I was reading a profile where a gentleman was commenting that he was born in the wrong decade.

Are we all born in the wrong decade? I hear this a lot. I felt this for a large part of my life. But maybe this is just how it seems. Other decades hold possibility we may never know.

I went to the museum and was staring at painting of other places. Wonderous masterpieces. I couldn't help but compare my own feeble attempts. I return home and pull the sheet from my own canvas, my half baked dream. The colors are all wrong as are the forms! Garish! What was i thinking when I painted this?! Oh that I could just start over.

Whine, complain...

I sometimes look at my painting for hours and I shake my head. But then, I notice all of the white. There! In the upper right. My brushes are dirty, but I have wisdom. I can make the last half a work of art. Rather than dwell on what could have been, I paint with vigor to show how much I've learned and to lay bare my soul in those paints. I wasn't painting the wrong thing after all! The important thing is that this painting is mine, and I should never paint in the shadow of the masters. After all, they were painting for a different time.

<<Clownjuggles>> posted the following article. He's been getting criticism, but refuses to allow it. So, when someone presents an argument of superiority about politics, religion, or anything, but does not allow views counter to their own to even be SEEN by others, you can be assured that they are arguing from a position of weakness. I was of course blocked. So without further ado... (I will comment in the comments).

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A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat and was for distribution of all wealth. She felt deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, which she expressed openly. One day, she was challenging her father on his beliefs and his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. Based on the lectures that she had participated in and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that for years her father had obviously harbored an evil, even selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth, and she indicated so to her father. He stopped her and asked her point blank how she was doing in school. She answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain. That she studied all the time, never had time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn’t even have time for a boyfriend and didn’t really have many college friends because of spending all her time studying. That she was taking a more difficult curriculum.

Her father listened and then asked, “How is your good friend Mary doing?”

She replied, “Mary is barely getting by.” She continued, “She barely has a 2.0 GPA,” adding “and all she takes are easy classes, and she never studies. But Mary is so very popular on campus. College for her is a blast. She goes to all the parties all the time and very often doesn’t even show up for classes because she’s too hung over.”

Her father then asked his daughter, “Why don’t you go to the Dean’s office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your 4.0 GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0?” He continued, “That way, you will both have a 3.0 GPA, and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.”

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father’s suggestion angrily fired back, “That wouldn’t be fair! I worked really hard for mine. I did without and Mary has done little or nothing. She played while I worked real hard!”

The father slowly smiled, winked and said, “Welcome to the Republican Party.”

One of my girlfriends was on a date with a guy from okcupid. Dramatization added for your enjoyment (and to garner sympathy):

"So, this is my place. I'm going to get changed real quick and then we can head out." He flips his hair and with his thumbs raised, fires both barrels of his finger guns in her direction. Pow pow.

She sits on the couch and pulls a throw pillow close. "I'll be fine, go change." Who the hell is this guy?

When he is out of sight, she sinks back into the couch and levels her eyes at his coffee table. A beautiful brass sculpture of two pigs in bikinis playing badminton sits in front of her. Nice. She leans forward and sees a few magazines -- Home and Gardens, Highlights for Kids, Guns and Ammo. The name of the resident has been crossed out in black marker.

The phone rings and she hears a muffled "Hello" from the back room. She peeks down the hallway and then back to the coffee table. Curious, she opens the drawer underneath the coffee table. Napkins, nail polish, gum. Nothing terribly strange. She shuts it again carefully so as not to make noise. When she looks up she sees motion. She turns to the side to see her date.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm so sorry!" She exclaimed, red faced. "I'm terrible embarassed." She swallows her gum and tries for her best hand-in-the-cookie-jar smile.

He speaks into the phone, "I'll call you back." He disconnects the call with his thumb.

He points the phone at her, "Get the hell out, now."

"But I was just--"

He shows her the face of the phone. "Get out of my home or I'm calling the police."

So she did. Outraged and embarassed she drives home calling herself "stupid" the entire way. She hides under the covers, and as her sobbing subsides, pulls out his copy of Guns and Ammo and reads herself to sleep.

...

Soo... Is rifling through the drawers of a date EVER acceptable? Did he overreact? Was she completely out of line? Next time I go see her, I'm going to check her bedroom closet for answers.

the Asians are what were once called “ladies,” a thought repellant to feminists but very so refreshing to men. Listen to the American women at neighboring tables, and you will frequently hear phrases like, “He’s a fucking piece of shit.” In what appears to be a determined attempt to be men, they have adopted the mode of discourse of a male locker room and made it their normal language. The Asians, classier, better students of men, do not have foul mouths. They presumably know about body parts and bathroom functions, but do not believe that a woman raises her stature by referring to them constantly in mixed company.

[They] show every indication that they do like being women. They do not seem to have anything to prove. Being happy with what they are allows them to be comfortable with what they are not – men. They are not competing to be what they can’t be with people who can’t be anything else. They don’t have to establish their masculinity because they don’t want it. They do not assume, as American women tend to, that femaleness is a diseased condition to be treated by male clothes, gutter language, and bad temper.

...

I quoted those two paragraphs from http://www.fredoneverything.net/AsianWomen.shtml

May I say... wow... My mouth was open for half of this reading. First I though, "who is this guy?". Then I thought, "I think I've heard all of this many times before."

I for one LOVE being intelligent (especially surprising the guys... hmm... maybe I'm guilty.). I love being sexy and silly. But gutter mouth? Competing with men? Is this what men really experience? I feel bad. What's worse is that I would NOT want a MAN with a bad temper and a gutter mouth.

Would LOVE thoughts on this.

I think I MUST see this... I guess he's like Batman in that neither one is a mutant.

I promise to write journal entries of substance... but not tonight

I was staring at the ass end of a moving van while the world sped by me. Then, an opening! I took it, but as I slid over I heard a honk. In my rear view I saw a fellow human closing in quickly. Too quickly. Must have been an emergency. I ducked back behind the van (a truck, a truck... why do I call it a van?) to be accomodating. But my new friend slowed down next to me. To thank me? He was rolling down the window. I obliged. "Sorry" I called to him.

"Yeah you're f***'in sorry alright." He chucked a soda or a beer can at me. I tried to accept my gracious gift, but he totally missed me and hit the side of my car instead. Poor guy. He's both an animal and a poor shot.

Ah, people are indeed pleasant. I reached down and turned up my music.