Gerbil and Goliath

Our move from Cleveland to Berkeley last year was more of a culture shock that I'd expected. I learned very quickly that out here, anything between Chicago and the Atlantic is considered "back East." This includes Ohio, which is not East at all, but Midwest. (To be fair, back East we called California "out West.") More importantly, I learned that "Ohio" is a dirty word. Many have assumed that because I moved here from Ohio, I must have been born in Ohio. When I say that I only lived in Ohio for four years, because that's where grad school was, and really most of my life has been spent either in the Philadelphia area or western Massachusetts--well, people tend to resume eye contact.

Another thing I learned: no one trusts anyone. I grew up in a small town where people mostly trusted each other, although not enough to leave the doors unlocked at night. In western Mass, people also mostly trust each other, although no one really trusts college students (which is entirely reasonable). The same is true of northeast Ohio.

Out here? No trust. This is mostly reasonable, because there are a lot of thieves, scam artists, and perpetrators of random violence. I am naturally a bit paranoid anyway, so this is all fine with me. What I have a problem with is that utility companies don't trust their customers.

When we moved here, I signed us up for phone service with the same company I'd used for four years in Ohio. Our first bill had a due date of not more than seven calendar days after I received it--which was three weeks after it was supposedly printed. I called the company and wanted to know why they sat on our bill for three weeks and then gave us a week to pay up.

"We have to establish your credit," the representative said.

"But I have been a customer for four years, in Ohio! I've never been late with a payment!"

"That's a different branch of the company."

"Well, can't you access my payment history and establish my credit that way?"

"Oh, no, ma'am. We can't do that. Your bill is due in a week."

"Why didn't you send it to me earlier? It was printed three weeks ago, I got it today, and it's due next week!"

"We shorten the payment period for customers who haven't yet established credit. We lengthen the period after a couple months if you get your payment in on time."

"Um, if you intentionally don't send new customers their bills until a week before you need their payment, you are basically ensuring that they will be late and therefore can't establish credit with you."

"This is what all the utility companies do in California, ma'am."

I have never been late with a payment in my life, which is why I'm in charge of almost all the bills and why we have successfully established credit with the phone company. The energy company is a different story. PG&E (yes, that PG&E, of Enron scandal fame) demanded a deposit when we began our service. The deposit was twice the monthly bill for previous tenants, and it was to be returned to us after 13 months--with interest--provided that we had no more than one late payment in that period.

So I sent PG&E a check for $104 in May of 2005. They promised to return it in 13 months, plus some piddling amount of interest (to be compounded monthly). 13 months, they said, would be June of 2006.

I called PG&E this past May to find out if we'd see a credit on the bill or a separate refund check. Quoth PG&E: "A credit for your deposit, plus interest, will appear on your bill in June. Thanks for your terrific payment record!"

June came, and so did the PG&E bill. I called PG&E and asked why they had not applied any credit. Quoth PG&E: "You will receive your credit in July because although you opened your account in May, we didn't turn your power on until June. Thanks for your terrific payment record!" The bit about the power coming on in June was correct--but only because PG&E did not successfully turn on our power as promised in May, and we told them to wait a week until we actually moved in.

July came, but the credit on the bill? Nope. I called PG&E and asked where my deposit was. Quote PG&E: "You will see that on your August bill. July is indeed the 13th month from when we turned on your power, but your interest isn't actually calculated until the 14th month. Thanks for your terrific payment record!"

August arrived, and I was steamed. Somehow we still owed PG&E money! I called them up and demanded to know what was going on. Quoth PG&E: "Your bill was printed on August 2, but we aren't figuring anyone's interest until August 14. Your credit will show up on your September bill. Thanks for your terrific payment record!"

Yesterday I received yet another PG&E bill. As you might have guessed, there was no mention of a credit. I called. I was really really really mad! Quoth PG&E: "Let's see, your account was opened in May... 13 months would have been June... hm..."

I jumped in: "This process has been very frustrating. I was told in May of last year that I would get my deposit back in June of this year. This June I was told I'd get it back in July. In July, I was told August. In August, I was told September. It's September, and I want to know exactly when this matter is going to be resolved."

"Oh," said PG&E. "It looks like we never calculated your return. My supervisor is doing it right now. This will show up on your October bill."

I was livid. "Hold on. At the beginning of August, I was promised this would be taken care of on the 14th of that month. That never happend. How do I know you are actually doing what you've promised?"

"Trust us," said PG&E.

"What if it's not on my bill next month?" I said, running out of patience.

"Call us back and we'll take care of it for November. Thanks for your terrific payment record!"

With interest compounded monthly, it's actually worse for PG&E to hold onto our deposit than for us not to have it back in a timely fashion. And, as my wife points out, our PG&E deposit is currently our highest-yield investment. Maybe I'll let them hold onto our $104+ a little bit longer. By the time we get it back, we might be able to retire on it.

Boyz in the Vatican

Whilst browsing the online classifieds today, I happened upon an announcement from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The CDCR is always hiring, it seems, and the ad I stumbled upon was for Youth Correctional Counselors.

I quickly disabused myself of the notion that I could be a Youth Correctional Counselor. True, I did spend a summer sitting upon bad pre-teen boys in the middle of the woods of New Hampshire, and those bad pre-teen boys were approximately my size or slightly larger... but honestly? CDCR would pee its collective self laughing at me during the physical strength and endurance tests.

But I could not resist reading all the way through the bulletin, just for giggles. And lo, there on the bottom of the third page, I was rewarded:

The POPE includes two written tests and an interview with a psychologist to determine that the candidate is free of any emotional or mental limitations, which could restrict him/her from safely performing the essential functions of the position. The POPE is taken in two sessions: the written tests are taken first and then the interview is scheduled at a later date. An approved POPE is valid for one year and must be current at the time of appointment. Candidates not cleared by the POPE cannot reapply for this position for 12 months from the date of disqualification.

Yes indeedy.

RATZINGER WANTS
YOU
TO JOIN THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF
CORRECTIONS AND REHABILITATION

The joke's on you

I have this new favorite joke. It was on Prairie Home Companion over the weekend. But it's very difficult to retell.

See, it's a knock-knock joke, and it goes like this:

Knock knock
Who's there?
Control freak. Now, you say "control freak who?"

People seem to get tripped up and say "control freak who?" And that just ruins the joke.

My wife says it's up there in funniness with the feminist light-bulb joke:

Q: How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: That's not funny.

Ah, intellectual humor.

Public transit story #10: I like the way you move

Yesterday we went to Emeryville, home of the big-box retailers. Emeryville boasts (among others) Ikea, Borders, Home Depot, Old Navy, Gap, Office Max, Babies 'R' Us, and Michaels. Emeryville has movie theaters, a California Pizza Kitchen, a P.F. Chang's (don't get me started on how I got food poisoning from my first and only P.F. Chang's meal), a multi-ethnic food court, a Denny's, and of course the Swedish meatball cafeteria at Ikea. Emeryville also has an Amtrak station, some scientific industry, a cafe co-owned by the bass player of Green Day, and a whole lot of condos.

On the way to Emeryville, home of all that is commercial and shiny, we happened upon a lovely gentleman. Although perhaps I should say that as we were standing around at the bus stop, (im)patiently waiting for the #57, this dude blurted, "Hey, are those Doc Martens?"

"Yeah," I said, "the only pair I've ever owned." This is true. I have never been able to afford Docs, and then I saw a pair at Shoe Pavilion for $40 and I just had to have them.

He smiled.

A few minutes later, the guy piped up again: "They're nice."

"Thanks," I said.

The bus came. My wife and I headed to the back of the bus and took two inward-facing seats.

This fellow passed up a few other empty seats in order to sit right across from us. He stared at my shoes. "Those are nice," he said again.

I smiled and looked away.

Then: "I like them, how they move. With the toe part."

I had no idea what he was talking about. My Docs are Mary Janes. The tips move when I move my toes. They're not, like, motorized or anything. Or independently ambulatory. This was all starting to creep me out, so I pretended I couldn't hear him over the noise of the bus.

Then the dude got this big grin on his face and said, "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about! MM-HM!" I looked down and saw that I had been wiggling my toes out of sheer nervousness.

The next stop, thankfully, was ours.

I suppose it could have been worse. Had he also been a frotteur, I would have had to fend off ambush footsies.

Meat salads

Here we are in New Orleans, this year's home of the American Psychological Association's annual convention. The city is hot and steamy, and sadly it's still fairly disheveled. But the convention's fun, and the air conditioning is divine, and hey, it's more or less a vacation.

New Orleans cuisine, however, leaves something to be desired. I realize I am biased, as I'm (a) vegetarian and (b) a picky eater in general. But dude. Everything here has meat, sometimes two or three kinds in a single dish. The red beans and rice has meat. The jambalaya has meat. The gumbo has meat. Even the salads have meat.

I am not making this up. At the convention center they are selling lovely-looking, pre-made green salads topped with meat. And not scoops of tuna salad, either. I'm talking strips of chicken, slices of beef, and some pretty sizable shrimp on otherwise perfectly appetizing beds of lettuce, tomato, and cucumber.

Yes, I know, this is the South, where the bigger and meatier, the better. But meat salads?

It's a shame I can't survive on coffee and beignets alone.

Hot stuff

I have never really thought of myself as a particularly attractive person. Perhaps this is some self-esteem thing. Or perhaps it's from years of being teased for being short and dorky-looking. I don't recall ever thinking that I was ugly, just not pretty. For a long time I thought I was overweight, but I wasn't. Then, for a few years, I was indeed a bit larger than I should have been because my metabolism had been pharmaceutically hijacked. My wife and I disagree as to whether I was "huge" (my opinion) or "curvy" (hers); but at least we agree that I was larger and sleepier than usual.

So now, for the first time in my life, I am... skinny? thin? slender? svelte? (Can short people be svelte?) And sometimes I catch myself thinking, hey, I am kinda cute.

But then some testosteriffic dude in a beat-up red pickup truck wolf-whistles at me and it ruins my moment.

These men do not seem to grasp the concept of keeping their eyes on the road. They actually hang their heads out the window and rubberneck (in my conservative pants and shirt) as they drive, very very slowly, past me. This is so not cool. I am surprised it's not caused an accident yet.

I wish people would pay this much attention to me when I'm trying to cross the street. Crosswalks make me completely invisible.

My wife's theory is that guys notice me because of my hair, which is almost to my tailbone and in severe need of a trim. I think this might cover about 50% of these incidents: People coming toward me can't see my hair until they've passed me, and I get hooted at from all directions.

Why does it bother me, all this hooting? you might ask. If I feel pretty, oh so pretty, then why don't I care for cross-gender interrater reliability? I will admit that, on account of some early experiences, I can get really scared by men who think with their men-parts. I will admit that I actually kinda liked it when I got a "heeeey..." from two women in a Subaru. But I see a big difference between a genuine "you look nice today" and a catcall. Especially when the offending party is operating a car or other dangerous machinery.

But what frightens me the most is that I am routinely mistaken for jailbait, and these dudes all look at least 25 or 30. When I put aside my feminist indignations, I am just plain grossed out. These guys probably think they're ogling a 16-year-old.

So, gentlemen. Keep your eyes on the road. That means off my ass.

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.

On choosing sides

In a nutshell: I don't care who's killing whom over what. People should not be killing each other.

Recent events in the Middle East have nudged my normally cheerful wife into a funk. Sometimes she's cranky, too, but she attributes this to my asking her how she's doing before the coffee is even made. I should know better, I suppose. But anyway, even before this latest game of "let's bomb the crap out of each other!" she seemed a lot more supportive of the Palestinians than of the Israelis.

Now, my wife is quite Christian and I'm (at least culturally) Jewish. So, as you might imagine, we have a lot of interesting discussions even when people aren't bombing the crap out of each other. As a (cultural) Jew I feel a great deal of pressure to side with Israel, no matter who the other party happens to be. Do I think Israel ought to remain a country? Sure. Do I think Israel is always right? No. Some might say this makes me a bad Jew. I say it's just awfully arbitrary to decide it's okay for Group A to attack Group B, but not for B to attack A.

I have heard pro-Israel folks describe Palestinians as terrorists, and I have heard pro-Palestinian folks describe Israelis as state-sponsored terrorists. Okay. If you are going to go out and bomb some civilians or their infrastructure just to say "Hey, what's up? We don't like you and hope you all die. Have a nice day!" then what does it matter who sponsors the weapons? It's still bombing the crap out of people. And bombing the crap out of people is not cool.

When I was in the third grade, the district was in the process of moving all the elementary students from the old historic Chancellor Street schoolhouse to the newly renovated (read: bigger, more accessible, uglier) Goodnoe Elementary. That year there were six third-grade classes--four at Goodnoe, and two at Chancellor Street--and we were assigned based on where we lived, rather than the usual luck of the draw. School-age territoriality being what it is, Mrs. Hintenlang's class occupied one half of the Chancellor Street cafeteria, and Mrs. Parent's class took the other. We knew food fights were strictly prohibited, so we tried to intimidate our peers by proclaiming in our outdoor voices, "We're gonna bomb Mrs. Parent's class back to the Stone Age!" None of us really knew what this meant, bombing back to the Stone Age, but it sounded fairly ominous... and besides, we knew that Mrs. Hintenlang's class was inherently superior to Mrs. Parent's class anyway.

Mrs. Hintenlang's classroom and Mrs. Parent's classroom were actually a single huge classroom with an accordion divider down the middle. Mrs. Hintenlang's side was slightly bigger, so we hosted the grade-wide activities, like the ghost stories at Halloween. This one kid in our class, who eventually got sent to military school, used that event to show off his machismo. He positioned himself out of sight of the teachers and passed his finger back and forth through a candle flame, grinning like a madman. We all knew he was completely bonkers and that it was only a matter of time before he was expelled to military school. But he got special dispensation because he was One of Us. If Mrs. Parent's class had a problem with him, any of the rest of us, or our turf, we would just bomb them back to the Stone Age, and don't say we didn't warn you.

All the bombing-the-crap-out-of-people that's going on now in the Middle East reminds me of the (completely arbitrary) Hintenlang-Parent rivalry. Only this time, people are being bombed back to the Stone Age. On both sides. And that, as previously stated, is not cool.

I don't choose sides because I don't think either is less reprehensible than the other. My grandmother doesn't seem to want to choose sides, either, and this makes me feel good because she's been around a lot longer than I have. My grandmother says that people need to realize that they don't get to decide who gets the land and who doesn't, who lives and who dies, who's right and who's wrong. All of this, she says, is up to G-d. And if people succeed in destroying everything, then maybe G-d will just find another planet, plunk down another Adam and Eve, and hope the outcome is better.

In the meantime, though, this madness has got to stop.

Public transit story #9: Ditmus

Yesterday my wife and I helped my best friend move from three miles away from us to almost forty miles away from us. I'm quite sad that she moved, but at least her commute will be a whole lot less hellish.

There's really no good way to get theah from heah except by car, but of course I had injured myself rather stupidly at a Habitat for Humanity project the day before and wasn't entirely capable of operating the stickshift; and my wife was at work that morning, which meant she was halfway there already. Thus, she was not about to come home, get me and the car, and turn around and drive back. So we bumbled our way through friends' cars and transit, and it was all well and good in the end.

Except that just before the end, we encountered this guy on the BART.

This guy settled himself noisily in the seat behind us and placed his elbow perilously close to our heads.

Here's the thing about BART culture--it's totally cool to sit down next to someone you don't know, but it's totally uncool to invade a stranger's personal space, even if it's just the strap of your briefcase against his or her leg. This guy's elbow was not yet touching us, so he was not in violation of noli me tangere, but personal safety trumps BART culture anyway, and everyone knows it.

So my wife turned around and said, "Excuse me, sir, but would you mind moving your elbow? We don't want to get hit in the head."

The guy (who, by the way, was an older white dude with a smattering of tattoos on his wrinkly arms) said, "Well, how about I put it here then?" and moved his elbow back a fraction of an inch.

We looked at him pointedly.

"Our heads are right here," I said, "so would you please move your elbow?"

He moved his elbow away, but he put his head in its place and started muttering things like "you don't like my elbow here? Well, I don't like your asses in that seat! Move your asses! I don't like them there! They're in my way!"

We ignored him.

Unsatisfied with our complete lack of response, he got up and moved to the seat facing us. All the while he muttered away--sometimes saying vaguely menacing things about our apparently inconvenient asses, other times saying largely incoherent things about girls reading books.

We continued to ignore him, but every so often we looked at him out of the corners of our eyes. Just in case.

He started rummaging around in his bookbag. He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper after a while, then a pen, and scribbled something on the paper. He offered it to my wife. She ignored him. "Read this!" he said. "Look!" and he tossed the paper onto her book. She read it.

"Is this your name?" she said. No response. "This is yours," she said, with more sweetness than I could have mustered, and handed it back.

This apparently was not the response he was expecting. He grew visibly pissed, crumpled up the paper, and tossed it onto the seat next to him. More muttering.

When he got off the train several minutes later, he said to us, "I'm sorry I was rude to you girls."

"That's okay," said my wife, ever the minister. "Have a nice evening."

Later, while we were waiting for the bus, she said, "Honey, do you know what 'ditmus' means?"

"Huh?"

"'Ditmus'? D-I-T-M-U-S?"

"What's 'ditmus'?"

"I don't know! That's why I'm asking you. It's what the guy wrote on that piece of paper."

"I have no idea. But there was something not cognitively right about that man, and I was in this dilemma about whether ignoring him would extinguish his behavior or escalate it."

"Eh, I don't think he was dangerous. But I kept an eye on him just the same."

"High, psychotic, or both--that's for sure. Hey! The bus is here!"

I had some down time at work today, so I decided to Google-define "ditmus." Want a laugh? Follow the link for the suggested spelling.

Merry Ditmus, everyone!

Mr. Evolution

Confession: Somehow I managed to spend four years in the Cleveland area without once going to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.

I went, just once, to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I saw several concerts by the Cleveland Orchestra. I walked through Little Italy all the time. I even shopped once or twice in Tower City. I never went to an Indians, Browns, or Cavs game, but hey, I don't like professional sports, and I got all the Lebron I needed from the local TV news.

But I didn't get to see the zoo until I was back for graduation in May. Did you know that the Cleveland Zoo has the largest collection of primates in North America? I didn't, either. Let me tell you, their monkeys are amazing, man.

We observed the Colobus monkeys having a little lunch break. Lunch that day was, quite literally, ants on a log--or, rather, bugs in sticks. The monkeys leveraged their sticks against the rocks to break them open, then picked out the bugs with their fingers. By and large, it was every monkey for himself/herself; but a few of them had an impromptu (dis)assembly line going. Pretty amazing.

Equally amazing was this one guy watching the Colobus monkeys along with us. My father overheard him ask,

"After seeing this, how can anyone possibly still believe in evolution?"

Ah, Ohio. Where humanlike behavior among non-human primates is evidence against evolution, where "importuning" was never illegal for straight folk, and where the Cuyahoga River isn't actually burning anymore, honest! Long may it reign--far, far away from me.

Ecce homos!

I marched in the San Francisco Pride Parade today. Well, to be precise, I participated in the San Francisco Pride Parade today, but my contingent had a big yellow school bus as its float, and I rode in the bus. And despite years and years of instruction about not sticking body parts out the bus windows, I happily exercised my adult right to stick my head and arms out the window so as to smile cutely and wave at folks on the sidewalk.

I must have been smiling and waving awfully cutely, because there were all kinds of official video and still cameras pointed right at me as I was hanging out the window. There was one video guy who was not very subtle about this. He trained his big ol' camera at me and walked sideways for a bit, matching his pace exactly to the bus. But after about a minute and a half, I got very uncomfortable with this arrangement; and so I pretended to get distracted by something inside the bus. He lost interest in my cuteness immediately.

This year marked my first San Francisco Pride experience, and my second Pride ever. My first Pride was in Cleveland in 2004. Yes, they do have Pride in Cleveland, just on a smaller scale than San Francisco and with far more protesters. I remember there being a whole throng of protesters around E. 9th, just before the end of the parade. Said throng brandished a variety of decidedly un-Christian signs, along the lines of "Jesus hates you... and your little dog too!" I didn't see a single protester along the parade route here in San Francisco. I did, however, see tons of happy heterosexual couples encouraging their toddlers to wave (or outright flapping their little arms for them) at the leather daddies, topless women, and drag divas.

After the parade, my wife, my friend, and I headed toward the Castro, in hot pursuit of food. A slightly disheveled man observed my wife and me holding hands and said, "If this is the future, I don't want to see it!"

My first impulse was to shoot back, "I hope you die young, then!" But I was with my fine church-going wife (who'd just finished marching with her fine church), and I was embarrassed to say something so mean in front of her.

By the time I'd thought of something better--"Go crawl back under your rock until Pride's over!"--he had taken his slight disheveledness somewhere else.

But dude. Not only were we holding hands in the gayest city on Earth; not only were we were holding hands in the gayest section of the gayest city on Earth; but we were holding hands in the gayest section of the gayest city on Earth during the gayest weekend of the year. And he was surprised--nay, horrified--to see two chicks holding hands during his walk? Serves him right!

P.S. My wife had also wanted to express her best wishes for his early demise; but she didn't want to say something so mean in front of me. Great minds self-inhibit alike.

Wordsmithing (or, A semi-serious entry)

I like words.

I like to do silly things with words. One of the first inside jokes my wife and I developed was a strategic mispronunciation of "gnocchi," such that the "g" was no longer silent and the whole thing rhymed with "rocky." Thus we could rap on a door and giggle, "gnocchi-gnocchi!" and it was all very cute and fun.

For a while we signed letters to each other using words that almost rhyme with "love," such as "mauve," "larva," "knave," and "locomotive." This was all very fun and cute, until we ran out of words that almost rhyme with "love." So we moved on to words that almost rhyme with words that almost rhyme with "love," and then it just got plain silly.

I used to be a star on vocabulary tests in high school. I can still spell all the words I learned, but in the decade or so since the era of vocabulary quizzes, I've forgotten what many of them mean. Every so often I will come across one, like "raconteur" or "impecunious" or "refulgent," and I'll have a vague idea of what it means but have to sneak off to the dictionary for a consult anyway.

Yes, indeedy, words are wonderful.

It pains me to realize that there are certain words which are in themselves totally wonderful but have acquired totally un-wonderful connotations. I'm talking about words like "traditional," "family," "values," and "morals." I have grown to despise these words, for they have begun to invoke in me a panic reaction.

Some awful, hideous person out there is probably tittering with delight because these words have begun to strike fear into my heart.

But that awful, hideous person hasn't quite accomplished his/her aim. Oh, verily, the T-word, the V-word, the M-word, and the F-word strike fear into my heart, but not because I see any inherent conflict between any of them and my fabulously gay, fabulously committed life. No, I panic because my first thought upon reading these words is oh, shit, who hates us now?

And here's the thing. Most of the time these words occur in contexts that have nothing to do with sexuality. I am addicted to counted cross-stitch, a traditional yet decidedly unsexy pastime. Safeway often has the best values on basic food items, but sometimes I want to spend a little more for organic products elsewhere. You can't talk about Aesop's fables without mentioning morals. And the next person who tries to insist that a family can only consist of an opposite-sex couple and their descendents really ought to brush up on biological nomenclature.

So here it is, Pride Month and the eve of San Francisco Pride Weekend (I ask you, isn't every weekend Pride Weekend in San Francisco?), and my excitement is tempered by the fact that completely innocuous, positive little words have somehow become weapons of mass destruction.

By the way, and this is pretty disgusting, "Karl Rove" almost rhymes with "love."

Public transit story #8: No keyboard detected. Press F1 to continue.

On Wednesday I pulled an 11-hour day at work.

Well, to be precise, I pulled a 12-hour day at work, but I took an hour and a half for dinner between my actual work day (which ended at 5:00) and my stupid late meeting at another agency (which started at 6:30). Since I didn't take a lunch break, I decided that half an hour of my dinner break ought to be on the clock.

Most of us at the late meeting had to be back at the same location twelve hours later for another meeting. That totally sucked, and not just because the late meeting was two and a half hours long and the morning meeting was three hours long and none of us was very happy about any of these arrangements. We should've had a slumber party. Giggling into the night might just have made us slightly more productive the next day.

But alas, no slumber party for us.

Thankfully, these monthly three-hour meetings come with starch, fruit, and caffeine. I was able to get up a little later than usual, roll into some clothes, roll out the door, and roll onto the train without having to make coffee or breakfast, and still have both coffee and food before having to say vaguely intelligible things.

So there I was, having rolled onto the train that was rolling toward the Caldecott Tunnel, when I heard the conductor come on the PA system.

"Um, folks, we're having some problems with the PA system in the first car. Those passengers in the first car might want to move into another car in order to hear the PA system."

Huh? Did he just say what I thought he said, or was I asleep and/or hearing things?

Said the conductor, "Again, those passengers in the first car might want to move to another car in order to--"

SCREEEEEEEEEEECH RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
SCREEEEEEEEEEECH RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
SCREEEEEEEEEEECH RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
SCREEEEEEEEEEECH RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

We had just entered the Caldecott Tunnel. The noise level in BART's tunnels is such that people who turn up their iPods to drown out the sounds of their commutes are at risk for hearing loss. And yet the conductor yammered all the way through the tunnel and then some about how people in the first car might have trouble hearing the malfunctioning PA system.

Suddenly I felt a lot better about showing up at my meeting sticky-eyed and stupid.

Dissidence

I've been Mick Jaggered, been silver daggered
Andy Warhol, won't you please come home?
I've been mother, father, aunt, and uncled
Been Roy Halleyed and Art Garfunkeled
I just discovered somebody's tapped my phone
Simon and Garfunkel, "A Simple Desultory Philippic"

My mother was once accused of being a Communist. By her high school principal. Because she didn't like the topic she had to use for her valedictory address (what the school had done for the class of 1968) and so she shook it up a little (what the class of 1968 had done for the school). The principal was pissed. As the story is told, there was a threat of her diploma being yanked.

When I was in high school, I once said to my mother that I was really sad that I hadn't been around in the 1950s or 1960s.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because it was such a cool time! The music was awesome! I would've been a hippie, maybe, but without all the drugs." This latter part was actually true. Among other things that distinguished me from most of my peers, I had no interest whatsoever in drugs.

My mother got an odd look on her face. "It was a really scary time," she said. "We had bomb drills in elementary school. Duck and cover!"

"We had a few bomb drills in elementary school," I reminded her. "Also tornado drills. And this isn't tornado country." This was also true. Plus, my mother grew up in Indiana, and although she often talked about bomb drills, she'd never mentioned a single tornado drill. So there!

I held onto this idea that the Boomers had it best. Their generation even had a name. Me? I was born in 1980, but by my count I'm not an 80s child because I turned one before Reagan took office. I went to school with Generation X kids and Generation Y kids, but no one seemed to know whether the class of 1997 was Gen X or Gen Y. Plus, most of my school chums were born in 1979, making me a 70s child by proxy.

For a long time I was stuck on this idea that, for any particular era, popular music is an excellent indicator of quality of life. Perhaps this is a result of having come of music-market age just as New Kids on the Block burst onto the scene. (I hated the New Kids on the Block. And yet I can still sing along when they come on the radio. Go figure.) I didn't think much about things like the Cold War or McCarthyism or Vietnam.

And now I'm scared out of my pants by the way that history repeats itself.

At the moment I am greatly unnerved by warrantless wiretapping and telephone data-mining. I doubt anyone's actually tapped my phone, as the only international call I've made in the past 5 years was to Toronto, and I think Canada's probably more afraid of the US than the US is of Canada. But data-mining?

Let me tell you why this scares me.

I would estimate that about 80% of my outgoing calls go either to my wife or to my mother.

My wife's gay.

My mother's apparently a Communist.

Primary sources

I was in Galveston this past weekend for a wedding.

Oh yeah, and the weekend before that, I was in the Land of Cleve for graduation. I left Berkeley as Ms. Gerbil and returned as Dr. Gerbil. A few years ago I thought I might spring for a vanity license plate once I received my Ph.D. I thought I'd apply for one that said GRBLPHD. But then I realized that very few people would be able to parse that one, and vanity plates aren't supposed to be esoteric, you know? You're supposed to be able to figure them out almost immediately, as every millisecond you spend decoding a vanity plate is a millisecond you're not spending paying attention to the road.

Speaking of paying attention to the road, while I was in the Land of Cleve, I was walking up this long hill when these two women in a Subaru Outback passed me on their way down. The one in the passenger seat hung her head out the window and said, in an unmistakeable tone, "Hey there." That pretty much made my day. Usually I get this sort of thing from guys in penis cars sports cars or pick-up trucks. But I got hit on by two chicks in a big gay Subaru with Ohio plates!

Anyway, when I discarded the idea of GRBLPHD, I came up with DRGRBIL instead. Easier to parse, definitely. But also a little, well, unsavory as a vanity plate.

So no vanity plate for me just yet.

The Land of Cleve gave me a rhinovirus as a parting gift, and of course I got bronchitis after the cold. So in addition to a strict inhaler regimen, my doctor also prescribed cough medicine with codeine. I am no stranger to this stuff; I got codeine every time I got bronchitis from the time I was a toddler to when I was finally diagnosed with asthma at 13. It still tastes like ass and makes me stupid and clumsy, but at least I can sleep. So could the two pals with whom I shared a hotel room in Galveston.

Alas, on its final descent into Galveston, my plane had some pressure problems. My head did not explode, as I'd feared; but my precious bottle of controlled substance did. About a third of it soaked through my toiletry kit and sopped around in my bookbag. The novels I brought became a sticky mess. (The wedding was sticky, too, but this was due entirely to the humidity.)

On the way home, I stopped by a cool used bookshop to get some new(ish) reading material. I picked up this novel by Lisa Alther, Other Women. It's a fun (and fast) read about a lesbian nurse with a certain Cluster B personality disorder and her heterosexual therapist, a woman with her own traumatic past. I'm impressed with the therapist-client dialogue, but not so impressed with the vast number of sentences that go "As she [insert mundane task here], she recalled how difficult it was to [insert description of vaguely traumatic life event here]."

I'm also less than impressed with the obligatory reviewer quote on the cover:

"AN ABSORBING
AND TOUCHING NOVEL...
SHARP, FUNNY, AND
DYNAMIC."
-PEOPLE

Um, which people are these?

(Yes, yes, I know, the magazine. But cut me a break. My snark's not getting enough oxygen these days.)

Persuasion

There we were, peacefully watching the season finale of SVU, when we were bombarded yet again with a pharmaceutical commercial.

Pharmaceutical commercials airing during SVU tend to be for one of the following types of medications:

1. Anti-heartburn (or other digestive ailments);
2. Sleep aids;
3. Genital herpes treatments; or
4. Viagra, Cialis, or Levitra.

I find this all rather amusing. I mean, SVU can be creepy, but it's never upset my stomach, kept me up at night, given me STDs, or prevented me from getting it up. Never mind the fact that I don't have an "it" to get up. Although I can see how post-SVU sex could be a little, um, difficult.

So there was this Viagra commercial about midway through, with this woman seducing her man away from a baseball game.

I guess Viagra makes you less interested in someone else's stick and balls and more interested in your own.

But what would have made this commercial so much better is if it went like this:

MAN
Hey, honey, will you get me a beer?

WOMAN
Get it yourself.

MAN
But it's the bottom of the ninth and the bases are loaded! Please?

WOMAN
Okay, whatever.

CUT TO kitchen, where woman is pouring non-alcoholic beer into a glass. She drops a small tablet into the beer and stirs it with a spoon. She walks back to the living room.

WOMAN
Here's your beer, sweetheart.

MAN
[gulping beer] Thanks!

WOMAN
[in a sultry voice] Sure thing.

MAN
[looks down at pants] Baby, this game can wait.

In the actual commercial, the voiceover goes, "They say in life there's room for one great passion... unless you're really clever."

I'm so glad I don't need to deal with erectile dysfunction, much less be clever about it. Outside of blogging, that is.

Bad slogan! Bad, bad slogan!

First of all, I should state that I absolutely love Target. Because I do.

But here's the thing about Target: Their current slogan ("Expect more, pay less") sucks.

It is, however, sometimes exactly true.

Often I go into Target to find a specific item. Often they have this item. But sometimes they do not. I indeed expect more and pay less, but it's because I expected to buy something they didn't have.

Other times I go into Target to find a specific item, and they have it for quite a nice price, but it's not of the quality I wanted. Like my favorite pair of khaki pants. In general, I have a hard time buying pants because I (a) have no butt, (b) have a short waist, and (c) have longer legs than the average short person. But I found this pair of khaki pants in an Ohio Target about a year and a half ago that were absolutely perfect in terms of fit and price. I love these pants. No, let me rephrase that. I loved these pants... until the legs shrank after a number of washings, and way too much of my (cute) socks started to hang out. I expected more out of these pants, but at least I paid less.

Sometimes I expect more parking, and I end up paying less because I'm frustrated and want to leave as soon as possible.

Or I expect more checkout lanes to be open, and I pay less because I put stuff back on the shelves so that I meet the criteria for the express lanes. (I have large problems going to the grocery store alone because I get so overstimulated that I have the urge to leave my cart in the middle of the store and run away. So I have to make myself wait in line, and by the time I get out, my cognitive functions are on a par with someone with mild dementia. I am totally not making this up. Ask my wife. She has to do most of the grocery shopping.)

Oh well. At least it's not Wal-Mart, where I expect less and pay nothing. Political issues aside, I will not patronize an establishment that fries my brain more than the grocery store does.

Thanatos

I watched The Sixth Sense for the fifth or sixth time yesterday. I love this movie. I don't like spooky movies as a general rule, but this one rocks my world. And oh, the Phuludulfian accents! Music to my ears. I have no desire to put down my roots where I was born, but the accents are like home, yo. I swear, what little accent I have has gotten stronger since I moved to California.

So I'm watching this glorious movie, letting the accents (or damn good imitations thereof) wash over me like the wudder of the Dullaware, and I realize that there's something very off about the very beginning of this movie.

See, when Bruce Willis gets shot in the beginning, it's cold enough that he and Olivia Williams have the fireplace going. Then we fade to the THE NEXT FALL, and the leaves look quite perfect for early October. It's usually too warm by April for a fire back East, so at least six months must have passed since the dropping of Donnie Wahlberg's trou.

And Bruce Willis is thinking he's got an appointment with Haley Joel Osment that very day.

I mean, I know I should suspend disbelief. It's M. Night Shyamalan, you know? I can suspend disbelief where M. Night Shyamalan is concerned. M. Night Shyamalan decided that my little hometown needed diagonal parking spots with parking meters for the filming of Signs, which was pretty ridiculous given the actual width of State Street. But the Book and Record Exchange got a complete facelift out of the deal, Mom's Bake-at-Home Pizza (which doesn't serve or bake, only assembles) got a table and a placque that says "Mel Gibson Sat Here and Pretended to Eat" or some such, and the Advance of Bucks County got to publish photos and tidbits about Mel and company for weeks. And this was all great and fun and put Newtown on the map for something other than the Law School Admission Council, whose mail once came to my mom's office by mistake and they all but scanned her retinas when she tried to redeliver it herself.

So anyway, Bruce Willis tells Haley Joel Osment that they were supposed to have had a session that day. Haley Joel Osment does not seem bothered by his apparent no-show. And I started thinking, you know, if Bruce Willis really were Phuludulfia's son, this eminent child psychologist at this famous clinic, the clinic must have a receptionist. And since Bruce Willis couldn't exactly call in dead himself, the receptionist would have canceled all of his appointments.

But even if he didn't have a receptionist, at least six months have passed since he became dead and didn't know it. Psychologists who do weekly therapy aren't known for scheduling intakes six months (or more) in advance. Plus, Bruce Willis appears to have written some notes already, in September. (I love the pause button.) But he and Haley Joel Osment don't actually meet for the first time until this scene.

So the question is: Who referred this kid to a very dead psychologist, and provided enough information in the referral that said very dead psychologist could formulate an initial diagnostic workup?

I can only suspend disbelief for so long. There's got to be something in HIPAA (which came out four years later, but whatever) about your personal health information seeing dead people.

This product may be hazardous to global health

Been around the world and found
that only stupid people were breeding
Harvey Danger, "Flagpole Sitta"

I've always enjoyed looking at the items in the Impulse Purchase department of the grocery store. All the candy, magazines, horoscope scrolls, sodas, and other things you can't possibly do without, all laid out nicely in the checkout aisles... I confess I've bought a handful of things from the Impulse Purchase department--a box of Tic-Tacs, that issue of Redbook a few months back with Mariska Hargitay on the cover--but I was taught from a very young age that We Buy What We've Come In For, And If We Buy Anything Else, It Can't Come From The Display At The Register; and I'm quite good at upholding that one.

Today I went into Safeway to get an Odwalla soy shake and a thing of yogurt. (Yogurt doesn't come in containers, by the way. It comes in things.) What I really wanted was a Fresh Samantha soy shake, which I haven't had since about 2002. Odwalla just isn't the same. But now I know why I haven't seen Fresh Samanthas in years--Odwalla bought them out and then discontinued them. grrrrrr.

Well, I got my inferior Odwalla soy shake and my thing of yogurt, and I proceeded to the checkout. And what did I feast my eyes upon while in line, but a miniature version of this?


Well, at the very least, this was a blog entry waiting to happen.

Public transit story #7: Too sexy

I left work fairly early today, on account of a mid-afternoon dentist appointment. I'm not too fond of dental appointments--why has everything that's gone awry in my mouth been the direct result of previous work?--but at least the dentist is conveniently right by the train station on this end.

On the train was this young guy, probably in his early 20s or so. He was leaning up against the wall of the car, and he seemed to think he was having a conversation with some people across the aisle. The people across the aisle were not of the same opinion, for they were talking amongst themselves and not even looking at this guy.

"Don't you think I'm the sexiest man around?" he kept saying. "I am the sexiest man on the train. Don't you think I'm the sexiest man ever?"

The people across the aisle were not impressed.

After a few minutes he seemed to get frustrated by the lack of attention coming his way.

"I AM LEGENDARY!" he proclaimed. "I am so legendary! I am the sexiest man ever! I am legendary-sexy, sexy-legendary, the sexiest legendary man alive!"

I'm glad I was only on the train with this dude for one stop. This was all pretty funny at first, but those four minutes between stops were not so sexy.

But legendary? Absolutely.

Warning

I swear, if one more person asks me at a bus stop whether I go to Berkeley High, I am going to tell him or her kindly to fuck off.

For the record, classes of 1997, 2001, and 2006, yo.

Pix of my Peeps

I like taking pictures of weird things. Sometimes I stage weird things so that I can take pictures of them. But most of the time I don't need to stage weirdness. Weirdness abounds, yo.

I also like Peeps. When I was in high school, my AP English teacher would give us candy if we got perfect scores on our vocabulary quizzes. She made the quizzes hard, too. But, as you might imagine, I got a lot of candy. One day she happened to mention that she'd found in her desk some purple Peeps from at least a year ago. "Does anyone want these petrified Peeps?" she asked.

"Ooh! Ooh!" I said. "I want them!"

"Are you sure?" she asked. "Because I'm not responsible if your teeth come out."

"No! I want them!" I said. "I like Peeps!"

These things were fairly foul in their texture (or should I say, in their density). But they were completely unchanged in their taste. G-d forbid there should ever be global nuclear war; but the next phase of evolution would begin with cockroaches fueled by Peeps.

My wife gave me fifteen hot pink Peeps in my Easter basket this year. I've managed to show remarkable restraint. (This from the girl who routinely burns her mouth on Sour Patch Kids because she just doesn't know when to stop.) Last night I had two Peeps for dessert. I was about to put the first one in my mouth when I realized that it was a horrible mutant. The front of its head was blank; its eyes were in the back of its head. The brown detailing goo squirter had missed! It was creepy as hell!

So I thought maybe I ought to take a picture of its freakishness. I realized I'd have to go upstairs, get the camera, turn it on, put the Peep under some good lighting, take several shots, plug the camera into the computer, and make sure I'd gotten at least one good picture before eating the Peep.

Needless to say, I can't show you what this Peep looked like.

Public transit story #6: Mystery shoppers

What with skyrocketing gas prices, I decided this evening to suck it up and buy a monthly bus pass in addition to my high-value train ticket. I was hesitant to do this because monthly bus passes cost $70, and I rarely drive anyway because people in these parts are such idiots behind the wheel. Plus, I walk to and from the train station on this end.

Well, most of the time I walk to and from the station on this end. Sometimes I have my wife come pick me up in the evening because my job (and all of its walking) make me just so damn tired that another mile and a half might possibly kill me. But then that means the car gets turned on, goes three miles in stop light city, and gets turned off again. Which uses up prodigious quantities of precious, precious gasoline.

Thus, I finally sucked it up and bought me a bus pass tonight.

After my gloriously ecologically-minded purchase, I got on my gloriously non-ecologically-minded bus. Some of the buses have hydrogen fuel cells these days, but not the ones on the line I use most often. The 9 is seriously AC Transit's neglected child. Tonight's bus not only was carpeted with sunflower husks (unheard of on other lines!), but some of the seats in the back were mysteriously wet.

Two of the dry seats in the back were occupied by a pair of young men, at most 19 years old but in all likelihood no more than 17. These two fellows were decked out in gangsta regalia, pants 'round their ankles and bling 'round their necks. Once I took my own dry seat, one of them asked me where the bus turned.

"It turns down Haste," I said, "and then it goes on MLK for a block before turning again on Dwight."

"Where Haste?" the boy said. (In case anyone was wondering, the verb "to be" is still a full member of the English language.)

"It's in about a block and a half," I replied.

"Okay," the boy replied. "You know that fabric store," he continued, naming a fancy local fabric store.

"Yeah," I said.

"Where's it at?"

I told him.

"Where do we get off for it?"

"Right after the bus turns on Haste," I said.

"Is it for?"

"What?"

"Is it for?"

"Is it four o'clock? No, it's not." In fact, it was nearly seven.

"Noooo, is it for?"

His friend could hardly contain himself.

"I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're asking."

"Is... it... FOR. Like, how far we have to walk?"

"Oh, is it far? No, you just get off at the corner and walk a block and a half that way," I replied, pointing.

"You smoke weed?" asked the boy.

"No," I said.

"You never smoked weed?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"Okay," he said.

The bus turned on Haste and the two boys got off. Despite my excellent directions (and pointing), they paced around bewilderedly until long afted the bus had passed.

"Those are two of the most unlikely fabric store customers I've ever seen," I said to the middle-aged guy next to me. He giggled.

So I ask you: Were they going to score some weed in front of the fabric store? Did they want to compensate me for my generous help? Did they want to score some weed from me? Did I look high?

Did they want me to come to their hotboxed quilting bee?

In any case, thus far it's $70 well spent.

Public transit story #5: Career aspirations

On my way home from work on Monday evening, the train was surprisingly empty. Usually it's at least moderately full until I make my transfer, at which point I often have to push my way onto a fairly packed car. I rarely get a seat on that line, but it's okay, as I either get off four minutes or nine minutes later, and although I'm not the picture of physical grace, I haven't fallen into anyone's lap yet.

As the train approached my transfer point, I happened to catch a conversation of some high school girls. I really couldn't avoid catching it, though, because they were awfully loud and the rest of the train was awfully quiet.

One of the girls was going on about how her mother wants her to go to this one college, "which is a good school, and it's in our neighborhood, but it's an all-girls' school."

Her friends offered their sympathies. They encouraged her to talk to her mom and maybe get her to change her mind.

Then she said, apropos of nothing in particular, "I saw Memoirs of a Geisha this weekend. That was a good movie. I totally want to be a geisha."

Silence.

"Um," said one of her friends, "aren't geishas, like, sluts?"

"Well, yeah," said the girl, "but they're, you know, the nice kind of sluts. A geisha is like... like... a high-class ho." She proceeded to go on about the honor of losing one's virginity to specific kinds of customers.

A dear friend of mine has just been accepted to a graduate program at this particular institute of higher learning. She's really into Japanese culture (and wasn't so sure about the accuracy of Memoirs of a Geisha, either the book or the movie). Perhaps she will stumble upon a secret geisha training program, and this teenager will miss out for having obtained her mother's blessing to attend another school, where the boys are but the northern California geisha interns aren't.

My balls

I feel the need to produce a sequel to the one about my ass.

So let me tell you about my balls.

My balls are usually light and fluffy, although occasionally they are a bit on the dense and chewy side.

My balls are subtly spicy, redolent of ginger and curry powder.

My balls are not in themselves salty, but they are bathed in equal parts vegetable bouillon and chicken bouillon.

My balls are best when warm, but not so good when microwaved.

My balls look nicest in sets of three.

My balls are kosher for Passover and all year 'round!

For those who observe, a most happy Passover.

For those who don't, no balls for you!

The dangers of being professionally gay

I went to the dentist today.

While I was waiting for her to come in, I happened to notice a box of Barrier Film next to the chair.

My first thought: "Dude, I bet that stuff would be really effective as a dental dam!"

My second thought: "That's because it is a dental dam."

Have van, will travel ineffectively

Once in a while I will suck it up and drive to work. Normally I just suck it up and leave the house by 7:45am to walk to the train, get on it, get off it, walk some more, and get to work by 9am. But on the days that I suck it up and drive, I can leave the house around 8:15 and have a pretty good chance at getting to work a few minutes before 9.

Driving to work takes less time than going by train, but it's (a) more expensive, with the price of gas these days; and (b) so much more aggravating. The only way to get theah from heah is to go through the Caldecott Tunnel. Which, if one is driving away from San Francisco in the morning and towards San Francisco in the evening, isn't nearly as bad as the other way around. But it still sucks, because within the space of about half a mile, four lanes and an entrance ramp must suddenly become two lanes and no entrance ramp.

No, let me rephrase that. Over the distance of about half a mile, four lanes and an entrance ramp filled with impatient, me-first Bay Area drivers with their cell phones glued to their ears must suddenly figure out how to use their turn signals and merge in a polite fashion and somehow wind up with two lanes of completely intact cars. During commute time, this can take anywhere from 5 to 25 minutes in the direction I head. And, as noted above, this is the less trafficked direction.



On Thursday I drove to work because I couldn't get my butt out of bed on time, my wife and I couldn't get our butts out the door in time to get mine on the train, and I really needed my butt to be in a meeting by 9am. The drive in was actually quite smooth. But on the way home, there was apparently a horrendous accident on the interstate, several miles after my exit, and I traveled maybe 3 miles in 20 minutes. Although things were megatons better once I got off the interstate, I was not a very happy camper. I was rather irritated, and I had to pee.

So I came upon the tunnel and its snarl of cars all trying to be in the same place (i.e., first) at once. My strategy for the tunnel merge is to let anyone in front of me as long as they (a) use their turn signal and (b) haven't already tried to cut someone off. This often pisses off the person behind me, but I think I'm modeling good behavior, you know? Around here, getting ahead by a single car length seems to be cause for orgasm; and there are much better methods, yo.

I'd already let a few cars in front of me when I noticed a beat-up turquoise van three cars in front of me. We were at the point in the merge where the signs no longer read 2 LEFT LANES CLOSED 1/2 MILE AHEAD or 2 LEFT LANES CLOSED 1/4 MILE AHEAD, but rather 2 LEFT LANES CLOSED MERGE RIGHT. Our lane wasn't going anywhere. But the driver of this van was. He zipped over to the far left lane, where there was practically no traffic because the lane was ending in about 500 feet. He zipped along, periodically slamming on his brakes to avoid rear-ending those trying to merge. His passenger evidently thought this was great fun, for he was laughing hysterically and gesticulating wildly with a half-full Dr Pepper bottle (presumably containing Dr Pepper, but one can't be sure).

I let maybe 5 or 6 more people in front of me as the far left lane ended, the turquoise van cut someone off at the last minute, and the second lane began to disappear. When the second lane ended, I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw none other than the turquoise van right behind me. Among the two people initially behind the van and me, we must have let at least 10 people in front of us while the turquoise van was partying it up in the not-so-fast lane. One step forward? At least thirteen steps back.

Schadenfreude or no, I couldn't help but start to feel better about that day's commute. And I think California needs a new class of moving violations:

Driving While Stupid.

Public transit story #4: The magic seat

When my wife and I were in tenth grade, we had this chemistry teacher who was, um, a bit odd. I had him first period; my wife had him second period. He liked to play with the bunsen burners. His favorite one was right next to my seat. One day he wanted to show us how different chemicals made different colored flames. So he lit some newspaper on fire. Next to my head. Little bits of burning newspaper flew about the room. I wrote him a note that said I did not appreciate him burning things next to my head and would he please allow me to go to the other side of the room when he wanted to light something on fire. He agreed, but he mocked me severely every time.

This man told racist jokes, made sexist remarks, and was generally an ass for 50 minutes at a stretch. He was also the coach of the girls' tennis team. The girls' tennis team was very good. His chemistry lessons--not so much.

He taught us about electron valences using what he called the Bus Seat Rule. The Bus Seat Rule goes like this: When most people get on a bus alone, they head for a pair of empty seats. Most people will not sit next to someone they don't know unless there is no remaining pair of empty seats. In that case, they will stay as far away from their seatmates as possible. And when an empty pair opens up, most people will abandon their seatmates to go sit alone. He demonstrated this by telling my lab partner to get out of her seat. She did. He sat down next to me and began invading my personal space. I scooted my chair away.

This, he said, is what electrons do.

Either I was an easy target, or he just didn't like me.

Today I was riding the bus. I got on at the beginning of the line. Here is an approximate diagram of the bus at the start of its journey:



Note how many empty seats there are. Note also that I was not sitting in a seat that must be yielded to seniors or people with disabilities. I make a point not to sit in those seats unless all the rest are occupied. I'd sooner sit next to a person I don't know than sit in one of those seats. I don't like people with mobility issues having to wait for me to vacate the seats reserved for them.

When the bus made its first stop, about eight people got on. The first of these was an old woman with a paper grocery bag. I was peacefully reading my book (Donald Barthelme's Forty Stories, a favorite of mine from, well, tenth grade) and all of a sudden I hear "MOVE IT! MOVE! EXCUSE ME! EXCUSE ME!" from this old woman with her paper grocery bag.

I wasn't going to argue with this woman about how I was there first. Nor about how federal law says nothing about who gets dibs on this seat. Nor about how this particular seat actually had less legroom than most of the other forward-facing seats. Nor about how the rows across from and behind the seat were both open. Nor about how the bus was practically empty. I'd already had a traumatic enough day. If this seat was really that important to her, then by G-d, she should have it.

I moved across the aisle. She maneuvered herself into the seat, put her grocery bag on her lap, and sat there scowling at least until I got off the bus.

She would've made one hell of an electron.

No fooling

Saturday was, of course, April Fool's Day. But none of the following three things that happened to me that day was a joke.

One.
The doorbell rang around 10 in the morning. I opened the door, and there were two middle-aged Latina women on the stoop. "¡Buenos dias!" one of them said. "Do you speak Spanish?"

"No," I said, "but my wife does."

"Oh," the woman said, "we are looking for people who speak Spanish."

"We are both English speakers," I said, "but my wife does know Spanish. You can talk to her if you want."

"No, that's okay," the woman said. "Have a nice day!" The two of them left.

My wife had been peeking at this whole thing from the end of the hallway. "I think they were missionaries," she said. "The one was definitely carrying a Bible."

"She also had a newsletter or pamphlet or something that said 'El Reino' on it," I said. "Does that have something to do with Jesus?"

"It means 'the kingdom'."

"Maybe you should've talked to them," I said.

"But I'm already Christian!" my wife said.

"Well, you could've told them that in Spanish. Whereas all I could've said was, um, 'no quiero el Jesus'."

My wife stuck out her tongue at me. And then we realized we'd just been visited by our first Spanish Jehovah's Witnesses.

Two.
The telephone rang around 2:45 in the afternoon. I answered it, and on the other end was a guy who introduced himself as Jorge. He was calling from Nielsen, the television ratings people. He wished to speak to the lady of the house.

He said all this in Spanish. I am learning Spanish. I'm not especially good at it yet. My approach to foreign languages is to learn some random words and with them, master grammar. I became so good in German so fast because I refused to limit myself to boring statements like "ich komme mit dem Bus in die Schule" (I take the bus to school) and "ich sammle Postkarten in meiner Freizeit" (I collect postcards in my spare time). No, I needed something more, like "ich komme mit der fliegenden Untertasse in die Schule" (I come to school in a flying saucer) and "ich zerlege Leichnamen in meiner Freizeit" (I dissect cadavers in my free time).

So I understood what Jorge was saying, but I knew I'd never be able to formulate a reply unless it involved my cat, grapes, cows, eating, headaches, monkeys, stealing things on a regular basis, or testicles.

"Speaking," the lady of the house said, "but I don't speak Spanish."

Jorge dutifully delivered his spiel in English. "Are you the lady of the house?"

"Yes," I said, "or, well, I'm one of the two."

Jorge asked me what kinds of programs we tend to watch--comedy, children's, news, or drama. I said drama. Then he asked whether anyone in the house was Hispanic, Latino, or other Spanish-speaking.

"No," I said.

"Okay," he said, "thank you very much, have a nice day."

We live in a neighborhood where native English speakers are in the minority. We'd been geographically profiled twice in one day.

Three.
Around 4:30 in the afternoon, we were in the car. That song "Breathe" by Anna Nalick was on the radio. We heard this car honking. It sounded like someone was honking the horn in 3/4 time, with a rest on the downbeat and a honk on 2 and 3. "Breathe" is in 3/4 time, so we thought someone was being cute and having a honk-along. And the honks were off the beat by about the same portion of a second it takes for the horn to beep when you press the button.

But the song changed, and the honking didn't stop. We looked behind us to see who was doing all that honking.

Behind us was a green Rav 4, with a giant banner across its rear windshield. The banner read "JUST MARRIED." The car behind it was doing the honking. I asked my wife to move to the other lane and slow down, so the Rav 4 could pass us and we could join in the honking too. But she was not big on that idea.

In the two miles or so before our house, the honking faded in much the same manner as a two-year-old's temper tantrum does. You know: after the long sob, there are a few isolated squawks just in case you forgot that there is a tantrum going on here. That kind of thing. Eventually the Rav 4 turned right, and that was the end of that.

I swear I did not make any of this up.

Wrong number

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and
over again and expecting different results."
attributed to Albert Einstein

So you know how I ranted about people who just can't accept that they've dialed the wrong number?

Today, around 3 in the afternoon, I happened to look at my cell phone. It showed not one, not two, but three missed calls from a number I didn't recognize. It also showed that I had voicemail. So I called my voicemail. I had one lonely little message. And it was from my wife. And she'd called me from her cell phone.

I did a reverse look-up on this mysterious number. It is either someone's cell phone or someone's unlisted number, and it's registered in Hercules, which isn't all that far from our humble abode.

It seems to me that one of two things happened here:

1) Mystery Caller dialed my cell phone number by mistake. My voicemail picked up. MC figured out that it was the wrong number and hung up. MC dialed my cell phone number by mistake again. My voicemail picked up. MC figured out that it was the wrong number again and hung up. MC decided to try one more time, got my voicemail, and hung up. MC then tracked down the person who gave out this number and bitched him/her out.

2) Mystery Caller dialed my cell phone number by mistake. My voicemail picked up. MC figured out that it was the wrong number and hung up. MC then hit redial (send-send, or whatever). My voicemail picked up. MC figured out that it was the wrong number again and hung up. MC then hit redial (send-send, or whatever) again, got my voicemail, and hung up. MC then called his/her phone company and bitched the representative out about the defective automatic redial on his/her phone.

My money's on #2.

I'm a hazard to myself

I am updating my blog right now because my printer is taking a break from producing three copies of my dissertation.

HOLY CRAP. I AM PRINTING MY DISSERTATION.

Let me tell you about my dissertation. My dissertation was about the classification of deliberate self-injury. But really it was an excuse for me to do a ton of esoteric multivariate statistics. Multivariate statistics are HOT, baby. They are even hotter when very few people (occasionally including me) understand them.

My topic is near and dear to my heart, but it's not one that most people like to discuss over tea and crumpets. This is fine with me. I have no shame in talking about many things. I could go on and on about methods of self-injury, how this type of self-injury is distinct from the fairly bizarre injuries that people with psychosis may inflict upon themselves, and so forth, without batting an eyelash. (This helps me at work, too, because I can talk about everything ranging from specific intimate acts to ablatio penis without batting an eyelash. What is ablatio penis, you ask? Look it up! Then practice defining it out loud until you no longer giggle.) And I know that, in reply, some people will make jokes; because that is how they deal with difficult topics of conversation.

But sometimes I myself am the joke.

My wife and I have a lot of books. When we moved into our current apartment, we found that we had a lot of space to put books, but we had more books than this space could accommodate. So I put many of my textbooks and assessment materials in boxes, for storage in the back of one of our many built-in bookshelves. This particular shelf is about three feet deep, three and a half feet tall, and five and a half feet long. And (this is the important part) the top is a little less than 64 inches above the floor.

The top of my head is also a little less than 64 inches off the floor.

Three days after we moved in, I was attempting to shove one of these godawful heavy boxes of textbooks into the back corner of this shelf. I leaned in to push it agasint the wall, and when I straightened up, there was this incredible pain in the top of my skull. I shouted a couple of four-letter words, then started crying uncontrollably. And the only thing I could think to do was to go to bed.

So that is what I did. I climbed into bed. My wife came along and asked what I was doing in bed. I told her to take me to the ER if I fell asleep. She read me some silly stories. Then I started nodding off. So we called my mom, who is a physical therapist. After a brief conversation (which I began by asking, "Mommy, should I go to the emergency room?"), we set off for the emergency room, where I continued falling asleep while waiting to be seen for my head injury.

The physician assistant who saw me was in his first day on the job. He asked why we'd just moved to California. I told him I was working on my dissertation.

"What's it about?" he said.

"You're going to laugh," I said.

"No, really," he said, "what's it about?"

"Deliberate self-injury," I said.

"Are you your own case study?" he asked, with a big silly grin on his face.

Honestly, I am not now, nor have I ever been, my own case study. I am just a klutz. But let me tell you a representative sample of the purely accidental unpleasantries I have inflicted upon myself, just today, the day I finally printed out my dissertation:

1. Whacked my right hand against a table at work.
2. Scratched an itch on my leg a little too hard.
3. Burned the back of my throat on dinner.
4. Picked up a bag of groceries the wrong way and got a twinge in my back.
5. Slammed my hand into a grocery cart, in the process of slamming the cart into the side of the store exit.
6. Stepped in what I thought was a pile of wet mulch, but was actually an ankle-deep rain puddle with some mulch floating on it.

You know, I'll probably still be a klutz once my dissertation's in.

HOLY CRAP! I AM HANDING IN MY DISSERTATION.

Random hookups

When I was in high school, I had a long-distance boyfriend.

(Yes, I have had boyfriends.)

We met at geek camp. We were together for about a year, during which time we were in the same place (i.e., geek camp) for a grand total of six weeks--three at the beginning, and three toward the end. We wrote each other lots of letters, talked on the phone a few times a week, and chatted online. My pediatrician (of all people) found this all very sweet, because she and her husband met at a geek camp.

Obviously, things did not go the same for me.

My mom thought this was all very sweet as well. But she wanted to know: How could I be going out with this boy when we never actually, you know, went anywhere? Eventually one of us realized that "going out" was exactly the same as "going steady." By that point our conversations about the definition of "going out" became more about teasing than semantics. (Now I hear kids say they are "talking to" someone. It took me a while to figure out that this is the same concept too.)

Then off I went to The Fairest College. I learned pretty quickly that there was this elusive thing called the Hookup, which no one could really define but everyone knew was An Essential Part of the Amherst Experience. Contrary to what my friends elsewhere had heard, "hookup" was not synonymous with "sex." The set of hookups included sex, but it also included many things that were not sex. The only criteria seemed to be that hookups had to be intimate and had to occur in private. "In private," however, could mean "my roommate is a very sound sleeper and besides is quite drunk."

I don't like loose definitions, and I certainly don't like having to explain some ill-defined meme like the Hookup to someone else. So I decided to do something about it:

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of College Disorders

312.34 Intermittent Hook-Up Disorder

A disorder characterized by several discrete episodes of failure to resist hormonal impulses in which the degree of physical intimacy attained is largely proportionate to the amount of alcohol consumed. May only be diagnosed in college students but is not limited to either males or females.

Diagnostic criteria for 312.34 Intermittent Hookup Disorder:

* At least one "hookup" per month, for a period of at least two semesters. "Hookup" is defined as consisting of kissing ("first base," "tonsil hockey") and at least one of the following:
-- groping;
-- oral gratification;
-- intercourse;
* Embarrassment upon seeing one's hookup of the previous night at the dining hall.
* If one partner in the dyad stays overnight, this person must participate in the “Walk of Shame.” The “Walk of Shame” is characterized by a trek across campus in EITHER the same clothing worn the previous night or clothing owned by the other party. Clothing MUST be rumpled. Also necessary for the “Walk of Shame” in diagnosis of 312.34 Intermittent Hookup Disorder is an embarrassed, downcast glance for at least 60% of the trip. Three episodes of the "Walk of Shame" per month UNACCOMPANIED by embarrassment is sufficient for diagnosis of 296.30 Major Hookup Disorder, Recurrent.

296.30 Major Hookup Disorder, Recurrent
See 312.34 Intermittent Hookup Disorder for general description.

Diagnostic criteria for 296.30 Major Hookup Disorder, Recurrent:
* At least one “hookup” per week, for a period of at least two months. See criteria for 312.34 Intermittent Hookup Disorder for criteria for identification of the “hookup.”
* If hookups occur with the same person more than twice a month, NO embarrassment upon seeing the other party in the dining hall. If hookups are “random” (occurring not more than once per semester with the same person), parties MUST be embarrassed in the dining hall.
* Three episodes of the "Walk of Shame" per month UNACCOMPANIED by embarrassment constitute sufficient criteria for diagnosis of 296.30 Major Hookup Disorder, Recurrent. See criteria for 312.34 Intermittent Hook-Up Disorder for description of the “Walk of Shame.” If the first two criteria for 296.30 Major Hookup Disorder, Recurrent, are met, the “Walk of Shame” is required for diagnosis but does not necessarily have to be accompanied by embarrassment.

Then again, maybe this is just all very silly.

Is this the party to whom I am speaking?

I hate cell phones.

Mind you, I have a cell phone. My cell phone is kind of a necessary evil these days. At first I got a cell phone because I was supposed to see clients in the psychology department clinic, and I needed a phone number that wasn't my home number and wasn't either of the numbers I shared with about eight other students. So I got a cell phone.

Even though I ended up not seeing anyone in the department clinic, my phone was still useful. My minutes were free after 9pm and on weekends, and, owing to my long-distance relationship, I tended to make a lot of long-distance calls. My cell phone turned into a cost-saving measure. Then my mom got a cell phone, on the same plan as I had, and so we could talk to each other for free whenever we wanted. It was still a cost-saving measure, I swear.

But here's the thing I hate about cell phones. Cell phones feed right into our collective quest for instant gratification. They promise to make you constantly accessible. But they accomplish this by interrupting whatever it was you were just doing. Call waiting (which I've never had on my regular phone, and which I turned off on my cell phone) lets your phone interrupt you while you're already using it. How arrogant can a little piece of circuitry get?

According to a collection of polls, 15 percent of US respondents have answered their cell phones during sex, 38 percent said it was okay to use a cell phone in the bathroom, and 87 percent said the most frequent forms of bad behavior they observe involve... the cell phone.

There's an interesting corollary of this instant gratification business, which is that people get phenomenally stupid when their gratification is delayed. My cell phone number is made up of 4 different digits. Anecdotal evidence (i.e., my own observations) suggests that the potential for misdialing is inversely related to the number of unique digits in a phone number. Less variety, more misdialing. I, of course, get a lot of wrong numbers. Most of these calls start out like this:

me: Hello?
other person: Hello?
me: Yes, hello?
other person: HelLO?
me: Yes?
other person: helLOOOOO?!?!

And very often they proceed like this:

me: Who are you trying to reach?
other person: helLOOO?!?!
me: I'm sorry, you have the wrong number.

One call went like this:

me: Hello?
guy: Hey, Jeff!
me: I'm sorry, you have the wrong number.
guy: Jeff! How's it going?
me: I'm sorry, I'm not Jeff. You really do have the wrong number.
guy: Is Jeff there, then?
me: No, this is my personal phone, and I don't know Jeff.

And this one is my favorite:

me: Hello?
crazed-sounding woman: Hello?
me: Yes?
CSW: helLOOO?!?!
me: Yes? Hello?
CSW: Is this the pharmacy?
me: No, I'm sorry, you have the wrong number.
CSW: But I called the pharmacy. This is the number for the pharmacy!
me: I'm sorry, you have the wrong number.
CSW: Why isn't this the pharmacy?
me: Because you've called my personal phone.
CSW: What's the number for the pharmacy, then?
me: What pharmacy are you trying to reach?
CSW: THE PHARMACY! I AM TRYING TO CALL THE PHARMACY!
me: I'm sorry, I really can't help you, except that this isn't your pharmacy.
CSW: WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!

I am not making this up. And I don't think she was trying to reach Walgreens, if you know what I mean.

I don't know why it is so hard for people to say "is so-and-so there?" as soon as I pick up the phone. And if one is trying to call Joe's Pharmacy, and the person on the other end doesn't say "Hello, Joe's Pharmacy," the proper thing to do is to ask, "Is this Joe's Pharmacy?"

But at the same time, that "hello" dance cracks me up every time.

Doogie

I am seriously thinking about chopping off all my hair. I've been coveting a cute little pixie cut. Or a cute little dyke cut. Or a cute little pixie dyke cut. I don't know. Something that will make me look more than 15.

This is getting OLD--no pun intended.

On Thursday morning I was supposed to have a meeting with my supervisor, the principal, and the counseling coordinator at the high school where I work. The principal and my supervisor was running late, so the counseling coordinator and I just stood around in the main office to wait for them. My supervisor often runs late, but she was really late this time; and so I decided to give her a ring to find out where she was.

No sooner did I pull out my phone and dial her than one of the secretaries barked, "YOUNG LADY!"

Now, there were several potentially misbehaving young ladies in the office. And I've met this particular secretary before. So I figured she couldn't possibly be talking to me.

"YOUNG LADY!"

Oh, but she was.

Still waiting for my supervisor to pick up, I looked over at the secretary.

"YOUNG LADY! You are on your cell phone!"

"Yes, I am," I replied. I mean, what else could I say?

She glared at me evilly.

"I'm staff," I said simply.

Still the glare.

"She's one of our therapists," said the counseling coordinator.

The glare quickly became a look of panic.

Just then my supervisor picked up. "I'm parking my car," she said. "I'll be right in."

"I'm SO sorry!" said the secretary. "I didn't mean to offend you! I hope I didn't offend you! Did I offend you?"

"I'm used to it," I replied.

"But you--I'm sorry, you look like you're 15!"

"Wanna guess when I graduated from high school?" I said. (Okay, it was kind of cruel.)

"No!" the secretary said. "I mean, no, I don't want to guess, because I'm just going to offend you more."

"I'm so not offended!" I said. "But anyway, I was in the class of 1997."

My supervisor had walked in by this point. "Oh," she said to me, "did she think you're in high school?"

"You know, it's going to be even worse after I get my degree in May," I said. "When I went back to defend my dissertation in the fall, the guy next to me on the plane got all nervous and accused me of being some kind of genius kid when I told him the purpose of my trip. Then I told him I was 25, and he softened up a bit."

But here's the thing. If I chop off my hair, I probably wouldn't be mistaken for a 15-year-old girl anymore.

But I might start being mistaken for a 15-year-old boy.

One foot in front of the other

I got a little note in the mail from my doctor the other day, with the results of my bloodwork. She had ordered all these various tests because I have been gifted with a family history of such things as high blood pressure, heart disease, high cholesterol, and diabetes.

Happily, I am still just fine. In fact, I am a little embarrassed to report that I am so fine as to be, well, pretty much off the charts, in the good direction.

Well, except for HDL cholesterol, a.k.a. "the good cholesterol." That was a little low, but not so low as to be dangerous, nor as to make the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL fall anywhere near the charts.

My doctor's advice was to increase my exercise.

Now, I'm pretty sure she was not looking at my chart when she wrote this. I haven't been to her all that often--after all, we haven't even lived here a year!--but I have seen her enough that I know she knows kind of what I look like, or at least how I am built. By which I mean her first thought was most likely not that I need to lose weight.

The reason I doubt she was looking at my chart was that it has a little survey in there about my health habits. And on this survey I indicated that my primary form of exercise is walking several miles per week.

I indeed walk several miles per week. I walk 5 or 6 miles a day, three days per week; and up to 3 miles on any of the other days. That is a lot of exercise, right there. But also I walk fast. And I'm usually carrying a lot more than I really should.

Increase my exercise? Honestly, Doctor, I don't think I have room in my schedule.

Gerbil Jumble #2

I am very proud of this one, from 3/7/06.



Why am I so proud of it?

Because "EARRTH" is an anagram of "TERRAH," but still wrong!

I rule!

Roy G. Biv

This morning I had to have some bloodwork done. I had to fast for 12 hours beforehand, and I get really icky when I don't eat, so I wanted to get to the lab right when it opened. Plus, in the past, I have actually passed out after this particular panel. I have a very distinct memory from about age seven of coming to on the sidewalk outside St. Mary's Hospital, with this enormous nun standing over me with a cup of orange juice in her hand and a big ol' halo around her head. I was really confused by the halo, but when my brain started back up again, I realized it was the sun behind her.

So I was not happy when the lab did not open on time. By the time the phlebotomist got there, half an hour late, there were three of us waiting for tests, plus two, well, chauffeurs. One of the other people waiting for a test was this guy who wanted to know whether my chauffeur wife and I were students. I said we were. He asked what we were studying. I said I was studying psychology. My wife did not answer, which I guess was okay because then the guy launched into this whole thing about photography, children, and color psychology. Also about his swim trunks and taking pictures of kids up at some pool where a lot of people learn to take pictures of kids.

Anyway, color psychology is not really the most scientific thing out there. It's all about meanings that are associated with colors, which sounds great except these meanings are not inherent properties of the colors themselves, but rather are assigned by cultures. For example, in the US, white is associated with weddings; but in China, white is associated with funerals. In the US, red is associated with anger and Republicans; but in India, red is associated with purity and weddings. There are lots of internet quizzes one can take about color psychology (aka Colorgenics). I took one of them and "learned" the following about myself:

Your Existing Situation
Working to improve her image in the eyes of others in order to obtain their compliance and agreement with her needs and wishes.
...Bullshit!

Your Stress Sources
Wants to overcome a feeling of emptiness and to bridge the gap which she feels separates herself from others.
...Bullshit!
Anxious to experience life in all its aspects, to explore all its possibilities, and to live it to the fullest.
...Too vague for judgment!
She therefore resents any restriction or limitation being imposed on her and insists on being free and unhampered.
...True.

Your Restrained Characteristics
Very exacting in the standards she applies to her choice of a partner and seeking a rather unrealistic perfection in her sex life.
...Bullshit!
Willing to become emotionally involved and able to achieve satisfaction through sexual activity, but tries to avoid conflict.
...Mostly true.

Your Desired Objective
Seeks affectionate, satisfying and harmonious relationships.
...True.
Desires an intimate union, in which there is a love, self-sacrifice and mutual trust.
...True.

Your Actual Problem
Does not wish to be involved in differences of opinion, contention or argument, preferring to be left in peace.
...BullllllllllSHIT!

Your Actual Problem #2
Needs to achieve a stable and peaceful condition, enabling her to free herself of the worry that she may be prevented from achieving all the things she wants.
...I don't understand what this means, so... Bullshit!

Score: Bullshit 5, True Enough 4, WTF 1.

I have a feeling all this conflict avoidance stuff is because I picked the black square last. Black is supposedly all about aggression. But the quiz asked me to pick the colors that make me feel good. I don't like black because I look jaundiced in too much of it. Ditto for green, orange, yellow, and brown. It has nothing to do with conflict avoidance--and everything to do with, well, vanity.

So this guy at the lab told me that my purple fleece jacket symbolized passion, and my green corduroys symbolized abundance.

"So I'm all about abundant passion?" I asked. My wife snickered.

"Yes," he said. "Come to think of it, I had a pair of green and purple swim trunks once."

Right.

Guess who else is all about abundant passion, then?



I love you, you love me, I rest my case.