Ugh

I had this long blog post written out about how my supervisor implied to me that Christians have a monopoly on morality and conflict resolution but it had too many details for me to feel comfortable about posting it. Fancy that. Me, self-censoring.

Anyway, I figured I'd just say it out loud and up front. Christians don't have a monopoly on morality. Members of other religions as well as atheists do have morals, contrary to the ignorance propagated by so many assholes in the world. To me, living a life in which I have to constantly put up with people implying or outright stating that I'm amoral or lacking in ethics is akin to women being told they aren't smart enough to do math or black people being told they're lazy. They're stereotypical smears designed to maintain the privilege of people who like their positions of power and authority but have no logical means of maintaining them. So they oppress.

Fuck all those people.

Late to the game I quit playing

Mike Oz started circulating a letter to the editor from Tuesday's edition of the Fresno Bee:

I read with interest the Dec. 30 letter from Kathy Steele about the "R"-rated movie she went to recently. She was outraged at seeing young children being taken to this movie. She complained that adults should be more protective of young minds.

Well, Ms. Steele should not have been at the "R"-rated movie. Just remember, your mind is being bombarded with all that junk also. It's adults who are raising the young and when your mind is filled with that trash, you will teach it to the young. It's the simple issue of "don't do what I do, just do what I say."

When young people see you go to those movies, you're teaching them that there is an age when you can watch junk. Not so. Filth is filth at any age. When are you going to learn the lesson, children are going to "do what you do," not "what you say."

That's what is wrong with Americans. We have lost our morals.

Jack Wheeler
Clovis

Of course, he went one better and though he couldn't recruit William Shatner or the brilliant John Lithgow to do a dramatic reading, he did manage to find a local actor who was ready and willing to play the part of Jack Wheeler.

And everywhere this letter has been circulated, the comments have lit up with a mix of forehead-smacking, satirical barbs, and outright support for Mr. Wheeler's position.

There is so much to unpack but I have to side with Mr. Wheeler here. He speaks truth to power.

The moralizing: "My definition of morality should be your definition of morality."

I agree. From now on, everyone will do as I do. 

Inability to grow up: "There is literally no age at which the human mind can handle watching 'junk'."

It's a harsh truth but nevertheless, the human mind stays fragile and immature through its entire lifespan (see: stand-up comedians, politicians, the above letter writer). 


Logical inconsistency: "If children shouldn't do it, then adults shouldn't do it."

I've always felt that way. It's why I say adults shouldn't drive cars, talk to strangers, or go anywhere without strapping on a diaper.

Calling people ninnies: "If a parent sees something bad, they will be compelled to teach their children that bad thing."

This is one of the reasons I don't have children. I'm so afraid that having watched some old Schwarzenegger films, I'd literally be unable to stop myself from teaching them shitty dialogue and how to operate a sawed-off, lever-action, Model 1887 Winchester shotgun with one hand. These are the dangers of watching R-rated films in a modern world. It's a heavy burden but it's mine to carry.

Winding down

Here I sit, listening to a Christmas music channel on our TV playing the likes of Tony Bennett, The Glenn Miller Orchestra, and Andy Williams. We just finished the massive amount of dishes it took to prepare dinner for our last Christmas gathering of 2011: me, Carrie, and my dad (it was worth it as we enjoyed beef tenderloin, mashed potatoes, and green salad).

It was another moment for me in front of the sink as I scrubbed dishes. This time I shared with my dish drying partner the sort of connection I feel to the human continuum when I'm scrubbing baking dishes, or really any dishes. It's an odd feeling and slightly sad because not only am I fondly remembering the food and communal atmosphere of our most recent meal but of many meals from the past and dishes too. Always the dishes.

Dishes are one of those things which often outlive their original users or just get passed around among different people over the course of their lives. I think about them like furniture because so many stories and memories are crafted around them. They acquire dents, scratches, chips, and often I can remember the reasons behind those blemishes; some mundane, others not.

This last week I had reason to recall a dish-related story that still makes my grandma laugh and cringe. I was a young boy, perhaps around the age of 8 (though I can't be sure and it isn't really that relevant) and my grandparents were in the process of reroofing their house. It was a project that the extended family partook in because it was cheaper to DIY the project and there are plenty of handy Mennonites in my family who know their way around hammers and nails. At some point in the roof work, I spent the night at my grandparents house so I could help them get an early jump on the work and that morning or early afternoon, it struck me that I should bring up some cookies for my grandpa and grandma to snack on. So I grabbed one of those famously unbreakable Corelle plates that all of our grandparents use and loaded it with some of my grandma's homemade cookies.

I had made it to the top of the ladder and had my torso above the eave of the house when my grandma noticed my selfless act and reacted with the surprise any adult guardian might when seeing their young charge attempting to climb onto a roof while carrying a plate of cookies. Needless to say it was enough to startle me and I plummeted six feet landing on my back with a clattering plate near my head and cookies all over the concrete walk that made up the alley on the west side of their house. Obviously, I survived the fall (and without injury though I cried for some time while my grandpa took me in to make sure everything was still functioning). I think I cried more from shock, failure, ruining so many great cookies, and scaring my grandparents than from hurting myself.

My grandpa has now been gone for over 20 years and my grandma moved out of that house with the rambling backyard filled with orange, apple, cherry, apricot, peach, and pecan trees, the strawberry patch, the grapes, blackberries, and herb garden. She lives in a suite above my aunt and uncle's house now but I know she still thinks about that house. All that is left of that day are my and my grandma's memories of it, and that plate. That plate that survived the fall just slightly more perfectly than I did (after all, it didn't cry like a baby).

I think about that plate all the time and I think about the grin that my grandpa tried to hide from my crying eyes while he bent my fingers, elbows, and knees to make sure nothing was broken, but I especially think about it when I'm washing dishes.

Happy dark of the winter

Ah, Friday in an empty shop with little to do before I call it quits for the year so I can recharge for 2012 and the end of the world (or just life as it plays out).

I'd write about the assholes who feel the need to comment on whether a stranger has given them the proper holiday greeting and the general war on Christmas, as it were. I'd write about the "grinches" who look to spoil others' holiday cheer for the simple vindication they feel in hurting others who have done nothing to earn such vileness. I'd write about the politicians who've spent 2011 systematically dismantling any aspect of the social safety net they could get their grubby little hands on. I'd write about the economy and how it has hurt so many for so long.

But it's all been said. Over and over and over again. And the people who are listening, they know and understand. The people who haven't been listening aren't going to hear me or anyone else right now and so, for a moment I turn my back to the choir.

Do your thing. Buy your gifts or don't. Make a donation or don't. See your family or don't. But whatever you decide is right for you and yours, remember (at the very least) that we're all humans and we're all stuck here together, good and bad. Try your damnedest not to hurt other people and when you do, try your damnedest to never do it again.

When I wake up on Sunday morning (and I'll probably be the first awake), I plan on making a pot of coffee, turning on the lights on our Christmas tree, and having a quiet moment of happiness with my beloved and our three silly cats. I'll wish that the kind of happiness so many of us are used to experiencing on Christmas morning could pervade all of our lives all the time. I'll wish that we could all have jobs and coworkers we love, that we could all have loving people in our lives, that there weren't places in the world that are unimaginably heinous.

I'll tell myself to hang in there and I hope the rest of the world hangs in there too. We're all we've got.

Plywood handling tips from the woodshop

If you use a table saw, even nominally, you will experience kickback or a board riding up or popping or a loose knot (in the case of lumber) or any number of things that will make a board or sheet of plywood buck up, twist, or in some way fly back off the saw. You must fight whatever instinctual urges you may have to catch it and instead train yourself to retreat, pull your hands back, slide your body out of the way, and try your best to avoid being a victim of flying wood.

Don't ever, ever try to cut a stack of loose pieces (two or more) on the table saw in an effort to be efficient. You're just begging for trouble on an already dangerous tool. 

At some point you'll probably find need to vertically lean large pieces of plywood against something. One, as stupidly obvious as it sounds, make sure what you're leaning them against is stable. Two, if you have more than one stacked together, be careful when pulling them away from each other as it will create a vacuum between the two if you pull the first sheet away too quickly. You'll be about five steps away before you hear the loud crash that comes from a large sheet of plywood silently tipping forward.

If you handle plywood without gloves, particularly the heavier thicknesses like 3/4" and thicker, you will inevitably be trying to pull a piece out of a horizontal stack by grasping it with your thumbs on top and your fingers underneath. One day your hand(s) will slip as the plywood refuses to break friction and your fingertips will roll across the sharp corners and then your thumbs will smack into your fingers and you will experience an indescribable sort of pain that leaves no marks at all. And you will feel anger towards an inanimate object that did nothing but follow the laws of physics and remained at rest.

Let's test the most privileged of the world's assholes

I think what I want most for Christmas (besides world peace and goodwill towards all humans) is to see the advent of a reality show who's contestants are composed entirely of rich CEOs and politicians who denigrate the working poor, unemployed, middle class, welfare recipients, etc for being a drain on the system. They'd lose their privilege, their bank accounts, their dividends, their personal connections and have to live like a poor person for at least six months.

Can we get that? Can we get Mitt Romney at the grocery store with an angry conservative behind him who huffs and puffs at the sight of Romney pulling out his food stamp card? Can we get someone trying to select WIC appropriate items at the store while saving enough money to pay their gas and electric bill? How about we put Ron Paul in the position of having a car whose repairs are so cost prohibitive, he has to sell it? Can we get a banker who has to call and argue with his credit card company to try to reduce the interest rate on his balance? Maybe we can have Allen West be a reservist who loses his house to foreclosure while he's deployed in Afghanistan? Maybe Michele Bachmann can have a girlfriend in the hospital who she can't visit or work out any medical plans with and neither of them can pay the medical bills because they don't have insurance because they both got laid off and they're near the end of their unemployment benefits?

Can we get some motherfucking perspective in this goddamn country?

Uncaging a bird

A couple of weeks ago, I went on Etsy and found two patches done by an Alameda tattoo artist by the name of Reedpunk. Of course, like most representative animals, swallows have myriad meanings attached to them from seagoing superstitions to British symbols of prison time served. I prefer the more abstract ideas of freedom, hope, and love.

The esprit de corps at my workplace has plunged to incredible depths for me and many of those who work with or near me due to mismanagement, incredibly low and unfair rates of pay, and lack of respect for our individual levels of expertise. So, a couple of weeks ago I wrapped myself with a blanket on a weekend night, pulled a lamp in close, and spent several hours carefully removing my company's embroidered logo from the breast of my work jacket.

It was a form of protest as well as a cathartic release of anxiety, depression, and anger over my and my coworkers' treatment. The patches arrived in the mail this last weekend and not having an iron at home (because I brought it to work so I could do a project we didn't have the tool for), I waited until a quiet moment this morning and ironed on my new logo. I consider it one more avenue of respite for myself when the going gets rough here at work. I can look down and be reminded that even though I feel like I'm adrift at sea far, far away from the safety of land, there must be coastline nearby that I'll one day find. That one day, this sad place will be a memory and an experience that I'll be able to look back on and feel glad that I was able to escape with my life.