As I created my profile, I dutifully answered the questions posed before me (Big mistake No. 1!). I could feel my insides churn as I submitted the information for ‘membership.’ Sure enough, when I clicked on my profile, it is there for the world to see. Holy Molly! Did I have a mini-freak out! First thing I did was look for the word ‘edit.’ I deleted some things I could, but some personal stuff are still there. Thankfully, when I uploaded a photo, it comes out black! I was thinking the universe out there is looking out after me. But of course when you click on the black frame, you will see my face.

Sigh.

I took a deep breath. I chilled. I emailed the administrator of the site. He said he’ll activate the privacy feature. I asked him to make everything I wrote private. After all, I only signed up to try and crash the program. Basically doing QA. To identify the bugs. So far, everything is working. And everything I’ve done is still plastered all over. I think the administrator of the site is getting ready to launch it. He did a good job. I’m sure people will love the feature, but frankly, I am not sure it is for me. Here’s why:

Thanks to Happyslip, who eloquently captured how I feel. From HappySlip

Meanwhile, I am waiting for the administrator to tell me how to turn on the Privacy feature of the program. Or for that matter, where to find it on the site! I scoured that site with my squinting eyes looking for the word ‘settings’ or ‘privacy’ and could not find it. Tip: When given the chance to configure settings as you sign up, DO NOT SKIP the step. It’ll save you a bit of trouble later.

To all my nieces/nephews and friends who have invited me to join some version of this social networking stuff on the web before, know that I agreed to test, OK. That’s it! Yes, I know that your invitations have languished in my inbox never to be retrieved. And that’s final!

Hello Poetic Justice: OJ goes to prison, CEO’s beg and mope, Hummers are STD’s, where are we?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist, Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Baby, you gotta take it all in.

Firstly, the dark side. Plethoric and astounding are the horrors and miseries, twists and swings of a brutal recession, a nation in fiscal calamity. Job losses in the millions. Highest unemployment rate since the Plague. Retail in a tailspin. Retirement accounts gutted, portfolios evaporated, housing bubble now just a sad little puddle on the floor of your gleaming Formica dreams.

And then, the scenes. Shell-shocked stockbrokers holding their faces in their hands, choking back screams, like Edvard Munch with big holdings in Washington Mutual. GM stock as valuable as an old pack of gum. Desperate shoppers stomping each other to death at Black Friday sales to save eight bucks on a 29-dollar DVD player that will break roughly four minutes into the third time it plays that “Fred Claus” DVD bought for two bucks at the dollar store. Fun for the whole family.

Then again, it ain’t all bad, is it? Bright sides are emerging. Upsides matter. They’re just a bit, how do you say, “challenging” to see.

O.J. Simpson is going to prison for many, many years. Are you cheering? Are you raising an eyebrow? To most conscious humans who were of double-digit age around 1994, this headline comes about 14 years too late. No matter. Who among us lived through the white Ford Bronco phenomenon and didn’t sense that somehow, someday, karma was going to nail that lumpish criminal to the wall? It simply took longer than we imagined.

Here is your first reminder: The gods care not for years. Neither do the dead. The devil has come for his due. Hell, for that matter, so have the angels.

Now, look over here. Note the meek and sagging faces of the formerly cocky, once-indestructible, private-jet lovin’ CEOs from the Big Three automakers, sitting like baffled children before an equally baffled Congress, very large hat in hand, begging awkwardly for billions in bailout moneys just to stay afloat long enough for everyone to realize that no one really wants a creaky new Impala. Is this not a scene to behold?

Turns out the only reason we might keep these bloated, non-innovative companies alive is to stem the horrible job losses, to prevent unchecked misery in the populace. Good to know. Because it has nothing to do with how they produce something beautiful or good or of estimable value to the planet. Isn’t that sort of odd? Enlightening?

It’s also sort of refreshing. The truth comes out at last! Yes, OK, American cars arelousy. But give us money anyway because, well, we’re a necessary evil. It’s like Microsoft finally admitting they make middling crap no one wants to use, but we can’t let them die because they’ve secretly fused their lousy software to our very bone marrow. Oh, f–k.

How easily the world flips over. How stunningly everything can shift and mutate. How do you like your spectacle? How do you like your poetic justice? Full of irony and winking mischief? Or straight up, with a bittersweet chaser? Right now, we’ve got it all.

Behold, the Republican party, in bloody Christian tatters. The Cult of Bush paid brutally this past election for all its years of unchecked rapaciousness, cronyism, pathetic kowtowing to the religious right. Justice has been served, albeit with a huge helping of global fiscal meltdown, resentment, a taste in the collective mouth like old Coors Light mixed with coal dust and endless reruns of “The Passion of the Christ.” The pendulum hasn’t merely swung back from those horrible years; it broke off the goddamn chain.

Speaking of reversals of fortune: Have you seen a Hummer lately? The once-King of the SUVs? I doubt you have. Even their sneering owners are now a bit embarrassed. Turns out it’s not just about oil, or fuel economy, or hideous scale, or lousy handling, or awful design. Truly, to drive a behemoth SUV right now is to admit, well, you’re just not all that bright. Turns out Hummers are the O.J. Simpson of the automotive world. How very perfect.

You are being asked to make note. You are being asked to remember this time in your life, perhaps like no other. Document it, photograph it, blog it, Facebook it, iPhone it, lick it, take it into your skin, because there will come a time not long in the future where it all might stabilize and feel normal again, and we will forget. The collective memory is very short. This is both a tremendously good thing, and a very awful thing. Just ask an Iraqi war vet.

See, eight years of Bush was eight years with our feet in concrete. No movement, except toward death. No autonomy, except in choosing how much to hate foreigners and gay people. Only regression, oppression, constriction, nothing built and nothing gained and nothing created, except for a massive wall of negative feelings, a deep sense that we can’t survive much longer. And, oh my God, we surely didn’t.

And now, the dam is bursting, and behold the poisons and treasures pouring forth. Even Bush himself, with mere hours to go before signing his name to one the ugliest chapters in our history, finally admitted to the national crisis. He actually said the word “recession” aloud, pronounced it correctly and everything. Which is a bit like walking through New Orleans a month after Hurricane Katrina and saying, yes, I think there’s a bit of water damage here. Thank you, George, for finally cementing your legacy.

Are you keeping any sort of track? How few months ago was it that the mission was accomplished and SUVs were flying off the lot and there was simply no way on angry fundamentalist God’s white earth that the righteous and inherently racist United States of America could ever even entertain the thought of electing a young black president?

It wasn’t a generation ago. It wasn’t a lifetime ago. It wasn’t even three Coldplay albums ago. It was but three or four little bitty years. It was right there. And now it’s gone.

So, I ask again, only half rhetorically. How do you measure your poetic justice? Your karmic retribution? Your shifts and upheavals? Can you take it all in? How wide, really, is your lens?

Thoughts about this column? E-mail Mark.

A few days ago I got a call at 3am from my sister in law telling me my brother just had a heart attack.  I have an instinctive response to pick up the phone when it rings in the middle of the night. Not always a good idea because there are a few out there who make calls in the middle of the night out of a dis-ease of the mind.  But it is precisely for reasons like this that I pick up.  I want to be there when someone calls because they need to.

My brother is in a hospital in another part of the planet, a place I’ve never been to and up to now didn’t really have any burning desire to visit. He is there with his wife. They have some new found friends, but no family. I am thinking it might be nice if they had some access to family at this time. So I’m thinking of going. Before this, I was dreaming of a quiet holiday season, tucked away in my little apartment, tending my sunflower sprouts and stinging nettles in between walks in my neighborhood. I don’t like to run around much during the holidays. I specially like to be home when the new year starts. It is just a good way for me to declare that I’m in the right place when the new year announces itself. There is a comforting thought in that for me.

But I’m imagining my brother needs me. Oh, he’ll manage without me showing up there. He’s still alive and will be out of the hospital soon. His wife, although exhausted from the ordeal of having to deal with doctors, hospitals and a foreign language to boot will manage too.  They always have.  So I could easily opt for the comforts of my home and offer support from afar.  

Nah. I think the thing to do is to forgo my comforts and find time to make someone else as comfortable as possible under their difficult circumstances. After all, isn’t this the spirit of giving?  What better way to give than to offer a shoulder to lean on, an extra pair of hands to do the daily chores, an extra mind to offer perspective.  

I guess I’m off to China for the holidays!

This morning I gave my son and his wife a ride to the train station. They were on their way to visit her family for Thanksgiving. They are a lot more relaxed about getting ready and being at the airport in time for their flight. On the other hand, I tend to pack days ahead and will be at the airport hours before my flight. Anticipatory anxiety I guess. The amazing thing is: they always make it. OK, sometimes just barely make it, but they do. So I could just chill.

So now am back in my apartment. Just had my breakfast. Am in front of my computer. Responded to emails; watched a few clips of Charice singing Because You Loved me at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Good to see she didn’t freeze. Didn’t like it that they cut off her song with a commercial break, but I guess they’re on a tight schedule. Everything has to be orchestrated on cue.  I noticed she wasn’t waving to the crowds like everybody was. I imagine she was getting ready for her song. I was chuckling imagining that she probably would have enjoyed being a spectator instead of riding on that float!

An earlier video of the Good Housekeeping float showed Charice waving to the crowd.  Ahh, she was into it. Glad to see.  Although I think this parade is a bit of a spectacle that tend to drive me running for the other direction (prefer quiet places), still, it’s good to see people enjoying it. And if you’re going to be in it, might as well have fun!

I like the fact that I get to celebrate Thanksgiving Day in quiet. I hope my children and their families are having fun appreciating the day. To me, gratitude is appreciating one’s life – whatever the circumstances may be. Life is a gift! To fully appreciate one’s life is to celebrate each day in gratitude. Thanksgiving is not just one day out of 365. It is a way of life!

Have a Happy Daily Thanksgiving to all!

A fearless person is not afraid of being afraid; he/she could be extremely afraid of whatever, but is not unseated by said fear. A fearless person IS fundamentally OK amidst ANY circumstance really.

As I sat listening to my teacher, a thought crossed my awareness:  ”Wow. A life unshackled!”

I do not recommend wheatgrass and kale either.

This is hard. Heaven knows I’ve made my share of decisions which, in retrospect, I’m not entirely certain were correct.  But this much I knew then and know now: I did the best I could. Under the circumstances, I made my choices based on what I could live with. And in that sense, the decisions were correct. On the whole, my children and I are friends, but we certainly have had, and continue to have, our differences. One thing I’m still learning is how to let go.

As a parent – and I think this is shared by parents everywhere in varying degrees! – I want what’s best for my children.  My view of what’s best is of course framed by MY ideas of what’s good for humans, in general, and for my children, in particular. And furthermore, this view is driven by what I wish they’d have in their lives.  In my case, I’ve always wanted for my children to be healthy and happy. Why not wealth, you ask? Well, in my view, if you are healthy, happiness comes easier and money is no sweat because you are able.

Given that as a backdrop, the likely things I’d comment on or try to sway them towards would include things like:

• What they put in their mouths
• What came out of their mouths
• How they related to the world
• How they take care of themselves
• How they take care of each other
• How narrow or expansive their view of the world

That covers just about everything, doesn’t it?  :) So I can only imagine what went through their heads as I steered them towards my idea of healthful living!

The fact is, your child is not your child. Not really. At best, they teach you how to be a parent. They do that by forcing you to face what’s important to you and help you be true to yourself. So if this child is headed towards flunking school, at some point, you’ll have to let her. AND you’ll have to do it in YOUR terms.  What do I mean by that?  Well, if you’ve tried everything you know to help, then perhaps the next option is to back off.  But this time, no private schools, no tutoring, none of the sort. Only the rules of the house apply.  You allow time for homework. And permission for the next activity (TV?) is granted once the homework is done. No fighting about it. Just apply the rule. And if she does the homework, but doesn’t submit it, you cannot do it for her. So let it be. Flunking is not the end of the world.  All you can do is be there when she needs you.