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Drooling on the Pillow

Saturday, November 15, 2003

#5 

Here's two items that don't belong in the same sentence: six-year old and hockey gear.

Grace is beginning her second year of ice hockey with the Jersey City Capitals. Jersey City is not the capital of anything, by the way. It's the county seat of Hudson County (I think) but that would present a problem in designing a mascot.

She's a wizard skater, picked it up right away and she's very coachable. The sight of this pretty little Chinese girl zooming around the ice all bulked up with her gear is, well, it's adorable. It's just the packing of a preternatually squirming little kid into that gear and unpacking a limp sweating kid an hour later that is the challenge.

I'll try to post a picture of our little Bobbi Orr next week.
Posted by: Sluggo / 2:55 PM
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Friday, November 14, 2003

Thanksgiving 

My favorite holiday. It's the only one besides The Fourth of July that still exists in the same universe in which it was created. I know there are teams of marketers working feverishly around the clock to find a hook to take it in the direction of single digit birthdays, Halloween and Xmas, but so far it lags way behind Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and Easter in its contribution to the GNP. Lets put up a few paper pilgrims and let it go.
Posted by: Sluggo / 11:10 AM
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Tuesday, November 11, 2003

The Power of Blogs 

This is a little freaky. I mentioned in an entry earlier today that I hadn't spoken to my sister in a few years. She just called me at the office an hour ago.

Nobody reads this so there is no rational connection. It can only be the blog-vibe, twanging all the way out to Santa Fe.

Didn't mean to imply, by the way, that we were estranged. Just strange.
Posted by: Sluggo / 5:09 PM
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Thank You 

It began as Armistice Day, became the day to honor all veterans, but, looking around the web today, it feels like it has become something more.

Thank you to all who served and are serving. Those who fell, those who survived, those who are giving all or any part of their lives to the greatest project in history: freedom.
Posted by: Sluggo / 11:36 AM
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Prayer 

I'm not a religious person, nor in any real sense a spiritual person. Never have been. I was raised a Presbyterian. The only grandfather I knew was a stern and thunderously righteous man and I make that statement in an utterly irony-free way. He was a good, loving and endlessly generous man, but rigid and 19th century in his religious views. He died, I think in 1984 at the age of 97. My mother and youngest brother have become more Pentecostal and conservative as the years have gone by. My other brother has also gotten more religious as he has gotten older, but belongs to a very much more liberal denomination. My older sister is much like me, I think, though we haven't talked in years.

I've always yearned for faith, but haven't found it. There have been short periods over the years when I have attended (usually Catholic) church but only because I was unbearably lonely.

My point is that for the past couple of years I've said a prayer virtually every time I've gone through the Lincoln Tunnel on my way to work. I ask for protection for my wife and daughter and for forgiveness for my lack of faith. It's a daily Hegel moment, but I cannot enter the tunnel without it.

Update 11/14
Did I mean Kant? Does anyone know? I Googled it, but found nothing.
Posted by: Sluggo / 11:12 AM
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Monday, November 10, 2003

The Other Three 

Most of the speculation concerning Sharpton, Kucinich and Moseley Braun is just abuse --though much of it well earned. Like stories about kidnappers who write ransom notes on personalized stationery they treat the three as knuckleheaded rascals blissfully unaware of being miles out of their depth. What are they thinking!?!

They're not stupid people, obviously, and they knew what they were getting into. I think they were prepared to be portrayed as the class clowns because reporters could not resist writing about them as if they were candidates for president while their real constituents would get their message.

Sharpton is running against Jesse Jackson and winning. Moseley Braun is running against her disastrous senate term and winning. She's done herself a world of good. She's actually electable again. I know nothing about Illinois politics and what her prospects for the senate are, but she's no longer a joke. Kucinich is less clear. Perhaps he is betting that the Democrats are beginning a major shift to the left and by putting himself on the far left wing he will command that sector when it becomes much closer to the center of the party in 2008. If he's right he could be the Dem VP candidate in 2008. If he's wrong, which he almost certainly is, Hillary will crush him like a bug. In any case he can probably choose between being the nut-case in the House or holding a respected chair in a major Poli-Sci department.
Posted by: Sluggo / 10:09 AM
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That's Just Cab Fare from JFK 

Seriously strange story out of Newark Airport. A 17 year old boy was apparently abducted -- well, he was persuaded -- into a car as he waited to be picked up after a flight from California. The persuader, driving a Lincoln took the kid to a nearby parking garage and telephoned the kids brother, demanding $340 for his return. What's funnier, the specificity of the amount or the paucity? My guess is that the kid's brother owes Mr. Lincoln a little more than 3 C's.
Posted by: Sluggo / 9:16 AM
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This is Hard 

I had a rotten three or four days. Tension in the house. Unhappiness. One painfully expensive senior moment by yours truely. I did not feel like doing this. What could I contribute? Bitterness and bile. Vetching and complaining. Spleen and and my own particularly attractive mode of self-pity. I congratulate myself on staying away from the keyboard, but it highlights the fact that I don't yet know what this is for. I'm not a journalist or a classics professor or a toothpick holder collector. I'm a schmoo with a collection of grudges, but I'm not happy with presenting myself as such. For now I guess I'll just noodle around and hop on whatever pony is trotting by. I'll figure this out or I'll quit.
Posted by: Sluggo / 8:43 AM
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