I'm High as a Kite, I Just Might, Stop to Check You Out

Never ever let me drink coffee again. At least not a whole lot of it.

Yesterday, if for no other reason than because I felt like it, I stopped into the deli across the street from my office for a cup of coffee at work. I'm not usually a coffee drinker; I prefer tea. But my boss drinks boatloads of coffee, and his hazelnut blend always smells so good.

So I got myself a 20-oz. cup. Sadly, part of the reason I picked that cup was because I knew that refills later would cost only 50 cents. Oh, what a mistake this turned out to be.

I finished the entire cup before noon. While I can't say my heart started racing, I could definitely feel something going on. I was floating, but in a good way. I was more productive at work than I've been in a while, because somehow I was able to find a singular purpose. My fingers flew across the keyboard, making arguments left and right, and where I wasn't making arguments, I was making notes about what arguments I would be making in that section. I was on fire.

Walking slowly down the hall became something of a challenge. I felt with every muscle in my body that I wanted to be doing something else, like running, or pull ups, or something that engaged more muscle activity than sitting on my big fat ass on this fancy office chair. So I got up to take a walk.

My walk took me back to the deli, where I suddenly realized my empty coffee cup was, in fact, in my hand. What fortuity! I refilled my 20-oz. coffee cup (with French vanilla this time) and paid 55 cents. Strolling out the door, I took another sip of this newfound manna. Mmmm, heaven.

I went to play poker (as is my Tuesday night routine) that night and had a great time, if for no other reason than I was more outgoing than I usually am. This, you see, was because I was buggin'. Thankfully, I was bantering with people who were cool about it, even though I found myself employing such epithets as "bitch" (specifically "punk-ass bitch") (directed exclusively to men), "bastard," and "son of a bitch." (For the record: yes, some of these guys were actually quite cute). I also whined excessively about my exceedingly short stack which required me to go all-in on a J-3 suited (which hit two jacks on the board, quadrupling my money and keeping me in the game for another 45 minutes or so).

Then I went home, watched some tv, ate some cold pizza, and crawled into bed. The clock on the wall read 11:45 when I crawled into bed.

I didn't get to actually sleep until 2:30.

I was up again at 8:30 after repeatedly employing the snooze button.

Do not ever let me drink that much coffee again.

Don't Care How, I Want It Now.

So the protests at Gallaudet continue. Yesterday, the Gallaudet faculty joined the fray, passing several non-binding resolutions expressing their lack of confidence in incoming President Jane Fernandes. What struck me most was the following quote from a Gallaudet alumna included in the WaPo article:

However people feel about her, "whether the issues are valid or invalid, that doesn't matter now," he said. "This school will not move on unless she resigns."

What this person is saying, therefore, is that whether or not the students' protests were justified, they have created such a shitstorm that there is no alternative short of Fernandes's resignation. It doesn't matter if their concerns were utterly without basis in fact; students can achieve their goal of ousting the presence merely by throwing a monkey wrench into the works.



Cliff's Notes version of lesson learned: No matter what you believe, an effective way to achieve your goals is to force everyone around you to their knees, and eventually, you will win. Gallaudet students have apparently effectively employed a method of persuasion seldom seen beyond the six-year-old "Buy me candy" set: Sit on the floor and scream until you turn purple, and eventually the authority figure will sigh, roll their eyes, and give you exactly what you want.

While I'm at it:

To the protester whose t-shirt states that he was "dropped" by the D.C. Police while being arrested: Boo freakin' hoo. When you're being arrested, kid gloves are off. What do you want, a cookie? Maybe a nice fluffy down comforter in the back seat of the squad car? Gimme a break.

To the student with the t-shirt proclaiming that you were "arrested for peacefully protecting Gallaudet": I call bullshit. You were blocking people from entering the campus. Hell, man, even abortion protesters are required to let people into the Planned Parenthood, but in your zeal to "protect" Gallaudent you've prevented anyone whose views don't align with yours from even walking onto the campus.

To the Gallaudet administration: Grow some balls, already. You tried to have the gate opened and all it took was students forming a chain and saying "no" for you to walk away with your tail tucked between your legs? Get real. Civil disobedience is pretty much premised on the expectation of getting arrested, so since that's what these students claim they're engaged in, you should go ahead and have them arrested. As I suggested yesterday, you may also consider expelling them from school, thus granting you permission to label them trespassers and -- you guessed it -- arrest them.

Or, as long as you're so completely balls-free anyway, just give up and have Fernandes resign already. Just buy the damn candy for the baby already.

Sometimes, One Just Has To Vent

In a shockingly circular bit, this post is a way for me to do some venting... about venting. I'm bitching about the ability to bitch.

Triggering event: I'm extremely frustrated with a client of mine. This afternoon I was talking to her, and she drove me totally bonkers. I'm trying to settle her case and she's self-destructing her own settlement talks and then even says that she doesn't really care if the entire settlement blows up. I'm asking her all the questions a good lawyer does to make sure that my discussions with opposing counsel are as focused as possible and she absolutely REFUSES to answer them with any thought, and instead insists on not speaking in hypotheticals (even though those hypotheticals will come to pass the moment I speak to opposing counsel, and she'll have to face them anyway). She even goes so far as to actually tell me how frustrated she is, even though she is the one causing the frustration.

I hang up the phone with her (actually, for the first time in many, many moons, I SLAM the freaking thing down) and, because it simply had to be done, I let loose a very loud, completely unprofessional ARGH.

Now I admit that it was unprofessional. But there's literally three other people in the office right now. No clients. No one poring over a document with the focused intensity of a Franciscan monk. No, it's just me, my receptionist, and two others at the other end of the hall.

So I go to my receptionist (who knows I don't like this client much right now) just to say, "Man, I hate her. I hate her. I hate her. Words cannot express how badly I hate her."

Her response: "Man, what is your problem? Calm down."

Okay, I wasn't expecting a cookie, but since when is the proper response when someone is clearly venting frustration to be so freaking dismissive?

***

Sadly, this has been happening a lot in my personal relationships recently. I can't express a random feeling anymore without it being analyzed, re-examined, re-hashed, and placed under the intense scrutiny of logic. Suddenly, my friends have all turned into Spock/Data hybrids. If your feelings aren't logical, they aren't valid. Because feelings must fit within a particular mathematical rubric of logic.

Me: Man, that evening went on forever. I thought we were stopping in [to a friend's place] for a drink and now it's like 11:30. I thought we were going out tonight.
Friend: Well, you should have said something! If you were so ready to leave, you should have started making the moves to head out. It's not like you don't know how to extricate yourself from a social situation. I would have left whenever you wanted to. You never made a move to leave.

Was I bitching? Perhaps. Was I saying something was keeping me there artificially? Not really. Did I need to be blamed for being frustrated at the lateness of the hour? No, not really.

--

Me: So his mom was nice. Fun. Sometimes I wish my mom were more like that.
Friend: Why would you wish that? There's more to her than you see, you know. His home life is messed up. You don't know the half of it. You don't want to trade into that.

Did I ask to trade up for everything? No. I merely waxed wistful at the thought that my mother may one day sit down with my gay friends and my boyfriend and have a fun time with us. I think we'd agree that having one's mother enjoy the company of her son and his gay friends would be a cool development. Did I need an attack? Not really.

--

Me: Well... that was annoying.
Friend: You didn't have to stay, you know. I would have been happy to move along whenever. Don't act like I was keeping you where you didn't want to be.

Did I say any of that? Did I mean any of that? I think you're projecting what you think I thought. Get over it. I said it was annoying. That's all I said, and that's all I meant. Shut the fuck up about anything else even remotely related to that.

--

Me: That was ... odd.
Friend: Why do you say that? Was that any different from [blah blah blah]? Why is this situation odd when the other isn't?

Is consistency the only thing that matters in life? Am I allowed to find something odd if something similar isn't? Must I parse out the differences? Most importantly, must I think all this through before I open my big fat mouth? (Apparently, for some of my friends, the answer is yes.)

I can't take it anymore. I like for my friends to be there for me, to listen to me, and to at least somewhat ratify my feelings. I don't need them to be "yes-men," agreeing with me on everything, and I do expect to be called to the carpet when I'm being completely stupid, but when it happens all the friggin' time -- including times when I'm not being completely retarded -- I get sick of it.

And, frankly, I think it affirmatively hurts my friendships when I find that I have to stop and think about absolutely everything before it passes through my mouth. I don't like having to censor myself. I don't want to have to fact-process my thoughts before speaking on an impulse. In most unscripted conversations, thoughts just spew spontaneously. It seriously constipates the flow of conversations if I have to stop and think, and adjust my comments based upon what your perceived criticisms will be.


I feel a little bit better already, in part because I'm thinking the readers of this blog won't react the way I've described above. I've come to realize that venting on here is therapeutic in that way: no one expects to have to answer you, or contradict you. I feel like somoene's "listened" (even if no one at all has read this) and with that, I can be content.

Flames on this post, though, may send me over the edge.

They Don't Need No Education

So I've been following the Gallaudet protests over the course of the last week or so. After having shut down the entire school -- the university as well as the elementary and middle school, and facilities for adults needing hearing tests -- for three days, the administration finally authorized arrests for the students who had effectively walled off the school.

Frankly, why these arrests were so long in coming is baffling to me. The students have taken over the school and held it hostage to a higher goal that they cannot even articulate. Having reviewed as much as I can about the school and about incoming president Jane K. Fernandez, I can figure out no coherent reason for these protests. She was standoffish as a provost? Boo fuckin' hoo. What do you want, a cookie? She has never been able to hear but only learned ASL at age 20? So what? She's not black? While this may be a concern, it certainly doesn't seem enough to shut down the school over.

And to put it mildly, who the fuck do these 20-something kids think they are? They pay tuition to get an education -- from what I can tell, a pretty damn good one -- not to make dictates and demands on who is in the administration. On any other college campus I know of the students don't have veto power over the selection of their president. These "demands" that an unpopular president resign are pretentious at best.

Compare what's happeneing at Gallaudet with recent events at Randolph-Macon (Women's) College. Historically an all-women's college, the school recently voted to admit men. Did the students shut down their own campus for days on end? Did they deny their fellow students the right to attend classes? No. They cried; they mourned. Some slept on the lawn in front of the Main Hall in protest. Some initiated paperwork to transfer. Some boycotted classes, but I see no indication that those people also forced other students to stay away from their classes. Protesting was a voluntary effort for those who passionately felt their school should have remained single-sex.

At Gallaudet, quite a different protest is taking place. Those who disagree with the appointment of Ms. Fernandez have appointed themselves masters of all that is right with the deaf community, though, again, they can't particularly articulate good reasons for their passionate dislike of her. And these kids have basically set up a situation where if you don't agree with them... well, you'll have to effectively be part of the protest anyway. They'll boycott your classes for you.

It's awful that these kids have taken over the campus; it also shows a distinct lack of backbone that the administration couldn't do anything to shut them down earlier than this. Is it really so easy to shut down Gallaudet's campus? Just walk into the main hall and "demand" that the grown-ups leave? And as for "letting" cars into campus: since when do the staff and administration of any school have to beg permission of the football team to go into their own offices?

From the day I started college through today, my college has had four presidents (I'm counting one interim president for about a year). One guy I recall being quite a controversial pick. One woman suffered from accusations of inferior qualifications -- indeed, I recall many felt that her selection was tokenism because there were more qualified men than her in the running. Her selection did not shut down the school. It caused some dissention, and while students voiced their concerns, in the end everyone went back to their classes and went on about the business of learning. What the hell is it about Gallaudet that education should come to a screeching halt because some students don't like the president?

A brief list of things Gallaudet students need to give themselves more credibility now:
(1) a coherent and solid reason Ms. Fernandez "must go." So far everything I've seen just doesn't cut it.
(2) much more reasonable "demands" with respect to the administration. "We will not stop unless she resigns" will only make both sides dig their heels in, especially since you really have no right to do anything you're doing anyway.
(3) a reason the school shouldn't just expel your asses since your "civil disobedience" is serving to screw up the very mission of the school: an education. If you want to pay tuition then not attend classes, that's your choice. But when others are paying tuition and would like to have professors lecture to them and you won't let them, you are a disruptive force and deserve to be kicked out.

On a lighter note: Wow, some of these Gally boys are hot. Check out the shirtless guys protesting earlier this week at this Express post. Okay, I specifically referring to the one guy without any writing on his chest.

On Singledom (Again)

E.: So do you think J. will talk to you again now that she's married?
Me: No. I'll never see her again.

-- Recent conversation I had with a girlfriend of mine

We were kidding, of course -- kind of the reductio ad absurdum of our particular social circle. The girls we know all tend to drop off the face of the map when they start seeing someone seriously. All bets are off when they actually go getting married. I'm sure I'll see J. at random intervals from time to time -- mostly for special occasions like birthdays (even though two girls have birthdays that coincide with her wedding anniversary, meaning that she'll probably be missing that particular party), but seeing as she already just this close to fell off the planet for wedding planning, I can't imagine I'll see her all that much now.

The wedding was this past weekend. I could wax poetic about how gorgeous everything was, from the reception to the dinner and dancing to the bride in her pretty white dress, but that's all been done. Take my word for it: everything was, of course, the picture of wedding perfection.

The ceremony itself was performed by a woman who was a close friend of the bride -- they were childhood friends and remained friends through the bride's graduation from law school while the other completed divinity school. The ceremony was fun that way -- part prayer and sermon, part reminiscing. Nothing personalizes a wedding ceremony than the officiant being able to refer to the bride's personal quirks and long search for the perfect mate.

One thing about the ceremony that bugged me. While I understand that I was there to witness and celebrate the union of two people, I didn't really have to made to feel like I was somehow defective for not having someone else in my own life. There is, I think, a fine line to be drawn between celebrating the commitment of two people to each other, and pointing and laughing at those people who aren't in a position to do that. This couple seem to have crossed that line a few times during the ceremony. Like 242 (I counted).

I remember a reading from the Bible. Thankfully, I don't remember where it come from (1 Corinthians? Paul? Something else?) but it was all about how much being single sucks. Stuff to the effect of "before I was nothing, now that I found you, I am complete." During this reading, I started checking out the groomsmen, who looked quite dashing in their tuxedos, though they were probably sweating balls.

It didn't end after that. The officiant wanted in on the action too. "We were made man and woman for each other," she started. Immediately I steeled up when I heard that heterosexist line, but I let it go for the sake of my friend. Then it continued. I don't even remember the exact words, but if I had to paraphrase, her sermon on love went something like this: "Two is better than one. We all strive to be part of a 'two' because we weren't meant to go through life just being a 'one.' Being part of a 'two' is being a whole; being a 'one' is less than whole. When we have someone else, we have that complement; that someone to be with; that someone to pick us up when we fall down; that someone to rely upon for the rest of our lives. That's just not possible if we're trying to go through our lives alone."

Obviously she was more eloquent than that, but I truly started getting sick of it. I've blogged about being single before and I stand by that post 100%. Being single is not a curse. Being without a partner is not a badge of inferiority or defectiveness. Many times, being single can be better than being coupled. The whole "grass is always greener" phenomenon.

I'm very, very happy for my newly-married friend. Really and truly I am, for she has found herself a man to be with and he makes her happier than I've seen her in a very long time.

But all I can say is, when I fall, I can and do pick my own damn self up, thankyouverymuch.

Priorities

Seriously, what is the deal with the American public?

Okay, perhaps I should clarify: What is up with Republicans?

Some people have GOT to get their priorities straight.

This Mark Foley scandal has conservatives up in arms. Many a pundit now is predicting that races that once were close will tilt Democratic. Democrats, thanks for Mark Foley's predeliction for soliciting young boys for wildly inappropriate activities and liaisons, may actually have a chance to regain both houses of Congress.

Seriously, folks, this is what grinds your gears?

The White House lied to all of us about weapons of mass destruction. This has led us to thousands of dead American servicepeople, still more dead Iraqi citizens, billions of dollars in unjustified war expenses, and the feuling of international hatred toward us (which could very well lead to still more dead Americans).

Rank-and-file Republicans rallied around the lies and called those of us who questioned them "unpatriotic." John and Jane Republican -- average non-political hack people next door -- voted for "Republican" George W. Bush, helping to propel him into a second term of lies and spin.

The party which used to espouse the death of big government has sit by and watched as the federal government has grown the largest it's ever been. Maybe that's just because most of it taken up with the Department of Homeland Security. Because big government is okay if its purpose is to erode the personal liberties upon which this country is based.

A Republican sending sexual emails to teenagers is what causes everyone to throw up their hands and proclaim their disgust?

Trust me, in no way shape or form am I saying that what Foley sent to thse kids is "good" or even "harmless" -- they're seriously the stuff of phone sex lines, except these were being sent to sixteen year old boys -- but why is sex the only thing that stirs these Republicans up enough to actually get angry at your own party?

Events like this have convinced me that, at base, the Republican Party is really consumed with sex. It's apparently the only thing that really sends their blood pumping. It was sex that sent Republicans into a rabid frenzy over President Clinton. Gay marriage reliably gets Republican votes (even if some of those votes cast on the floor of Congress are cast by (shhh!) closeted gay people).

Okay, one edit: it's not just sex, it's also violence. It's the party of testosterone run amock; it's the party of boorish chest-thumping and gaudy muscle-flexing. They can't be bothered to cobble together money for public institutions like schools, environmental protection, reduced dependence on oil, libraries or universal health care, but put death and destruction and war and armaments on the table and suddenly there's a sea of green flowing out of that pork barrel. In many ways, it's like a head of household who would rather spend the family's hard-earned income on a large-screen plasma HDTV to watch the fight on Saturday night than pay the tuition for the kid's college education.

The story ends strangely though. Usually the hero, having only slightly bloodied himself while leaving his opponent in a bloody pulp, gets his pick of the hot babes waiting for him, at which point he takes her home and ravages her loins. But Heaven forfend anyone should accuse the Republican of ever having sex. Most of them seem to be quite the repressed bunch.

Just look at Mark Foley.

Compare and Contrast

Iraq, 2002:

Condeleeza Rice: "But we don't what the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." -- CNN Interview by Wolf Blitzer


North Korea, 2006:

State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack: "The Bush administration will continue to work with its allies in the six-party talks to discourage 'such a reckless action.'" -- WaPo


To sum up:

US Policy in Iraq: "Saddam might have nuclear weapons. We're not absolutely sure, but we can't take the risk that he does have them. We have to charge in there and stop him -- toppling an autonomous government and committing the lives of American citizens and billions of dollars in the process -- before a mushroom cloud erupts from these weapons which, again, we haven't confirmed the existence of. Why take chances?"

US Policy in North Korea: "Kim Jong Il has nuclear weapons. He's said he has them. Intelligence indicates he has them. He wants to test them. Let's keep trying to talk him down. Kim Jong Il is so susceptible to reason and level-headed dialogue that way."

An Open Letter to My Uncle

Dear Uncle in Whose House I Crashed in LA Last Week:

Thanks again for letting my parents and I crash with you the other week. I really appreciate it. It saved me significant hotel fare and it was very relaxing to be with my family in a comfortable setting.

That being said...

In addition to the fact that the tiled wall in the bathroom of the pool house is quite excessive, I thought I'd take just a little bit of time to advise you about some other stuff I picked up during my brief stay with you.

>> I'm glad your proud of your wine collection, but -- and I'm no wine expert here -- it's not all that great. Your pride about your bottles of "Two Buck Chuck" were odd and out of place. It was a decent wine, to be sure, but it was TWO DOLLARS. If you were single, that wouldn't be the way to impress a date. In a somewhat similar way, I wasn't terribly impressed when you said, "Hey, how about some wine with dinner. I have a great bottle in the kitchen. Two buck chuck!"

>> Similarly, your pride in your beer collection is seriously misplaced. Cans of Bud Light do not an extensive and cool beer collection make. The lone bottle of Heineken was a little less ghetto, but it was clear you didn't want to offer that bottle to me when you pushed the Bud Light on me instead. Of course, you then changed your mind and offered me -- again in a strangely excited way -- "Taiwan Beer." No, not a beer from Taiwan. An actual can of beer labelled "Taiwan Beer." No brand name other than that. Dude, even your thirteen-year-old son was able to recognize that as a "crappy, no-name beer." At first I told balked at him, asking what the hell he knew about "crappy, no-name beers" -- until I found out he was right.

>> Speaking of your thirteen-year-old son (my cousin): Woah man, the way you have that boy trained is really, really disgusting, dude. He's not an electrical appliance plugged you can "Clap On, Clap Off, The Clapper." On way too many occasions, I was sitting next to him when we heard two sharp claps coming from another room, which caused him to jump to his feet and call out "Coming!" You probably already know this and don't care, but he rolled his eyes every time you did that. Even Maria Von Trapp, a lowly nun/governess, wouldn't subject herself or the children under her care to a means of being summoned which didn't involve calling out a name. Speaking of, your kid has a name, in both Chinese and English, so those times when you do refer to him, doing so as "Kid" in Chinese is also appallingly rude. No wonder the poor guy has issues.

>> Your lottery spending habits are craziness. I'm told you spend $45 A DAY on lottery tickets. Are you freaking nuts? If I assume 5 (rather than 7) days a week and four weeks a year, that's $900 a month you spend on lottery tickets. I'm sorry, but even the occasional win won't make up for the amount you lose on that. Sure you may hit the "big" jackpot of several million someday. But do you really think that $900 a month couldn't be better invested elsewhere for a higher long-term rate of return?

Okay, I know none of this was my place to say. See, that's why I posted it on this blog which I'm sure you don't read rather than telling you personally.

Dennis!

A Rich Man, A Poor Man, A Beggar

The rich are not permitted to come anywhere near the poor. Marie Antoinette may have proclaimed "Let them eat cake," but apparently in America today, the better-off among us are apparently afraid they'll get cooties from those of us who are that much less fortunate.

***

I arrived at LAX the morning of my departure with ample time to make my flight. What with the "no liquids or gels" thing and my paralyzing uncertainty as to how long checking in and security checkpoints would take, I took no chances. I was about two hours in advance of my flight's departure.

I made my way over to the self-serve check-in counter. In days past, I would have simply used a kiosk and gone on my merry way, as I would not have checked any luggage. Given the aforementioned restrictions, however, and the fact that I had just seen my parents (and thus been handed a slew of things to take back with me), I had extra bags that simply had to be checked. No biggie.

Having tagged my luggage, I was advised to take my bags to the security screening area, which was to my right. I dutifully gathered my bags, walked over, and stood in the line where other passengers were clearly checking their bags for security purposes.

Without even asking, the American Airlines employee at the head of the line waved me off and pointed further down the terminal, indicating that I was to go there. Still having no idea why, I grabbed my things and started walking over there, only to realize I had no idea what I was looking for. Finally, still not having found what line I was supposed to be in, I went back to my original line.

The woman in front of me turned and asked me, "Are you in first class?" (I can't even bring myself to capitalize that). "Uh, no," I asked, thinking what a silly and irrelevant question. But I was wrong. It in fact was a relevant question, for I had somehow accidentally deigned to stand in line at the first class baggage screening section. The "poor" peoples' security screening was, as I had been originally told, further down the terminal.

This annoyed me greatly. What, first class passengers pose some quantum different level of security threat that they get different security screeners? (If so, are they greater or lesser threats?) Having read guidelines for when to arrive at the airport, I have never seen an airline suggest different arrival times for first class versus economy passengers. This is because, I presume, usually all passengers will run a fairly equal risk of being screened or held up by security procedures. Apparently, this is not the case at American Airlines at LAX, for first class passengers get not only a dedicated line to retrieve their boarding passes, but also a different (therefore shorter) line to send their bags through security.

***

But wait, there's more!

Having finally handed off my luggage to the kind gentleman at the poor people's security gate, I started making my way to the gate, fully aware that I would have to pass one more security checkpoint along the way. I turned around and saw a sign indicating that my cluster of gates was located upstairs. Fortuitously, there was a set of "up" escalators about 100 feet from me. (Notably, these escalators were only about 40 feet from the first class baggage check-in).

As I approached the escalator, I saw the signs but I couldn't believe it. There was an American Airlines employee standing at the base of the escalator (complete with lanes set off by faux velvet rope, may I add) whose job it was to check boarding passes. Yes, folks, this escalator was reserved for first class passengers. The employee took one look at my boarding pass and pointed me to another set of escalators at the far end of the terminal (past where I had started the process by getting my boarding passes).

This flabbergasts me. A special escalator for first class to get one freaking flight up? Seriously, do these people need their asses wiped for them too?

I made my way to the Untouchables' escalator (about three times farther from the luggage security checkpoint than the Brahmin escalator), went up, and looped around to get to the passenger security checkpoint. Just as I figured, the security checkpoint was the same one for first class as for The Rest of Us. Really, the only thing they did was make us walk farther.

***

I wish I could adequately reproduce a diagram of how retarded this system is and how all it did was fuck us non-trust funders. Instead, I hope this descriptive will help:

First class passengers:
1. Go to check-in line to retrieve boarding pass.
2. Go to baggage security line; leave luggage there for eventual loading on plane.
3. Go up the escalator to gate security.
4. Pass through gate security, proceed to gate, wait for flight.

Non-first class passengers:
1. Go to check-in line to retreive boarding pass.
2. Walk past first-class passenger check-in counters.
3. Walk past first-class baggage security line.
4. Go to ghetto baggage security line; leave luggage there for eventual loading on plane.
5. Walk back past first-class baggage security line.
6. Walk past a perfectly good set of esclators leading to gate security.
7. Walk back past first-class passenger check-in counters.
8. Go up ghettoized escalators.
9. On the upper level, double back one more time (this is the third time covering equivalent ground), passing below you the economy class passenger check-in counters, the first class passenger check-in counters, and the first-class baggage security station.
10. Pass through gate security, proceed to gate, wait for flight.


Man, rants like this make me sound like some kind of Socialist.

Boredom Never Felt So Good

I just got back from my trip to Los Angeles. My parents were there hanging out with my uncle (Mom's brother) -- with his wife and eighth grade kid -- and my other aunt (Mom's sister) was there too. I would call it a mini-family reunion, but there are so freaking many people in my mother's immediate family, this gathering was really just a small tip of the iceberg.

I did nothing at all of any interest during this trip. Nothing at all. Called some friends of mine to chat, but didn't get together with them. Went out to some great ethnic food. Went to hang out with yet another uncle (another of Mom's brothers) who lives about half an hour away. Ate still more. Took a few photos. Shopped a little, which was retarded, but strangely fun because it was with my mother, which I haven't done in a while.

For much of my three days there, I was bored. I had a book (Bushworld by Maureen Dowd) which I read during periods of downtime, and I got through about 150 pages of it. I feel asleep on more occasions than I care to admit. I took random photos with my digital camera. (I did not take it with me to dinner, for fear of it being stolen again). I took other random shots (mostly of cute boys) with my camera phone and sent them off to a friend of mine.

My parents made the obligatory "you've gained weight" comments, which I managed to let slide in between the many many irresistible foods they shoved at me. I had to share a bed with my father, which I haven't done since I used to get nightmares when I was six. The bathroom I used had an entire wall composed of mirrors, which I find retarded.* My uncle burned me several CDs of family photos.

Despite the lack of anything of any substance worth talking about during this trip (some venting about LAX to follow, though), the purpose of this trip was 100% met. They say home is the place you can always go where they have to take you back; I really know what they mean. I had always thought my relationship with my family was a little distant, but it maybe I was wrong.

I don't think I've ever before felt as bored and comfortable at the same time. I'd be much happier if this kind of bubble lasted much, much longer. The insulation is kinda nice.


* I'm sorry, but there are certain things one never needs to see, including the sight of yourself showering in a tiny little stall, or yourself peeing. I deliberately never turned to my left when I was, uh, doing other stuff.

The Ties That Bind

My friend E. and I have this theory: Our parents make us sick. Literally.

Both of us have noticed that whenever we see our families -- or even plan to -- various small inconveniences rise to the surface: our noses start to run, throats start to tickle, hair starts to fall out. Okay, that last one usually actually results from us pulling the hair out.

I love my family, but extended stretches with them aren't my thing. We mutually strain nerves. We get annoyed with each other. We try our best not to get snippy, but we most certainly do. Then we feel bad about it.

I see them and I realize how much I miss them. But between those times, I don't tend to talk to them much. I know they love me and they want the best for me, but somehow it doesn't translate well when I examine their actions. Okay, it may be because I usually filter things through a twisted set of lenses that will inevitably change the instant one of them dies.

My nose is running.

I'm leaving town early tomorrow for a few days to hook up with the 'rents out in the City of Angels. There will be no fun time. There will be no "me" time. I don't plan on catching up with friends who live in the area; I don't plan on hitting up any gay bars; I don't plan on doing anything that doesn't involve my family.

I'm terribly excited, and looking forward to it.

Back on Monday.

Table for One

Okay, so I have once again reaffirmed the notion that being single sucks. I base this conclusion not on the lack of a default sex partner, or frustration of the search for that nebulous and ultimately amorphous concept of "companionship" or "togetherness." I reach this conclusion because, as legions of single people before me have learned and I keep having to re-learn every time I get even remotely ambitious, cooking for one is well nigh impossible.

Well, at least for me.

In theory, cooking for one is not terribly difficult: gather the ingredients for one dish, make it, then save the rest for later. There are, though, several flaws to this idealistic approach.



First: The temptation to eat the entire thing -- whatever it may be -- at one meal is great. Especially for me, because I'm one of those eat-because-I'm-bored kinda people. If I actually get off my ass and make, say, a pasta salad for dinner, the result is that there is a large stash of pasta salad sitting around my kitchen. Which means that after I finish that first bowl, I have a tendency to go back to the kitchen and grab myself a second bowl. Repeat cycle through prime time, and suddenly that huge stash of pasta salad is significantly reduced.

Okay, so no, I don't ever actually eat an entire box of pasta (gussied up with "healthy" additions), but that's usually because of the next reason, which is



Second: If I don't actually eat the whole thing at once, I get bored with it so quickly I really would prefer not to have it again the next day, either for lunch or dinner. No really, when I make pasta salad, it's whole box of pasta, plus stuff. That can last three or four lunches. Have you any idea how boring that is? Especially since, when you bring your lunch into work, you have a little bit less of a reason to set foot outside the office come lunch hour. Which means I usually end up in the office, taking my food out of the fridge, and eating at my desk, which further exacerbates the boredom of eating leftover food to begin with.



Third: Many items required for some recipes aren't sold in single-serve units. Fresh basil, for example. Celery stalks. Lettuce. Asparagus. Seasoned salt. Cuts of meat, poultry or fish. So you end up buying way more than you need just to add it to this one dish you wanted to try, and the rest ends up rotting away. Well, not the seasoned salt; it just sits around waiting for the next time you struggle desperately to find something to put it in. Banana extract? I've had a bottle for three years now. I only ever use maybe six stalks of asparagus at a time (and I use that many just to use them), but still the rest of the bunch ends up going bad. And what's the purpose of buying fresh meats from the butcher counter if half of what you buy ends up in the freezer anyway?



The other day I had the thought that I'd make myself burger(s) for food for a while. Just thinking about it made my head hurt knowing how much I'd waste. I could buy fresh ground meat -- maybe half a pound -- which would make for two quarter-pound burgers. But the buns would come in a pack of six or eight. That's a bit much. Then there's the fixings. I'm not terribly worried about the ketchup, but it's hard to buy just enough lettuce for the top of two burgers. You end up with a lot more than you want. And tomato? Buy one decent sized one, and half of it ends up on the burger while the other half rots in the fridge. Oh, and don't forget about the egg and bread crumbs or onion soup mix or whatever it is one chooses to use to bind the meat before grilling. Grrr.



I once had this idea that I would bake once in a while. Banana bread; peach cobbler; apple pie. Sounds like fun, right? Nah. Takes a bunch of effort, and it is just NOT a good idea for me to have entire pies sitting around my apartment smelling so damn good with me the only person around who could possibly eat them.

Okay, I'll admit that a greater concern for me is that oftentimes I'm simply too lazy to cook at home to begin with. But when I'm not, it's tough. I feel like I need to find some man to settle down with, if for no other reason than we can plan our weekly grocery shopping together then share our meals. Perhaps that way less food would go to waste, and less money would be spent on things never eaten.

Thankfully, I can get bonus miles for using my credit card at certain eating establishments.

Commissions

Appropriately on the heels of my Labor Day post, I went shopping at the erstwhile Hecht's (which is now Macy's at lunch the other day. I needed new shoes, and I had a few gift cards which I needed to use before they started expiring.

I spent a little time walking around the shoe department visually inspecting the display shoes. I eventually selected one or two that I was interested in trying on, asked the salesperson to bring out some in my sizes, and started trying them on.

My salesperson was named Rodney, and he was very nice. I had selected two pairs of lace-less black shoes (I have a thing for shoes I can just slip into but which look decent with either dress pants or jeans), and he brought out for me both the lace and non-lace version of the shoes. I gave him thoughtfulness points for that, even though it wasn't what I wanted.

Because I was using gift cards, I wasn't terribly worried about cash. Sure, I didn't intend to buy obscenely expensive shoes and intended to stick to stuff labelled "SALE," but I had a little more flexibility knowing my credit card wouldn't take a hit. In the end I tried on two pairs of Steve Maddens and a few Kenneth Coles, each of which were in the $70 to $90 range. During those times I was waiting for Rodney to get me new shoes, I wandered into the nearby men's clothing section and managed to snag a pair of shorts too.

Eventually, having tried on some six pairs of shoes, I settled on two pairs for purchase. (Normally I would have just bought one pair, but again, gift card in use.) I walked back to the register with both boxes and the pair of shorts I had picked, and waited for Rodney to ring me up.

"Have you decided?" Rodney asked upon his return to the register.

"Sure," I told him. "I'll take both of these pair, please." (That sentence looks and sounds awkward for some reason.)

The total for both shoes came out to something like $160. The look on Rodney's face, however, would have had you believe I was purchasing $3,000 of shoes. "Thank you!" he said. "Thank you!"

"Uhh... you were very helpful, and I appreciate your patience while I tried on all those shoes," I said. Although it sounded like I purchased the shoes just to make him a bigger commission, that wasn't the case -- I just wanted both pair.

"No problem, sir," Rodney responded.

But the look on his face was unchanged. It was as though the commission he was earning off of these shoes were going to pay his rent for the next few months. He seemed very excited about what I thought to be a relatively low-key sale.

I couldn't help feeling bad for him. He was clearly remarkably dependent on the commissions. And unlike a waiter, he really didn't have many options with respect to upselling: how does one steer a customer toward higher-ticket shoes when shoes are so much a matter of personal (and generally inflexible) tastes?

He gave me his card and shook my hand (with both hands!) after the transaction was completed. Perhaps I was his biggest sale of the day. Heck, perhaps I was his first sale of the day. In any event, he was very grateful for the sale and it showed.

Really, for a job like that, I don't think anyone should be so beholden to the whims of the customer. I was going to buy what I was going to buy, and frankly I can't imagine what a kind of help he would have been. The same with clothes or, frankly, almost any sale at that store. The people there are helpful, sure, but they're not going to really influence my decisions. Their compensation is so strongly tied to the whims of the customer, and those whims are so completely out of the salesperson's control. It's really the luck of the draw how much money these guys make.

There's got to be a better way.

Gay Men vs. Straight Men?

Craigslist, for all its faults and foibles, can be a wonderful place in terms of sociological experimentation.

First it was the Abercrombie Wars. The debate raged between "young" gays who still have their youth, generally accusing "older" gays of age-inappropriate dress, and the "older" gays (apparently thirty- or forty-something is "older") who say if you still got it, body-hugging sleeveless shirts are perfectly fine. I take no position on this, the most pressing gay issue of our time.

***

Recently, a new post made its way to the Missed Connections board. It hasn't stirred up the public controversy that the A&F posts have, but it did get me thinking.

Here's the original post:

To the guy I gave a blow job to on the Metro - w4m - 23

Date: 2006-09-01, 8:21PM EDT

It was really late, the last train back toward Franconia/Springfield. I was sitting in the very back of the car. When you got on the train, I couldn't take my eyes off of you. You didn't know it, but I was watching you long before I caught you staring at me.

I loved the look on your face when I pulled my skirt up, showing you I wasn't wearing any panties.

When you came over to sit next to me, my heart was pounding! You were so sweet, and hot too!

I can't believe I gave you a blow job right there on the train! But it was so exciting, wondering if at the next stop someone would see us!

I swear, I've never done anything like that before, I was just soooo drunk. (I know you were, too)

If you see this, I really want to meet you again. You're awesome!

Among various responses, one saying merely "YUK" and another apparently finding it hot, was this:

And people say that gays and lesbians do not deserve equal rights because they think we all act like this whore! HA!!!!

The guy makes a decent point. People who don't particularly care for gay people (for some reason animosity seems greater against gay men than against lesbians) -- for instance, opponents of gay marriage -- frequently cite sexual promiscuity as one of the reasons homosexuals should be treated differently. It defiles the institution of marriage, they proclaim, because these guys are clearly driven only by sexual urges and therefore can neither be trusted nor expected to create a stable relationship.

And yet, this heterosexual couple on the train seemed driven purely by primal sexual urges. Ergo, it's not like sexual compulsiveness is unique to gay people.

I agree with the poster, but I think his choice of forum to make this argument seems inappropriate. Unfortunately, Craigslist itself contains sufficient evidence which could damage his point. The "m4m" personals section is prefaced with a disclaimer that doesn't exist in either of the straight personals sections, nor even in the "w4w" section. Gay men on Craigslist are looking for nothing but sex. Men posting for women are either much more subtle about it, or they are actually looking for dates. Those guys know how to get a woman: act like you're not looking for sex. (This approach does not seem to work for men.)

***

Meanwhile, another debate has started up on a wholly different topic which, unfortunately, seems to add further fuel to the fire.

Please, no more m4m in the gym locker rooms - m4w - 35

Date: 2006-09-04, 9:58AM EDT

Seriously, I'm not homophobic. I'm even flattered if a gay man hits on me, (to a point). And if I think I'm the subject of ANY missed connection, m4w, m4m, whatever, I'll tell my friends. BUT, m4m in the showers at the gym is CREEPY! If a woman was somehow scoping me out in the showers, it would still be CREEPY!!!
If I were gay, and you were quietly scoping me out as I changed and showered, then posted an anonymous note, you would still be very, very CREEPY!!!!

* this is in or around WSC

I can't provide links, but posts about gay men hooking up at the gym -- either actually having sex in the sauna or seriously staring in the locker rooms -- are not unheard of. Among the responses were someone who lays down some laws for gay men in the gym:

Gym locker rooms and m4m - m4m - 32

Date: 2006-09-04, 1:16PM EDT

As a gay man, I find the concept of cruising and ogling guys in the locker room to be tasteless. Does a guy have a right to do it? I guess. It just means he has very poor taste and judgment.

In the interest of common decency, I propose the following principles for cruising cute guys without making your fellow (straight) gym goers uncomfortable:

1 - The Gym is not Halo or JR's. Eye contact or a simple nod does not mean that a guy is gay, or hot for you, or remotely interested. Once you assume that it does, any guy loses all incentive to be even remotely nice - and the gym becomes a less friendly place to be.

2- If a guy is gay and is interested, he will usually glance at you repeatedly or might even approach you. But there will usually be a clear signal. Learn to read them properly. It will separate you from the garden variety stalker.

3- Since you're in a mixed gay/straight setting, the best approach for chatting up a cute guy is (brace yourself) honest and direct conversation - on the main gym floor. Ask him about his workout or how he's doing today, or something no decent person could be offended at. You'll know within a minute if he has the least bit of interest in talking to you. If he doesn't, let it go, man.

4- While it's human nature to want to glance at hot guys in the locker room, or follow them around, or take pics of them with your cell phone camera, or blow them in the sauna, it's just plain wrong and tasteless. First, it's against the rules and you know it. Second, it makes others uncomfortable - they paid for their membership too. Why should they be weirded out and avoid the locker rooms because you have no self-control?

How can we honestly insist that the Armed Forces be made open to gay and lesbian people with this kind of behavior at your local gym? Are we all animals?

Let's keep it decent, people.

This guy makes a point similar to the first guy: we gay men can behave atrociously in our quest for sex. If we can't be expected to carry ourselves decently (the second poster argues), how can we be expected to be taken seriously in our quest to marry and/or serve in the military?

Then again, straight men can be atricious in their search for sex too. Granted, they don't usually have the chance to see the objects of their sexual desire parading around naked (I know of no co-ed locker rooms in gyms), so they have less of an opportunity to leer over their sex objects and thus less of a chance to put up posts about their lusty escapades.

***

But in the end, the questions remain:

1: We gay people are denied some of the rights society bestows upon heterosexuals. Are we obliged to act differently from our straight counterparts before we gain those rights? We could make concerted efforts to keep our sexual urges in check, but would that really help anything? I don't think our sexual urges differ much from straight men's sexual urges -- see military (straight) sex scandals serve as specific examples (which directly dispute the notion that gays can't be in the military because of their sexual predelictions).

So where does that leave us?

2: Are we gay people obliged to treat each other with more compassion because of our shared discrimination? Let's face it, gay men seem to thrive on being judgmental and rude about it. We make fun of women's dresses and bodies; why shouldn't we be equally catty about our fellow gay man? Along those lines, see this post in response to this one.

I have no answers, only questions. I need a cocktail, but I don't think the gay men at Duplex or JR's would want me there.

Five Years Later

Everyone in the blogosphere is talking about this fifth-year anniversary, so I won't belabor too much about my personal reactions and reflections beyond bullet points:

-- There are still people out there who believe that what we're doing in Iraq is directly related to what happened to us on September 11. These people need to get educated.

-- This amorphous "war on terror" which hit fever pitch following 9/11 is becoming far too much of a get-out-of-jail-free card for anything the Administration wants to do, like detain people indefinitely, wiretap private phone calls without probable cause, and invade foreign governments with faulty justification. Funny, Republicans claim to have no faith in The Government when it comes to regulation of the environment, or the economy, or the workplace; but we should blindly trust everything The Government does in the name of "fighting the war on terror."

-- These things are so unbelievably tacky and tasteless they make me sick. Those people buying them would make me sicker, except thankfully I don't know anyone who would. (Side anecdote: at some point after the attacks, I walked past a store that was selling a candle. It was shaped like the Twin Towers and bore the inscription "We shall never forget" across the bottom. There were two wicks in the top of the candle and I couldn't help thinking that if one used the candle the way it was meant to be used, you'd end up seeing the Towers burn to the ground again! Someone didn't think that idea through very well.)


We should never forget the attack, but above that, we should never let those attacks destroy the foundation of freedom that this country represents.

Sick and Twisted

Don Hertzfeldt is cool. Completely warped, but soooo freakin' cool.







Yikes.

** UPDATE (9/11/06): I replaced the third video (apparently removed by YouTube) with another one (which will likely be soon removed as well). Longer. Grosser. Yay.

E-Security Has Its Limits

I recently decided to change my passcode to my online banking account. I duly logged into my account, followed the appropriate prompts, then submitted a new password. I was greeted with the screen that congratulated me for successfully changing my password, and I was off on my way with my whole new password.

A few hours later, I logged in to my email account, where I found a nice little email from said bank:

Subject: Alert: Passcode Reset

ONLINE BANKING ALERT
PASSCODE RESET

To: Dennis!

Your Online Banking Account Passcode was reset on 09/04/06.

We care about your security so, for your protection we are proactively notifying you of this activity.

If you did not reset your Passcode, please sign in to www.banksite.com and review your account (s) for any irregular activity and then contact us immediately at 1.800.XXX.XXXX.

While I'm quite pleased that my bank is concerned enough about my security that it would let me know when some substantial change like this has happened with my account, this email is a bit nonsensical. It tells me that the passcode has been changed... then it says if I didn't change it, to log in to my account! If I wasn't the one to change the password, how was I supposed to log back on to check for fraud?

Happy Labor Day

Happy Labor Day.

The Department of Labor explains that this day is "a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country."

In name, at least, we exalt this day "the American worker" -- the hands-on, day to day people whose hard work makes is really what makes this country as productive and great as it is. Without those men and women taking care of the nuts and bolts and daily ins and outs of the industry, we would never be able to have what we do in this great country of ours.

In legislation signed by President Clinton in 1996, the federal minimum wage was raised to $5.15 per hour effective September 1, 1997. This minimum wage has not been raised since. (A current Department of Labor webpage still instructs that $5.15 is the minimum.) Each state is, of course, permitted to mandate still higher minimum wages in its borders. (For more information of workers' minimum wage issues, check this page.)

Meanwhile, CEOs of large corporations "routinely are paid 400 to 600 times more than the assembly line worker." The guy working his fingers to the bone to put together the products we use every day is earning up to 600 times less than the fat cat in a windowed office who does nothing more than make sure those assembly lines keep moving. Moreover, the average CEO earned 13% more in 2004 than in 2003, while the average nonsupervisory worker saw a pay increase of 2.2%.

Democrats have been trying for the past nine years to raise the minimum wage past $5.15, but haven't yet succeeded. (Efforts have failed eleven times to raise it to $7.25.)

Almost every year for the past 10 years, Congress gives itself a nice pay raise -- an increase of $31,600 since 1997. Congressional leaders currently earn close to $170,000 a year; minimum wage workers who only work one job make $10,700 per year. Yet Congress refuses to mandate pay increases for those among us who truly keep the cogs of this country turning. (In 2006, Democrats vowed that it would not permit Congress to raise its own pay until federal minimum wage was upped.)

Click here for some other tidbits regarding American minimum wages.



So, Happy Labor Day. More than a federal day off and the end of the summer beach season, we need to give our federal workers more income so the American dream doesn't have to involve overtime, second and third jobs, and crushing debt.

More Venting

Okay, I don't really want to pile on, but I kinda have to get this off my chest and this seems like the most innocuous place to do it. Here is another list of things that annoy me about my office mates:

1. Waaaaay Too Anal.

Okay, I know we're lawyers and we're supposed to strive for a level of accuracy in what we present to decisionmakers, but sometimes my office gets ridiculous about it. I've already blogged about one incident that annoyed the bejeezus out of me. What's one month?

Today, a second incident had me rolling my eyes. We were preparing a Complaint for filing in the courthouse. One of the allegations we wanted to make was that something happened to my client while a bunch of people were heading to a convention out of town. The point being, of course, that something happened. That something that happened? The basis for the lawsuit. Where they were heading? Not so important. And yet my assistant insisted on holding things up just that much longer by editing the document again: she wasn't on her way to a "conference," it was more of a "seminar." Who the hell cares?, I wanted to scream, but I just let her obsess over this stupid little unimportant detail, rolled my eyes, and let her explain to the client why the document wasn't quite ready when she came in to sign it.

2. No Organizational Skills.

Okay, so I know I'm not the most organized person in the world, but frankly, that's what law firm subordinates usually can help you take care of. Not mine. Need to find an Order? We're not sure where it is. What about that motion? It should be filed under there... but it's not.

In addition, the computer files are a mess and a half. Sure, we have a nice folder called "Clients" under which we have subdirectories for each client name. After that, it's rather a jumble. "Pleadings" contains anything that could even resemble a court filing, even if it's much more appropriately filed in "discovery." Not noticing what directories have already been created, I often see a folder for "Pretrial" and another one for "Pre-trial." Motions in Limine, which are by definition pretrial motions, aren't found "Pretrial" or even in "Discovery", but in some random third directory. "Memos" usually only contains one file, placed there by the person who created the directory, while other memos are scattered all over the place. File names are also wildly inconsistent; some have dates in front of them, others don't; some are just called "letter" and others are (appropriately) named with much more detail.

Once I wanted to locate the computer version of a motion to compel (I would consider this a discovery motion thus properly filed under "discovery"), and couldn't find it. I had to ask an assistant where it was, and she told me, "Try the document called 'Amended Complaint.'" Huh, I responded. Go fig. Makes perfect sense. The motion to compel is saved as an 'amended complaint.'"

3. Copier paper.

I have no earthly idea why anyone would ever not just put an entire ream of paper into an empty copier tray. The trays are designed to hold exactly one ream of paper. Literally, a ream of paper fits precisely into the tray. Thus, when the copier indicates that both trays are empty, why is it so difficult to put a full ream of paper in each tray? Why would anyone open up a ream and put just a part of it into the tray? Why does that make any sense at all?

4. General Retardedness.

From time to time, we have to file certain documents in the courthouse. The wording for these documents is fairly standard and is set forth pretty expressly in a court rule. For as long as I can remember, I've been putting together these documents with a minimum of fuss. Then, for some reason, after literally five years of my having put these things together, suddenly a memo appears on my desk. It purports to advise just how these documents should be put together, and what words should be used. It even cites the court rule and attaches a copy of that rule. What's the big deal? you ask? The "correct format" that the memo outlines is exactly what I've been doing for the past five years. You're seriously sending me a memo to tell me how to properly do something I've been doing all this time?

I love my office mates, I really do. On balance, they're great people. But sometimes, working with them requires a hell of a lot of tolerance for some really stupid stuff.

Notice!

This feature just might end up making a semi-regular appearance here.

Make your own here. [Thanks to Ryan for the link.]