Huge Headache
Ferocious Headache
Pounding Headache
Archive for the ‘elephants’ category
Headaches – Pictorial Guide (Partial)
August 2, 2010Early Morning in Orlando Airport – Oh, the Glory of Modern Air Travel
July 21, 2010
Hang on Tight! (Fasten your Seatbelt?)
Oh, the glory of modern air travel. I got up at 3:45 this morning (it looked like night) to make an early flight. I always imagine an early flight to somehow be advantageous; I imagine that it will not be delayed because of problems somewhere else down the line; that I will theoretically be first. Unfortunately, some airlines seem to do their maintenance in the early morning. Or schedule crews that get in very late the night before. (Airline regulations require crews to have a minimal sleep time. This is not a regulation that I am complaining about –I just wish it applied to passengers.)
So now I am sitting here, hopeful of being bumped to an earlier later flight.
Bumped? Hoping to jump onto, slip onto, hang onto, an earlier later flight.
No such luck.
Few Clothes in Egg-Frying NYC – Tu-be or not Tu-be
July 7, 2010
Wishful Thinking? (On ManicDDaily's part)
One thing that has taken me aback in these last few egg-frying days in New York City is how few clothes women have been wearing in public.
I’m someone who has always worn a fair amount of clothing in public.
One reason for this is a lot of my travel has been to hot places which are also very prurient places, places where women, people in general, cover up (i) because of cultural modesty (in situations where people live in tight quarters, they sometimes seem to use cloth as a boundary), and (ii) to try to protect their arms, shoulders, eyes, heads, from blistering sunshine.
I tell myself I’ve adopted such practices—longish sleeves, highish necks, loose clothing—in the name of comfort and good sense. But another reason for the cover-up, and perhaps the truer one, is simply that I grew up with a strong bodily sense of original sin. This is different from traditional original sin in which the soul is embued with innate moral failings; rather it is a sense that the body is embued with innate imperfections, imperfections which, if not corrected by diet and exercise, are at best camouflauged. (I’m not sure whether to blame this on Twiggy or my mom.)
Whatever the reason, tube dresses were never my style.
I seem to be an anomaly in the modern U.S., however, at least on 102 degree days. I find it frankly breath-taking.
So many breasts, so many thighs, so many fleshy bits, bits that in my sheltered mind are usually not seen outside a dressing room or swimming pool.
So much confidence, so much nonchalance, so much skin! And so many many different attitudes (from “God I’m hot!” to “God I’m hot!” to “God I’m hot!”)
I vary between admiration (for the freedom and unself-consciousness), to understanding (of why certain other cultures are so very hostile to us), to confusion (on one level it seems anti-feminist and self-negating while on another it seems incredibly feminist and self-accepting), to chagrin (I don’t always want to see all that skin), to–
God I’m hot.
Looking For Relief at 102 Degrees (With Elephant)
July 7, 2010
Supreme Court Promotes Guns (With Elephants)
June 28, 2010
Winking at Danger: McDonald v. Chicago
Letter from a Hot Apartment (With Elephant)
June 26, 2010
Hating Air Conditioners
Letter From a Hot Apartment
Dear dear one,
I miss you tons.
I hope you are not too hot up there.
Down here, it’s hot.
Yes, I could turn on
the air conditioners, but
you know how I am.
I don’t believe in air conditioners.
I say it’s because of the war.
I say it’s because of the environment.
I say it’s because I’m so broke.
All of which is true.
But the greater truth is that I just hate
their buzzing hum, and worse, the vacuum that descends
when windows that can open
are closed up tight.
You could say that I
am a sensitive type,
with issues of
control.
Though if you were here, I’d let you put
one on just as much as you wanted,
(for a few minutes at least.)
(No, seriously, for just as long as you wanted),
(as long as it wasn’t too long.)
Because despite what I am,
which is not
an air conditioner.
I really would do just about anything
for you, dear, whom I miss
tons.
Isner as Elephant, Wimbledon 2010
June 24, 2010
John Isner, as Elephant, Wins Longest Match in History
Some people draw conclusions; others draw…elephants; others draw on incredible reserves of focus and stamina; others draw on pieces of paper too small to hold their elephants.
Congratulations to both players for holding up.
If they can do it, we can. Enjoy the heat!
Flopping at the World Cup – Best Instantaneous Whimper?
June 21, 2010
Hey Ref! Look at Me!
When we were little and my parents were in another room, my older brother used to occasionally cry out, grinning demonically at me, “ManicDDaily, stop that! Stop hitting me!” (Well, those weren’t his exact words, but you get the gist.) In the meantime, I would just be sitting quietly, over an arm’s and leg’s length away. Even so, one of my parents would dutifully call out for me to leave my brother alone.
These were not my brother’s finest moments. They might, however, have been extremely good training if he had planned a career in FIFA soccer.
The level of “amateur theatrics” as the clipped British announcers call it, or, when it gets worse, “shamming”, has been pretty amazing in the ongoing World Cup.
Yes, we understand that the point is to get the attention of the Ref, and hopefully, substantiate a foul. Yes, we understand that it is very different than baseball where a hit by a pitcher automatically gets the batter a free walk, without his having to demonstrate how hard the ball hit him. (Almost invariably incredibly hard.) Or football, where the Refs can look at instant replays of someone ground into the dirt.
Still, the sight of all that flopping on the field, followed by shrugs and/or smirks, sometimes seems a bit much.
Yes, soccer is a tough game — people are kicked and jabbed, still…I mean… come on. It’s hard to completely respect players who whine harder than the vuvuzelas. Unfortunately, the culture of victimization seems so omnipresent that the team with the stiff upper lips might genuinely risk goal shots.
What to do?
More penalties for play-acting? Maybe the sting of that could be counterbalanced by a subcategory of awards: Best Performance on the Pitch? Best Kicked in the Shins? Best Elbowed (Not Quite) In the Nose? Best Instantaneous Whimper?
Father’s Day – Missing Dads
June 20, 2010
My Father Taking Me Everywhere
Father’s Day somehow carries an edge of sadness for me. I have the greatest father in the world. He is quite old (but thankfully still around) and struggles with a variety of serious illnesses. None of these ever weakens his “fatherliness”, that is, his unwavering, (crazily) uncritical, and unconditional love and support.
I’m conscious now of being very very lucky. The edge of sadness comes…well, partly memories of teenagerdom, when I was not so conscious of my good luck. (Though my father has certainly never held any of those snarly rebellions against me, I hate to think of causing him past pain.)
Then there’s the fact that, with job and immediate family demands and the geographic dispersal of modern day life, I don’t get to see my father as much as I’d like.
But part of the sadness is my sense of how unusual my luck is; how many children today don’t have the gift of a present, loving, self-sacrificing father.
The absence of a daily father is a multi-whammied loss. Apart from the absence of the particular person, there’s the additional emotional, physical and financial stress on the mother or grandmother, faced with a huge amount for one person to do alone. A successful single parent of young children, even if armed with family support, must be willing to sacrifice quite a bit of their separate personhood (the part of them that is not primarily parent) in order to fully play a solo role.
Yes, I know that even in two-parent families, there may be one primary caretaker, who may be as overwhelmed as a single parent. I also know that sometimes familial stress may be reduced by the absence of father, especially an uncommitted, or difficult, or troubled father–I’ve just finished the Steig Larsson The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy, after all, in which father figures are not painted in the most flattering light. I can well understand that a house led by just one parent may have a peacefulness that is uncommon in a house run by a couple. (And I’m not making any comment, or even comparison, here about the differences of families with fathers over families with same-sex parents, etc.) I’m just sorry that so many kids today don’t have what has been so important to me personally–a Dad.
World Cup 2010 Continues… A sort-of fan’s sort-of U.S. perspective
June 19, 2010
U.S. player?
Sometimes one gets the feeling that the rest of the world wants to save soccer for itself. (As in, butt out, America.)
Yesterday’s arbitrary and inexplicable bad call by Referee Koman Coulibaby of Mali that cost the U.S. the U.S./Slovenia game is only the tip of an iceberg that seems almost engineered to leave many Americans cold.
Well, maybe it’s not just the tip of the iceberg; maybe that type of thing is the upper third of the iceberg. Americans don’t like to feel disliked, disrespected, and/or general dissed by smaller countries (see e.g. the U.N. and lack of popularity in the U.S. thereof.)
The problem wasn’t just Coulibaby’s seeming bias, but his initial silence as to the nature of his crucial call. Coulibaby’s speaking French was no excuse. (Frenchspeakers are plenty good at arguing.) The fact is that not explaining bad calls seems to be a traditional part of soccer culture–a major contrast from most U.S. sports in which a significant portion of the drama is provided by the openly extended carriage (or miscarriage) of justice –all those little guys walking out onto the fields with stripes and flags and rather pompous magnified voices—
Speaking of unsatisfying, what’s with all the ties, called, I believe,”draws” by soccer aficionados? I personally don’t mind ties; I hate to see people’s feelings get hurt. (BTW, congratulations Slovenia!) But I’m not sure my attitudes are typical of most American sports fans. (As both Bush and Obama have found out, coalitions are not really our style.)
And the flopping. (John Wayne/Bruce Willis do not appear to be soccer icons.) We won’t talk about that.
But I will say that those vuvuzelas are getting truly irritating. (I never thought I’d hear stadium noise that made Superbowl half-time shows sound good.)
That said, all the U.S. males I know and some of the U.S. females are following the Cup avidly. I ask them to keep the sound down.
ManicDDaily 
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