There’s this lady I know. She was born without a hand. A good old-fashioned birth defect.
Aside from the hand, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her. She’s a tank. And since she’s lived with it her whole life, the missing hand isn’t much of a handicap for her. She can do pretty much everything anyone else can do.
So I’m wondering why she has a handicapped parking tag for her car. She says she got it because she can. But why can she? There’s no reason for her to be parked closer to buildings than people with two hands. Her missing hand doesn’t stop her from walking as well as or better than anyone. She’s not on crutches or in a wheelchair. Hell, she doesn’t even have a limp. Her missing hand has affected her ability to walk in absolutely no way. Hell, except for her one arm she’s not even handicapped.
I have no problem with handicapped parking, and even less problem with walking an extra 20 feet in a parking lot to find an open spot, but I do have a problem with just about anyone being classified as qualifying for a handicapped parking tag for just about any reason.
What’s next, handicapped parking for people with migraines? When does it end that we don’t give people preferential treatment for no reason? This handless lady may be taking the spot of someone confined to a wheelchair who might actually benefit from a roomier parking spot closer to a building.
This is what we get in our society where everyone is conditioned to look for an angle and get over, I guess.
The weekend of October 11 I have people from across the country coming to town to run either the marathon, half marathon, or relay with me as part of the Baltimore Running Festival. [secret note: I'm still working on getting a couple folks to join you]
I’ve used all my powers of online charm and sitting-behind-a-monitor guile (and the promise of Resurrection) to goad runners from Alaska, Florida, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Texas into traveling here, with a few runners from other states still on the fence. In all, I think I’m up to 10 people confirmed and booked so far.
Knowing that we’re not always what we seem to be online, I wonder what these people are going to think about coming when they meet the “real” me.
I get kind of giddy just thinking about it. October can’t get here quickly enough.
(Of course, the truth is that I’m the kindest, nicest, friendliest person you can possibly imagine and everyone loves me, but you never know.)
I am here to proclaim the worst drivers in the world to be… chicks, of any age, of any nationality/ethnicity/race/religion, driving any make or model of vehicle, who have cell phones plastered to their ears.
We all know it’s hard enough for girls to do simple math in their heads, so navigating traffic while fiddling with the radio, checking themselves out in the mirror and talking to whomever on their phones about absolutely nothing to pass the time while getting from one point to another is sort of like asking a hot blond cheerleader to explain the structure of quantum mechanics in a quiet room with no distractions.
(And if any hot blond cheerleader can happen to explain the structure of quantum mechanics in a quiet room with no distractions we all know it’d be a lucky guess anyway.)
Anyway. Chicks: stop talking on the f’n phone while you’re driving. You’ve almost killed me twice this week already by paying attention to everything except the goddamn road, and it’s only Wednesday.
Thanks.
Last night was the last game of the season for the AIFA Baltimore Mariners. I decided to check the game out, so I called the team for tickets last week. The guy there told me to just walk-up and buy them on game day to save on fees. Der. Why didn’t I think of that?
When I got there I saw there were way more people there for this game than the previous two games I went to. Each of those games might have had 1,000 or so people in the stands for an arena that seats around 10,000. I was actually a little worried that I wouldn’t get decent seats. That fear was dashed when I asked the lady at the ticket booth if there was anything available in one of the two sections I wanted to sit in and she asked if I wanted tickets in row A, B or C. Heh. To make matters better, I got one ticket free for buying one. For $25 I got two seats at mid-field three rows off the field (two rows in front of us were the high dollar $40 seats). Eat that, Ravens.
As for the game, it was actually really good. The Mariners were playing the Reading (PA) Express, who had a couple hundred fans in the stands. That made me wonder how horrible Reading, PA must be that people will travel an hour and a half or so on a Monday night to support a semi-pro indoor football team. It made for a lively crowd and a good football atmosphere though, and the Mariners, who suck, were really taking it to the Express, who are good, for 3 1/2 quarters. A couple late-game turnovers doomed the Mariners to a 47-38 loss, but it was fun and I might actually consider buying season tickets next year. Mostly because for about half the price of one nose bleed end zone seat to see the Ravens I can get two seats a couple rows off mid-field to see the Mariners. That warms my cheap jew heart.
Here is a camera phone pic of the Mariners in their offensive formation:
Down, set…
And of the halftime entertainment:
Not exactly Baltimore’s Marching Ravens.
See you in 2009, Mariners! (If you’re still a team then.)
I generally regard entertainers as trained monkeys. They’re there to make me happy and help me kill some time and when I’m finished with them they go back up their trees until I’m ready to be entertained by them again. And when they die I don’t care. I might miss the entertainment, but I won’t miss the entertainer.
So I find it a little surprising that I feel so badly hearing about George Carlin kicking it over the weekend. I was first exposed to adult stand-up comedy in the early 80s. When my grandfather, who was the first person I knew with a VCR, rented Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip I remember being amazed by the colorful language coming out of the TV, but I didn’t get the comedy. I was only like 12, after all.
Not long after then we got cable TV, with HBO. I was home with the flu and feeling miserable, but I was allowed to lay on the couch and watch TV to help me pass the time. I remember one night I came across a special that was airing called Carlin at Carnegie and something about the guy talking on there made me stick with him.
Even though I was only 12 (or maybe 13), I swear I never laughed so hard at anything in my life before or after then. Carlin was so funny and so observant and so raw and so right and so easy to understand that I was amazed. I became a big fan of this “new” guy I found. It’s because of George Carlin that I can write what I wish on my blog now without giving a shit what people think. Sometimes my opinions my might not be popular, but that doesn’t mean they’re not relevant or that they’re not right. Sometimes people really are the assholes and it’s not just me. George Carlin encouraged me to call a spade a spade and let the people who have a problem with that fact worry about it.
I found that Carlin got a little too bitter and lost some of his edge as he got older, but when he was being interviewed and not trying to be “on” like he was during his latter HBO specials he was still an amazing observationist and was able to express himself in ways that were truly profound.
This is one instance where I’m sorry the monkey isn’t going to be coming back down from its tree to entertain me.
