I was walking down the street thinking about my state of singleness. Recently I was sitting in a tavern called The Subway with The South, NDles, and TBW having beers in a booth in the back. NDles was talking about how back home in Toronto most of her friends were married. And TBW and The South agreed that this was the case for them as well. It's also the case for me.
She was talking about how it was a relief to be in a place where she didn't feel this crushing pressure to be married. And the South and TBW agreed with her on this point as well. With that a puzzle piece fell into place for me too.
It must be part of why I feel comfortable here. And then I started to wonder if it would make be feel too comfortable until it was too late for me and I would spend my whole life alone.
Certainly there are things that I miss. Snuggling, good company, playing house, that dizzy dancing feeling where you can't stop smiling, etc...
On the flip side - in the past when I have dated someone there's always something to cry about. And in this time that I've been single, there's have been almost no occasion to cry. A sad story or movie. A moving tale of suffering or generosity. But that's my reaction to others. In my own life there's been nothing. Nothing, really, to cry about for the past 8 or 9 months.
And it's so nice to not feel miserable or insecure or epic-ly operatically unhappy in relation to another person. There's a definite lack of nausea in my life right now.
It's also nice to do my own thing without the negotiations that come with being with another person. Negotiations that I inevitably lose. Because he (whoever he is at whatever age he's at) is way more set in his ways and inflexible than I am. It's nice to not expend excessive amounts of time in trying to understand and make myself be understood by that one person. To not expend all of that effort into trying to make someone happy into trying to figure how to translate love, into actions, reactions, gestures, or words that the other person will recognize, believe, and accept as love.
And I don't know whether this means that I have been in really unhealthy relationships or I don't go about this love thing in the right way or I have become cowardly or excessively gunshy.
Don't get me wrong, I miss what's great about being with someone. It would be fantaberiffic to get struck by lightning for the nth time. I just don't want to be made (or make myself) miserable right now. Not in the mood.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Sad and lonely? Buy a cookie.
"[the developed world] would do well to remember that there are many kinds of paternalism, including the assumption that for poor people only material things matter. Meat and alcohol and stuffed animals and health care are useful goals, but they're not the only things. Just like us, people in the developing world need dignity, security, identity. Some of these can be achieved through economic growth, and some of them can be undermined by it. Negotiating modernity requires creativity."
- Bill McKibben "Deep Economy"
The book's pretty sobering. Reading it, I oscillate between despair at how fucked our future might be - to a hopefulness in reading about communities and organizations that are trying to create and choose different paths and go against the prevailing tide of our Walmartized world - to a painful awareness of my own hypocrisy in having an awareness of the problem and not actively doing something about it (I had a cheeseburger deluxe platter at the diner yesterday with a soda while I read this book. I suppose it could be worse ... I could have walked out to my SUV and drove 20 miles through city traffic to my McMansion.)
Essentially, fossil fuels represent the concentration of centuries worth of energy captured from the sun. And some of us have used it to liberate ourselves from sweat and toil and to create wealth and plenty.
Our lives, our food, our water, our possessions, our culture sits on coal and floats on oil. More is Better. More stuff. More growth. More freedom. More individuality.
Bill McKibben would agree that up to a point More is Better. But at some point he argues that there are diminishing returns:
1) With growth and greater scale there has been a drive towards consolidation leading to "more inequality than prosperity, more insecurity than progress." A small percentage of the rich are getting obscenely rich and the rest are getting much poorer.
2) There is the thought that having the entire planet live as North Americans currently do is unsustainable from the vantage of the resources required and the implications of the amount of pollution and environmental damage that would ensue.
That's a staggering number of SUVs, flat screen TV's, McMansions, sodas, and cheeseburgers. (You corporate types, stop salivating!)
3) There is the argument that at some point growth no longer increases a person's happiness. McKibben uses the example that a few beers makes you feel pretty good but it doesn't necessarily follow that 5 (or 10 or 20) more will make you feel way better.
Our growth-centric utility driven hyperindividualist economic fixations might not have much to offer in the category of the best things in life that are free. In fact, the former might have a lot to do with curtailing our time and capacity to enjoy the latter. The very fact that they are free is part of the problem, y'see.
- Bill McKibben "Deep Economy"
The book's pretty sobering. Reading it, I oscillate between despair at how fucked our future might be - to a hopefulness in reading about communities and organizations that are trying to create and choose different paths and go against the prevailing tide of our Walmartized world - to a painful awareness of my own hypocrisy in having an awareness of the problem and not actively doing something about it (I had a cheeseburger deluxe platter at the diner yesterday with a soda while I read this book. I suppose it could be worse ... I could have walked out to my SUV and drove 20 miles through city traffic to my McMansion.)
Essentially, fossil fuels represent the concentration of centuries worth of energy captured from the sun. And some of us have used it to liberate ourselves from sweat and toil and to create wealth and plenty.
Our lives, our food, our water, our possessions, our culture sits on coal and floats on oil. More is Better. More stuff. More growth. More freedom. More individuality.
Bill McKibben would agree that up to a point More is Better. But at some point he argues that there are diminishing returns:
1) With growth and greater scale there has been a drive towards consolidation leading to "more inequality than prosperity, more insecurity than progress." A small percentage of the rich are getting obscenely rich and the rest are getting much poorer.
2) There is the thought that having the entire planet live as North Americans currently do is unsustainable from the vantage of the resources required and the implications of the amount of pollution and environmental damage that would ensue.
That's a staggering number of SUVs, flat screen TV's, McMansions, sodas, and cheeseburgers. (You corporate types, stop salivating!)
3) There is the argument that at some point growth no longer increases a person's happiness. McKibben uses the example that a few beers makes you feel pretty good but it doesn't necessarily follow that 5 (or 10 or 20) more will make you feel way better.
Our growth-centric utility driven hyperindividualist economic fixations might not have much to offer in the category of the best things in life that are free. In fact, the former might have a lot to do with curtailing our time and capacity to enjoy the latter. The very fact that they are free is part of the problem, y'see.
Monday, April 23, 2007
You know what they say ...
"In general, researchers report that money consistely buys happiness right up to about $10,000 per capital income, that after that point the correlation disappears." Bill McKibben Deep Economy
Seems hard to believe.
Seems hard to believe.
Friday, April 20, 2007
What you get and what you pay for
I just finished reading "The Wal-Mart Effect" by Charles Fishman. Good times.
Tell you what, read this book in NYC and people will come up to you to ask about it or share a Wal-Mart related tidbit with you.
It's a fast and engaging read. Fishman is careful to give Wal-Mart their props and perhaps the occasional benefit of the doubt and then just lays it all out there to the best of his ability. There are a lot of things that we don't know because Wal-Mart won't tell us. There are a lot of stories that people won't tell because Wal-Mart won't let them or they are afraid of the retribution that Wal-Mart might exact.
The discipline of Wal-Mart is truly amazing. And the ways they wield pressure to lower prices and cut costs is both wonderous and frightening to read about. The path from wonderous to frightening - Fishman would argue that it is all a matter of degree or of the scale of a thing. Too much of what you believe to be a good thing can yield unintended consequences that effect everything when writ large on the world.
There's a lot in this books that is just mind-boggling. I will probably have to reread it focusing on the numbers and trying to get a better grasp on their implications.
" ... Wal-Mart's total profit comes to $3 an hour over a typical year. So although there may be some dispute about whether the average Wal-Mart store associate earns $8 an hour or $9 an hour, Wal-Mart could not afford to pay those people $12 an hour. There isn't enough money - at least not without raising process." -Charles Fishman
That's the kind of thing that I have always wondered about. The margins are at times so narrow and the difference of a few pennies spread out over selling astronomical amounts of products is where the profit or the savings come from or the threat of bankrupcy.
"No company has more discipline or focus than Wal-Mart, but all that discipline and focus are designed to wring costs out and bring prices down." -CF
And this is not without a cost to the environment, a cost in labor conditions, in the wealth or poverty of communities world-wide, in the quality of our lives, in the quality of merchandise we buy and in the shift in reliability of the brands that we love. Costs that are passed on to governments, to the environment, to the customer, to manufacturers and suppliers.
"This is who we are! We bring truckloads of great stuff whole convoys of great stuff, to a Wal-Mart near you! What's not to love?
It is a moment worthy of Greek literature, a moment of soaring ambition and potentially crippling lack of self-knowledge. The problem is not that we don't adequately shower Wal-Mart with gratitude, kindness and acknowledgments, it's that Wal-Mart doesn't understand why we don't. Two months worth of disaster relief [After Hurricane Katrina] cannot undo a half-century's worth of other damaging Wal-Mart effects." - CF
Plus apparently while it is true that we save a lot of money by shopping at Wal-Mart it's a bit of a mystery to ponder what we do with that money. Clearly we are not saving or investing it. Where does it go? To buy more cheaply manufactured socks? To buy soon to be obsolete electronic products.
"Misperception isn't always perception - sometimes it's reality. Sometimes the way others see you is, in fact the way you are." -CF
Fishman says this of Wal-Mart could the same not be said for anyone or group?
There has been much talk of the potential for Wal-Mart to do good. At some point they might want to get out of the bargain discount game or they might want to take some of that considerable clout and control that they have a use it as a lever to change the world for the better.
"If cost isn't the ultimate question anymore, what are the important questions?" - CF
"There is no human adjustment harder to make than to abandon the very principles that have been the source of your success and adopt their opposites as the path to continued success." - CF
Change is hard for us all. Probably the bigger you are, the more successful you are - the more inertia you have. And the harder it is to see far enough ahead of you to the point of diminishing returns. The point where Wal-Mart might wring all the efficiency that it can out of retail. The point where they run out of room to grow. The point where their effect is of a mgnitude and seriousness that someone or something demands that they be held accountable. Will Wal-Mart be able to adapt or will they eventually hollow themselves out in the way they have hollowed out so many of the companies they like to call their manufacturing and distributing "partners?"
Charles Fishman rightly points out that in the 45 years is not a lot of time and the kinds of enormous corporations that exist today, Wal-Mart being the ultimate example, did not exist in the way they do today. Totally new animal. They are not a part of the free market. They in many ways own and control it. And we as human animals that share the planet with them need to figure out what can be done to help a company like Wal-Mart identify what "the important questions are," demand that they put significant resources into finding answers, and hold them accountable.
Tell you what, read this book in NYC and people will come up to you to ask about it or share a Wal-Mart related tidbit with you.
It's a fast and engaging read. Fishman is careful to give Wal-Mart their props and perhaps the occasional benefit of the doubt and then just lays it all out there to the best of his ability. There are a lot of things that we don't know because Wal-Mart won't tell us. There are a lot of stories that people won't tell because Wal-Mart won't let them or they are afraid of the retribution that Wal-Mart might exact.
The discipline of Wal-Mart is truly amazing. And the ways they wield pressure to lower prices and cut costs is both wonderous and frightening to read about. The path from wonderous to frightening - Fishman would argue that it is all a matter of degree or of the scale of a thing. Too much of what you believe to be a good thing can yield unintended consequences that effect everything when writ large on the world.
There's a lot in this books that is just mind-boggling. I will probably have to reread it focusing on the numbers and trying to get a better grasp on their implications.
" ... Wal-Mart's total profit comes to $3 an hour over a typical year. So although there may be some dispute about whether the average Wal-Mart store associate earns $8 an hour or $9 an hour, Wal-Mart could not afford to pay those people $12 an hour. There isn't enough money - at least not without raising process." -Charles Fishman
That's the kind of thing that I have always wondered about. The margins are at times so narrow and the difference of a few pennies spread out over selling astronomical amounts of products is where the profit or the savings come from or the threat of bankrupcy.
"No company has more discipline or focus than Wal-Mart, but all that discipline and focus are designed to wring costs out and bring prices down." -CF
And this is not without a cost to the environment, a cost in labor conditions, in the wealth or poverty of communities world-wide, in the quality of our lives, in the quality of merchandise we buy and in the shift in reliability of the brands that we love. Costs that are passed on to governments, to the environment, to the customer, to manufacturers and suppliers.
"This is who we are! We bring truckloads of great stuff whole convoys of great stuff, to a Wal-Mart near you! What's not to love?
It is a moment worthy of Greek literature, a moment of soaring ambition and potentially crippling lack of self-knowledge. The problem is not that we don't adequately shower Wal-Mart with gratitude, kindness and acknowledgments, it's that Wal-Mart doesn't understand why we don't. Two months worth of disaster relief [After Hurricane Katrina] cannot undo a half-century's worth of other damaging Wal-Mart effects." - CF
Plus apparently while it is true that we save a lot of money by shopping at Wal-Mart it's a bit of a mystery to ponder what we do with that money. Clearly we are not saving or investing it. Where does it go? To buy more cheaply manufactured socks? To buy soon to be obsolete electronic products.
"Misperception isn't always perception - sometimes it's reality. Sometimes the way others see you is, in fact the way you are." -CF
Fishman says this of Wal-Mart could the same not be said for anyone or group?
There has been much talk of the potential for Wal-Mart to do good. At some point they might want to get out of the bargain discount game or they might want to take some of that considerable clout and control that they have a use it as a lever to change the world for the better.
"If cost isn't the ultimate question anymore, what are the important questions?" - CF
"There is no human adjustment harder to make than to abandon the very principles that have been the source of your success and adopt their opposites as the path to continued success." - CF
Change is hard for us all. Probably the bigger you are, the more successful you are - the more inertia you have. And the harder it is to see far enough ahead of you to the point of diminishing returns. The point where Wal-Mart might wring all the efficiency that it can out of retail. The point where they run out of room to grow. The point where their effect is of a mgnitude and seriousness that someone or something demands that they be held accountable. Will Wal-Mart be able to adapt or will they eventually hollow themselves out in the way they have hollowed out so many of the companies they like to call their manufacturing and distributing "partners?"
Charles Fishman rightly points out that in the 45 years is not a lot of time and the kinds of enormous corporations that exist today, Wal-Mart being the ultimate example, did not exist in the way they do today. Totally new animal. They are not a part of the free market. They in many ways own and control it. And we as human animals that share the planet with them need to figure out what can be done to help a company like Wal-Mart identify what "the important questions are," demand that they put significant resources into finding answers, and hold them accountable.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
don't you, don't you
I am not a fan of the Pussycat Dolls.
That song where they ask whether "you wish your girlfriend was a freak like" them is not a sentiment that I can get behind.
That being said and publicly risking my Feminist street cred, for whatever reason I have been totally engrossed in the reality TV show "Who wants to be the next [Pussycat] Doll?"
When no one is home I try to pick up a dance move or a come hither look causing much trauma to the RM's cat.
At the conclusion of this last episode I am very surprised at the outcome. Don't get me wrong, I like Chelsea a whole lot. But I am a little bummed that Chelsea is staying and Melissa S. (who I really don't like at all) got cut. I am bummed because I think Chelsea such an amazing singer and so likeable and endearing that she could have a real career as a performer in her own right. She's been on the show long enough to get some decent exposure and she's got the chops to really go somewhere.
Whereas Melissa S. - it's pretty much Pussycat Dolls or bust unless someone decides to recreate the Solid Gold Dancers.
While I do like Melissa R. I think Asia will take it.
That song where they ask whether "you wish your girlfriend was a freak like" them is not a sentiment that I can get behind.
That being said and publicly risking my Feminist street cred, for whatever reason I have been totally engrossed in the reality TV show "Who wants to be the next [Pussycat] Doll?"
When no one is home I try to pick up a dance move or a come hither look causing much trauma to the RM's cat.
At the conclusion of this last episode I am very surprised at the outcome. Don't get me wrong, I like Chelsea a whole lot. But I am a little bummed that Chelsea is staying and Melissa S. (who I really don't like at all) got cut. I am bummed because I think Chelsea such an amazing singer and so likeable and endearing that she could have a real career as a performer in her own right. She's been on the show long enough to get some decent exposure and she's got the chops to really go somewhere.
Whereas Melissa S. - it's pretty much Pussycat Dolls or bust unless someone decides to recreate the Solid Gold Dancers.
While I do like Melissa R. I think Asia will take it.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Makes you smile in the pouring rain
The other night I was trying to catch up on my emailing. I ended up trying to chat with three different people simultaneously while replying to emails. Still not a good multi-tasker. To those of you who received unintelligible emails sent late on Sunday evening. My apologies.
To those of you have are waiting on unintelligible late night emails, fear not, you'll get yours.
The tall young man at the Rite Aid did me an act of kindness today. He peeled the coupons off of my boxes of Ziploc sandwich bags and entered the discount for me. I didn't even register that these boxes had coupons much less that it would serve my fiscal interests to use them. And he did this over the protestations of his co-cashier. What a sweetie.
To those of you have are waiting on unintelligible late night emails, fear not, you'll get yours.
The tall young man at the Rite Aid did me an act of kindness today. He peeled the coupons off of my boxes of Ziploc sandwich bags and entered the discount for me. I didn't even register that these boxes had coupons much less that it would serve my fiscal interests to use them. And he did this over the protestations of his co-cashier. What a sweetie.
Monday, April 16, 2007
It's good enough for me
Cookie Monster |
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My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
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| Link: The Your SESAME STREET Persona Test written by greencowsgomoo on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test |
Friday, April 13, 2007
It turns out
That I'm a mean girl. At least compared to those around me.
You'd have thought.
CKE may be right. Spend enough time in NYC and I will come out of it a heartless, manipulative, vicious ball-buster.
So much to look forward to!
You'd have thought.
CKE may be right. Spend enough time in NYC and I will come out of it a heartless, manipulative, vicious ball-buster.
So much to look forward to!
Thursday, April 12, 2007
RIP Kurt Vonnegut
Apparently he never gave that speech at MIT - the one about sunscreen. Which only leads me to wonder if he had ever been invited to speak at a graduation. I have no doubt that it would have been amazing.
But he did say this:
"What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured."
And a lot of other things.
Among my favorites is this:
"We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane."
And in the silence he leaves behind, he will be missed.
But he did say this:
"What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured."
And a lot of other things.
Among my favorites is this:
"We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane."
And in the silence he leaves behind, he will be missed.
braaaains!
Yahoo tells me:
"Yes, physical attraction is hot, but what's even hotter is some of that plus an intellectual connection that totally sizzles. Sometimes the latter can even cause the former. Are you ready for some brain-on-brain action?"
Makes me think of "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off" by Jermaine Stewart:
"Not a word, from your lips
You just took for granted that I want to skinny dip.
A quick hit, that's your game.
But I'm not a piece of meat, still you like my brain."
Well, I always thought the lyrics went "But I'm not a piece of meat stimulate my brain"
*damn you www.project80s.com*
*song brought back to me by e23*
I have my doubts that I could go from an intellectual connection to a physical one. Mostly it's my experience that when it's the ick, it's the ick and when it's an attraction, it's there from the start. I like a nice steak as much as the next gal.
Mind you, I am speaking of chemistry not merely aesthetics.
That being said, a starter of brain-on-brain action is pretty hot.
"Yes, physical attraction is hot, but what's even hotter is some of that plus an intellectual connection that totally sizzles. Sometimes the latter can even cause the former. Are you ready for some brain-on-brain action?"
Makes me think of "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off" by Jermaine Stewart:
"Not a word, from your lips
You just took for granted that I want to skinny dip.
A quick hit, that's your game.
But I'm not a piece of meat, still you like my brain."
Well, I always thought the lyrics went "But I'm not a piece of meat stimulate my brain"
*damn you www.project80s.com*
*song brought back to me by e23*
I have my doubts that I could go from an intellectual connection to a physical one. Mostly it's my experience that when it's the ick, it's the ick and when it's an attraction, it's there from the start. I like a nice steak as much as the next gal.
Mind you, I am speaking of chemistry not merely aesthetics.
That being said, a starter of brain-on-brain action is pretty hot.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
bunnies and boilermakers at b-easter
The South was up in Boston last week depriving our office of his excessively total awesomeness and his loose interpretations of business casual.
To make up for this deficit the RM and I took the Fung-Wah Bus from Chinatown to Boston to hang with him for the weekend up in Bah-stn.
My second time on a Chinatown bus and despite everyone warnings of possible automotive death, I am growing fond of this mode of travel.
I asked Someone At the Office over email what was cool to do or see in Boston. Because I wanted to give it one last try before leaving him be and because he is up there with some frequency. His response was: "The T."
The T.
The T is a more enjoyable mass transit experience. It's cleaner, it's prettier, it's wider and roomier. There's a lot to be said for the T. But it closes at about 12:45am. What good is that? Pffft.
I was lonely without all the New Yorkers. I even missed the dirt a little. The sheer human density of NYC has become so familiar to me.
On the other hand on the T, they have adverts for the AAAS on their trains and the Kendall Square/MIT stop has chimes. There are giant chimes that hang between the tracks. And on each side there is a handle set in the wall. If you tug the handle back and forth it slowly causes hammers between the chimes to sway. With each tug the hammers sway wider until they make contact with a few and then a few more and eventually all of the chimes. And it builds into something into a wall of chimes low and high. The trick is to persuade someone on the other side of the tracks to do the same. Sadly, I had no luck with this and only half the chimes in the station were heard.
Next time perhaps.
We drank at the People's Republik. Irish Car Bomb, how I do love thee, though inevitably you do wrong by me. The locals were amused that we would come up to Boston to celebrate B-easter. (Bostonians seem to be very fond of their puns and wordplay. "Finagle a Bagle" "Prints Charming" I could go on and on.) There we ran into many biophysicists (the mass spec kind), a microbiologist, an aspiring Blue Man, and a mass of people wearing bunny ears participating in the 3rd Annual Boston Bunny Bar Hop. Burning Man people? Or something? I am not sure. I got hugged a lot and invited to the afterparty. The bars close at 2am and apparently it's important to find out what you are doing after. Cambridge is full of B-easter spirit.
The next day we got up very late and tried to find a diner. Greasy foods were in order. However there was not a diner to be found, in our locale. Guess it's a Jersey / ROW thing.
We walked by this wacky building at the start of our quest:
Very Wacky:
It was decided that we would see the sights in the category of history. We walked the Freedom Trail all the way to Bunker Hill.
Walking the Freedom Trail you follow a red line:
or brick line:
There were graveyards
and churches and homes of historical people and places where historical people had meetings. (I could use a refresher course in American History.)
However even with a limited knowledge of the specifics, it does give one a chance to think about:
Nation
Government
... and Politics (donkey photos courtesy of the RM)
It's funny to think of Boston as a hotbed of rebellion, revolution, and dissent. A place where well educated farmers, merchants, and silversmiths decided that they were sick of this being a colony crap and they weren't going to take anymore. Hell No!
Looking up from the trail:
Along the trail we came across the New England Holocaust Memorial
There was a quote inscribed in part of the memorial about a girl who found a red raspberry while out in the fields forced by the Nazis to work. She hid it in her pocket and carried it with her all day. When she was brought back to the concentration camp she gave it to her friend. It was all that she had in the entire world. And she gave it to another person. To think about how a girl committing this simple act of human kindness in the face of the staggering horror around her overwhelms me.
We saw an old boat:
We walked a lot. And took pictures:
It was a long cold walk but we made it!
According to the RM and the plaque installed there, we didn't win the battle at Bunker Hill. But on the other hand we did them significant damage and beat them up a plenty as they made their way south. One of those situations in which you lose the battle and that helps you win the war.
And here's a picture of a fish:
To make up for this deficit the RM and I took the Fung-Wah Bus from Chinatown to Boston to hang with him for the weekend up in Bah-stn.
My second time on a Chinatown bus and despite everyone warnings of possible automotive death, I am growing fond of this mode of travel.
I asked Someone At the Office over email what was cool to do or see in Boston. Because I wanted to give it one last try before leaving him be and because he is up there with some frequency. His response was: "The T."
The T.
The T is a more enjoyable mass transit experience. It's cleaner, it's prettier, it's wider and roomier. There's a lot to be said for the T. But it closes at about 12:45am. What good is that? Pffft.
I was lonely without all the New Yorkers. I even missed the dirt a little. The sheer human density of NYC has become so familiar to me.
On the other hand on the T, they have adverts for the AAAS on their trains and the Kendall Square/MIT stop has chimes. There are giant chimes that hang between the tracks. And on each side there is a handle set in the wall. If you tug the handle back and forth it slowly causes hammers between the chimes to sway. With each tug the hammers sway wider until they make contact with a few and then a few more and eventually all of the chimes. And it builds into something into a wall of chimes low and high. The trick is to persuade someone on the other side of the tracks to do the same. Sadly, I had no luck with this and only half the chimes in the station were heard.
Next time perhaps.
We drank at the People's Republik. Irish Car Bomb, how I do love thee, though inevitably you do wrong by me. The locals were amused that we would come up to Boston to celebrate B-easter. (Bostonians seem to be very fond of their puns and wordplay. "Finagle a Bagle" "Prints Charming" I could go on and on.) There we ran into many biophysicists (the mass spec kind), a microbiologist, an aspiring Blue Man, and a mass of people wearing bunny ears participating in the 3rd Annual Boston Bunny Bar Hop. Burning Man people? Or something? I am not sure. I got hugged a lot and invited to the afterparty. The bars close at 2am and apparently it's important to find out what you are doing after. Cambridge is full of B-easter spirit.
The next day we got up very late and tried to find a diner. Greasy foods were in order. However there was not a diner to be found, in our locale. Guess it's a Jersey / ROW thing.
We walked by this wacky building at the start of our quest:
Very Wacky:
It was decided that we would see the sights in the category of history. We walked the Freedom Trail all the way to Bunker Hill.
Walking the Freedom Trail you follow a red line:
or brick line:
There were graveyards
and churches and homes of historical people and places where historical people had meetings. (I could use a refresher course in American History.)
However even with a limited knowledge of the specifics, it does give one a chance to think about:
Nation
Government
... and Politics (donkey photos courtesy of the RM)
It's funny to think of Boston as a hotbed of rebellion, revolution, and dissent. A place where well educated farmers, merchants, and silversmiths decided that they were sick of this being a colony crap and they weren't going to take anymore. Hell No!
Looking up from the trail:
Along the trail we came across the New England Holocaust Memorial
There was a quote inscribed in part of the memorial about a girl who found a red raspberry while out in the fields forced by the Nazis to work. She hid it in her pocket and carried it with her all day. When she was brought back to the concentration camp she gave it to her friend. It was all that she had in the entire world. And she gave it to another person. To think about how a girl committing this simple act of human kindness in the face of the staggering horror around her overwhelms me.
We saw an old boat:
We walked a lot. And took pictures:
It was a long cold walk but we made it!
According to the RM and the plaque installed there, we didn't win the battle at Bunker Hill. But on the other hand we did them significant damage and beat them up a plenty as they made their way south. One of those situations in which you lose the battle and that helps you win the war.
And here's a picture of a fish:
definitely not a multi-tasker
I have spent the evening since arriving home trying to:
upload pictures to Flickr,
blog,
shop for boys online,
reply to messages on myspace,
reply to emails,
plot the overthrow of the world,
finish writing a song,
learn the lyrics and chord progression to another song,
build an altar devoted to the worship of Mose Giganticus,
contemplate writing an essay,
chat online,
antagonize friends and ex'es,
identify venues in NYC,
contemplate my life,
and tweeze.
All of this to avoid doing my taxes.
upload pictures to Flickr,
blog,
shop for boys online,
reply to messages on myspace,
reply to emails,
plot the overthrow of the world,
finish writing a song,
learn the lyrics and chord progression to another song,
build an altar devoted to the worship of Mose Giganticus,
contemplate writing an essay,
chat online,
antagonize friends and ex'es,
identify venues in NYC,
contemplate my life,
and tweeze.
All of this to avoid doing my taxes.
bill-yuds
The South and I beat TBW in a game of pool yesterday. I consider this to be a historic moment in my life. I actually made the winning shot.
"They'd never believe it, if my friends could see me now."
Particularly historic considering that TBW is a pretty good pool player. I owe it all to one vodka gimlet and the wise coaching of The South who apparently counts among his many talents being a pool hall Yoda.
"They'd never believe it, if my friends could see me now."
Particularly historic considering that TBW is a pretty good pool player. I owe it all to one vodka gimlet and the wise coaching of The South who apparently counts among his many talents being a pool hall Yoda.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
on getting what you ask for
The Universe has seen fit to have a laugh at my expense. More than once of late.
I have a lot of trouble making decisions. I find making decisions very stressful, misery inducing, and near impossible. I make decisions when pushed to make them.
I like to think that this is evidence of how extremely Libran I am.
However, when put in situations where I don't make decisions, when that stress, misery, and difficulty is taken from me, I am miserable in an entirely different way.
Happens in relationships. I know that most folks like different things from me and I hate watching them mope and bitch and be miserable. When they do it in my presence, it spoils my pleasure. So I tend to just go with the flow.
But when I am too agreeable for too long and it gets to a point where I don't get to choose, I start to feel crowded. I start to feel like an extra in the movie of my own life. Like I am not the main character of my own story. I get tired of being someone else's audience, someone else's lovely assistant, someone else's little helper.
I start to feel suffocated and I have to get away. I have to duck out and do my own thing for a while. If I don't, I get extremely nasty and difficult. Sometimes, apparently, downright vicious.
It starts to feel like a fight or flight situation. Me against them and for once I want to win or at least break free. I might flip out or at least struggle violently. Sometimes railing at nothing. Pretty passive aggressive, eh?
I think part of my need to spend copious amounts of time alone stems from an inability to exert my will or exercise any powers of persuasion over other people.
Right now, I spend my days in a situation that requires me to not make decisions. All I do all day is ask other people to make decisions. Remind other people to make decisions. One would think that this is ideal for me. Perfectly in keeping with my nature. I am surprised to report that it's pretty far from ideal. It started off okay. But it's starting to grate. A lot. And my response to this has been to do less and do it poorly which really doesn't help.
Crap like this is probably why I am terrible at relationships, a poor candidate for motherhood, and I am scarcely employable. Of course if someone was to ask me to make a decision or tell them what I want, my immediate and initial response would be to say, "I don't know." So clearly I am no help to myself.
Obviously we can't always get what we want. When you do it's important to take a miinute and relish it, who knows when it will happen again. Despite what all will tell you there is an element of chance to things, y'know?
What is a worse tragedy not getting what you want or not wanting anything?
What is a worse tragedy not getting what you want or getting it and finding that it's not what you thought?
Getting it and immediately losing interest and wanting something else?
I guess it's different for everyone. You-today might say something different than you-tomorrow. And of course we know what the Buddhist would say about what's causing your misery.
Maybe that's part of the seduction of materialism/consumerism. You can always get what you want out of life but with enough money you can always buy something you want at the store. And then you can buy another one in a slightly different color.
I have a lot of trouble making decisions. I find making decisions very stressful, misery inducing, and near impossible. I make decisions when pushed to make them.
I like to think that this is evidence of how extremely Libran I am.
However, when put in situations where I don't make decisions, when that stress, misery, and difficulty is taken from me, I am miserable in an entirely different way.
Happens in relationships. I know that most folks like different things from me and I hate watching them mope and bitch and be miserable. When they do it in my presence, it spoils my pleasure. So I tend to just go with the flow.
But when I am too agreeable for too long and it gets to a point where I don't get to choose, I start to feel crowded. I start to feel like an extra in the movie of my own life. Like I am not the main character of my own story. I get tired of being someone else's audience, someone else's lovely assistant, someone else's little helper.
I start to feel suffocated and I have to get away. I have to duck out and do my own thing for a while. If I don't, I get extremely nasty and difficult. Sometimes, apparently, downright vicious.
It starts to feel like a fight or flight situation. Me against them and for once I want to win or at least break free. I might flip out or at least struggle violently. Sometimes railing at nothing. Pretty passive aggressive, eh?
I think part of my need to spend copious amounts of time alone stems from an inability to exert my will or exercise any powers of persuasion over other people.
Right now, I spend my days in a situation that requires me to not make decisions. All I do all day is ask other people to make decisions. Remind other people to make decisions. One would think that this is ideal for me. Perfectly in keeping with my nature. I am surprised to report that it's pretty far from ideal. It started off okay. But it's starting to grate. A lot. And my response to this has been to do less and do it poorly which really doesn't help.
Crap like this is probably why I am terrible at relationships, a poor candidate for motherhood, and I am scarcely employable. Of course if someone was to ask me to make a decision or tell them what I want, my immediate and initial response would be to say, "I don't know." So clearly I am no help to myself.
Obviously we can't always get what we want. When you do it's important to take a miinute and relish it, who knows when it will happen again. Despite what all will tell you there is an element of chance to things, y'know?
What is a worse tragedy not getting what you want or not wanting anything?
What is a worse tragedy not getting what you want or getting it and finding that it's not what you thought?
Getting it and immediately losing interest and wanting something else?
I guess it's different for everyone. You-today might say something different than you-tomorrow. And of course we know what the Buddhist would say about what's causing your misery.
Maybe that's part of the seduction of materialism/consumerism. You can always get what you want out of life but with enough money you can always buy something you want at the store. And then you can buy another one in a slightly different color.
Friday, April 06, 2007
poisons, addictions, and electronics
" ... the actions and habits of America's consumers threaten to flood the world with toxins, just as surely as do the misguided priorities of multinational corporations. Now more than ever, end-users of new technology need to pursue higher levels of technological literacy in order to negotiate the complex interactions among technology, society, and the environment."
-Giles Slade "Made to Break"
Lots of electronics are made with nasty chemicals, heavy metals, and toxic plastics that when burned release poisonous noxiousness and when buried leach poisonous shit into the groundwater - a fair amount of it is nasty stuff that doesn't break down.
While they are made to last usually for about 5 years. We the people tend to buy new stuff, more frequently. Much more frequenstly. We buy new stuff before our old stuff breaks because we want a new design or color or new features. And what happens to the old stuff? If not burned or buried, given away, stored, reused as a paperweight, or resold ... a decent amount of it gets exported to foreign countries where very very poor people destroy their health and their local environment melting stuff down to extract metals for resale.
Greenpeace is particularly concerned about Apple computer products which are apparently among the worst with respect to being made with very nasty and toxic compounds and with no interest in reducing or replacing that which is bad.
wikipedia on e-waste
-Giles Slade "Made to Break"
Lots of electronics are made with nasty chemicals, heavy metals, and toxic plastics that when burned release poisonous noxiousness and when buried leach poisonous shit into the groundwater - a fair amount of it is nasty stuff that doesn't break down.
While they are made to last usually for about 5 years. We the people tend to buy new stuff, more frequently. Much more frequenstly. We buy new stuff before our old stuff breaks because we want a new design or color or new features. And what happens to the old stuff? If not burned or buried, given away, stored, reused as a paperweight, or resold ... a decent amount of it gets exported to foreign countries where very very poor people destroy their health and their local environment melting stuff down to extract metals for resale.
Greenpeace is particularly concerned about Apple computer products which are apparently among the worst with respect to being made with very nasty and toxic compounds and with no interest in reducing or replacing that which is bad.
wikipedia on e-waste
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
neuroses in small doses #1
"I have crossed some line somewhere I am starting to repel people I am trying to seduce." -Holly Hunter in Broadcast News
I used to love this quote and laughed whenever I thought of it. I still do. And now it encapsulates my ability to interact with the other gender. I briefly flirted with the idea of flirting with Someone At The Office. And my opening gambits reveal that my flirting skills are - pretty sad. Now Someone At The Office will not make eye contact with me in passing at the coffee machine.
Might have better luck relying on my bowstaff skills. Knock them unconscious and drag them to the restaurant with a bottle of smelling salts.
I used to love this quote and laughed whenever I thought of it. I still do. And now it encapsulates my ability to interact with the other gender. I briefly flirted with the idea of flirting with Someone At The Office. And my opening gambits reveal that my flirting skills are - pretty sad. Now Someone At The Office will not make eye contact with me in passing at the coffee machine.
Might have better luck relying on my bowstaff skills. Knock them unconscious and drag them to the restaurant with a bottle of smelling salts.
Monday, April 02, 2007
We live our lives as if tomorrow will closely resemble today
Because it is a thing that grown ups do and because I am lucky to have a benefit such as this, I am looking through the 401k info for my job. There is a worksheet that I am recommended to fill out and the first question is:
In approximately how many years to you plan to retire?
My options are:
In 4 to 6 years
In 7 to 10 years
In 11 to 16 years
More than 16 years
Based on my age and my current lack of independent wealth, I suppose I'll be working for more than 16 years.
*sigh*
In approximately how many years to you plan to retire?
My options are:
In 4 to 6 years
In 7 to 10 years
In 11 to 16 years
More than 16 years
Based on my age and my current lack of independent wealth, I suppose I'll be working for more than 16 years.
*sigh*
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