An Inside Look at My Family’s Annual Thanksgiving Talent Show, 2009 Version

  

I performed Jojo’s famous disappearing box trick.

Quote of the Week: “Ruining my life was the best thing I ever did.”

A couple of weeks ago I posted that quote on Facebook and upset both my family, my wife, and many of our close friends.

Seriously, though, marrying Becky ruined my life.

When I went away to grad school, I had made plans with a certain theater in the city that when I returned I would live in the crawl space above the stage rent free in exchange for directing shows for them for free.

Then Becky came along.

…and ruined all of my dreams…utterly destroyed them.

…for the better of course.

Becky ruined my life and destroyed my dreams in the same way that Michelangelo ruined a perfectly good piece of marble to create the Pieta or in the same way that a baby chick destroys its egg in order to be born.

No longer was it so important to me to direct plays in New York City that I would sacrifice everything else in my life for that dream.

Everything I had planned no longer seemed as important as having her in my life and I’ve never regretted it.

Sometimes the thing that you think you want blinds you to other things that might be better for you.

Things That Have Been on My Mind in November in a Word Cloud…

Everything I know is wrong…except that last statement.

Why do we always remember the great thinkers of our time for being right?  It’s more impressive that before they thought they were right, they thought they were wrong.  Copernicus is remembered for proving that the planets rotate around the earth, but I think it’s more important that he grew up believing that the earth was the center of the universe and at some point he thought, “Wait…what if I’m wrong about this?”  E. Donnel Thomas proved that bone marrow cells infused intravenously could repopulate the bone marrow and produce new blood cells.  This is impressive, sure…but more impressive is that he once thought the task to be impossible, and at some point he thought “Maybe I should revisit the idea.”  Right now the folks at the Large Hadron Collider will likely explain the origin of mass in the universe.  Once they do, that’s what they will be remembered for…I’m going to remember them for being the ones to ask, “You know, what if there is a reason for mass in the universe?”

These thinkers were great because they overcame deeply-held paradigms, but at some point of each of these peoples’ lives they had to think, “Wait a second…maybe I’m wrong about this.  Let’s see…” and they proved that they were wrong…even thought most people see them as proving themselves right.  What they were actually doing is proving their original paradigms wrong.

The scientific ones often get the spotlight, but these kinds of “I think I’m wrong” discoveries happen all the time in every field.  Gardner was trained in pedagogy to believe in an idea of absolute intelligence and believed it, but then thought “What if I’m wrong about this?  What if there’s more than one way to measure intelligence?” and mapped out seven groundbreaking ways of measuring intelligence…because he sought to prove himself wrong.

The ability to prove oneself wrong is one of the most important signs of intelligence.  Think of the state the world would be in if the Greeks had never moved past the notion that the earth was flat…or if our founding fathers had believed that taxation without representation was fine…or if our parents’ generation had accepted their parents’ generation’s idea that inter-ratial marriage was immoral.  Every great movement in history has started with someone thinking, “What if I’m wrong about this?”

Try it today.

Think of something you believe and consider, “What if I’m wrong about it?”

You might not think you are…but think of what an exciting breakthrough you could have if you were!

 

Working at CUNY, you’ve got to be careful of making typos.

The y and the t are far too close to each other on the keyboard for a company called CUNY.

My Opinion on Climate Change, Part Two: Who Can You Believe?

I’m a skeptic.  If you tell me something without irrefutable proof, I’ll doubt it.  The planet is really getting warmer?  Really?  Not that I’ve noticed…see this guy over here says the planet is actually getting cooler.  That sounds doubtful to me as well.  I guess one of them could be true, but is it worth betting on either side?  They sound pretty far fetched to me.

I mean, I’m not a scientist. I’ve never read any of the reports “validating” climate change or “refuting” climate change, and even if I had I probably wouldn’t understand it. Without any understandable evidence, how do I decide how to act?

Pascal suggests a wager when arguing the existence of God.  Even though it cannot be proved through reason, Pascal says that people should live as though God exists. A person living as though God exists he has everything to gain and nothing to lose. If he’s wrong, no harm done: he winks out of existence; if he’s right, he’s in like Flynn.  The man living as if there is no God puts you with nothing to gain and everything to lose.  If he’s right he’ll wink out of existence just like the pious man; but if he’s wrong he will find himself faced with a very angry God.

In the same way, it makes sense to act as if our planet was in crisis. Living this way gives us everything to gain and nothing to lose. If you preserve the earth and find that the crisis was true, you’ve just saved humanity; if you find that there was no crisis, you’ve still got the planet and it’s in better shape than when you started averting the crisis that never would have happened. If you live as if there is no crisis and find that the crisis never comes, no real harm done…except the cosmetic damage done to the earth.  On the other hand if you find that there is a crisis, you’ve just destroyed the hope of mankind’s survival.

Seriously.  If the fatalists are to be believed, what is possibly at stake is the survival of humanity; how much would be too much to do to possibly save the future of our species on this planet?

What harm could come from heeding the warnings?

What harm could come from ignoring the warnings?

I’m not a scientist, so I won’t tell you that there is a global crisis, but it seems to me it’s worth believing in…

Finally Got a Haircut and Reached the Epitome of Attractiveness (For Me)!

“Just a trim…nothing fancy.”

For the sake of my niece and my wife, the age of Mohawks is over.

“How do you comb it? Just forward like that?”

This is my gay hairdresser speaking.

“Yeah, I guess.  I don’t want to spend too much time on it in the morning.”

This is me realizing that perhaps I should be a bit more metrosexual.

“…but look. If you comb it back, like this…”

He sprays down my hair and slicks it back.

“…you will look almost sexy.”

I laugh.

“No just simple is fine.”

Then as I’m sitting in the chair, my thoughts stray.

“Did he say, ‘almost sexy’? Really? That’s the best I can possibly do? The best haircut he can suggest is one that makes me almost sexy? Is actually sexy really the best I can be in this world?

As if he can read my mind he keeps playing with my hair.

“Yes, you look almost sexy now.”

>sigh<

Halloween pictures: mission accomplished

There’s the “official” pictures that were downloaded onto the computer just before it went into the shop. Until we get it back, here’s the pictures that we took on Halloween proper.

This year’s costume wasn’t quite as esoteric as last year’s Suede and Stella, but it still took people took varying amounts of clues to figure it out.

Anyone that figured it out just from the cane got five points.

(I was going to paint the cane, but figured that doing it in PhotoShop and gluing flames on would look better.)

If I caught anyone eying me as if they were trying to place me, I’d bring out the Vicodin bottle and pop a pill.

If they got it at that point, they’d get four points.

(Thanks to Lil Sis for the prop.)

If they still looked perplexed, I’d take out the dry erase marker and write a symptom on my white board (aka Peeps).

Two points for guessing it at this stage.

(Notice what she’s holding.)

Last clue was she and I playing catch with the BOUO.

(Bonus points if you called it the “Ball of Unknown Origin”.)

One point if you guessed “House” at that point, two points if you guessed “Drug Addict Doctor” (which someone actually did), because really if you know who House is you should have gotten it several clues ago.

Pictures as soon as I can!

Wordcloud for October: Things I’ve Been Talking about this Month

My Opinion on Climate Change, Part One: Putting the Cart before the Horse

Although we were plentiful in cherry tomatoes this year, I really wished we had apples.

A wise man said to me, “Do you know when the best time to plant an apple tree is?”

“I guess ten years ago would have been nice.”

“Correct.”  He paused.  “Do you know when the second best time to plant an apple tree is?”

I shrugged, disappointed in my lack of foresight.

He said “Right now” with a comforting smile.