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Thanks, #RSAC, For Not Putting Us In The Dog House This Valentine’s Day

I couldn’t let this day go by without a little thank you to the organizers of the annual RSA Conference. Almost every year, they start the event on Valentine’s Day, which puts those of us with significant others in the dog house.

Mood music:

No one wants to be away from their loved ones on a holiday like this, but for those who work in the security world, RSA is not a conference you can easily avoid. Especially if you are writing about all the news coming from there.

This year we have a two-week delay, and that will make many, many wives, husbands, children, boyfriends and girlfriends a lot happier.

I know I’m happier getting to see my wife and children today.

I’ll be honest: I tried to write a fresh post just on Valentine’s Day this morning and failed miserably. The first reason is that I’ve already written about the loves of my life in scores of posts. I decided to re-run some of those rather than repeat it all. The other reason is that my friend, Linda White, wrote a post in her blog that speaks to the holiday in language far better than anything new I could think of. You might say she stole my thunder.

For those who don’t particularly enjoy this holiday — I know some newly separated or divorced couples who are in this mindset right now — this is a good post for you. So leave here and go there.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

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Gisele Bundchen Ain’t My Cup ‘O Joe, But I Give Her A Pass On This One

My interest in football is minimal. I love a good story of athletes overcoming the odds and showing us that anything’s possible. In that regard, Tom Brady is a hell of a role model.

I’m also not a fan of the Patriots quarterback’s wife, Gisele Bundchen.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/ekr_3T-7cU0

It’s nothing personal. The world of professional modeling and fashion bores me, except for the occasional episode of Project Runway. And that’s just to see the train wrecks.

As for all the money they have, I don’t hold it against them. I know rich people who are miserable and poor people who are happy. And vice versa. I know rich people who are giving, beautiful souls and poor people who are self-absorbed assholes. And vice versa. The good and not-so-good exist in both worlds.

Now that I’ve clarified things, let’s turn to the public outrage of the week.

A lot of people are furious with Gisele for some sore-loser verbiage following the loss of her husband’s team in the Super Bowl.

On the way out of the stadium, someone heckled Gisele with this:

“Eli owns your husband.”

She responded, within earshot of the TV mics: “My husband cannot (expletive) throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time.”

What outrages people most is that her comment essentially blames the rest of the team for coming up short. Teams are supposed to succeed and fail together, right?

It’s unfortunate that she said that. She should apologize to Tom’s teammates.

But in all the angry comments everyone is making on Facebook, Twitter and the news media, an important truth has been kicked to the curb: Gisele is human. All us humans say stupid things on a daily basis, especially when we’re getting defensive about someone trash-talking about a loved one. But we don’t have a camera on us to capture the moment.

It doesn’t matter if we’re swimming in money and mansions or living on the streets: We have our good moments and pathetic moments. Since Gisele is human like the rest of us, I’ll give her a pass on this one.

This morning I read a column from Boston Herald columnist Margery Eagan on the whole affair. She writes:

Super Bowl Sunday offered a telling glimpse into the Brady/Bundchen household. Our suspicions may be true. 

It was never Tom’s idea to dress like a girl in headbands with hair down his back.

Or buy a $1,000 Toto toilet with water jets and blow dryers.

Or ride a bike through town with Gisele’s 5-pound ratty dog in his front basket like a teeny, tiny, nasty ET.

At least Tom put his foot down when Super Gi had the Super Idea to name Super Baby Benjamin … River. “Something always flowing, immortal,” blogged Super Gi after her Super Pregnancy and Super Childbirth in the tub, where she meditated for 8 hours. And don’t forget: She wanted a law requiring all mothers to breast-feed and claimed she’d potty-trained Benjamin by six months.

I mean, beyond nauseating.

None of that stuff is my cup ‘o joe, either. I prefer the simpler life of old jeans, broken-in leather and old-fashioned toilets you can sit on without being fondled by mechanical doo-dads.

But Tom did ask for all that. That’s the woman he chose to marry. In marriage husband and wife merge their lives in a blender, and the end result sometimes looks strange.

That’s beside the point, though.

We all do and say things that are nauseating. I’ve read and liked Eagan’s columns for years.

But she can be nauseating at times, too.

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A Honey Badger Who Cares (A Little)

I’m a big fan of the honey badger, widely regarded as the most fearless creature on Earth. In my efforts to spit in the face of fear, there has been no better role model. Behold:

It’s been said that the honey badger doesn’t give a shit about anything. Some would say that’s not a positive attribute. But I choose to look at this with some tunnel vision.

Anyone with a soul — good or bad — cares about something. If you’re selfish you care about the things you want. If you’re better than that, you care about the people around you and do kind things every day. I sometimes slip into the former pattern, but I always try to set the latter example.

Still, there are things not worth caring about:

–How fat or thin someone is (unless you’re concerned for their health)

–Whether someone is gay or straight

–Whether someone is rich or poor

There are plenty more examples, but you get the picture.

I have my own list of things to not care about. It may not work for you, but it works for me:

–Whether or not the groundhog saw his shadow: It’s early February. We have six more weeks of winter no matter what the rodent sees.

–Who wins the Superbowl: If you’re passionate about football, more power to you. It’s never captured my affection, though. Whoever wins or loses, life will go on.

–Who wins the next presidential election: The older I get, the more I realize it doesn’t matter who gets elected. The only change that matters starts within you.

–Whether the priest is boring: My faith is in Jesus Christ. I’m not about to let the failings of human beings shake that. If I go to church, it’s to be with my God, not to be entertained by a priest, though an entertaining priest can be a good thing, too.

–Whether you like the new Van Halen album or not: I like it. That’s all that matters to me.

Have yourselves a fearless day.

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Me And My Facebook Unfriend Finder

Yesterday Mashable had an article about a new plug-in that alerts you when someone unfriends you, de-activates their page or ignores your friend request.

Mood music:

“That would be bad for my mental health,” I told myself, seconds before hitting the “install” button. I was reminded of the Black Flag song where Henry Rollins screams:

You say you don’t want it
You don’t want it
Say you don’t want it
Then you slip it on in

When I told Erin about the plug-in she scolded me with the very words that came to mind right before I installed it: “That would be sooooo bad for your mental health.”

So why did I install the thing, knowing what I know about my compulsive tendencies? To be honest, I was curious.

I’ve written before about Facebook Unfriend Syndrome: That nagging feeling you get when someone unfriends you. You wonder if you offended the person and want to ask them why they left. It’s a stupid state of mind, to be sure. But having OCD is partly about developing stupid compulsions.

Indeed, I have offended people over things I’ve written in this blog. A close friend got mad at me for something I wrote and ditched me, though she recently added me back. My own mother defriended me because she couldn’t handle my version of past events. I long ago accepted that I’m going to lose people along the way. That’s life, especially when you’re the outspoken type.

With all that in mind, any sane person would prefer not to know who unfriended them. I never claimed I was playing with a full deck.

An hour after I installed it, I got a message, just like any notification you get on Facebook, saying so-and-so deactivated their profile. An hour later, someone else deactivated theirs.

“Hmm,” I thought. “It is good to know when someone kills their account.”

Now I almost find myself wanting someone to unfriend me just so I can watch this new toy do its thing.

It’s crazy, I know.

There are arguments for having this kind of tool. Seeing the types of people who leave can give you an indication of who is more or less likely to want your content. If a relative does it, it’s good to know so you can try to fix whatever you did to bruise them. Of course, sometimes family members deserve to be bruised.

In the final analysis, though, I’ve decided to uninstall it because, as Erin said, it’s dangerous for my brand of OCD. I also realize people have a right to unfriend without telling people.

It’s a personal and private action.

Also, as I’ve noted before, sometimes unfriending is the right thing.

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I Don’t Care About Your Bra Color, Where You Put Your Purse Or Where You’re Going for 15 Months

I’m all for raising awareness. Cancer. Mental Illness. People understand little about these and other maladies. But telling us your bra color isn’t going to help.

In the last couple of years, we’ve seen these awareness campaigns where women throw some cryptic message on their Facebook pages. One time it was listing a color. Another time it was where they put their purse. The message would be something suggestive like this: “I like it on the desk, or in the closet.”

The idea is to have a little fun at the expense of men. Men look at their female friends’ status updates and go nuts wondering what they are talking about. Then, at the end of a day or week, the punchline is revealed.

Here’s an example of one such campaign:

Okay pretty ladies,

It’s that time of year again…support of Breast Cancer Awareness!! So we all remember last year’s game of writing your bra color as your status? Or the way we like to have our handbag handy? Last year, so many people took part that it made national news and the constant updating of status reminded everyone why we’re doing this and helped raise …awareness!! Do NOT tell any males what the statuses mean…keep them guessing!! And please copy and paste (in a message) this to all your female friends! It’s time to confuse the men again (not that it’s really that hard to do ;]) The idea is to choose the month you were born and the day you were born. Pass this on to the GIRLS ONLY and lets see how far it reaches around. The last one about the bra went around all over the world.

Your status should say: “I am going to________________for___________ months.”

The day you were born should be for how many months you are going.

This one was particularly bad because someone’s mom or dad or best friend is going to freak out on learning that their loved one is going away for more than a year. It’s in bad taste.

Here’s the problem with these campaigns in general: It first assumes that men are clueless about breast cancer. If you are the spouse or parent of someone with breast cancer, you’re pretty damn clued in. It also ignores that men can get breast cancer too. One of the more famous male victims is Peter Criss, original drummer in KISS.

All the bra color and purse placement campaigns did was leave men picturing lady friends in their bras or having sex on a desk or in a closet. I can assure you, breast cancer awareness was the last thing on their minds.

As someone who has tried to raise awareness in this blog on the risks and remedies for addictive behavior, mental illness and Crohn’s Disease, I know I’m not going to make anyone smarter by announcing the color of my underwear. In fact, that would just be gross.

To me, raising awareness is about sharing your personal experiences, medical studies and tips for something like minimizing the side effects of chemotherapy (if that’s even possible). When you take people on a personal journey, they walk away with a much better understanding of what they can do to help.

I’ll end with what I think is the best example of this — a book by my friend Penny Morang Richards called “My Breast Cancer Sally.” There’s also a blog called “My Breast Cancer Chronicle.”

There are many other blogs out there that raise awareness for everything from breast cancer to sexual addiction.

Seek out those sources. And keep your bra color to yourselves.

My Breast Cancer Sally

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Yes, Virginia, There Is A Grinch

Everything about Christmas is infuriating me today. It’s progress, because Christmas once brought out deep feelings of sadness, and I prefer self-righteous fury over sadness.

Still, this is supposed to be a joyful season and I’m trying to find that joy. After all, nobody wants a cranky bastard in the room ruining the party. So I’ve been seeking  THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT, and I must admit the results have been mixed.

One thing that makes me cranky is the music. Erin has this “Rock N Roll” Christmas album she loves to play, but I hate it. Billy Squier and Bon Jovi singing Christmas songs grates on my nerves. So I searched for alternatives. Twisted Sister made a Christmas album, which always amuses me since they are a band of Jewish guys from New York. Check this out:

[spotify:track:4ndDBQGMALpfVUxhz5Ytwj]

That cheers me up a bit. But I also wanted to find some Christmas music that was more serious yet in tune with my heavy metal tastes. Duh, says my friend Dave Marcus. Rob Halford has just such an album. That’s right, Rob Halford, lead vocalist of legendary metal band Judas Priest.

I found some Christmassy warmth in this rendition of “Oh Holy Night” —

In another effort, I turned on all the Christmas lights even though it was the middle of the day. It all looks pretty, but it’s also a lot like the happy lamp I’m supposed to use when the darkness of winter sets in: My brain knows it’s not real sunlight, and that sort of spoils the moment.

I figured going to the Christmas pageant at my kids’ school would put me in the spirit, and it did brighten the mood for me. The kids and their teachers did a wonderful job putting it on. But it was offset by my annoyance at all the parents who get pissy about where you sit at these events because they’re trying to save a bunch of seats for relatives who are running late, like it’s their God-given right to do so.

I finished all the Christmas shopping in record time, but I see all the packages in the garage and know it’s only a matter of time before I have to start wrapping. Boo hoo.

Yeah. I’m just not feeling it. Not the warm and fuzzy stuff, anyway.

But that’s OK.

There are upsides to the downside.

One is that once Christmas Eve and Day arrive, I usually have a pleasant day with family. Maybe it’s a reward for enduring the rest of the season.

Unlike the Christmas seasons of several years ago, I’m not binge-eating my way through December. That’s huge progress, because I was always a pile of toxic waste this time of year. No binges means that while I’m still cranky, I’m healthier.

I also feel more grounded in knowing that in the end, when you strip away all the bullshit, the holiday is about Christ entering the world to save sinners like me. The annoying stuff will come and go, but that truth is always there.