courtship of Eddie's father, real-life version

The half life of a post-break recovery seems to be something on the order of a year. that's about how long it took for people to start asking me if

a. I was dating someone.
b. I was interested in dating.

These questions inevitably lead in one of two directions:
a. If the answer is no, the wizened suggestion that it is time to start looking.
b. If the answer is yes (or even a vaguely committal maybe), the person begins to tell you about the friend they think you should meet.

More often than not, the person in Case Bb is a woman. This fact is more or less irrelevant in the end. In any case, the brief dossier follows — age, hair color, brief description of interests, occupation, and any other essential details. The next question is whether I am interested in meeting the "perfect" friend. There is no good answer to this question, particularly if you're in a small social circle like I am. First off, there is a fair chance the meeting will happen anyway. Second, if it doesn't, the mutual friend will "inadvertantly" make it happen on the chance that we will hit it off, and I will change my mind.

Regardless of how it happens, dating as a full-time single parent is a dicey proposition. At least in my case, I have found that I want the connection, but that it is very hard to juggle all the priorities. And making trade-offs is no fun. Then again, there really isn't much choice but to suffer through the introductions and the choices if one wants to build a new, emotionally-healthy life.

Maybe one of these days I'll wrap my head around some of these experiences to write cogently about them again. Or to write again, period.

more corporate silliness

Give David Adams credit for writing a gripping lede for his op-ed in today's Times:

Young smokers who begin their habit with nicotine-laden cigarettes need a cigarette that will not leave them to later fight the ravages of addiction.

So rather than try to get kids not to smoke in the first place, the companies will just encourage them to smoke cigarettes that aren't physically addictive. Never mind the fact that it's the psychological addiction of the habit, oral fixation, and social component that are actually harder to break. At least that was my experience. Besides, teenagers who want to get the "real" thing will find ways to get the "real" cigarettes.

Isn't this just another version of the candy cigarettes that were sold to us as children? These same candy cigarettes had labels that were close enough to the real thing that kids could develop brand identification through design and color, and we could act like adults.


[image pulled from Candy.org.]

Snotty aka Snobby

We went out to Short Pump Town Center, one of Richmond's "lifestyle centers," this afternoon to check out the Apple store and buy a new pair of Jack Purcell's for me. We went to Saxon's, the Richmond shoe-buying institution, which is where I bought my current pair eleven years ago.

Now, granted, I didn't exactly look polished and moneyed in my t-shirt, shorts, and battered Converse. Nonetheless, I was still a potential (and past) customer, and there was no cause for the salesman to snap at me haughtily when I asked if they still carried the Jack Purcell's. (They did not.) When I followed up with questions about lug-sole black oxfords, the salesman seemed entirely put out to have to answer any other questions. Assholes. I'd rather risk buying shoes online.

When I walked out of there, Saxon had lost a customer. I may buy shoes for Banana there in the future, but I will not subject myself to that kind of attitude from salesmen. Especially when I'm willing to pay for good shoes.

kids at concerts

Wilco, Charlottesville Pavilion, tonight.

I took a gamble on this one. Wilco fans are a pretty reserved group, and the Pavilion is an outdoor venue. It seemed like a reasonable chance that Banana would have a good time. But at $40 for her ticket, nothing was guaranteed. Still, it was their last show in the States this year, and it would be a bit of cleansing since the last show I saw was with the ex before the meltdown.

Blah, blah, blah...

Long story short: we ran into a few other kids; they all ran around and had a great time; Banana curled up in her Hello Kitty fleece blanket and passed out just before the encores.

So the show...

They played two hours and 40 minutes, with three encores. The set list (which I will link to when it goes up on WilcoBase) was heavy on the last three albums, but they branched out to a couple tracks from Summerteeth, several from Being There, and one each from Mermaid Avenue, and A.M.. Throughout the set, they kept up a little schtick around "Heavy Metal Drummer" -- they'd play the opening beats or Kotche would come out in a blast of white light. But they saved the song for the end of the first three-song encore. The second encore ran five songs, covering what amounted to the history of the band. The final encore was "Spiders (Kidsmoke)," and it was phenomenal.

The band was as tight as I've ever heard them. Nels Cline was pulling riffs apart and reconstructing them, and during "Hoodoo Voodoo" he traded dueling riffs with Pat. Then during "Kidsmoke," Pat and Mikael traded keyboard riffs. And the chemistry was there the whole show. Stirrat and Tweedy were playful. Tweedy brought an 8-year old girl on the stage for Kotche was fierce. I can think of no other word to describe how much energy he puts into his playing, and his ability to mix and layer multiple sets of complex rhythms is constantly amazing.

Overall, what constantly impresses me about Wilco is their ability as a group to rethink and retool their songs. It doesn't matter that some of the production work on the albums is unavailable on stage. Instead, they'd rather take the core of the song and explore from there. The performances rarely feel repetitive, but at the same time, they don't abstract the songs so much that you never know what to expect.

The venue deserves kudos, too. The central location off the Downtown Mall makes it feel far more linked in to the city than most such places. Furthermore, the sound was excellent, inside and outside. This was our first trip there for a show, but it's definitely on the radar now. Next time, we'll have to get there early enough to roam.

National Folk Festival

Quick notes back on the weekend...

• There were fewer acts this year than the past two years. This was fine because we spent more time with Banana's friends than trying to catch music. Still, there were too many open blocks on the schedule.
  
  
• The more exotic acts (the gourd band, the Chinese clown, the flea circus, and more) in the children's area in previous years were more popular with Banana.
  
  
• The crowds--175K, more than any other NFF location--were a shock (!) to the powers-that-be in Richmond. With any luck, the Richmond Folk Festival will not be co-opted by the powers-that-be; if anyone can screw up a good thing, they can.
  
  
• Phenomenal tap dancing, great Acadian music, fascinating Phillipino drumming, no throat singing
  
  
• Punch and Judy is PG-13.
  
  
• We'll have to pray that we get decent rain in the months before next year's festival. No more dustbowls!
  

Great signs - Richmond edition

Should have worn his helmet, eh?

Octoberfests - the seasonal appendix

Clearly, I am a beer geek, but the brewers of tonight's tasting selection are in a different league altogether. First off, the guys at St. George Brewing Company don't sell their Fall Bock ("a seasonal brew") by the six-pack or in big bottles. Instead, this beer is in standard 12-ounce single bottles. Second, their description reads as follows:

heavy body, light amber color, low perceived bitterness, high malt flavor, medium/balanced hoppiness, no diacetyl, medium carbonation

They used the "diacetyl." I have to consult my beer-brewing books to even remember what that means.

But this is about how the beer tastes, right? That said, I'll counter their beer-geek description by saying that this beer tastes like delicious blend of crisp air, cider donuts, macaroni and cheese, and the ALCS.

Google amazement

So, if you google the Colbert web address I mentioned in my last post, this site is one of only four that come up. Fascinating!

*smirk*

Colbert on Gore

The "Gore-gernaut"... Brilliant.

BHUs — "Bush Hate Units"... usually brought on by reading Frank Rich. Brilliant!

"www.bushcredits.com" — how soon will it be a parody site?

parenting moments — late-night potty trips

For the past couple weeks, I've done my best to watch the clock after Banana goes to bed. There's approximately a two and a half hour window, and if I miss it, I will be washing sheets again. Now, taking her to the toilet two hours after she goes to sleep doesn't guarantee there won't be another potty accident in the course of the night, but at least it decreases the likelihood.

The potty accidents started to happen a year and a half ago--when the recent marital meltdown happened. Even though Banana Mère insisted that there wasn't a correlation, it doesn't take much to find that the meltdown and the potty accidents match. After things cooled down, however, the potty accidents became rare. When they happened, she had had too much juice or water before bed, and the result was an accident.

For the past few months, though, the potty accidents have become a regular occurrence. I have worried over them. I have asked other parents--many of whom have similar problems with their children. I have read books. I have spoken to the pediatrician. The verdict for all of these people is that this is an age-appropriate issue--an inconvenience, not a problem. Banana Mère insists that there should be solutions to this--from conditioning with a "special" nightgown to walking her to the bathroom rather than carrying. Everyone else recommends one of three options: Pull-ups; lots of sheets and bed pads; and waking her up to go.

Clearly, I've chosen the last option, with the second as a back-up. Banana Mère's nightgown idea is a loser so far, and Banana is just as asleep whether walked or carried to the bathroom. Ah well, she lives with me full-time; so the choice most of the time is mine.

So is the extra laundry.

Al

Ever since his nomination was announced, I've been saying that I hoped Gore would win the Nobel. Now he has. Will I get the second part of my wish and see him jump into the race? That's anybody's guess, and I won't add to the echo chamber that's already building noise.

What I do find pathetic—and utterly unsurprising—is the speed with which the Fox-driven media fast food chain has begun the Nobel-is-a-sham backlash. What a sad climate and country we have created.

movie adaptations

Just stumbled across Baz Luhrmann's 1996 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet on one of my absurd number of cable channels. I don't recall ever having watched it, and I am amazed at how surprisingly—even shockingly—good it is.

Luhrmann's setting of it in a post-apocalyptic Venice Beach works well, and his staging shows precursors of what he did with Moulin Rouge. The color palettes and cinematography take us fully into the world of the film. The acting is, well, excellent. Chris Rock as a cross-dressing Mercutio to John Leguizamo as a goombah Tybalt—it all works. DiCaprio screams a bit much, but otherwise is excellent. And Claire Danes is a delight.

What I also appreciate about the acting and the staging is the way Shakespeare's iambic pentameter is maintained without being played off as some absurdly affected speechifying. The language gets to do its job without being the spotlight, and in the end, the beauty of the writing shines through again.

culture clash

When a young man and woman are driving around in a pickup truck, why does the woman sit in the middle? I've wondered this ever since I moved south in 1999.

Pain, the next step

A couple weeks ago, I had an appointment with the pain specialists. The initial diagnosis for the ongoing pain was that the bullet might have damaged the brachial plexus. To test this hypothesis, they prescribed an electromyograph exam(EMG) with a neurologist. Today, I had that exam.

In short, the EMG entails pain to diagnose the source of pain. The first part of the exam is to shock the nerves and record the responses. This means that the arm jumps when the electrodes are touched. Fun stuff. But not as fun as the needles. The second part of the exam involves putting needles into the muscles to test the biofeedback. This is not like having a needle in a vein; in this case, you can feel the needle going into the vein.

This test was conducted at various points along my arm, my hand, and my shoulder. The result, despite less sensitivity to pain along my right arm, was normal. While this is good--no apparent damage to a major thruway of nerves, it also means I don't have an answer yet about the pain I am experiencing.

And that pain isn't going away, even with medication.

Octoberfests, pt. 5 – a teutonic head-to-head

I've been keeping these bottles in my fridge for more than a week now as I've tried to lighten up on the drinking. Anyway, it was finally time for the head-to-head—call it mourning for the baseball season.

1. Spaten Oktoberfest Märzen lager
With apologies to all the great American Octoberfests, none of them quite hold a candle to the real thing. The body of the Spaten is near-perfect—light, but with just enough heft to make you long for crisp days and almost-frosty nights. Then comes the taste, with complex layers upon layers. There is none of the overwhelming maltiness of some of the American brews. Instead, the malts bring out a certain caramel flavor that begins to hint of nutmeg and cinnamon on later sips. The hops don't jump out, but there are just enough floral notes on the nose to remind you that the hops are an essential building block of this beer.

2. Aktien Oktoberfest
This one comes in a bigger bottle--happy, happy! Overall, the beer's character is very similar to the Spaten--its body and malt. The nose is more balanced, however, and the flavor is more even. It's up to you whether this is a positive. Damn fine beer, I say.

global warming as a benefit?

So according to this diary on Daily Kos, Fox News has begun to spin global warming as a positive. Their argument is that the race for the arctic is a race for resources, not a race to retard the apparent acceleration of global warming.

What continues to amaze me is the ability of the conservative noise machine, shaped by Fox News, to perpetuate skeptical fictions about climate change. I worry that 20 years from now our kids will look back as they come of age and wonder what the hell was going on--as they deal with all the collateral problems that are likely to come from the changing climate.

For example, it is a warm, muggy night in New York. It was 80+ degrees on the coast of Maine this weekend. Blueberries come in earlier than ever. Growing seasons are changing all over. Droughts are getting more intense in regions all over the country. Parts of Maine haven't experienced a killing freeze in two years. I could go on and on, and the only thing that could convince me that this is cyclical is a record. But there are no records showing this sort of shift.

Read the Kos story, and tell me how many canaries (or walruses and polar bears) it will take for the naysayers to wake up.

notes on ptsd

I wrote this in a note to a friend, and thought it was worth posting out here, as well, for anyone who wants to read what it feels like:

...Unfortunately, I seem to be experiencing something far closer to what war vets experience [ed. or so I've read/heard]. Certainly, there are moments when [ed. seeing] young black men cause[s] a heart-pounding reaction, especially when I hear loud voices [too - ed. that's what really gets me, the memory of the voices.]. But I can't hear a balloon pop or a whip crack [or a truck backfire] without my head going into a really messy place. My heart skips. I want to drop to the ground. Beyond that, in daily functioning I pause and lose my concentration randomly. I see the gun again. I simply remember that I was shot. I think about the fact that an inch could have a made a difference between life and death. I hear the doctors saying, "This could easily have been fatal." It's not fear so much as a constantly paralyzing sense of [still] living in that moment.

My therapist and I did have a bit of a breakthrough about it last week; unfortunately, we concluded that it's also tied in with all the emotions from the roller coaster of the last few years. The unfortunate part is that this means I still have a much bigger ball of wax to deal with. Oy...

navel-gazing ends now

Friday Fun - Remember growing up in the 80s?

Click at your peril.

Santa's New Elves (or a rather depressing look at where our kids' toys are made)

So Santa's Elves have migrated to factories in China where they churn out toys for Banana and her classmates one arm, leg, and Mickey head at a time. They eat the gruel doled out by fellow workers ("please, sir, may I have some more, sir?"), and sometimes sleep under the tables. I'll be hard-pressed to get this one out of my head the next time Banana asks whether she can get a toy--just a small Polly Pocket/Littlest Pet Shop/Barbie--on our next Target run.

Occasionally we pay attention to the costs this sort of economy of (cheap) scale is taking on our society, but mostly when it risks our kids' health. What would the real tab be in economic, environmental, and social scales if we actually tallied it up?

[Image and link via Daily Kos.]

trauma, pt. 600

The physical pain comes and goes. Apparently, though I avoided any severe physical damage (euphemisms, ahoy!), I have suffered some nerve damage. The extent of it will be tested next week. In the meantime, I am on nerve meds again. They are helping, but they exacerbate the effects of alcohol, I've discovered.

More than that...

As much as the physical pain continues, the psychological pain seems to get worse. I go through random moments when I lose focus on where I am. There are the occasional flashbacks which come more regularly than they did a few months ago. There is a distinct lack of motivation, and it's more than just burnout from work. The issues have gotten to the point that I even randomly lose my focus in the midst of a conversation. Worst, I can't seem to let go of how close I was to dying.

Apparently, I healed so quickly on the outside that I forgot healing internally would take a lot longer.

Chris Matthews on The Daily Show

Best interview I've seen in a while. Catch it online.

That's all.

Recent listening....

Last week, I picked up Steve Earle's latest and went alt-country old school with a re-issue of Uncle Tupelo's first.

Steve Earle — Washington Square Serenade
So Earle moved to the city and got a place literally steps from my first apartment. He left the Dukes behind and hooked up with Medeski and a few other guys. He went to the crazy music store on West 4th Street, the place that only lets serious people in the door. (I only went in a couple of times, and only after the owner was satisfied that I might buy something.) He went into the studio at Electric Ladyland and recorded an album that is subtly different than anything else he's done.

The instrumentation is subtle and acoustic throughout with a jumpy, unsettled rhythmic track below it all. It loses some of the straightforward drive of albums like Transcendental Blues. What the new album trades away, it gains back through some killer songwriting. "Tennessee Blues" closes with

Blue dog on my floorboard, redhead by my side
Cross the mighty Hudson river to the New York City side
Redhead by my side, boys sweetest thing I’ve found
Goodbye guitar town

It's a clear statement that he is striking out in new directions. The familiar observation and storytelling are there, however, as he moves through track after track evoking a newcomer's arrival in the city. There is also a familiar nostalgia for what has changed over the years in New York:

Now hell’s kitchen’s Clinton and the bowery’s Nolita
And the east village’s creepin’ ‘cross the Williamsburg bridge
And hey, whatever happened to alphabet city?

There is less storytelling throughout, which suggests that Earle is working through his own stories instead. Even his "chick songs" as he puts it are quieter and more optimistic:

Four more seasons on parade
Show their colors then they fade
But that won’t happen to us, darlin’
We’ll remember how it was
Then begin again because
Days are never long enough

Overall, it's too soon to say whether this is one of his best albums, but it's a good step after the intense politicking of the last two. Definitely worth some repeat listening.

Uncle Tupelo — No Depression
This album still stands up almost twenty years later. I've been listening to a lot of Wilco and Son Volt over the past year, so this was a bit of a re-introduction. What I most noticed is how much Farrar seemed to drive the early UT days, and how consistent his songwriting and instrumental style have been. Tweedy is almost absent in those early UT recordings, at least the Tweedy we began to see as UT broke up and Wilco began evolving.


UPDATE: Three minutes after I finished this post, Wilco came on Radio Paradise. Weird.

Verizon sucks, pt. 4,732 - the update that shouldn't happen

So, the Verizon mess was resolved in August, right? The service issues were resolved in July. The billing issues--namely double-billing for the period they thought I had two accounts, billing for the wrong services, and billing for equipment that had moved with me--were resolved in August. At least that's the way it was left with Aaron O'Connor, my local CSR who was dealing with the situation. In one series of conversations in mid-August, he eliminated more than $500 in erroneous charges and knocked off part of my next bill.

Or so I thought.

Until I got the bill from the collections agency today.

As it turns out, the main billing at Verizon apparently never got the message that I didn't owe them this money. Somehow, though, I never got notices or statements about the fact that this was still active. The sick irony is that I do remember the official notice on the billing site that my account had been credited--and I can no longer pull up this documentation because the account is closed.

I spent 15 or 20 minutes on the phone with the collections people earlier. When she described my payment options, I blew up. Not a good idea. Thankfully, she let me calm down and listened to my description of the whole stupid saga. Sadly, there is nothing she can do unless Verizon admits their error and pulls the account. This means I have to get back on the phone with them tomorrow and try to resolve this. Aaron O'Connor gave me his cell phone number during the earlier chapters of the saga. That may be my only saving grace in all of this.

One can hope, right? One can also hope that at some point this whole saga which began because two of their CSRs fucked up--first, the guy who processed my initial move order, and second, the woman who screwed up when they needed to shut off the other account retroactively. Those are the names I'd really like to have. They owe me apologies.

Oy.

oenophilia, pt. 1

[posting from Mclean, VA, on my cousin's new iMac. Color me jealous; the keyboard and screen are beautiful on this machine.]

Thirteen years ago, I put together a mixed-case of wines for my cousin's wedding. Over the years, through a divorce and remarriage, through at least three states, a few of these wines have traveled with her. I discovered this a few years ago when I first came to visit them in Alexandria. Since then, we've talked about the weekend when I'd be able to stay over again and taste these last couple of bottles. This was the weekend.

There may be other bottles involved down the line, but the two that came out this weekend were a Dickerson Ruby Cabernet 1990 and a Renwood Old Vines Zin 1991.

The Dickerson was toast, sad to say. The cork disintegrated when I tried to pull it, and though I had hope that it could be drinkable, it was long-gone.

The Renwood, on the other hand, had a cork in good condition. It split during the pull, but only a little bit was left to push into the bottle. We poured a bit, let it breathe, and tasted it. In 2001, Tom Hill described it as

Med.dark color; fairly strong pungent/smokey dusty/old vine some blackberry/briary some licorice/pungent rather complex nose; slightly sweetish/ripe tarry/licorice/blackberry/briary/jammy very ripe flavor; long tarry/jammy ripe/blackberry/briary/Amador sweetish finish w/ modest tannins; really drinking nicely w/ a sweet fruit character; nicely developed complex Amador Zin.

*
Even at 16 years old or so, this description hits most of the flavor notes. What's most interesting, however, is that the character of the wine has become almost like a young Port. It has all of the above flavors, but with the sweetness of a nice port or sherry slipping in.

It was a very nice wine to sip after the kids were asleep; that's what is most important here. We rarely get that chance since the kids are always around and/or Banana and I have to hightail it back to Richmond. So, good wine and good conversation. What more could you ask for?



*Update: Should have saved the link on that one, but I forgot. Oops.

Octoberfests, pt. 4

Just one this time. The Ayinger Octoberfest.

This is a true and excellent Marzen lager. The body is light, and the flavor is malty and toasty without being cloying. As my neighbor said, this one tastes like a harvest--corn, earth, apples and crisp fall air.

Friday Fun, pt. 1

This is where my head is...

Advertising, Politics, and Hypocrisy

I don't watch much TV, and most news programs make me apoplectic, so I missed this segment with Bill Clinton and Anderson Cooper. [just picked it up off DailyKos] Watch it.

Clinton's point about the spots the GOP ran in Georgia is dead on. One of the tricks of manipulating the medium that the GOP message machine has been so successful at has been to create such a wall of rhetorical white noise that no one in the news media seems to remember the GOP's awful, awful manipulations of the truth over the last twenty years. From Willie Horton to the blue dress to the Swift Boat vets and beyond in even more pervasive ways, they have succeeded in shredding our sociopolitical filters for what is reasonable, true, and rational.

And no matter what anyone thinks of Clinton, he deserves to speak out against this kind of message manipulation. After all, he spent eight years as victim of it.

Good Magazine

I'd heard about GOOD magazine but hadn't sought it out yet. The cover of the latest issue, their one year anniversary issue, caught my eye in Barnes & Noble earlier, and I picked it up. Having tried to launch a magazine once upon a time, I'm still a sucker for new "books."

Good is better than most, however. The writing is solid. The design is well-done--kudos to Open Design in New York. The uncoated stock the book is printed on lends a nice balance to the question: "Can design do good?"

Certainly that is a good question, and one that the issue tries to address. It's a useful question, a useful topic; unfortunately, it's hard to get away from the fact that every new thing we create adds to a potential landfill down the line.

Octoberfests, pt. 3

It's a major showdown tonight.

First challenger: Victory Festbier
These guys make some killer beers--cf. Golden Monkey and Prima Pils. This take on the traditional Octoberfest is pretty damn good, too. It loses points on being a little too sweet and malty. They gain points by noting on the label, "Brewed and bottled ... at our sole location in Downingtown, PA." A bit of the craft/micro vs. the macro/micro, eh? Anyway, the Festbier is tasty, but not perfect.

Second challenger: Brooklyn Oktoberfest
Those of you who have known me for years know that I consider Brooklyn Beers to be the perfect beers. Those of you who agree with me will understand that this Oktoberfest is perfect. The only point where I grade them down is that they have turned the corner into a full macro/micro. They brew the beers in Utica, and the days of generic caps on small craft-brewed batches are gone. Yes, business must grow, but I still miss the days when some of their beers were never distributed outside of Brooklyn. Maybe I just miss New York. Oh, and the beer? Malty but not too sweet, good body, perfect balance.

Third challenger was to be Ayinger. It will have to wait until tomorrow.

Random mid-week fun

"Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole."

Light posting so far this week. My brain hurts.

Noodle shops rule

Richmond is lucky to have several good Vietnamese restaurants. The most popular and best known of the bunch is Mekong. About two blocks away are a collection of little noodle shops--the places where most people are more likely to be speaking Vietnamese than English. The current favorite is Pho So.

Pho So is a classic noodle shop with plastic chopsticks and spoons on the table. The menu offers various rice and noodle options, but by far what you see the most of around the room are people tucking into one of the 17 pho options.

I've been timid about working my way up the list from the basic Pho ga, but I've lately been working up to the Pho Tai. Friday, I moved a couple steps higher to the Pho Tai Chin (meat warning from my veg friends), which includes rare round steak and well-done brisket. Add in the basil, the bean sprouts, the pepper, the hoi sin, the chili, and of course the lime, and all the flavors combine to create a near-perfect comfort food.

I even took a picture of it. Eventually I'll figure out how to send pictures from my phone.

Finally!

I've been introducing Banana to the Looney Tunes oeuvre lately, but I can't afford to pick up the DVDs. I've had to rely on YouTube and Boomerang. All this time, I'd been missing a crucial character who never seemed to make it on to YouTube. Until now...

The Peter Principle was right -- employees, employers, and employment

Three years of management experience at a large state university, that's what I've reached now. I've also hit a wall.

Some observations:

• Leaders who rule by fear and crony-ism will be publicly revered and privately reviled. They will inspire backbiting and jealousy. Their management will be characterized by kindness to old friends and insipid attacks on those they see as less obsequious. Ultimately, this crony-ism will lead to poorly-run organizations where the team is less important than the policy.
  
  
• True loyalty is inspired. It grows when a team functions as a unit and all members--from the highest to the lowest--are seen as essential components.
  
  
• People who work as administrators at large state universities worry most about protecting their retirement accounts. Anyone who threatens that is the enemy, though that enmity sometimes is sly and hidden. Furthermore, these people could work anywhere; students are a nuisance to them. Except when they can help with some of the mundane office work. (All administrative office work is mundane.)
  
  
• An employee will put everything he (or she) has into a project, as long as he (or she) feels valued. That same employee is not likely to complain about the occasional scut project, as long as he (or she) feels like the office is fun place to be.
  
  
• Long-time administrators resent fun, unless it is their own. (For reasons that should be obvious, I will not get into how this plays into life in my particular office building.)
  
  
• No one deserves to be abused for balancing life with work--particularly when they are getting their work done well and on-time.
  
  
• No senior administrator likes to be out of the loop, but they rarely want to be in the loop. And they will always discover that they are out of the loop just in time to make life hell for everyone involved.
  
  
• Many high-level administrators do not want to be troubled with mundane details. Yet it is the details that they most need to know to understand successes and failures--these are the details that will most come back to haunt a lower-level manager when the senior administrator decides to be unhappy.
  
  
• Work can be fun. How sad that some employers--and employees--don't subscribe to this notion. How sad.
  

That's enough for now.

Fall comes early

It seems odd that the leaves are already changing in Richmond. We've jumped from the oppressive heat and humidity of August to the crisp cool mornings of October in a few weeks. September lasted perhaps a couple of days, and now the maples along Monument Avenue are beginning to turn a rich, orange-ish clay-red.

In a small way, it is a reminder that no matter how much we affect our environment, we cannot ultimately control nature.

the wound

I visited the pain specialists yesterday. Their suspicion is that the chronic pain I'm experiencing is from nerve damage. Fun stuff. This means lidocaine patches on the back for a little while, Lyrica, and an EMG on my arm to determine how much sensation I may have lost. It also means dealing with the hairline fracture in my T1.

Fun stuff.

The things kids say

Last Saturday, we were at Maymont with a friend and her daughter, letting the girls tear around the lawns and then down to the Japanese garden. At one point, Banana took the other girl down close to the water. There were dragonflies of all sizes and colors around. Banana knelt next to the water and said loudly, "Look, H, those dragonflies are making love!"

My friend Angela put her hand over her mouth and laughed. I swear I blushed as I tried to find something to say. The best I could do was shrug--and worry where she had picked up that phrase.

What I hadn't seen was her putting her hands together to show H how the dragonflies made a heart with their tales when they were mating. She showed me this later, and Banana Mere confirmed that she called mating dragonflies "love dragonflies." In other words, she had mashed the ideas together. I laughed a bit at the explanation, and then told her that I understood what she was saying. Still, I told her, she shouldn't say things like that in school. (Those damn puritan and Lutheran genes...)

My biggest fear was that she had learned to say something she shouldn't say, and this drives straight to my fears that she will learn lots of things earlier than she should. It's also reminiscent of a trip to the pool where a nine year-old girl (the older sister of someone Anna was playing with) told her mom a boy had kissed her. The mom who also has custody shot me a horrified look and said, "That's it. I'm locking her in a tower."

There is an object lesson here: we can't control all the things that will come into our children's lives. Single parents whose children spend significant time with the other parent have even less control. But you can't worry too much about it, right? The best you can do is provide a firm and consistent standard for your child and hope that everything turns out all right--without any locked towers.



*Picture from University of Michigan.

A customer service winner...

On Saturday evening, I discovered that my bike had been stolen. It was a nice bike, a '99 Trek 6500 with a Topeak child seat mounted on the back. I'd traveled with the bike since '99 and enjoyed it. And no matter how carefully I locked it last weekend, someone had good enough bolt cutters to cut the cable and take the bike and the helmets on the other side of the porch. (That's the sad part, because it means someone pointedly stole from a child.)

Anyway, I called the police when I realized it was gone. Then I called USAA. Over the next couple days, I made a formal police report and gave a claims report to USAA. Today--less than five days later--USAA deposited a settlement to my savings account.

They deserve kudos for prompt, effective service. Now Banana and I can begin commuting by bike again. Less than a week later.

Kudos.

Octoberfests, pt. 2

Continuing the excursion to the state where I was born and an area where we spent much time...

1. Saranac Octoberfest
First off, it should be noted that Saranac beers are the house-brand for F.X. Matt Brewing. For those who don't know, Matt is the brewery that brews many, many microbrews under contract. They also create house-label brands for restaurants and people. The advantage of this is that they have some decent beers for less than most of the other craft brewers. The disadvantage is that their beers are just good, not outstanding. The Octoberfest is no exception. It's a decent lager, but very malty--so much so that the roasted malts were all I tasted at first. Simply put, this is a good one to drink after you've had a few other beers.

And then to the state where we did a bit of skiing when I was growing up...

2. Flying Dog Dogtoberfest
Flying Dog is another of those breweries that puts out consistent and excellent beers. This one is no exception. It has the light body and slightly toasted flavor necessary. At the end of the finish, there is an almost citrus-y taste where the hops come out a bit. All the way around, this one stands on its own. I think I'll have another.

Octoberfests, pt. 1

In the spirit of the reviews of spring and summer brews, I am moving into fall beer season. Apparently, I am also moving through these according to personal/geographic connection.

1. Bell's Octoberfest
It's another Bell's Beer. Need I say more? It is malty and the body is perfect. It carries the whiff of fall when it is poured. The head is light, and the first sip is crisp with a nice malt and spice to the finish. I am steadily moving Bell's up close behind Brooklyn in my list of favorite breweries.

2. Geary's Autumn Ale
The boys in Maine are apparently loathe to make anything other than an ale. Even though their Autumn Ale tastes an awful lot like an Octoberfest-style lager. Anyway, my neighbor's description was that it "tastes like a pile of leaves." She clarified that it was a compliment, that it brought out that tang in the air you smell when you dive into a big pile of October leaves. It's an Octoberfest that wants to call itself something else. And it's a damn fine beer, though not quite as succulent as the Bell's.

3. Harpoon Octoberfest
Years ago in our senior year of college, my friend Erik interned at the Harpoon brewery in the South End. He helped with marketing and business matters. On Friday afternoons, we both helped with drinking the beer. That fall was also my real introduction to Octoberfests. I've never forgotten it, and though Harpoon moved most of their operations to the former Catamount brewery in Vermont, their beer has stayed dear to my heart. This year's Octoberfest continues the tradition. It's got the perfect balance of malt and hops for a nice toasty flavor that hits the tongue crisply and lingers a bit. This beer cries for grilled brats and sauerkraut.

Oh, and two other things: 1. Leapy is still missing; and 2. The fall air has hit, gloriously.

Life-hacking, pt. 43

The latest lesson: Life is a marathon, not a sprint.

I have always been a binge cleaner. That is to say, when I cleaned my house, I did it in binges, scouring the entire place and then forgetting that keeping the place clean meant seeing organization as an ongoing project. I've also been a binge decorator. After moving into a new place, I'd keep the organization and decoration going until I got bored or too busy. Then I'd get distracted and it would take months for me to finish projects--if I ever did.

Almost exactly a year ago, I started to work intensively at cleaning up the shambles my life had become. Taking the view that the state of one's outward environment is a reflection of one's inward state, I also tackled the house intensively. It worked well for a while, until I became swamped and overwhelmed again. That state didn't really end again until I moved into the new house in May.

Since then, I've tried to take the reins again and keep up with the demands of life. (Mind you, no parent finds this easy; for single parents, it is even more complicated; unless you are Mr. Corbett.) Creating an inviting and livable space has also become a concentrated project. The problem is that I am so wrapped into the deadline-driven, binge-work mindset that I forget to finish projects if they aren't easy. The potential result is that the house never really gets settled.

I have, to this end, begun to remind myself that life is a marathon, not a sprint. If I pace myself, the daunting time (when the fuck do I do all of this?) and financial (how can I afford all the little and big things we need?) concerns seem smaller. If I see the organization as an ongoing process, I can take it in manageable spurts; if I see the furniture and other dry good needs as a medium-term process, there is less reason to be frustrated that I'll never be able to afford what I want or need. Taken at that level, one is also liberated to be more creative and flexible while still working toward the goals.

The return of Leapy

Night 1
I picked up crickets at Fin and Feather in the hopes that new food would lure Leapy back. I put a few crickets in the aquarium and put the rest in the cricket keeper, which sits on the dresser next to the aquarium. The next morning, the cricket keeper was on the floor. I had visions of Leapy lurking somewhere around the dresser, waiting for me to turn off the IKEA seahorse light, and then climbing back up to solve the puzzle of getting crickets. She's crafty, this frog.

Night 2
I stopped in the room to check on Banana before I went to sleep--far too late, as usual. At a glance at the floor, I saw a hunched lump that did not belong with the rest of the toys. She struggled a bit when I picked her up and tried to climb my arm rather than go back in the aquarium. Nonetheless, she did go back, and when Banana woke up this morning, she was ecstatic. Leapy was also quite tame and did not try to escape. Still, the screen atop her aquarium will remain weighted.

UPDATE...
Never forget to put the weights atop the screen. The frog will escape again. And she has. Oy.

Friday fun

Aaaah, the memories.

education gets lazier?

Aren't we exacerbating our cultural ignorance by pandering to short attention spans?

I'm just saying...

PTSD

A backfiring pickup truck sounds just like a gun shot. I have nothing further to add.

She's crafty, that frog.

This morning, Banana came to me and said that Leapy wasn't in her cage. I was incredulous at first, particularly since the kid has developed a penchant for saying things like "Fooled you" lately. When she did, in fact, show me Leapy's aquarium, it was clear that there was no frog. Not in the waterfall. Not in the corner. Not in the nooks of her log. There was no frog.

Upon further investigation, there was a trace of her next to the cricket cage--a frog pellet, if you will. Clearly she had somehow pushed the screen up enough to get out, landed near the cricket keeper and moved on somewhere else. We continued to look for her, but turned nothing up. I'm going to buy crickets this afternoon in the hopes that a new supply will bring her back to the cricket cage.

Banana has already begun to move on. If Leapy doesn't come back, she wants a pet that won't try to escape. I'm pretty sure it hasn't occurred to her yet that a disappeared Leapy means an animal hiding somewhere in the house. Will we find her by smell if the crickets don't work, or will we wake one morning to find her hugging a corner wall?

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a random return while we're both away today.

old writing - September 11th edition

What follows is an excerpt from an essay I wrote shortly after that tragic day. I haven't touched it since, but given the anniversary, I thought it worth digging out.

That morning, I followed the same basic routine I’ve followed since leaving the city two years ago—coffee, NPR, and the New York Times and Daily News online. The night before the Yankees and Red Sox were scheduled to play and Roger Clemens was trying to become the first pitcher ever with a 20-1 record. The game, however, was rained out. I continued to read headlines until the voices on the radio shifted and the news broke.

For the rest of that day, then, I sat glued to the TV while NPR continued to blare out of the stereo speakers. Everyone was confused over the “apparent terrorist action.” The coverage shifted to President Bush in Florida, then a short while later to reports of smoke billowing from the Pentagon, then of a plane that had crashed in rural Pennsylvania. At that point, facts were muddled; rumor after rumor spun out about the possibility of planes over the White House, a car bomb outside the State Department. Federal offices and major landmarks around the country were evacuated in a CNN-fueled panic and security increased even at the Federal building here in Fayetteville.

My first instinct was that I needed to be there; I needed to see this with my own eyes, not through a camera’s lens. I paced my small house and in the background CNN replaced the dearth of new developments with footage of the second plane crashing into the South tower. A ball of flame burst each time out of the east side of the building. I tried to reach my father in Washington. No luck. I tried to reach friends in New York. No luck. I called my mother at our house in Maine and told her what was happening. Ten minutes after I I hung up the phone, the South tower collapsed. I had no idea what to do. More phone calls and occasionally there was a fast busy signal, occasionally a voice explaining that that the circuits were full, and all too often a dead silence when the line simply couldn’t connect.

The silences were the worst—I needed to talk to someone in the city, someone who understood the sickening feeling in my stomach. I needed to do something. Then the second tower collapsed. I called my mother again and could say nothing more than, “The towers are fucking gone. They’re gone.” And still no luck getting through to New York or Washington.

As the rumors of new threats devolved into images of the real destruction, the nausea settled into my chest—it felt as though a frigid hand had reached in and pulled out my heart and lungs. I couldn’t take a full breath. Every time the images of the collapse flashed across the screen, the twin beacons I had seen so many mornings disappeared into a gray cloud and the dead phone did not help the worry that at least one of my very close friends might still have been working for the same law firm at 2 World Trade Center.

Thankfully she wasn’t. The first phone call that got through was to her and she answered; she had been scheduled to return to work the next day. The next fucking day. We repeated the words to each other as though they were a mantra that might help make sense of what was happening. “It’s crazy here, Paul, just crazy right now.” After that, a few brief emails dribbled in telling me that people were okay. Alive, but stunned beyond words. One friend, Arthur, had been at LaGuardia preparing to board a plane to Ohio when the towers were hit; he walked five miles home to the Upper West Side and said the reactions he saw of people on the street were indescribable, beyond words. This man is a therapist and a writer, and he couldn’t find words to describe the effect of what happened. Another friend had walked the opposite direction from midtown on the East side across the Queensboro Bridge and she described the crowds as most closely resembling the large pro-choice marches in which she had taken part. But she also said that the numbness with which people moved was beyond comprehension. Another friend sent a ten word email from her cellphone. Another described the dust now settling over my old neighborhood in Brooklyn. Nearly everyone signed their emails with “Love.”

The relief of knowing that everyone closest to me was safe was shortlived. There was a news conference with Giuliani and I was torn apart again. He wore a NYPD windbreaker and kept his face barely composed as he described the devastation, and the period during which his own entourage was trapped in a nearby building while assessing the initial damage. Then his efforts at composure cracked as he listed the fire fighters and police officers, all veterans and high-ranking officials, who were known to be among the dead. This hit me hard: they had been doing their jobs, on the scene of an untenable emergency, directing efforts to save people’s lives before the fire engulfed the towers. The Fire Department Chaplain, with twenty years of service behind him. The Fire Chief and First Deputy, both with nearly thirty years of service. Giuliani had to be prompted by the Police Commissioner to make it through the brief iteration of the names. More even than the images of people jumping after the planes had hit—what must it take for a person to choose between burning and falling one thousand feet?—or the repeated images of the collapse, more than anything so far, oddly it was Giuliani’s reaction that finally got to me and brought out the tears that I’d held back earlier in the day.


The pictures came fast then, too. The coffee carts and fruit stands deserted and covered in ash, like Pompeiian memorials to workaday life in the city. I could taste the buttered bagels and the hot, sweet, thin coffee; I wondered what the middle-Asian immigrant in the cart must have thought as the planes hit. The crowds must have pushed past as he turned off the coffee urns and worked to hitch the cart—complete with its cargo of donuts, bagels, rolls, apples and bananas—to the van with which he had towed it in from Queens. At the urging of the police, he must finally have given up on trying to drive his cart away from the disaster zone. In the picture, the van sits just off Church Street, covered in dust and debris, the coffee cart tilted to the side. Many of these immigrants have no insurance and get into the coffee cart business through an underground of connections from their old country, and for most of them it is a hand-to-mouth existence. What happens to him now? The quandary must be the same for the man, perhaps Bangladeshi or Chinese, who abandoned the debris-covered fruit and vegetable cart captured in another photograph. Here is their land of opportunity. That gets me every time.

Another picture from The Daily News captures people, all of them dressed for their morning commute, many already covered in dust, running down Greenwich Street. Their faces are frozen in paroxysms of terror—they look like horror film extras, in fact—and men’s ties blow out over their shoulders as they run from the expanding cloud of debris following them through the canyons of buildings. I pore over this photo the way I look at every photo coming out of the horror of that day and each day following, to see if there are any faces I recognize, any friends among the refugees and mourners.

As I scan these photos, I also notice the streets, the places, and one in particular gets me. It was taken at a spot from which one could see, if the lens were turned a bit, The Raccoon Lodge. I used to play pool there from time to time, and when I worked jobs downtown I’d stop there for a beer. It was a classic old joint with a good jukebox and enough grime to keep it from seeming like it belonged anywhere near the financial district. But even old bars often survive on shoestrings in New York City, and I wonder if the owner had enough insurance to keep him afloat until the streets two blocks from Ground Zero were opened again. That gets me.

As I continued to pore over the news, there was a picture that captured a simple handwritten sign that read in capital letters, “Morgue,” with an arrow pointing left. The sign was tacked up outside the broken windows of the Brooks Brothers store across Church Street from the Trade Centers. The sign directed those carrying bodybags into the tweed-lined room where several medical examiners worked to separate pieces of bodies. As I read the accompanying story, I couldn’t stop thinking about the three pairs of boxer shorts I had bought at that store six years ago when I didn’t have time to do laundry.

Then there are all the photographs of the fire fighters from departments across the Northeastern states, police, and other rescue workers—the construction workers, the volunteers, the steelworkers, the pipefitters, the canine search-and-rescue corps. The sheer determination tempered by exhaustion creasing these faces made me wish I could hop the subway to the Javits Center and add my name to the list of volunteers even though I didn’t have any of the skills they really needed. With each picture, the sense of helplessness grew. There were more American flags; the firefighters wore them. Mementos of lost departments appeared on helmets and jackets. The Yankees stopped wearing the interlocking NY hats and instead wore NYPD and FDNY hats as they returned to practice a few days later. Mike Piazza plastered NYPD over the Mets’ orange NY on his batting helmet. None of these men were directly involved in the rescue effort, but any show of solidarity was enough to get to me in the days after.
In the meantime, other buildings in the area collapsed and the structural integrity of several others came into question. With each piece of news, I thought back to freelance jobs that took me to 5 World Trade, 2 World Trade, lunches and dinners consumed in the Winter Garden; a picture of the atrium shows a ghost-town of restaurants and escalators bowing under the weight of debris. You take these things for granted when you’re in the city; they may not be your favorite places, but they will always be there when you need to meet a friend downtown or to show a visitor. Now they aren’t.

In their place is a 16 square acre, 70 foot deep and 40 foot tall pile of debris and what is left of more than 6000 bodies. When the World Trade Center was built, the foundation was carved out of century-old landfill and the foundation was set in such a way as to keep the Hudson River at bay. In my media frenzy, I came across articles that bring up yet more chilling possibilities of collateral damage brought on by the attacks: the civil engineers who designed this crater worry that a single wrong move while cleaning up debris may flood the entire area, and the subway tunnels, PATH train tunnels, other areas, in short that things could all-too-easily get much worse.

writing from 2004

Dug this up from some of my random, fun writings a few years ago...

The need to wipe our bums is certainly nothing new. Though I know our contemporary diet is full of additives and alternatives that humans did not consume hundreds and thousands of years ago, I feel reasonably confident in assuming that my progenitors’ poop was not remarkably less messy than my own. And I feel reasonably confident in guessing that my solution—maple leaves—this morning when the need for a porcelain basin came inpropitiously while I was in the woods was not so different from what men and women must have chosen to use in centuries past.

A bit of research into the development of this remarkable modern convenience turns up the fact that the Koran dictates the use of the left hand for cleaning up afterwards. This is, of course, a rule that must seem barbaric by our “Western” standards of hyper-hygienic, anti-bacterial obsessiveness. No wonder, some might even say, that we consider Arabs so backwards and primitive; of course anyone who actually touches his own feces must be little better than an animal. And our civilization is obsessed with nothing so much as separating ourselves from animals—and anything that smacks of the natural world. How inconvenient then that we must be faced with the fact of our animal-ness whenever we sit down to take a crap.

But what is wrong with shells and corn cobs? Or my morning choice of the maple leaf? Why supplant these with hundreds of feet of rolled, quilted, double and triple ply, bleached paper? Certainly the coastal dwellers in Hawai’i and elsewhere who have relied on mussel and scallop shells learned which shells were most efficient and felt the best on their tender-skinned bottoms. Consider this picture: a woman picking along the beach for the perfect shells for her family to use in cleaning themselves, the quilted scallop or the double-ply mussel or perhaps the rough efficiency of the clam, much as the vaunted shopping wife of contemporary culture wanders down the aisle of the grocery store deciding which package of twenty-four rolls will best serve her family’s needs. Yet the “Indian”—for isn’t every brown-skinned person of non-Western descent still an Indian (read “savage”) still?—chooses the item that can be washed after each use and reused, much like the Arab’s hand. I wonder, given our societal obsession with convenience and single-use items, whether our Pilgrim progenitors saw fit to reuse their corncobs, the mere mention of which makes me wonder if their stereotypical uptightness didn’t result from a continuous case of hemorrhoids.

But I am no better than that which I tease here. When traveling in Europe and Asia and South America before our mania for comfortable convenience began to spill inexorably over into other places, I often looked forward to returning to the States for at least this reason: my bum was sore from the use of the rough sheets that passed for toilet paper in those places. I wanted my quilted softness, my plys, my rolls that I could pull a whole wad off of for one single wipe, and then another roll, and another, until the bowl was filled with paper. It is certainly one way we can hold ourselves above other so-called civilized societies. Where they haven’t gotten beyond the 1880 introduction of toilet squares by the British Paper Corporation, we invented the roll in 1907. And life has only gotten softer and more convenient since. Never again will anyone have to rely on maple leaves, though I must admit: they were softer than your average roll of Scott tissue.

Growing up in the 70s

We were raised on entertainment made by people who did serious drugs. A lot of serious drugs. Enjoy the memories.

news like this scares me

So a B-52 flies from North Dakota to Louisiana and it's not news, right? Right. Unless it's carrying nuclear weapons. To the base used to stage Middle East operations. And someone sees fit to leak the news.

Seriously, though, the possibility that Bush&Co might try to go through with an attack on Iran is disturbing--and all-too-plausible. Jon Stewart began making the point a few years ago that we just happened to have started wars on either side of Iran. Given the hubris of our Dear Leaders, it is not a hard leap to believe that there is a long-term strategy in place for using Afghanistan and Iraq as staging grounds; such a premise is also vaguely believable since there clearly has never been an exit strategy, and another war would continue to justify a long-term occupation.

Regardless, the possibility of stepping up our military engagement is too frightening to imagine. And the thought of adding nuclear weapons to the equation... Oy.

so that erroneous charge...

has posted to my bank account. Bar tab: $17.78. Erroneous tip: $164.22. Correct tip: $4. Charges to my USAA account: $21.78 and $182.

Supposedly, the bar/restaurant manager is working to correct it. Stay tuned to see how good Embassy Suites is to their word.

Princess Valiant

A year ago, Banana decided that she wanted her bangs to be short. She disappeared into the bathroom at her mother's apartment with a pair of scissors and wound up with bangs reminiscent of Prince Valiant. It was that cute but slightly horrifying moment almost every parent of a girl talks about--the moment when that little girl takes her coiffure in her own hands. It's just a bit of a surprise.

But it's only supposed to happen once, right?

Unfortunately, she was at mommy's apartment yesterday afternoon, and while mommy was doing some reading for class, Banana decided she wanted a bob cut like one of her friends. Her bangs were completely gone before Banana Mere realized what was happening. (Oy.) Banana Mere did her best to clean up the now-nonexistent bangs (I mean, we're talking millimeters) and finish and clean up the bob cut. So now, my daughter has created a look I'll call the Princess Valiant. She is quite proud of it.

Her teacher's comment this morning may have been the best yet, however: "Oh my. Well, at least it's cute."

Embassy Suites as an environmental debacle

On the grand football-roadtrip-adventure this weekend, we stayed a couple nights at an Embassy Suites outside of Detroit. It's become my father's default option as a hotel for these trips. He likes the breakfast, and the accommodations are comfortable. Certainly it's nice to have a fresh omelette, waffles, various baked goods, weak coffee, and all the eggs, sausage, and bacon you could crave at your beck and call. Certainly Banana loved the pool. But it is also an example of all that is not sustainable in our society. Like the low-end Hummer of hotels.

All of the food we ate was delivered by massive food service semis. Though it was early September and prime time for peaches and nectarines, there wasn't a sliver of local produce to be found. There was one entree on the dinner menu that claimed to be a local specialty--or at least a Great Lakes specialty: the pan-fried lake perch. The waffle mix was kept in small plastic cups, and in front of every set of actual glasses was a larger supply of disposable cups.

Add to this the amount of energy chewed up by the wide open atrium spaces that are lit and climate-controlled at all hours, and you have one example (emblematic of thousands) of the ways we are squandering our resources.

Life goes on...

ob-la-dee ob-la-da...

That's all I'll say for now.

First Day of School

Banana is really a big kid now. I don't think it's quite hit me yet.

(regular posting to resume soon)

football madness

It's very odd to be on the losing side of history. I don't have much more to add than it was clear that only one team on the field was really playing the whole game. That is to say, ASU came in ready to play, and Michigan looked like they were just muddling their way through a scrimmage.

This is also to say that the game wasn't necessarily worth the eleven-hour drive both ways, but the time with my father and Banana has been worth it. (Though not necessarily worth the mistake on a bar tab, which we're hoping will be cleared up very, very soon.)

Fall Saturdays

Ah, nostalgia for small-time college football... We will spend the rest of the day at this small, quaint temple of scholar-athletes.

brilliant design sensibilities

This is a fucking brilliant cartoon.



Midway through, Banana wanted to know when the "real" shows were going to come back on. I told her to stop and watch. I explained that it was things like this that had taught me how to draw lines--and that it was my ability to draw lines that paid our rent. She stopped and paid attention. Together (I hadn't seen this toon in years), we oohed and ahhed over the brilliant design work in this one.

Starting Kindergarten

This afternoon, Banana went to her kindergarten orientation. Parents were sequestered off to the school auditorium for an introduction to other teachers and an extended welcome from the principal. It was an odd dynamic – realizing that even though Banana was in pre-K at the school last year, this really was the transition to being a Big Kid.

Parents do not come in the room unless they are observing or volunteering. The kids have assigned places at the tables and folders for their work rather than just for the fun fingerpaint artwork. (In fact, I don't think kindergarteners fingerpaint any more.) There is fun stuff around, but this is definitely not playtime. There is no play kitchen area. There are no toys. There are no nap mats because kids at this age no longer require downtime, apparently.

In other words, this is no longer the kindergarten we grew up with. This is not half days. This is not naptime. This is not graham crackers and milk. This is real school. They will begin to learn math. They will learn to read. They will continue to build on the Spanish, art, and music skills they've developed in pre-K – for those who went to pre-K.

I wasn't prepared for realizing how much of a transition point this will be. My little girl will be doing homework and be challenged to grow up in ways I've seen in friends' kids grow up in the last year or so. It is both exciting and daunting.

Franny's redux

Apparently I was ahead of the curve when I posted this about Franny's in Brooklyn, despite having moved away too many years ago. After getting over his silly cross-river fears, Bruni reviewed the joint and two-starred it. You can read his review here.

time off

I've taken this week for vacation--without going anywhere. Call it a home vacation. A chance to hang out with Anna, and her low-grade fever. A chance to get a few things done around the house. It's moments like this when I realize how much I need to wall off occasional time off just to maintain sanity and balance.

Honestly, I haven't even really thought about much. What a nice break. Regular posting will resume soon.

the sinking ship

Bush is a lame duck president who reportedly does not want to act like a lame duck president. Increasingly, though, his presidency looks like a sinking ship, and the rats are leaving. In the past two weeks, we've had two official announcements of resignations–Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales–and an unofficial announcement–Tony Snow. Though these may not be the highest level in actual hierarchy, they are remarkably high in the odd calculus of this administration. The man who made Bush's political career, the man who defended Bush's political career, and the man who was brought in to be the TV-ready face of the administration. Other top, long-time trustees who are still in place–Condi Rice, as a prime example, and Cheney–have been absent from the cameras and the headlines long enough to seem absent. In the headlines, in other words, Bush is alone now.

I don't pretend to understand the political or personal calculations behind these moves. I do wonder whether the Bush clan has anything to do with this. After all, it is widely rumored that Barbara, Laura, and others are extraordinarily angry with what has happened over the last few years. Moreover, the fact that the senior Bush was interviewed by the New York Times about his frustration and disappointment only a few weeks before the current run of resignations makes me wonder if the dynasty isn't playing a significant role in this shake-up. Then again, Junior's actions over the years have been an almost-Shakespearean drama of the son trying to show up the father.

Regardless, I want to believe that this regime is turning into a game of Last Man Standing in the face of a true comeuppance, but I'm also cynical enough to believe that they have a few more tricks up their sleeves.

Diff'rent Strokes and beyond

Thinking about The Courtship of Eddie's Father had spurred me on to think about other single fathers in TV, movies, and books. So far, my list looks something like this:

• The Courtship of Eddie's Father
  
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
  
• Finding Nemo
  
• Whale Rider
  
• Diff'rent Strokes
  
• Archie's Place
  
• Kramer vs. Kramer
  
• Punky Brewster
  
• Nanny McPhee
  
• Jersey Girl
  
• Full House
  
• Silver Spoons
  
• Benson
  
• Gimme a Break
  
• The Pursuit of Happyness
  
• Silas Marner
  
• Pretty in Pink
  
• Some Kind of Wonderful
  
• The Ballad of Jack and Rose
  
• The Andy Griffith Show
  
• To Kill a Mockingbird
  
• Fly Away Home
  
• Life As a House

Additions and suggestions are welcome, especially examples dealing with divorce where the father takes full custody.

inscrutable thoughts

The last time I saw Michelle Shocked in concert was 2002, not long before Banana was born if I remember correctly. The show was at Dave's in Fayetteville, which had both a good list of people who came through and an awful sound system.

I've seen Shocked five times over the years and only been disappointed once--in 1993 when she was making an ill-advised blend of folk and funk. The other shows were stellar, from the Arkansas Traveler tour when Uncle Tupelo and Taj Mahal opened for her and shared the stage to the Kind-Hearted Woman tour when she played with the Hothouse Flowers and played one of the best, most heart-felt sets I've ever heard. In 2002, she touring for Deep Natural/Dub Natural, an album that I lost for a few years during the first divorce. It disappeared into some other things once I got it back during the reconciliation. Consequently, I did not listen to it again until I came across it during the move in May.

Since then, I've listened to it repeatedly. The album may not be her best, at least for listeners who crave her early songs. She tends to noodle around on some of the tracks, the picaresque tracks are reminiscent of her earlier songs rather than breaking new ground. Still, there is something very compelling about the album. It's clear that she enjoyed making it--something about the airiness of many of the tracks.

In any case, one of the reasons I've been listening to it more lately is that I distinctly remember something she said as she told stories while playing the song "Joy" in that concert. Shocked started talking about all the ups and downs she's been through over the years; she segued into this: "I used to think I was a glass half-empty kind of person. Then I worked at becoming a glass half-full kind of person. Then I wondered if any of us stop to think how lucky we are to have the glass in the first place."

Those words resonate.


**********

Oddly, while I was writing this, "Sleep Keeps Me Awake" (Captain Swing) shuffled onto my iTunes.

The Courtship of Eddie's Father - flipside

I was reminded this morning why I also resent the model presented by the Tom Corbetts of pop culture.

There are piles of boxes around because I still haven't gotten things in place since the move. Art is not up on the walls yet because I want bookcases to go up first. The TV and stereo are still on an old table and cords are cluttering the corner. The lighting in the place is half-assed at best. There are tumbleweeds of Reilly's hair that roll around no matter how many times the vacuum is run. There are bags and boxes of stuff for Goodwill. The kitchen floor needs to be mopped. Either I'm too busy or too distracted or too tired or too much of a slacker to take care of everything, it seems.

But what it really seems is that no matter how many lifehacks I do, no matter how organized I am, no matter how much I scrimp and save money, I am not a successful media exec character in a TV show. And there is no Mrs. Livingston to keep everything neat, clean, cooked, and in perspective.

I'll keep trying though. Since I can't afford Mrs. Livingston, maybe I can find an electric grandmother.

Stupid water advertising

Aquafina has launched a new ad spot that I will call the "Purification" campaign. What exactly they are trying to purify by describing how many times their water is purified I'm not exactly sure. It certainly couldn't be an effort to discredit the silly notion that bottled water is not actually better than most public water supplies. They couldn't be suggesting that you are pure-r if you drink their product, could they?

*sheesh*

The Eagles

The Eagles' "Hotel California" just came on Radio Paradise. Like so many songs from the seventies and eighties, there's a bit of nostalgia that comes up--like bile, frankly. I remember thinking tracks like this were great until I started expanding my tastes and horizons in college, and until I became jaded enough to know that The Eagles were simply music biz inventions like so many other groups. Granted the version playing is a live acoustic recording, but its fidelity to the original is impressive. One thing is clear: their greatest talent is the ability to play that song (and the other hits) exactly the same way night after night. And to get thousands of cheering fans to sing along and pay lots of money to see the same thing.

I'm going to cut over to The National now. Time to cleanse the palate.

Post number 200

This post will be about procrastination. In fact, this post is extraordinarily meta, because it's subject is procrastination, and it is its own form of procrastination. I know the following about what I currently have to do:

• Work on a freelance writing assignment
  
• Finish several projects at work
  
• Do laundry
  
• Fold the laundry
  
• Call my mother
  
• Feed Leapy
  
• Sleep
  
• Finish dishes
  
• Get ready for Banana to return
  
• Coax the dog into taking a walk on a rainy evening
  
• Wrap up some home administrative duties
  
• Find storage for 63 boxes of t-shirts tomorrow morning
  
• Breathe
  
• Work on a freelance writing assignment
  

Full circle. I do have to do all of those things, and more. Each one is critical in its own way, but the freelance gig is the one that's causing the most stress right now. And it's the one I'm having the hardest time tackling.

It's not a difficult job--copy for a fairly simple website. The copy is somewhat technical, but that doesn't seem to be the problem. I grasp the subject matter; I even know more or less where I want to take the copy. I just can't start. It's like there's a wall between my brain and the words when I sit down to tackle it. It's been going on for more than a week now, and I'm at the point where I can't even think about it because it has become it's own self-perpetuating irritant.

So what do I do? Sit here, listen to music, drink a beer, write the 200th post in this blog. I can keep most of it under the guise of chilling out from a very, very intense period at work and lots of running around in the last few weeks. But that also seems like a red herring. The real problem–I think—is that I just don't want to do it right now. And yet I have to. We're back to the paradox of procrastinating by pondering procrastination.

What also seems tied to this in some ways is a general inability to write lately. Though I can tackle this blog–in fits and starts, albeit–I cannot seem to generate any new professional copy, and certainly not anything that is good. There have been two recent struggles at work, and both times I had to ask someone else to start the writing for me, and in both cases, the end result was still weak.

What's odd is that this is the first time I've run into this problem since I stopped writing creatively two and a half years ago. Oversaturation, maybe?

Friday Fun

The week is ending on good notes, but — boy — has it made me loopy!

toys, bibs, medicine

Okay, so the rest of the week has brought us word that bibs are contaminated with lead, various Mattel toys contaminated with lead or containing dangerously small magnets, and OTC cold medicines should not be used for children without a doctor's recommendation. So... happy day, calloo callay, frabjous day! One hundred years after The Jungle and the first efforts at consumer protection--not to mention U.S. government arguments that Borax was a safer food preservative than salt--corporations are still finding newer and better ways to poison people.

To wit: the FDA never tested the OTC cold medicines marketed for children's use, because the companies said the products were already too popular. Thanks, guys. I stopped using anything containing dextromethorphan on Banana after I realized it did nothing to help her symptoms, but radically affected her moods. Again: thanks, guys.

food poisoning

I am usually very careful about how I prepare food, especially meat. Thawing is usually done in the refrigerator. Cutting and preparing are done on separate boards. I wash the knife in between uses. I cook according to what are considered safe parameters--though I will admit to a weakness for rare to medium rare on red meat. My experience in the last 24 hours, however, demonstrates why this is so essential.

The bratwursts were from sustainable farmers at the Byrd House Market. The fingerling potatoes and red pepper were also local. The rosemary was from my garden. I packaged the potatoes and pepper slices in foil at the other end of the grill from the sausage and cooked everything until it looked and smelled perfect.

The potatoes, however, were undercooked, and the sausage once I cut into it was a little under-done as well. A few minutes in the microwave would solve the problem, I thought. And so it seemed to, until 2:30 in the morning when my stomach started clenching and I made a run to the toilet. When things had not cleared up appreciably by this morning, I realized that I must have poisoned myself.

This is all a propos of nothing other than giving my vegetarian/vegan friends grist, and realizing that I need to pay a little closer attention to what I'm doing.

cheap toys, sad

The news broke this morning that Mattel will announce another toy recall of products made in China. The tipster was anonymous, and I suspect this one might be even bigger than the last one.

It is scary and pathetic that our drive for ever-more, ever-cheaper products is coming back to haunt us. That's not quite the right way to say it, of course. Maybe I'll work on a more cogent commentary later in the day.

flashbacks

In the last few days, I've started having recurrent flashbacks to the shooting. I see the scene again, and it is bad. Worse, however, is the fact that I've started envisioning what might have happened if the bullet had been a few inches up, over, or down. That's the chilling, unsettling vision, and I have very little control over it.

All I need to do is see the scar on my shoulder, or think very briefly about the fact that I was shot. (This happens more recently because the spot where they took the bullet out has been hurting a great deal.) Soon after, I envision the bullet hitting me in the head or the chest or the neck. And I shake. I lose my train of thought. I also lose motivation for the things I want or need to do. Not having Banana around exacerbates the feeling of directionlessness. This happened several times yesterday morning, until I simply decided to meet friends at the Carytown Watermelon Festival (more on that circle of hell later) and began what turned out to be an afternoon and evening of drinking and socialization. Read: avoidance.

I've begun to wonder if this is the beginning of PTSD.

Life-hacking efficiency

This post on Lifehacker made me stop and think about my frustration with feeling productive or efficient enough in my day-to-day life, whether at home or at work. To wit, I never feel like I have enough time to do the things I need to do, taking a couple of days to relax often means all hell breaks loose, and I'm always staring down a list that is longer than I can manage. I have battled this for months now by trying to figure out how I can become efficient enough to manage life at home and at work, while also making time for Banana and time for myself. And it never works.

It seems simple enough to say that I am overextended. Somehow, though, I have seen all the expectations as manageable--if I could only figure out the perfect answer/tool/whatever. But the reality is perfectly encapsulated by this:

My problem wasn't that I was insufficiently efficient. The problem was that I was way too overextended. I had taken on more than even a very efficient person could handle. Efficiency is great, but it can only get you so far.

End of story. I can't say it any better.

And now, with Banana off to visit mommy's family for the next week or so, I'm going to try to balance some efficiency with some relaxation. At least a little bit.

Sinister Pooh Bear

New stuff at the gallery. Some of it has already been published here.

Leapy

So the treefrog has been hanging out with Banana a great deal lately. She seems to like it--the frog, that is. Yesterday, when I came in the room she looked up from her perch on Banana's arm and proceeded to climb towards me. Then she climbed on my arm and hunkered down. It was odd and endearing.

Apparently Leapy has decided that she is part of the family.

sometimes you need things like this

You really do. It's been that kind of week.

music fun

I love the shots of Glenn Kotche on the drums in this one.

vintage listening

This just came up on my iTunes. Took me right back. It seems especially appropriate for all the time I've spent in recent months trying to juggle a ton of stuff and come to terms with a couple decades of weirdness. Enjoy!

growing up

I went to Banana's last ballet class of the summer this afternoon. Because it was the last class and because there were only three little ballerinas, the teacher let us come in to watch. Banana is tall and well-coordinated, but I wasn't prepared for the little girl I saw showing off the moves she'd learned in the last several weeks. I wasn't prepared for the little girl in front of me.

These realizations that she has made another leap--gone from being a toddler to a little girl and now gone from being a little girl to being a big girl, one ready for kindergarten--hit at odd times. And when they hit, I am always amazed by the vision of delight and wonder in front of me. It's surprising and amazing to believe that I was part of creating this person. That she is a person, and that I am part of this person's daily development.

[rhapsody over]

all work and no play

One more project almost down, one step closer to the end of our busy season. And then I breathe. For a day.

(fragments, ahoy!)

Food Technologists?

I picked this up via Consumerist. I really have nothing to add, except that I get tired of our cultural obsession with outdoing nature. The more I read about people like Food Technologists, "scientists" who believe we can out-engineer nature and thrive on processing, the moree resolved I am to continue raising Banana to appreciate real food that is cooked at home and, to whatever extent possible, produced (not processed) by people not machines.

[vintage ad from Plan 59]

work

is fun. Really. I mean it.

I feel a Gaping Void moment coming on:

tree frogs

This is Leapy. She is a remarkably sociable tree frog.



She is perfectly content to hang out on Banana's arm, climb in the dollhouse, and say hello to visitors. She is not currently allowed in eating areas, but she spent a brief time in the kitchen yesterday watching the final preparations of a late dinner. (Summer seems to be the time for slipping bedtimes and later-than-usual meals.) Leapy likes to sit on or in her log, likes to cling to the tank near the light where she turns a bright shade of green, and spends part of her evenings sitting in the waterfall basin. She is not as voracious as the praying mantis in a nearby cage, but she does take care of crickets pretty handily. I'm sure she would like a tank-mate, but I'm not ready to take that step yet.

survival and stupidity

People are stupid.

I find it much easier to make it through the day if I remind myself of this fact from time to time. And, yes, I am stupid sometimes too.

Sigh.

Back to editing horrible client copy.

sigh

I've wanted to post several times in the last few days, but it's been a busy time. And even when I haven't been busy per se, the time still seems to slip away from me.

We're off to do a press-check on the beast soon. By hook or crook and with a bit of magic and luck, I think we may actually deliver this thing on time. [knock on wood]

thoughts on being a hero

The other night I was walking Reilly and a large man wearing only jeans and with a bloodied face stumbled and weaved past us near my house. He was carrying seat cushions stolen from a porch down the street. After he'd made it down the block, I dialed 911 and gave them a description.

Twelve minutes later, when we came around the block heading towards the alley, I saw him on the street again. I called 911 again, then called again after he pulled something out of a garage and continued his weaving way. On this third call in fifteen minutes, I was advised a unit was on its way. I waited in the alley another couple of minutes as he cleared down to the next street before I went inside. By that point, I'd resigned myself to the fact that the cops were not going to get there in time to stop him.

Was he a real public menace? Probably not. He was more likely drunk on bad booze, but ever since the shooting I still want to draw the line. The incident explains one other fact, however: why I stood up and yelled at a man holding a gun that night.

The first thought when he began grabbing at Lindee and pointing the gun at her was that I needed to call 911. Then I realized that there was no way the police would get there before she was shot or harmed in some other way. I had to do something to distract them. That's what I decided in that split second before I began yelling at him to leave my neighbor alone. Then he shot me.

The police would never have arrived in time. Period. Last night was further proof of that. By the time the operator was done asking questions, the incident would have been (and was) played out.