Would you like me to seduce you?

I met a young man this weekend who was adorable, smart, funny and earnest in all the ways that 17-year-old boys weren't when I was that age.  I strongly dislike the term "cougar" but, suffice it to say, for the first time ever, I could see myself as a Mrs. Robinson.

Of course, nothing happened - that's not only illegal but also disgusting!  But a (dirty old) woman can dream, can't she?

Failure of the American Educational System

Every single one of Christine O'Donnell's teachers should be ashamed of themselves.

Catnip for Women

It all went tits up for me a couple months ago and I never had the chance or inclination to post about the wonderful thing that happened immediately prior. One night after getting shat upon by pigeons in St. Louis, Kings of Leon gave an excellent, hot and sweaty concert outside Chicago. I had the amazing good fortune to see it from around this angle:

Unbelievable. As the ushers directed us to our seats, moving us ever closer to the stage, I kept thinking “There must be some mistake.” But, no. Our seats were in the first row behind the open-pit General Seating. We were blessed with the incredible view and spared the annoyance of people mingling and jostling and moving around. Standing in that giant barn of an arena, I felt like I was seeing an intimate club performance.

And that performance! They just don't miss a note. The set-list was really gratifying for the true fans – a heady mix of old and new and as-yet unreleased songs. The girl next to me was bored out of her mind until they got to “Sex on Fire” but I was thrilled. (“Radioactive” and “Southbound” have me counting the days until Come Around Sundown releases on October 19!)

Set List:

Crawl

Notion

Taper Jean Girl

Immortals

Molly's Chambers

Fans

Milk

Mary

Closer

Four Kicks

The Bucket

Radioactive

Sex on Fire

On Call

Southbound

Trani

Encore:

Knocked Up

Use Somebody

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That night, July 24, was absolutely sweltering. Sweat was rolling down my arms even before the lights dimmed. A thunderstorm rolled through and the lightning lit up the sky throughout the show. The front pushed through right in the middle of “Sex on Fire”, the cooling breeze cutting across the crowd and stage alike. I saw the guys lift their heads, lean into the breeze and take a collective cleansing breath of fresh air. The skies dumped oceans of water, drenching the lawn. Caleb thanked them for hanging in there and vowed to keep playing.

Literally moments later, my personal situation bottomed out and I'm still not over it. As crap as that has been, however, I haven't shaken the afterglow of that concert. Thanks for a great night, KOL.

Wise Words

I've been experiencing the waning of a friendship that I thought was strong.  I'm left with alternating feelings of anger, resentment, betrayal, hurt, and loneliness.  But as I move forward, I try to keep Stephen Fry's immense wisdom in mind.

Know your limits, people.

At the casino the other day, I saw a woman win almost $800 at the roulette wheel.  And she didn't even crack a smile.  Can you imagine how far down you must be for $800 to not seem like a big win?

Don't get me wrong, I can (and do!) spend hours at the roulette wheel.  But I never let myself lose so much that I can't appreciate a win.

Know when to stop before you start, people!

Hypnogogia

I have had dreams in my life the memories of which are more real than any moment of my waking life.  I can summon, with perfect clarity, things I experienced in a dream decades ago.  So I totally, completely, unequivocally get what Christopher Nolan is saying with Inception.  

I had the good fortune to attend an advance screening tonight and all I want to tell you is that you should go.  See it before you read all about it.  Don't let reviewers spoil the ride for you.  

Pale Blue Dot

I've been feeling a little small.  And cosmic.  It's a safe bet that Doctor Who is to blame.   So this feels appropriate:

The "pale blue dot" in this photo is Earth as seen from Voyager 1 while on the edge of our solar system (approximately 3,762,136,324 miles from home).  Carl Sagan wrote brilliantly about the picture.

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

If you have a road trip coming up (and still own a cassette player), I highly highly recommend his audio book.