Be stupid

I feel so old. Today, I was looking at a magazine and came across the new Diesel Jeans ads. Has anyone else out there seen them? The theme is, be stupid.

Like we haven't already dumbed down our society enough as it is with the inane coverage of balloon boy and Heidi someone's multiple plastic surgeries, and Tiger's love affairs and...now someone out there is blatantly saying it--be stupid. Maybe it is better to have them clearly stating their purpose instead of hiding it behind something else. But it just makes me feel old because obviously they are going after a young market, and I'm sure the campaign will be successful, but I hope it fails miserably, and I don't understand the attraction of being stupid, and I can't imagine a meeting where someone said, here's my idea and then they pitched it to supposedly smart people, and then those smart people said, yeah, it's a great idea. So, I guess that means I'm out of touch. And then I look at my rant about dumbing down society and sounds like some old person complaining about the youth today, but I don't feel old, so...I don't know where I fit in.

I know it is just an ad, but ads reflect something about society--either what is accepted or what is pushing the edge. Is it possible that promoting stupidity is acceptable, and if not, then how is that pushing the edge, I mean what is it aiming for?

You can see the whole idiotic campaign here
http://adhunt.blogspot.com/2010/01/diesel-jeans-be-stupid.html

I guess the only plus is that if people act as stupid as the people in the ads, the average IQ of the population will actually increase since only the smart people will live long enough to propagate.

Linda

Earthquakes and typhoons

I don't usually have long term trouble with jet lag, but I've been home now for a week and am still not sleeping properly. I've been waking up at 4/4:30 every day, and since I'm wide awake, I just get out of bed. Laura has been having a hard time falling to sleep, but the little devil sleeps until 9 or 10 in the morning.

So, since I've been home, we've had two earthquakes and a typhoon. The epicenter of one earthquake was just about 20 miles from our area so it was felt pretty strongly. Have any of you felt an earthquake? It is a weird feeling. I get a momentary rush of adrenalin, then depending on the strength of the quake, either sit still and wonder if I'm going to have to rush to a doorway or I immediately rush to a doorway. The kids always seem to be asleep when we experience a quake, so then I worry about whether I'll be able to get to them in the case of a severe quake. Yesterday, morning, I was sitting in my undies, so then I had the added worry about whether there were any clothes nearby to jump into in case the quake was severe. Anyway, all of that is the mental part. Then, it is a freaky feeling to have your house shaking. If you live in a high rise, I imagine it must be an awful feeling to see everything swaying so much. My legs get wobbly and stay that way for about a half hour after the quake stops. And my brain feels the same way after a short quake (yesterday's was about 20 seconds, the night before about 10) as it does after an afternoon of sailing. In other words, I feel like the ground is still moving.

Before I moved to Japan, I always wondered how people could live in a place that has such frequent quakes, where they know that it is inevitable that they will someday experience a big one. But now that we live here, I realize that you don't even think about it until it happens. I mean, we may think about the possibility of a quake when we put breakable items out on a shelf, or when moving furniture to make sure heavy things aren't over the bed or anything, but otherwise. I never think or worry about the possibility of a big quake. Even after the earthquakes, as soon as the physical symptoms disappear, I don't think of them anymore.

How about you all? For those of you who live in Japan, do you worry about them? Has anyone else experienced a big quake or natural disaster that upset you mentally and disturbed you physically?

Linda

Michael Jackson

Yes, Michael Jackson is all over the place right now, and I don't usually care enough when a celebrity dies to write about it, but the death of Michael Jackson is so surprising and shocking to me that I can't help myself.

I mean, Michael Jackson has been part of my life ever since I can remember. I remember watching the Jackson 5 on TV, listening to their music when growing up, the movie Ben (about the killer rat) was the first movie I ever saw in a theater, you can't not like some of his music and it was huge when I was in my 20s and listening to music, his videos were amazing, his sense of style was memorable and influential, he has been a constant source of entertainment to the media and so whether you actively followed his controversies and face changes or not, you couldn't avoid knowing about them. He was kind of like smoke in the sense that there is a source of the smoke, but even if you weren't near that source, you still sense it and smell it and something of it lingers long after the smoke has actually cleared.

So how about you all? Does this have any meaning to you other than just a famous person dying?

Linda

View from a Balcony

A couple of months ago I thought about entering a flash-fiction contest. Your work had to either start or include the phrase "the view from the balcony." This is what I wrote, but I got busy, forgot about the contest and never sent it in. So this will never see the light of day anywhere except this blog, but at least my friends will get to see it. 

She was lost, but the view from the balcony showed her the way out. A shaft of sunshine sliced through the roiling clouds that had just dumped their burden and temporarily halted her journey. It pointed to a spot just below the balcony, as if suggesting, when the time came, she begin her journey there. It was a good place: a cobblestone path lined with flowers that had only minutes before drooped from thirst and the weight of their dust shrouds. Now, they glistened with crystal water droplets that, pierced by the sunlight, tossed rainbows of confetti onto the cobblestone path, as if celebrating her decision to leave.

With the storm now over, rivulets of rainwater streamed away from the flowers, flowing through the cracks that divided the cobblestones, outlining the various paths that she might take. Below her apartment, a neighbor’s window opened. Voices and laughter drifted up to her and floated around her head, teasing her with their happiness, before soaring skywards on their own journey. Would she be able to catch up with them, she wondered? Perhaps if she hurried.

A breeze kicked up scents of dust, age, and death that sullied the moment of rebirth that the storm had brought. She sighed, resigned. When even your dreams of hope were weighted down by reality, it was time to go. She gazed skywards and whispered to the happy voices: "Wait for me. Please."

She lifted her face to the breeze and let it cool her hot trail of tears. She found the sunlit spot on the path, bent her knees, and jumped. She had been lost, but the view from the balcony showed her the way out. The darkening rivulets of red coursing through the cracks between the bricks indicated that her journey had begun.

Linda

A Fascinating article about our Education System

I think of all of us on this blog, except maybe Sue, are involved with education in some way--either now or in the past. Here is an article that is absolutely fascinating, and I think it mirrors some of what Trish was saying in her blog about the narcissism epidemic.

http://www.truthout.org/052809EDA

My favorite part of the article is this:

"If you view education in purely instrumental terms as a way to a higher-paying job - if it's merely a mechanism for mass customization within a marketplace of ephemeral consumer goods - you've effectively given a free pass to the prevailing machinery of power and those who run it."

Linda

Guess what I did this week...?

I tore my calf muscle while doing aerobics. Am walking for the next two weeks on crutches, but am STILL teaching yoga. I had a blast today. I sat in a chair with wheels and rolled around helping my students do their yoga. It was kind of fun. I hate the f**%$ing crutches, though, because they hurt my hands. Plus, Tim laughed at me for the first two days until I figured out how to walk on them right.

Do you have any idea how much it hurts to tear your calf muscle? I can't even move my ankle without searing pain. Okay, it wasn't as bad as the pain I felt when my ribs punctured my lung after a car accident, but that pain went away after I got to hospital and was treated. This hurts all the friggin' time, plus I have the added pain of the crutches on my ribs and my hand and the blisters on my hand too.

So how about you all. What was your worst injury?

Linda

A clarification about forgetting Byron's age

I realized after writing this that even though you all know me reasonably well, you may not understand why I forgot how old my own flesh and blood son is. I have this odd quirk that I can't remember people's ages--even my own. Every time someone asks how old I am, and for some reason that happens more than I'd like, I have to calculate my age. It's the same with my anniversary. It's so bad that I went through my mid life crisis twice because for half a year, I was depressed about turning 40, and then my friend Kathy reminded me in one of our infrequent email conversations that I was only 39 that year! So then, I had to be bummed out for another year!

So, it isn't that I'm THAT bad of a mother/wife/friend. It's just some mental block. I think it is because I still feel 25, and it is mentally impossible for me to reconcile myself being middle aged and having 14 and 11 (?) year old kids and being married for some number of years ( I'll have to ask Tim to give you a specific number on that anniversary thing).

Linda

Every Day is an Adventure

A couple of years ago, I started writing a book called Every Day is an Adventure about the crazy things that happen to us as a family here in Japan. I gave it up, but there are still a few things that are worth writing about so friends and family back home can get an idea of how different things are here, and for those living in Japan to commiserate with. Here are a couple of things that happened this week.

1) We spent our Japanese stimulus money on a new dishwasher--pictured above. Yeah, that's a dishwasher. It sits on our countertop, holds 5 plates, 6 glasses and a few odds and ends. Having a dishwasher is a luxury here, mainly because the kitchens are so small that there isn't enough space to put even this miniscule dishwasher. We are lucky in our perfect and beautiful house because we actually have counter space, but I figure those of you back home will get a laugh at the size of it compared to your own.

2) Byron and I had an argument about the quality of food I prepare for breakfast and dinner, so I made him cook for a whole day. We went together to the grocery store, and the check out lady, who usually sees me alone, asked if he was my son and then commented on how tall Byron is. Being my chatty Cathy self, I answered, "Yes, and he is only 13." Of course, Byron has been 14 since January 16th, so when he corrected me, I said, "I mean 14." Motherhood is the primary responsibility of women in Japan; women so often give up their work in order to stay home with their children until the children are all in school, so the idea that a mother doesn't know how old her children are is unheard of. When I corrected myself, there was only possible reason that I would forget my own child's age. Her response: "Oh, Happy Birthday! Are you having a party?" I didn't realize why this woman thought it was Byron's birthday, so I naturally answered honestly. "It's not his birthday, I just forgot his age." It is one of only two times that I've witnessed the true feelings of confusion or disbelief cross a Japanese person's face before they caught themselves. Byron, of course, was mortified.

The other time a person couldn't hid their true feelings? I met the mother of one of Laura's friends at the gym on her first day there. A couple of days later, I met her again and asked her if her muscles hurt? The poor woman looked so confused and at a loss for words, she just smiled weakly, nodded and walked away. I realized too late that I had used the wrong word. The word for muscle is kinniku. I had said ninniku, which means garlic. Does your garlic hurt?

Linda

What are your favorite non-political, non-work-related websites? One of my favorites is galaxyzoo.org. You get to identify galaxies, and it is really hard. I keep worrying that I'll mis-categorize the galaxies I'm given, but then, I guess that isn't too important in the overall scheme of billions of galaxies.

Linda

An answer to Lauren's blog

Lauren asked: What says summer to you? What plants and flowers do you like?

Summer to me is clover. It brings back memories of running barefoot through the field where the neighborhood kids played all summer long. I think we went the whole two months of summer break without wearing shoes, and those little flowers were always present. They would get stuck between our toes, we would get stung by the bees, we'd make bracelets from them, and shoot the flower heads at each other. The bank along the river just behind our house is full of them right now, and even the bees are there. No one plays there like we did in our field, but I walk Sparky along this bank every day, and even though it is spring and the weather is perfect, I think of those summers past whenever we go there.

I like lots of flowers, but these are the only kind that really bring back fond memories. I never had a problem with dandelions, but I remember my mom hated them and always made we kids pull them out of her garden. It was surprising to me the first time (as an adult) that I learned you can eat them.
Linda

Does anyone else have this problem?

You know what I did today? I had a list of things to get done, and most of them required a little time and effort--like doing my bookkeeping for the business, sewing more eye pillows for my students, vacuuming the house,etc--but they absolutely have to get done. So what did I do? Answered a couple of emails (not a real priority), searched my photo library (to post here becasue Lauren asked in her post about Obama's dog to see a photo of my dog), boiled some eggs (definitely not a priority), and designed an evaluation form for my high school, which wasn't even on my list of things to do because it isn't in any way a priority and it isn't my job to do it. I just happened to think of it this morning when in the shower.

This happens to me all the time. I will get emails from friends, and because it takes a little time and effort, I'll put it off until I have some free time. Yeah, right. Months go by, the emails get buried further and further down in my mailbox, then when I'm cleaning out my emails, I realize I never answered. BUT, I'll answer unimportant emails quickly because it takes only a moment of my time.

But what is really the problem is that I end up with a list of things that all require time, and then I feel overwhelmed that there is so much to do.

Sue will most likely have a litany of ways to organize myself and my day to avoid this, but I actually know already what those things are. Do it when it comes in to avoid a huge inbox pile. I know what to do, I just don't do it.

Does anyone else have this problem?

Linda

My indulgence

Hi all,
I hope you'll copy these questions and answer them for yourselves. That will also help us to get to know each other. Most are kind of simple and maybe a little stupid, but some are a little more revealing. Plus, it is my indulgence, so please indulge me!

Linda

What did you eat for Easter dinner and where? It was just a normal day for us. We ate at home but it was nothing special--chicken, rice, broccoli

What is the most recent movie that you have seen: Religulous by Bill Maher

Where were you born: Wilmington, Delaware

Name three places where you have lived:
1) Vienna, Austria
2) Cape Town, South Africa
3) Melbourne, Australia

Have you ever been in a car accident (explain briefly, if answer is yes): Three, but none of them were my fault ;-) Two while I was driving and someone hit me (no injuries, but my mustang was totaled), one while riding in a taxi (three broken ribs and a punctured lung)

What is your favorite day of the week and why: Friday, and I don't know why because Saturday is a regular work day for me, but Friday always seems like a party day.

What is your favorite flower: Bird of Paradise and Lilly of the Valley

What is your favorite sport to watch: American football, but I never get to watch it anymore

What is your favorite ice cream: Mint chocolate chip

Have you ever been on a ship: yes, 30-days across the Atlantic. Loved the trip, hated the ship

How many times did you fail your driver's test: none

What do you do when you are bored: I wish I had time to be bored.

Park or Zoo: both

Pearls or diamonds: neither

Beach or Mountains: both (it seems like I have a hard time making up my mind)

How spicy do you like your food (1= not spicy, 5= get the fire extinguisher)? 10

Do you have pets? If so, what kind? 1 dog and about 20 fish

What do you want to do before you die? Fly into space

Do you still have your tonsils? Yes

What is the most dangerous thing you have ever done? Dangerous or stupid? Dangerous= skydiving, Stupid= driving to the desert without enough water

What is your favorite smell? cooking garlic

Do you consider yourself strong? Yes, physically, emotionally...Sometimes

What book are you reading now? I'm reading every Agatha Christie story in order because I've read nothing but serious stuff for the last 8 years.

What is your favorite book: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Four places you have been on vacation:
1) Scandinavia
2) Namibia
3) Okinawa
4) Italy/Greece

Three things you do every day (not including hair combing, teeth brushing, etc.)
1) Eat breakfast/dinner with the whole family
2) Walk the dog
3) Listen to Democracy Now! podcast

Three things you are passionate about
1) Yoga
2) Politics
3) Family

Our First Post

Well, I'll get the ball rolling with some news. After 4 years, I'm coming home! Actually, it is just Laura and me this time. Why is a long, long story (and an uninteresting one). We'll be home for three weeks. July 14 to August 4, but at some point, I think Laura and I will take a girl's trip to Canada to see Niagara Falls. That's the plan, anyway. Who knows what will happen once the grandparents learn of this trip.

Linda