17 January 2009

Eight years in eight minutes

The other day, a supermarket cashier asked me if I had all three days off this weekend.

"Yes," I said. "And on Tuesday, we inaugurate a new president, so it will seem like another holiday."

"Oh, so you're anti-Bush, are you?"

"Of course," I answered. "Our long national nightmare will finally be over."

"I don't understand what your problem with him is," he said.

I wish I had had this video to show him. It is over 9 minutes, but I was sick and tired by about minute 3.

14 January 2009

Don't knock it til you have tried it

I met a freelance writer tonight, a nice enough woman (can you see I'm setting her up for a fall? LOL you know me too well).

She said she had a flickr account, and I said I did too, then I asked her if she blogged.

She responded in a tone that made it sound like I had asked her if she was the one wiping her butt on the bathroom towels.

"No," she said. "I feel like it is giving my work away for free."

"But," I pointed out, "You don't have an editor to bother you. You can write anything you want. And you can use terrible English if you want to."

Her expression made it clear that flaunting your poor grammar skills in public pixeland was not something she wanted to take part in. Or was not even something in which she wished to take part.

Yeah, I give away my "work" for free. But if you can find me an editor who is willing to pay me for putting up pictures of rotten cantalopes, I will take you to the magic ticket window where free Lakers floor seats are being handed out.

And anyway, the real payoff from blogging, for me at least, is not in money but relationships. Not to get all googy, but you, dear readers, enrich my life in so many ways.

You give me my best laughs and my best compliments. You give me something to look forward to and something to look back upon. You teach me geography, sociology, medicine. You point me to great books, articles, movies and music. The things you point me to make me seem a lot cooler than I really am.

And sometimes, like yesterday when Belgian Waffle said she felt like she was never going to laugh again, but then got a chuckle out of my rotten cantalope, you let me know that I do for you what you do for me.

Oh, I gotta stop. I'm about to break into that "Circle of Life" song, and no one wants that. Aiiiiitibwaaaaaynaaaaa!
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