Ted Hughes To His Son

Live like a mighty river.
I am glad to get the reminder today from Andrew Sullivan because I've been meaning to read about Hughes and Sylvia Plath, starting with Janet Malcolm's book, and maybe even approach his poetry. If it's anything like this letter, it's damned good.

Clean ALL The Things

Adult is hard.

Marriage Matters

I just received some news that could permanently change my life. For the better.
Sorry, I can't say what it is.
But even if it doesn't change my life, the possibility and its factual source challenge me to rethink my thinking about some core beliefs. And we all know how resistant we are to that challenge.
With that in mind, I think this note from one of Andrew Sullivan's readers is appropriate.
No, my life-changing news has nothing to do with marriage. At least I don't think so.
But the reader does talk about how marriage changed his life and his mind in ways he never dreamed possible.
Nice to know I'm not alone in this challenge.

At Last My Dream Come True

prom dress rugby.

Just Another Day in Paradise

Community Pool in Penglai in Sichuan Province, China via Jon Taplin's blog. Well, at least there's no smog. Sort of reminds me of WALL E. Great little movie, highly recommended.

Something to Think About

Andrew Sullivan has a different quote up from a funny and on-point essay by Clay Shirky, someone I've never heard of before. But that's the beauty of the internet, it's full of people with something to say that I've never thought about before. File this under "what it all means."

I'm choosing a different quote, the lead-in, because you rarely see something this good at the beginning of an even better essay about the social transformation we're immersed in because of technology.

I was recently reminded of some reading I did in college, way back in the last century, by a British historian arguing that the critical technology, for the early phase of the industrial revolution, was gin.

The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor for a generation. The stories from that era are amazing-- there were gin pushcarts working their way through the streets of London.
And it wasn't until society woke up from that collective bender that we actually started to get the institutional structures that we associate with the industrial revolution today.

Balloon Twisting Fun

Pour yourself a little wine, relax, 2 minutes.

Fear Of Failure?

Consider this.

Gotta Move My Back

Huh?
When nobody has your back, you gotta move your back.

Cool advice from Esquire's 75 Things Every Man Should Be Able to Do.
Most of 'em good for me, too.
Liveblogging this:
Well, not scoring a baseball game, but still.
Not throw a punch, either. Cooking I got. Not outdoor grilling, though. Heh.
Nobody needs to know how to chop down a tree. That's what chainsaws are for. I missed the memo on escape paths though.
Square footage, check.
Bow ties? No! No.

42. Talk to a dog so it will hear.

Go ahead, use baby talk.

No more liveblogging. They're all good, even the ones you don't need.

Kudos, Esquire, especially the one about women's orgasms.