Blogga-Looba!Blogga-Looba!A series of essays ond observations on political, cultural and personal events, both large and small, by an Atlanta-based psychotherapist and pundit. Articles
Lost In The Wilderness
2007-12-10 03:23:00 An old high school friend just asked me by email if I was one of the people she remembered had been "lost in the wilderness and had to be found". I'm going to answer that question here as part of my recent ongoing effort to wear my life on the outside for anyone to see rather than keeping so much of myself unavailable to others as I've done for so long. I'm going to try to make this tale short, More About: Lost , Wilderness , Derne
Another Noteworthy Sentence
2007-12-08 05:35:00 Some time ago I wrote about sentences I never imagined hearing. My idea is that if you had long enough to dream up a million sentences that you could possibly imagine hearing in your lifetime outside of a Bob Dylan song, life would still catch you off-guard from time to time if you only paid close enough attention. Today I heard another one to add to the list: "Close the baby giggle completely More About: Sentence , Wort
Billy
2007-12-05 00:52:00 I've been playing around with the idea of adding a "y" to my name and becoming "Billy ". I doubt this will gather much traction but it's interesting to notice the desire within myself to alter my name. When my Uncle Charles was in his 60's he changed his name to "Chuck", and now that I am approaching my second half-century I think I can appreciate his motive. I was never Billy as a child,
Who's Afraid of a Large Billboard of a Black Man?
2007-12-02 00:36:00 My faith community (the Atlanta Friends Meeting) has been addressing the topic of racism for quite some time now. I have concern about the general chest-thumping stridency with which the topic tends to be addressed, but it has helped me to hone my awareness of racially insensitive stereotyping I harbor within myself. I don't think it's possible for anybody to escape the pernicious effects of More About: Black , Billboard , Large
Bugs Bunny and Opera
2007-11-29 05:49:00 I was reminiscing about the hours of enjoyment I had as a kid watching the "Bugs Bunny Roadrunner Hour" on Saturday mornings. So on a whim I went to YouTube and immediately found some of my all-time favorite episodes which I still vividly remember almost 40 years later. The picture quality is pretty marginal but the laughs still hold up, as my kids can attest. Anybody who watched this great More About: Opera , Bugs Bunny
Little Old Lady Land
2007-11-26 01:06:00 I just returned from visiting my elderly mother who is slowly descending into Alzheimer's disease. This affliction claimed both of her siblings and I reckon it's going to come after me someday. I won't go without a fight, though. I'm going to work hard to keep my brain active and sharp, under the adage of "use it or lose it." My mother is blessed to have round-the-clock care that allows her More About: Lady , Land
"Yves Meatless Skewers" : Giving Ugly A Bad Name
2007-11-21 05:32:00 I've written before about my vegetarian lifestyle, including the travail of trying to get enough protein sources into my kids (loyal readers will remember I'm now the house cook). We recently held a veggie burger cook-off where I served up a variety of vegetarian hamburger patties to determine which ones were the house favorites. Almost all received high marks but the winners were the Boca "All More About: Giving , Ugly , Yves , Skew
My Wife's Sword Wound
2007-11-18 05:44:00 This is the best kind of story: short and funny. A few months ago Gina cut her finger while slicing bagels with a sharp kitchen knife. The angle and depth of the cut made it necessary for her to go to the hospital emergency room for a few stitches. The good news is that it healed quickly and left only the faintest scar. A few weeks ago she received a phone call from a representative of her More About: Sword
Praying For Rain on the Capitol Steps
2007-11-15 04:14:00 Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, along with representatives from a variety of faiths — Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu — conducted a prayer vigil on the steps of the state capitol yesterday to petition God to end the historic drought we are experiencing. I have partly cloudy feelings about this. I wish he would have widened his circle by inviting a Native American to perform a rain dance, More About: Rain , Capitol Steps , Steps , Capitol
Movie Review: Serenity
2007-11-11 02:30:00 I was flitting around on Netflix looking for a film to watch as a family when I stumbled upon "Serenity ", a 2005 PG-13 science-fiction movie that I totally missed on its theatrical release. Since the reviews for it were uniformly positive I got it for our family movie night and I'm very glad I did. It's a thoroughly enjoyable, adventurous, brisk and action-packed movie with good special More About: Movie , Movie Review , Review
Taking The "Select A Candidate" Quiz
2007-11-08 05:45:00 One of my friends sent me a link to "Select A Candidate ", a quiz that helps people determine which current Presidential candidate is most representative of their views. Apparently I'm a fan of Chris Dodd and didn't know it (Gina thought he was "that guy on television", but it turns out she was thinking of Lou Dobbs). The first thing I learned about Dodds is that his website is terrible, More About: Quiz , Taking
A Fantastic Front Porch on the Sun
2007-11-06 02:32:00 I've had a bizarre image in my head for over two years, so maybe writing about it will lessen its hold on me. It started in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when President Bush toured the Mississippi Gulf Coast (not far from where I grew up). Surveying the damage, he said: "The good news is that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of More About: Front
12:34
2007-11-03 05:39:00 I wanted to post something short and couldn't decide what to write, when I looked at the clock and found the answer: 12:34. 12:34 is the coolest time of all. If I happen to look at a clock when it is 12:34 then I am a cool guy. Notice 12:34 and you are cool too. There's just something about that "one two three four" that is deeply pleasing. 12:35 is too late (sorry, but you can try again in
Halloween Pictures
2007-10-31 16:01:00 Enough with boring Halloween decorations! I've decided that this is a good holiday to let part of my "shadow" side emerge, so I've begun arranging pumpkin tableaux that have a bit of an edge to them. It started in 2005 with the following scene that shows a pumpkin in one of Gina's old lab coats sawing into the head of one victim and drilling into the head of another, while a decaptated head More About: Pictures , Allo
Bruce Springsteen's "Magic"
2007-10-30 19:46:00 I can't remember the last compact disc I bought. I generally purchase any songs I want to hear online or just listen to XM Radio a lot. But while I was in Starbucks this weekend I saw Bruce Springsteen's latest release, "Magic " and so I yielded to the impulse to purchase it. Just for fun let's both pretend that you care why I bought it and what I think about it. I had read several glowing
Movie Review: Michael Clayton
2007-10-29 18:47:00 I don't get to the movies very often so when I do I want to feel like it was time well spent. I admit I generally go to the Rotten Tomatoes website to get a sense of what's worth seeing at the moment, which is how I wound up watching "Michael Clayton" this weekend. I highly recommend it. Probably the worst part of this movie is simply its title. Can you think of anything less inspiring for a More About: Movie , Movie Review , Review , Michael Clayton
Disaster Porn
2007-10-28 02:08:00 The news coverage devoted to the California wildfires this past week certainly seemed justified due to the obvious historic importance of the tragedy. Still, I felt uneasy about long camera shots of houses in front of the encroaching fire lines that would combusted on camera until they were totally engulfed in flames. CNN even gave the option of going to cnn.com to watch such images More About: Disaster , Aster
Butt Cake
2007-10-23 02:04:00 My wife Gina is a family nurse practitioner ("FNP" for short, or as we say around here, "f...in' P!") who works (and I mean she flat-out big-time double-dog works) in the women's division of the Infectious Disease Program of Grady Health System, the local public hospital/healthcare system in the Atlanta area. She treats some of the sickest individuals I have ever heard of, who are all some More About: Cake , Butt
Embrace Your Inner Squanto
2007-10-18 05:29:00 I sometimes develop a kind of “word tic” in which I become temporarily infatuated with the sound of certain words that I then repeat over and over for no particular reason. It’s not like a Tourette’s thing, just a personal peccadillo of mine, a harmless obsession. A recent example is “mer-people”, which I first heard from my daughter. I went through a period where I’d wander around saying “ More About: Embrace
Gross
2007-10-13 04:12:00 This is all about gross stuff involving a variety of different species and the things that come out of them. You have been warned. Gross story #1: When my kids and I walk our dog Nala through the neighborhood I'm the designated pooper scooper in the crowd. I've gotten pretty handy at using a plastic grocery bag as a kind of glove to grab up her droppings to carry until we either finish our
ACTS: My Other Blog Site
2007-10-10 04:42:00 I have fun writing these various observations and commentaries, but some people don't know that I also maintain a separate blog site devoted my thoughts as a therapist, called Atlanta Counseling and Therapy Services. While that's not a very exciting name it has the advantage of showing up fairly high in search engines when people type some combination of the words "Atlanta", "counseling", and " More About: Blog , Site
Songs That Reference Other Singers or Bands
2007-10-07 00:48:00 For no particular reason I began noticing songs that contain lyrics referencing other musicians, singers or bands. I began writing a few down, and the list has continued to grow. I bet there are scores of other examples that I hope other people will post. Here is my collection, in no particular order. The format is: "Song Title", by Artist "Lyric mentioning other singers or bands" “ More About: Songs , Bands , Reference , Singers , Refer
Gut Feeling
2007-10-04 03:11:00 Earlier this year we decided as a family to help each other focus on healthy eating choices in order to reduce our body mass index (BMI) which was a little too high for all of us. We decided to weigh ourselves twice a week and my son developed a graph to chart our progress. Gina and I had weight-reduction goals, but we wanted the kids to just maintain at a stable level so that their body More About: Feeling
Adapting to the Drought
2007-10-01 03:38:00 There seems to be mounting evidence that the dire environmental world of the future is upon us today. This week the director of Georgia's Environmental Protection Agency has banned all outdoor water use for the northern third of the state. The azalea bushes I've been nurturing alongside my driveway for the last two years gasped in horror and plaintively asked me what I was going to do. (Like More About: Drought
I Want To Marry Imitrex
2007-09-26 14:18:00 For most of my life I've suffered from debilitating migraine headaches. When they hit me I develop nausea, extreme sensitivity to light and sound, and increasingly excruciating pain in various parts of my head and neck. For years I could only retreat to bed with an ice pack and a bowl or bucket for hours at a time until I either threw up or eventually went to sleep. The more I took More About: Marry
Football Dad Follies, Part II: Pump-Up Music
2007-09-23 18:12:00 My son's football team is doing very well so far this season, with 3 wins and no losses. I've previously written about the youth football experience, but today I want to post an addendum about music as a motivator, because I just compiled a CD of "pump-up" music to fire him up before a game. Lots of athletes use music to get them in the mood for competition. He and I have fallen into the More About: Music , Football , Part , Pump , Ollie
Why I Don't Shop "The BrandsMart Way"
2007-09-20 03:08:00 There is a small chain of appliance/electronics stores in Florida and Georgia called BrandsMart where I've never shopped and probably never will. I'm sure the prices are very competitive but their advertising drives me nuts. Everything about it annoys the piss out of me. The announcer screams for the entire commercial and the price of every item ends with "88". (Hey, I wonder if they know More About: Shop
Train Horn Blues
2007-09-17 05:17:00 I think my neighborhood is mighty fine, but houses that are for sale here tend to stay on the market longer than average because of the adjacent railroad crossing where freight trains pass by more than 40 times a day with their horns blaring. It took me about two years to get used to their extremely loud noise, especially at 3:30 in the morning. It’s funny how I can now sleep soundly through More About: Blues , Train , TRAI , Horn
As A Parent I Sometimes Struggle.....
2007-09-14 04:11:00 As a parent I sometimes struggle to be firm without being punitive, fair when doling out expectations and consequences, and able to find teachable moments in the daily interactions and dramas of family life without coming across too preachy or pedantic. An example presented itself to me yesterday involving my son, my daughter and a book of Roz Chast cartoons. My 8 year old daughter wanted to More About: Parent , Some , Pare
Football Dad Follies
More articles from this author:2007-09-11 21:18:00 My 12 year old son plays on a youth football team and I care way too much about how well he and his team do. I know in my heart of hearts that it's no big deal if they win or lose (and I especially repeat this to myself over and over when they lose). Still, I am very happy for him when they are victorious. This past weekend his team, the "Vikings" won their season opener 21 - 0. With More About: Football , Ollie 1, 2, 3, 4 |
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