For what do people search?  

It's the eternal query.  Does any search engine adequately capture our efforts?  I used to think people searched for the meaning of life.  Some recent trends question my assumption.

Like anal bleaching.  What are people searching for when they bleach their nether eye?  Tell me the question behind that search.  Is that how desperate the dating scene has become?  Have them taken "I'll show you mine if you show me your's" to a whole new depth?  "Okay, but I'll show you mine but it's bleached."  "Ooo, awesome!  I'm going to bleach mine, too."

Awesome wasn't the word leaping onto my tongue when I heard of it.  Why was sharply heard.  What is the bloody point of that?

That's but one of body things I don't understand.  What about women removing the hair around their genitals?  Don't get that one either.  Friend and I were talking about it.  He's a few years older than me so he and I don't get it.  It makes the women look like children but it removes mystery to me.  

Tattoos and piercings were terrible enough.  I'm not a tatt or piercing person.  I understand they have significance for some cultures.  I guess I don't belong to that culture.  

My wife tells me that the big thing on the dating scene now isn't bleached a-holes.  No?  Nor is it shaved body hair, tattoos and piercings.  

It's credit scores. 

Seriously?

"Hi, baby.  I'm an 800.  See?  Have it tattooed right here on my arm."

It used to be that people on the dating scene had to be ready to show their test results showing that they're medically clean of diseases.  Before that, people were concerned about prospects,  and further down the line were dowries.  

My knowledge of the dating scene doesn't go back too far.  Don't know what I would do if I was out there on the dating scene but I'm not bleaching anything for anyone.

We saw "Lincoln" and "Les Miserables" this past week.  I enjoyed both.  Our friends loved Mis but I was less than enamored.  Thought the singing was game to incredible but uneven.  The story is brillant.  Love, betrayal, principles, treachery, some many elements of human existence adeptly displayed and presented.  As a writer, I walked out of there inspired by the story telling.

Loved HB Carter and SB Cohen in their roles.  Hugh Jackman continues surprising me.  Saw him on some musical presented on PBS two years ago so I knew he had some singing in his background.  My wife enjoys telling the story of his wife's experience in The Ladies' Room (and we know what goes on there, don't we?) while Jackman was in "The Boy From Oz" where he played a gay.  Women in the ladies' room were always discussing his sexual orientation, lamenting the waste if he was gay.  

I thought "Lincoln" the better production than "Les Miserables". The opening scene from "Lincoln" seemed clunky to me, and my wife agreed with that.  But we enjoyed so much, from the use of words to the many remarkable performances.  DD Lewis continues a stunning career but there was Hal Holbrook and Sally Field with amazing performances, along with Spader and TL Jones.  Jones' played probably the most tortured and complex character to me, Stevens of Pennsylvania, although Strathairn's Seward came close.  I need to admit that Lewis, Spader, Tommy Lee and Strathairn are in my top ten list of actors.  Seeing them listed as part of the cast automatically ratchets up my expectations.  Sometimes they disappoint but for the most part, the deliver.

Two sour notes in "Lincoln" to me?  I wasn't fond of the child portraying Tad Lincoln. Perhaps it was because the acting levels were so otherwise high and true that this poor child suffered in comparison.  My other disappointment with "Lincoln" was Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln.  Felt his talents were underused in the role.  

My wife and I thought both movies reflected our times.  But in reflection of our reflections, what movies don't reflect their times?  Movies and books often rise and fall based on what luggage the audience is dragging around.  We take from these avenues what we bring to them.  Writers, directors and actors will often claim they weren't trying to make such statements.  They hear and are surprised by what people find in their works.  But it's a tricky thing, to create while in an environment and then claim that environment hasn't influenced you.

Other trends of note.  Well, they've been noted.  It's been a long year. We like to think years define a decade.  Ending the second year of this decade, what will we call this time in hindsight?  "The Age of Obstruction"?  Congress sees less and less approval in polls.  Republicans lead the way, the one place where they're demonstrating leadership.  

Civility seems declining but that seems to be a sign of my aging, which is itself a trend.  Earlier this year the aging trend bugged me but I've seemed to have settled into another zone of acceptance.  

Politics and killing, war, drones, economy?  Think most people know the trends there.  How far do you need to be in a quagmire to recognize that you're in it.  Not all people see this, though;  think those Glenn Beck apostles and Fox News followers are out in the wilderness. 

Let's light some candles and bring them back.