Behind the Blogger: The Land of Confusion; or These are the Contents of My Head

I'm sitting in the calm at the center of a storm I can't see, and I'm confused. I'm not even sure there's a storm. And it's as metaphorical as it is literal. It's a weird day, and the full moon is over. So, what's going on?

Weather-wise, I'm finding Ohio to be very a deeply weird place to be. Nevada? Pretty much it's hot and sunny, warm and sunny, cold and sunny, or there are very obvious and clear storms. Here? There can be hourly predictions of 0% precipitation while it is pouring down rain. You can have predictions of certain rain, 100%, with thunder, lightning and the wrath of God, and. . .nothing happens. Right now, from north of Columbus to east of it, where I live, we have simultaneous storm and flood warnings, with the threat of hurricane-force winds, coupled with hourly forecasts of 0% rain and 4mph winds.  Which is it? damned if I know.

The forecasts are actually starting to finally line up, but to the bad
side, not the good.

Couple that with a spouse who is unforthcoming about work strife--but clearly unhappy. Family members with further inter-member strife that seems to only whirl around me when I'm not present (for the most part), and then this deeply weird stuff going on in the news. Sit-ins at the House of Representatives over gun control? A buffoon with the most bizarre hairdo and makeup job as a major party presidential contender (who could win!), versus another that people openly treat as if she's the devil, but only have the vaguest reasons for treating that way (I just don't trust her. . .where there's smoke there's fire!). And an uncertain current lifespace, personally.

I wonder if it's just me, or if the whole country is having a no good, very weird day. Personally, I'm anticipating both a medical and dental visit on the very-near horizon that could either yield easy and quick answers to immediate problems, or lead to protracted, painful, more serious efforts to correct. I am sort of between careers, thinking that at this time, that's the best thing--kind of the perfect thing, as a bridge between life events. But not so much when the spouse isn't feeling the same way. And much of this all came in the space of an hour or two, this odd assemblage of sometimes contradictory, sometimes confusing input.

The U.S. House of Representatives Sit In; Reuters

Reading this, it may not even make sense to you. Part of it is the still not-quite-settled new life chapter The Other Half and I are dealing with after our uprooting from both careers and location, having spent nearly two decades with Very. Little. Change. It may be almost a year and a half later, but much of it is still shaking out, and frankly, still feels surreal. We're doing that while I'm transitioning into my 50s, finding myself with new medical issues (not serious, at least I don't think so), new feelings of mortality and finality (eeeeek!). We're doing that after voluntarily jumping into the abyss from both our careers without the benefit of a safety net (or insurance!). We've gone from living 2,000 miles from family, living in the outer orbits of family events, missing most of the bad and the good of having family nearby; to being much closer to the vortex. We're doing this during the passing of the baton in perhaps the strangest, longest presidential campaigns we've ever lived through.

And I'm typing this on a blog I've nearly abandoned, not really for any reason, other than it just kind of petered out. And here I am, typing what may be the purest kind of old-school web log post of all, the pointless emptying of my head into my online diary! Probably no one will read it. Or if they do, it'll make them angry at me! Such is life, I suppose.

[Excerpt]

House Democrats broadcast 'sit-in' on social media after cameras shut down


Democrats demanding action on gun control turned to Twitter's Periscope and Facebook's live video platform to broadcast their "sit-in" on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday after the chamber's cameras shut down. Representative Scott Peters of California told Reuters he downloaded the online video platform Periscope from the House floor after it became clear that chamber cameras were not operating. . .

Read more at: Reuters

Greenlee Gazette Takes Vacation from Vacationing. . .

Funny, right? I'm going on "vacation" from my life as a layabout.  I should have been blogging my arse off over the past several weeks, having taken a break from working for a while. And given how many huge newsworthy events are going on right now, ridiculous that I haven't been more prolific. And now? I'm going away for a family wedding with The Other Half! Holy crap, am I ever going to get this blog going full steam again? Well, yes. But not right now.

I will very likely be posting soon though, because we've got a huge Supreme Court argument coming up, and crazy developments in the 2016 presidential race. There's gonna be stuff to talk about. I'll find time, as soon as I can. Honest.

Greenlee Gazette Back Online Soon!

Hey, everybody! The past two weeks, and especially the last 4 days have seen little to no activity on the blog. Those last 4 days have been my longest total absence from the blog in the 6+ years I've been writing it. Every other time I've taken a break, I've "seeded" the blog with time-release posts, and enlisted the help of others to fill out the space. This time, I decided you all would forgive me if I just took a total break. And given the seemingly "half on" blogosphere over these few days, I think I wasn't totally alone. But I'm back this evening, or Monday at the latest, with stories and posts that irritate my mother! --Editor

A Word from the Editor

Greenlee Gazette--you may have noticed--has been a little sparse of late. And that will continue for the next several days. Obligations, work, family and friends have conspired to monopolize my time, and leave very little for blogging. All should be back to normal by about July 8, but for now? There's not going to be much in the way of new stuff. I'm going to put up something new every chance I get, but it will be a trickle rather than a flood. So, if you don't find something new, please come back soon! Thanks.

UPDATE:   Here it is, the night before a trip home, and I should be in bed. Or blogging. But my brain is fried. Crammed too much into the early part of the week, and need to decompress. While I'm Back to Ohio, I will be blogging a little. When I have the chance, I'll sneak away, and see what's going on. In the mean time, Happy Independence Day, everybody!

Saturday Morning Piffle: A Plant Story (Update the Second)

In the early days of my blog, I did a post about a plant. It is a plant with some history, and is doing very, very well. Here's the original post, with an update:

ORIGINAL POST (06/16/07):

When I was a little kid, somewhere around third or fourth grade, I won my Mom a plant at the school carnival cake walk. I remember that it was just a little Styrofoam cup (which undoubtedly still exists) with some potting soil, and a stem with maybe two leaves on it. I believe I also won some goldfish, but they have a much shorter story (ie. catfood). Mom cultivated the plant, and it was a fixture in our house from that day on.

The plant was just always around. At some point, some 20+ years later, my Mom gave the plant to my sister, who has also had it for several years. On my 40th birthday [April 2006], my sister cut off a three-leaf segment, puffed up a Zip-Loc baggie, and brought it with her for a 2,000 mile journey to my house.

It's been about 14 months since she brought it, and it is thriving. I managed to kill a 3-leaf segment that I tried to transplant, but that gave the rest of the plant a growth-spurt. It's been growing like crazy since its "birthday" in April, and has been growing shockingly fast for the last two months.

I know that a philodendron is probably the easiest plant in the universe to grow (a little plant food, a little water, some sun), but for a guy with a "black thumb," I think I've done pretty well with it!

UPDATE (05/16/10):

Since the time of the original post, the plant has had highs and lows. Every so often, I'd try to transplant a shoot, and about half the time it took.  But shortly after the original post, the plant got some sort of disease. Leaves would nearly vanish overnight, looking chewed and rotted. Sometimes the rot would begin at the center of a leaf, other times, from the end. But the deterioration was alarming and very fast.  I looked up what to do online, and found that dipping scissors into bleach water, and snipping portions of leaves away (each time dipping again) seemed to stop the disease--at least on the leaf I was working on.

This continued for some time, until I discovered the probable cause. One day while reading on the couch, I heard a "munch, munch" sound, accompanied by what smelled like cut grass.  I looked behind me, and there was Jinx the cat, happily munching on the plant!  That seems like the obvious answer, but doesn't explain the leaves affected that she couldn't have reached.  I think there must be some sort of bacteria in kitty saliva that can infect a plant. Sounds weird, but I have no other explanation.

Anyway, Jinx seems to have broken her philodendron habit, and the plant has been affected by this malady only occasionally in the last couple of years. The plant has also been hitting almost 100% with transplanted shoots. A few weeks ago, I cut five and they all took.  The plant has already been repotted once, but at the rate is growing, it may need to move to an even bigger pot. The cat is bigger too, but she's almost 10, so she's allowed to let herself go.

UPDATE 03/09/13:

Planty, the potted plant at 7 years old. Or 38?

Since the above revision, the plant has been repotted once more, and had a severe "haircut" to reduce the number of long shoots with missing leaves. It just looks odd to have this vine that would otherwise take root on the ground lazing around on the coffee table or mantle. So, The Other Half--who is much more the horticulturist than I am--pruned the hell out of it, taking it down to less than the previous update's photo. In the time since, the plant has had its healthiest run yet, and is full and lovely (as far as these things go). I haven't seen either leaf rot or kitty chew marks in ages, and only the occasional dead leaf. The next time we prune, I think I'll transplant new shoots into a new pot, and give this plant a sister. By far, though, the best part of this story is that I've managed to keep this plant alive for almost seven years now, something I've never done before.

Paying Off Cars and the Passage of Time

To keep my interest up (and after the bumper needed repair),
I decided to upgrade "Rusty."

I was just disucssing time with my sister. In the past 5 years, she's had two children, after having been married since the nineties. I've discovered that the passage of time is not just subjective, but different in relation to different things. Whenever we got together in the past, the passage of time was incidental. Other than gaining or losing weight, things remained pretty much the same between us whether it was 3 months or 18 months between visits. I've seen her perhaps a little over a dozen times since she first got pregnant, and now each visit is vastly different. There are monumental changes in her life, from my perspective, though they are probably slower for her.

In a similar way, perspective of time around other things in life can be skewed. I've been in the same job for 16 years, been in the same relationship for 15, the same house for 14, the same cat for 10, and until I bought my most recent car, drove the same Jeep for more than 9 years. Passage of time on my end was especially hard to gauge during these years. Pegging what happened in any given year between 1999 and 2011 is very difficult, outside of earth-shaking events. What year did I buy the fridge? When was that trip to Ensenada? When did Six Feet Under go off the air? All of these things are kind of hazy. And they can feel simultaneously recent and a long time ago.

. . .so, I didn't let them drill the bumper for a license plate,
and I got some "eyelids" to streamline the appearance.

Such it is with my current car. I bought it in early 2010, and it was a bit over a year old. But it was the newest car I've ever owned, and since it was replacing a 11-year-old vehicle, it might as well have been brand new. Also, seeing as how it replaced a Jeep, it might as well have been a luxury car. 2010 as a date seems distant, but the purchase of the car seems recent. Paying a monthly payment for 35 months (I paid off the loan a month early) felt like a very long time, but I still look at my car and see it as my new(ish) car. The car itself was built in August 2008, meaning it's going to actually be five years old this year, even though it's a 2009. 2008--having been in the Bush era--feels like a long time ago.

I may get a spoiler to pass the time. . .

Due to frustration with the Bush era, I started this blog in June 2007, which if you do the math is over 5-1/2 years ago, though it spans seven. In this case, it does feel like a long time, a really long time.  Life itself wasn't all that different then for me, though. Since then, we've gotten a new big screen HDTV, and shed all of our old fashioned glass-tube televisions and computer monitors. I've gone through two Macs and at least 4 PCs. We replaced our grill (originally purchased the weekend I met The Other Half), upgraded our stereo, gone through a couple of DVD players, then upgraded those to Blu-ray. And The Other Half got his own new car.  I did get a part time, work-at-home job.Otherwise, life here is pretty much the same.

And I'll almost certainly get a nifty new radio.

But my car is now paid off, and I'll get to experience more fuzzy time between getting the title, and years down the line where I either get new-car lust, old-car hate, or go (late) middle-age crazy. You never know though, a gas crisis could change everything, and my next car could be a whole different animal. That would freeze time for moment, wouldn't it?

For now, I'm going to be marking time by tarting up "Rusty" over the next year. First up will be a blue-tooth capable, touch-screen stereo that will work for today (CD/MP3/DVD) and tomorrow (USB/iPhone/Android input), and a back-up camera. That will quash the new car lust, at least for the nifty new toys. Later, I'll probably get a spoiler. It's not too pricey, and will give the ol' gal a little more sleek appearance. Beyond that, it will just be the inevitable upkeep: tires, brakes, washing.  I won't mind that I can't place when any of that happens.  The best part is that I won't have a car payment for several years.

Back to Vegas

And back to work. My full-time job, my part-time job and my hobby job (this blog). Whew, that's a lot of work! Maybe I should've taken a little more time off? 

In any event, my arrival in Las Vegas tonight will be rather late, and work is rather early on Monday morning. So, unless I had an extraordinary stretch of time during my trip (I'm writing this before I've even left Vegas in the first place, how trippy is that? Hello, future me!), there won't be a Blast from the Past feature this week, and shoot, I might not even blog again until Monday night! So, please come back when I've gotten myself back together, and slogging on toward Christmas!

Back to Ohio, Day One

Assuming all went well, I will have landed just after this post appears on the blog. Today is the jet lag-heavy first day of the trip, after a night flight in from Las Vegas. No solid plans for the day either, just milling about with whichever family members have time for me. I may check in on the blog later, but don't known when or where yet. In the meantime, here's a classic Thanksgiving-themed video from my childhood: It's Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown!

Greenlee Gazette on Vacation

Since I'm leaving on the night flight to Ohio on Tuesday, the likelihood of me getting much blogging done before then is very low. I'm going to try to put a few things up tonight, maybe seed the blog with a few choice time-release nuggets, and call it a night. I'll be popping in when possible, and my good friend Rev. Stu' of Stupid Monkey Planet of Primatheism will descend from the canopy if he's able. So the place won't be dead or anything, but it will be lighter than usual.

Of course, Thanksgiving week is traditionally one of the deadest blogging weeks there is. Trust me, your other haunts will be drying to a trickle too. So thanks for dropping by, please come back when there's more going on around here. And bring your friends!

PS. To really liven the place up, click GreenleeGazette, and let it run for a few minutes!

Hat tip to Alexander at VoenixRising.com.

"The Gay" is Not a Choice (Duh)

More than a decade ago a psychological study seemed to show that certain gay and lesbian people were capable of "changing" their sexual orientation to "straight." The rabid right--several certified hate groups, usually with "Family" in their names--latched onto this study, and used it as the basis for their anti-gay agenda. But the guy who released that study has now denounced it. He's not very happy it was used that way, and really wishes he had never released it in the first place.

So, without that study, what do these groups now base their agenda on, besides hatred?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I'm Back!

A drawing of The Hulk by my nephew, Lux

I'm officially back from my Thanksgiving trip to Ohio. And therefore,

- I'm back home.
- I'm back to work.
- I'm back on my diet.
- I'm back to the gym.
- I'm back to blogging.

But that last one is almost as hard as some of the other things. I've got 200 emails to sift through for one. But one way or another, I'm going to get some posts up before morning. Meanwhile, let me thank Stupid Monkey Planet for his help while I was away. Be sure to join him over on Facebook.

Back soon!

Back to Ohio, Day Three: My City Was Gone

No, my city's not gone. Actually, my city was Whitehall, and in that city, my high school is gone, or soon will be. Every single school in Whitehall is being torn down, and rebuilt on the same land, sometimes concurrently. I can't really believe that this is the best use of taxpayer money, and surely there will be a bond issue up for a vote in order to successfully open the schools, but all that is beside the point. My high school will very soon be rubble, and then less than that. I guess the gym and auditorium will remain, and be incorporated into the new school, which is something.

Back to Ohio, Day Two: The Aftermath

This is my second day in Ohio, the day after Thanksgiving. The first of four "cheat" days in my diet and exercise regimen, which has helped me shed 30 pounds in 2-1/2 months. Did I do any damage? Am I in a coma? Well, I'm not really sure, since I'm writing this before my departure! When I go away, I always do two things: I "seed" the blog with a few time-release posts. And, more importantly, I enlist the help of Stupid Monkey Planet, who livens things up around here considerably.

But given that this is a long, slow, food-coma weekend, both the Monkey and I are apt to only be around sporadically. Which is okay, because it is also a record low time for readers. So if you're here, what's wrong with you? There's cold turkey and mayonnaise in the fridge. You know you want to. . .

And now, some Thanksgiving weirdness, from Roseanne. . .

Back to Ohio, Day One: The Thanksgivening

When you live 2,000 miles away from your family, life can chug along blissfully ignorant sometimes. You've sent the appropriate cards and gifts. You've made the occasional phone call (but with instant messages, email, texts and Facebook, maybe not so many phone calls). And other than a few gossipy tidbits, for the most part, you don't really know what mayhem is rattling the family tree. Meanwhile, back home, your family has had a cold war brewing, with hot spots threatening to go nuclear. Or maybe not! Maybe everything is just fine!

Yeah, you keep dreaming. And now you--I in this example--didn't manage to weasel out of a request to come home for a holiday. Now, it's time to face the music. Well, at least it's an extended cheat period for my diet and exercise regimen, and it's Thanksgiving. So there's that! Oh, I'm exaggerating, I know. It'll be fun. But I'm expecting at least one small explosion.

With this post Greenlee Gazette is on semi-vacation, with me in Ohio, and the big holiday weekend and all. Stupid Monkey Planet will be posting some fun stuff, and I'll still probably poke my head in from time to time. But with the decreased readership (and the decreased news output), I expect things to be pretty light. With a little luck, I'll be blogging full strength again on Monday. Happy Thanksgiving!

Back to Las Vegas, The Return

So today is our last partial day in Ohio. Mid-day, it's time to turn the car in, get to the airport two hours early, strip for the porno scanner, and fly back to Las Vegas.


And guess what? I get in at night time, and then I have to work tomorrow morning! Isn't that sweet? Ah, I love the recession.


Anyway, I should be back to a regular blogging schedule on Tuesday night. In the meantime, thanks to Stupid Monkey Planet for any and all posting he's done (I'm writing this before my trip, so I'm guessing/hoping!). See everybody tomorrow.

Highlight of my day. . .

Back to Ohio, Day #4

Today is our last full day in Ohio. So, while the whole combined family is here, we're going to have a big gathering out at my Mom's place. Looks like it's going to be a bunch of people just drifting through all day. So, again, it's unclear if I'll have blogging time.

But you might--if you're lucky--catch an appearance by Stupid Monkey Planet. He'll be dropping in from time to time while I'm away. In the meantime, here's something amusing. . .

PictureIsUnrelated.com

Back to Ohio: Day #3

Today, we're having what has grown into a family reunion for The Other Half, sort of a late 50th birthday gathering for him. So, with all the people to see, and things to do, blogging probably isn't gonna happen.

But you might--if you're lucky--catch an appearance by Stupid Monkey Planet. He'll be dropping in from time to time while I'm away. In the meantime, here's something amusing. . .

Back to Ohio, Day #2

Today is our second day in Ohio. As I write this, there aren't any specific plans for the day. Basically squeezing anything in right now that I want to do here, since there are plans for Saturday and Sunday. On the plus side, The Other Half's family starts arriving today.

I may pop in at some point during the day, I don't know. But you might--if you're lucky--catch an appearance by Stupid Monkey Planet. He'll be dropping in from time to time while I'm away. In the meantime, here's something amusing. . .

Image from ICanHasCheezburger.com

Back to Ohio, Day #1

Today is our first full day in Ohio. I'm betting there'll be some nap time after the night flight. Then, some time with my parents, perhaps a trip to see the new baby. Probably a good lunch of either subs (done better in Ohio than Las Vegas), pizza (ditto) or maybe White Castles? I may pop in at some point during the day, I don't know. But you might--if you're lucky--catch an appearance by Stupid Monkey Planet. He'll be dropping in from time to time while I'm away. In the meantime, here's something amusing. . .

Image from Failblog.org

Back to Ohio: Travel Day

Today, after a half-day of work, I'll go home, wrap up the packing, and get all set for the airport. We leave in the early evening, but won't arrive in Columbus until after midnight. That means that it is highly unlikely I'll do any blogging today. But you might--if you're lucky--catch an appearance by Stupid Monkey Planet. He'll be dropping in from time to time while I'm away. In the meantime, here's something amusing. . .

 This is from last Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher, and it's pretty great.