Category Archives: Social Constructs

Home is a wonderful concept.  To me, it seems, home is where my toothbrush is located.  Currently, its a Chateau 59.  I don’t recognize the place though.  The basement construction changed so much.  So did the acquisition of two roommates, Joscelin and Lindsay. 

Where my office was is now a bedroom of a twenty-something.  The guest bedroom, which was the shipping department for Marylou’s concern, is now also a bedroom for another twenty-something.  I am surrounded by oestrogen and empty glasses. 

The computers were finally hooked up again, the house network at least workable to get my new workstation online and get near my mail.  Aeroplan is offering me my own private jet now, as I spend too much time in United’s aircraft.  American Airlines could be doing the same for me later this month.  Avis has just sent a letter saying thanks for keeping them in business and a offer of intimacies from any board member I choose.  Unfortunately none of the board members are Sigourney Weaver, so that is off the table.

Zen History is now in its first year.  Several hotels have my initials and the year inside a drawer.  My waistband is a bit tighter, due to the sauce on all the barbecue I’ve been eating.  I blame the sauce, as barbecue, inherently, does not have calories.  It’s the sauce dammit!

I found the bedroom, finally.  Speedvision is on Cable 59, as it should be, not far from CNN on 33.  Rather than no Speedvision and only CNN Headline news and then only if the hotel was not in the throes of ‘economizing’ and ‘rationalizing’ their hospitality offers. 

The Customs agents in Ottawa are their usual surly lot.  I got searched, extensively, as I had been away for too long and too near the Mexican border.  No body cavity search this time, however. 

Dog and Cat (Ralph and Joey) both remembered who I was and treated me with disdain (Joey) and tears of joy (Ralph).  The lawn needs destroying.  The weeds need carpet bombing and there are more than eight thousand little post-construction tasks that need doing. 

The toothbrush is in the bathroom and all is right with the world.

The hotel in Atlanta is a Westin and a really nice set of digs for a few days.  Unfortunately, they also host conferences from the outside world.  Mary Kay Cosmetics is holding a two-day dog and pony show here.  To get to the office across the courtyard, I have to walk by the Conference of Cosmetology. 

How much makeup can be worn by 200 or so ladies?  Figure about a pound per person.  I have seen too many double and quadruple chins delicately caressed with Mary Kay’s Ugly Bitch Blush.  Too many eyes lined repeatedly with Hosebag Mascara.  Lipstick?  Pick the colour, including those colours not in the visible light spectrum.  All done with a fine line of Classic Whore about an inch around the approximate area where the lip pigment ends and the rest of the face starts.

Hair Colour?  Start with Slut Platinum and run the colour wheel down to Dominatrix Black, spending plenty of time around Skank Red.  Eye colour?  There was one eyelid colour that I swear was pool cue chalk blue.  Probably marketed as Eight-Ball Blue.  And not just one colour on the eyelid.  It seems that five or more are THE fashion statement on each eyelid, including some with sparkles and stick-on stars and real ‘gems’ at the corner of the eye.  Imagine extraordinarily ugly women, coated in hot glue and dragged face first through a paint booth then a craft shop and you’re close.

Clothing?  It seems that “slutty” and “whorish” are the fashion watchwords this fall.  The only thing missing was really, really tacky lingerie on these tarts.  Push up bras?  The only place to see more tits pushed skyward is to go to a mammography clinic and tip the machine over on its side.  Judging by the age of some of these old Madams, I suspect they rolled the sweater puffs up first, then jammed them into the bra to be tugged even further skyward.  Oh, stiletto heeled fuck-me pumps at 0800 in the morning are mandatory. 

If it wasn’t for the enveloping clouds of really cheap perfume, I would have thought that I had walked into a convention of retired World War camp whores from the Italian and French Campaigns (“These are the women who serviced your grandpa in WWII…”)

Do I have a fond spot for Mary Kay?  Well, you tell me.

The entire city is watching TV right now (9:09 pm Monday, Central Time)  Why?  Monday Night Football is on the tube.  Madden and Michaels. 

I just came from a workout in the exercise room at this hotel and on all three televisions was the game.  There were five of us there, getting sweaty, running on treadmills, lifting weights, doing the stair thingy.  Everyone else was glued to (I think…) Washington Foreskins vs. Philadelphia Eagles (?)  I probably have the teams wrong as I don’t follow stick and ball sports, but the other four were so intent on the broadcast that I was sure they were going to televise an execution later.

Texas is football mad.  High School, Pop Warner, College, Pro…don’t matter.  There may be more people who watch baseball, or soccer, or badminton, or Formula 1, or NASCAR, but here, near the Redneck Riviera and the Gulf of Mexico, Football is King, Queen, Jack and Ten.

It is probably the gladiatorial image of the sport.  The “effort”.  “Giving 110%”  “Accomplishment” “Sacrifice” “Team” and “Winning”  These are all manly clichés.  Many of which stem from warriors going back to the Romans.  Is it a metaphor for our warrior-within?  Who gives a shit? 

Football players are steroid crazed giantized freaks who delight in hitting each other.  If they were true warriors, they would dispense with the helmets and pads and guards and wear not much more than a cup and a pair of shorts.

So, football is a simulacrum metaphor for warrior-nation-state.  It is American and America.  We want to fight, but with protection.  We want the glory of battle, without the gore. 

Look at the historical battles of great import:  Culloden comes to mind.  A few thousand Celts, going toe to toe, with axes, spears, maces and swords.  Dead, decapitated, dissected humans laid four deep on the battlefield from the most grievous of wounds.  That is battle. 

Football is a game.

I know I haven’t written much about September 11, 2001.  The reason is straightforward.  I haven’t come to grips with what I feel about it, until about now.  The facts are obvious and have been stated thousands of times:  Four planes, three buildings, around 2,100 souls. And the most grievous mortality: Our innocence.

Until that day, bad things happened in distant lands or randomly as part of the wheel of life.  On that Tuesday bad things happened to all of us.  Most of us sat there with open mouths not believing what we were seeing.  The not knowing and not understanding, then the sudden realization that ‘they’ wanted to hurt us.  As bad as the monster under the bed, or the anonymous ‘them’ out there, ‘they’ terrified us and then scarred us forever.

Now, the senseless, violent, randomly brutal, gory and visceral fear that so many other humans live under every hour of their lives, is here, at home, inside of all of us.  We wait for the next shoe to drop.

That fear is, at its heart, the aim of a terrorist.  To make everyone fearful of their next step.  It is why the IRA or Hezbollah uses car bombs, or armies use land mines, or a mugger has their hand thrust in their pocket.  It is the potential of violence made real to us.

I’ve thought about this for a lengthy while.  My conclusion is actually simple.  I refuse to be afraid.  This is how we defeat ‘them’ or ‘it’ or whatever name you care to call it.  If they can’t make us afraid, then they’ve lost and we’ve won.

To that end, I also choose to cherish every day and every minute, without being afraid of anything or anyone. 

I can’t think of any other way to honour the innocents who perished, except by going about my business, unafraid.  We win.  They lose.  Now, let’s go and find the perpetrators.  Then kill them.  Simple as that.