The Real Despair of Adam Miller

Update: All went well on Thanksgiving. Good food, good times.

So I watched "The Real Housewives of Orange County" last night on Bravo for the first (and hopefully last) time. I don't even know where to begin. I fought a brief bout with nausea during the opening credits when they all took turns saying what money meant to them. Let's just say that I'll be a happy man if I ever have a family that loves me as much as these women love their money. Highlights of the hour included: a mother forcing her obviously uncomfortable 18 year old daughter to take her top off at a photo shoot for her first modeling job, a 21 year old son going clubbing with his mother and her exceptionally lame (but rich) boyfriend and everyone trying to act like it wasn't super awkward and more than a little creepy, and the whole group getting obnoxiously drunk at lunch. Darcy and I had a conversation afterwards about whether or not the wives realized they were the punchline of an unfunny joke. We settled on "No."

Why don't we just call this whole series what it actually is: "Al Qaeda Recruitment Footage?" Seriously, who can watch this show and honestly wonder why the terrorists hate us? When I watch this show I hate us for all that we are and all that we stand for to the rest of the world. Then I hate myself for watching it. There's plenty of hate to go around when this show is on.

One positive effect of the whole experience was to reemphasize my commitment to keep cable TV out of my home, at least for the immediate future. And all it took was a single hour of reality television. Well done, Bravo network. Well done.

Wish me luck

Well, I am very much looking forward to Thanksgiving with Adam, Mary, Lauren, Andrew and Robin. And Darcy too. Darcy's cool. We don't want to forget her. I will be missing Ben. Drinking beer and watching football all day won't be the same without him. And without being at his house and getting to watch his cat attack Andrew's face.

A few days ago I somewhat rashly (and quite possibly foolishly) declared that I would prepare a couple of dishes to bring. I was a little upset when I realized that Darcy had volunteered to bring only things that she makes, specifically pies and appetizers. See, I enjoy cooking. I'm also better at it than Darcy. She bakes, I cook. That's the way it generally goes in our house. I especially enjoy cooking for friends, so Thanksgiving is right up my alley and I was a little irritated at being left out of the preparation plans. "What about cranberry sauce???" I asked furiously. "And cornbread! People need cornbread! It's Thanksgiving, for the love of Myles Standish!" I didn't really say that last part, but it would have been funny if I had. Go ahead, look up Myles Standish on Wikipedia. I'll wait.

Long story short, in a fit of passion I exclaimed that I would make cranberry sauce and cornbread for Thanksgiving dinner despite the fact that I've never actually made either one. Or personally seen the process of making either. Not to be deterred, I looked up some recipes online and, much to my relief, discovered that cranberry sauce is quite easy. We also found an awesome looking recipe for southwest style cornbread. Should be spicy.

Hopefully all goes well.

I'm it.

Looks like I've been tagged and have to share 6 things about myself. Thanks, Robin. Here it goes...

1) Since my freshman year of college my favorite band has been Radiohead. My second favorite band is a constant revolving door and has included The Smashing Pumpkins, The White Stripes, Bright Eyes, The Shins, The Decemberists and Wilco at various points during the last seven years.

2) I recently renounced my lifelong Nazarenity in favor of the Mennonite church. It's kind of a big deal. See, I attended Greentown Church of the Nazarene for my entire life. My parents (and Darcy and I) were married there, and my maternal grandfather physically helped to build the church. He did the roof and some bricklaying. I also attended Mount Vernon Nazarene University where my dad was a member of the first graduating class. I repeat: It's kind of a big deal. Darcy has a similar story. We also doubt that we're lifelong Mennonites since we don't think we share much with the Mennonites we've known from the Midwest. We're more "California Mennonites." We're leaning toward United Methodist or Episcopal in the long term.

3) My favorite writer is Kurt Vonnegut. I picked up Cat's Cradle from the public library one morning when I was bored the summer before my sophomore year of college. I began reading in the early afternoon. I paused for about 20 minutes to eat dinner. I'm sure I went to the bathroom at some point. I finished it around 8:00pm. A few days later I returned it and checked out Slaughterhouse-Five. I have read every novel and (I think) every short story he's written. I've also read his non-fiction books and, as far as I know, all of his articles for various publications. He's not the best author I've ever read (from a literary point of view). He's no Philip Roth or Ralph Ellison or James Joyce. He is, however, highly accessible and he deals with postmodern and existential themes that resound with me personally. In addition to the two books mentioned, I also enjoyed Mother Night, Bluebeard, and Jailbird a great deal.

4) I'm a lifelong fan of Cleveland sports teams. It's a curse, really. The Browns haven't won a championship since 1964. The Indians haven't won since 1948. The closest the Cavaliers have ever come was last spring when they were swept in the finals by the Spurs. Now I'm sad. It's been good for me to adopt the Dodgers as my NL franchise. At least they've won in my lifetime (1988).

5) Despite much desire to do so, I have never traveled abroad, unless one counts several trips to Canada. I'm looking forward to a vacation in Mexico that Darcy and I are planning for next summer. I hope one day to travel throughout western Europe, Australia/New Zealand, S. America, the Caribbean, and Africa. No offense to Asia, it just seems really intimidating to me for some reason. Maybe India.

6) Finally, I'm literally incapable of following the rules of tag. I don't have six friends on blogger without including Darcy, Robin, Lauren/Andrew, Adam, Mary, or Liz. I am unpopular.

Veterans Day ruminations

Some things I'm thinking about this Veterans Day:

- The 3,860 American servicemen and women killed in Iraq. And the 28,451 who have been wounded. And for what? Enjoy your Enduring Freedom, Iraq. We forgot to tell you it would be paid for in blood - and more of yours than ours.

- With nearly 2 months to go, 2007 has already claimed more American lives than any other year of the war (857 and counting in 2007 compared to 849 in 2004). But things are improving. Dramatically. Really. You have to step back and squint and look out of the corner of your eye and ignore the chaos and violence and civil war to see it, but really they are.

- Veterans make up 11% of the American population.

- Veterans make up 26% of the American homeless population.

- Iraq vets are already showing up among the homeless.

- The Washington establishment is, regardless of party and political ideology, utterly corrupt and morally bankrupt to bribe poor farm kids to risk their life, health, and sanity to fight wars for the affluent and abandon them once they get home and fail to smoothly reintegrate back into society as a result of what they have seen and done.

Thanks to http://icasualties.org/oif/ and Juan Cole for stats.

In Rainbows

Lately I've been pretty obsessed with Radiohead's new song Videotape. If you happen to have seen me at any given moment over the past two weeks, there's a strong chance that I was thinking about the song right then. It's quite beautiful in a very Radiohead sort of way, which is to say unspeakably melancholy. I'll admit that I was predisposed to like the new release after my favorite band gave a big "screw you" to the recording industry (whom I despise) and released an album for whatever one feels like paying (which I appreciate). But I still wasn't prepared for the sublime experience of listening to track 10 for the first time. I also wasn't prepared for the backlash from Darcy for the increased ipod use. She likes conversation. With me.

I'm going to attempt to explain my affinity for the song, fully aware that I will very likely end up babbling like an idiot for a dozen lines before any vestige of apparent sanity that I once had will disappear and I'll be left muttering "... you just have to listen to it ... you just have to listen to it ..." while rocking back and forth like Dustin Hoffman in his Oscar winning performance as Raymond Babbitt. Nevertheless, let's start with the title. In 2007 is there a more antiquated notion than videotape? You might as well name your song "Harpsichord Playing on a Victrola." That didn't stop Thom. Then there's the sad love song aspect, which I adore. The world does not need another song about loving your boyfriend almost as much as puppies and cotton candy. The world does need more songs where the narrator inexplicably walks away from the relationship at the end. Lyrically, Thom name drops Mephistopheles. Do you really need to know more about the lyrics than that? I thought not. And then there's the musical aspects: piano, muted bass, and almost negligible percussion. Typical Radiohead use of dissonance to build suspense. Exceedingly simple yet catchy melody. Lack of guitars from the band that made its name with its three-guitar attack on The Bends. No back-up vocals. Unfortunately, that's the extent of my musical knowledge. Oh wait, EveryGoodBirdDoesFly. Now that really is the extent of my musical knowledge ... it's just an all-around good song, though.

At any rate, I get the sense from myself that this obsession is going to run its course over the next few weeks, but please be patient with me until then. Especially you, Darcy.

The psychology of deception

I always knew that Darcy would eventually use her psychological training against me, and quite frankly I'm surprised it didn't start long ago. But it's started now. Allow me to set the scene:

We're in our apartment and Darcy lies to me. What about is not important, what's important is the events that transpire next. I immediately tell her that she's lying because I can always tell when she's not quite being forthright. Seriously, I can see through her like a 19th century London orphan sees through his gruel. (I've been thinking about Dickens a lot lately.) I'll let you in on the secret to knowing whether or not Darcy is lying to you: if she's lying she laughs. Uncontrollably. Whenever you make eye contact with her. It's really not that hard to tell if she's lying.

So Darcy lies to me and I call her on it. This happens fairly regularly and then it's over. Except that this time it wasn't over. This time she tells me that in Physiological Psychology under the tutelage of the esteemed Warren Brown she just learned about mirror neurons. She explained to me that mirror neurons are why yawning is contagious and why you laugh more if you watch a comedy with a group of people than when you're alone and why babies smile at you if you smile at them. She told me that researchers say mirror neurons are why humans can experience empathy. Then she told me that I was laughing and that her mirror neurons were the reason she couldn't keep a straight face while talking to me. And I believed her. It made so much sense at the time. It only took me a few minutes to realize I'd been had, but by then the damage had been done. I saw brief flashes of a future in which I can never win an argument because Darcy is able to summon an amazing array of information about neurological structures and synthesize vast amounts of research all to prove that I'm wrong about whose turn it is to wash the dishes.

This hellish scenario kept me up late into the night as I weighed my options, but suddenly it dawned on me. I could just wait it out. You see, Darcy hates learning about the physiology of the brain. In a few months she'll have forgotten everything she's learned about mirror neurons and the like, and things will return to normal. I can live with that. Then I fell into a deep and restful sleep.