Do you want to Come With?

I like Midwesterners.

I mean, one doesn't move to Minneapolis-St. Paul from sunny Los Angeles, only because one dreams of falling in love with a voluptuous and rugged Amazonian, Nordic woman who chops wood all day and cooks for you in her cabin while you lounge around in silk pajamas, reading the poetry of Rupert Brooke and drinking bottles of Cabernet, before spending the night with your face nestled into her ample, farm girl bosom.

No. One moves to Minnesota because one loves the people. He admires their constant cheerfulness, their glacial smiles and their hard work at breaking the icy, tundra soil and building something akin to Western civilization here. He respects their disregard for the trendy and fashionable (Mark Twain mentioned wanting to be in Cincinnati during the apocalypse because everything is 20 years behind; let's just say that one could potentially say this about the entire Midwest), their passion for putting cream of mushroom soup mix and Bisquick into nearly everything "edible," their sweet country manners, and those delightful flat accents with the elongated vowels.

So people of the Upper Midwest, consider me to be your dear friend and ally. After all, I am in the process of becoming your biographer.

But since we're friends, I need to be a little candid here. There's a couple of things you do and say that are really, really annoying to me...

I will now address one of my linguistic grievances. Let's start with an example.

Standard American English Statement: "Do you want to come with me to the movies?"

Minnesota-speak Statement: "Do you want to come with?"

This is incredibly annoying. And how difficult is it to add me to this statement? I mean, unless you've recently had a stroke, there's really no excuse for not adding an essential extra word or two or three.

It is all rude to place the demands of figuring out the context of every "come with" statement onto the recipient's shoulders.

When someone asks me that they want me to come with or they mention someone coming with, I often don't recognize the context of this statement. Which requires me to ask a follow-up question that could have been easily avoided had they been clear and precise in their initial statement.

Come with what? A ham sandwich? A handgun?

Come with whom? You? The guy down the street? The president?

This isn't Little House on the bloody Prairie. "Come with" is not charming and precious. It's annoying and stunted and stupid-sounding. And far too vague. And you folks need to work on this.

On Disabled Parents

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/21/parents.disabilities/index.html?hpt=C2

Okay. I happened to read this story and watch the attached clip on CNN this morning. It was posted as an inspirational, "feel good" story and based on the comments from CNN.com readers, that's apparently how it was received.

I'm going to weigh in here with my dissenting viewpoint.

I'm a type-one diabetic and despite maintaining excellent control of my blood glucose levels for nearly 19 years and having no debilitating complications, I am unable to obtain a life insurance policy. While I like children a great deal, I couldn't imagine being in a position to have a child unless I'm financially in a position that would make my lack of a life insurance policy a relative non-issue. At the end of the day, the fact that I am able to have children that does not mean that I should have children... And given my circumstances, at least for the foreseeable future, I've decided against helping bring a child into this world: I've decided to put the interests of my potential child(ren) before my own desires, wants and wishes...

Now I'm sure many of the people presented in this article are lovely, goodhearted, well-meaning parents but if one is seriously disabled (i.e. - the mom unable to use their hands or the couple who both have cerebral palsy), I really wonder if having and raising a child is really the best life path they can take.

I mean, I've spent time with someone who has CP who spent an afternoon trying to eat my door frame. Nice guy but I'm sure as hell glad he's not my Dad.

A dear friend said that I'm possibly making a bigger issue out of physical disability than I should be. She suggests that while she agrees with the gist of my argument, she believes that as long as the parents are psychologically healthy and financial able, there really isn't a problem.

Perhaps so.

But, forgive me, I really have to wonder about the psychological health of someone without functioning hands who decides to have and rear a child.

As for me, let me just state for the record, I'm glad I didn't have to eat my dinner as a child off of my mother's feet.

Welcome to my blog

Hi folks!

This is the start of my new blog. Stay tuned for updates on the experiences of a nice Connecticut boy who now finds himself living in the upper Midwest (that would be me - actually, I'm kind of a misanthrope and not particularly nice. And at nearly 30(!), I'm not really a boy). I do, in fact, like it here but sometimes I feel like one of those chicks in Chekhov's Three Sisters pining for Moscow.

This blog will focus on several primary themes.

Firstly, I consider this to be a study of the folkways and regional styles of this region (the Midwest, in general, but primarily Minnesota and Wisconsin; I live in the Twin Cities). Think of it as an amateur's exploration into cultural geography and anthropology.

Secondly, I will post on my broad interests concerning center-left politics in the US, Canada and the UK. My views are basically progressive but somewhat iconoclastic. I hate dogmatism and sanctimony on the left as much as I hate religious and market fundamentalism on the right. That said, I'm only nice to white liberals because I'm a sexual minority and an elitist and I don't want to be sent to a gulag if a revolution takes place. Also, I'm not particularly prone to acts of heroic resistance; I hate totalitarians but I'd probably work with our Chinese overlords if they one day invade and conquer our sweet land.

Thirdly, I will occasionally touch upon on cultural issues...especially those concerning sexual politics. I'm bisexual and a bit radical in this sphere. I like both the ladies and the gents and occasionally those somewhere in between (I just hate the uglies and the stupids).

I'll also be posting book reviews. My reading interests are broad and varied and I have unusual passions as of late (the Interwar period, anything on Pierre Elliot Trudeau, the Mitford family). I have a voracious appetite for books (and other things...but more on that later).

Also, I hope to interview some real life Midwesterners for this blog so they can share their stories of hot dish, jello molds, DUIs, trees, constant cheerfulness, lakes and flat accents with us all! Any Midwesterners who want to participate in my interview project, just let me know! I will provide cheese and/or beer to those who participate in this project.

PS - I have a dark, wry sense of humor and I'm not particularly politically correct. You have been warned.