Quote of the Day: Anton Chekhov

"A good upbringing means not that you won't spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won't notice it when someone else does."

(I am writing this very quickly so please feel free to point out any errors.)


I want to to thank my mother today for giving me a good upbringing.


Sorry, I haven't blogged a whole lot lately. Things have been kind of hectic. Life got stressful on all fronts. Work is all-consuming in a good way, homeownership is more expensive than I thought it would be, buying cars is a hassle, and I had the worst birthday of my life and that's counting the one where my roommate told me and another roommate that we were "undateable." (I won't go into why here.)


There is a situation at work that bears watching. We are moving offices because we are growing so fast. The problem is our new office might be for away from where I buy my Diet Mountain Dew every morning. I volunteered to be on the committee so I can be the master ot my own fate. We are at Defcon Five on this thing.


Am I the only ones who obessesese about getting defriended on Facebook? I know it probably bothers everybody but I focus on it so much that I eventually figure out who defriended me. I have a list of offenders. I am not sure why it bothers me so much because most of the people I would have defriended first if I did that sort of thing. I guess I like to think I am entertaining enough to keep everyone tuned in. I mean, is something I say so offensive that it's worthy of skipping the hiding option and moving straight onto defriending? I would just like to know why because I hate not knowing stuff. I understand why two single girls defriended me the week I got married, because I was no longer useful in their quest to meet guys. Other's motives are not so clear. I just hope if I run into them in real life, I don't ask them why but there is a good chance I might. (I am real tempted to name them in this post but I know there friends are among my readers so I will refrain.) Yeah, I am a little neurotic. I am also the same guy who couldn't sleep until he heard the real reason for every romantic rejection.


I have been thinking about human relationships and tribes a lot lately thanks to one of my favorite TV shows - Justified. It's about a modern day US Marshal who acts and dresses like a nineteenth century lawman who has to go back his hometown of Harlan, Kentucky because he got in trouble over an itchy trigger finger. (Harlan is famous for fueding redneck families, poverty, and a high homicide rate. It still has those all things too, only now it's meth instead of moonshine.) Anyway, throughout the show we learn that he acts like that because he used to watch old westerns while he as hiding out at his aunt's house to get away from his abusive criminal father. We also learn that no matter what he does he can't escape the ties of family, kin, and clan. In some ways that is a comforting thought. There are many tribes I consider myself a member of. There are relationships I forged in the heat of the battle of life that will never be destroyed. Even though I no longer see those people everyday, I am enough of romantic - in the old knightly sense of the word not the modern sexual sense - to think that if I saw them again we would take up right where we left off and that if I ever needed to gather together people for an epic battle they would be among the first to answer my call. I may be wrong but as Hemingway once wrote, "It's pretty to think so isn't it?"


I do hope and think it's possible for relationships to evolve without disintegrating.


Have a good week.