Re: Go Small And Stay Home

1

Holy shit. Seriously, do you just feel particularly strongly about not dreaming up plans you can't execute? Do you move quickly from "I should x" to "I am in the middle of x" to "I've done as much of x as I want"? Because that is an enviable fucking life, and of enormously more interest to me aspirationally than real estate of any dimensions and cost.


Posted by: lurid keyaki | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 8:43 PM
horizontal rule
2

Asking your wife to kill you isn't nice, even if you give her twenty years notice.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 8:44 PM
horizontal rule
3

My retirement plan is to die on a weekend.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 8:51 PM
horizontal rule
4

Wouldn't that disappoint the vulture?


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 9:03 PM
horizontal rule
5

Do y'all have these things, these...ambitions?

No.

Just for clarity, what is the difference between an ambition and a desire? I mean okay, you can lay the trivial definitions of feelings/affects and goals, but what turns "I want to live to be 100" from a desire to an ambition? Planning?

All my life I have even had to struggle to have desires, it was a noticeable quality, and I usually tried to turn desires into duties, responsibilities and vice versa.

Samsara recently watched, is a nice movie about a Buddhist monk who leaves the monastery to start a family, and then ten years later returns to the monastery. Wife argues, and the choice is not clear at the end. Not so far from Kim Ki-duk.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 9:08 PM
horizontal rule
6

Does "eating fish when it's not on sale" count as an ambition?


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 9:21 PM
horizontal rule
7

Wow, checking out 62 in the thread below, is Ogged really old enough to start his mid-life crisis male menopause thing?

I mean, what does it all mean?

It all means nothing, or whatever you say it means, or whatever you let somebody tell you it means.

It is all circular nonsense, to let desire duty, and only works because the narcissism of self-respect that is pride is the source, most pleasant. and most cardinal of sins. Feels so fucking good to watch yourself serving others.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 9:25 PM
horizontal rule
8

sb desire equal duty


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 9:28 PM
horizontal rule
9

I was thinking there must be some connection between this and 62 in the other thread, but couldn't quite put my finger on it.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 9:37 PM
horizontal rule
10

I've been reading some of the old dating threads where it seemed ogged had very strong feelings about what he wanted out of life on that front. It's interesting to see how that's turned out.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 9:48 PM
horizontal rule
11

I'm surprised that the Caucasus region, especially Abkhazia IIRC, didn't make the blue zone cut given those yogurt commercials I remember when I was a kid. Was it all a lie?


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 9:51 PM
horizontal rule
12

I think I have the same ambitions as ogged, except the pay for college part. I don't want to die in my sleep soon, mind you.

I'd probably have more ambitions if I ever showed signs of being someone who followed through on things.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 9:52 PM
horizontal rule
13

One of my friends apparently just got some "good meds" from ogged's wife's former hospital. Not that ogged or his wife had any involvement, of course, but it was an interesting coincidence.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 9:53 PM
horizontal rule
14

11: Doesn't Georgia have unusually long life expectancies? I think I remember reading about that at one point.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 9:54 PM
horizontal rule
15

Ha. My wife is great and I'm not having a midlife crisis. I'm just back in an office for the first time in seven years, and I'm having a feeling very much like "I saw the best minds of my generation trying to get people to click on ads." The absurdity of the information economy (and its inequalities) is just particularly fresh at the moment.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 9:59 PM
horizontal rule
16

Have you tried the absurdities of medical research?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 10:03 PM
horizontal rule
17

Maybe his wife has.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 10:04 PM
horizontal rule
18

I mean, who knows if it will work or not, but if it does work, I'll know what I did to move it along.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 10:05 PM
horizontal rule
19

Also that hospital has lost almost all its permanent staff and it's not surprising that someone who is probably a locums doc would say, sure, here's the good stuff, I won't be here long, now go away.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 10:05 PM
horizontal rule
20

Have hospitals like that ever had much in the way of permanent staff? My perception is that they've always been pretty dependent on a transitory workforce.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 10:08 PM
horizontal rule
21

The bar was weird tonight because of some street market thing. People kept looking in the window to see what the bar was like. If they did come in, they would ask questions like, "Can he smoke that in here?" before leaving after one beer. Then regular people showed up. Apparently, the regular people went to the street market too.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 10:11 PM
horizontal rule
22

Anyway, the prospect of an early death stalks us all.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 10:12 PM
horizontal rule
23

And I have no idea what she specifically meant by "good meds." For all I know that was a completely appropriate prescription.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 10:12 PM
horizontal rule
24

"Good meds" means the frosted Percocet.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 10:13 PM
horizontal rule
25

My whole bedroom smells like a 5-alarm fire in the Mission, ladies and gents. The week of the Boston Marathon bombing was also one of these shit-piled-upon-shit weeks, I recall. No others spring immediately to mind.

I have loads of ambitions, but they're almost all officially on hold tonight. "Close the browser and read a book" is not on hold.


Posted by: lurid keyaki | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 10:13 PM
horizontal rule
26

When we were there, more than half the docs had been there more than ten years. It might have have been a fortunate interlude--and recruiting was always really tough, as you can imagine--but all those people left within the last few years. It seemed, based on interactions with other hospitals, that they got a mix of really good, mission-driven doctors, and washouts who couldn't get hired elsewhere (we had those, too). But now that hospital is just about entirely locums docs and washouts.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 10:18 PM
horizontal rule
27

Until this thread, I never heard the term "locum", now I'm wanting to use "locum ipsum" in a sentence.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 10:22 PM
horizontal rule
28

25.1: Yikes! Glad you're okay.

26: Yeah, I don't really have a good sense for what's typical and I'm mostly just going on what I understand from the experiences of my parents and their friends, which are shaped in large part by the specifics of the '70s and '80s, which may well have changed. AFAIK none of my parents' friends from that period are still with the IHS, but then again that's a long time to stay in that kind of job.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 10:24 PM
horizontal rule
29

I'm almost 20 miles away. Over the course of the evening I went from scowling about neighbors' unappetizing reeking barbecue to thinking it was maybe a building fire in the next town over, to checking the news. Ugh. Displacement in SF is a nightmare; I hope for the best for all those people.


Posted by: lurid keyaki | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 10:41 PM
horizontal rule
30

I'm almost 20 miles away.

Glad to hear. I don't have a very good sense of distances in the small states.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-18-16 10:44 PM
horizontal rule
31

I've got a job lined up for September, and I have a few vague ideas about directions in which I might like my working life to head in the next twenty years.

Personally? Not get fat. Maybe have a proper haircut?

I am having thoughts about the house. With a second child going off to university this autumn, we might do some bedroom rearranging. That's not really an ambition though, is it?

I dearly hope to have a home free of offspring at some point.


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 4:52 AM
horizontal rule
32

I am working on developing plans/goals/ambitions -- I'm in a place where they suddenly seem necessary. I'm starting with getting rid of an awful lot of shelving (Buck's moving out with his stuff, and I'm purging books as well.) and probably the piano, and a whole bunch of houseplants.

That's going to expose wall space, which means that I should buy some things to hang on it.

Also, now that I'm single, I should probably develop a hobby other than knitting. Trapeze? Trapshooting? Bowling? Something, anyway.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 6:03 AM
horizontal rule
33

That's going to expose wall space, which means that I should buy some things to hang on it.

You know what really ties a whole room together? A mcmc! (By the way, it's pronounced "emcee emcee".)


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 6:11 AM
horizontal rule
34

Do you get to keep the apartment? Do you actually want to?

Also, I heard posting on eclectic wen magazines is a good hobby. Personally I think you should write long form stuff.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 6:13 AM
horizontal rule
35

"Good meds" means the frosted Percocet.
Not the disgusting whole wheat kind.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 6:19 AM
horizontal rule
36

Also, now that I'm single, I should probably develop a hobby other than knitting. Trapeze? Trapshooting? Bowling? Something, anyway.
Crossfit, probably.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 6:21 AM
horizontal rule
37

You can knit yourself some muscle-warmers.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 6:21 AM
horizontal rule
38

I'm not going to claim it's a healthy kind of ambition, but a lust for revenge certainly helps with formulating specific goals.

I hear.


Posted by: Swope FM | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 6:33 AM
horizontal rule
39

38: Montresor, is that you?


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 6:39 AM
horizontal rule
40

32: Bowling. You'll have wall space for trophies.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 6:45 AM
horizontal rule
41

30: That's about 1/3 the average width of Wales.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 6:52 AM
horizontal rule
42

You know,, with life insurance, you could make enough money to pay for college while dying in your sleep. Efficiency.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:14 AM
horizontal rule
43

I am working on developing plans/goals/ambitions

Last night I watched an utterly insane Japanese movie from the 60s* that, among other subplots, featured a woman who was breeding a new species of super deadly insects to wipe out humanity (because SCIENCE). That would keep you busy for a while, and the newly freed up space could serve as a laboratory.

*Apologies for treading on Bob's tursf.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:20 AM
horizontal rule
44

We watched In the Heart of the Sea last night. I'm feeling ok about having an indoor job, even after a very bad quarter, cash-flow-wise. The cold I've been having for a week know has devolved into the cough so hard you get a headache phase, and the sciatica is such that it only hurts if I'm upright. Still better than being chased by a (justifiably!) crazed whale.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:25 AM
horizontal rule
45

43: Don't know it by description. Imamura's The Insect Woman is a rough proto-feminist New Wave classic, but the lead's ambition is to run a brothel.

I do thank you for reminding me of that poetic classic, Titptree's Last Flight of Dr Ain, this time with a few moments contemplating the gender politics. Dr Ain commits his xenocide in order to protect and preserve Gaia, Mother Earth, deliriously imagined as a beautiful young woman. Hmmm...masculine patriarchal romanticism as inherently anti-social and murderous? Or something even darker.

"Nor could he have, although Ain had been intimately with her in the university time. He had let no one see how he was obsessed with her; with the miracle, the wealth of her body, her inexhaustibility. They met at his every spare moment; sometimes in public pretending to be casual strangers under his friends' grave formality; And later in their privacies--what doubled intensity of love! He reveled in her, possessed her, allowed her no secrets. His dreams were of her sweet springs and shadowed places and her white rounded glory in the moonlight, finding always more, always new dimensions of his joy.

The tape-recorder they put by his bed functioned right on through, but if anybody had been around to replay it they would have found little but babbling. "Gaea Gloriatrix," he crooned, "Gaea girl queen . . ." At times he was grandiose and tormented. "Our life, your death!" he yelled. "Our death would have been your death too, no need for that, no need."


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:58 AM
horizontal rule
46

45.1: War of the Insects (Konchû Daisensô). From 1968.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 8:08 AM
horizontal rule
47

The world is so full of lies about how awesome science is.


Posted by: R Tigre | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:07 AM
horizontal rule
48

42 is precisely my plan. My wife thinks it's crazy to pay cancer-survivor insurance rates, but a plan is a plan (as soon as I decide I'm staying at my current job, anyway).


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:09 AM
horizontal rule
49

I'd be happy dying peacefully in my sleep, so long as there are giant stone monuments to my reign that wil endure for millenia.


Posted by: R Tigre | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:09 AM
horizontal rule
50

48 is a good plan. Both Mrs y and I are worth more to the other dead than alive in cold cash terms. It's strangely comforting to know.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 10:00 AM
horizontal rule
51

49.
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 10:01 AM
horizontal rule
52

Pvt. Joe Bowers: Why me? Every time Metsler says, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way," I get out of the way.
Sgt. Keller: Yeah, when he says that, you're not supposed to choose "get out of the way." It's supposed to embarrass you into leading - or at least following.
Pvt. Joe Bowers: That doesn't embarrass me.


Posted by: bjk | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 10:20 AM
horizontal rule
53

48: Where I am, you can get life insurance up to two times your annual salary without answering any questions at all. That's all I carry now that our kid is ten. I don't want my wife to get any ideas and I figure enough to pay off the house and bury me is all that is needed.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 10:48 AM
horizontal rule
54

Love is great and all, but if you marry somebody who understands economics, you never want the net present value of your death to be greater greater than zero.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 11:00 AM
horizontal rule
55

Huh. I'm still in the window where I could murder Buck for a substantial profit. Probably shouldn't, thought.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 11:10 AM
horizontal rule
56

I don't understand the OP. How can you not want to attend the funerals of all the contemporaries you couldn't stand? Plus what about the ambitions to swim around the world?

I'd just like to make it to retirement. My sig indicates I'm past retirement age but I'm living the old punch line about retirement party will follow the wake.


Posted by: No Longer Middle-Aged Man | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 11:16 AM
horizontal rule
57

55: You waited too long.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 11:20 AM
horizontal rule
58

Once there's paperwork filed, you become suspect #1. Before the paper is filed, everything against you is just gossip.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 11:21 AM
horizontal rule
59

That's why life insurance tied to work is the best. The instant keeping you alive becomes less attractive as an option because of the diminished future income stream, the option of making you death becomes much, much less profitable because the insurance goes away.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 11:27 AM
horizontal rule
60

That's what I said about being in the window. Paperwork is being drafted, but nothing's actually been filed yet.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 11:32 AM
horizontal rule
61

I misunderstood. Go right ahead.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 11:35 AM
horizontal rule
62

I thought you just meant he hadn't changed the beneficiary yet.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 11:35 AM
horizontal rule
63

The seller and I agreed on my buying the house, so I no longer have the consolation that if Lee died I could pay off this current house (which is fine even though paperwork is filed, because I'd administer the trust benefiting the girls that her life insurance would fund, or mine if things were the other way around which we all need to hope they will never be) since now it doesn't matter.

Breaking up is sort of a good time to reevaluate what you're doing with your life, though that's maybe easier to do if there's not an ugly complicated custody disagreement and three smallish emotionally needy children. I'm maybe taking up needlepoint if I can figure it out, but that's not much of a stretch. Buying a house and leaving this neighborhood also doesn't seem big. Will I run for school board in two years? Maybe. Maybe go back to school, maybe figure out how to do something meaningful with my life. I'll have another bare yard to plant, so there's that. But I think maybe I'm fundamentally a small-plan person who secretly has big wishes?


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 11:36 AM
horizontal rule
64

||
This is kind of a fun article about Subaru's intentional targeting of the LGBT community back in the '90s.

Also it reminded me how completely oblivious the highschool version of me was to these issues. ("Wait, "Get out. And stay out." has a second meaning? What is it?")
|>


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 11:41 AM
horizontal rule
65

I might have been better off with more ambition -- I've always been bad at motivating myself with personal goals (I think I've described myself before as, "competitive but not ambitious"). I used to have hobbies, but over time they've mostly fallen by the wayside.

I occasionally wonder, if I won the lottery and had excess free time, how long would it take me to figure out what I liked doing (aside from "work" and "not work" which my current settings). I feel confident that I would be able to develop interests, but not overnight.

OTOH, my work may be in a weird little niche, but I can take the satisfaction that a bunch of what I've done wouldn't have happened without me -- some of it would have been done by somebody else, but a good chunk of it wouldn't have been done by anybody, and that is satisfying.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 12:39 PM
horizontal rule
66

Oh sweet Thorn, "maybe figure out how to do something meaningful with my life" you've done that already.

I've always wanted to make needlepoint pillows based on Pompeian mosaics and cerval and elephants from Sicilian baroque façades photographed by Anthony Blunt.


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 1:47 PM
horizontal rule
67

51 - the presumed message of that poem (all grandeur is fleeting, or something, so who cares about grandeur) always seemed stupid to me.

Ozymandias built awesome stone monuments to himself that were so awesome that people were still talking about them centuries later! That's amazing! What the fuck can you do to do that's better than that? Awesome stone monuments! Ozymandias!


Posted by: R Tigre | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 1:49 PM
horizontal rule
68

I was going to comment on the general lack of ambition shown by the commernters here, but then Halford showed up.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 2:00 PM
horizontal rule
69

Ozymandias hell.

Anton Yelchin. Jesus.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 2:14 PM
horizontal rule
70

OT: I think a slug crawled into my grill and left a trail of slime on the inside of the lid.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 2:18 PM
horizontal rule
71

That's not really OT. Sounds like an ambitious slug to me.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 2:19 PM
horizontal rule
72

My ambition--which had been the painful combination of ill-defined and unrelenting--mercifully shut itself off like a year or two ago. I hope it's permanent. I'm teaching myself to read Russian from a 1961 textbook I found which is fun because there's absolutely no reason for me to read Russian and no one who cares if I do. It's going ok. Паук. Лом. That's about it. Keep my dog and child alive, I guess. My pay-for college plan is "college is so unfathomably expensive that by the time Stabby Jr. is old enough for it something will have to have changed." Is that not everyone's?

Re. newly single person hobbies: More than one person tried to get me to join a Brooklyn yuppie shuffleboard league as a way of meeting people post-separation. I didn't do it bc deeply, deeply not in my nature but from what I hear those shuffleboard people fuck A LOT.


Posted by: Clytaemnestra Stabby | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 2:32 PM
horizontal rule
73

My pay-for college plan is "college is so unfathomably expensive that by the time Stabby Jr. is old enough for it something will have to have changed." Is that not everyone's?

You think a year is enough time for a fundamental change in the cost of higher education? If so, I'm golden.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 2:35 PM
horizontal rule
74

73: If we start the arson right now I think a year is plenty of time to make a significant dent.


Posted by: Clytaemnestra Stabby | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 2:36 PM
horizontal rule
75

72.last: Maybe curling?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 3:08 PM
horizontal rule
76

FEEL THE BURN, BLOATED INSTITUTIONAL OVERLORDS OF NEO-LIBERAL DOMINATION.


Posted by: NOT DONE YET | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 3:10 PM
horizontal rule
77

Also, now that I'm single, I should probably develop a hobby other than knitting. Trapeze? Trapshooting? Bowling? Something, anyway.

Jam-making is fun and if not exactly profitable the results are useful. Not very social, though.

48 is a good plan. Both Mrs y and I are worth more to the other dead than alive in cold cash terms. It's strangely comforting to know.

Why strangely? Every day you wake up is another confirmation of your partner's love, or something.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 3:42 PM
horizontal rule
78

||

I should have booked a return flight from Berlin using miles when I could, because it seems to be next to impossible now. Oh well! At least Glasklar still exists!

|>


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 3:43 PM
horizontal rule
79

I wanted to try jam making, but I was afraid it would compromise my self-preservation.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 3:51 PM
horizontal rule
80

If I died, probably nobody would have said that. Except maybe Stanley and he's doing something else how. I think that counts as an ambition.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 3:53 PM
horizontal rule
81

Is it ambitious to want to grow a decent hydrangea shrub? Because if so, I've just sacrificed an azalea bush on the altar of my hydrangea ambitions. It's a cutthroat business that we in the suburbs call 'gardening.'


Posted by: Just Plain Jane | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 4:19 PM
horizontal rule
82

My neighbor has great hydrangeas. Also, nice shrubs.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 4:25 PM
horizontal rule
83

66.1: But but but I have the rest of my life still!


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 4:40 PM
horizontal rule
84

The Colossus of Thorn bestriding the Ohio river would be pretty meaningful. Just saying.


Posted by: R Tigre | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 4:42 PM
horizontal rule
85

Bernie just needs to be more ambitious, then he could end up with giant stone monuments himself; public works, needed infrastructure, all that good stuff. http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/17/bernies-tragic-flaw-too-soft-on-clinton/


Posted by: roger the cabin boy | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 5:09 PM
horizontal rule
86

My ambition is to have one of those sudden massive strokes from which one never regains consciousness. Done everything else I've wanted to do and could do, now I'm hoping the lights go out without involving lots of mess or screaming.


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 5:32 PM
horizontal rule
87

85: O, please. Bernie, having waited too long to graciously concede (there's no shame in losing, except when you stubbornly refuse to admit defeat, and get all conspiracy-theory and whack-a-doodle about open primaries or such-like) has been squandering his leverage by the day. Where are his tax returns, by the way? Not that I give I flying f*ck, but isn't it funny how he refuses to release these documents?


Posted by: Just Plain Jane | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 6:32 PM
horizontal rule
88

I'm expecting, any day now, suspended animation technology that works safely on humans to be invented. Then my kids can wake me up for brief periods whenever they want me to perform grandfatherly duties and put me back to sleep once everyone else has had their fill of me .

I mentioned this once to a close friend who's a physicist, and thought that a reasonable substitute would be to place myself in a solar orbit at near light speed (so that time could pass and I'd not feel it), again with my kids being able to decide when to pull me out of orbit and send me back into it. He did some back of the envelope calculations and concluded that it would take so long to get me up to speed and to slow me down as to make it not worthwhile.

Not so much an ambition as a plan (hope being my plan!)


Posted by: marcel proust | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 6:53 PM
horizontal rule
89

88: If you'd been paying attention in space shanty class you'd already know that time dilation creates more family problems than it solves.


Posted by: Opinionated Brian May | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:02 PM
horizontal rule
90

87-You are pretty far out of date there. If you want to participate in political discussions you should try to be at least minimally informed. http://time.com/4296683/bernie-sanders-tax-returns-2014/


Posted by: roger the cabin boy | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:03 PM
horizontal rule
91

Um, his tax returns that he released in April, you mean? Or, like, ones from 2010 or something?

Also it's not remotely clear to me what people even think they mean when they say leverage if he's losing it - moral suasion or polite appeals to the benevolence of others? Is the idea supposed to be that he concedes, vanishes entirely from the face of the earth, and somehow as a result the Democratic party shifts to the left as a result of that and all the people he organized immediately turn into Clinton supporters overnight and no one remembers anyone ever thinking differently or something? If you took seriously the idea that he wanted to pull the party to the left then he's doing exactly what you'd expect right now: he's shifted from talking about winning the nomination to talking about going to the convention with his delegates and pushing for reforms there. Seriously, this kind of contempt is really getting pathetic in the face of what is actually happening.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:04 PM
horizontal rule
92

My main ambition is to avoid being fired in three years, which doesn't sound too ambitious if I say it that way so let's leave it at that.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:07 PM
horizontal rule
93

The ones released in April go up to 2014.


Posted by: roger the cabin boy | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:14 PM
horizontal rule
94

92: Three years based on traveling at 0 m/s with reference to the Earth's gravitational system or will you return after traveling at speeds approaching that of life?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:14 PM
horizontal rule
95

The Colossus of Thorn bestriding the Ohio river would be pretty meaningful. Just saying.

I dunno, I can't help feeling the vibe would be too upskirty, which is maybe sexist of me. I could aspire to be more broad-minded.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:28 PM
horizontal rule
96

life s/b light.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:33 PM
horizontal rule
97

the vibe would be too upskirty,
Feature, not bug


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:34 PM
horizontal rule
98

95: There would be a bunch of people demanding that that statue be of a man. "Teabag the Ohio" would be their slogan.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:36 PM
horizontal rule
99

Those that insist the man be sculpted in a swimsuit will form the Benevolent Order of the Mooseknuckle.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:51 PM
horizontal rule
100

10 years ago my ambition was to do the famous kind of writing. Journalism or fiction, I'm not picky. My time at even a small newspaper, run by friends of the family (the state's"only twice-weekly newspaper"!), was enough to disabuse me of that. I never could have handled something more serious.

5 years ago I was too busy living my life to think about ambition, and I mean that in a good way.

Now? Eh, stay middle-class, keep my daughter from eating too much cat food or sucking on the neighbor's e-cigarette too much, and put her through college, no shame in a public school. Seems doable.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 7:54 PM
horizontal rule
101

I could aspire to be more broad-minded.

I thought you were plenty broad-minded already.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 8:01 PM
horizontal rule
102

My ambition is to be born in the same hospital as two NBA MVPs duking it out in a memorable NBA finals.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 8:04 PM
horizontal rule
103

"Speed of Life" reminds me I haven't listened to Low for a while.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 8:06 PM
horizontal rule
104

"Speed of Life" reminds me I haven't listened to Low for a while.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 8:06 PM
horizontal rule
105

My new ambition is to get the phrase "Benevolent Order of the Mooseknuckle" into a small town newspaper.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 8:10 PM
horizontal rule
106

If I'm being honest with myself, I still have some aspiration* to write publicly - if not published in some prestigious place - but I've never developed a healthy relationship to actual writing. My internet experience has basically been decline, as I started out writing a bunch while dropping out of grad school and being unemployed, and now can't even meet a reading group chapter summary schedule.

*ambition is too strong a word


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 8:13 PM
horizontal rule
107

Speaking of stay home* I'm at the gate about to fly to "Miami, F L A" as I can't help thinking of it. The extra pain in the fucking ass security at the gate makes me hate both the terrorists and the security state all the more. I'm in an extra grumbly mood today which is not helped by my driver oversleeping this morning and if someone near me doesn't silence their phone soon someone may get slapped. Who wants to fight a pissed off librarian?

*how's That for a shitty segue.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 8:31 PM
horizontal rule
108

Still feelin' fighty. Where is everyone? Thorn? Bob?


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:09 PM
horizontal rule
109

Silence is the new unfogged late-night reality.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:17 PM
horizontal rule
110

Is everyone watching basketball or game of thrones or some shit?


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:21 PM
horizontal rule
111

I'm feeling fighty, except I mainly took it out by berating my boyfriend for breaking the plastic cap of the rubbing alcohol while he was driving me to Target. Maybe irritable is a better way to put it.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:24 PM
horizontal rule
112

There are two screaming fucking babies at the gate. My luck they'll be sitting right behind me.

He was drinking running alcohol while driving? How did he ever manage that? And inadvisanle at any rate. You are right to be irritated.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:28 PM
horizontal rule
113

Motherfucking autocorrect, how do it work?


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:28 PM
horizontal rule
114

"Is your alcohol running?"

"Better go catch it!"


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:33 PM
horizontal rule
115

Silence is the new unfogged late-night reality.

I'm usually around, but I don't always have much to say. And I'm not very fighty.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:34 PM
horizontal rule
116

You could be wrasslin bears teo!


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:36 PM
horizontal rule
117

running alcohol ... inadvisanle

Here, text your SO the following: "I am craving baked goods."


Posted by: lurid keyaki | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:38 PM
horizontal rule
118

116: I think the bears would win.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:39 PM
horizontal rule
119

I fought the bear and the bear won : the teofilo story (as told to the ER doctors in Anchorage General)


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:44 PM
horizontal rule
120

You gotta make a suit like that guy in the Herzog movie.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:46 PM
horizontal rule
121

120: I haven't seen it, but the bear still won in that case, right?


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:48 PM
horizontal rule
122

Fuck me. 15 hour flight to Miami is fucking full. Thought I'd at least have the seat next to me empty. No screaming babies yet so there's a plus.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:49 PM
horizontal rule
123

Noise cancelling headphones. Don't leave home without 'em.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:50 PM
horizontal rule
124

Could be worse, woman behind me says her seat is damp but is declining offer by flight attendant to change it.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:51 PM
horizontal rule
125

123 Sold.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:52 PM
horizontal rule
126

Bloody hell that is a toddler right behind me crying and kicking my seat.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:53 PM
horizontal rule
127

I smell pee pee.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 9:56 PM
horizontal rule
128

Fuck. 15 hour flight and no USB charger in the seat. Fuck you Arrakis Airways.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 10:01 PM
horizontal rule
129

Here, you can read this soothing wikipedia article about the founder of Lawsonomy. "The human race must learn to act together as one body just as the menorgs within man act together as one body." I must have seen that sign off I-94 near Racine at some point.


Posted by: lurid keyaki | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 10:01 PM
horizontal rule
130

Actually, with no USB charger, maybe don't bother. :(


Posted by: lurid keyaki | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 10:02 PM
horizontal rule
131

My menorgs are unbalanced.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 10:03 PM
horizontal rule
132

I'd rather have a book of laws in front of me than a frontal Lawsonomy.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 10:10 PM
horizontal rule
133

I'm not sure what, but I think it means something that the author of the article linked in 85 was a philosophy professor.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 10:17 PM
horizontal rule
134

133- They are used to staking out extreme positions and holding on no matter how unpopular?


Posted by: roger the cabin boy | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 10:31 PM
horizontal rule
135

I have only one ambition which is to live long enough to spend some time retired because if my entire adult life is spent working it has been a giant mistake.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 10:44 PM
horizontal rule
136

One of my friends on FB who lives in Barry's part of the world just posted a complaint about kids on long-haul flights similar to 126. So at least you're not alone, Barry.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 10:54 PM
horizontal rule
137

My ambition right now is to be able to sleep despite the heat, which isn't even very great.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 11:04 PM
horizontal rule
138

Someone on okcupid just wrote to me and the first sentence of her profile is '"California is so ugly," said NO ONE EVER!', which suggests that our personalities would be somewhat dissonant, and not in that good St. Vincent way.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 11:05 PM
horizontal rule
139

Weirdly happy about the Cavs. Cleveland fuck yeah! Not sure if it's just a good underdog story, or because the town was so overdue, or if it's because basketball nerdery had gotten so excessive and so associated with the Warriors, or just because I really really hate the Bay Area (but not nec Oakland but still). I guess all of the above. Still, haven't had as good a feeling from sports in a while.


Posted by: R Tigre | Link to this comment | 06-19-16 11:13 PM
horizontal rule
140

Well. I'm around again, usual fall right asleep...for two hours and then stare at the ceiling or toss and turn. Somebody complaining about heat? Dew point hell in Dallas. Here we go, self-preservation lets us forget these summers.

Fucking knew Tigre would like Cavs. Fuck LeBron.

Aparna Sen, The Japanese Wife, 2010, made me cry last night, if you are looking for women directors.

Umm why not. Remember me saying sweeps season, so no interesting anime? Mayoiga turned out interesting. 26 or so varied Internet losers damaged people follow an ad get on a bus to disappear to a hidden mysterious village to start new lives. "Lost Village" (characters also mean Illusion House) turns out to be deserted and dangerous.

11 episode anime original, no manga or novel, was created by a pair of the most acclaimed directors and writers, and had the internet spinning for three months. Director would for instance have people walk in front of somebody's monologue. "That's bad directing" "This director is brilliant, he's doing it on purpose. Intentional bad is still bad. No it isn't."

"This isn't Scream or Airplane, this parody is too subtle. That's what is funny, that you are not even sure it's parody."

15 characters sitting in a room, talking fast, interrupting and over each other.

Girl A:"And I went into the tunnel and there was a giant rabbit..."
Guy B:Giant, how big?"
A:Maybe3-4 meters.
B:How close were you, things look bigger...
C: Are you counting the ears?
D: You could guess the height by measuring from the ceiling to the top of the head.
E:How big is a highway tunnel?
D:10 meters?
B:Not that big.
F:I remember the signs, truck clearance 5.5 meters.
G:That's underpasses and bridges, tunnels are bigger
H:What kind of rabbit was it?

Internet A: These people are idiots, why did I watch 10 minutes of that in a 250 minute total series?
Internet B:It's kinda funny?
Internet A: Not that funny, just bad writing.
Internet B:That's what's funny.

And by the end, it even turned out moving and meaningful.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 12:08 AM
horizontal rule
141

I was rooting for the victor who would minimize the number of stupid hot takes, which I think would have been GS, but I'm not sure. This was a particularly stupid finals, since people would say either the Warriors couldn't win the big one, despite beating the Cavs in the finals last year, or that Le Bron couldn't win the big one despite having already won twice and almost single-handedly dragging the Cavs to victory last year. If GS had won, we wouldn't have to listen to how they were soft, plus we could mock sportswriters for not giving Le Bron the finals MVP.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 12:35 AM
horizontal rule
142

I was rooting for the victor who would minimize the number of stupid hot takes

That's a sucker's game. We live in the age of infinite stupid hot takes, regardless of the subject. The trick is to ignore them.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 12:40 AM
horizontal rule
143

Oh and don't like him, but LeBron is now officially my GOAT.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 1:32 AM
horizontal rule
144

I could only ignore them by ignoring all sports coverage, which while smart is not a step I'm ready to take.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 1:39 AM
horizontal rule
145

We all hate hot takes, but they're popular. Below, I go on at length about why I think that is, what it says about us as a culture, and conclude that the issue isn't the hot take as a genre, it's the need for analysis itself.

[1500+ words, containing at least one personally experienced anecdote; one citation to someone associated with criticism, possibly but not necessarily an academic; and at least one pop culture reference omitted]

Hot takes satisfy our craving to be heard, to declare I not only am, but I have thoughts. Hot takes, written hastily, may lack depth, but they are profoundly human.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 1:51 AM
horizontal rule
146

I hate you so much.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 2:00 AM
horizontal rule
147

LOL


Posted by: roger the cabin boy | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 2:20 AM
horizontal rule
148

90: "Sanders has yet to release his tax returns from 2015, saying in Thursday's debate that he has been "a little bit busy lately.""


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 2:47 AM
horizontal rule
149

If he requested the automatic six month extension his 2015 taxes aren't even in yet.


Posted by: roger the cabin boy | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 2:49 AM
horizontal rule
150

Um, his tax returns that he released in April, you mean?

No, not the 2014 tax returns that he released in April. I mean the returns for 2015, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010... He has not released them.


Posted by: Just Plain Jane | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 4:00 AM
horizontal rule
151

or if it's because basketball nerdery had gotten so excessive

I'm too cranky to watch that fucking dirty officiating anymore. If I want to watch a sport that filthy I'll turn on cycling.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 6:02 AM
horizontal rule
152

138 is hilarious.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 8:20 AM
horizontal rule
153

I'm close enough to Cleveland to have gotten emotionally involved and celebrate their victory, but....still find myself weaving conspiracy theories.

The NBA wanted this to be a 7-game series -- hence the Draymont Green suspenision for game 5, and the odd fouls called against Steph Curry in game 6. Normally tptb wouldn't have cared who won game 7 -- expect for Ayesha Currry tweets saying the game was rigged. This had to be punished. Steph Curry got a visit and was told, the Warriors are going to lose this game, but this time the refs aren't going to throw it, you are. Did you see how badly he was missing his 3-point shots in crunch time?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 8:28 AM
horizontal rule
154

No, not the 2014 tax returns that he released in April. I mean the returns for 2015, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010... He has not released them.

So what?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 8:29 AM
horizontal rule
155

153: This is getting to be a thing -- "except" not "expect" ! Idiot!


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 8:29 AM
horizontal rule
156

154: Well, he's obviously hiding something!


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 8:30 AM
horizontal rule
157

156: Itemized deductions for his wife listed as "Business expenses related to hastening the demise of a doomed college."


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 8:39 AM
horizontal rule
158

"Bernie look, I've been working in tax law for fifteen years and I can assure you that "cocaine related expenses" cannot be taken as a deduction even if you use it while working. It just can't."

"That's not what it says on this livejournal page!"

"Yes I see that but it still can't. We need to redo this year's return entirely."

"Ah..."

"Wait how many years have you been claiming this deduction?"


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 8:48 AM
horizontal rule
159

154: THEY WILL PROVE HE IS JUST ANOTHER POLITICIAN AND HYPOCRITE
HILLARY GETS CRITICIZED FOR WHAT EVERY MALE POLITICIAN DOES
GOLDMAN SACHS, FORSOOTH

NOBODY HAS CONSIDERED THAT MAYBE BERNIE GETS $500,000 A SPEECH FOR SPEAKING TO THE OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE! OR THE LIONS CLUB OR THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD


Posted by: OPINIONATED GRANDMA | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 9:25 AM
horizontal rule
160

Someone on okcupid just wrote to me and the first sentence of her profile is '"California is so ugly," said NO ONE EVER!'

I think I can field this one.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 10:22 AM
horizontal rule
161

Good memories of nosflow's first date Grisey concert strategy!


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 2:19 PM
horizontal rule
162

Thanks, nosflow, for making me feel better about the choice to leave that site. There were way too many profiles where "Oh, um."was pretty much the only available response.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 4:34 PM
horizontal rule
163

It's been a while for me, but wasn't that how not-internet meeting people worked.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06-20-16 5:32 PM
horizontal rule