2001-03-05 - 5:32pm

Who's Who Cheat Sheet
Who I Read

On the internal soundtrack: Theme from "Malcolm in the Middle"

In this entry, there is (among other things) a nude beach update, and more about guns today, for those of you who tune in for that sort of thing. Terry's got me listed as a "Gun-Toting Libertarian Nudist" on his links page now, which amuses me to no end.

Note: Most of this entry was written before I heard about the San Diego shooting. I talk about that at the end of the entry.

I was talking to Amy on IM and invited her to take a day trip to Sandy Hook this summer sometime. She was ecstatic and agreed immediately. We'll bring a big umbrella, since we're both quite fair-skinned. She says her husband won't mind if she brings her 3-year-old son, so he'll come along too. Should be a blast. Apparently he likes to have "sandball fights", which is a new one on me.

Gunnison Beach is an "official" clothing-optional beach, as opposed to the "unofficial" beaches where it isn't strictly prohibited, but isn't sanctioned either. I've heard Gunnison Beach is a family place, and it has lifeguards and cops and everything. Excellent. The last beach I went to was closed down because people were engaging in sexual activities in the parking lots and behind the dunes.

This enrages me for two reasons:

1. Typical stupid government response. The problem was not the nude beach itself, the problem was public sex. Crack down on the people screwing in public, NOT the people who are there strictly to sunbathe sans clammy, ill-fitting bathing suit! They already have cops patrolling the beach to prevent nudity, so why not just have them prevent sexual activity instead?

2. Get a fucking room, people. For godsakes! There are swinger parties and bath houses for that sort of thing!

Sigh.

Anyway, if you're reading this and wondering what the hell kind of people like to sunbathe naked, you might find this site helpful. Check out the FAQ about midway down the page.

Watch out. There are some pictures of people standing around, chatting, or reading without any clothes on. Actually some of the pictures are downright funny, because they look like greeting cards except the people are naked. And for some reason I can't fathom, the people in the pictures look far more like models than the average nudist does. If you ever go to a nude beach, there are a lot of potbellies and cellulite. God bless 'em all.

And remember, as my friend Will likes to say: "If God had wanted us to be naked, we would have been born that way."

Switching gears completely, I forgot to mention that on Saturday we went to the Hard Times Cafe with Timmy to get some chili. It was pretty good stuff.

After we ate, we walked around and watched the St. Patrick's Day Parade. I liked seeing the old-fashioned bicycles, with the really huge wheel. They also had some local circus troupe on unicycles and one girl inside a rolling wheel. I love that kind of stuff.

The parade wrapped up with a bang: the Hine Junior High School Marching Panthers, a public school in the District. They had a percussion section that played some amazing African rhythms -- nothing like any school band I had ever heard before. I need to find out if they do any kind of public performances, because I could have listened to them for hours. They were quite a hit with everyone who was watching the parade.

Well, Poindexter forced me to watch "Taxi Driver" today.

Note: When I say "forced", I mean, he brought it home and said, "You can watch this with me if you want." He does not have to work very hard to persuade me to do things with him. I can only presume it has something to do with the blue eyes and long eyelashes.

Anyways, it was a classic movie, Bobby De Niro, blah blah blah, so what the heck.

Well, I didn't like it. Partly, I imagine, was that I didn't understand the character at all. He was a little crazy, for starters. Also, supposedly the movie is about loneliness. This is something I do not feel very often, largely since I find my own dorky self to be plenty of company for vast periods of time.

Oddly enough, the time I clearly recall feeling lonely was in my first semester at college. I was surrounded by people and was extraordinarily sociable, more than I had ever been in my life. But I was acutely aware that it was all very superficial. I didn't feel a connection to any of them. In fact, most of them were a little baffled by me. I tend to get a lot of odd looks from people because of things I say, until they get to know me.

To this day I'm not sure exactly what I say that's so odd. I say what I'm thinking, which can be absolutely anything, and while it may not be offensive or unsettling, I suppose it is unusual. Thing is, I'm delighted when I find these people, not wigged out.

Change of topic, though it's related to the movie. There were guns in the movie. There's a scene where guns are purchased. And I was horrified to notice -- this being the first movie with guns in it since I started using them myself -- that they kept waving them around.

I think I mentioned in an earlier entry that people who use guns recreationally are EXTREMELY careful with their guns. You do NOT point them, willy nilly, and gesture with them, even if they are not loaded.

Then Poindexter was watching "The Untouchables" during the commercial breaks of the hockey game, and I see Kevin Costner holding a rifle, waving it around as he chats with Sean Connery. It made me cringe and want to duck. Somebody needs to tell actors and directors that this is inappropriate behavior.

Over dinner at Melrose, Poindexter mentioned that he's ready to go buy his 9mm pistol. He wants to go gun shopping next weekend. Fine by me. I would like to do a little more research to find out why I kept jamming the .22 pistol last weekend before I actually decide to buy one. Is it really weak wrists? I didn't have that problem in Florida and want to make sure that it could well be a problem with the rented pistol itself (it was dirty, after all. I know next to nothing about it all, and I want to know more first. I am an information junkie, after all.

Speaking of being an information junkie, I am also something of an information sponge. Or something. What's a good analogy for someone who absorbs a lot and then spits it back out?

I don't seem to ever have been very good at thinking outside the box, coming up with new ideas on my own. I only seem to be good at absorbing everyone's point of view, and then picking the one that makes the most sense for me personally. Even my whole libertarian thing is like that. I listened to a lot of people talk about their political philosophy, and the libertarians were the ones who made the most sense to me.

I spend a lot of time listening to other points of view. My MIL, a Repubican, has a lot of opinions, some of which I don't agree with, but I like to listen to her explain her POV, since she usually has thought things through. Same thing with Megan, who is extremely liberal.

The thing that I find, though, is that people can justify (some would say "rationalize") absolutely anything. This is where it starts to all fall apart. You can grab some facts and ignore others to make your point. All sides -- liberals, conservatives, libertarians, socialists -- do this. What if you heard all the arguments on all sides? Would the answers be so easy?

I know what's right for me. That's about all I can be sure of. The rest, well, I'm still listening.

Sigh. Those poor kids. And their families.

I see that another high school kid has gone on a shooting spree.

Ugh ... in this case, the kid TOLD PEOPLE ahead of time that he was going to do it. He claimed he was kidding, but one of his friends checked his backpack this morning to make sure he didn't have a gun. I suppose he was keeping it someplace else. None of this was enough to prevent it.

Why did the security guard run into the bathroom? Didn't he have a gun? I guess not, since he got shot in the back. Exactly what is the purpose of this security guard, again?

Another thing I want to know is, why does this kid think it was okay to do what he did? What went wrong here?

I have heard just about every argument in this sort of case, from "it's his parents' fault" to "he's just crazy/evil", to "what do you expect when he was picked on so much and ignored by society?"

I do agree that junior high and high school are, quite frankly, horrible, and am in favor of doing anything possible to break the cliqueishness and rigid hierarchy. High school is a bizarre environment, one I wouldn't go back to in a million years.

Yet many people get picked on and ostracized, or go through periods in which they have no friends. I did too, although my family was always a rock through any difficulties I may have had. Still, I also know of people who went through this at school and got the same crap at home, yet moved on to be productive, happy members of society. What separates these people from the Dylan Klebolds of the world? What separates the ones who act from the ones who merely fantasize?

The answer, I suppose, is a combination of everything -- family, society, genetics, peers. Maybe someday we'll get better at recognizing it early and giving kids the support they need so that they never get that miserable and move to take it out on others.

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