Monday MEME

Great American Smokeout is the Monday Meme


This Thursday, November 20th, is the American Cancer Society’s annual “smokeout” with the stated goal being to encourage all people who smoke to quit for their own health as well as those they love.

As my father has only just recently passed away after a month long battle with stage four lung cancer, I am feeling particularly vehement that anyone I know should make this the year they quit smoking for good. And not just for their own sakes, but to protect their families and friends.

Having been at my dad’s bedside those last hours, I can assure you that dying from lung cancer is not pretty. His lungs were choked with fluid that by the last day oozed in a continuous steam from his mouth having gurgled up his bronchial tubes and throat. The light brown mucus was flecked with dried blood and small chunks of a darker brown matter. When in the grips of a coughing spell, the phelgm would foam out of his nose and he would turn dark red with the futile effort of trying to clear his lungs. 

I can’t imagine dying as he did. But I should try because between him and other family members I have spent good chunks of my life inhaling their cast off smoke. My lungs have been bathed in the same carcinogens and I could just as easily be a victim of lung cancer as my Dad was.

And it’s not just in the air. Smoke clings to clothing and hair and furnishings. It seeps into walls and permeates carpeting. It finds its way into air ducts or filters through open windows. It hangs in the air, wafting its way into the breathing space of anyone who happens by whether they are indoors or out.

I am not mollified by those who “only smoke outdoors” or sit in the increasingly rare smoking areas. Air has no boundaries. 

The meme for today is to send this, or some other word, of the Great American Smokeout to someone you know who smokes. Thank you.

Now that Obama is President is the Monday Meme


Rob reminds me that Barack Obama is merely the president-elect, but I prefer to get a jump on washing the bad taste of the Bush years out of my mouth by speculating on what our new president has in store for us.

I think Obama has been wise in reminding all Americans in his recent speeches that we are in for a period (years is my guess) of hard work and sacrifice. Neither of these things are something that anyone under the age of sixty has much personal experience with frankly. We are a sorely untested and sorry bunch. A nation of whiners is how I believe Phil Gramm put it not too long ago. He was criticized for that, but he was right. 

So what are we willing to do for our country, for a change? 

Since I am already of the generation that can’t receive full retirement benefits until I am 67, I think I can put it off until 70 or even 71. My own mother, after all, is 76 and still works full time without much trouble to tell the truth. I am also certain I can do without sweetners to get me to vote and stay positively engaged in the political process. Things like tax cuts and credits that incumbents seem required to promise and deliver on anymore. I am willing to pay more in usage taxes to fund programs to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, especially if those programs provide much needed jobs for unskilled as well as skilled workers. Ditto for education. We can’t afford marginally educated people. And I am willing to listen to and thoughtfully consider whatever master plan the new president comes up with for re-regulating a society that has been allowed to indulge in excess for too long.

What about you? Ask what you can do for your country perhaps?

If You Lost your Job is the Monday Meme


Leah McLaren is probably one of my favorite columnists. She writes for the Globe and Mail, and I envy the hell out of her job. I would love to be paid to have an opinion as opposed to just having one for free like I do here. She wrote a piece about long distance relationships back in August ago citing her own rather steady diet of them as the basis for her authority.

It seems that Ms. McLaren has always chosen her career over her relationship of the moment because she was not of the mindset that putting one’s relationship ahead of one’s chosen profession was the proper way to go about things. She felt that those who went in the opposite direction did so because they hated their jobs.

And that’s key.

Career versus job.

She makes the mistake that all people with careers do. They assume that the majority of the world works at something they deem a career rather than simply having a job that affords them (more likely not) with the means to live their lives. Most people I know have jobs. Jobs they would walk away from without a second thought if they won the powerball or someone offered to sugar-daddy them. Jobs can be great. They can be fun and stimulating and all those things that a career is – but they aren’t the core of who a person is. Not in my opinion.

I loved teaching. Lots of stuff about it I still miss. But it wasn’t my core. It didn’t fill me up. Or make me stupid enough to confuse work with life or value it above friends and family.

Very waspy way to look at things for a Canadian, I thought when I read her piece.

But I think many people have confused what is really important in this life. After all, if civilization as we know it ground to a halt in the next few years – and don’t think it couldn’t – what would you have going for you? If the job/career was gone? If you had to start with just the possessions in your possession right now and with the people who share your life right now. What then?

What does a life outside the model we have been conditioned to believe in look like?