Showing posts with label Space. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Space. Show all posts
Monday, May 21, 2012
Eclipsed
B1 was really stoked about the partial eclipse last night, and more so that I was able to snap a few pictures of it (below). He was thrilled by that, and I was happy that I was actually able to see it, given how low in the sky it was. One of the advantages of living in a high-rise! The ghost image was from my double-paned windows, alas. But the image of the eclipse came through very nicely.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Flu?
I think I'm catching B1's flu. There's a certain character to an influenza sore throat that is different from rhinovirus sore throats -- the way they present is different. And B1 definitely had the real flu -- it bugs me that one has to distinguish that -- flu (influenza) from "stomach flu" (aka, gastroenteritis, aka [most likely] norovirus), just because people get confused. Not the same diseases, people.
Anyway, I'm definitely coming down with something. We'll see whether it fully presents this weekend or what. I hope my body fights it off. We'll see. Absolutely everybody's been sneezing around work, and that's one of the key ways flu gets spread. *ACHOO*
Right now, it's sore throat, drainage, headache (I never get headaches), and zero appetite. No fever, yet, but we'll see if that creeps in -- B1 had a fever of 100.8, which isn't a super-bad fever, but it was bad enough to wear him down, for sure. It's easy to spot when he's got a fever, as his ears and cheeks flush red, and the general lassitude he shows. For me, it's usually a combination of actually getting the chills -- since I never get cold; and/or loss of appetite and libido (it's true -- my libido checks out when I get sick; that's a sure sign of me being on the mend, as my libido comes right back when I'm on the upswing).
Chicago's definitely back into classic March weather. That heat wave we had passed, and now it's back to the spring chill.
Oh, before I forget! This is super-cool! I told B1 about this, and he was intrigued. I'd already known about that, but it was nice to see some new stuff about it come out. I love the idea that there could be billions of habitable planets even just in our own galaxy. That's fabulous!
Anyway, I'm definitely coming down with something. We'll see whether it fully presents this weekend or what. I hope my body fights it off. We'll see. Absolutely everybody's been sneezing around work, and that's one of the key ways flu gets spread. *ACHOO*
Right now, it's sore throat, drainage, headache (I never get headaches), and zero appetite. No fever, yet, but we'll see if that creeps in -- B1 had a fever of 100.8, which isn't a super-bad fever, but it was bad enough to wear him down, for sure. It's easy to spot when he's got a fever, as his ears and cheeks flush red, and the general lassitude he shows. For me, it's usually a combination of actually getting the chills -- since I never get cold; and/or loss of appetite and libido (it's true -- my libido checks out when I get sick; that's a sure sign of me being on the mend, as my libido comes right back when I'm on the upswing).
Chicago's definitely back into classic March weather. That heat wave we had passed, and now it's back to the spring chill.
Oh, before I forget! This is super-cool! I told B1 about this, and he was intrigued. I'd already known about that, but it was nice to see some new stuff about it come out. I love the idea that there could be billions of habitable planets even just in our own galaxy. That's fabulous!
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Station
Apparently the International Space Station (ISS) is going to be very visible lately, is going to be the brightest object in the sky short of Venus. That's kinda nifty. I'll have to check when it'll be flying over and try to spot it with B1; he'll love that, assuming we'll even be able to see it.
The weather's been pretty dismal the past few days -- we actually had snow mixed with rain the other day, although, as ever, I roll with it.
I'm going to sling out my SF novel to another publisher, see how that goes. I need to gear up for another round of querying my books to agents and publishers; never something I particularly enjoy, but most definitely part of the dance.
Things have been pretty quiet around here lately, which is why I've been fairly blog-quiet, too, I suppose. It's the combination of lots of big, bad news in the world and relative quiet at home, I guess.
Saw "Dead Snow" the other day -- I was less than impressed by it; it wasn't scary so much as it was gruesomely amusing. The stark white Scandinavian countryside was a great backdrop for horror, and those very Nordic-looking characters in it were amusing, too, but the movie was an exercise in excessive gore (so many disembowelings -- is that a preoccupation of the director?) And, sure, all that blood works wonderfully against the white snow, but the movie was pretty empty, even as escapist fare. The opening sequence was probably the best thing about it. I didn't like the way they had the Nazi zombies kind of roar -- they sounded like orcs doing lion impressions. That was distracting and off-putting. They already look monstrous, so making them roar monstrously was too much for human-scaled monsters. One of the grossest scenes has the floozie babe putting the moves on the portly film geek in an outhouse -- a sex scene in a frickin' outhouse?? Paging Dr. Freud! It was clumsily constructed -- the floozie takes an unlikely interest in the geek, joins him while he's quite literally taking a dump in the outhouse, rides him on the commode (?!?!) and the next thing we see, the geek is returning to the cabin by himself. Now, honestly, people -- this Scandinavian Poindexter (who looked more like the kind of guy who'd be giving swirlies to nerds) gets laid by the hot girl -- he just walks away from that, turns up in the cabin to swill some more brewskies nonchalantly, leaving her back in the outhouse to get rather gruesomely killed by one of the Nazi zombies?? Terribly constructed scene, clunkily rendered (and gross -- maybe putting the moves on a guy while he's taking a dump in an outhouse is a time-honored Scandinavian courtship ritual? Shudder.) The alpha guy stumbles across a cave that appears to be a kind of lair for the zombies, and actually leaves a couple of perfectly maintained MP40 submachine guns alone, even as he discovers the severed head of his missing girlfriend. Later, he picks up a German machine gun (from somewhere) that he mounts on his "snow scooter" (aka, snowmobile), and briefly uses. But seeing the guy see those submachine guns in this cave, seeing actual horror and carnage, and the guy's military service background is referenced in his first scene -- I was thinking "Helloooo? Pick up the fucking guns, Sven; there's zombies in them thar hills." Instead, he gets to engage in some sloppy disembowelment (see?) knife fights with the zombies. Anyway, these zombies are very fixated not on eating brains, but on eating guts. They do it every time they get after somebody -- you see them gobbling guts. So, either the writer had some kind of fixation on bowels, or the director did, or they both did, because it flows through the whole movie (haha -- "flows"). There are some darkly amusing moments in the movie, here and there (I won't spoil them, if you're inclined to see this movie), and a couple of reasonable scares that are mostly a product of a spliced zombie bushwhack coupled with a BLAST of sound, but this movie didn't rise above the promise of its premise, in my view. You can tell the director is a fan of Sam Raimi -- he opts for that kind of kinetic gore approach to horror, that over the top, so bad it's good kind of aesthetic, but the characters aren't strong enough to carry the narrative.
The weather's been pretty dismal the past few days -- we actually had snow mixed with rain the other day, although, as ever, I roll with it.
I'm going to sling out my SF novel to another publisher, see how that goes. I need to gear up for another round of querying my books to agents and publishers; never something I particularly enjoy, but most definitely part of the dance.
Things have been pretty quiet around here lately, which is why I've been fairly blog-quiet, too, I suppose. It's the combination of lots of big, bad news in the world and relative quiet at home, I guess.
Saw "Dead Snow" the other day -- I was less than impressed by it; it wasn't scary so much as it was gruesomely amusing. The stark white Scandinavian countryside was a great backdrop for horror, and those very Nordic-looking characters in it were amusing, too, but the movie was an exercise in excessive gore (so many disembowelings -- is that a preoccupation of the director?) And, sure, all that blood works wonderfully against the white snow, but the movie was pretty empty, even as escapist fare. The opening sequence was probably the best thing about it. I didn't like the way they had the Nazi zombies kind of roar -- they sounded like orcs doing lion impressions. That was distracting and off-putting. They already look monstrous, so making them roar monstrously was too much for human-scaled monsters. One of the grossest scenes has the floozie babe putting the moves on the portly film geek in an outhouse -- a sex scene in a frickin' outhouse?? Paging Dr. Freud! It was clumsily constructed -- the floozie takes an unlikely interest in the geek, joins him while he's quite literally taking a dump in the outhouse, rides him on the commode (?!?!) and the next thing we see, the geek is returning to the cabin by himself. Now, honestly, people -- this Scandinavian Poindexter (who looked more like the kind of guy who'd be giving swirlies to nerds) gets laid by the hot girl -- he just walks away from that, turns up in the cabin to swill some more brewskies nonchalantly, leaving her back in the outhouse to get rather gruesomely killed by one of the Nazi zombies?? Terribly constructed scene, clunkily rendered (and gross -- maybe putting the moves on a guy while he's taking a dump in an outhouse is a time-honored Scandinavian courtship ritual? Shudder.) The alpha guy stumbles across a cave that appears to be a kind of lair for the zombies, and actually leaves a couple of perfectly maintained MP40 submachine guns alone, even as he discovers the severed head of his missing girlfriend. Later, he picks up a German machine gun (from somewhere) that he mounts on his "snow scooter" (aka, snowmobile), and briefly uses. But seeing the guy see those submachine guns in this cave, seeing actual horror and carnage, and the guy's military service background is referenced in his first scene -- I was thinking "Helloooo? Pick up the fucking guns, Sven; there's zombies in them thar hills." Instead, he gets to engage in some sloppy disembowelment (see?) knife fights with the zombies. Anyway, these zombies are very fixated not on eating brains, but on eating guts. They do it every time they get after somebody -- you see them gobbling guts. So, either the writer had some kind of fixation on bowels, or the director did, or they both did, because it flows through the whole movie (haha -- "flows"). There are some darkly amusing moments in the movie, here and there (I won't spoil them, if you're inclined to see this movie), and a couple of reasonable scares that are mostly a product of a spliced zombie bushwhack coupled with a BLAST of sound, but this movie didn't rise above the promise of its premise, in my view. You can tell the director is a fan of Sam Raimi -- he opts for that kind of kinetic gore approach to horror, that over the top, so bad it's good kind of aesthetic, but the characters aren't strong enough to carry the narrative.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Mercurial
First picture of Mercury sent from the Mercury Messenger. Look at all of those craters! The big one at the top center is 50 miles across!
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Moonshine
Man, the supermoon was a bust over here -- I didn't see squat last night, thanks to overcast skies. Sucks. B1 was all excited to see it, but there was nothing to see.
Speaking of exciting to see, I'd watched "Casino Royale" again, after a long time not seeing it, and recalled that Caterina Murino is frickin' hot in her small role as Solange, Bond's expendable girl (since there always seems to be an expendable babe in a Bond movie in the first act)...
Virgo sun, Libra moon, so she's more than likely batshit crazy, but she's sure one fine lookin' babe.
70,000 words.
Speaking of exciting to see, I'd watched "Casino Royale" again, after a long time not seeing it, and recalled that Caterina Murino is frickin' hot in her small role as Solange, Bond's expendable girl (since there always seems to be an expendable babe in a Bond movie in the first act)...
 |
| Caterina MMMMurino. |
 |
| Caterina Murino. |
70,000 words.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Spacing Out
It's kind of humbling to think that, after this fall, once the last couple of Space Shuttle missions are flown, that'll be the end of America's manned space flight program -- we've had that going for something like 50 years, and there won't be anything after that. B1 was asking me what was going to replace the Shuttle (he teared up when I told him it would be the last flights of the Shuttle), and I said "Well, there's nothing made, yet. There are concepts and so forth, but there isn't anything in play, yet, at least for manned flight." He was disappointed.
But in these times, it's hard to imagine a program like that being continued, especially in the absence of, say, a Moon base. Maybe if the US had gone whole-hog on a weaponization of space program, some kind of orbital weapons platform, we'd have a vigorous manned presence up there, but barring that, there's little enthusiasm for it -- we'll go up there for the wrong reasons, dammit -- but exploration? Nah. Barring a weaponizing of space (which we're still likeliest to do), I guess there's the corporatification (sure, why not? A new word!) of space, where private interests go up there and try to establish claims.
Even then, however, the logistics of it are daunting. There's venture capitalism, and there's VENTURE capitalism, and space-prospecting is almost ludicrously difficult to conceive and execute, let alone turn a profit. There's a reason why space programs were historically nationalized. And even the US really only went hard after a space program because it was wary of the Soviets having too much of a lead on them -- so much of the Space Race was a nationalistic/militaristic exercise, not wanting the Russkies to have an edge on us in space. They still thought in terms of the ultimate high ground, whether Earth orbit or even the Moon, before the strategists realized that particularly the Moon was just unrealistic militarily, and ultimately useless. And enthusiasm waned. There is some irony to be found in it, however -- the US does not object to throwing money into money pits -- we did that in Vietnam, we did it (and are doing it) in the Drug War, we have done it in the Middle East. Of course, there are ginned-up justifications for those various money holes, whereas space exploration, I guess the void is just too apparent there for any justification to be accepted.
All the same, this fall will see the end of an era in American history, and it makes me a little sad. Other, more financially solvent (and nationalistically ambitious) nations will pursue their own space programs, and maybe that'll spur another American Space Race, an urge not to be left behind on this. Or maybe we'll just be too busy cutting our own throats to bother looking skyward. Who knows? I kind of think the latter case -- if paving roads, having libraries and public schools, and fixing bridges is somehow controversial, then how can one possibly justify having a space program?
Our astronauts will likely have other, more immediate concerns by then...
But in these times, it's hard to imagine a program like that being continued, especially in the absence of, say, a Moon base. Maybe if the US had gone whole-hog on a weaponization of space program, some kind of orbital weapons platform, we'd have a vigorous manned presence up there, but barring that, there's little enthusiasm for it -- we'll go up there for the wrong reasons, dammit -- but exploration? Nah. Barring a weaponizing of space (which we're still likeliest to do), I guess there's the corporatification (sure, why not? A new word!) of space, where private interests go up there and try to establish claims.
Even then, however, the logistics of it are daunting. There's venture capitalism, and there's VENTURE capitalism, and space-prospecting is almost ludicrously difficult to conceive and execute, let alone turn a profit. There's a reason why space programs were historically nationalized. And even the US really only went hard after a space program because it was wary of the Soviets having too much of a lead on them -- so much of the Space Race was a nationalistic/militaristic exercise, not wanting the Russkies to have an edge on us in space. They still thought in terms of the ultimate high ground, whether Earth orbit or even the Moon, before the strategists realized that particularly the Moon was just unrealistic militarily, and ultimately useless. And enthusiasm waned. There is some irony to be found in it, however -- the US does not object to throwing money into money pits -- we did that in Vietnam, we did it (and are doing it) in the Drug War, we have done it in the Middle East. Of course, there are ginned-up justifications for those various money holes, whereas space exploration, I guess the void is just too apparent there for any justification to be accepted.
All the same, this fall will see the end of an era in American history, and it makes me a little sad. Other, more financially solvent (and nationalistically ambitious) nations will pursue their own space programs, and maybe that'll spur another American Space Race, an urge not to be left behind on this. Or maybe we'll just be too busy cutting our own throats to bother looking skyward. Who knows? I kind of think the latter case -- if paving roads, having libraries and public schools, and fixing bridges is somehow controversial, then how can one possibly justify having a space program?
Our astronauts will likely have other, more immediate concerns by then...
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Shuttle Diplomacy
B1 loves the Space Shuttle. And while researching it to talk to him about it, I saw that the last two shuttle flights are this year (mid-September for Discovery, and mid-November for Endeavour), and told him that. He said "But I love the Space Shuttle Program; I don't think they should cancel it." And I could hear a little hitch in his voice, so I gave him a hug. He said "What are they replacing it with?" and I told him that there wasn't anything lined up, yet, and he couldn't understand why they hadn't done that. I didn't have the heart to tell him that our country's increasingly becoming an economic and cultural basket case and things like space programs are going the way of art and music programs in the public schools. Sigh. Then he sweetly came up with some alternative plans for space programs. He's such a smart, sweet lil' guy.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Meteorology and Public Anomie
Apparently a meteor shot over the Midwest last night, roughly around the time I went to bed. I missed it, but the pix of it over Madison, WI looked impressive...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36559622/ns/technology_and_science-space/
I'm kinda peevish that I missed it. I was pretty tired, though, and guess I conked when this sucker flew over! I think meteors are maybe good omens, contrasted with comets, which are, historically, seen as bad omens. So, there you go.
Today's my last day of being a 30-something! Woo hoo! I thought of that at the Mission of Burma show Saturday, like "Wow, this is my last show as a 30-something." (I think Guided By Voices in 2001 was my first show as a 30-something).
Tomorrow, I'm taking a day off of work, and going to get my hair cut, gonna take care of the boys, gonna get groceries, gonna make myself a birthday cake (DIY! DIY!) and will catch "Kick-Ass" and maybe go out for a round of drinks in the evening. Nothing fancy. Low-key, compared with my 39th birthday celebration bash at the tiki bar last year, but for me, that seems right -- like the last 30-something birthday should have more weight than the first 40-something birthday, I dunno. Just feels intuitively right.
This weekend, I'm taking B1 to his soccer game Saturday (with B2 in tow), and am going to finish transcribing the screenplay (and then the odious task of noting the plot and ensuring that the plot points flow smoothly, all of that -- screenwriting leaves you no wiggle room on that -- every plot point must matter, so I need to map that all out and get it right. I may tape it to the wall or something, so I can see it all in one place -- index cards, that kinda thing. My boys'll love that, I'm sure, and'll start taping things to the walls. I just know it. Oh, and I'll get the boys' and my bikes spruced up and ready for biking season. I'm looking forward to that.
I think I may represent a kind of retrograde conception of manhood to the younger set. It's kind of funny with me, at work. I'm a strongly progressive soul, and am definitely more of a libertine than many of the people I work with (although I think maybe they don't realize it, because I'm "old") -- but it's funny, too. Most of the people I work with on a peer-to-peer basis are 20-somethings, not Gen Xers, and I think I'm very different from them. Like socially, and normatively, they speak a different language than I do. I think I'm harder-edged, more cynical, more sarcastic than they are. They are more pack-oriented, less comfortable going it alone. It's kind of weird. It reminds me of how, say, a Brat Packer or a Mod might've seemed to a group of hippies -- like retro and strange. I think that's the case.
I think the advent of texting and other technological means of corresponding has adversely impacted communication -- the younger folks are less adroit conversationalists -- less to say, and less interesting things to say. It's kind of curious to observe in action. Easily distractable, short attention spans, not much patience, and other things that I think result from changes in the way people communicate. Not only do I not really talk to them; I kind of find myself not wanting to, either. And it's not even anything personal -- it's just a kind of odd emptiness in human interactions I see that wasn't quite there before. Maybe X was the last conversational generation -- the last generation where you actually had to talk to people around you, versus relying on texting and other media to do the talking for you.
It's not necessarily a value judgment -- it's just a reflection on how things have changed. And I think conceptions of masculinity have changed, too. I think perhaps in the 90s, classic conceptions of masculinity were subverted (I think unintentionally), and many guys went "emo" because appearing too strongly masculine was perhaps seen as threatening. It's funny, because I'm not a macho guy by any means -- I'm quietly masculine, strongly sexual, but not overbearing in that regard -- but, compared with the 20-something guys I work with, I'm like a bull (haha, or a woolly ram, perhaps), snorting and stomping. At some point in our culture, being masculine was somehow seen as a bad thing. Being very alert and socially aware, I'm conscious of that, not wanting to stomp on coworkers' toes. Maybe it's part of being a Big Guy(tm) -- like there is an implicit threat in being a Big Buy that can appear threatening to people in general, I'm not sure. But I feel like where it never came up with my Gen X peers, I kind of see that vibe with the Gen Y people I work with. Being a strong individual in a pack-oriented culture, too, might be part of it.
Maybe it's because of the gradual outing of gay culture in the 90s and the rise of Emo or something, younger guys weren't really left with any workable model of manhood to put to use, and so they either stay permaboys, or else just kind of flounder. Like I notice in the parlance, the 20-something women habitually refer to guys as "boys" and themselves as "girls" -- there is almost a pejorative connotation with "man" and "woman" in language these days. Like a self-consciousness, where the women are girls and the men are boys -- or maybe it's simply a side effect of an infantilized culture where nobody really has to grow up.
I'm not entirely sure. It's just something I've observed. Almost none of the 20-somethings I work with are in long-term relationships, almost none of them have had kids -- while they claim to want a proper relationship, the idea of parenting seems horrifying and alien to them, the idea of a relationship seems to strike them as too much work for too little payoff, quite beyond their expectations of life. It's a curious thing to observe, from my vantage point of a Gen X parent of two who's getting divorced, surrounded by Gen Y people who likely haven't even given a stray thought to even marrying anybody, let alone raising kids or divorcing somebody.
How is a future built in a world like that, full of alienated people who just randomly bounce off one another like pinballs? Where seemingly obvious ideas like "conversation" and "dating" and "relationship" and even "love" seem quaint and unfamiliar and alien and perhaps even threatening? In a bizarre way, it feels like the final triumph of the consumerist culture, to the final detriment of mankind as a social animal. I just wonder where these people will be in another five years, what they will do, and what that'll mean for the larger culture.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36559622/ns/technology_and_science-space/
I'm kinda peevish that I missed it. I was pretty tired, though, and guess I conked when this sucker flew over! I think meteors are maybe good omens, contrasted with comets, which are, historically, seen as bad omens. So, there you go.
Today's my last day of being a 30-something! Woo hoo! I thought of that at the Mission of Burma show Saturday, like "Wow, this is my last show as a 30-something." (I think Guided By Voices in 2001 was my first show as a 30-something).
Tomorrow, I'm taking a day off of work, and going to get my hair cut, gonna take care of the boys, gonna get groceries, gonna make myself a birthday cake (DIY! DIY!) and will catch "Kick-Ass" and maybe go out for a round of drinks in the evening. Nothing fancy. Low-key, compared with my 39th birthday celebration bash at the tiki bar last year, but for me, that seems right -- like the last 30-something birthday should have more weight than the first 40-something birthday, I dunno. Just feels intuitively right.
This weekend, I'm taking B1 to his soccer game Saturday (with B2 in tow), and am going to finish transcribing the screenplay (and then the odious task of noting the plot and ensuring that the plot points flow smoothly, all of that -- screenwriting leaves you no wiggle room on that -- every plot point must matter, so I need to map that all out and get it right. I may tape it to the wall or something, so I can see it all in one place -- index cards, that kinda thing. My boys'll love that, I'm sure, and'll start taping things to the walls. I just know it. Oh, and I'll get the boys' and my bikes spruced up and ready for biking season. I'm looking forward to that.
I think I may represent a kind of retrograde conception of manhood to the younger set. It's kind of funny with me, at work. I'm a strongly progressive soul, and am definitely more of a libertine than many of the people I work with (although I think maybe they don't realize it, because I'm "old") -- but it's funny, too. Most of the people I work with on a peer-to-peer basis are 20-somethings, not Gen Xers, and I think I'm very different from them. Like socially, and normatively, they speak a different language than I do. I think I'm harder-edged, more cynical, more sarcastic than they are. They are more pack-oriented, less comfortable going it alone. It's kind of weird. It reminds me of how, say, a Brat Packer or a Mod might've seemed to a group of hippies -- like retro and strange. I think that's the case.
I think the advent of texting and other technological means of corresponding has adversely impacted communication -- the younger folks are less adroit conversationalists -- less to say, and less interesting things to say. It's kind of curious to observe in action. Easily distractable, short attention spans, not much patience, and other things that I think result from changes in the way people communicate. Not only do I not really talk to them; I kind of find myself not wanting to, either. And it's not even anything personal -- it's just a kind of odd emptiness in human interactions I see that wasn't quite there before. Maybe X was the last conversational generation -- the last generation where you actually had to talk to people around you, versus relying on texting and other media to do the talking for you.
It's not necessarily a value judgment -- it's just a reflection on how things have changed. And I think conceptions of masculinity have changed, too. I think perhaps in the 90s, classic conceptions of masculinity were subverted (I think unintentionally), and many guys went "emo" because appearing too strongly masculine was perhaps seen as threatening. It's funny, because I'm not a macho guy by any means -- I'm quietly masculine, strongly sexual, but not overbearing in that regard -- but, compared with the 20-something guys I work with, I'm like a bull (haha, or a woolly ram, perhaps), snorting and stomping. At some point in our culture, being masculine was somehow seen as a bad thing. Being very alert and socially aware, I'm conscious of that, not wanting to stomp on coworkers' toes. Maybe it's part of being a Big Guy(tm) -- like there is an implicit threat in being a Big Buy that can appear threatening to people in general, I'm not sure. But I feel like where it never came up with my Gen X peers, I kind of see that vibe with the Gen Y people I work with. Being a strong individual in a pack-oriented culture, too, might be part of it.
Maybe it's because of the gradual outing of gay culture in the 90s and the rise of Emo or something, younger guys weren't really left with any workable model of manhood to put to use, and so they either stay permaboys, or else just kind of flounder. Like I notice in the parlance, the 20-something women habitually refer to guys as "boys" and themselves as "girls" -- there is almost a pejorative connotation with "man" and "woman" in language these days. Like a self-consciousness, where the women are girls and the men are boys -- or maybe it's simply a side effect of an infantilized culture where nobody really has to grow up.
I'm not entirely sure. It's just something I've observed. Almost none of the 20-somethings I work with are in long-term relationships, almost none of them have had kids -- while they claim to want a proper relationship, the idea of parenting seems horrifying and alien to them, the idea of a relationship seems to strike them as too much work for too little payoff, quite beyond their expectations of life. It's a curious thing to observe, from my vantage point of a Gen X parent of two who's getting divorced, surrounded by Gen Y people who likely haven't even given a stray thought to even marrying anybody, let alone raising kids or divorcing somebody.
How is a future built in a world like that, full of alienated people who just randomly bounce off one another like pinballs? Where seemingly obvious ideas like "conversation" and "dating" and "relationship" and even "love" seem quaint and unfamiliar and alien and perhaps even threatening? In a bizarre way, it feels like the final triumph of the consumerist culture, to the final detriment of mankind as a social animal. I just wonder where these people will be in another five years, what they will do, and what that'll mean for the larger culture.
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