Can these marriages be saved?

[serene]

If you know me, you know I don't trash my partners in public. I usually save that for dinner parties. Anyway, we're having some seriously divisive arguments in my family these days, and I really need some advice, or at least some input. I won't promise your input will change things, but I would appreciate some help here.



1) "One of Us" (Joan Osborne): Good song, or unpoetic dreck?

2) That walking-man symbol at crosswalks (in the US, anyway): White or green?

3) Superman: Real superhero or not?

4) Partners with chicken pox: Cute or not?



I hope you can help us. I'm not sure we're ever going to find any common ground on these issues.

Comments

[krasota.livejournal.com]

1. Dreck, but lots of fun to whine along to
2. white in my town
3. Debatable.
4. Adorable.

[geminigirl]

1. Unpoetic Dreck, and whiny to boot.
2. Depends on the city, though I'm more used to seeing a red or green hand than a walking person
3. Heros are a personal issue
4. Not cute at all

[calebbullen.livejournal.com]

1. Dreck but one I've had some really memorable times to (an ex girlfriend loved Joan Osborne whenever she was feeling super amorous)
2. Usually white. Sometimes walk is written in green but that's usually white as well.
3. No he's a comic book character.
4. Quarantine them. I never had any kind of pox so I'd run for the hills

[chalepa-ta-kala.livejournal.com]

1. Haven't heard it, but fan_boy says it's "fun but overplayed." tutordennis pronounces it "dreck, and furthermore, clearly written by a guitar player."
2. I say green, the Boy says white. D concurs with me.
3. I say no, he's an alien. The Boy says yes. D says he can be both.
4. None of us has ever dated anyone with chicken pox.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

1) Don't know it
2) White
3) To some people, yes.
4) Poor partners!

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

1) Good dreck. Very singable.

2) White!

3) Christopher Reeve - real, Dean Cain - not

4) Depends on how high the fever is ;-).

[sagittaria.livejournal.com]

1. The worst kind of dreck.
2. White. Or maybe chartreuse.
3. The BEST. Evar.
4. Adorable in direct proportion to the number of spots. But cranky. Definitely very cranky.

Good luck! Let us know how things work out.

[sagittaria.livejournal.com]

P.S. These are really the kinds of issues that should normally be worked out BEFORE entering a marriage.

[j00j.livejournal.com]

1) meh.
2) White in these parts. However, I'm rather fond of the green east german one (http://hist.ucalgary.ca/atimm/ampel.htm).
3) He's a schmuck. Batman is cooler.
4) Chicken pox= not cute. Partners= presumably still cute, despite unpleasant illness. I would also like to note at this time that it is possible (although rare) to get chicken pox more than once.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

2. LED blue-white, lately.

[lysana.livejournal.com]

1) Silly dreck.

2) Black on yellow... oh, you mean the lit sign? Where is it green?

3) The original superhero.

4) Only cute unless they have a fever that requires medical intervention or they whine way too much.

[karenthecroccy.livejournal.com]

1) ew
2) white
3) no way!
4) depends on how crabby they are.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

1. Good song, but not nearly as good as "St. Teresa," or her cover of "What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted."

2. Usually white. Occasionally yellowish. Green in some areas.

3. Superhero with a curse on the actors who play him. Kinda like the main character of the Scottish Play, except in a cape and tights. Am now mentally casting the DC/Marvel Comics version of that play.

4. I try not to choose partners for such fleeting qualities as varicella lesions. Nevertheless, I'm always happy to scratch my partners' backs, so I vote for adorable.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

1) Dreck, and the grammar makes me cringe.
2) Yes.
3) Superman: Mostly
4) Partners with chicken pox: Scabby.

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

1) never heard it. Don't want to.

2) Sometimes green, sometimes white. Not where which is which.

3) Not a real superhero.

4) No one told me I was cute. I think I was more cranky. brian1789 says I was cute, but that he is biased. Does shingles even count?

[leback.livejournal.com]

Damn, you scared me.

1) The lyrics are best tuned out, but the music itself is pleasant, if not Osborne's most exciting work.

2) White, to my eyes. But I'm given to understand that for people with red/green color-blindness, green lights often look white, so maybe the little guy is actually green and my eyes just aren't color-sensitive enough to perceive that.

3) I know nothing about Superman.

4) Depends on how unhappy they are. I feel bad finding someone's misery cute, although my cat is pretty adorable sometimes when she's in distress.

[kiparui.livejournal.com]

1. dreck
2. white
3. no
4. no

[(Anonymous)]

1) Awful. "St. Teresa" is pretty great though.

2) Best spray-painted over into a little dancing man. Someone did that in my neighborhood in San Jose lo these many years ago.

3) OF COURSE!

4) No, but you probably have to take care of them anyway...

[nolly.livejournal.com]

1. I like it, but I'm weird like that.

2. The ones here seem to be white, but I'm sure they were green when I was growing up. I'm not sure if that's a redional difference or just old tech.

3. I suppose it depends on how you define "superhero", but I can't really think how he wouldn't be.

4. I'm going with "not".

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

1) "One of Us" (Joan Osborne): Good song, or unpoetic dreck?
I've never heard it. I think you should all forget you ever did, and it will cease to be an issue.

2) That walking-man symbol at crosswalks (in the US, anyway): White or green?

Is this a question of what color it is, or what color it should be. It is white, and I think that's actually more visible than green and helps distinguish it as a pedestrian alert and not just another green "cars may proceed forward (and turn left or right into crossing pedestrians" signal.

3) Superman: Real superhero or not?

Why not?

4) Partners with chicken pox: Cute or not?

I hope I will never find out.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

1. I've never heard it.
2. He's white here, but I'm not in the U.S.
3. As opposed to...?
4. Cute. :)

[lcohen]

1. i can sing it for all of you--it's perfect for my voice if i sing up the octave.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

From the other comments, I think it's probably okay. :)

[gramina.livejournal.com]

1. No clue.
2. Depends on where you are.
3. "real." "superhero." ??
4. Partners definitionally cute. Chickenpox cannot destroy cuteness!

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

1. never heard it.
2. white.
3. the original, and still the superest.
4. depends on the partner. and the severity of the pox.

[minimo.livejournal.com]

1. I liked it at the time because it was a bit iconoclastic for then, but no, it doesn't scan very well
2. I am much more familiar with The Hand
3. C'mon. He's the original superhero. Don't rewrite history.
4. They are cute despite their chicken pox, not because of it.
When my daughter was 3, she was the flower girl in a wedding. She came down with chicken pox a few days before we'd be flying, and we had unchangeable plane tickets. By the day of the flight, the contagious time should have been passed, but she still had a scab on her nose. I tried to convince myself it wasn't all that noticeable. My delusion was shattered while we waited in the boarding area and another little girl made a beeline for my daughter to ask her "Do you have chicken pops? I do, too!" Small comfort that her mom was probably as mortified as I was.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

1) Well, music is one of those things, you know? Music just *is*. It asks no questions, in and of itself, it simply exists in a primal is-ness, one that truly is beyond deep comprehension.

(Huh? No, never heard that song. How did you guess?)

2) That depends on whether they've just eaten a dozen Ho-Hos and a large quantity of lutfisk.

3) Definitely real; he is rarely portrayed as complex. While one could debate that this makes him purely imaginary, we can view him as real by looking at his magnitude only.

4) Chicken Pox, the evil tyrant who hopes to conquer the world, is a dangerous creature and one who is avoided by all right thinking people. However, one could partner with Pox for naive reasons, which certainly could be kind of cute in an endearing way.

[snippy]

1. Don't think I know that one.
2. Either is fine with me. I think the ones in this city are white.
3. Alien, of course--he comes from another solar system, hello! He chooses to behave like a superhero, for which we should all be grateful because otherwise, we'd be a planet full of slaves.
4. Chicken pox is not a modifier for the cuteness class. It's neither plus one nor minus one.

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to say - I love your icon.

[snippy]

Thanks!

[phantom_wolfboy]

1. Yes.

2. Green, but on the whitish side.

3. The real superhero.

4. If they were cute to begin with.

[surelars.livejournal.com]

1. No idea. Who's Joan Osborne anyway?
2. Green here
3. Real. And not supposed to be in movies
4. no opinion

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

Whew!

Sounds like "tastes (and walk signs) will differ" rather than anything that requires common ground.

[sogwife.livejournal.com]

In the interest of clarification, number 4 is not a debate of whether to go out with someone who has the pox. It is a question of whether one's partner's scabby, fevered, itching abso-fucking-lutely everywhere is cute.

I'm sure you all agree that the answer is a resounding "NO!"

[eeyore-grrl.livejournal.com]

1. not bad, but was overplayed.
2. is white *should* be green.
3. he's got the skills, so sure.
4. unpreferred as an adult. depends how the partner handles it... :) me, i was a whiny brat.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

good, greenish white, alien, in spots

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

1. Well, I think it was the themesong to Joan of Arcadia, which indicates nothing about anything.

2. White. But they /should/ be green.

3. Um, why wouldn't he be?

4. Well. They themselves are Fine People, and sometimes the irritable restlessness and all is kind of cute. Because, well, it just is. But possibly not if they're insisting it isn't...

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

2. I remember it being green when I was a kid, but lately it seems a lot whiter. I still see it as a very light green, though.

[dbubley.livejournal.com]

1) "One of Us" (Joan Osborne): Good song, or unpoetic dreck?
Stupid song, but I love Joan Osborne (who is more of a blues than folk singer), and I really liked Joan of Arcadia.

2) That walking-man symbol at crosswalks (in the US, anyway): White or green?
White is all I think I've seen. Green is for cars, not pedestrians, and a green left arrow sometimes them in opposition.

3) Superman: Real superhero or not?
Super, yes. Hero, sure, he saves people, but most of the time he is invincible. Not exactly the same as someone who risks their life to accomplish even less.

4) Partners with chicken pox: Cute or not?
No. There's nothing cute about being sick or watching someone be sick. Itching can be worse than pain, and helpless is frustrating for those who are helpless and for those who help.