heaven on earth

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PD James

The great PD James died on Thursday. If you're a reader and you don't know her work, you're missing out on a real treat. Unlike many crime writers who crank 'em out bimonthly, she focused on quality and not quantity, publishing only nineteen books in a career spanning more than fifty years.

Unlike many genre writers, she focused on more than just plot. Her characters were rich and with great depth and also flawed. The settings and world she chose also were interesting. More than anything, her beautiful, spare prose really brought the books to life.

My two favorite books of hers -- Death Comes to Pemberley and, particularly, Children of Men -- were both genre busters and distinctly different than her other work. If you've not read any of her books, you might start with these two are neither are part of a series. A familiarity with Pride and Prejudice is not necessary to appreciate Pemberley, I don't think, but if you do it will make it all the richer for you.

deliberate?

I have to hope that this glaring mistake was obvious. But most people will not assume as much and think you're an idiot.

I wondered if this was some band name or song title of which I was unfamiliar, so I Googled the exact spelling. I only found a handful of middle school kids' Facebook or Instagram
pages with the spelling, and those people all seemed to be into cutesy misspellings and FuNNi KapiTaLiZations.

Whatever the answer, you'll look like a moron when you're no longer young and still have this visible on your shoulder. Not to say you don't look like one already.

happy thanksgiving!

Sending along warm holiday wishes to everyone who lives "back home." It's just an ordinary day here in Australia, but we will be joining in an expat celebration this Saturday. I'll be making pumpkin pie, using squash as a substitute.

The weather, of course, is late spring-like, so no harvest snap of frost or snow in the air. My cousins and uncle in Pennsylvania sent an email last night that they are due to have a white Thanksgiving. My brother in the Midwest has already seen snow.

Don't eat too much. But if you do, remember those "after dinner" exercises like we see demonstrated here to burn off some of those extra calories...

never too old

The picture below needs no explanation. It was posted on Reddit under the title "President Clinton didn't realize my friend was taking a selfie with him."

Or maybe he knew and just didn't care. Why look at a stupid camera when there's a much better view? The original thread on Reddit has some very amusing comments.

When I used to dance for a living, the older gents were always the most polite, the most attentive, and the best tippers. Some of them were just so incredibly sweet. If I was mercenary like Anna Nicole Smith, I could've probably landed myself a rich one.

asked and answered

My husband has an aunt who has the curious and sometimes annoying habit of asking variations on the same question when you're unable to answer the first time. He told me that she's been this way as long as he can remember.

We saw her over the weekend and she asked me how her grandson could get a long-term visa for the United States. I told her I knew nothing about American visas and that he would have to contact the Sydney consulate or to try their webpage.

She then peppered me with a whole series of questions that were a variation of the first one: was it easier to get a work or student visa? How long did visas last? How long did it take to get a visa? Why could someone be turned down? I answered the same thing each time; I had no idea and to contact the embassy.

As the questions proceeded, they became more and more specific about visas, defying simple logic. If I knew nothing about the basics, how could I answer specifics? I did not lose patience with her, but when another relative finally did and interceded, she stopped asking.

I was trying to figure out later why she does this. She seems to be both obsessive and passive aggressive and has possibly done this for so long out of habit that she no longer understands why.

Other conversations with her in the past made me wonder if she's had some kind of undiagnosed emotional issue for a very long time. She could probably benefit from some therapy, but she's of the generation who think that anyone who consults a shrink must be insane and ready for institutionalization.

Because I'm the child of two shrinks and the sibling of another, I think sometimes I focus on emotional issues in others. There are so many people who seem to need a bit of therapy but it will never come to pass. That's sad, because it would make many of them so much happier.

if women catcalled men

For a true scientific test, I think this video would be more interesting if the men were unaware passersby and not actors. I'd also like to know if the unaware men would react differently if the women's comments were more sexual, like the "bulge" and "carpet" comments.

I will admit to catcalling men when I was a single woman and still living in the United States. If I was driving and saw a cute guy out running, particularly if he was shirtless and/or well built, I would wolf whistle out the window at him. Most men laughed and/or waved but a few completely ignored me. I guess they were deaf or gay.

are movies now the vast wasteland?

In past decades, television was described as "the vast wasteland," occupied primarily by second-rate or washed up actors and filmmakers recycling old plots and cardboard characters into mindless, formulaic brain candy.

In the last ten years or so, however, TV seems like the place to find material that really challenges your mind with some exceptional shows, while film has become the primary ground for special effects extravaganzas populated by somewhat shallow characters in familiar stories. Fortunately, there are some notable exceptions with independent films.

I was looking at a list of new and returning TV shows for early 2015. Some really looked appealing. In contrast, the list of new films coming in early 2015 didn't instill much excitement.

It seems almost that Hollywood has put too much stock in the "wow" factor of movies with special effects and computer generated imagery and forgot somewhere along the way that memorable characters in great stories was a requirement, too.

Theaters are equipped with projection and sound systems much better than the average home, so the more the movie is a visual and sound thrill ride, the greater the "roller coaster value." So the decision to finance a movie now seems to revolve around making it a sound and sights "event" as opposed to a strong story with great characters.

In contrast, TV can't compete with thrills and effects, but it has the time advantage, with an audience willing to invest an hour or two every week with stories and characters developed in much greater detail. Over the course of a whole season, a much more complex and layered story can be told, almost like a novel.

So if you want amusement park thrills, head to a theater. If you want rich characters and complex stories, stay home and watch the tube. I would imagine this difference will become more pronounced with time.

a single woman vs. married sex

I came across something I wrote in my journal nearly ten years ago: "Married sex must be so boring. The same guy all the time. No variety. No thanks."

Now, roughly a decade later, I feel the opposite. There is a safeness in sameness. Sex is no longer a gamble. A one-night stand might look good in the showroom and a lot of fun to have dinner with, but I know from experience he can crash and burn on the runway.

How many times did I go to bed with a man expecting fireworks, instead landing a dud who shot his wad in four minutes and then fell asleep. Men like that should save themselves the time and expense of dating women and just masturbate instead.

Married sex, in contrast, means no unpleasant surprises. When he takes me to bed, I'm confident he'll know exactly the right way to ring my chimes. It's like ordering mint chocolate chip ice cream and knowing that you'll get what you wanted, the really minty, creamy kind with lots of big chips, not the cheap kind with no taste and chips like floor sweepings.

Unmarried sex could be thrilling, but it could be terribly disappointing, too, and usually the latter kind. It was sex without a guarantee. Married sex, in contrast, comes with a lifetime warranty.

I don't know why I didn't realize this when I was unmarried and playing the field. I guess because when I found a man who pleased me in bed, he had all sorts of problems outside the bedroom. Finding a man who isn't fucked up but can fuck well was not easy. Once I fell crazy in love with him, the rest was history.

the worst things for sale

I found a great new clickbait website featuring the absolutely stupidest things that people are trying to peddle online. This is a great diversion site if you're waiting on hold on the phone or for the dryer or oven to finish. Some of the garbage is available for sale on Amazon, which is becoming an amazing emporium of the tackiest junk, second only to eBay.

A few favorites I found include a temporary pocket to stick to your clothes like a Post-it note, a book about how to fuck in a tent, a personalized Nicolas Cage pillow, and a device to give yourself the Heimlich maneuver if you're choking while alone.

Then, of course, there's the gem illustrated below. I love the pitch that it's a "fun activity for the entire family." I can think of some relatives I wouldn't want painting my vulnerable belly the next time I'm pregnant.

how (not) to kill your spouse

A 67-year-old Japanese woman has been arrested on suspicion of murdering her husband a month after they wed. An autopsy discovered lethal quantities of cyanide in his blood.

He is the sixth of her spouses/boyfriends to have died shortly after becoming involved with her. More than one were found to have cyanide in their blood after death. She has also collected nearly $7 million in inheritances and insurance payouts for the six dead men. She claims she's innocent and has no idea how to kill someone.

Now what are the statistical odds that six of your partners suffer sudden and untimely deaths shortly after meeting you, each leaving you richer, yet you're somehow not involved?

So-called black widow killers are rare but do happen on occasion. The Japanese media had a field day about one convicted in 2012. Men, too, can be serial killers of their own spouses. Drew Peterson comes to mind.

Two things strike me about these cases. First, why does it seem to take authorities a long time to figure out all is not right? In this new case first mentioned above, a previous husband died and was found to have cyanide in his blood. Didn't law enforcement look into her odd history? Five dead men is not suspicious but six is?

And second is the fact that black widow killers think they can get away with it. A clever person probably could plan and pull off a single murder and escape prosecution. But twice is really pushing it. Anything after that is sheer insanity.

I have to imagine a certain amount of narcissism is involved with these killers. They think they're so clever and smart they couldn't possibly be caught.

I have a moron's name

My first name is not uncommon and my married name is very common, so the two of them added together are certainly not unique. I have to imagine there are hundreds if not thousands of women with my same name in the English-speaking world.

Nonetheless, when I married, I discovered no one had signed up for an account on a popular free email service with the account name of my first name plus my married name. So I snagged it.

I use it infrequently but it's forwarded to the account I use most often, so I see everything that comes in. I also discovered about six months ago someone with the same name began using my email address as her own. It's not a spamming situation; she's buying stuff and then giving my email address as hers.

She also has a credit card notification going to the email account. She spends a shitload of money every month and doesn't pay down the balance very much, but the notification provides no further details other than payments received and new billings.

I have her address and telephone number in the United States. I could call her or write her, but frankly I don't want to waste the money on an international call or letter. Best to let sleeping dogs lie and all that.

I have to wonder how bright she is to be consistently using my email address repeatedly. She does this all the time and apparently has never figured it out. I have no way of contacting her because I don't know her correct email address.

I hope the woman doesn't have an important job upon which lives may depend. But if so, heaven help them.

hollywood extortion

We don't subscribe to any premium TV services, nor do we watch much broadcast programming, so we mostly view DVDs. Some are screeners from my movieland source, but most either come from extensive selections at the library or an independent DVD rental place near us.

Many have previews at the beginning. I often watch these for programming ideas, but if I've already seen the show, movie, or trailer I'll just skip through it with the chapter change button.

About ten percent of the time, however, the chapter change feature won't work to skip through them. Nor will the menu selection feature work or fast forward. We have two different DVD players, each with multi-region functioning, and this happens on both. As a result, there's no choice but to sit through the damn trailers whether you want to see them or not, an apparently compulsory feature from the DVD distributor.

You must watch this trailer, comrade. Talk about an incentive not to see the movies or shows they're advertising.

I have found a workaround, however. I put the DVD we plan to watch in the viewer earlier in the day, then I just let the trailers play with no one watching. When that's done and the menu finally (!) appears, I select the actual program and then bookmark it with the DVD player when it's a second or two into running. When I turn it back on later so we can watch, it goes straight to the bookmark and no pesky trailers.

comet chaser

I occasionally poke around tattoo forums online because sometimes I find links to incredibly bad tattoos to add to my digital collection. As a result, I've seen the photo below posted several times now in general discussion areas.

The subject is Matt Taylor, who has a PhD in space physics and led the team that successfully lead the Rosetta comet mission last week. The forum chatter postulates that he's some kind of proof that a heavily tattooed man can have a great job. "Look at those tattoos!" one comment says sarcastically. "He'll never get a real job!"

Wrapped up in this is the danger of a big logic fail. Finding one example of a heavily tattooed man with a great job does not mean that highly visible tattoos won't hamper an "ordinary" person's job search.

You can see, for instance, he has no tattoos on his face nor any exotic piercings. Put him in a long-sleeved shirt and a nice suit and he looks like a professional. He also has a PhD in a rare, high demand field and professional credentials out the wazoo, including dozens of published scientific papers. He's in great demand for his brain, credentials, and experience, so an employer has no choice except to overlook the ink. (According to press reports, he has been ordered to cover his arms during certain media events.)

Contrast that with a recent high school graduate whose only experience is working seasonal retail in a big box store. People with so called "McJobs" at big box stores are usually easily replaced. So if you show up at a job interview with sleeve tattoos or something more exotic, you're not going to be welcomed like someone with a PhD in physics.

And an aside to close: landing a big doodad on a comet has to be about one of the coolest things ever!

happy versus unhappy people

A realization struck me yesterday about the various people I've known well in my life. I don't know how universal it is, but it seems nearly so for people I've known.

Unhappy people always seem quick to blame others for their problems. Things wrong in their life are not because of something they did wrong or some flaw. It's because someone screwed them over or did them in or cheated them in some way. They're always casting around for blame. Whenever they find a target, that person or persons are thus responsible for whatever makes them unhappy. Or so they think.

In contrast, happy people realize problems in their life are because they screwed up somehow or just because accidents sometimes happen. They don't always try to hitch their problems to someone else. By refusing to do so, the problems usually don't seem so life consuming. They screwed up and vow to learn from their past mistakes. Live and learn.

Unhappy people cannot say "I was wrong" or "I fucked up." Happy people can.

Of course, this is a generalization and only applies to the people I have known wll, but I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't a pattern repeated rather regularly.

this makes me angry

My grandfather was born in 1922 and died of a rare form of cancer in 2007. He was, as he described himself, "a country doctor." I was very close to him and spent most summers staying with him and my grandmother on their farm, starting when I was about seven.

Like many people of his era, he smoked starting when he was in his late teens. He tried to quit a number of times in the 1960s and 1970s and finally was successful sometime when he was in his fifties, before I was born.

I always remember him as a healthy, robust, and fit older man. He looked and acted like he was sixty when in fact he was in his eighties. He practiced medicine until shortly before he died and, because most of his patients were his age or older, he still made regularly house calls.

About four months before he died, he suddenly felt very poorly. Although he was a doctor, he couldn't tell what the problem was and ordered some blood tests for himself. The results showed something was very wrong.

He consulted a variety of specialists as he rapidly felt worse. Within a week of first feeling sick, he was diagnosed with cancer. He had a rapidly progressing form that was likely caused by smoking for nearly forty years.

He was very stoic about his diagnosis. I visited him every few weeks during the last four months of his life. With each trip, his downward spiral was ever more apparent. He was lucid and rational until the day he died, notwithstanding the severe pain.

During his illness, in the process of one of our long talks, he said that he had started to read in medical journals as early as the 1940s that smoking was bad for health and could possibly cause cancer. As time passed, the warnings become more prolific and dire.

Like many doctors who were smokers, he was hooked so he continued to smoke. Finally, when the evidence was utterly overwhelming, he quit for the last time.

The advertisement pictured below is from 1952. It very specifically infers that smoking is healthy, what with the prominent (and fake) "doctor" and mentions of health benefits. By then, as their own internal research showed, tobacco companies knew their weed was not only unhealthy but also harmful. Yet they continued their deceptive advertising.

This excellent visual archive at Stanford School of Medicine documents various forms of dishonest subliminal advertising tricks that tobacco companies used to promote the idea that smoking was good for you when they knew it was the opposite. Yet they continued to advertise and do their best to hide the ugly truth.

My grandfather knew better because he was a doctor, at least during the last two decades or so that he smoked. But many people didn't have the benefit of his training and probably believed the ads they saw. After all, if it wasn't true, they couldn't say it, could they?

My grandfather was 85 when he died. Had he not smoked, he may have lived much longer, past 100 as his mother did and his father nearly did. But his life was probably cut short. He was lucky, however. Some smokers die as early as their forties or fifties because of their habit.

I wonder if there are any tobacco executives still alive who were responsible for this shameful deceptive advertising of past eras. And I wonder how they feel today about what they did.

women who hire male escorts

Aeon magazine has a new article up about women who hire male escorts. The article is written more from the female perspective and focuses coincidentally on male escorts in eastern Australia, where prostitution is legal and regulated.

The piece is interesting in part because it examines how male escorts are perceived differently than female escorts as well has what is required of male sex workers in contrast to the female variety.

My husband was a male escort part-time toward the end of his navy career. He was mostly port based then and initially was recruited for a female madame by a fellow sailor who was also in the trade. James decided to give it a whirl both because he could use the money and he also thought it was a great way to have sex without the hassle of picking up women. Like the clients described in the article, most of his were wealthy and successful women not involved in relationships for a variety of reasons.

As is often the case with life, what he imagined it would be like was different than the reality he would come to know. He rather quickly found it was not as easy as he thought it would be; the clients expected to be supremely pampered and he really had to deliver sexually.

For this, I am thankful. Partly because of what he credits to his escorting experience, he is a master at pleasing a woman. I can attest to that. His tongue could be a lethal weapon. One of the escorts in the article is married and his wife has no problem with what he does. I suspect part of the reason may be because he can ring her chimes like few other men could.

James ultimately left escorting because of his extended trip to the United States, but he also said he found the work pretty boring after a while. Other than the sexual release the job offered, he didn't like spending time with women he found to be rather shallow and self-absorbed.

awakening my inner lesbian

I think of myself as pretty solidly heterosexual. On the Kinsey Heterosexual–Homosexual Rating Scale, which rates from zero for exclusively heterosexual to six for exclusively homosexual, I would probably rate myself as a one, defined as "predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual."

Other than the two girl-on-girl porn scenes I did when I desperately needed money, I have never had a lesbian sexual experience. I've been hit on by women but always turned them down.

However, I've always had ménage à trois fantasies: two men with me or another woman, a man, and me. Now that I'm married, I'm less inclined to the two-men variety, although with some exceptions. I could definitely go for Daniel Craig, my husband, and me. (The men, of course, would be strictly hetero in any situation.)

I still would love to do a threeway with my husband and another woman, but he's never gone past the starting gate on that one. That would still be a primarily heterosexual encounter in my mind, but I could see a woman and I doing some things with each other to tease and turn on James. And I would like to watch him fucking her, although he thinks that's very strange.

On occasion I see a woman who, for some reason, makes my motor purr. This woman made my inner lesbian come out of her coma. I could really get into her I think, particularly if I was the dominant one. I showed her picture to James and he was just sort of "meh."

Well, there's always a fantasy version of her available.

windy city madness

The picture shows two acrobats performing on a tiny platform and without a net high above a Chicago street in the 1950s. If you've ever been there, you know it can get quite gusty, hence its nickname "The Windy City." (Right click to see a larger image.)

I grew up in metro Chicago and I remember once it was so windy that a strong gust knocked me flat on my back. I was in middle school at the time, so while I wasn't yet adult-sized, I wasn't a tiny child, either. The wind sometimes can also be quite sudden and go from nonexistent to quite gusty inside of five minutes.

So that would make the two acrobats here doubly insane: (a) for trying this in the first place and (b) trying it in Chicago. I'm guessing they're about 300 to 400 feet above the street, which I calculated by counting the stories in the building closest to them.

This pair apparently did a whole routine up there with gymnastic routines, handstands, and rope skipping. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about this.

the importance of premarital sex

I saw a copy of Ian McEwan's 2007 novella On Chesil Beach on the reshelving rack when I was last in the library, so I grabbed it. I've read the book twice before, but it's a short book that I loved so much so I wanted to read it again.

It's a very simple story, set in the early 1960s. A young man and a young woman are passionately in love and they marry. They are both virgins on their wedding night, which turns out to be an unmitigated disaster.

Like many brides of her era who were pretty clueless about sex, the central female character is probably frigid and also repulsed by the idea of sex. For his part, like many young men of his time, the central male character has thought about sex constantly since he went through puberty, masturbates habitually, and is so easily aroused that he suffers from premature ejaculation.

Both are thus terrified in the honeymoon suite. As a result, these two people are on a disastrous collision course they don't realize is happening until it's too late. I love the book because of the honest emotions and beautiful prose, but its cautionary tale is very important, too.

I think telling a young person to wait until marriage for sex is perhaps the worst possible piece of advice one could possibly give. Being miserly with sex advice for a child is also a horrible policy, too.

When my son is old enough, I sincerely hope he loses his virginity before he gets married. I know my husband feels the same way. And we'll let our feelings be known, too. If we have any more children, the same goes for them.

First sex is fraught with all sorts of possible complications. A newly married couple waiting until their wedding night to discover if they're sexually compatible is nothing short of madness.

downfall

The husband and I watched the extended cut of Downfall over the last two nights. If you're not familiar with the film, which came out about ten years ago, it chronicles Adolph Hitler's last ten days, told through one of his secretaries' perspectives. Much of the movie is set inside his underground bunker fortress.

Neither of us had seen it before, possibly because it's a long movie, clocking in at three hours. We both found it at once depressing and fascinating. The performances as a whole are outstanding, particularly Alexandra Lara as the secretary and Bruno Ganz as Hitler.

I was struck by two thoughts after seeing the film. First was the utter cheapness with which Nazis viewed their own lives. I already knew, of course, they thought that way about the people they persecuted and murdered, but I never realized they thought that way about themselves, too. Everyone was expendable, including themselves, in pursuit of the Fatherland.

The second thought was how political movements can reach a point where they become like religious cults. I never thought of them quite that way before, but the movie really makes clear how the most devoted Nazis were like mindless cult zombies. Other than specific beliefs, the Nazis seemed very much like cultists at the Peoples Temple or Heaven's Gate.

I definitely want to see Alexandra Lara in other roles now, too. She's absolutely stunning.

crack for toddlers

We couldn't take Joey to the park for the last two weeks because he was recovering from his operation. He was pretty active from the day after surgery forward, but we weren't supposed to allow him to do anything too strenuous like climbing.

The park has swings, slides, and jungle gyms, all which are crack for him. He fearlessly climbs on slides and jungle gyms while I see kids twice his age who don't even attempt it. But jungle gym and slide was no-go for two weeks.

We had to drive on special routes so we wouldn't pass the park, which is very near to the house. If he doesn't see the park, he doesn't get it in his mind to stop, but if we pass it by and he hasn't had his fix in a day or two, he makes a face that would send Charles Dickens rushing for his pen.

So yesterday was his first day back at the park and he was ecstatic. Ninety minutes of slide slide slide jungle gym jungle gym jungle gym slide slide slide etc. did not wear him out.

Perhaps he has a future as a gymnast.

the ministry of silly walks

If you design silly walks and marches for your troops, these things are bound to happen. And if you throw around armaments like boomerangs, then don't fuss if things don't all work out.

I could never understand how throwing rifles up in the air was meant to illustrate some kind of military might. It's all about hitting a target. How fancy you can toss it around matters not an ounce.

The same goes for ridiculous marches. What's the strategic military advantage of goosestepping with your feet higher than your waist?

sleeping naked is better

I happened on this news story reporting about a survey concluding that couples who sleep naked are happier than those in sleepwear. The reason is simple: skin-on-skin promotes closeness and intimacy. The happiness rate also declined the more someone wore to bed.

The study didn't delineate between naked and nearly naked. What if you wear underpants but nothing else, like my husband and I? With a child in the house now, we decided total nude sleeping was not the best thing.

And what about people who sleep naked in warmer months but not when it's coldest? On really chilly winter nights, we have on more than underpants. It's either leaving the heat on all night or bundle up.

I'd argue that coldness encourages closeness and intimate cuddling. And who doesn't like that?

hating microsoft

I spent four very frustrating hours yesterday trying to get my laptop to work again.

I was doing some financial stuff online when, all of a sudden, Windows starting acting very wonky -- freezing certain screens, refusing to close others, and taking endless time to load the file directory page.

I decided to shut down and restart, which almost always solves software problems.

Big mistake.

When I turned the machine back on, it started loading Windows update files. That made no sense. Windows hadn't sent any updates in several weeks, and the machine had been powered up and down several times since then.

After the screen showed the progress of the updates hit about 30 percent, it switched to a screen I never saw before, with the ominous wording:

Failure configuring Windows updates.

And then it just sat there, displaying that same screen, doing nothing more, stuck in some kind of endless software loop. I rebooted several times but always ended up with this same frustrating loop result.

I went on the desktop, searched "Failure configuring Windows updates" online, and learned I was not alone. Many, many, many people have had this same problem.

It's caused by a bug in Windows' own updates. Yes, thank you for your glorious fuck-up, Microsoft. Thank you for never informing me, a legitimate Windows owner, that you released a badly flawed update that was waiting to die an inconvenient death.

To add insult to injury, the "fix" on the Windows webpage made utterly no sense. The fix did not fix. It was for shit.

I surfed around and found some other alleged solutions on software forum pages. None of those worked, either.

Somehow, by trial and error, on my own, I managed to fix the problem. I was finally able to circumvent the "Failure configuring Windows updates" screen and do a restore point.

Problem solved.

Microsoft, you owe me four hours of my life back.

my own family scandal

My uncle (who is my father's younger brother) told me something recently in an email that was a shocker: a cousin was the product of a great aunt's extramarital romance and not my great uncle's son. So, technically, he was never my cousin at all. (The great aunt is by marriage.)

The oops cousin in question died under somewhat questionable circumstances in his forties about ten years ago. It may have been suicide, but if not then it was accidental. There's no way the authorities could tell after the death was investigated.

Apparently his parentage was a pretty badly kept secret in the town where all my paternal relatives originated. My uncle knew about it but doesn't know if my father does. Certain other members of the family know, too, while others do not.

The oops cousin learned the truth when he was still a boy. Even though he wasn't his son, my great uncle raised him as if he were. At some point, he let the cat out of the bag in front of the oops cousin.

The cousin-who-is-not-actually-a-cousin did not have the best life. He had substance abuse problems as well as some mental health issues and was voluntarily institutionalized more than once.

Knowing this left me wondering whether his mental health issues and possible suicide were caused to a certain degree by learning about his parentage when he was still middle school aged. He worshiped the ground my great uncle walked on, even though he wasn't his real father.

I can't think that this knowledge helped in any way and that makes me feel sorry for him. My great uncle, who is now also deceased, never should have told him the way he did when he was a boy. Supposedly my great uncle said something very nasty to him about him not being his "true son" and cataloged his supposed flaws and shortcomings. They had a rather dysfunctional relationship; my great uncle generally did not treat him well but indulged him with material possessions.

Emotional abuse of a child makes me very angry. It's just a reprehensible thing to do to a small person who is supposed to be nurtured by his or her parents. I think if my great uncle was still alive and ragging about my oops cousin, if I had known the truth about his parentage, I would have lashed out at him for his emotional cruelty.

Now, however, it's too late. All the parties involved -- the cousin, the great uncle, and the great aunt -- are all dead.

election day v!agra

Today is election day in the United States. I voted weeks ago by absentee ballot, so my vote cannot be swayed.

According to news reports I've seen, 2014 will be the most expensive midterm election in US history in terms of campaign spending. You would not know that from the amount of desperate email pleas from candidates begging for money. You'd think no one sent them anything.

During the 2008 election, I signed up for a few presidential candidate mailing lists so I could learn more about their positions. That was a giant mistake -- all they ever sent were emails begging for money.

So I removed my name from their mailing lists. Problem was, they removed me from their lists, but that didn't stop them from selling mailing lists with my name and email address to other candidates.

Flash forward to six years later. In the last month, I probably received a hundred emails a day from various candidates and political groups begging for money. I asked to be removed from their lists. They complied, but they still sold mailing lists with my name and address on to other candidates.

Some of the candidates were persistent to the point of rivaling viagra spammers. They blatantly used spammer tactics in their email, with enticing fake sender names, strange fonts, and screaming panicked subject lines. Yesterday, for instance, I received an email from "Zoro!" with the subject "PlEaSe We'Re BeGgInG!!!!!" It was for a congressional candidate who mentioned nothing about his positions or even his party, but he did include a picture of his dog.

I've received email from state legislative candidates in states where I've never been, from some guy running for district attorney in some county in Idaho, and from a candidate for the Montana State Supreme court. Some individual candidates have sent, no joke, seven or eight emails in a single day, day in and day out.

I've long stopped wasting time asking for them to remove me from their lists, because I know they'll sell my name to other candidates. I haven't given any of them money, but that doesn't stop them begging for more.

They all now go straight to my spam filter, which doesn't always work. You'd think a candidate's people would realize that, after I didn't respond to the first several dozen emails from them, that all hope was lost. But logic is not their strong suit.

Today I assume it will stop because it's the end of election season. The operative word here is "assume." We shall see.

Whatever the outcome, I can be assured they'll return in 2016 like a plague of locusts, begging for money again.

daylight savings cliffhanger

Because Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, we obviously observe a different Daylight Savings Time system here. Not only is it in the opposite direction, the start and stop come at different dates than the Northern Hemisphere.

Our DST begins the first weekend in October while "up there" ends the first weekend in November. That means for a period between late September and early November, there are three different time zone differences between north and south hemispheres. (Technically, there is a fourth, during the extra hour when the north changes back to standard time in the middle of the night.)

This can create some confusion when we need to call or Skype the US and vice versa. Everybody has to coordinate watches via email or IM first.

(On a related note, I found an interesting webpage documenting the history of Daylight Savings Time.)

I thought of a possible time change dilemma today when I noticed on my calendar that the US was now back on standard time. During the night when DST ends, there is an extra hour, so there are two 1:17 a.m.s, two 1:31 a.m.s, etc.

The military, law enforcement, and other official entities keep detailed logs of time down to the second and what happens. But this could potentially lead to some confusion. What if a crime occurs at 1:37 a.m. during the "extra" hour or some kind of military or clandestine activity happens at that time? How can they keep their logs accurate and avoid mistakes? I asked my veteran husband, and he said he had never encountered the issue during his service.

What if you're arrested for a crime that was documented as having occurred at 1:37 a.m.? Can that create confusion about alibis, evidence, and witnesses? Could an innocent person be convicted?

A clever writer might be able to weave an intriguing thriller using this dilemma. The key, I think, would be to save it for a reveal. A suspect has an ATM receipt and appears on footage as having withdrawn cash at 1:37 a.m., thus could not commit a murder documented at 1:35 a.m. across town. But the hero/heroine realizes that's the night daylight savings changes in autumn, so there were two times when the clock was at 1:37 a.m., thus tripping up the killer.

a thief in the night

The night before last, I had a dream where I stole two new purses from an elegant store. I put the purse I was carrying inside one of the new ones, then that one inside the larger new purse. I yanked off the tags and security sensors and walked out of the store.

I was not caught. Once safely aware from the store, I emptied and threw away my old purse and the smaller new purse, which I didn't even like. I kept the larger new purse.

I recall, during the dream, of having a specific mental process. I didn't like the smaller purse but wanted to steal it anyway. I liked the larger one, which was very expensive, and decided that should be mine, too.

Over breakfast, I told my husband about my dream. In the actual world, I've never stolen anything in my life, save for a semi-pornographic magazine when I was about eleven. I wouldn't even think about trying to shoplift now.

My husband thought it was funny that I feel guilty about stealing in my dream. He is of the belief that whatever happens in dreams, we're not really responsible and shouldn't feel bad about anything. A dream is our subconscious way of living vicariously.

I suppose he's right, but I still can't help feeling a little guilty. If I was so willing to steal in my dream, does that mean I suppress latent desires to steal in my waking life? I will admit I've fantasized about robbing the bank while I'm waiting in line for a teller, but that's really just woolgathering. I don't dream about robbing banks.

Ah guilt -- the gift that keeps on giving.

legal beagles

I think some valid arguments can be made for not allowing video cameras in US Supreme Court proceedings. But then there's the whole First Amendment thing. This video suggests a possible compromise.