I'm scrambling this morning. Little Tess (though I'd prefer to use a different adjective for her right now) won't stop crying and screaming: in our bed, at the foot of our bed, in her crib, in her bed. She doesn't care. She just cries all night. I might as well have sleep apnea. At 2:30 a.m., I bailed out and set up camp in my basement study: quilt for cushioning, blanket, two pillows from my bed, and my cell phone's alarm clock function set. I got up at the last second this morning, then saw my town got hit unexpectedly with (I'm guessing) five inches of snow, so I was out shoveling.
Only one item this morning:My most-recent blog column is online at The Register (registration required). It's about virility in the blogosphere. From the intro:
When you were a teenager, did you have a non-Bible 'bible' – a book you read and re-read, carried around with you, swore held the key to the universe if only more people would listen to what its author said?
Maybe your dog-eared oracle was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or Siddhartha or Catcher in the Rye or On the Road. Those books, perennial coming-of-age favorites to this day, were a bit too weighty for me.
My teenage bible was a book of pictures and anecdotes called The Manly Handbook. Who made America? “Real men,” it said, “like Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Teddy Roosevelt and Duke Wayne.”
Do you want to read manly books? Buy Mickey Spillane novels. Manly movies? Watch Dirty Harry, Death Wish, Hercules and the Captive Women and anything with John Wayne. Looking for manly recreation? “Kick down all the doors in your house,” advised The Manly Handbook, and “take a midnight stroll through the Bronx unarmed.” Manly occupation? Rodeo rider, bounty hunter, bartender, drill sergeant, mercenary, truck driver.
