Man, this Doc is too hot to think. I don’t think that I have ever been too cold to think. But definitely too hot.

The conflict has to do with the issue of air conditioning. It’s eighty-eight Washington, D.C., degrees at 10:30 p.m. That makes it plenty hot. We are not, however, using the A/C units in our old house because one of our beloved family members seems to have a reaction to it. Like he can’t breathe.

Now he doesn’t get dizzy, turn blue or faint. He just has trouble catching his breath. We discovered the relationship to the A/C last week. It wasn’t so hot then, so we did without. It IS hot now. The dog can’t breathe. I can’t think. Maybe I will figure this on out in the office, where it will be cooler.

I know, I have a rule that there will be no “ranting” on this blog. So, please feel free to stop reading now. It’ll be short, though.

I spent a good hunk of time working on a piece about the D.C. government going haywire with protecting us from ourselves (jaywalking tickets, red light cameras, etc.). I compared efforts on wealthier/whiter parts of town with poorer/blacker wards. I included research links. (It wasn’t good for city efforts.)

Anyway, I somehow lost it. And that makes me unhappy. I don’t really feel like recreating it, though. My mom used to say if you can’t remember it, then it must have been a lie. I guess in this case, if I won’t recreate it, it must’ve been a bore.

Good for readers.

Ni-i-i-ine. Bet you were waiting for that final nine. 867-5309. Jenny’s number.

We were watching a show where “one-hit” wonders sing their signature tunes then, later in the show, a cover of a current hit. Kinda like “I Was An American Idol.” So the 867-5309 guy gets up and sings about Jenny and the number on the wall. Frankly he stunk. His cover of the recent song was painful. Then they show flashbacks from his apex 80’s interspersed with his current job as computer coder.

COMPUTER CODER??? Like here was a guy who did a song that still gets played on some radio stations–my 13-year-old knows the phone number–and we see him trying to climb out of his Dilbert cubicle back to rock and roll. I don’t know to laugh or cry.

Reminds me that fame is fleeting. A few years back, a friend left a nice job to take on a job with national significance. You know, riding on Air Force one and all. You wonder what someone does after a job like that. But it is an exhausting role that can’t be sustained for a career. There must be a next step.

At least if you are a has-been, you once were. The real question is, what’s next? Me, I haven’t peaked, yet.

At the risk of going too far here, I realized that community and communications have the same start. (Sorry but I simply cannot remember what you call that part of the word, AND the kids are asleep AND I don’t feel like taking a side trip to word-roots.com or wherever.)

“So what?” you say. Okay, so if we have a failure to communicate, does that mean that there is a failure in our community?

I was sitting on my neighbor’s porch with a drink, above the lemonade stand at the sidewalk’s edge. My 10-year old was threatening to skateboard down the 10 or so cement steps to the commerce area. People walked by, and more than a few bought lemonade from the 3 little sales girls.

One woman crossed the street and stealthily bent down to put out her cigarette–beyond the view of the lemonade stand but in view of the porch. She bought her fifty-cent lemonade then took a loop around and retrieved her cigarette. With a smile she crossed back over and cut back through the alley, probably going home.

Years ago, I was talking about my neighborhood to a friend. She was shocked that I lived in D.C., proper. She had lived her life outside the beltway in Va. “The difference between my street and yours,” I told her, “is that when an ambulance or firetruck arrives you part your curtains to see what’s happening. We go down to the sidewalk to see.”

Conflict is the place where good ideas are born. Problem is, conflict is really hard to manage. Getting to the good ideas requires some level of civility. Well, maybe a bit more than some.

I am wondering if I still have the ability to hear what someone I disagree with is saying, or if I can’t get beyond “my side.” With my varsity letter in debate, it’s no surprise that I am all for a good row of ideas. But it seems that persuasion (or even discussion) has become a binary sport–1 or 0, win or lose.

We have the nuclear option (or is that nucular?) and the filibuster. Neither of which really facilitate a good discussion toward a good decision. It is either I win, or I lose. You lose, and I win. It’s all a big show.

So, do I do the same thing? Or do I look for common ground? Is it always black and white, or can a middle ground be located?

The first time I was in New Orleans, a friend I was visiting called the median in the road “the neutral ground.” Being from the North, I was clueless. He said that local legend has it that the neutral ground got its name from early New Orleans when the French and Spanish could do business between sections of the city standing on the “neutral ground.”

If you found the neutral ground and went there for discussion, do you risk your irate opponent careening up and running you over?

Some people know what God wants.

Okay, I can have a hard time knowing what God wants, but I don’t doubt that some people know. That they know doesn’t mean that they really know, but who could know?

When I was little, I saw a movie about some kids who saw visions of Mary Mother of God at Fatima. I had a 36″ religious statute in my bedroom. We used to say it was Jesus, but actually it had to be a saint since it didn’t resemble Jesus. Anyway, for a month or so after seeing the movie, I would pray to the Jesus statue that no holy person would come see me. I’m like, “Please God, don’t send any of your spooky saints!”

So, maybe that’s why I don’t know, with absolute certainty (or any certainty for that matter), what God wants. I mean, I would bet that God would be against hatin’, and being mean or selfish. Probably a big two thumbs up for helping folks, especially those in need–sick, hungry, poor. But some folks who “know” seem to have different ideas.

I saw the best bumper sticker. It said W.W.J.B. Translation,”Who Would Jesus Bomb?” I think some people think that they know. I think that some of them are wrong.

Last year, my son used a permanent marker to express himself by use of the F-word (and others) on the bathroom wall at school. Cursing really made him feel big.

A friend told me that people curse because they have limited vocabularies. She could make a sailor blush. Cursing can be a shortcut. My mom would curse and sometimes it let us know she was playing around. Other times, generally indicated by volume, it was a shortcut to convey her extreme displeasure. Maybe people curse since there is something cathartic in emitting a fully felt curse. I think that my son felt something big–probably a mix of fear and power when he let his go.

My kids learned to curse the way I did, by example, at home. That did limit my cursing vocabulary to my family’s favorites, but college taught me appropriate use of the rest. When my other son was learning to curse I told him that if he wanted to use that word, he should go in the bathroom, shut the door, and say it to his heart’s content. He came out of the bathroom in about 30 seconds. Bored.

A lot of blogs include a lot of cursing. It doesn’t offend me, but I expect that it offends some. Sometimes though, it is just boring. Maybe small vocabularies? I decided not to use these powerful words in my blog. So today, I’ll write about cursing.

Or would that be Todog? Either way, there is no sense to be made of it. The idea of tofu hotdogs is beyond rational thought.

Okay, let’s say that you love hotdogs and for some reason–it could be religious, political, health, pick one–you are unable to eat them. How does substituting tofu help? I like tofu. But that’s tofu as tofu, not as hot dog. There is absolutely nothing that tofu has in common with a big fat Nathan’s dog, or for that matter even the Hebrew National Reduced fat dog. No juicy, no flava, no mouth feel. Nothin’.

It’s not like subbing out a Ford Pinto for a Boxter (a sad substitution). But more like a pinto bean for a Boxter. Not related. (Well I guess tofu and hotdogs are both food so there is some relationship, but you get the idea.)

The only logical reason available might be that the person doesn’t really miss eating hotdogs, but wants to have mustard and ketchup and relish on a bun. Here is my idea then. Skip the tofu and have your condiment sandwich.