Posted by Allen on October 28, 2008 under Personal | 
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Terry and I decided to do something special to mark our tenth anniversary, and since neither of us really had much desire to go the tattoo route, we instead went down to the mall and both got our ears pierced.
Yes, we now have matching earrings because we are just that damn adorable.
Posted by Allen on October 27, 2008 under Personal | 2 Comments to Read
On October 27, 1998 — ten years ago today — Terry and I snuck off to the Escambia County Courthouse in Pensacola to get our marriage license. That was the intention, anyway, as we had planned to elope on the beach the following weekend.
Instead, partially inspired by an offhand snarky comment from one of my co-workers (”Don’t come back married!”), we got married. We stood in a dark stairwell in the courthouse, wearing jeans and sandals (her) and sneakers (me) and enormous smiles, and we repeated back our vows to the Justice of the Peace, and we exchanged the simple silver bands we’d purchased. Then we went home and told our parents, and we had dinner at the Outback Steakhouse that night, and we spent our joyous wedding night in our little rental house.
I’ve never for a single second regretted either the circumstances of the wedding or thought that marrying Terry was the wrong decision. Not for a second. Far and away the best decision I’ve ever made.
I love you, sweetheart, and hope for several more decades as amazing and fulfilling as the first one.
Posted by Allen on October 22, 2008 under NaNoWriMo, Writing | Be the First to Comment
In what was clearly an insane, feverish moment of self-delusional hysteria, I signed up to participate in National Novel Writing Month for the first time in three years. Fifty thousand words of fiction in thirty days, when I rarely write any fiction these days? Pshaw, no problem at all.
The funny thing (or not so funny thing) is that it’s only been about six weeks since I irrevocably turned my back on writing fiction. Not so much irrevocable, huh? I thought I didn’t have any stories in my head or heart worth telling (and truth be told, I’m still not positive on this point), so I told myself (and Terry) that any writing I did was probably going to have to be in the non-fiction/commentary realm, which comes much more easily to me. (Yes, the implication there is that I’m just lazy.)
Yet here I am, a month later, getting ready for this intensive submersion into words, words, so damn many words.
So my question to myself is: why? If writing fiction is something I thought I’d given up on, why subject myself to NaNo?
I’ve had people ask me a couple of times recently about how my writing was going, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell them I’d essentially given up, that I’d decided writing prose wasn’t my thang. These friends only meant well, of course, and I certainly don’t get upset with people for asking — though I tend to get upset with myself for not having a good answer for them. I truly feel bad, like I’m letting people down for not using abilities of mine that they’d like to see me use.
But while that’s a small part of my trying it again, it’s far from the main reason I’m doing so. I feel like I’m letting myself down with this whole “giving up” thing. I think I’m never going to be able to live with myself if I don’t give writing more of a shot than I have. The last few Novembers, I’ve been disappointed in myself for not trying it (even when it didn’t make a lot of logistical sense for me to do it.) And while I don’t think that participating in NaNoWriMo will be the final word for me on writing vs. not writing, and while I’m sure that the result of whatever I do for NaNo won’t be something I can sell, I think it’s important for me to try it, to get back into the habit of writing, to loosen up some of the constrictions I have in my head.
These, then, are my goals for National Novel Writing Month 2008:
You’ll notice over there in the sidebar (if you’re not reading this via RSS) that I’ve already posted one of the nifty NaNo calendars which show my total wordcount and day-by-day progress. I’m hoping that putting this out there to all of you, and knowing that I have a public display of how well or poorly I’m doing, will help motivate me to finish. So wish me luck — I hope to have a reasonably completed shitty first draft of a novel in a little over a month!
Posted by Allen on October 20, 2008 under Sports | Be the First to Comment
As a Boston Red Sox fan — and make no mistake as you read these words to follow, I am a Red Sox fan — I was, of course, sad to see them lose the American League Championship Series to the scrappy, upstart (I’m legally required to refer to them as such) Tampa Bay Rays last night. But the only other team I care about at all is that same Tampa Bay team, so I was also quite happy to see them win it. Even more importantly, as a baseball fan, I was thrilled to see the Rays advance to the World Series.
When big championship-level sporting events come around — especially, but not exclusively, ones where I haven’t paid a damn bit of attention to the regular season — I almost always root for either the underdog or the team which hasn’t won in a long time or has never won before (provided, of course, that I don’t have an actual rooting interest in either team involved). I really like seeing new teams win championships, knowing that fans who haven’t gotten to see Their Team win are enjoying that experience, knowing that a new generation of kids is learning to support their favorite team and knowing that sometimes that love they feel for their team is rewarded. I think it’s good for any sport for fans to think that any given year, their team could win it all — “Hey, if the Rays can make it to/win the World Series, maybe we can, too!”
For this year’s Series, the “Who’s Suffered More?” criteria’s almost, but not quite, a toss-up for me: the Rays have never been to the Series, while the Philadelphia Phillies were there 15 years ago. But the city of Philadelphia, though they have teams in all four major sports [1], hasn’t won a championship in any of them in a combined 743 years. (I’m guesstimating on the math there.)
The Rays, though, have thoroughly, thoroughly sucked every year of their existence before this one. Yes, surely Philly fans have suffered more than Tampa fans, but that’s partially because until this year, the Rays have been utterly insignificant. They’d never finished higher than fourth in their five-team division, and even that was only once. The reality is that teams with payrolls as miniscule as Tampa Bay’s aren’t really able to compete every year; magical seasons like this one come around infrequently, if ever, for most small-market teams, and I’d like to see the Rays win it all while they can. (And it’s hard to be too upset as a Sox fan, seeing as how they just won it last year and then three years before that.)
The way baseball tends to work, chances aren’t bad that next year the Rays will still be competitive but will be back toward the middle of the statistical pack while the Red Sox probably will again be a World Series favorite. If I had to make a quick-impression prediction right now, I’d say Tampa Bay ends up somewhere around 84-78 and out of the playoffs, while the Red Sox and Yankees will both win 90 or more games and again fight to win the AL East with both teams quite possibly in the postseason. This might be their one shot, so go you Rays; you Red Sox, don’t worry — I’ll be cheering you on again come April.
Posted by Allen on October 11, 2008 under Kids, Politics | Be the First to Comment
The following conversation took place this afternoon between Kelsey and Brandon, both six years old, while riding home from apple picking:
KELSEY: We’re gonna vote for Obama.
BRANDON: John McCain wants to make it so kids won’t have any money when they grow up.
KELSEY: Yeah, that’s why we’re gonna vote for Obama.
BRANDON: Me too, I’m voting for Obama.
A pause.
BRANDON: John McCain sucks.
Posted by Allen on October 10, 2008 under Politics, Thinky | Be the First to Comment
I don’t get into discussing politics very much, especially in public forums like this site. Sure, I’ve occasionally posted a pro-Obama video or link, but I stay away from the details of exactly what it is I believe, or why I believe it, or why I support the issues or politicians I do.
And I’m not going to do so in this post, either, though maybe I will do so before election day next month. What I want to talk about instead is why I don’t like to talk about politics, in hopes that I can work something out in my head, and in so doing, be more able to have these conversations in the future.
(As an aside, I’d like to preface the following discussion with the fact that you could probably replace every instance of the word “politics” with “religion” and it would still stand true.)
It’s not that I don’t think I can defend my views or should have to; it’s not that I think I’m so right that I’m afraid of having my worldview or political opinions or ideologies shaken; it’s not that I’m not open to listening to other ideas and viewpoints. I’m always open to being convinced that I’m wrong, even when I firmly believe I’m right. It’s possible that my mind can be changed with an argument persuasive enough, compelling enough, and factual enough.
But the thing is… those sorts of discussions almost by definition are arguments, and I don’t like to argue. At all. And here I mean “argue” in the debate sense more than the fight sense, though I don’t like to do that, either. I have plenty of friends and relatives who love to argue (in both senses of the word), who take pride in their ability to verbally take apart someone’s views, and that’s not an attitude I can fathom in the least for myself.
A lot of my distaste for arguing comes from a lack of confidence in my verbal jousting ability — while my brain works quickly, I have a lot of trouble getting what I’m trying to say to work its way out of my mouth coherently. But even when I’m dealing with dissenting opinions via the written word, my heart pounds and my vision goes all swimmy — fight or flight kicks in, and most of the time I’d much, much rather fly than fight. So I usually try to stay away from situations where arguments are likely to occur (i.e., talking about politics with The Other Side). Also, there’s the fact that I could be far more versed in the details of the issues than I am. A lot of my opinions are high-level and gut-level — I believe the way I do because not to do so feels wrong. Some of what I believe, I believe because these things just make sense to me, regardless of political ideology. But when debates or arguments comes down to a point-by-point back-and-forth on minutiae… well, right now I can’t really hang with that. I can argue up to a point, but then I begin to feel insecure — not in my beliefs but rather in my ability to defend them well. I have friends who can get into discussion particular Supreme Court cases, particular nuances of different areas of law or policy, and rather than risk feeling like an idiot, I tend to clam up and listen (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).
Yet I notice that I seem to Twitter a lot about politics. Most of my last couple of weeks’ worth of tweets (lord, do I hate that name) have been about politics in some fashion or another, and I think it’s likely a) because the format of Twitter, while it does allow back-and-forth conversation, doesn’t really much encourage it; and b) because of the nature of Twitter, I don’t have to think much about what I’m putting out there. I can make quick observations or snarky, off-the-cuff comments and just kinda throw it into the wild without too much fear of negative repercussions.
And really, as far as repercussions go, what I’m most afraid of is alienating people — especially my family, most of whom are very Republican. I still cling to this middle-school-notion that I want everyone to like me, even though I know that’s impractical, impossible and, honestly, undesirable. But that adolescent need still hangs around in my head, and talking about politics pretty much guarantees pissing off someone. Hell, just my writing these words, admitting I have an opinion and that it’s pro-Obama, is probably going to piss off someone. Or a whole lot of someones. Quite possibly someones in my extended family. So part of my reluctance to talk about these issues is simply a matter of trying to minimize drama in my life, I suppose.
But now that I have all of those reasons/excuses out there, aren’t I really saying… that I’m a coward? I just admitted that I’m afraid to admit to or back up my opinions. Whatever I claim the reasons to be, it all simply boils down to cowardice, pure and simple. And I don’t want to think of myself as a coward.
So… no more. I’m not going to be afraid to state my opinion, and I’ll back it up as best I can, if need be. If you feel that you can respectfully tell me I’m wrong and think you can convince me of your points, preferably using verifiable facts to back up your position, bring it on. As I said, I’m always open to learning and having my mind changed. But I’m not going to get into any comment-thread flame wars with anyone.
As a liberal, I’m a big proponent of free speech. I firmly believe that you’re entitled to your own opinion, no matter how backwards, asinine, hypocritical or short-sighted I think it may be. The flip side is that I’m also entitled to my opinion, and this site is my venue for expressing it. If you don’t like my political opinions (or my opinions about anything else, for that matter), you’re under no obligation to read them and can either come back when I blather on about something innocuous (which will surely be soon) or, if I’ve bugged you that badly, not at all.
Just don’t hate me because my opinion is different from yours, and I’ll try to do the same.
