Lyndon B. Bush

Craig and I are currently in a—we love documentaries—phase.

This week we watched a documentary on the 60s. This was produced by PBS and was titled something like—The 1960’s: The Decade that Shaped a Generation.

The film was absolutely fascinating and led me to two conclusions: 1) no wonder we don’t protest anything anymore, getting massacred by the police doesn’t look like much fun and 2) Wow—history repeats itself SO fast.

Craig and I found ourselves looking at each other with dropped jaws and astonished guffaws each time we heard a phrase that could have been re-worked and used to describe present day America. Once we ended the documentary, we concluded that by using the following substitutions, PBS could re-market this video.

Original Title: The 1960’s: The Decade that Shaped a Generation
New Title: The 2000’s: Another Decade that Shaped Another Generation…In the Same Way.

Original: Vietnam
New: Iraq

Original: Laos and Cambodia
New: Afghanistan

Original: Communism
New: Terrorism

Original: Johnson or Nixon
New: George W.

Original: Bob Dylan, or Peter, Paul and Mary
New: Green Day or Sheryl Crow

Finally—this one is up for debate—who was the Barack Obama of the post Vietnam War period?

The Gears That Won't Stop Turning

Just a reminder that: if you are actually interested in knowing what goes on in our lives, you can see all of that kind of crap at www.pennyntranny.blogspot.com . I maintain the blog, therefore, I can call it crap. If you want to read about the twisted way in which my mind works, then stay right here. I like to hear what you think about it.

I possess a classic case of what is referred to, at least in highly reliable (ha) magazines as “high trait anxiety”. This means that I worry about everything, am convinced that everything will go wrong, and think somehow my worrying controls my fate and prevents things from going further into the toilet. I’m pretty sure it is genetic (no offence intended to my progenitors). Some people call me pessimistic; I just think I’m a realist. Tomato, tomato (second one pronounced with a soft ‘a’).

It has come to my attention recently that there may be a correlation between how long you think you are going to live and how long you actually live. Huh…so, I guess that means that lying in bed every night worrying about how tonight is the night that I’ll die in my sleep might not be the greatest for my health. I really, really like my life. This fact, along with both my husband and every other medical professional I interact with telling me that I try too hard and over-think things, gave me, for a while, motivation to 1) stop trying and 2) stop thinking. Ha! That plan was entirely counterintuitive to everything that defines me, so I forfeited rather quickly.

I am now working on a more realistic approach, which entails:

1) Think really hard about how to relax (hey, over-thinking things is in my nature).
2) Think about meditating
3) Think about puppies in snow (a guaranteed relaxation technique)
4) Take half a Xanax whenever people who suck or the kids are around.

I like this plan. I’ll keep you posted on my progress (because you care).

A little action in Garden City

This blog is normally reserved for thoughts and observations, not purely events, so, if you’d like to read about our
rather interesting weekend click here. (It’s a great read, I highly recommend it.)

My Head Even Tilts to the Left

When I was in 3rd grade, we had this project in art class. The assignment (at least as far as I understood it) was to pick a picture out of a magazine and paint the picture. So, I did. I was pretty happy with my painting. When I got done, the art teacher looked at the painting and said rather brazenly “well, that’s not really what I had in mind”.

I blame this one incident for my lack of creativity. (Screw genetics—when you’ve got an event like that to use as an excuse, run with it, right?)

My husband thinks I’m creative, and for this I’m grateful. I’m glad I’ve got him tricked—what he doesn’t realize is that every single creative idea I’ve ever exuded was an act of desperation—a survival technique which exists only when I’ve made a mistake. Basically, I’m only creative when I’ve screwed up and don’t have the time or resources to start over.
Sometimes, this means that we buy pizza instead of eating my mistakes, and other times, things turn out incredibly well. I just wish there was some consistency.

I want to be more creative, so I’ve decided to go on a sabbatical from responsibility. No more grocery lists. No more making lunch ahead of time. No more measuring the fabric I buy, or writing things down, and no more instruction manuals. Ultimately, I am going to create as many panic situations as possible, thereby optimizing my creative genius. I see this going really well…watch out world, here I come.