This ad is gorgeous, isn't it? There is a beautiful dog who has been designated by one lovely and innocent child, as her protector and friend. If this Bloodhound, this being, chose to defile its own personality, ego, self, what would become of this child?

If this dog was anything other than what it is, we would be looking at a completely different ad, and that's why You matter.

You do know that, don't you? Your mama told you that and you believed it and you believed it because it is true and you knew that about yourself.

Then you went to school.

In school you mattered only as far as you could fit into a group, get along with your teacher, play nice with others. How horrifying. How sad that you spend the most formative years of your life learning, reciting, and regurgitating memes that pushed you into a place in a group, but now you are a grown up, and it's time for you to know, for real this time, that You matter.

The person you are, that unique extraordinary person the makes you- all those memes in your head- those matter to the world. And they matter to the world so much that if you continue to force them to disappear, they will be missed. Your memes, the unique way you put information together, the ideas that you carry with you everywhere you go cannot be replicated and they matter to us as a species, and they matter to us as individuals, because here's what happens when they disappear- the individual disappears and you become a shadow of yourself.

We are meme machines. We have the unique ability among all species to process complex ideas and share information and I believe that if you willfully, purposefully choose to ignore the information you are able to share, you are diminishing your self. Forget what you were taught about playing nice with others, you matter and you are to be celebrated.

Greg Swann, on the BloodhoundBlog:

A Bloodhound’s virtues are genetic accidents, but that doesn’t make them less than perfectly admirable, whether evidenced in the dog or anthropomorphized and expressed in thoroughly conscious human behavior. Brought up right, a Bloodhound is a natural alpha, regal and indomitable. The dog will move with a lanky, un-self-conscious arrogance that is simply heart-breakingly beautiful to look upon: This what a thriving organism looks like.

I am steadfastly, philosophically opposed to the idea of humility. I think it is one of many evil ideas foisted off on us by malefactors who love us best at our absolute worst. To say to me, “You’re arrogant,” or, “you have a big ego,” is no reproach. On the one hand, it is a statement of obvious fact. But on the other, it puts me on my guard against you. A healthy, normal human being moves and acts and thinks and speaks with the lanky arrogance of a healthy, normal Bloodhound. When people don’t behave that way, I want to know why. When they affect to preach against healthy, normal human behavior, I go on defense — and not by half-measures.

Let's look again at this extraordinary ad: We would never want this Bloodhound to be anything other than what it is right at this moment- how could we? Its own self is so crucial to the world, that a young girl is depending on this same self.

Here's the thing: I want this for you as well. I want you to be so much your own self, that you would never ever consider losing that self, dissipating that self. I am empathetic, that's part of who I am and it makes me ache for you and it's painful for me to see you when you are less than whole, but, I cannot become less of me, for you. I will not lose myself because you refuse to be yourself.

We are at our best when we are fully freely functioning who we are, and when you see that and believe it, and begin to live your life knowing that you matter, at that moment, we are us, you are you, and that, in and of itself, is the most pure and beautiful thing the world has ever known.

Greg Swann from the BloodhoundBlog:

(...) we are all about to be involuntarily inducted into a cannibal cult. My question for you: Will you choose to be devoured by your neighbors, or will you elect to devour them instead? –GSS

 
What I want to discuss is Socrates’ question about whether it is better to inflict an injury or to have an injury inflicted upon you. It’s a favorite of sophists and sophomores, I know, but I think it strikes at the very core of justice. The justice I seek and seek to defend is not “out there”, apart from myself. Justice (or injustice) is not what others do to me, it’s what I do to myself and to others. Where I find myself availing myself of the fallacies tu quoque or two wrongs make a right, I am rationalizing injustice, and the worst havoc I am wreaking is upon my own ego.

The Nazarene’s answer to Socrates was this: It is better to have an injury inflicted upon you, because redemption is still possible to one who has not inflicted injury upon another. I don’t believe in an afterlife and I don’t believe redemption hinges upon any one event. But I do believe that a “justice” that is itself unjust is vain at best and evil at worst. (...)

There's so much more...

I love music. I love to dance. I'm a huge fan of musicals and as I recently told someone, whatever is happening outwardly, in my life there is often background music running through my head. Sometimes it's apropos to the moment, but often it's simply random bits of gorgeous music that never fail to make me very happy when I hear them.

I adore this song- the melody, the sentiment, it is just perfect and one of the more frequent tunes that accompanies me throughout life. This is Placido Domingo who adds his incomparable passion to a lov-er-ly tune from My Fair Lady.

Sing Sing Sing! by Benny Goodman.
Choreography by Bob Fosse.
In my world, it doesn't get any more exuberant than that.

What a year you've had- it couldn't have been easy. The strength you've displayed throughout is nothing short of inspiring.

We saw Wicked last night at the Schuster, how could I not think of you and everything you've done and accomplished in your short life? You are on the very brink of a new life, and I couldn't be more proud and excited for you, but I also couldn't be more honored to have walked along side you, to have watched you become a woman of strength and beauty leaves me humbled to be your mother.

Wherever your life takes you, dear Rian, always, always remember who you are. Continue to defy gravity.

We never, ever do anything nice, and easy....

I learned all my best dance moves from Tina Turner. True.

I'm in the market for a new cell phone. Actually I've been in the market for a new cell phone since my puppy took a shine to the old one- a BlackBerry Pearl.

I like my old phone well enough. It's small, it's convenient. It rings, I answer. I can check email, take the occasional photo, twitter from the ER, and there you have it. I know how to use a rotary dial, so having a phone that does something more than place and receive calls is still kinda special to me, me being a hick and all, but I talk to lots-o-geeks and they are all raving about their Fancy Phones, and you know how you feel left out? Yeah, well, cell phone manufacturers know how you feel left out, too.

I'm tactile. I'm tuned into the way things feel, how they feel in my hands when I hold them. I'm also one of those people that hate using public door handles because I feel all the oil and dirt left behind by the thousands of other people who touched that door handle before me. I also know in that dirt are germs. I'm not a clean freak, I simply don't like other people's dirt.

What does that have to do with cell phones? Because I spend so much time holding a phone, it has to feel right in my hands. There are phones that feel nice- Palm Pre in all it's manifestations is one. My Pearl is another. The old clam shell flip phones- remember those?- they felt nice too, snuggled into your palm like an egg. So I went looking for an egg.

The Palm Pre Plus is a thing of beauty to me. It's clean and quiet, and sits like a gentle polished stone. I like that. A lot. I thought I'd like one. I would like one, in fact, except... There's this little problem. Remember how I said I know how to dial a rotary phone? That puts me at A Certain Age. As a Woman of a Certain Age, my eyes are also of A Certain Age. That means tiny little adorable black keys are useless to me. And while I completely, utterly, intimately understand that Women of a Certain Age are not the market demo for any cell phone manufacturer, the Jitterbug aside, I am the cell phone provider for my family. I might be a Woman of a Certain Age, but Dear Cell Phone Manufacturers, I am the influencer for thousands and thousands of dollars in cell phone payments. I am the influencer for my parents, my children, my husband, my friends. I'm not a geek, but I'm geekier than most the people I know so they listen to me, they don't listen to Twitter.

So here are my recommendations: Screens that are easy to read and simple to use. Keys that are tactile and large and not black. A phone that doesn't gross me out with all the finger prints all over it. I want a phone that is unlocked. If you provide service at a fair price, I'm sticking with you. If you suck, and I'm under contract, you suck harder- do you see that? Don't suck and I'm yours for as long as I can because I really don't want to change providers unless I have to. That's a really short wish list, don't you think? Y'all can do that in your sleep!

In my world, practicality wins over whizzbang every single time, so here's where I'm leaning: An unlocked BlackBerry World Edition. No camera, alas, but I'm free to find a provider that works for me, I can read it, dial out, and check email. Hell, I'll even be able to Twitter from the hospital- what more can a Woman of a Certain Age ask for?