my 50th birthday, put off until after my 51st but not before my health care coverage ended from my cubicle job I quit two weeks ago.

I owed you an explanation today. I’d like to expand the idea of this post to dealing with fear of the unknown, especially of your insides when you get to a certain age, and why it’s worth fighting through. I’d also love to revisit the whole idea of this fun Twitter game, which was wildly successful for me this time, and benefited only a little from an implied imprimatur from Laura Fitton (see previous post).

The fact is, I’m still a little out of it from the anaesthesia. (Not so much that I couldn’t spell anaesthesia!)

Nighty-night.

A photo after the break…

The Art of Multichannel Web Storytelling

Last week, I witnessed a fun and touching piece of performance art. Its impact didn’t hit me at the time, and it might have had I participated in it more. But since that day, I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. I had the satisfaction of watching a magic trick which, even though I have a vague idea of the preplanning behind the scene—or especially because I do—I have an even bigger appreciation of its execution.

Early in the morning of Friday, October 17, Laura Fitton, a power-user on Twitter going by the name of Pistachio, read the following short bio of another user, whose name is probably Ben K. Weller:

I write songs, record them and sing them for people. I love music and Bass fishing. Most of all I love my wife Liz and my son Dorian.

This inspired Laura to post the following “tweet”:

@benkweller’s Twitter bio inspired this morning’s “Finish This Tweet” (#FTT) “Most of all I love ______”

Some things you should know before we proceed, if you’re new to Twitter:

• “#FTT” is a Twitter code Laura also made up on the spot. It starts with a hashmark (#), making it a hashtag, which makes searching more tightly focused. When you put a hashtag code into search.twitter.com, you get only those tweets with the code. (She clarified herself a little in some other tweets.)
• Laura follows many people via Twitter. But that Friday demonstrated how many people follow her—listening, going to sites she recommends, looking up people she may be conversing with who we ourselves may not yet be following. Yes, I’m among them.

Do You See It, Too?

Maybe it’s the pouch.

How Many Bars Does God Get?

Catholicism is my discredited old friend; atheism is my credible new friend. When one talks trash about the other, I don’t listen.

I can’t believe how tiny that blacktop playground is, where I once watched from the corner as girls played hopscotch and boys played kickball. While I continued to attend Catholic school until three days into my third year at Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, NY, the beginning of the end came during preparation for confirmation, in the third grade at Holy Name of Mary School in Croton-on-Hudson.

James Coburn! Of Course!

Placing the name to a movie star’s face proves a challenge. Internet to the rescue. Is that such a good habit, though?

My wife and I were channel flipping at the TV last night, and we came across what looked like a made-for-TV movie about Noah’s ark. I could identify John Voight as Noah and Mary Steenbergen as his wife. They were looking over the rail of the deck down at another small boat filled with Middle Eastern-looking trinkets, piloted by a bearded peddler, played by an actor with a very familiar face.

Addicted to Heroines?

Can a guy have a knight in shining armor? I think I’ve had two.

I sat in the car, waiting for everyone else to show up and unlock the door to the law firm office. On the radio, Colin Powell was making the case for WMDs to a UN committee, pointing to photos that reminded my mind’s eye of the visual displays of Dr. Strangelove. There was a battle of a different kind brewing this morning: I was about to be deposed pursuant to a lawsuit.

When the summons came in the mail a few months prior, it was this bulky stack of double-space type. In my ignorance, I reacted like it was an invoice for a million dollars. I freaked out.

Five years before that, I caused a car accident that supposedly injured the driver of the other car. He didn’t seem injured to me that day.

Light at the End of the Cubicle Tunnel

Take this job and blog it.

“Are you alright?”

That was the question from my supervisor, as I felt his hand on my shoulder. Clearly, a concern for my welfare.

The day before, he had also caught me with my eyes closed. Oh, okay, sleeping. Microsleeping. The day before, there was a progress bar making its pokey way toward the finish line. One of these operations I don’t want to disturb, out of a decades-old fear of a crash, which I justify today by maintaining the fastest tasking, for people or computers, is unitasking. So my eyes close briefly.

But today, I was looking at a printout of something I’d just finished designing. I was sitting up, and my chin was resting on my chest. I had worked through my lunch to get this design through, and was having blood sugar issues, which I had much worse four years and 40 pounds ago. I would have startled myself awake in a few seconds, had my supervisor not come along.

Portfolio of Schemes

“Freedom of choice is what you’ve got. Freedom from choice is what you want.” —Devo

One of the things that hit me like a ton of bricks on my 50th birthday in October, which triggered my social media odyssey, is tragically typical to men my age: the realization of how little I’ve accomplished, as compared to how much anyone from age 1 to 49 assumes they’ll get accomplished by now.

I won’t describe my current domestic and career situation too much, since you’ll only think I’m depressed about it, which I’m not. In fact, I anticipate this post packaging things in such a tight little nugget that it will actually help me proceed. It’s like how a panic about money ends or lessens when you arrive at an actual dollar amount, even if it’s worse than you thought. Or when a doctor names the illness you have, because a diagnosis is less agony than not knowing.

Also, at the end, is a shameless request for your advice and counsel. This is a therapy blog post (good idea for a category), and I’m on the couch!

I am a man of ideas. And since my job doesn’t require ideas, or at least not of a broad range, I think of ideas on my own, for my own edification. All sorts of business plans, careers and avocations lay seige to my forebrain for weeks on end. Let me share some: