clique track

On "Grey's Anatomy," there has been until recently a shameful neglect of Dr. Miranda Bailey. Finally she is getting a chance to lead again. Her leadership provides me some assertiveness training reinforcement from time to time.

Well, Shonda Rhimes (sister of LeAnn and Busta) is already doing her predictable deflation-of-any-character-who-shows-any-strength-whatsoever thing on Dr. Bailey, and tonight's episode provided me with some food for thought.

First, an old high-school friend showed up to provide a heaping helping of what some call cake. (By the way, Lesley, write your book already. Yes, boys can understand the concept, though probably not immediately and probably never perfectly. In my seven years as a recovering cakeboy, I would claim I have been less cruel to women than before I learned the vocabulary. Sometimes still cruel, of course, but less cruel than before.) And Bailey demonstrated just how powerful an old but life-defining adolescent relationship can remain long after you were supposed to be an adult.

So far, all good, messy, life-situation defining fun.

But then Bailey starts to complain to the local recovering cakeboy (McDreamy), which I approve, and she talks as if the most defeating characteristic of her high school life was wearing a band uniform, and I cannot approve of this one bit.

Why does suddenly membership in the band connote lasting shame into adulthood in our culture? Is this the influence of the "American Pie" movies? Is it really so damaging to think of oneself as a former band geek? I've seen this many places, and it is getting to be an awfully unfair cliche.

My wife claims that this shame varies from school to school, or from region to region. But I would claim that band members should have fewer lasting effects from high school geekitude than other kinds of high school geeks.

Yes, at the time I was occasionally ashamed of my membership in the band rather than in other, more prestigious, high school cliques. In high school, I felt like a geek for enjoying the band so much. But in retrospect, the band was a relatively healthy community that instilled self-respect and leadership ability and plenty of friends and support for its members. And the ability to play an instrument is something to enjoy later in life, not be ashamed of.

(Maybe doing a pronounced "glide stride" during the parade at my son's music class was something to be embarrassed about. I don't know. Other people seemed to be laughing at me.)

And at least I wasn't in the orchestra.

Lunch today was red beans and rice from a cheap mix. With lots of saltines, extra spices, and water. And then I cooked a whole 'nother meal for supper to cover up the smell, due to lingering trauma from an unfortunate olfactory incident during my wife's pregnancy.

autumn

Today the leaves have faded a bit. The other day they were yellow like banana peels. Today they are more like Post Toasties.

I made a point of walking a bit extra on my way to work. I parked in my usual place, but chose to walk all the way around the block instead of going directly in the door. And I enjoyed the weather.

It's a wellness thing.

For breakfast today my toddler Grant and I made muffins and cornbread. They tasted so good because they were made with pedagogy.

right now stuff

1. Because of a new health plan, I went in for my first ever annual physical yesterday. During the physical, the doctor started chatting me up. Mind you, this is a doctor I have seen dozens of times with my wife or my kids. This may be the first time I ever met with him by myself. He opened up about himself and his family much more than he ever has before when I've been there with my wife. Which made the rubber glove component all the more awkward.

2. This morning the sidewalk outside my office was covered with bright yellow leaves. The tree there has nearly emptied itself, and I got to shuffle through, feeling like a toddler again.

3. I don't know whether I should mow my lawn one more time or not. It's beginning to freeze at night, which I understand is dangerous for the grass. But the grass is just barely tall enough that I would have mowed it last weekend if I had had time.

4. I failed to remember the Fifth of November until Len on "Dancing with the Stars" mentioned fireworks day. I am intrigued by Guy Fawkes Day: Why do we want to remember this? (Unless we happen to be anarchists.)

5. I am wearing really warm socks. But I still feel cold. Maybe I should put on a second pair.

6. I feel guilty telling stories like the above to my blog before I tell my wife, but we keep falling asleep really early on the couch.

7. For lunch yesterday, I had a Burger King spicy chicken sandwich, cheesy tots, and then half an hour later a full butterburger basket from Culver's with green beans and Diet Coke mixed with red Hi-C. I had been fasting.

feliz dia de la muerta

One of my favorite computer games ever is "Grim Fandango"--a graphic adventure where you play a grim reaper trying to function as a travel agent for the recently deceased. You attempt to sell people deluxe packages for their travel through the next stage of the afterlife, and their currency is based on their good deeds on earth. It's all the sort of thing that Martin Luther would have written some theses about, but it's presented very amusingly.

The graphic style is based on Central American native cultures and on recent Mexican Day of the Dead popular art. And I am hooked. I am endlessly fascinated with the Aztec culture of death, the pan de los muertos, the toys and folk art of "skinny ones" (i.e., skeletons) doing everyday silly things. It seems much more healthy to me than our norteamericano avoidance of the whole subject.

And I remember a poem from a book I gave away about a boy whose mother took him to cemeteries a lot. The last line was something like, "The more time you spend with the dead, the less you have to say."

I need to spend some time in a cemetery this week.

Lunch today was leftover pizza from a Halloween party. Cheese pizza from Godfather's.

defensive driving

I like to pretend that there is an invisible car on the road. Maybe it's the influence of a Herbie movie or certain comic books, but I never completely trust my perceptions enough to rule out the possibility of a car that I cannot see.

So I use my turn signals even when my car is all alone on the road. And I try to slow down before I reach intersections, to give the invisible car in front of me time to move out of my way. I move slowly in parking lots, and try to keep from driving through parking spaces, just in case an invisible car is parked somewhere at the edges of the parking lot. I figure it's their own fault if the invisible car is parked in a place I would actually want to park.

This method of driving didn't suit me all that well when driving in heavy traffic, but then I expect that invisible cars wouldn't travel much in such conditions.

But someday I just know that I will be changing lanes too quickly or pulling up to a stop-light and experience that sickening crunch that says my car will need expensive body work. And I'll be pretty angry if that other car is invisible. It'll be their fault, right? But regardless I will have spoiled their secret mission, and I'll probably feel guilty.

Lunch today was Culver's take-out. A butterburger with cheese and everything else, with a basket of fries, ketchup and a Diet Coke. I wanted a fried cheese curd, but I never asked for one. So that's my own fault.

the unknown underworld

We occupy a sacred space. We have separated ourselves from the earthy, the dirty, and the profane far more effectively than the ancient Israelites. We need to touch nothing that has not already been cleansed, disinfected, or even irradiated for our sake. And mysterious forces carry away all that is polluted, filthy, and unclean from us.

I am talking about modern plumbing, and modern distancing from reality.

I make use of plumbing all the time. Several times a day. And usually, it requires no attention from me whatsoever. A year ago, though, I became a homeowner in a house with a basement. The pipes are visible, and there are so many of them. My personal restroom is down there among the pipes. And every once in a while, twice in this house, once catastrophically in an apartment I rented, sewage or sludge backs up in the pipes and overflows into my life.

And I call the plumber, and the problem goes away. But how do I prevent it? How could I fix it myself? What will happen to my lovely pipes when the revolution comes and there are no more plumbers?

I am a generally well-educated person. I have some experience with construction. I could tell you a bit about wiring, or how a car works. I could explain much of the engineering of the Hoover Dam, probably. But ask me about this cleansing river that flows underneath my home, and I have to throw up my hands and call somebody.

A hundred years ago, when my grandmother was growing up, a flush toilet was a conversation piece. And it didn't work that well. And now, it may be the invertion I could least imagine living without. Gasoline engines, air conditioning, information tech: I'd trade it all for a good flush--after experiencing a nasty broken public restroom or two.

And yet it might as well be magic to me. What makes the water flow? How much water pressure is in the pipes? In the toilet basin? How much clean water passes into the sewer? Could the sewage still flow properly if we all used extremely low-flush tanks and recycled our other water? How far does the sewage flow before it is treated? Does it need to flow downhill? How can we have toilets on the third floor? What would happen if we tried to dig a sub-basement with a bathroom below the sewer system pipes?

I don't know the answer to these questions. And I have been seduced by apathy into believing I don't need to know the answer to these questions. The plumber and the city manager can take care of it.

But when the gunk flows backward, our faith in society comes into question. Can they truly guarantee me a sewage-free life? Can I really trust others to take care of my shit for me? Or do I need to get more involved? Will I be fleeced by greedy plumbers? Will an ignorant electorate put into place leaders who do not care for our civic infrastructure, flooding entire cities with human waste when hurricanes or earthquakes visit? Will I have no capacity to handle the smells and the dirt of existence if I have to face it without my affluent bubble of disinfectant?

I need to do some reading.

Supper tonight was leftover KFC chicken: a mixture of Extra Crispy and Original, now with a different, healthier kind of fat. Also, some of my kids' leftover pizza and macaroni.

tagged by mosup a long time ago

In the interest of writing *anything*, I have decided to do a meme. The rule is to say six weird things about yourself. I choose to ignore the rule about tagging six people to do the same, since I don't know any bloggers who are not already tagged or participating.

1. I seem to be shrinking. I started losing weight when I watched "Super Size Me" and stopped drinking sugar drinks, since I did not want to be a hummingbird. But that was a long time ago, and I continue to lose weight. I hope I don't have a tapeworm. More likely, my metabolism has changed, likely due to improved circumstances of life. I think that happiness is making me thin. (And yes, I know that males should never talk about weight loss.)

2. I almost never buy recorded music. I love music, and spend much of my life thinking about music. I enjoy listening to new music, especially obscure music, and I even write music. I subscribe to Rolling Stone. Yet I have bought more hymnals and sheet music than CDs. I sometimes request music as a gift, but people don't seem to know what to buy me. I probably come across as a snob. But truly, I am a cheap, ignorant musician (aside from what I can learn by reading).

3. I am not an insomniac, because I could sleep at almost any time. Naps work just fine when I try them. But I almost never go to bed when I should. I simply choose to stay up until I am absolutely exhausted.

4. I can change diapers really fast. Sometimes I time myself.

5. Certain rooms I keep messy as a barricade against visitors. I really want to keep these rooms to myself, so I make them unwelcoming. I started doing this long before I knew why I was doing it.

6. I like to end counted lists in the mode of The Count from Sesame Street. Six! Six weird things! Six! Ah! Ah! Ah!

My lunch today was two cheeseburgers made on our new but well-used gas grille. Perhaps one burger was too rare. Also, Diet Coke and many white round Tostito's corn chips. How many adjective does a chip really need?

el condor pasa

Anne Lamott, on page 187 of Bird by Bird, quotes Violet Weingarten's Intimations of Mortality to ask the burning question: "Is life too short to be taking shit, or is life to short to be minding it?"

This is an urgent question in my life. Family Systems Theory has taught me much about being differentiated, about having a clear sense of self. Assertiveness Experts remind me that standing your ground and clarity in the face of conflict is the only way to get what you want. And those who do not stand somewhere can accomplish nothing. To paraphrase e e cummings: There is some shit we should not eat.

But I also pride myself on my flexibility, on my ability to see the multifaceted beauty of any situation or position. I have been playing Devil's Advocate for so long that I don't always know which side I am on. And this has enriched my experience of life immeasurably by helping me to see a fuller picture of the world. When you can hold multiple contradictory positions in your mind at the same time, I feel like you are getting closer to the mind of God. Too many people are too caught up in their own agendas to ever experience what is actually going on around them. Sometimes you have to let things play.

So, in Lamott's terms, is it better to refuse to take shit, or to refuse to mind it? Life is full of things that are wrong, people who misunderstand, people who fail to appreciate or be generous, ideas that are misdirected. So do you hate the sin and love the sinner? Do you hate the sin and hate the sinner too? Do you find some (possibly sick) way to love the sinner and come to understand and love the sin, too, for its beautiful effitude?

I used to want to be a Buddhist. And Buddhist writings talk a lot about water--the ideal element, which does not take its own shape but always seeks the lowest place. Which assumes the shape of its container. Or the green reed which does not snap in the presence of wind, but bends to stay alive.

At the same time, I don't want to be a doormat for all the aggressive non-Buddhists out there. (And there are not many Buddhists in this country, despite Richard Gere's best efforts.)

So, to ask the question implied by my title: Would I rather be a hammer or a nail?

Tentative answer: I'd rather be clay. Molded by reality, shapable by the stresses of life. Pliable. Yet firm. Able to bear beauty for a while. But deliberately impermanent. Until the fire comes, at least.

What I did eat today: leftover fettuccine alfredo with broccoli and chicken from a can. A hamburger steak. A few bites of my son's Kraft Supermac and Cheese. Water.

verbosity and internal editors

I wish I could learn to lower my expectations for writing. I tend to write nothing, or far too much. I need a good editor, instead of the evil one who cuts off writings before I even start to type.

Maybe then I could avoid going a month without posting to my blog.

Grr.

For mid-morning snack I had a chocolate chip scone type thing from a glass jar on my desk that somebody gave me last week. It was rather crunchy but quite good. The person who gave it to me may have called it a biscotti. Which would match the bad Vanilla Biscotti flavored coffee I just managed to finish.

antidisestablishmentarianism

I used to think I was a radical. Those of you who know me may already be laughing. I am aware that I tend to come across as one of the gentlest, softest people on the planet.

But inside there were always this dissatisfaction with the world. My Myers-Briggs type suggests that I have the tendency to analyze everything, and the flexibility to chuck just about anything when a better solution presents itself. This description feels about right. I have always prided myself on my intellectual and emotional flexibility: being able to see things from a different point of view is one of my favorite attributes. It helps me to solve problems that may seem insurmountable, it helps me sympathize with people who others find irredeemable, and it helps me find interesting things in texts that others might find boring or obvious (though it also leads to congenital problems, like indecisiveness, wishy-washytude, and distractibility).

This flexibility leads me in radical directions. I consider lots of options, and I am frequently tempted to want to change things. Or to change everything. Or at least to push at the edges of things.

But as I get older, I become more and more convinced of two things that moderate my radical inclinations:
1. Nobody knows anything.
2. Civilization is one generation away from utter barbarism.

Number One suggests that contrived solutions or proposed changes often carry hidden costs and consequences that can upset all sorts of things. Number Two suggests that what we do as a society matters very much, because I (as a wimpy guy who likes electricity and words) prefer civilization to barbarism. I want civility and public works and healthy institutions to grow stronger, and this takes careful effort to make the culture and the society healthy, and to pass healthy habits along to our children.

Thus, I find myself a conservative radical. I still am dissatisfied with almost every institution I see, and I want to change them all, but only in small amounts. My younger self wanted to upset the whole apple cart and tear apart every institution. Presently I want to change absolutely everything in the world by about half a degree each.

I am coming to see my calling here on earth as one of preserving and encouraging what is healthy. I want to be a cultural gardener. Pruning and weeding out what is unhealthy, encouraging what works. And what little influence I have over people I can use to make tiny little changes of emphasis, concern, and degree. That is probably all we can hope to accomplish without permanently damaging things. But that is the best way to tend an organic, living thing like a culture or a family or a society or a person.

Radical changes are sometimes necessary, but radical surgery should be the last option. Careful, attentive tweaking is what I intend to do. Unfortunately, I tend to be lousy at long-term, ongoing maintenance.

I haven’t had lunch yet today. Breakfast was a couple of slices of jelly toast with butter, and half a slice of jelly toast (no butter) that was left over by my son. And coffee: freshly ground quite stale Folger’s Vanilla Biscotti beans. I’m going to throw away the rest of the bag.

still waters run deep

This morning I finished Russell Banks' novel Cloudsplitter, which I picked up after reading Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson. Both books deal with the "Kansas wars" of the pre-civil war era, with the figure of John Brown looming large.

As a recent immigrant to the Midwest, I had always underestimated this area. This is a place where the people are nice, sure, but not very interesting, right? And this is a place where not much has ever happened, as far as I had heard. The very definition of "flyover country" to jet-setters from the coasts.

Yet these books tell another story. While Gilead has characters who share this unsymphathetic view of the Midwest (a boring place to leave as quickly as possible), the total picture from the books is one of a region that formerly spilled over with violent struggle and moral courage. These were the first battlegrounds of the fight to free the slaves.

And today's solid, stubborn, self-denying residents of the region (the people that Garrison Keillor makes fun of all the time) turn out to be the descendents of moral heroes whose same traits were essential in changing this country. And people don't know the history of it. Not even the residents know their history.

In my previous home state, Texas, school children are required to study the history of the state, often in ugly self-serving anti-revisionist versions of history that celebrate the smug capitalist white folks who greedily broke the terms of their contracts to get better land deals, while demonizing or ignoring the native population, the people and government of Mexico (which was OUR history--just ask "Six Flags") and African-Americans.

Meanwhile, the people I asked about local history around here seemed to buy the consensus of the world that nothing much had ever happened here.

I had already come to respect the creativity, intelligence, and general kindness of the people here. But now, as I learn the historical significance for our country's greatest moral struggle in its history, I see just how interesting a place I have come to live.

Somebody pinch me. I never thought I would find this region interesting.

Today for lunch I had two KFC Snackers: one original (with great gobs of remarkably peppery and vinegary dressing) and one with cheese sauce. It was yummy, but I wish I had gotten a side instead of one of the sandwiches. I ate light because I had a late and huge breakfast, many snacks at work, and was anticipating an early supper. Not a bad lunch for $2.18.

I dare you to eat that

When I was a late pre-teen, I considered myself a troubled youth. I had all these questions about life and the universe that none of my peers seemed to have. I took all sorts of things more seriously than the people around me. So I decided I was probably crazy.

(If only Gnarls Barkley had been around then!)

So I asked my neighbor friend if I was crazy, and together we developed a test. We called it my crazy test. He would suggest things that you would have to be crazy to do, and I would see if I was willing to do them. For example, I jumped off the roof of the shed by his house. And stared at the sun. And other vaguely self-destructive benign things.

But my favorite challenges were the food challenges. We anticipated Survivor by years. I was frequently challenged to eat gross things. Dirt. Worms. Pillbugs. Dog and cat food. (Gaines burgers were my favorite, but Milk Bone biscuits would help clean my teeth.)

Our tests were never conclusive. I wouldn't find out definitively that I was crazy for years. It finally came as a bit of a relief.

But to this day, I am a bit of a daredevil. Only when it comes to ideas and food, though. I am a chicken when it comes to physical danger or amusement park rides or starting new projects. But I'll try almost anything to eat.

Once, shortly after I moved to this town, I went with some work colleagues to a Chinese buffet. They had prominent signs on the wall claiming that they had passed their health inspections, which is never a good sign. Apparently some time ago they had been shut down for numerous violations of the health code.

Anyway, the food seemed fine, and I was enjoying the variety of things on the buffet. But on the dessert line I noticed a bowl of strange little white globes floating in some sort of syrup. The balls were veined and resembled nothing more than little floating blind eyeballs. So when the waitress came to our table I asked what they were.

"Chinese Leech," she replied, with a concerned look.

Well, this meant that I had to try it. My table mates did not share my reaction. But I went and got a couple and popped them in my mouth. It was surprisingly sweet, with a nice crunchy texture, but a little slippery at the same time. Only after eating a couple did I realize that she meant to say "leeks." And then I wasn't nearly as interested.

So the other day when I heard about Frog's Eye Salad, I had to try it. Turns out to taste not much different from tapioca pudding, but crunchier. (I've always wanted to see what a tapioca tree looks like.) It's some sort of quasi-jello salad made with some small round pasta. The lady at my table claimed the recipe is on the box for Acine di'Pepe.

Anyway, food experimentation was a big part of my (limited) sense of cosmopolitanism. I used to feel proud that I had eaten Ethiopian food, Thai food, and plenty of local stuff wherever I visited. But these days I mostly cook and eat relatively tame stuff.

Today's lunch, for instance, was the perfectly pleasing but rather ordinary Ham and Cheese omelet from Perkins, with hash browns, coffee (lots of cream and sugar), and three pancakes. Also, three kinds of syrup--apricot, blueberry, and maple--one on each cake, but all layered together. This meal brings back great memories from my schooling in the Midwest.

non-judgment day

On my first post from February 23, I don't think I represented the movie "What Dreams May Come" very well. What I like about its imaginary world is the way it posits an afterlife that seems less judgmental than most.

Most of the movie takes place in an afterlife world--it's neither the traditional heaven or the traditional hell. For one thing, movement between the nice parts and the awful parts is possible. For another thing, God (or any sort of authority figure) seems almost as absent as in our own world.

But what is most interesting to me is how this movie about the afterlife sidesteps an issue that has always troubled me: God the perfect judge. How do you reconcile God's perfect justice with God's loving mercy and the fact (in most afterlife scenarios) that everybody has to be assigned some place that is definite, fixed, and eternal? Which categories supercede others? Does my past as a murderer mean that I go with all the murderers, despite all my charity work with kids? Is there some perfect solution for distributing every person to an appropriate assignment, even with a more subtle system than the binary heaven or hell?

Well, says this movie, the assignment is simply that you, basically, continue to be who you were. If you were fixated on visual impressions, you'll have a beautiful afterlife. If you were a dog, heaven will have a lot of smells. And more to the point, if you surrounded yourself with people, you'll find heaven well populated. If you cut yourself off from people in this world, the afterlife will be lonely. Whether this feels like punishment or a blessing is open to interpretation.

This seems to (partially) get God off the hook for being arbitrary in judgment. You simply are punished or blessed with who you have proven yourself to be. This also leaves open the room for further improvement. Maybe there will be further levels later once you have gotten over the baggage from this existence (like in "Defending Your Life" or Hinduism).

Ultimately, this movie shows a vision of the afterlife as an exaggerated version of this life. Which is why I think it has much more to say about life now than about the future. You are in hell now if you make it so. You are in heaven now if you are truly connected with what is eternal. So why say anything at all about what dreams may come?

Today's lunch continued the leftover extravaganza. More reheated pork roast with the vegetables it came with and saltines. Diet coke to drink, and a peanut butter chocolate chip granola bar for dessert.

statement of purpose

A friend once told me that what would save me would be my writing. (Evidently this guy never heard of that fellow Jesus.) Writing has always been important to me, an indispensible clarifier of my thinking, a fulfillment of my creative impulses, and the source of my pride. But very often, I don't do it. I hide my lamp under a bushel and don't write anything.

Usually this is attributable to a lack of time, to perfectionism, to procrastination, to the desire to clarify or research my thoughts further before I set them down or commit to them.

I have always admired the writers of blogs. They seem more comfortable with themselves than I usually perceive myself to be. In any case, they are comfortable enough to write something without a crippling sense of self-indulgence. But I have never known how to stick with one. How can I write something so loose without becoming terribly self-conscious of my failings?

So when a friend's blog began naming some of the Commmandments of the Blogosphere, my interest was piqued. Her pet peeves include blogs that claim to be "random musings." She further claims that others object to folks writing about what they had for lunch as the penultimate example of self-indulgence in blog writing. (It's too bad I don't have a cat at present.)

This blog exists so that I write. Its purpose is to remove the stumbling blocks that keep me from writing.

What if, therefore, I were to inoculate myself against self-indulgence by plunging into it? Shamelessly write about my random musings and what I had for lunch. Then, by contrast, anything else I write seems relatively cogent and applicable.

Therefore, every main post (I reserve the right to make short comments that do not fit the formula) must include two parts: some random, (more or less) ignorant musing, and then a list of what I had for lunch. If I post multiple times a day, I may write about other meals as well.

So here I am. Here we are. I encourage commenters to be self-indulgent as well, albeit nice. Commenters are encouraged, but not required, to write about what they had for lunch.

Today's lunch was more leftovers: roast beef made in a slow cooker with vegetables. It was rather gravy-y, so I crushed cheap saltines into it. Water on the side, and two Whoppers candies.

narwhal

I recently hallucinated or read that scientists have finally discovered the purpose of the narwhal's horn. This unicorn of the sea does not use its long pointy appendage for combat. It's more like a giant whisker. Or antenna. The tusk is full of sensitive nerve endings that enable it to experience a world of sensation that no other creature is aware of.

What is it like to feel the pulsations of movement in the water so minutely that you can navigate towards or away from other creatures by sound? And what would it feel like to have a clear sense of temperature at any time, so that you could tell differential currents and levels of the water? Who knows what the experience is like? All we know is that the narwhal can sense things of which we have no idea. And this odd, unique tusk is the window to this world.

Today for lunch I had a board meeting, with chicken salad sandwich, coffee, creamy vegetable rice soup, yellow crusty cake with chocolate frosting and yellow filling, and water.

what a mighty good man

I've been searching a long time for a good model of healthy modern American masculinity in pop culture. There are very few good candidates. Mostly candidates fall into the categories of jerks and losers. In TV and movies you get either the hypermasculine self-absorbed prick (Tim Allen, frat boys, most sit-coms) or the emasculated ineffectual softie (Ryan Seacrest, that preacher from "Seventh Heaven") or the female fantasy who only exists for the sake of his woman or kids (Dr. McDreamy, most romantic comedies).

I am seeking a man capable of emotion and gentleness, yet able to get things done. Somebody who loves kids, but can also lead. I want to be a good parent--and that means I want to show love to my boys, but also help them grow into men. And I'm not sure I ever learned how to be that guy.

So where are the role models?

Many gay characters on reality shows come to mind: the chefs and designers and hairdressers often have an appealing fierceness along with competence at a particular skill. Yet their fierceness often seems rather shrill. Can a fierce character ever really be at peace with himself?

Mr. Rogers was a pretty good example of masculinity for me (wasn't he a Navy Seal or something?) but his mannerisms on the show only taught me how to focus exclusively on kids. I learned nothing from him on how to negotiate competing needs for kid-time and for grownup-time. And I need to have grownup conversations too, sometimes even when kids are in the room.

John Goodman from "Roseanne" was an appealing model for a while. He clearly loves his kids, and is able to manage a remarkably challenging wife, but he also seems to work well and enjoy his life. But "Barton Fink" made me too aware of this everyman's capacity for violence and rage to ever see him in a healthy way. (Yes, I'm being unfair. It's *my* blog!)

But I think I have found a good example. At last I believe I have found my model male, capable of tenderness, of sharing the spotlight, and also competent at getting things done.

My friends, I submit: Handy Manny. Of the eponymous Disney Channel show. Manny is this very competent worker and leader. He knows how to fix things, and he asserts himself when he truly knows best. Yet he also asks for help. And he knows that he relies fully on his community for assistance. He goes nowhere without his anthropomorphic tools, and always invites their input into what they are doing. In a nice touch, when he numbers off the tools as they "pop up" and "jump in" the toolbox, he even counts himself as one of them.

Manny is clearly the leader, and he usually knows best, but the show is all about collaboration, and mutual interdependence of the community. The closest thing to an unsympathetic character is a neighbor whose projects always fail, not because of simple incompetence, but because of a prideful self-reliance instead of asking for help.

Plus, Manny loves kids and kittens and robot puppies, and takes lots of time for playing with them, but struggles (successfully!) to get his work done even with them in the room.

I need to find out more about this Wilmer Valderrama guy, the voice actor. His voice for Manny is the gentlest possible, with very soft consonants and a tendency to break into non-demonstrative song. I had written the actor off based on the ads for "That Seventies Show" that seemed to show him as a cocky blowhard. But clearly the actresses love him, according to the tabloids.

Anyway, I'm learning from a cartoon character how to be a man. Wish me luck.

For supper I had roast with vegetables. It was one of those slow-cooker meals you buy complete in a box.

you could be headed for the serious strife

I am enough of a snob to be embarrassed by how much I enjoy the most popular drama on TV. (And yeah, I also enjoy the most popular reality show on TV.)

But "Grey's Anatomy" makes some bold choices. They didn't quite kill off the title character tonight, but they did give her a glimpse of a pretty bleak afterlife. And I love theories about the afterlife. I think they reveal a lot about what writers have to say about this world.

For instance, "What Dreams May Come" (the movie--I haven't read the book) tells us that the writer has probably been in recovery, and that life seems to be a constant struggle to connect with people despite misunderstanding and change. And the only hope for happiness is to continue to pay attention to the people around you, and to deal with your pain.

The fascinating but sleep-inducing Japanese movie "After Life" or "Wandafuru raifu" (whatever that means) proposes that the most important element of moving on with life is simply accepting your past. To go on to the next stage of existence, in this life or the next, you need to accept the past-ness, the is-ness, of what has happened. Whether it was good or bad. It is yours.

And tonight, on "Grey's Anatomy" we see a character's near-death experience, and the main obsession of people after they are dead remains the same as on the show: the desperate, futile desire to connect with someone, anyone, especially with the ones you love. Despite all the barriers in the way, despite the inappropriateness of the contact or the degree of intimacy. They just want to touch someone and be touched.

It fits the show, I guess. I just want something more. It makes me sad that the afterlife poses the same problems as the present for most of these writers. But who are we to hope for quick fixes to all our problems, in this world or the next?

Today at lunch I had a Stouffer's Southwest Chicken Panini sandwich, with a really stale handful of original Lay's potato chips, Diet Coke, and 2 Whoppers.