I am not the Jedi you are looking for

I used to feel rather guilty if I slept past 8:30 or 9 on a weekday. This changed with Tovah's arrival. I now feel emotionally out-of-sorts if I don't sleep past 8:30 or 9!

Previously I was not bothered by phone calls before 9:30 in the morning. Of course, this too has changed. 9:30 in the morning now feels like 7:30 in the morning, which is just too darn early for the phone to ring. But, perhaps to spite me, the phone has been ringing shortly after 9 pretty much every day for the past several days.

This morning the phone rang right on schedule. I think perhaps the woman on the other end, who was probably a telemarketer (and we are on the do not call list!) was operating on about as many cylinders as I was.

me: Hello?
woman: [says something not entirely into the phone]
me: Hello? Can I help you?
woman: Mrs. Davila?
me: I'm sorry, you have the wrong number.
woman: Mrs. Davila?
me: No, I'm sorry, you have the wrong number. Whom are you trying to reach?
woman: Mrs. Davila? I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. [ed.- huh?]
me: I'm sorry, you have the wrong number.
woman: Mrs. Davila, I do not have the wrong number! I called xxx-xxxx.
me: Yes, you did call that number, but as I've told you three times now, you have the wrong number. There is no one here by that name.

Then I told her to take our number off her list and summarily hung up. I'm not usually that abrupt, but it does really rub me the wrong way when someone persists in being mistaken about my identity.

Mrs. Gerbil says I should have said, "Oh, silly me, I forgot--today I am Mrs. Davila!" In any case, why do I keep encountering callers who have trouble accepting that people get new phone numbers--or rather, that phone numbers get new people?

Getting carried away

There has been a surge in disciplinary action for "sexual harassment" among schoolchildren. "Sexual harassment" appears to mean "hugs." A preschooler was suspended for hugging a teacher's aide. A junior high student served detention for hugging friends. Schools have developed very strict no-contact policies that even ban hand-holding. (Huh? Isn't that how you keep track of your field-trip buddy?)

It seems that the Powers That Be have forgotten what sexual harassment actually is. Sexual harassment is, at its core, unwanted (and unsolicited) sexual attention. It might be overt; it might be subtle; but in any case, sexual harassment creates an uncomfortable and/or hostile environment for the recipient.

Now, I suppose the preschool teacher's aide might have felt uncomfortable when the little boy hugged her. Freud be damned, four-year-olds do not have the same understanding of sexual behavior as do adults--or even adolescents. Can sexual harassment exist where the alleged perpetrator does not know what constitutes sexual behavior?

Plus: if you give your best friend a (totally non-sexual) hug and she welcomes it, an observer should not be able to declare that you have engaged in sexual misconduct. Perhaps the observer is uncomfortable with public displays of affection; but if neither the hugger nor the hugged believes there is anything remotely libidinous about the embrace, then what evidence is there to support a third party's decision that yes, there was something sexual about that 5-second hug?

I suppose I feel rather strongly about this issue not only because it's patently ridiculous, but also because I was sexually harassed in junior high and the perpetrators were not punished. To put it mildly, as a grade schooler I was never among the popular crowd. I was also a year younger than everyone else in my grade. By junior high, not only was I still shorter than everyone else, but I was also not going through puberty with everyone else. The boys teased the more well-endowed girls and snapped their bra straps... but they teased me just as much ("Roses are red, violets are black; why is your chest as flat as your back?") and made a big show of attempting to snap a bra strap I didn't have. At recess, the boys liked to shove me "accidentally" via my equally flat little butt. I complained to the assistant principal. His response? "They like you." (I told him that, if that was the case, they needed some instruction in the proper demonstration of their affections.)

And in eighth grade, the boys whose lockers were on either side of mine for the entirety of junior high (God bless the alphabet) took it upon themselves to say all sorts of bizarre, inappropriate, and unrepeatable things to me, adding the occasional "accidental" shove. Finally, my mother went to our homeroom teacher and demanded that this sort of thing stop. It did, mostly. But not entirely. For although my young, female homeroom teacher sided with my mother and me, the older, male administration still maintained that "boys will be boys."

Yeah, I hated junior high.

I don't think kids have changed much in the 16 years since I began the seventh grade. Boys are still boys, girls are still girls, junior high still sucks, puberty is still long and embarrassing. Forbidding children and adolescents from engaging in "good touch," because it's just a slippery slope down to "bad touch," won't change any of that.

Human contact is precious, instinctive, and important. Perhaps sucking face in the hallway between classes should be banned; but not friendly hugs. When we police innocent displays of friendship and appreciation, we risk instilling outright fear of human contact in a generation already more comfortable with virtual socializing than with face-to-face interaction.

Public transit story #20: In vino veritas

Yesterday was San Francisco's annual Folsom Street Fair, a celebration of all that is leather, fetish, or otherwise kinky. (NB: the aforementioned link is probably not suitable for work.)

I have never been to the Folsom Street Fair. It's really not my scene. However, there were some really hot fairgoers on the BART with me in the late afternoon, which I found pretty interesting.

Many of these fairgoers were also inebriated. One guy took the opportunity to squat down (presumably out of range of the security cameras), remove a bottle of wine from his backpack, wave it around victoriously, and take a long swig. Thus emboldened, he stood up and reached for the overhead handrail.

(For some reason, guys like to show off by doing pull-ups, flips, and other vaguely gymnastic feats from these handrails--especially when the train is zooming through the Transbay Tunnel at speeds upwards of 70 mph, and even more especially when they are under the influence of at least one substance.)

Alas for this sloshed fairgoer, he miscalculated his upward trajectory. Instead of executing a flawless pull-up, he whomped his head on the handrail and set his equally inebriated friends to laughing.

Tales from the cube

toothpastefordinner.com

Most nights I come home from work with a couple of choice stories for Mrs. Gerbil. These stories fall generally into one of three categories: Calls that Break My Heart, WTF?, and Oh My God I Thought I'd Never Get That Person Off the Phone.

Although I skipped kindergarten (I was a precocious little gerb) I do know about sharing, and I think I'm generally pretty good at it. So, I hereby share a handful of vignettes, previously heard by Mrs. Gerbil.

I can't believe we let you into the network
me: Does the member meet criteria for a parity diagnosis?
caller: Yes, she has bipolar disorder and major depression.
(explanation for those unfamiliar with DSM-IV: by definition, you can't have both)

And you are calling now because...
caller: Oh, I didn't think you were open now.

Try again later
caller: Is this DirecTV?
me: I'm sorry, you have the wrong number. This is a mental health insurance company.
caller: Oh. Do you have the number for DirecTV?
me: No. You might try the phone book, though.
(the next day)
same caller: Is this DirecTV?
me: Sorry, no. This is a mental health insurance company. Try the phone book.

How can I help you?

Now what?

Animaniacs came out just as Mrs. Gerbil and I were starting high school. The timing could not have been better. We were just barely too old for kids' cartoons, but just old enough to get adult humor. For Halloween of our sophomore year, a bunch of us even went out trick-or-treating as several of the Animaniacs. Appropriately, Mrs. Gerbil was Wakko, and I was the Brain.


I love Pinky and the Brain. Like all good cartoons, the plots are highly predictable. But there's something just extra cool about lab rats with designs on world domination. With few exceptions, each episode ends with Pinky's question, "Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tomorrow night?" and the Brain's answer, "Same thing we do every night, Pinky--try to take over the world!" And by the next night, the Brain has already developed a brand-new, highly detailed plan. How much time does he actually spend thinking up new plans? Does he mull over possibilities for a while, or does the whole thing come to him all at once? We will never know.

But one thing is certain: once one plan fails, he manages to come up with a new one. The Brain does not sit around and ponder where to go from here. He has no need of that cliche "next steps," because the only thing on his agenda is to try to take over the world again.

The phrase "next steps" fills me with a weird sort of revulsion. I was taught to avoid cliches (like the plague, haha) at geek camp; and yet my visceral reaction to "next steps" is very much unlike my visceral reaction to other cliches. It's similar to my visceral reaction to words like "sustainability," "green living," and "ecoresponsibility." These are fantastic concepts, but sometimes I think they fall victim to name-dropping. (I admit, I had to Google "sustainability" to find out what it really meant, so many times did I hear someone say "we're focused on sustainability" without mentioning how, exactly, this focus was accomplished.)

Because Western thought and life are quite linear, I suppose it only makes sense that we should think about what to do next. I'm fairly certain that my problem with the phrase "next steps" is that it gets used when nothing's actually been accomplished yet. For instance: I used to work in a non-profit that worked with a whole bunch of other non-profits. As a group, we had tremendous difficulty deciding what to do now, and yet somehow we were perfectly happy to discuss (for hours at a time) what to do next. Non-profit paralysis had set in for many of us--the deadly combination of not enough money, not enough time, and not enough resources. Having "next steps" meetings was a defense against having to do something in the present that might, of course, fail.

The other problem with "next steps" is that someone actually has to follow through with them. Brainstorming "next steps" is great; but who's going to make sure the list doesn't wind up in the circular file? Perhaps it's an odd sort of motivation for those who aren't actually doing anything measurable in the present, a way to avoid feeling aimless once the first task is finally completed.

Or perhaps I am too much of a cynic. Perhaps I don't have enough patience or tolerance for other people's way of doing things.

Some (including but not limited to Mrs. Gerbil) have said that the world would be much better off if I ran it. So I think tomorrow night I'm going to try to take over the world. I'll plant subliminal messages in car commercials that link the phrase "next steps" to "I will do whatever Gerbil says."

Mangled care

Mrs. Gerbil and I finally went to see Sicko last night. I was very impressed. I'm not a Michael Moore groupie--perhaps because my parents had me watch Roger and Me when I was a mere pre-teen, and I was rather bored by it--but I do appreciate a good exposé when I see one.

And it got me thinking about what I currently do for a living.

The insurance group I work for was not featured in Sicko. My actual company was not even mentioned; the behavioral health insurance system is a whole 'nother movie. So in that sense Sicko was not about what I do 40 hours a week.

Another sense in which Sicko has nothing to do with my job is that I never have to deny coverage for any individual person. I can tell a member that his plan does not cover couples therapy, but I never have to say that his particular request for couples therapy will not be approved. There are two reasons for this little bit of relief. First, "adverse determinations" can only be issued by reviewers with clinical licenses. Second, as long as a person's plan permits a specific type of treatment, it's my job to say "yes."

(And here's a third sense: I hear that the medical carrier under our corporate umbrella no longer does procedure reviews, as nearly all requests were being approved anyway.)

But this movie was about what I do simply because I work for managed care. I believe that the health care system in the US should do its darndest to promote preventive care. HMOs--health maintenance organizations--started with this very same philosophy. I also believe that, when a person needs medical treatment, he or she should get it. There shouldn't be a need to call within 24 hours of admission, or to expend time/money/emotional effort filing appeals, or to hire an attorney... or to have to decide to skip treatment altogether because insurance won't pay. Health care should not be about money--and there is where the Big Bad System and I diverge.

All of my statements above, about why Sicko doesn't point its finger at me personally, are really just displacements of blame. Like most of my co-workers, I took my job because Mrs. Gerbil and I were hurting for dough. It's been less than six months since I began, and already we're financially back on our feet. And (not surprisingly) we get really cheap health insurance, with more-than-decent coverage for what we're likely to need. Yup, managed care treats its employees well; and I think my company is one of the best in this regard.

Still, I'm part of the Big Bad System, and I'm just doing it for the money. My paycheck might not be the direct result of in-house adverse determinations, but many of our plans are carve-outs from other medical carriers. And those carriers do issue adverse determinations. There aren't many degrees of separation here.

So, no. I'm not directly involved. But lest I be accused of sounding like a complacent WWII-era German (Godwin's Law, anyone?), I hasten to point out that I do have a well-established history of fighting the system.

And on that note, I offer the following tips to anyone who might need them:

1) If you have insurance, read your Evidence of Coverage Document. Cover to cover. As soon as possible. Call member services if you don't understand the terms of your policy.

2) If you believe your claim has been wrongly denied, raise a stink. File an appeal. File a second appeal. Then contact the state oversight body for your plan. This might be the state board of insurance, the state commission on managed care, or some other such body; and you can find out which one applies with a single phone call to member services. Just don't call me about your claims.

3) If you get stuck with a huge hospital bill, contact the patient advocate about financing options.

4) By federal law , virtually all US hospitals are required to provide examination and stabilization treatment for truly emergent patients, regardless of their ability to pay. If your plan refuses to cover non-network care you received while completely unconscious, raise a stink (see #2 above).

5) Above all, don't give up. A cynic might say that somewhere, someone is counting on you to give up ("Baby needs a new pair of shoes!"). But I am not that cynical. Yet.

(For the record: Appropriately, I used a tiny little portion of my paycheck to take Mrs. Gerbil to the movies.)

Smooth

Grocery store cashier: Do you have a twin sister?

me: Huh?

cashier: It's not often that we get such beautiful customers... [observing my wedding band] ...and I see you're already taken.

me: Sorry, I'm an only child.

cashier: It was worth a shot.

The nanny state, redux

Add to the list of brilliant legislation being considered by the Golden State a bill which would require all pets to be spayed or neutered. If this becomes law (and it's already passed the state Assembly), mutt owners will be fined for not altering their pets, and owners of registered purebreds will be eligible for an exemption--for a price, of course.

Yes, this bill has good intentions. Overpopulation, abuse and neglect, and lack of appropriate housing are serious problems in these parts, and not just for H. sapiens. If everyone would just prevent their pets from breeding, maybe we wouldn't have such problems.

There oughta be a law, right?

Be careful what you wish for. In the words of Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale (Butte County):

"This is a prime example of why this Legislature becomes a laughingstock, when we want to reach into that personal aspect of peoples' lives telling them this is how you need to handle your animals' reproductive capacity. We ought to be tackling other issues."

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with a California Republican.

Let's imagine that this bill becomes law, and it is fully enforced. As only registered purebreds will be allowed to keep their 'nads, after a certain number of generations the only animals available for sale or adoption will be either purebreds themselves (and thus allowed to reproduce) or a cross between two different breeds (and thus prohibited from reproducing). Mutts, lacking the necessary equipment to pass along their variegated legacies, would become artificially selected out of the population.

Hypothetical as this situation may be, it sounds an awful lot like a really scary thing that begins with an E and ends with a UGENICS.

I made a comment to this effect to Mrs. Gerbil this morning. She reminded me that just because a law is on the books doesn't mean that everyone is going to obey it. This is true. However, why bother to pass a law which you don't want everyone to follow? Why incorporate penalties (like a $500 fine), if not to deter lawbreaking?

I have a better idea. Instead of giving the state the power to determine who's worthy of breeding, why not fund sliding-scale (or even free) spay/neuter clinics? There's nothing inherently wrong with mutts that their owners shouldn't have a choice about whether to have them altered--just as there's nothing inherently wrong with purebreds.

And, if you think about it, mutts are pretty darn consistent with the (often over-hyped) Californian ideals of diversity and multiculturalism.

PS. For the record, our furry bundle of joy was spayed twice before we adopted her. The shelter mistook a post-op Josie for another calico and (somehow failing to notice her shaven, stitched-up underparts) opened her up again before realizing their error.

WTF International

Mrs. Gerbil and I were standing at a street corner in Union Square, waiting for the light to change, when a young man approached us. He was toting a black binder, the sort that activist street team members carry.

(I dread being approached by people with binders, for I do not sign petitions or fill out postcards or sign up for membership or anything of the sort. It doesn't matter what the cause is; it's just that such things require giving out one's mailing address, and I am extremely protective of our contact information. But back to our story...)

"Hi," he said. "How are you girls doing tonight?"

"Fine," I said.

"Where are you going?" he said.

"We're meeting some friends," I said. (Indeed, we were en route to a double date with R and her boyfriend.)

The young fellow did not say anything for a moment. Then he said, "Well, you could make a difference, but I guess you don't want to." And with that, he stormed off.

This, I swear, is the entirety of our conversation.

So, Mr. Binder-Toting Dude, if you are reading this: Let give you a little lesson in activism. Before you get all passive-aggressive at people who aren't interested in supporting your cause, you need to tell them what your cause is.

Aha!

Mrs. Gerbil and I have a bad habit of going to the corner store in the evenings for a pint of Breyer's A&W Root Beer Float ice cream. We indulged said habit last night. On the way out of the store, I pointed out the top headline on the Contra Costa Times, which read as follows:

Warming called security threat.

Mrs. Gerbil and I were both struck by the absolute absurdity of the story. But whereas my first thought was "Well, there's a way to get the federal government to pay attention to global warming," Mrs. Gerbil's was "Oh, my God. That's a real newspaper, isn't it."

(In Mrs. Gerbil's defense, here in Alameda County, the Contra Costa Times isn't a very popular paper. The same niche is filled here by the Oakland Tribune, which has made several aggressive attempts to court our readership. Alas, we are loyal to the San Francisco Chronicle.)

But still, the idea that global warming might possibly attract the attention of the current administration seems more appropriate for The Onion than for real life. On the other hand, if the powers that be predictably get their very powerful panties in a bunch about national security, then why not try to spur some action on social issues by fabricating connections to terrorism?

I've already pondered the connection between marriage equality and national security. I'm sure someone else can spin the United States' failing health care system as a threat to national security. And then there's the state of public education (not to mention the cost of higher education). It should be pretty easy to work in the future of Social Security--I mean, they already have a word in common.

Any takers?

(PS: The point of terrorism is to make people fear your next move. In a twisted way, it's kind of like panic disorder--which, at its core, is the fear of having another panic attack. I know I'm not the first to say this, but I think it bears repeating: declaring a "war on terror" means you've already lost. Food for thought.)

Parking lot rage: The evil fraternal twin of road rage

Pop quiz!

When entering a rather full parking lot, you should
(a) drive slowly around the parking lot until you find an available space.
(b) sit in the middle of the aisle, in the most inconvenient fashion possible, and be a spot vulture until someone parked in your general vicinity exits the store, gets in the car, and vacates the space.
(c) say "the hell with it" and look for street parking.
(d) say "the hell with it" and go to another store.

If you answered (a), (c), or (d), you are a person after my own heart. If you answered (b), you probably shop at the Berkeley Bowl.

In fact, if you answered (b), chances are pretty good that you drove your hybrid to the Berkeley Bowl this past Sunday afternoon--and that you attempted to get in a tiff with me over a parking space.

Mind you, I almost never drive to the Berkeley Bowl--I hardly ever go to the Berkeley Bowl, on account of the teeming obnoxiousness--and this past Sunday I wasn't driving, either. I was, however, in someone else's car.

You might take a moment now to note that the Berkeley Bowl advises its customers to "be patient and always drive carefully." Alas, you weren't thinking about politeness on Sunday, and you were massively ill-prepared for my interpersonal jujitsu...

You were sitting in the middle of the aisle in your hybrid, which while motionless is silent like the (possibly also motionless) ninja. No one was doing anything to the cars around you, and you weren't doing anything to your car either, namely operating its turn signal. You were within a few feet of the entrance to the store, so perhaps you were waiting for your shopping companion. So we passed you. And we went not even fifteen feet before a spot opened up right in front of us. And we took it.

You began yelling at us. At the same moment, another spot opened up, and you took it. You strode over to us and continued yelling. "THAT'S REAL CLASSY," you barked. "YOU DON'T JUST PASS SOMEONE AND THEN TAKE A PARKING SPOT."

My companion attempted to ignore you, but not I. I smiled sweetly up at you. "I'm sorry, sir," I replied calmly, "but we can't read your mind in the parking lot."

You (a good head taller and thirty years older than I) grew red in the face. "YOU CAN READ EVERYONE'S MIND IN THIS PARKING LOT!" you blustered.

"I'm sorry, sir," I said, still sweet as agave nectar, "there isn't a single person in this world whose mind I can read. But I'm glad you found a parking spot. Have a nice day!"

You continued to bluster a little more. "BUT YOU---YOU DON'T JUST DO THAT!" you insisted.

"I really am glad you found a parking spot. Have a nice day!" I repeated, still smiling. Unable to think of a better retort, you stormed off into the store.

Had you stayed outside a little longer, you would have heard a woman about your age say, "Jeez! It's just a parking spot! Give it up!" as she pulled the bags from her cart. You would have seen me shrug my shoulders. And you would have heard her add, "The rest of that guy's life must be really awful, if he's getting that worked up over a parking spot."

I hope, for your sake, that you were just having a bad day. But whether or not this was an isolated incident, I encourage you please to remember two things:
1) It's bad form to try to intimidate a young lady.
2) No one likes a spot vulture.

Public Transit Story #15: Bad hair day

Okay, I know it's impolite to stare. I try not to stare, even when I'm people-watching. However, it's really hard to watch people subtly, especially when your job involves watching a whole group of people for 50 minutes at a stretch, so that you can write up little notes later about how they "presented." Whenever I'm in a large group of people--outside work, mind you--I find myself observing like crazy. As with the Therapist Clock, I just can't shut my Observing Self off.

But this is a public transit story.

Yesterday I observed an older gentleman on the bus. He had the longest nose hairs I've ever seen. They were yellowish-white and extended at least half an inch beyond his nostrils. As if this weren't odd enough, he spent much of the bus ride twirling his nose hairs.

It was really, really hard for me not to stare. And I don't think I would have had such difficulty if had he not been playing with them.

Heckling the passersby

While I was returning some library books yesterday, a minorly scruffy man said a whole lot of unintelligible things in my general direction. I wasn't sure whether he was talking to me, so I decided to err on the side of shyness and did not respond. He continued to say a whole lot of unintelligible things in my general direction as I headed to the bus stop. Still, I wasn't sure if I was the intended target of his ramblings--until he said, quite lucidly, "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else."

"That's okay," I said. Haven't we all been mistaken for someone else at least once in our lives? I plopped myself down on the bench and busied myself with a book.

The man came wandering toward the bus stop, wanting to know if any of us there had "anything to share." None of us did. But this guy would not, or could not, accept "no" for an answer. He enumerate all of the things we could share with him. Nope. Then another fellow happened by.

"Hey, do you--" began the first guy.

"Go away!" said the second guy, hurrying past.

This obviously pushed some button deep in the first guy's psyche, for he began to spew a whole lot of strange invectives: "Hey! Who's your costume designer? Do you have a casting agent? Who's your casting agent? JAYWALKER! Are you an asshole, or just an arrogant person? HEY!"

And then he wandered off, presumably to engage in ineffective conversation with someone else.

There oughta be a law

(Dude! This is my 100th post!)

I received a jury summons today, for the end of this month. I was very upset, for I'd received a jury summons last year, and I'm supposed to be off the hook for 12 months.

(I didn't actually serve on a jury last year. I didn't even have to report to the courthouse to find this out, as I'd had to do in Massachusetts about eight years ago. California jurors call after 5pm the day before to find out their status: report the next day as summoned, don't report at all, or call back after 11am for possible afternoon service. One's jury obligation is considered fulfilled regardless of whether one actually has to show up.)

So, yes, I received my jury summons, and I was pissed. But I have a poor concept of time out here. I'm used to gauging the passage of time with the help of seasons--by which I mean spring, summer, fall, and winter, not "wet" and "dry." Obviously, I couldn't figure this one out via memories of crimson foliage, drifting snow, muddy slush, or godawful humidity. I had to do some major detective work as to the date of my previous service:

1) It was during a period of semi-dryness, when it wasn't quite warm enough for short sleeves, but not quite cold enough for a hat and gloves.
Therefore, it must have been in October, November, February, March, or early April.

2) I know where I was working at the time.
Therefore, it must have been sometime between November and July; combining this with #1, it must have been in November, February, March, or early April.

3) I was working more than half-time.
Therefore, it must have been sometime between January and July; combining this with #2, it must have been between February and early April.

I then consulted last year's planner. If my service had been in March or April, I would have to make a most unpleasant call to the Superior Court of California...

...and guess when my service was?

That's right. The beginning of February.

They sure don't waste any time, do they?

Rantings of a Luddite philistine

I recently asked Mrs. Gerbil (who has a much better grasp of such things than I) whether performance artists need a cognizant audience. For example, if a performance artist sat at a bus stop in downtown Berkeley and just stared suspiciously at passers-by, I doubt anyone would realize it was performance art.

Put another way: Can you do performance art for the plain old art's sake?

Mrs. Gerbil said that performance art relies on the relationship between the artist and the audience. The audience at least has to know that something out of the ordinary is occurring--and that it's occurring on purpose. Downtown Berkeley is full of people who stare suspiciously at passers-by. Therefore, unless the bus stop performance artist squirted soda water at people wearing red sweaters and just stared at everyone else, it's not a very effective performance.

I don't understand performance art. I think it's very strange, although I also think it's an excellent punch line.

Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Performance artist.
Performance artist who?
Performance artist.
Performance artist who?
Performance artist.
Screw you! Go away!
Performance artist performance artist performance artist PERFORMANCE ARTIST...

The real question, however, is this:

If tree falls on a performance artist in the woods and no one's around to watch, is it still performance art?

In other news, I got a new cell phone last week. The last time I got a new phone, I had to convince the Verizon guy that I did not want a camera phone. Our conversation went something like this:

VG: So how come you don't want a camera phone?
Me: Because I don't need my phone to take pictures. That's why I have a camera.
VG: But you could use your phone to take pictures.
Me: All I want to do with my phone is make and receive calls. I don't need to take pictures with it, I don't need to surf the web, I don't need to send text messages with it.
VG: But if you had a camera phone, then when I called you, you could see a picture of me on your phone and know that I was calling you!
Me: Um, I program in people's names. Because I can read.

This time around, the Verizon guy didn't give me a hard time about not wanting a camera phone. Our conversation, however, was pretty amusing:

VG: So what do you want your phone to do?
Me: Make and receive calls.
VG: That's it?
Me: Yes. That is it. I don't even care about text messaging.
VG: You don't use text messaging????
Me: No. I figure, if someone needs to tell me something, they can call me. If I'm not there, they can leave me a message.
VG: But text messaging is cool!
Me: I turned off text messaging a few years ago because it cost me money to receive messages like "I'm bored." If people are bored, they can call me and tell me about it.
VG: Uh, yeah. I guess you have a point there.

When Mrs. Gerbil found out that I didn't have text messaging, back when we were still living apart, she said, "Oh, that must be why I sent you all those text messages and you never replied!" Which leaves me to wonder:

If a performance artist doesn't know that I don't have text messaging, is it performance art if he tries to text me that a tree is about to fall on him?

War on Christmas

This time of year is really hard for me. Historically, I start getting depressed just before Thanksgiving and stop sometime after my birthday (10 days after Christmas, hint hint). In recent years things have been somewhat worse. It could be that I've already been under stress before the ever-lengthening holiday season and therefore have had a lower tolerance for Enforced Happiness.

Or it could be Enforced Happiness in general. There are exactly two Christmas carols which I actually like--I am a secular Jew, mind you--and these are "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "Angels We Have Heard on High." The rest I could do without. Especially in stores; stores are overstimulating enough already! Enforced Happiness also includes advertising of all sorts, including (but not limited to) radio, television, and print ads.

Or it could be this whole "War on Christmas" myth. I do not understand this business. If anyone's trying to remove the meaning of Christmas, it's those who make it into a capitalist orgy. The way I see it, retail workers who wish people happy holidays instead of a merry Christmas are actually preserving the meaning of Christmas. When did Christmas become a reason to spend lots of money? I might be a secular Jew, but I know that Mary and Joseph weren't exactly rolling in dough.

When I was a baby, my parents decided that we should give presents on Christmas. We lived in a very WASPy area, and they didn't want me to feel left out once I began school. Every year we constructed a Christmas bush with branches clipped from our pine trees and a whole bunch of electrical ties. Sometimes my mother would pick up discarded bits of real Christmas trees on her way to work and add them to our bush for extra variety. One year we discovered--the hard way--that I am violently allergic to white pine. As soon as I could open my eyes again, we transferred the ornaments to the ficus. After that incident, we decided to hang the ornaments from the piano instead.

Perhaps I grew up with a skewed version of Christmas. Christmas was something which belonged to other people and which I could dabble in, if I wished, but it was never something I could do for real. Christmas meant shopping and wrapping and stress and you know, I used to love it... except that it was always phenomenally depressing.

So I reserve the right to wish someone happy holidays if they wish me a merry Christmas. Does that make me anti-Christmas? No stranger has ever come up to me on the street and wished me a happy Hanukkah, nor a comfortable fast on Yom Kippur, nor a happy new year in September. But that doesn't bother me. What bothers me is when people get all het up (in Decembers of late) when someone wishes them something other than a merry Christmas.

Does it really matter? If Jimmy the Cashier doesn't wish Mrs. Jones a merry Christmas, is Mrs. Jones doomed to have a terrible time on December 25? Isn't it okay just to acknowledge that there are a whole slew of holidays in December (Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, and the winter solstice, to name but a few) and cover all the bases with a generic holiday wish?

If Mrs. Jones needs prompting from Jimmy the Cashier to have a merry Christmas, Mrs. Jones has some serious issues.

I'm glad Christmas comes but once a year.

Obstructions

I'm all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for that special offer
A guaranteed personality
The Clash, "Lost in the Supermarket"

The grocery store is one of the eviller places on earth. I don't care which grocery store. Safeway, Tops, Stop & Shop, Genuardi's, Acme (pronounced "Ack-uh-me," of course), Fred Meyer, Piggly Wiggly, Kroger, Albertsons, the Berkeley Bowl... they're all the same. Too many choices, too many fluorescent lights, and too many people, and not enough room for all of it. I get overwhelmed.

But we gotta eat.

Every so often my bargain-hunting genes get the better of me, and I decide to go the Berkeley Grocery Outlet. Their motto is "Bargains Only!" which actually means "You are guaranteed not to find at least one staple on your list!" Sometimes they have yogurt, cream cheese, and canisters of parmesan; other times (like today) they have none of these items. This is highly annoying. But the plus side is that all these overstocks are dirt cheap. For example, today I bought $46 worth of groceries for $21. Not bad. Not bad at all.

The clientele of the Grocery Outlet is, well, fairly bizarre on average. I include myself in this statement, but there are many different types of bizarreness, and I would like to think that mine is a benign sort of bizarreness. Various of today's customers were carrying on cell phone conversations about things which just should not be discussed within earshot of strangers, such as finally getting one's children back from protective custody.

And then there was this woman.

This middle-aged woman was standing in the middle of the aisle, with her cart blocking half the width of the aisle and her body blocking an additional fourth. She was staring rather blankly at the shelves. As I too had a cart, my passage was blocked. So I said, quite politely, "Excuse me." The woman glared at me and spat, "I'm just standing here, about to pass out, and you have a cart too? [mutter mutter mutter mutter]" She moved her cart and let me pass, all the while muttering about who-knows-what.

At the end of the aisle was another cart, this one parallel to the shelves. I wasn't sure whether I could maneuver my cart past it, so I eased my cart up alongside it. I don't like moving other people's carts. Well, I will move a cart if its owner isn't right there. But if its owner is standing there, I will politely say "Excuse me," as above, and I expect the owner to say "Oh, I'm sorry," just as I do when it's my cart in the way. I wasn't sure whether the person near this particular cart was its owner, so I thought I'd try some expert cart maneuvering first.

So there I was, trying to slip my cart past this cart whose owner may or may not have been standing a few feet away, and along came this muttering woman again! She had abandoned whatever she'd been staring at, as well as her own cart, in order to move this other cart out of my way and spit, "Why don't you just move this stupid cart then?"

I smiled sweetly and replied, "I was about to do just that. But thanks for doing it for me! I appreciate the help."

And off she went back toward her own cart, mutter mutter mutter muttering all the way.

We passed each other a few more times before I left the store with my 54% savings. Each time she glared at me, then heaved a disgusted sigh.

I hope she found what she was looking for.

When animal husbandry attacks

As I scour the classifieds, looking for the perfect job (which, let me tell you, is not to be found in the classifieds of the San Francisco Chronicle), I notice a lot of ads for puppies and kittens. Precision-bred puppies and kittens.

What really gets me about these ads is the number of poodle hybrids they advertise. I wish I could say that poodle hybrids are poodles that don't need to be fed as often as normal poodles, on account of their battery reserves, but no. They are the product of a poodle and some other dog.

This hybridizing thing doesn't just happen with poodles. I once saw a very odd-looking dog around the neighborhood. It had the coloring, snout, and ears of a German shepherd, on the stubby legs and barrel-shaped body of a Welsh corgi. I ask you: who thought this was a good idea? Was this person sober?

(Let me state, for the record, that I know a very sweet dog whose parents were a beagle and a Jack Russell terrier. Perhaps this explains why Chloe is positively brilliant and still eats rocks.)

But dude. Poodle math. Cross a poodle with a Labrador, and you get a Labradoodle. Cross a poodle with a cocker spaniel, and you get a cockapoo. Cross a poodle with a schnauzer, and you get a schnoodle. Cross a poodle with a golden retriever, and you get a goldendoodle. Cross a poodle with a Yorkshire terrier, and you get a Yorkipoo. I am not making these up.

I am, however, making these up:

Poodle + Boxer = Poo-Box!
Poodle + Shih Tzu = Shih-tzu-poo!
Poodle + Airedale = Air Poodle!
Poodle + Newfoundland = Poof!
Poodle + Shar-pei = Poopei!
Poodle + Dalmatian = Poomatian!
Poodle + Mastiff = Poostiff!
Poodle + Basset Hound = Basset Hoodle!
Poodle + Weimeraner = Weimeraneroodle!
Poodle + Chihuahua = Poohuahua!

I'll just take my rescue calico of uncertain parentage, thanks.

Don't try this in your office

I had one of the worst interviews of my life a week ago. It's taken me a week to recover. This interview was really over after ten minutes, but it lasted an entire hour because I haven't yet learned how to bow out gracefully.

How would I describe this interview, if I had to use but a single word? A few possibilities:

Violating.
Inappropriate.
Power-struggly.
Godawful.

In an attempt to reframe my experience, I decided to come up with a list of the Top Ten Things Not to Do in an Interview. Now, mind you, there already exist a ton of advice sites for interviewees on what not to do during an interview. These are pretty obvious. For example: Don't put your feet up on the interviewer's desk. Don't snap your gum. Don't giggle if you fart.

No, I'm talking about advice for the interviewer. Because it's not just the candidate who has to make a good impression.

Inspired by actual events, I present:

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF INTERVIEWING

1. Thou shalt not ask thy candidate about his or her personal philosophy and then declare that it is wrong.

2. Thou shalt not ask thy candidate vague questions, refuse to provide any additional useful information, and then declare that his or her answer is wrong.

3. Thou shalt not preface thy question with, "I know I am not allowed to ask this," and then proceed to ask thy candidate a disguised version of thy illegal question.

4. Thou shalt not compel thy candidate to elaborate on any matter to which thy candidate referreth as "personal."

5. Thou shalt not interview candidates whom thou hast no intention of hiring in the first place. If thou interviewest candidates whom thou hast no intention of hiring in the first place, thou shalt not convey this information to thy candidate.

6. Thou shalt not belittle thy candidate.

7. Thou shalt not get huffy when thy candidate sayeth that he or she honoreth the Sabbath. For I am a jealous G-d and besides I have already made it quite clear about my feelings toward the Sabbath.

8. Thou shalt not cut thy candidate off by saying, "you really believe that?"

9. Thou shalt not present information which is incorrect or untestable in order to prove thy superiority over thy candidate.

10. Thou shalt not do all of these things which I have commanded thee not to do, and then inform thy candidate that thou really liketh him or her and that thou really wouldst like to hire him or her, but thou canst not do so and is that not a shame.

Pretty obvious too, don't you think?

Apparently not.

Gerbil Jumble #3: I need a job

I love the San Francisco Chronicle. We get the paper seven days a week. This means I could do seven Jumbles a week, if I really wanted to. But usually I just read a few sections, occasionally pen a letter to the editor (I've had, like, four or five published!), and do the crosswords.

In the daily paper, one of the two crosswords is in the Classified section. So is the Jumble. So are the job listings. I need a job, as I've been voted off the proverbial island at the one that pays part of the rent and all of the health insurance. Sadly, there aren't a whole lot of listings in the paper for what I'm looking for. And don't even get me started on why I'm considering (at least temporarily) changing my field.

So pretty much every day I skim the classifieds and come up with nothing. Dejected, I move on to the crossword. If I still have energy, I do the Jumble. I had some extra energy today because my sixth-to-last day at work was, well, indescribable in a negative fasion, so I did this one and made my wife giggle like a schoolgirl:



It's too bad there aren't any jobs out there for people gifted in the incorrect solution of Jumbles.