Email: Netflix Support

Title request: Love, American Style (1969)

Press: Disaster blew in as town slept - HC

(Just off the coast of Galveston, Humberto turned from a tropical depression [Wed 10 am] to a tropical storm six hours later [Wed 4 pm], then hit the Texas coastline at High Island on the Bolivar Peninsula as a Category 1 hurricane eight hours later [12 midnight] -- all one hour southeast of Houston, where I never saw a drop of rain and we had a clear blue sky the following morning. Yikes!)

Disaster blew in as town slept - Houston Chronicle:

"'I thought we'd be picking up branches and limbs today,' said Sonnier, 59.

Instead, she stood on a damp exposed slab in her living room Thursday morning, peering through the missing ceiling at a partly cloudy sky. Like Payton, Sonnier and her husband have no homeowners insurance for their modest frame house.

'This is where I grew up. This is my family home. It was like a waterfall coming over the back wall,' she said, fighting back tears before struggling to see a bright side. 'I wanted to redo my living room anyway.'"

Music: Glamazons

I never know whether to believe a thing JB says, but I found out about this group after he said he'll be touring with them.

Email: The appeal of confidence [EH]

There are many reasons why people have self-esteem or confidence and these have to do with being loved and accepted as children (affirmation), being socially fit and at least minimally accomplished as youths (mastery or confirmation), and being realistic and attentive as adults (success or fulfillment).

Men and women prefer a "self-directed" mate who "knows what he/she wants" and what it takes to get it. People tend to be more successful when they have a vested self-interest and [they] will do whatever it takes to get what they want; anyone else with a less focused or realistic approach will fall to the bottom of the food chain. Women want "manly men" with chiseled chins and a craggy manner (i.e., control of every situation), not sensitive poetic types. Men want scoopy plush pillows (not oversized) if not a model Barbie trophy on their arms, not their intellectual equal (or superior). This does not mean every man or woman wants these things, only the vast majority; put clinically, they respond to these stimuli. In short, assertiveness is sexy -- except to persons with low self-esteem.

Neologisms: EFF

Email friends forever (EFF).

Email: Online dating indeed [EH]

I don’t mean requiring an exhaustive compatibility across all personal qualities. Being realistic means not ignoring the important qualities while being romantic means accepting the lesser differences. Both are important, not one to the exclusion of the other, and not romance ahead of realism.

They say [via CM] the lower class prefers quantity of food, the middle class prefers quality of food, and the upper class prefers presentation of food. So, yes, you’d like “a little” romance, but more important would be respect, and more important still would be all the qualities that go with being a true gentleman. Tenderness is not the goal, though it’s a fruit of the bond that develops over time between the right persons. Friends have nicknames but lovers have pet names. Let the relationship lead the romance, not the other way around -- that can become a slippery and irrational slope.

Email: How it seems to be [EH]

A divorced man or woman should have to "go to the back of the line" to give everyone else (who has not yet been married) a "fair chance" in dating?

It always is a fair chance for all because everyone is standing along a wall; everyone is one person deep (unless you are standing behind someone else). Why do some get picked for more dances than others? If you figure it out, let's write a book.

Anyone can wade in any pool they like. No pool belongs to anyone to keep others out. It's a free and a free-market world. Cream always rises to the top. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. We each make our own luck. Stuff like that.

Email: A Scanner Darkly [DB]

As you might suspect, it is oddly comforting to me that there is such a thing as your kind of weird.

Email: Netflix Support

Title request: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)

Email: Online dating indeed [EH]

I have always been a poetic dreamer. Now I see you can make grave errors by not being realistic [enough]. In fact, being realistic and communicating candidly together form the clearest path to happiness.

Finding the right person is all about dealing with the truth, not assumption or fantasy or wishful thinking. The fastest way to disillusionment is to think something is so when it is not, or that someone is a certain way who is not.

Romance is a spice, not the batter (main ingredient).

It's a relief to find how God has "protected" a person from this or that tortuous circumstance or consequence (such as an online dating disaster), but I think he wants us to become wise enough to intuit and to avoid the tiger traps by ourselves. Learning to drive safely doesn't mean driving like a goose while trusting to luck and providence; it means maintaining control of the vehicle while having the experience to foresee and avoid possible accidents.

Dating is rarely a rational process, however, so establishing good habits and boundaries ahead of time -- and possessing the wherewithal to maintain them -- is not only wise but safe.

Email: Birth order [EH]

She's strategic, he's social. Typical first and second child dynamics. I asked [RC] how that works and she suspects the first child primarily interacts with adults for the first 1-3 years of his/her life while the second child is always looking up to a sibling and has to fit in plus get attention from parents (esp. against a more mature and demanding older sib). It makes sense to me. [I've always ascribed the second child's role in that way but I suspected the older child just received greater expectations and attention.]

Pets: Ditzy dog

You learn to accept and even chuckle at how your dog charges the door, barks a-blazing, when you pour boiled potatoes into a bowl on the kitchen counter (which makes a thrumming bump-bump-bump sound), when your hand raps a hard surface in passing, or even when she hears voices through closed windows across the street. This morning, though, Miss Molley charged the door a toda décibel after hearing her tail whap the sofa three times in rapid succession.

News: Farewell, Madeline L'Engle

(Madeline was a bright and creative literary star. She was controversial to some who could only see one side of an issue while she saw and spoke of all its facets. I have always loved her as a person, as a writer, and as a Christian. She was wonderful to listen to and will always be inspiring to read.)

A tribute to Madeline L'Engle - Houston Chronicle: "'Did you ever realize that if you spell live backwards you come up with the word evil?' she once asked her tiny class with a devilish grin. 'To live, you know, you have to be just a teeny bit evil and wicked.'

Take a chance, she advised, have adventures and never stop living. And maybe somewhere in there your characters will find you and you will have the courage to write.

Even when she was frail, elderly and in a wheelchair, somewhere in her soul, she never stopped living and she always had courage.

The author of more than 60 books, L'Engle died on Thursday at the age of 88, and on Saturday a half-page obit ran in the New York Times. Madeleine would have been thrilled: New York loved her."