Per Glen Weldon in his book Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, kryptonite representing the destructive force of nostalgia and survivor’s guilt, reminding us that clinging to the past can undermine the present.
Siegel and Shuster had created the Man of Steel as the ultimate immigrant, the personification of the promise America represented to them. His abilities are metaphors for limitless potential and opportunity, for new horizons stretching out before us: the American Way. It seems fitting, then, that the only thing capable of harming him would be a reminder of the Old World he left behind, a past that is irrevocably gone. Only the past—our past—can hurt us.To this day, kryptonite functions in the Superman mythos as the physical manifestation of both survivor’s guilt and a particularly toxic kind of nostalgia, a reminder that when we dwell on what we’ve lost, we can kill what we have.
She is the sweetest person I've met at a convention. I was pretty starstruck meeting her, so of course my brain just turned off, and she was so kind and told me a couple of stories. When my brain finally rebooted, I asked her to sign the picture for my wife, and she came around the table to give me a hug telling me how sweet that was. She could have just signed a picture and sent me on my way. But her taking that extra 30 seconds or so gave me an experience I'll never forget.
I look him up and down. I've seen it a thousand times. He is all bravado and boot jingles. Dressed like he stepped straight out of a Western Warehouse. I could tell those shiny boots had never stepped foot on a ranch. Just puffed-up pride wrapped in a cowboy hat, trying to mask the desperation of someone who’s never been anywhere else. And doesn’t realize he is the one getting fucked by the system.
"You’ll be seeing me soon, huh?" I say, watching his eyes flicker. "Let me tell you something, partner. If you don’t straighten out that attitude of yours—if you don’t drop this little act and do your job like a professional—I’ll find someone else to sell this house." I let the words sink in before delivering the knife twist. "Maybe a dame."
His mouth opens, then shuts.
"Oh yeah," I continue, my voice smooth as the whiskey he probably pretends to drink neat. "I’ll bring in one of those ‘progressive libs’ you despise so much. Maybe someone fresh out of California, with a Prius and pronouns in her email signature. Someone who'll take your commission, your sale, and leave you standing in the dust."
His face twitches. The bravado cracks. He swallows hard. His grip loosens on my hand.
"Good talk," I say, finally letting go of his hand. "Now get to work."
My wife and I sat across from each other, eyes heavy with the kind of exhaustion you don’t shake with a good night’s sleep. The school had made its choice—they put our boy in harm’s way, ignored the words on paper that were supposed to protect him. An IEP, they called it. Just another stack of bureaucracy to them. To us, it was supposed to be a shield. But shields don’t work when the people holding them don’t give a damn.
So we made our choice too. He wasn’t going back. Not to that school. Not to a system that saw him as a problem instead of a person. We are taking matters into our own hands—homeschooling.
And Texas? We were done. Finished. Washing our hands of it. This place chews people up and spits them out, and we aren’t waiting around to be next. Somewhere out there, there had to be a place where education means more than lip service, where kids aren’t just numbers on a budget sheet.
Tomorrow, we meet the realtor. Sell the house. Cut the ties. A clean break. A new start. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll find a place where they gave a damn.
Karma - there are way too many shitty people who just continue to be shitty because nothing ever comes back to bite them. Meanwhile, people who actually try to help are kicked around the most.
Zebra F-402 - I write really small and their fine tips flow great but don't run. Plus they're cheap enough that I don't care when my wife or kids steal them out of my desk.
I've worked in corporate America long enough to know this is exactly what happens. Companies will look at departments by revenue and just consider everything else expenses. They don't consider that people won't buy your hardware without good software support.
I stopped by HP long before their hardware went to shit because their drivers went to complete crap. I know I'm not alone on this. So what did HP do when their sales went down? Did they reinvest in good drivers and firmware? Nope, they just loaded their drivers with adware and made things even worse. When they didn't work they started using cheaper parts in their printers. The LaserJet printers dominated the corporate landscape 20 years ago. Then they all got slowly replaced by Brother because Brother invested in good drivers and firmware.
A company I worked for had a policy that if your laptop got stolen from your car, you would be required to pay for the replacement. So this was basically me whenever I had to travel for that job.
A few year back, I took my daughter to an urgent care clinic. She was around 2 or 3 years old. While in the waiting room their office phone rang and my daughter jumped and went, "What was that?" because she had never heard a landline ring before.
Per Glen Weldon in his book Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, kryptonite representing the destructive force of nostalgia and survivor’s guilt, reminding us that clinging to the past can undermine the present.