I once very much wanted to learn Latin. I've always loved classical history and took some Roman history classes in college. Amanda's post reawakened that dormant urge and I've been investigating self-study books. Wheelock's Latin seems to be the way to go. Any dissenting points of view? Amanda, if you pop by, do you have any suggestions? I am seriously considering it.

P.S. I went by the aptly named Coliseum books to check out the choices and was surprised by how many Latin course books were out there. Wheelock's looked pretty good in comparison but I'd like to get some advice.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 12:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I am having technical issues getting my sidebar to look the way I want it to. I am going to have to take a lot of time, it would appear, to learn how to edit a CSS. Before this, I didn't even know what a CSS was. Live and learn!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:15 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This morning, as I tried to sneak out of the house to catch my train, my daughter heard me on the stairs and called out, "I'm awake, I'm awake". And then she started to cry when I did not come back up, or so I gather. My wife came out and then gave her permission to come down the stairs by herself, carefully, to give me a hug and a kiss goodbye. So, holding on to the railing, she came down about three steps and stopped. She sat down and took the hem of her shirt in both hands. She pulled her little pajama top up and wiped her eyes and her cheeks, oh, so delicately, got up, and continued her way down the stairs to give me my hug and kiss. It was terribly cute.

Last summer, when we had just moved in to the house, she came to the screen door as I was leaving for work and said: "Don't run on the stairs, papa, you might fall and get hurt, I love you!" And I replied, "I love you, too and I'll see you tonight". To which she said, "See ya, wouldn't want to be ya!" She was 2 1/2 at the time.

Little girls are the best.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, my wife has introduced B, via email, to her colleague, who we shall call C, for cute. I am told that she is cute, blond, early thirties, and is looking for an introduction to a nice guy because her past experience, when following her own judgment, has not been satisfactory. B has responded and his response has been looked upon favorably and the Gods of the Blind Date have arranged another adventure. However, your keen observer will also be there. Why? Because, in order to ease the awkwardness, this will be a small group thing. We four will be attending, next week, a tasting of Australian wines. I know little about Australian wines and look forward to slugging back, er, I mean, sipping with appropriate decorum, the offerings from the land down under. I will not, however, spit (unless it is nasty).

I will report back. Perhaps B's luck is about to change? I hope so.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:51 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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keep going past your stop on the subway to work in the morning to get out at a totally different place just to see what's there?

spontaneously whistle or sing for no good reason?

get in the car, pick a compass point, and drive till you hit something interesting?

go to the movies in the middle of the day when you should be doing something else?

be totally and utterly irresponsible?

tell your boss you think his or her judgment sucks?

Tell me that it's not just me, ok?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:23 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This resonated with me (sorry, I forgot to get the link):

"Andrew Sullivan dubs the fans of all this cable-nurtured satire “South Park Republicans”—people who “believe we need a hard-ass foreign policy and are extremely skeptical of political correctness” but also are socially liberal on many issues, Sullivan explains. Such South Park Republicanism is a real trend among younger Americans, he observes: South Park’s typical viewer, for instance, is an advertiser-ideal 28."

I'm a bit older, but the rest may fit pretty well. By way of illustration, I support the rights of gays to marry and of women to choose freely concerning abortion. I also support a strong military and a foreign policy that does not depend on or require the permission of France or the United Nations before we take actions in our interest. So, clearly I would not be at home in either of our two tradtional political parties. But I do have a home in South Park, I suppose.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If you could get away for a weekend, a week, or a month, where would you go?

Weekend: New Orleans (without children) to eat, drink and be merry.

Week: Trieste and the Adriatic coast in Italy

Month: Who am I kidding? Who gets a month to travel? But if I did, New Zealand is high on my list.

Can you tell that I am totally unmotivated to work today?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:27 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I gather that this is an obligatory post for a new blogger. Still, it's kind of cool to see that I have been attracting visitors from the Netherlands, Japan, Australia, Canada, France and the U.K. Feel free to leave comments, y'all. I'm sure that you see the world differently from me.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:07 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I was thinking more about the concept that rights should, maybe, recognize limits and I read a very interesting article by Theodore Dalrymple in the Spectator last week. Dalrymple is a brilliant man and a great writer. He works as a shrink in a big, inner-city hospital in one of the large, decaying cities in England. His articles are always a treat to read and, among the topics which concern him, is the fraying fabric of British society. One of his points is that the concept of "it's my right" has not been met with growth in the concept of "it's my responsibility" with a deplorable result:

"Considerations of rights, which are deemed by much of the population to be inalienable, unconditional and metaphysically unassailable, drive out considerations of kindness, decency, tolerance, mutual obligation and so forth: all the considerations, in fact, that make civilised or dignified existence in a crowded society possible. Everyone becomes an atom of an inert gas in a vacuum, whose rights act as physical forces to prevent him from combining sociably with other such atoms.

Thus a man in a tower block believes he has a right to play his music at all hours of the day and night; his neighbour, on the other hand, believes he has a right to peace and quiet. How is this conflict between two absolute but opposite rights resolved? Trial by baseball bat, since the vaunted protections offered by the legal system do not exist in cases such as this. Hell hath no fury like a man who believes his rights are being violated.

The idea of human rights, then, when extended beyond a few very general and negative rights, does not liberate us; it turns us into feral egotists who are at the same time dependent. This effect can be seen in our schools, where children do as they please because, with the native cunning of youth, they have realised the permissive possibilities inherent in the notion of their rights. I can only say how relieved I am that I shall not be around to see the full flowering of the human-rights culture in the years to come."

A provocative thinker. I highly recommend his book, "Life at the Bottom: the Worldview that Makes the Underclass.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I have been struck by the itchy travel bug. You know it, the one that makes you want to head to the airport, step up to the ticket counter and say, "I'll take a seat on the next flight out, no matter where it's going". I've never actually done that, but I've wanted to. So, to try to stave off that urge, I'm thinking of reliving some of my favorite museums. Going to museums has always been a big part of travel for me. Here's an off the top of my head partial list of favorites (I'm sure I'm leaving out dozens), I'd be interested in hearing about yours:

Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner

New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York: The Frick Collection
New York: West Point Museum
London: The Wallace Collection
London: The National Portrait Gallery
Lisbon: Gulbenkian

Upstate NY: The Catskill Flyfishing Museum
Oslo: Norsk Folke Museum(Cobalt works museum is cool, too).
Paris: Rodin
Paris: Quai d'Orsay
Venice: Really, the whole city

Chicago: Field Museum
Midland, TX: Confederate Air Force Museum (name changed in 2001 to Commemerative Air Force, by the way) See also, main organization web page
Mexico City: El Museo Nacional de Antropología

Posted by: Random Penseur at 07:39 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So, this contractor was renovating a building in North Carolina when he dug a civil war cannon ball up. He thought the cannon ball would make a grand gift to the Cape Fear Museum. Only problem, it still had a live fuse in it! How lucky was this guy -- can you picture him chucking the damn thing into the back of his pickup to drive over to the museum? It was live! And, as a colleague of mine points out, how many times do you think he hit it with his backhoe first? Definitely needs to buy a lottery ticket!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 04:55 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Mimi Sheraton was the first female restaurant critic at the NY Times and she could really write. The following made me laugh and I wanted to share it:

"What finally prompted me to lose weight was a view of myself in a hairdresser's full-length mirror when I was seated and wearing one of the salon's floral print robes and realized that I looked like a slipcovered club chair."

Posted by: Random Penseur at 02:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I don't really know what else to call this one. I had a dear, old friend over the house last night. He was in from out of town. He stayed over and came into the city with me this morning for meetings. Then, he heads back home. We talked on the train out last night, after dinner when the kids were asleep, and this morning on the way in.

His life is falling apart -- work, marriage, kids. The whole thing.

Work: It stems from this, maybe. He lost his job. The fourth one in a row. He's a lawyer, from an Ivy League law school, who had jobs with two of the most prestigious law firms in NY, a big investment bank in NY, and a law firm in the Mid West where he and his family moved after he lost his third job. The fourth job he lost was in the Mid West where the firm had recruited him and had also been happy to employ his wife as a lawyer. She was working at a big firm in NY. She is now happily on her way to a lucrative partnership at this new firm, probably by next year.

So, effect? Well, succinctly, he feels like a failure and she wonders, he says, whether she married a bum who can't keep a job. That leads us to marriage.

Marriage: Their marriage has always been filled with tensions, any observer would agree. Too many, in fact, for me to go into here. Let it suffice that I note that even before the job issues, there were tensions. I think that she feels trapped. Trapped because of the kids, who, as a nurturer type, she'd like to stay home and take care of. Trapped into being the main bread winner because she not only can hold a job, she excels at the practice of law (she does real estate law). Clients love her and the firms she's worked at love her. She's scared. My friend is dealing with feelings of failure and loss and self-esteem issues. To cope, he's thrown himself into a start up venture to which, based on hearing the business plan he's going to present this morning to some investors, I ascribe a very low possibility of success. That means he works at night a lot, after the kids are in bed. What does she do? She watches television and drinks a little wine. Maybe, my friend worries, more than a little. What do they not do? Well, clearly talk. Forget about having sex, which I think you will agree, is an essential component of a good marriage. But they are not even talking. Or if they are, I wonder, are they listening to each other? Does he understand how she needs reassurance that this won't be forever and does she understand that he needs to be told that she does not think he's a shiftless bum (his words there, by the way). Do they remember that they are playing for the same team? Do they still love each other even? Did I mention, as a complicating factor, that her mother lives with them now? Like it couldn't get any worse, right?

It is naive to think that love is the answer or that all you need for a good marriage is love. No, a good marriage takes work. It is a partnership, it is constant compromise, it is giving of yourself and receiving from the other. Love is the reason you do it, but love is just the starting place. Sorry, here endeth my sermon on marriage and love.

Nevertheless, the tension in that house is apparently so thick that, forget the knife, you would need a skill saw to get through it. That brings us to the kids.

Their boy is not yet three and the girl is closing in on one. The boy is clearly troubled by the tension and, according to my friend, ungovernable and uncontrollable. The friend and the wife are not talking, so forget about coming up with a consistent plan to manage the boy, who after all, they should be able to handle and out think. And, if they do have a plan, it does not survive the guilt feelings the wife has from not being home more. Children are naturally manipulative and my friend says the boy plays on the guilt and that makes it nigh impossible for them to present a united front.

I despair of being able to help him or his wife, who I dearly love. By nature, I want to help my friends. I want to make everything right. No way I can do that here. I am watching him hold on with whatever he has left inside and I worry that it won't be enough.

We trooped off to bed on the early side because my friend has his meeting and my wife has another job interview this morning.

I got into bed with my wife after we said good night to our friend and I held her extra close, and I told her I loved her a little more emphatically than usual, and I told her how lucky I felt I was to have her, and I reflected on my comparative good fortune. As I drifted off to sleep, I realized that in many of the important ways, home, marriage, children, we are blessed. [Excuse me now while I spit three times to avert the evil eye.] Seriously, I think of my friend and I wonder if, there but for the grace. . .

I wonder how many of us are truly just one pay check away from watching our whole lives disintegrate. Too many of us confuse our identity and our self-esteem with our job. I hope I don't. My wife and I have talked about this before. When it seems like her career is going better than mine, we prioritize her career and I pick up the slack at home. Why? Because we are a team and I am as proud, prouder even, of her successes than I am of mine and because supporting each other is what we do. When mine is going better, the reverse. We simply do what's best for the team. I would not hesitate to quit my job and fly off to wherever with her if she was presented with an outstanding career opportunity and I know that she would do the same for me. Again, it's what's best for our team that matters. I worry that my friends don't see the world like that.

So, today, I start my day sad. Sorry for the long post, but I needed to write it. Can you think of a better title?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:07 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I got home last night and asked my daughter if she had gotten her listening skills back from her friend Eli (see below for background). She told me, "no, he still has them". And so, I said, that was too bad because I had a present for her that I would only be able to give her if she had her listening skills back. She exclaimed, "Oh, he did give them back". No fool I, I asked, all of them? Only to be told, "yes, but a shark ate some of them so I don't have all of them". Well, I said, maybe you can go get the shark and make him give you back the rest and she said, "no, he's a nice shark, I don't have to make him". I said to her, well, he's in the living room so go ask him now so I can give you your present. And she ran into the living room, calling, "Hi, Mr. Shark, can I have the rest of listening skills back? Ok? Thanks!" Then she called back to me, "got 'em!" and so she received her new books and happiness reigned throughout.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 07:56 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Whatever became of Psychoexgirlfriend.com or Kozmo? Go check out the ghost site articles and find out. Guaranteed time suckage. Especially if you are foolish enough to go listen to the old mp3's of the psycho ex-girlfriend voice-mails. Not that I did that. Nope. Not me.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 05:18 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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On my way back from the post office, I popped into Coliseum Books, a nice independent bookstore, and picked up a couple of old childhood favorites which are too old for my daughter, and way too old for my son, but which I'm going to try to read to her anyway. Anyone else have fond memories of "A Wind in the Willows" and the Paddington Bear stories (by Michael Bond)? I can't wait until story time tonight!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:54 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Assume with me that you are a sports fan and that hockey was relevant to your little sports world. When did that stop?

I was reading the sports section this morning and it reported on the progress being made in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It's May 11 and it's gonna hit 80+ degrees today in NYC. And they are not only still playing hockey but they don't even know who's going to be in their championship.

Am I the only sports fan who just doesn't care about hockey anymore? Is it my fault or did the NHL blow their brand up?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 02:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Anyone else out there go to high school or college during the 80's? There was a decent article in the NY Times this past weekend on John Hughes which included an interview with Molly Ringwald.

Molly had an interesting comment about 16 Candles and why it meant so much to so many kids: "It is part of their youth, and everyone (or most everyone) looks back at when they were a teenager with an incredible amount of nostalgia. The drama of youth (barring a horribly dysfunctional, abusive childhood) is preferable to the drama of adulthood."

I miss the 80's movies. How many people still have fond memories of the Breakfast Club? Or Caddyshack? Diner? Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Fletch? Top Gun? Real Genius? Or Repo Man ("A Repo Man is always intense")? I suspect that this line of movies marks a generational dividing point. I have not seen Road Trip, for instance. And those who have seen Road Trip probably have not seen History of the World, Part I.

And let me just say, as time marches on, there will always be a part of me who is 14 years old and carrying a torch for Ally Sheedy as Jennifer in War Games.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:52 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Citrines, Peridots, Chalcedonies, Rubies, Garnets, Coral, Aquamarine, Beryl ,Chrysoberyl, Diamond, Emerald, Hiddenite, Kunzite, Opal, Sapphire, Spinel, Spodumene, Topaz, Tourmaline, Zircon. Go here for an extended list of names.

If you could be any gemstone, which one? Today, I feel like a peridot.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:26 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Last night I told my daughter that her uncle was coming to visit. She had some very practical questions: do we have enough beds? Where will he sleep? Does he need two pillows? When will he arrive? I could only answer about half of her questions.

This discussion followed a little tiff we had about her, as my Southern friends might say, minding me. I got angry about her not minding me. Before she went to sleep, I told her that I was sorry that I got angry with her and I asked her to say she was sorry for not listening. I am a big believer in never, ever, going to bed angry or before you've said you're sorry and cleared up whatever problem you may have had. She told me that she couldn't say she was sorry. I asked her why not and she replied: "Eli (her friend) borrowed my listening skills and didn't give them back so that's why I didn't listen to you". Gold star for creative explanation. She said she was sorry later.

When I came upstairs to go to bed, she called me into her room. She should have been asleep. I went in and she said that she had a wet diaper. She is potty trained but wears a diaper at night to avoid, as the Army might say in connection with a training incident, accidental discharge. I asked her why didn't she call out to tell me that she needed to go to the bathroom. She has a giant Paddington Bear doll in her room, by the way. Her response: "Paddington Bear told me at night I should pee in my diaper". I changed her, gave her a kiss, and told her to stop listening to Paddington Bear who was clearly a bad influence.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 07:53 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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