Friday, August 08, 2014

We bomb at midnight... or whenever...

This morning's headlines keep reading - or, at least, I do - that we're bombing Iraq again to help save lives.

Now, you might find this cynical but look at the bright side. We're one of the few nations in history ever to save lives with high explosives, and we're certainly in the minority as far as thinking we can.

You can't solve every problem by throwing money at it, the Republicans have told us all these years but as it turns out you can solve them by throwing bombs... or dropping them. I say, let's solve more of our problems. Bad transmission? Drop a bomb on it! Melting glaciers? Drop a bomb! Heck, I think we should fix Congress right about now. Don't you?

(This rant brought to you by the Peoples Who Ain't Been Bombed Yet For the Bombing of the People not there anymore because we have...)

Saturday, August 02, 2014

Busy at home at work at home together apart together…


I’m sitting at my desk on a muggy, summer afternoon, thinking about my marriage and what a strange place we’re in.

And I thought, What the hell! Let’s write about it!

We have so many friends and people in our families who live “traditional” lives… you know, the marriage, the house, the kids, the crap… I know Vicky likes it because she gets to enjoy it on a “visitor” basis but it’s downright annoying to me. I don’t know why but I’m not that keen on the traditional setup.

Vicky and I don’t have kids and I have grown comfortable like that. Not only is it okay, it’s just fine by me. I don’t think Vicky will ever be completely comfortable and that makes me sad but that’s not how things have worked out and I, personally, am happier going with the flow, accepting what is rather than wishing for what isn’t.

In a way…

You see, as much as many of those we know have gone the traditional route, Vicky and I have surprisingly… not.

We don’t have kids. We’re not really big joiners. We aren’t especially attracted to material objects.

The two of us found what we love long ago and recently – in the past year, at least – things have really begun to take off with what we love. In case I’m being too vague, I’m talking about our jobs.

Yep.

Vicky and I are workaholics.

We both love what we do. Vicky loves running her company’s paralegal team and teaching college courses, etc. etc. etc. I love writing books and recording audiobooks and creating new videos and hosting my podcasts, etc. etc. etc.

I don’t think either of us have ever been so fulfilled in what we do.

… and yet, I’m sitting here at my desk on a muggy, summer afternoon… and I’m considering all of these things… and what does not escape me is the fact that Vicky is about 10-15 miles across town right now, doing her thing.

This strikes me as so weird because there’s no one I love being with more than Vicky. I love taking adventures with her. I love laying in on a weekend morning with her and watching a race. I love going to Target with her to buy Q-tips. I don’t know why this is. I’m just smitten.

And, all the same, we’re spending our days apart. We spend many of our days apart. Because we love what we do.

And we love each other.

I suppose it’s not “traditional.” It may not even be healthy.

But I’m proud of her and she’s proud of me and though I hate when she’s away I love when she comes back. It may sound strange to say we love our lives spent working most of the time without kids and without each other that much… but we do.

And I probably wouldn’t trade it for the world.