Gash Wednesday, The Blog of Andrea Rothe

Very agreeable first topic - and the title guarantees I shall read future entries.

I continue to stare at that photo.

As sure as I am of anything, I'm sure that's a woman popping Andrea's tires. And it's not because of the dog. I'm in the criminal's mind like in Manhunter. It's a gift and a curse!

Someone used to do that to me. I just got bigger tires with more layers. Problem was solved.

I think the only logical alternative is to give up on your car and take to getting around on a dog sled. A nice pack of 12 angry as fuck huskies should calm things down in the neighbourhood (screw you red squiggly line, that's how the word is spelled) Also reduced carbon footprint, very trendy.

My dog's farts can melt glass. Although dog fart mileage may vary, this may not be accurate.

These dogs were going to fart whether they guide Andrea's sleigh tonight, or not.

If she sells the car, so would the car. It would work out for the positive if she junked it.

Stripper?

And what happened to your tires?? Find the guy/gal responsible?

I can neither confirm nor deny. Also, my bush is too big.

And he gave up all the shit you wish for him, for you. You can look at his life and say "why didn't he do this..." or "why did he zig here instead of zagging there?", but the sobering, horrifying answer is - because of YOU.

Probably why I won't have kids.

Having children isn't an excuse to not live life. You don't lose your ability to make decisions for yourself. Perhaps the decisions are limited, but it's a shitty excuse. My older sister has four under the age of six and a very full life. I won't be anyone's scape goat.

Interesting conclusion you jumped to.

Don't get defensive. I didn't bring it up. It's valid to at least ponder your role in his life when judging how he chose to live it, no?

It IS a valid idea. No one is an island unto themselves. Of course I affected his daily life and his life over time. But having kids is not a singular excuse to not explore life. People create scapegoats because of a lack of personal responsibility. Like I said, he made his decisions.

Sorry so snappy. Thanks for reading.

Do you still assume this or do you know?

Eh, I've learned that family can basically love you and yet have no idea how to show it. Those are always the most interesting, twisted relationships because you can't choose your family.

That was a really pleasant piece to read. Nicely done!

but, it's friday.

You don't want to a guy. You spend all your time thinking about beer, steak and naked things. I can't get anything done.

This is correct. Between this and my crippling alcoholism thanks to beer marketing ads, my life is in shambles.

Andrea, you're so right. Sometimes talking to other women is terrible, especially when they only talk about how many fat rolls they've got hanging.

And whoever dares to touch my nails gets bitch slapped.

http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1895/...DNESDAY-9.html

The latest. Enjoy.

This one's about a MOVIE! **Gasp!!**

http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1910/...ESSDAY-10.html

Nicely written. I've heard this sort of thing described with music a lot. It's interesting to consider that kind of connection to a movie- one that goes beyond simple nostalgia, but is still based on projection and memory and personal context.

Appropriately enough, my comparable film would be The Matrix. Naturally, it's about an unremarkable nilla wafer white guy who actually and inexplicably has the ultimate god-like badass inside of him, and who is important in a world of projection.

My relationship with it is a little different than the one you describe, but I know what you mean about the waxing and waning appreciation.

I enjoyed this blog entry. The Thing is my Pretty Woman.

Mine would be Star Wars.

I used* to wear a pair of thermal underwear, and pull my socks up over the cuffs to simulate Luke's leg wraps. Then I'd put on a shirt like a gi, and wear a belt over it. Add a broom handle, and I was ready to take on the Empire.

This was before home video though. You had to survive the three year gap between movies looking at pictures in books, and walk to school uphill both ways.

*Who am I kidding? I still do this.

Here's the latest, folks!

http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1938/...NESDAY-12.html

While I agree with mostly with what you said, I think either way it comes down to drive and determination and focus.

I barely scraped through high school and afterwards spent 4 years working as a lowly supermarket butchery cleaner, and it delft a fairly hefty blow to my confidence. I'd bump into people I had known in high school and they were studying to be this or that important sounding thing while I was scrubbing dried cow blood off the ceiling for minimum wage. I eventually reached a breaking point and quit and I guess like you said realized I needed to grow some balls and do the crazy innovative thing (not that I'd as yet count my self amongst the ranks of the successful), but it could so easily have gone the other way. Broken my spirit and led me to accept my meager station in the world, and settled for it.

When you look around the staff break room of any of those type of jobs, they are full of broken people like that. I assume they had dreams and aspirations at one stage in their lives, and now sit with dead eyes pretending to care about the dull conversations they're engaged with, with other beaten looking people. I wonder if they had gone to college, would the confidence boost of earning a degree, even if it went unused for the rest of their days have led them to a happier more satisfying life.

Holy shit, that ended up far more depressing than I intended when I started writing.

Yes, it's Thursday. Enjoy yourselves anyway.

http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1949/...NESDAY-13.html

You're welcome.

http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1959/...NESDAY-14.html

I just got to reading some of these today and there's a bunch of good stuff in them, especially the money management one and the one about laughing at yourself. I like the attitude you present all of them with though, there's a little aggression and sass, good amounts of humour, a spirit of curiosity.

In response to the piece about how your Dad lives/lived his life compared to how you feel life should be lived I was with you up until you said he's a research scientist. I'm more of the outwardly adventurous type, the jumping off cliffs, paddling out into big surf, living in the Amazon jungle for 6 months type of idiot, but I look up to scientists as one of the very greatest callings a human being can have. Physicists particularly, they may be bookish cats like your Dad, days spent in labs and books and computer screens, but to me that kind of life is every bit as experimental and exploratory as living somewhere utterly foriegn or testing yourself in the more extreme conditions Mother Nature provides us. Scientists live on the edge of the bounds of human knowledge, out in places you can't travel by floatplane or canoe, and that's a helluva place to live your life.

And in response to the piece about cack choices of attire in public, I don't have any gear with cartoon characters on it and I don't pay much attention to what's on t-shirts in general (most of mine came free from building supplies companies) but if someone bought me an Angry Beavers t-shirt I'd wear the shit out of it all over public. God would I wear that.

I'm glad you're no longer enduring threats and bruises. I also think you're right about often times people getting in their own way more than anything else stopping them.



Yeah, but Vanilla waffers? you don't know where the box ends and the waffers begin with those things. I think a little balance between the cerebral cortex and the adrenalin gland is healthy. It makes me wonder about what his upbringing was like, did he only get lettuce sandwiches as a kid etc. But I'm conflicted because I don't like to pry into other peoples lives, but then it was the subject of the blog. I think I'll er on the side of shutting up.

I'd just like to say I really like your blogs, Andrea. Great stuff.

That point wasn't lost on me when Andrea wrote the piece, but it is true that sometimes Dads will do goofy things like that in a way to share something with their kid. "It's our little secret." Kids love secrets. Obviously he misjudged it because Andrea didn't read it that way, as a cool secret to share with her dad, but what I mean is that the fact he may have presented it like the ultimate in daring to his kid, it doesn't mean he actually believed that.

But my point about celebrating science as a calling was that there are hundreds of thousands of factory workers and janitors and car salesmen and plumbers who've lived a similarly outwardly unadventurous life. So even though Andrea's dad never bloodied his knuckles or rapelled out of a helicopter, his working life - the majority of his waking hours - have been spent doing and seeing things most of us just won't ever have the talent/privilege/creativity/vision to experience, let alone make such significant contributions to humanity as scientists and engineers do. It's certainly not any kind of wasted life as I see it.

Also, maybe he's a top secret government agent.

(There's no offence meant by any of this Andrea; like I hopefully made clear earlier, I enjoy your style and I respect your intelligence and thoughtfulness, and I'm certainly not saying you're wrong. Just that maybe you haven't looked at it from the viewpoint that came to mind for me when I read it. Or maybe you have and I'm wrong. Either way, thanks.)

http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1967/...NESDAY-15.html

Another autobiographical one this time.

Thanks to all who've been following my blogs. It's hard to put yourself out there, and I'm baffled and encouraged that anyone reads these.

Thanks, Horrid and Bucho for your commentary. You're right about my dad's job. It's amazing. If you think of Stephen Hawking... that mind locked up inside that body... he quite literally explored the universe in spite of his physical handicaps. There's something to be said about that. On the other hand, you can't and shouldn't let a job define you. You need a personal life too. With things and activities you share with others. You gotta do things that make for great stories. Life is too short.

Bucho, great insight on the college blog. I think you're right. Perhaps the boost in confidence a college education gives is currency in and of itself. Never thought of it that way.

Also... thanks, Dross!

Enjoy the latest!

Wow that could not have been easy to write. This may not be my place and I hope it doesn't backfire on me in a"I can talk about my family but you can't" kind of way but your Mom was a crazy bitch, who really had no right treating you that way. It was almost like watching a Del Toro movie without the fantastical manifesting itself.

I remeber on rides to school hating when my mother would spit onto a hankey to clean my "grubby face" I cant imagine the kind of headspace you'd have to be in to actually spit on your own child though.

Another thing that sort of made me tilt my head and say wha? was the Letting God in the car part. It just seemed like a physicist and a Religious nut would be an odd pairing to begin with.

Anyway thanks for having the strength to share that one.

Something as simple as the way you use present tense brings these already evocative little car stories even more vividly to life, it gives them a currency that opens them up and makes the little stings you pepper through them bite deeper and leaves the underlying mood ringing with an undeniable poignancy. (I don't know if poignancy is a real word but that doesn't really matter.)

And it was Horrid with the great insight on the college blog by the way, and not yours truly, but I'll take the credit for it anyway.

Something as simple as the way you use present tense brings these already evocative little car stories even more vividly to life, it gives them a currency that opens them up and makes the little stings you pepper through them bite deeper and leaves the underlying mood ringing with an undeniable poignancy. (I don't know if poignancy is a real word but that doesn't really matter.)

And it was Horrid with the great insight on the college blog by the way, and not yours truly, but I'll take the credit for it anyway.

The newest. Enjoy!

http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1981/...NESDAY-16.html