Stanford professor Ben Barres has an editorial in Nature this week arguing against what he terms the "Larry Summers Hypothesis:" Women don't make as strong a showing in science because of innate ability.
First of all, I think it's more than a little unfair to term this the Larry Summers Hypothesis. Summers said in his notorious speech, "different socialization and patterns of discrimination in a search" is the third most important factor in why women aren't achieving. He also said the most important factor was the "high-powered job hypothesis:" Men are prepared to commit more hours to their jobs, at least partially because women have to choose between high-commitment jobs and family life. The middle factor was intrinsic aptitude, and he frames the difference in aptitude as a difference in standard deviation, which only affects the extremes to a severe extent. He doesn't deal with average differences. So that's why I think the name of this hypothesis is unfair.
Briefly, dwelling on Summers, Barres indirectly acknowledges that Summers is on target with his MOST important reason why women aren't achieving: "Women faculty, in particular, need help from their institutions in balancing career and family responsibilities." This means there is a real effect of women not being able to commit time. Great. You two boys are in agreement.
Barres spends relatively little his space actually arguing that the data say intrinsic aptitude is not a factor, although some of his numbers are compelling. A third of top Putnam scorers are women, and a study of 20,000 kids showed no difference in math scores between the genders. I'm a little suspicious of that because, again, we're not looking at means, just extremes, and there are about 5 kids in that 20,000 who fit our definition of extreme. Finding no difference there is still not really significant. (Someone tell me if this is flawed statistical reasoning) [Update: I realize in the morning light that this is, indeed, horrible reasoning. With 20,000 subjects you can easily determine a curve and a standard deviation and extrapolate this to the extremes, even if your extreme data doesn't match this perfectly. Still, I would like to see that these curves and not just their averages are identical.]
Most of Barres's essay is showing evidence that there is real, real discrimination. This is nicely underscored by his personal story. Ben Barres was Barbara Barres until only about 10 years ago, and so he is a unique (read: rare) position to compare how people treat men and how people treat women. Admittedly, it's not a scientific comparison...the difference between Barbara and Ben isn't PURELY gender; how a personality and set of mannerisms interact with one's gender is a strong, strong factor in how a person is perceived. Still, his position is special and should be considered. So after he transition, people treated him and his research with an obscene increase in respect. The money quote from the editorial is from a professor who saw him give a talk right after he transitioned, "Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but then his work is much better than his sister's." Ooh. Zing.
The most persuasive part of the essay, I'd say, is the evidence that women face discrimination, "one study found that women applying for a research grant
needed to be 2.5 times more productive than men in order to be considered equally competent." There is perhaps too little statistical evidence in the editorial, but there is some.
And some of his studies are a little shaky, "A 2002 study did find a gender gap in competitiveness in financial tournaments, but the authors suggested that this was due to differences in self confidence rather than ability." Suggested? I don't yet know why to take his word on it. Even if the problem is self-esteem, I don't want to take anyone's word that this is caused by discouragement and not by nature. Gimme more info.
In sum, he convinces me that there is legitimate discrimination, but I am not totally convinced that both ability at the extremes and willingness to forsake family to commit are not equally important factors. If that study on productivity is totally legit, that would strengthen his claim a lot. I'm just initially wary. It's a decidedly important editorial, and I think this conversation should be ongoing. I'm glad he's kicked it up again.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Thursday, July 06, 2006
I ♥ NY
Judge R.S. Smith, your ass is mine.
(No, NSA, I don't mean that literally. More to the point, I don't mean that seriously. I very clearly don't mean it literally. Anyway...)
Today the highest court in my favorite state in the land ruled against gay marriage. Now, when I saw the verdict, I was only minorly pissed. I'm not intimately familiar with our state constitution (heck, I could barely tell you how a bill becomes a law...or how a bill becomes a bill, for that matter). It was entirely possible that sending the issue to the states was the best step. That is, it was entirely possible, until I started reading the decision. Motherfucker! What a douche. I really just disagree with most of his premises, his methods, and his conclusions. I'll go through them until I feel like stopping, which will probably be after the "can rationally believe..." section.
OK, Domestic Relations Law implies clearly that marirages are to be between members of the opposite sex because of terms like "husband" and "wife." I buy that. Moving on to the Constitution...
The plaintiffs want to say the law goes against both the Equal Protection Clause ("No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws of this State or any subdivision thereof") and the Due Process Clause ("No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law"). Judge Smith (hereafter Jud Smee) acknowledges the many benefits of marriage.
He writes, "The critical question is whether a rational legislature could decide that these benefits should be given to members of opposite-sex couples, but not same-sex couples." So this is what he wants to figure out. Is there any possible rational reason for denying these benefits to same-sex couples--or, to phrase it in the way he seems to think of it, to grant them only to opposite-sex couples. First of all, I think that's a major distinction. He really seems to see marriage not as a fundamental right at all, but as something the state can choose to grant to someone if it foresees state benefit. I don't really think this is the right way to look at it...marriage, as the conservatives tell us, is an institution that has been around for a very long time. We expect marriage. It's not a privilege the state decides to grant...it is an expected part of adult life. Moving on...he concludes that there are two rational reasons why the state would support marriage for one kind of couple but not the other.
"First, the Legislature could rationally decide that, for the welfare of children, it is more important to promote stability, and to avoid instability, in opposite-sex than in same-sex relationships." What's his reasoning for this? The "vast majority of children" are born in heterosexual relationships. It's true. But since when do we oppress the minority of children? There are children regularly, if not frequently, being born into gay relationships. He says that the legislature could find that the unions that bring about children (straight ones) are too unstable, and it is to the benefit of children to stabilize them via the tool of marriage. Since gay couples don't have kids by accident, this doesn't apply to them. I suppose this could be rational...if we were just coming up with the idea of marriage today. "Hey, there are too many babies without fathers. Maybe if we provide an incentive for them to stay, they will!" Does he really think any rational person TODAY thinks of marriage solely as an institution to give love children stable homes? To protect kids born as a "result of accident or impulse?" Because people can't control their genitals, when they fuck and fuck up and have kids, we need to bribe the parents into taking care of them. Is it just me, or is this part of the reasoning astoundingly odd?
"There is a second reason: The Legislature could rationally believe that it is better, other things being equal, for children to grow up with both a mother and a father." Oh, this old saw. I need to let Jud Smee continue here, for just another sentence: "Intuition and experience suggest that a child benefits from having before his or her eyes, every day, living models of what both a man and a woman are like." Oh, well, if intuition and experience say so, then it must be rational to believe it. First of all...intuition? Aren't we sure intuition is frequently mistaken. I'm sure I intuit many wrong things...first impressions of people, physical laws, etc. The only way intuition gets any credit is if it's based on experience or research, so let's turn to that. What experience does he mean? He talks about a "general rule" that this is so. Where does this come from? Has he really compared and contrasted living situations? Does he think most people have? The experience that YOU benefited from both of your parents doesn't count. One example is not enough to base a rational decision on. And just because many people make irrational conclusions, doesn't make those conclusions rational. (Plus, every adult I know is messed up. Every day, living models are most likely mediocre if not downright bad every day, living models.)
He goes on to talk about social science studies: "[T]he studies on their face do not
establish beyond doubt that children fare equally well in samesex and opposite-sex households. What they show, at most, is that rather limited observation has detected no marked differences." I've looked at these studies and, yeah, they're based on small samples. But they're based on statistically significant samples and they do show no marked differences. While this may not be totally conclusive, it does mean there's no scientific reason to think kids will do worse. Jud Smee acknowledges this but says the lawmakers could proceed "on the common-sense premise that children will do best with a mother and father in the home." It's not common sense...it's totally unbased! Since these studies show kids do as well, if people had any experience with kids raised by two moms or two dads, they'd know (collectively) that those kids do just as well. Intuition or "common-sense" without this experience is meaningless and not a basis for a rational decision.
OK, that's all the Jud Smee I can take for now. His decision just irked me. I'm not editing this, so there may be random errors...sorry for those. And, yeah, it's annoying how he talks about "sexual preference." That's poor form, Jud Smee. Poor form, indeed. Well, hopefully if/when Spitzer's in charge of this state he'll push gay marriage through the legislature. It's time we realize we're fucking people over and not helping anyone. No, legally it's not a PERFECT parallel to Loving v. Virginia and all the interracial marriage stuff, but I'm convinced the emotions behind it are the same. Gay people are a convenient "other." Come on, kids. Gay people aren't the other...they're not exactly like straight people, but I think if the crazy right people got to know a few, they'd realize they're just people...as fucked up as straight folks, but just as great, too. (And occasionally, just a little bit greater. Shh.)
(No, NSA, I don't mean that literally. More to the point, I don't mean that seriously. I very clearly don't mean it literally. Anyway...)
Today the highest court in my favorite state in the land ruled against gay marriage. Now, when I saw the verdict, I was only minorly pissed. I'm not intimately familiar with our state constitution (heck, I could barely tell you how a bill becomes a law...or how a bill becomes a bill, for that matter). It was entirely possible that sending the issue to the states was the best step. That is, it was entirely possible, until I started reading the decision. Motherfucker! What a douche. I really just disagree with most of his premises, his methods, and his conclusions. I'll go through them until I feel like stopping, which will probably be after the "can rationally believe..." section.
OK, Domestic Relations Law implies clearly that marirages are to be between members of the opposite sex because of terms like "husband" and "wife." I buy that. Moving on to the Constitution...
The plaintiffs want to say the law goes against both the Equal Protection Clause ("No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws of this State or any subdivision thereof") and the Due Process Clause ("No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law"). Judge Smith (hereafter Jud Smee) acknowledges the many benefits of marriage.
He writes, "The critical question is whether a rational legislature could decide that these benefits should be given to members of opposite-sex couples, but not same-sex couples." So this is what he wants to figure out. Is there any possible rational reason for denying these benefits to same-sex couples--or, to phrase it in the way he seems to think of it, to grant them only to opposite-sex couples. First of all, I think that's a major distinction. He really seems to see marriage not as a fundamental right at all, but as something the state can choose to grant to someone if it foresees state benefit. I don't really think this is the right way to look at it...marriage, as the conservatives tell us, is an institution that has been around for a very long time. We expect marriage. It's not a privilege the state decides to grant...it is an expected part of adult life. Moving on...he concludes that there are two rational reasons why the state would support marriage for one kind of couple but not the other.
"First, the Legislature could rationally decide that, for the welfare of children, it is more important to promote stability, and to avoid instability, in opposite-sex than in same-sex relationships." What's his reasoning for this? The "vast majority of children" are born in heterosexual relationships. It's true. But since when do we oppress the minority of children? There are children regularly, if not frequently, being born into gay relationships. He says that the legislature could find that the unions that bring about children (straight ones) are too unstable, and it is to the benefit of children to stabilize them via the tool of marriage. Since gay couples don't have kids by accident, this doesn't apply to them. I suppose this could be rational...if we were just coming up with the idea of marriage today. "Hey, there are too many babies without fathers. Maybe if we provide an incentive for them to stay, they will!" Does he really think any rational person TODAY thinks of marriage solely as an institution to give love children stable homes? To protect kids born as a "result of accident or impulse?" Because people can't control their genitals, when they fuck and fuck up and have kids, we need to bribe the parents into taking care of them. Is it just me, or is this part of the reasoning astoundingly odd?
"There is a second reason: The Legislature could rationally believe that it is better, other things being equal, for children to grow up with both a mother and a father." Oh, this old saw. I need to let Jud Smee continue here, for just another sentence: "Intuition and experience suggest that a child benefits from having before his or her eyes, every day, living models of what both a man and a woman are like." Oh, well, if intuition and experience say so, then it must be rational to believe it. First of all...intuition? Aren't we sure intuition is frequently mistaken. I'm sure I intuit many wrong things...first impressions of people, physical laws, etc. The only way intuition gets any credit is if it's based on experience or research, so let's turn to that. What experience does he mean? He talks about a "general rule" that this is so. Where does this come from? Has he really compared and contrasted living situations? Does he think most people have? The experience that YOU benefited from both of your parents doesn't count. One example is not enough to base a rational decision on. And just because many people make irrational conclusions, doesn't make those conclusions rational. (Plus, every adult I know is messed up. Every day, living models are most likely mediocre if not downright bad every day, living models.)
He goes on to talk about social science studies: "[T]he studies on their face do not
establish beyond doubt that children fare equally well in samesex and opposite-sex households. What they show, at most, is that rather limited observation has detected no marked differences." I've looked at these studies and, yeah, they're based on small samples. But they're based on statistically significant samples and they do show no marked differences. While this may not be totally conclusive, it does mean there's no scientific reason to think kids will do worse. Jud Smee acknowledges this but says the lawmakers could proceed "on the common-sense premise that children will do best with a mother and father in the home." It's not common sense...it's totally unbased! Since these studies show kids do as well, if people had any experience with kids raised by two moms or two dads, they'd know (collectively) that those kids do just as well. Intuition or "common-sense" without this experience is meaningless and not a basis for a rational decision.
OK, that's all the Jud Smee I can take for now. His decision just irked me. I'm not editing this, so there may be random errors...sorry for those. And, yeah, it's annoying how he talks about "sexual preference." That's poor form, Jud Smee. Poor form, indeed. Well, hopefully if/when Spitzer's in charge of this state he'll push gay marriage through the legislature. It's time we realize we're fucking people over and not helping anyone. No, legally it's not a PERFECT parallel to Loving v. Virginia and all the interracial marriage stuff, but I'm convinced the emotions behind it are the same. Gay people are a convenient "other." Come on, kids. Gay people aren't the other...they're not exactly like straight people, but I think if the crazy right people got to know a few, they'd realize they're just people...as fucked up as straight folks, but just as great, too. (And occasionally, just a little bit greater. Shh.)
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
A Weekend in the Country
BEST WEEKEND EVER. No, I really mean it. I actually don't think I've ever had a better weekend, both in terms of actual happenings and my spirits throughout the three and a half days. I mean, I wound up on all fours in the dirt vomiting into the side of a mountain and it was STILL the best weekend ever. I don't recommend that particular activity—I recommend drinking lots of water before the hike and avoiding the migraine—but I do recommend going to your friend's family's place in the Adirondacks with a bunch of your favorite college pals for a long, July 4th weekend. And while I'm recommending, I recommend keeping sexuality out of the whole thing and concentrating on fresh air, great scenery, physical activity and amazing friends. Rock the fuck ON.
Friday after work I took the PATH to Hoboken to meet Vijay at Stevens, where he's currently post-docing. I definitely heart the PATH...cheaper than the subway and just as fast. We met up with Emily and Haninah and hit the road with some shockingly good Greek food. When we got to the cabin in bustling Keene, NY, it seemed like nobody was there. We walked in, dropped our stuff on beds and followed faint laugher to the bunkhouse where lots of wonderful people (I believe at that point it was Becky, Dave, Brad, Casandra, and Sarah) were finishing up a highly competitive game of Monopoly. We grabbed beers and just a few minutes later, Jen and Lee walked in, bringing our number to a respectable 11. We chatted and joked until about 3 am and all crashed for the eve.
Saturday morning we all convened outside for breakfast. Whereas the night before we were stunned by the stars, then we were stunned by the mountain view. I played a mean game of Bocce with Jen and Dave, who then had to leave for his grandfather's funeral. Yeah, not the highlight there. We also got introduced to the awesome dog, Lulu, pictured with Brad at right (I really like that shot). We, now Daveless and Leeless due to the funeral and general exhaustion, respectively, took a short hike. The top of the mountain was just about the windiest place ever, so we didn't spend too long up there, just long enough to let Cas celebrate Canadia Day (that's that weird moose-ish country, right?), as you can see below. Saturday evening we stopped at the deliciously neighborhoody Noon Mark Diner before a great fireworks display. The friends devised a firework rating system that eventually had to be normalized. We said the newly rated fireworks must feel like people from our grade who got 1600s on their SATs and will now be thought less-than-brilliant students when they attempt to boast. Poor newly marked 7s on the firework scale. Woe to the firework of moderate size with only one explosion.
On Sunday more people arrived. Woo! Alexandria showed up, Hannah in tow, and Brad went to grab Daniel Effon and came back with both him and Noa Wheeler: two great surprises in the "people I've always really liked but never spent quite enough time with" category. I went with Jen, Lee and Alexandria to ice skate at the Olympic arena, where there were four rinks, none of them open to the public. GREAT. So we went to the lake next to Lake Placid and played word games with Daniel and Noa. Much fun. We headed to a great place called Caribbean Cowboy where I had a totally rockin' blue cheese burger and sat with Brad, Cas and Daniel (who has one of the world's winninger smiles). Good table. Good times. That night was hanging out in the pavilion, a wood gazebo about 50 yards from the cabin. Alexandria did some mad fiddling to Hannah's guitar background and we roasted s'mores in the fire.
Monday was a mad rush to get crepes for Jen, who'd been wanting them bad since two years ago when she visited the same place. We made it by noon, when they'd told us they stopped serving the day before, but it turned out that on Mondays it was 11:30. Well fuck you, too, crepe place! So Lee, Sarah and I headed back to go hiking (Jen kindly drove us), while Alexandria stayed with Brad's car, which dropped off Cas on her 18 mile run (training much?). We hiked up Cascade, one of the 46 Adirondacks over 4000 feet. Things got so sweaty Dave and the other guys had to take their shirts off. What a shame. Can't you feel my salty, wet tears? Right. The climb was harsh, and on the way up, I realized my head started throbbing every time we stopped, but I didn't think much of it...heads will throb. Besides, we were playing some serious Botticelli. 
Apparently Sarah Gustafson is the most cultured person in the world. We spent an hour getting her down to "Renaissance Italian man involved in music, but not mainly a composer, player or commissioner, starts with S ends in US." She kept fending off our stumpers! But really, can you get that? It wasn't until Becky said "maybe an instrument maker?" that we all simultaneously turned around and screamed "STRADIVARIUS!" By that point we were victoriously on the glorious summit. Woohoo! And that's when the headache started to kick into gear. About halfway down the mountain I told them I needed to stop: My stomach was NOT doing well. After a few minutes, I told them to head up a few yards, I'd be there soon. Which is how I wound up on my hands and knees in the dirt, vomiting in the woods. My entire body buzzed afterwards. My limbs felt ridiculously light, like I could hardly control their movement. I did the vomiting thing once more, but we made it down, and when we got back into the house, despite being as sweaty and dirty as I've ever been, I crashed on my bed and slept for an hour.
When I got up and showered, the bbq in the pavilion was ready. The food was great and the migraine proved to be excellent X-treme catharsis. I felt buzzy but totally calm. After dinner we gathered round the fire (of doom!) and sang folk songs, including my new favorite, "The MTA Song," a political ditty about a man who gets stuck on the Boston subway for life due to a sudden fare increase. The only way to prevent yourself from ending up like poor Charlie is to "Vote for George O'Brien!" It's pretty hilarious. The other song I'm obsessed with post-trip is Silvia Nott's "Til Hamingju Island," the Icelandic entry in Eurovision 2006 that Vijay played in the car. Totally awesome. After dinner it was to bed, Alexandria now next to me, thanks to Haninah's unexpected (HA) absence.
The following morning was all about waffles, packing up and heading back. And that's all there is to tell for now folks. The best weekend ever concludes. Now to make it the best week ever: Hey, NY Supreme Court...want to rule for gay marriages? That'd be good.
Friday after work I took the PATH to Hoboken to meet Vijay at Stevens, where he's currently post-docing. I definitely heart the PATH...cheaper than the subway and just as fast. We met up with Emily and Haninah and hit the road with some shockingly good Greek food. When we got to the cabin in bustling Keene, NY, it seemed like nobody was there. We walked in, dropped our stuff on beds and followed faint laugher to the bunkhouse where lots of wonderful people (I believe at that point it was Becky, Dave, Brad, Casandra, and Sarah) were finishing up a highly competitive game of Monopoly. We grabbed beers and just a few minutes later, Jen and Lee walked in, bringing our number to a respectable 11. We chatted and joked until about 3 am and all crashed for the eve.
Saturday morning we all convened outside for breakfast. Whereas the night before we were stunned by the stars, then we were stunned by the mountain view. I played a mean game of Bocce with Jen and Dave, who then had to leave for his grandfather's funeral. Yeah, not the highlight there. We also got introduced to the awesome dog, Lulu, pictured with Brad at right (I really like that shot). We, now Daveless and Leeless due to the funeral and general exhaustion, respectively, took a short hike. The top of the mountain was just about the windiest place ever, so we didn't spend too long up there, just long enough to let Cas celebrate Canadia Day (that's that weird moose-ish country, right?), as you can see below. Saturday evening we stopped at the deliciously neighborhoody Noon Mark Diner before a great fireworks display. The friends devised a firework rating system that eventually had to be normalized. We said the newly rated fireworks must feel like people from our grade who got 1600s on their SATs and will now be thought less-than-brilliant students when they attempt to boast. Poor newly marked 7s on the firework scale. Woe to the firework of moderate size with only one explosion.
On Sunday more people arrived. Woo! Alexandria showed up, Hannah in tow, and Brad went to grab Daniel Effon and came back with both him and Noa Wheeler: two great surprises in the "people I've always really liked but never spent quite enough time with" category. I went with Jen, Lee and Alexandria to ice skate at the Olympic arena, where there were four rinks, none of them open to the public. GREAT. So we went to the lake next to Lake Placid and played word games with Daniel and Noa. Much fun. We headed to a great place called Caribbean Cowboy where I had a totally rockin' blue cheese burger and sat with Brad, Cas and Daniel (who has one of the world's winninger smiles). Good table. Good times. That night was hanging out in the pavilion, a wood gazebo about 50 yards from the cabin. Alexandria did some mad fiddling to Hannah's guitar background and we roasted s'mores in the fire.
Monday was a mad rush to get crepes for Jen, who'd been wanting them bad since two years ago when she visited the same place. We made it by noon, when they'd told us they stopped serving the day before, but it turned out that on Mondays it was 11:30. Well fuck you, too, crepe place! So Lee, Sarah and I headed back to go hiking (Jen kindly drove us), while Alexandria stayed with Brad's car, which dropped off Cas on her 18 mile run (training much?). We hiked up Cascade, one of the 46 Adirondacks over 4000 feet. Things got so sweaty Dave and the other guys had to take their shirts off. What a shame. Can't you feel my salty, wet tears? Right. The climb was harsh, and on the way up, I realized my head started throbbing every time we stopped, but I didn't think much of it...heads will throb. Besides, we were playing some serious Botticelli. 
Apparently Sarah Gustafson is the most cultured person in the world. We spent an hour getting her down to "Renaissance Italian man involved in music, but not mainly a composer, player or commissioner, starts with S ends in US." She kept fending off our stumpers! But really, can you get that? It wasn't until Becky said "maybe an instrument maker?" that we all simultaneously turned around and screamed "STRADIVARIUS!" By that point we were victoriously on the glorious summit. Woohoo! And that's when the headache started to kick into gear. About halfway down the mountain I told them I needed to stop: My stomach was NOT doing well. After a few minutes, I told them to head up a few yards, I'd be there soon. Which is how I wound up on my hands and knees in the dirt, vomiting in the woods. My entire body buzzed afterwards. My limbs felt ridiculously light, like I could hardly control their movement. I did the vomiting thing once more, but we made it down, and when we got back into the house, despite being as sweaty and dirty as I've ever been, I crashed on my bed and slept for an hour.
When I got up and showered, the bbq in the pavilion was ready. The food was great and the migraine proved to be excellent X-treme catharsis. I felt buzzy but totally calm. After dinner we gathered round the fire (of doom!) and sang folk songs, including my new favorite, "The MTA Song," a political ditty about a man who gets stuck on the Boston subway for life due to a sudden fare increase. The only way to prevent yourself from ending up like poor Charlie is to "Vote for George O'Brien!" It's pretty hilarious. The other song I'm obsessed with post-trip is Silvia Nott's "Til Hamingju Island," the Icelandic entry in Eurovision 2006 that Vijay played in the car. Totally awesome. After dinner it was to bed, Alexandria now next to me, thanks to Haninah's unexpected (HA) absence.The following morning was all about waffles, packing up and heading back. And that's all there is to tell for now folks. The best weekend ever concludes. Now to make it the best week ever: Hey, NY Supreme Court...want to rule for gay marriages? That'd be good.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
For Which It Stands
Bravi to the 34 Senators who saved us from the worst amendment of all time! Boo to the 66 who thought it would be a good idea to amend our Constitution to limit our freedoms. To outlaw flag-burning/defacing would be the least American thing in the world. This country is so great because we're allowed to speak out against our leaders, allowed to speak out against our laws, and, yes, allowed to speak out against the principles this country was founded on, even through the fairly offensive means of flag-burning. The soldiers who fought under our flag didn't fight for the Stars & Stripes, per se, they fought for what they stand for: freedom, justice, and democracy.
If we should allow Nazis to march (we should), if we should allow Pat Robertson to say Ellen DeGeneres caused Katrina (we should...she didn't...or I'll never believe James Hansen again), we should allow people to burn the flag. And the fact that most people supported this amendment reminds me how much I disrespect the average voter. All these mofos with their "us-them" mentalities. Our goal in life is not to squash the enemy...it's to strive toward better things. Sure, that sometimes involves squashing the enemy, but that's not the end, just a means.
In any case, here are the 34 Senators (including Joe) who aren't a disgrace to America:
Akaka (D-HI)
Bennett (R-UT)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Chafee (R-RI)
Clinton (D-NY)
Conrad (D-ND)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (D-CT)
McConnell (R-KY)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Obama (D-IL)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Wyden (D-OR)
If we should allow Nazis to march (we should), if we should allow Pat Robertson to say Ellen DeGeneres caused Katrina (we should...she didn't...or I'll never believe James Hansen again), we should allow people to burn the flag. And the fact that most people supported this amendment reminds me how much I disrespect the average voter. All these mofos with their "us-them" mentalities. Our goal in life is not to squash the enemy...it's to strive toward better things. Sure, that sometimes involves squashing the enemy, but that's not the end, just a means.
In any case, here are the 34 Senators (including Joe) who aren't a disgrace to America:
Akaka (D-HI)
Bennett (R-UT)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Chafee (R-RI)
Clinton (D-NY)
Conrad (D-ND)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (D-CT)
McConnell (R-KY)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Obama (D-IL)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Wyden (D-OR)
Monday, June 26, 2006
We Are Family
Since the last post was depressing, I'll follow it up immediately with something lighter. Yet another study came out today (done by the same people who've done all the previous studies to the same effect) showing that men who have multiple older brothers are more likely to be gay. With every older brother, your chances of being gay increase by about a third. Interesting stuff. One theory for why this is the case says that mothers eventually develop a certain immune response to all the foreign testosterone in the womb. So the boys don't get the typical amount of androgens at the point where the brain might develop an interest in the fairer sex. Nobody claims this accounts for the entirety of homosexuality (I mean, there are TWINS who have different sexual orientations...albeit fewer identical pairs, so genetics are involved). Still, here's a question:
Of the gay men you know, how many fit this pattern? When I mentioned this to V a week ago (before this specific study came out) he said it fit very well with the guys he knows. I'd always thought it didn't really fit, but then I realized, while I do know a bunch of gay men without older brothers, I can't think of any that have straight younger brothers. Maybe I'm not thinking of someone totally obvious, but here's the round-up, as far as I can think in this tired state:
Gay men I know with no straight younger brothers:
Greg
V
Mike L.
Lebowitzes
Perhaps other twins
Eric H.
Eric S.
Romero
Sergi (gay enough for my data)
Billy R.
Trevor McG.
Gay men with younger brothers whose s/os I don't know:
Jason F.
Chris P.
Steve B.
Assuming all three "don't knows" are straight (no idea), that probably means nothing. If only one is straight? I don't know. There are also a lot of gay dudes I know from college but don't know their sibling situations at all. Oh well, please let me know of gay men you know with definitively heterosexual younger brothers.
Of the gay men you know, how many fit this pattern? When I mentioned this to V a week ago (before this specific study came out) he said it fit very well with the guys he knows. I'd always thought it didn't really fit, but then I realized, while I do know a bunch of gay men without older brothers, I can't think of any that have straight younger brothers. Maybe I'm not thinking of someone totally obvious, but here's the round-up, as far as I can think in this tired state:
Gay men I know with no straight younger brothers:
Greg
V
Mike L.
Lebowitzes
Perhaps other twins
Eric H.
Eric S.
Romero
Sergi (gay enough for my data)
Billy R.
Trevor McG.
Gay men with younger brothers whose s/os I don't know:
Jason F.
Chris P.
Steve B.
Assuming all three "don't knows" are straight (no idea), that probably means nothing. If only one is straight? I don't know. There are also a lot of gay dudes I know from college but don't know their sibling situations at all. Oh well, please let me know of gay men you know with definitively heterosexual younger brothers.
Well, Bah
First, a question: Given everything we know about the NSA domestic spying program, is it unethical to bait them? I mean, sure, it's probably totally unconstitutional (blah, blah, blah), and sure, there's a good chance they may eventually use the information they've gleaned for matters other than national security. But assuming their intentions are pure (you can do it!), should we really be wasting their time by writing emails saying, "Crusaders for Zion are da bomb!" Because it really is so tempting, but given that this program may actually help national security, I think it's wrong to bait them. But we can see how seriously I take this by, oh, the presence of this blog entry. By the way, I'm convinced that every terrorist emailing in English (why?) has put the word "bomb" back instead of whatever codeword they were using and preceded it with "da" and followed it with several exclamation points. They're totally going to blend in with the 14 year old girls in the minds of the government. God, I hope not...
Second: I was groped on the way to work today. ARGH. I was walking along, admittedly spacing out a little more than is perhaps prudent (but it was 9:15 am, not exactly a crazy hour), and all of a sudden there's a hand on my breast. I flicked it off with my wrist and gave the guy the same "what the fuck?" look I give to cars that cut me off when I have a walk signal. I kind of wish I had, like, stood up for womankind and done more (e.g., broken his arm, told the traffic cop, etc.), but I was mostly just embarrassed that I looked vulnerable and interested in getting to work and reading about science. I was minorly shell-shocked for the rest of the walk.
In any case, it didn't improve my view of men at all. I'm not entirely convinced men don't walk around wishing they could touch anyone they find the remotest bit attractive. Clearly they don't touch them, because they know that's very wrong and inappropriate (and even the ones who do only do it when they believe they're not going to get into trouble). But that doesn't convince me that they don't all have that impulse. I kind of think they do. And it made me realize more than ever that I'm not with the vast majority of people who believe your goodness should be judged based on how adept you are at overcoming your sinful impulses and living ethically. I think your goodness is determined by whether you have those impulses or not. Your ethical character is how you act, but that's not what I look for in people, at least people I want to be close to. I want the people on the streets to be ethical, but I want my friends to be good. I want to like most of their impulses.
This is, I think, why I'm generally repulsed by most men (at least the straight ones). I don't care how they actually treat me as much as what their ultimate goal is...what they're aiming for. And I feel like every guy I've ever met has a big sign on his head saying "Looking to hook up," "Will make small-talk to make out," "Will buy dinner to get laid," or whatever. Ew to it all. I think I make fun of asexual people so much because in some weird way I know I'm one of them. No, I'm not actually asexual, but if I'm not interested in having sex (or anything approaching it) with any real people, I'm not THAT far off.
All right, this entry has far surpassed the TMI level, considering everyone I work with has this url. GREAT. Don't mention it at the office kids. Right-o.
Second: I was groped on the way to work today. ARGH. I was walking along, admittedly spacing out a little more than is perhaps prudent (but it was 9:15 am, not exactly a crazy hour), and all of a sudden there's a hand on my breast. I flicked it off with my wrist and gave the guy the same "what the fuck?" look I give to cars that cut me off when I have a walk signal. I kind of wish I had, like, stood up for womankind and done more (e.g., broken his arm, told the traffic cop, etc.), but I was mostly just embarrassed that I looked vulnerable and interested in getting to work and reading about science. I was minorly shell-shocked for the rest of the walk.
In any case, it didn't improve my view of men at all. I'm not entirely convinced men don't walk around wishing they could touch anyone they find the remotest bit attractive. Clearly they don't touch them, because they know that's very wrong and inappropriate (and even the ones who do only do it when they believe they're not going to get into trouble). But that doesn't convince me that they don't all have that impulse. I kind of think they do. And it made me realize more than ever that I'm not with the vast majority of people who believe your goodness should be judged based on how adept you are at overcoming your sinful impulses and living ethically. I think your goodness is determined by whether you have those impulses or not. Your ethical character is how you act, but that's not what I look for in people, at least people I want to be close to. I want the people on the streets to be ethical, but I want my friends to be good. I want to like most of their impulses.
This is, I think, why I'm generally repulsed by most men (at least the straight ones). I don't care how they actually treat me as much as what their ultimate goal is...what they're aiming for. And I feel like every guy I've ever met has a big sign on his head saying "Looking to hook up," "Will make small-talk to make out," "Will buy dinner to get laid," or whatever. Ew to it all. I think I make fun of asexual people so much because in some weird way I know I'm one of them. No, I'm not actually asexual, but if I'm not interested in having sex (or anything approaching it) with any real people, I'm not THAT far off.
All right, this entry has far surpassed the TMI level, considering everyone I work with has this url. GREAT. Don't mention it at the office kids. Right-o.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Wordplay
Just saw Wordplay with Brad and Adam. Those people put me and my mad x-word skills (finished puns & anagrams last week!) to SHAME. Now I'm inspired to write, although I have to think of a great theme and go from there. But first, today's puzzle while watching my funny news. I feel like a loser for not doing them every night. Yay, puzzles!
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
How To Be A Thrifty Addict
Prices vary from place to place...we've all seen gas in rural America or even New Jersey and nearly wet ourselves. Prices can also vary within one area between items of different quality. A couch, for example, can cost anywhere from, oh, $100 to $10,000. Then again, depending on the price, you'll be getting a vastly different couch. The $100 couch, if it's not used, will be ugly, small, uncomfortable and it will probably fall apart in two weeks. The $10,000 couch will be obscenely luxurious and every time you sit down you'll fall asleep. If the rest of your living space isn't beautiful, it will stick out like a sore thumb. But is there really THAT big of a difference in quality between different varieties of drip coffee? I've made up a bar(ista) graph for Manhattan:
Since the names are a little hard to see in the jpeg, I'll review: Gray's Papaya: $.25, Cart at 42nd and 9th: $.50, Cart at 22nd and 5th: $.65, Tartare (an independent shop on 9th b/w 45th and 46th): $1.00, Slave to the Grind (best coffee shop everrrrr): $1.50 (I think), Starbucks (in Manhattan): $1.79.
This is a pretty serious gradient of coffee prices! The most expensive (but really nothing special) is over 7 times pricier than the cheapest! That's over 3.5 times more expensive than the cheapest one that isn't a "special deal."
You may have seen the New York Times article on saving money post-college. It says to cut out your $3.50 latte in the mornings. Well, you don't need to cut it out to save money...just switch to drip coffee, preferably of the fitty-cent kind. And even if you're stuck on quality coffee, get it at an independent place, if you can find one near you. The $1.79 at the 'bucks is simply absurd. And so not worth it.
That's the most domestic advice I've ever given. Tally-ho, my sweeties!
Since the names are a little hard to see in the jpeg, I'll review: Gray's Papaya: $.25, Cart at 42nd and 9th: $.50, Cart at 22nd and 5th: $.65, Tartare (an independent shop on 9th b/w 45th and 46th): $1.00, Slave to the Grind (best coffee shop everrrrr): $1.50 (I think), Starbucks (in Manhattan): $1.79.This is a pretty serious gradient of coffee prices! The most expensive (but really nothing special) is over 7 times pricier than the cheapest! That's over 3.5 times more expensive than the cheapest one that isn't a "special deal."
You may have seen the New York Times article on saving money post-college. It says to cut out your $3.50 latte in the mornings. Well, you don't need to cut it out to save money...just switch to drip coffee, preferably of the fitty-cent kind. And even if you're stuck on quality coffee, get it at an independent place, if you can find one near you. The $1.79 at the 'bucks is simply absurd. And so not worth it.
That's the most domestic advice I've ever given. Tally-ho, my sweeties!
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Statues
On Sunday, the American Theater Wing gave out the Tonys...to many of the wrong people. A jukebox musical (although supposedly the best of the genre) won for best original musical, and Michael Cerveris and Patti LuPone got dicked over by the dude who plays Frankie Valli and LaChanze. Admittedly, I haven't actually SEEN Jersey Boys or The Color Purple but, first of all, I'm so sick to death of people winning for impersonations--fuck Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote, fuck Jamie Foxx in Ray...hell, fuck Johnny Depp in Pirate of the Caribbean; they're all great actors, but why give them their top accolades for channeling real people?--and second of all, I hear from my most trusted sources that neither of them was as awesome as the Sweeney Todd folks.
But despite the slightly unfortunate outcome, the evening was stellar. I dragged V and brought Adam to Greg's party in his apartment. The guest list was: Greg, me, V, Adam, Megan (Greg's roommate), Mike (Greg's other roommate), Rob (Mike's boyfriend), Ashish and Rachel (Greg's friends, a couple), Stephanie N. (awesome glee clubber whom I don't see enough...and Greg's friend), and Courtney and Marcello (roommates, and friends of Mike and Rob). I think that's it. It was great...what can I say? Watching theater with some of my favorite dorky men...making brilliantly hilarious catty comments with Greg and Vaughan...eating the delicious finger foods...staring at Mike's seriously overpumped arms...what else could one ask for in an evening? Well, deserving winners, I suppose, but not much else. Good times, great oldies.
But no KOOL 96.7! It's gone with the wind (say it with the long I). There is now no New York oldies station, and that's really, really depressing. I suppose my classic rock station is now as oldies as it gets. Shame, that.
So, today's been one of those hideously annoying days of perpetual pseudo-deja vu. About once every 45 minutes my mind quickly remembers a scene...whether it's from a dream or real life, I can't quite tell. But before I can actually place it or absorb what it is, it's gone, and I can't remember the glimpse I got. It's really quite frustrating. I know from experience (this happens from time to time), that try as I might, I will never be able to figure out where the scenes are from (they're all from the same thing, I think). I just need to accept it for the day, and I'll wake up feeling normal. Still, it's always disturbing when your body or mind betrays you. It's like feeling seriously nauseated...a constant you always count on is suddenly disturbed beyond your control. While the snippets feel intimately familiar when they come into my mind...who's to say they're actually from something, even a dream? It's wholly possible that they're just made up but have familiar feelings associated with them. It gives you perspective on how much of consciousness is controlled by hormones and not by actual thoughts. Creepy.
But despite the slightly unfortunate outcome, the evening was stellar. I dragged V and brought Adam to Greg's party in his apartment. The guest list was: Greg, me, V, Adam, Megan (Greg's roommate), Mike (Greg's other roommate), Rob (Mike's boyfriend), Ashish and Rachel (Greg's friends, a couple), Stephanie N. (awesome glee clubber whom I don't see enough...and Greg's friend), and Courtney and Marcello (roommates, and friends of Mike and Rob). I think that's it. It was great...what can I say? Watching theater with some of my favorite dorky men...making brilliantly hilarious catty comments with Greg and Vaughan...eating the delicious finger foods...staring at Mike's seriously overpumped arms...what else could one ask for in an evening? Well, deserving winners, I suppose, but not much else. Good times, great oldies.
But no KOOL 96.7! It's gone with the wind (say it with the long I). There is now no New York oldies station, and that's really, really depressing. I suppose my classic rock station is now as oldies as it gets. Shame, that.
So, today's been one of those hideously annoying days of perpetual pseudo-deja vu. About once every 45 minutes my mind quickly remembers a scene...whether it's from a dream or real life, I can't quite tell. But before I can actually place it or absorb what it is, it's gone, and I can't remember the glimpse I got. It's really quite frustrating. I know from experience (this happens from time to time), that try as I might, I will never be able to figure out where the scenes are from (they're all from the same thing, I think). I just need to accept it for the day, and I'll wake up feeling normal. Still, it's always disturbing when your body or mind betrays you. It's like feeling seriously nauseated...a constant you always count on is suddenly disturbed beyond your control. While the snippets feel intimately familiar when they come into my mind...who's to say they're actually from something, even a dream? It's wholly possible that they're just made up but have familiar feelings associated with them. It gives you perspective on how much of consciousness is controlled by hormones and not by actual thoughts. Creepy.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Pull the Switch
So, we got new interns at Seed this week. I'm pretty sad to see the old interns go...they were a very cool crowd, and hopefully I'll keep up with at least one or two of them. Anyway, one of the new interns is none other than Emily search foil Anthes, former Editor-in-Chief of the YDN. This is frickin' hilarious. In theory, I have a higher position at this company than a girl who spent her entire college life competently slaving over an (I'll admit it now) high-quality daily paper. Of course this is all a big farce...she just needs an internship to get her MIT science writing master's degree, and Seed has a very active internship. But it's still kind of funny.
So, when I was in Florence, I bought a tiny leather journal to write spare thoughts in...things I want to use for songs/plays/whatever later on. I left it at home, so here's my spare thought today: I think there should be a character who's confined to a wheelchair but has otherwise made himself so physically outrageous, through tattoos, piercings, etc, with the singular goal of having that be the first thing people say about him, instead of "he's confined to a wheelchair." I guess in my mental image of him, he failed.
So, when I was in Florence, I bought a tiny leather journal to write spare thoughts in...things I want to use for songs/plays/whatever later on. I left it at home, so here's my spare thought today: I think there should be a character who's confined to a wheelchair but has otherwise made himself so physically outrageous, through tattoos, piercings, etc, with the singular goal of having that be the first thing people say about him, instead of "he's confined to a wheelchair." I guess in my mental image of him, he failed.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Does Anyone Else...
Monday, May 29, 2006
The Great, Ambitious, All-In-One Italy Post!
[Update 06/04/06: Now with all three cities!]
I just flew in from Italy, and boy...ah, forget it. It's about 10 bajillion (10umpteenth) degrees in here—ooh, aren't these south-facing windows lovely?—and I have no patience for frivolity! Still, I plan to write a blindingly witty post that encompasses an entire week of traveling around Italy with my family. This will mostly be accomplished by putting in lots of pictures with clever or meaningful captions. You will be able to see all the beautiful things I have seen on the days when I felt like dragging my camera around. And so it begins.
See my last post for all the gritty details on my false start. After a hellish night of walking around my house alone, failing to form coherent sexual fantasies in lieu of general anxiety, and ending up at the piano only to find myself belting "I'm Still Here," I made it to JFK again. Everything went so shockingly smoothly on the second attempt that I was at the gate for my 1:30 pm flight at 10:20 am. Great.
On both of my flights I sat next to Europeans currently residing in the US: First a British artist who could got a job as an art/art history instructor at a college in Columbia, South Carolina (not his first choice of locale), and then an Italian gentleman currently residing in Virginia and only returning to Italy for business. I finally got to see King Kong on the flight to Italy and we only experienced a few minutes of insane turbulence or, as the pilot called it, "rough air." I adore the names they give painful flight..."We're going through a patch of rough air," "Please fasten your seatbelt, we're going to experience some weather," etc.
We landed, and Angelo drove me from the airport to the Hotel Britannia. He took the scenic route (of course...a stranger in a strange land doesn't know squat re cab fare) and I got to see a pit of the city, including the Colosseum, which the fam had seen while I was trying to sleep the night before. I also saw a sign that said (in Italian), "Catena: Quality Meat Since 1936." I didn't get to take a picture for Jen. Aw.
I only took one day of pictures in Rome, and that was the first day at the Vatican. Here we see light streaming into St. Peter's. Aw, God's smiling! St. Peter's is a rather vain little church, as it has markers on the floor showing where all other major cathedrals would come up to, were their entryways aligned. St. P's B is bigger than all of them. Much bigger.
We took a small, personal-ish tour around the Vatican with Hillary, a Brit currently living in Italy (and with a strange distaste for the UK) who gives lots of tours. She was occasionally discombobulated, but fun, entertaining and informative, and she couldn't stop talking about Rafael. "He was just gorgeous!" She made it sound like Rafael was so popular with the ladies, he died because he had an excruciatingly exhausting night of wild sex and fell so stricken that doctors did a blood letting and killed him. It sort of sounds like a load of crap to me, but I like the idea of Rafael being too hot to handle. She also ardently defended Michelangelo against charges of misogynism. I mean, I always thought he was just a huge homo, but apparently lots of people think he was really anti-women. I don't know...if I could make men as hot as Michelangelo's, I don't think I'd do many pieces of chicks either.
Ooh, there's the fam in the Vatican! The Jews are invading. Watch out...
Oh, I also committed a ridiculous faux pas by, um, lying down in the Sistine Chapel. I was called up immediately, but jeez louise, don't they realize that a packed room of cocked heads isn't the best way to appreciate art? And it's nice that they want everyone to be quiet, but the constant sushing is a little much. The chapel's pretty awesome, though. I liked the pairs of little gold men surrounding pillars...very theatrical and enticing.
I saw a hot priest as we were leaving the Vatican and tried to take a picture, but he stared me down. I did, however, find and purchase a "Hot Priests of Rome" calendar. To see it you'll have to visit me in my apartment.
On my first night in Italy I had a horrible meal. The concierge at the hotel sent us to, like, his friend's restaurant where my pizza had unripe (wan green) tomatoes and the house wine paled in comparison to Franzia. At least the meals got better. Best meal, in fact, was shortly after in the Jewish ghetto.
We got a tour of the old Jewish ghetto by this fun young Roman Jew named Micaela. She was very knowledgeable and very upbeat and went on a few rants about politics (the government is fascist, the church is a joke and a shame, etc). We learned quite a bit about the history of Jews in Rome, and the tour was a good chance to walk around a nice area of the city that wasn't a traditional tourist hot spot. For lunch we ate traditional Roman Jewish food (after we got closed out of our first choice restaurant because of my dad's attire: "I'm sorry sir, but...your shorts!"). We all had fried artichokes and I had a great pasta dish with dried meat. Mmm.
Also in Rome, we went on a hunt for the Pinko Bag. Eh? Pinko Bag? Natalie, far more fashion conscious than I (the best I can do is make fun of V when he wears more than three articles that scream Abercrombie...that was Saturday before I "left"), noticed that a bunch of hip looking gals in Rome all had black bags with "Pinko Bag" written in sequins. There were even knock-offs that just said "Pink Bag." So we went on a hunt for the store Pinko. First we walked down the main shopping street, passing the world's smallest sovereign nation on the way...no, that's not the Vatican, it's the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, or, SMOM. It's located at Via Condotti 68, and it's a Knights Templar sort of thing. Very fun. The girl who had given Natalie directions to Pinko Shop was horribly mistaken, so we wound up taking the bus across the river, through a good part of Rome to the OTHER shopping district, where after about 45 minutes of walking, we found Pinko Shop and bought Natalie the last black sequined authentic Pinko Bag in Rome. Victory!
OK, that's all I feel like writing about Rome for now. I'm going to publish this and take a few minutes to break...will continue with Firenze shortly. For now, enjoy the Italian countryside, as experienced on the train between the two cities. Take a few minutes to experience inner peace, as if you, too, are riding on a train through Italy. Pretend there aren't tunnels ever mile that put extreme pressure on your ears. Just imagine you're listening to your awesome "Two Nouns" iPod playlist, hearing songs like "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk," "Comfort and Joy," and "Zak and Sara" all the way to Florence.
When we arrived in Florence, our cab driver knew exactly where our hotel was, offhand. It would have been less surprising were our hotel not a tiny converted convent outside the super-touristy area of the city. We stayed right by the (out of session) university and Piazza SS Annunziata, which came to be known as the "sketchy piazza" as the walk from the Duomo through the piazza to our hotel included passing three drunken homeless men on the corner who would frequently mumble at us and give us the finger.
We headed over to our reservation at the Uffizi Gallery and ran into Jake Weissman (sp?) of Scarsdale High School fame. He was there with a friend from work, and they heartily recommended we see the David. This was good, as we had tickets for the David, and Brook The Subletter had said the David wasn't worth it. Jake said the David was SO worth it. Right on. Anyway, the Uffizi Gallery kind of blew, through only minimal fault of its own. It was PACKED with tourists and tour groups and we had to fight to see every painting. See enough Baby Jesuses who look like Yoda, and the fight just doesn't seem worth it any more. We did see the Major Botticellis, which were refreshing partially because they were famous, and there's always a rush in that, but mostly because they depicted Greek/Roman mythology which meant they were livelier, looser and, most importantly, entirely free of ugly-ass Baby Jesuses. There was also a cool Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit, mostly on his scientific thought. By the time we got down there, we really weren't able to give it the proper time.
We had a hard time escaping the tourism of Florence. Everything within half a mile of the obscenely huge duomo (see right) is packed with tourists and street vendors selling imitation leather to tourists. Now might be a good time to touch on the ever-relevant subject of race. Wow. And we think we have racial issues in America. I don't think I saw a single black resident who wasn't on the streets selling cheap shit. Admittedly, they all seemed to be from Africa and therefore are more "The Immigrants" than "The Black People," but still, we recognize visual cues. I didn't get to talk to any actual Italians about race, but I'd be curious.
I got a hot, hot leather jacket in Florence. Too bad it's unbelievably hot here in NYC. I have no occasion to wear it. Maybe some enchantedly cool evening I can put it on and strut around looking like the bad girl I'll never be. (Oh, off-topic aside: I was looking at a scientific paper today I'm going to be reporting on, and I saw the English translation of the questions on sex they gave to the college-aged subjects. For the questions about experiences with intercourse, they had, as option number one, "Have not attempted intercourse" and then all of the options assuming the responded had had sex. Um, where's the "attempted intercourse but failed" option? This is a serious scientific flaw. I'm, like, reporting them. Or something.) Anyway, back to the important things in life: my kickass new jacket. I'll find a way to wear it before late October...you'll see!
We ate what was possibly our best overall meal (rival will come in Venice section) at Antico Noe, a small restaurant on what Fodor's described as one of the more unsavory half-blocks in Florence. They gave us this incredible bread to start with, just dripping in olive oil and salt. Oh, man, was it good. I got pasta with truffles, which wasn't quite as heavenly as I'd imagined, but what still very good.
On the last day of Florence, we saw the David. He didn't seem to want to go out with me, but I totally have a crush on him. So hot. So perfect. So immobile. And so huge! I had no idea how big this thing was. He's big. His expression is also far more worried/contemplative than I had realized from the pictures. I also hadn't really realized that he's holding the slingshot across his back. It all makes sense now. Anyway, that museum was otherwise mediocre...some cool unfinished Michelangelo sculptures and instruments. Oh, instruments! There was this bowl filled with water and two handles you could rub with your wet hands to generate a sound. This German dude was so excited he just stood there, eagerly rubbing the handles, showing everyone else how to do it, and beaming in his pride. He could make the sound! Do you people not understand? He made the fucking sound! So, yeah, as we walked through that exhibit, we heard naught but the wailing of the bowl.
After that museum, we walked across the river and up to the Piazza Michelangelo, a beautiful place that overlooks the city. The first photograph in this post is brought to you from there. Passing through that side of the Arno we got a little taste of what non-tourist Florence is like. Finally, we saw some outdoor cafes, with people just sitting and hanging out. As my mom pointed out, all the plazas in Spain have coffee shops around them, but in Italy there's pretty much no place to sit with a view of the piazza. Here there were little gathering areas; it was adorable. The hike up to that Piazza also got us some welcome fresh air and exercise, and it was one of my favorite parts of Florence. Not my favorite part of Florence: ridiculous crowded streets. I don't know how the cars wind through those things. Maybe that's why most people seem to be on motorcycles with a few on old bikes (there, I tied in the picture).
Traffic was, however, not a problem in our final destination.
Who in God's name thought this would be a good idea? I'm just imagining the board room, "OK, so it's going to be a city...ON WATER. We go out into the sea, stick some wooden poles into the floor, wait for them to petrify, and then build an entire city on top of it. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?" Apparently this was the idea of some early Italian group who were invaded by another early Italian group and decided that their only escape was the sea. So they erected Venice. Ta-da! So now it's here and its absolutely gorgeous.
Whereas in Rome and Florence we just generally did a bad job of finding the non-touristy areas, at least in Venice we could take comfort in knowing there were really no non-touristy areas to find. Only 68,000 people actually live in Venice...that's smaller than New Rochelle. So while there are a few excruciatingly pretty residential areas, most of the people there won't be there for long. And aside from the fishy smell, it's super Romantic. That's what happens when you have an organic version of Disney World or Las Vegas. It's totally an amusement park...but it's the whole city, and it's not a cheap fake.
This fine gondolier was stationed right by our hotel. You're pushing the mullet, dear, but otherwise, lovely.
So anyway, the first night there (we only were there for a little over a day, and frankly, as much as I loved Venice, that was probably enough) we had a reservation at La Zucca (the pumpkin) at Jess Rivkin's recommendation. We didn't quite realize how long it takes to get around Venice, so by the time we got from the train station to the hotel and back to the shore by the restaurant, we were an hour late. And we didn't know where the place was, and Venice isn't exactly a grid. In fact, it's really, really hard to get around. So we asked people for directions, but the first few attempts failed to find us La Zucca. So then my dad had the bright idea to ask this totally crazy looking dude who was being followed around by two dogs of extremely different sizes. He began to lead us through deserted alleys (of which there were many) and Natalie and I were half-convinced he was going to mug, and perhaps kill, us all. He just kept walking and muttering, and petting the dogs until he led us straight to La Zucca. Stunning. As was the food. Once they got a table for us, we had probably the best meal of our trip in a homey wooden room overlooking the water (what isn't?). I had a stunning pumpkin-ricotta flan. Wow.
The next day we were tourists in St. Marks. You may have heard that there are pigeons in this famous Piazza. You're right. Wow, are there a lot of pigeons. This young fellow was clearly worried about picking up The Avian Flu (he had no reason to fear). It was all beautiful, anyway, although the touristiness was a bit overwhelming. We headed out fairly quickly to explore the rest of the city, via a walk to the Jewish ghetto. The ghetto in Venice was actually the first, and the word "ghetto" comes from the name of the area, "campo gheto." What else did we do? Really, little else, just walked around frickin' Venice, bitches!
The restaurant on our last night was high quality (had a zucchini and cheese appetizer that was just to DIE for, dahling), but the waiter clearly hated us. Like, when we were ordering desserts, he started to leave after the first person ordered and then, when the second started, looked at us like, "Oh, you wanted more?" Pshaw! Did I mention that we spent almost every dinner shamelessly talking about other Scarsdale people? It's just a little embarrassing, but what the heck, it was so much fun. We had one night talking about whether certain parents participated in a swinging circle...I didn't know those were actually the rumors, but apparently, they are. Oh, the craziness of the hometown! Somehow the fact that a 2004 SHS grad was recently Playboy's Cyber Girl of the Week seems rather tame (props to her, by the way...although I question the decision to use her real name).
The next morning we took a water taxi (so cool!) to the airport. I was scared to death the whole time that my precipitously balanced, wildly rocking suitcase was going to fall overboard. Luckily we arrived safely and, after a bit of confusion, we got a ride to the new airport, which turned out to be steps from the old one. We flew home on a fairly uneventful flight (although I gained a strong appreciation for this Onion article). We arrived home to our sweltering house, and I went to my apartment shortly thereafter, only to find I had just missed Fleet Week. Damn you, fate!
So that's it for the Italy post! I hope you've enjoyed it. Now back to my irregularly scheduled blogging. Ciao!
I just flew in from Italy, and boy...ah, forget it. It's about 10 bajillion (10umpteenth) degrees in here—ooh, aren't these south-facing windows lovely?—and I have no patience for frivolity! Still, I plan to write a blindingly witty post that encompasses an entire week of traveling around Italy with my family. This will mostly be accomplished by putting in lots of pictures with clever or meaningful captions. You will be able to see all the beautiful things I have seen on the days when I felt like dragging my camera around. And so it begins.
Prologue: All Roads Lead To Rome, Change In Atlanta
See my last post for all the gritty details on my false start. After a hellish night of walking around my house alone, failing to form coherent sexual fantasies in lieu of general anxiety, and ending up at the piano only to find myself belting "I'm Still Here," I made it to JFK again. Everything went so shockingly smoothly on the second attempt that I was at the gate for my 1:30 pm flight at 10:20 am. Great.
On both of my flights I sat next to Europeans currently residing in the US: First a British artist who could got a job as an art/art history instructor at a college in Columbia, South Carolina (not his first choice of locale), and then an Italian gentleman currently residing in Virginia and only returning to Italy for business. I finally got to see King Kong on the flight to Italy and we only experienced a few minutes of insane turbulence or, as the pilot called it, "rough air." I adore the names they give painful flight..."We're going through a patch of rough air," "Please fasten your seatbelt, we're going to experience some weather," etc.
We landed, and Angelo drove me from the airport to the Hotel Britannia. He took the scenic route (of course...a stranger in a strange land doesn't know squat re cab fare) and I got to see a pit of the city, including the Colosseum, which the fam had seen while I was trying to sleep the night before. I also saw a sign that said (in Italian), "Catena: Quality Meat Since 1936." I didn't get to take a picture for Jen. Aw.
Rome Is Where the Reart Is
I only took one day of pictures in Rome, and that was the first day at the Vatican. Here we see light streaming into St. Peter's. Aw, God's smiling! St. Peter's is a rather vain little church, as it has markers on the floor showing where all other major cathedrals would come up to, were their entryways aligned. St. P's B is bigger than all of them. Much bigger.We took a small, personal-ish tour around the Vatican with Hillary, a Brit currently living in Italy (and with a strange distaste for the UK) who gives lots of tours. She was occasionally discombobulated, but fun, entertaining and informative, and she couldn't stop talking about Rafael. "He was just gorgeous!" She made it sound like Rafael was so popular with the ladies, he died because he had an excruciatingly exhausting night of wild sex and fell so stricken that doctors did a blood letting and killed him. It sort of sounds like a load of crap to me, but I like the idea of Rafael being too hot to handle. She also ardently defended Michelangelo against charges of misogynism. I mean, I always thought he was just a huge homo, but apparently lots of people think he was really anti-women. I don't know...if I could make men as hot as Michelangelo's, I don't think I'd do many pieces of chicks either.
Ooh, there's the fam in the Vatican! The Jews are invading. Watch out...Oh, I also committed a ridiculous faux pas by, um, lying down in the Sistine Chapel. I was called up immediately, but jeez louise, don't they realize that a packed room of cocked heads isn't the best way to appreciate art? And it's nice that they want everyone to be quiet, but the constant sushing is a little much. The chapel's pretty awesome, though. I liked the pairs of little gold men surrounding pillars...very theatrical and enticing.
I saw a hot priest as we were leaving the Vatican and tried to take a picture, but he stared me down. I did, however, find and purchase a "Hot Priests of Rome" calendar. To see it you'll have to visit me in my apartment.
On my first night in Italy I had a horrible meal. The concierge at the hotel sent us to, like, his friend's restaurant where my pizza had unripe (wan green) tomatoes and the house wine paled in comparison to Franzia. At least the meals got better. Best meal, in fact, was shortly after in the Jewish ghetto.
We got a tour of the old Jewish ghetto by this fun young Roman Jew named Micaela. She was very knowledgeable and very upbeat and went on a few rants about politics (the government is fascist, the church is a joke and a shame, etc). We learned quite a bit about the history of Jews in Rome, and the tour was a good chance to walk around a nice area of the city that wasn't a traditional tourist hot spot. For lunch we ate traditional Roman Jewish food (after we got closed out of our first choice restaurant because of my dad's attire: "I'm sorry sir, but...your shorts!"). We all had fried artichokes and I had a great pasta dish with dried meat. Mmm.
Also in Rome, we went on a hunt for the Pinko Bag. Eh? Pinko Bag? Natalie, far more fashion conscious than I (the best I can do is make fun of V when he wears more than three articles that scream Abercrombie...that was Saturday before I "left"), noticed that a bunch of hip looking gals in Rome all had black bags with "Pinko Bag" written in sequins. There were even knock-offs that just said "Pink Bag." So we went on a hunt for the store Pinko. First we walked down the main shopping street, passing the world's smallest sovereign nation on the way...no, that's not the Vatican, it's the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, or, SMOM. It's located at Via Condotti 68, and it's a Knights Templar sort of thing. Very fun. The girl who had given Natalie directions to Pinko Shop was horribly mistaken, so we wound up taking the bus across the river, through a good part of Rome to the OTHER shopping district, where after about 45 minutes of walking, we found Pinko Shop and bought Natalie the last black sequined authentic Pinko Bag in Rome. Victory!
OK, that's all I feel like writing about Rome for now. I'm going to publish this and take a few minutes to break...will continue with Firenze shortly. For now, enjoy the Italian countryside, as experienced on the train between the two cities. Take a few minutes to experience inner peace, as if you, too, are riding on a train through Italy. Pretend there aren't tunnels ever mile that put extreme pressure on your ears. Just imagine you're listening to your awesome "Two Nouns" iPod playlist, hearing songs like "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk," "Comfort and Joy," and "Zak and Sara" all the way to Florence.Wash Your Face And Drive Me To Firenze
When we arrived in Florence, our cab driver knew exactly where our hotel was, offhand. It would have been less surprising were our hotel not a tiny converted convent outside the super-touristy area of the city. We stayed right by the (out of session) university and Piazza SS Annunziata, which came to be known as the "sketchy piazza" as the walk from the Duomo through the piazza to our hotel included passing three drunken homeless men on the corner who would frequently mumble at us and give us the finger. We headed over to our reservation at the Uffizi Gallery and ran into Jake Weissman (sp?) of Scarsdale High School fame. He was there with a friend from work, and they heartily recommended we see the David. This was good, as we had tickets for the David, and Brook The Subletter had said the David wasn't worth it. Jake said the David was SO worth it. Right on. Anyway, the Uffizi Gallery kind of blew, through only minimal fault of its own. It was PACKED with tourists and tour groups and we had to fight to see every painting. See enough Baby Jesuses who look like Yoda, and the fight just doesn't seem worth it any more. We did see the Major Botticellis, which were refreshing partially because they were famous, and there's always a rush in that, but mostly because they depicted Greek/Roman mythology which meant they were livelier, looser and, most importantly, entirely free of ugly-ass Baby Jesuses. There was also a cool Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit, mostly on his scientific thought. By the time we got down there, we really weren't able to give it the proper time.
We had a hard time escaping the tourism of Florence. Everything within half a mile of the obscenely huge duomo (see right) is packed with tourists and street vendors selling imitation leather to tourists. Now might be a good time to touch on the ever-relevant subject of race. Wow. And we think we have racial issues in America. I don't think I saw a single black resident who wasn't on the streets selling cheap shit. Admittedly, they all seemed to be from Africa and therefore are more "The Immigrants" than "The Black People," but still, we recognize visual cues. I didn't get to talk to any actual Italians about race, but I'd be curious.I got a hot, hot leather jacket in Florence. Too bad it's unbelievably hot here in NYC. I have no occasion to wear it. Maybe some enchantedly cool evening I can put it on and strut around looking like the bad girl I'll never be. (Oh, off-topic aside: I was looking at a scientific paper today I'm going to be reporting on, and I saw the English translation of the questions on sex they gave to the college-aged subjects. For the questions about experiences with intercourse, they had, as option number one, "Have not attempted intercourse" and then all of the options assuming the responded had had sex. Um, where's the "attempted intercourse but failed" option? This is a serious scientific flaw. I'm, like, reporting them. Or something.) Anyway, back to the important things in life: my kickass new jacket. I'll find a way to wear it before late October...you'll see!
We ate what was possibly our best overall meal (rival will come in Venice section) at Antico Noe, a small restaurant on what Fodor's described as one of the more unsavory half-blocks in Florence. They gave us this incredible bread to start with, just dripping in olive oil and salt. Oh, man, was it good. I got pasta with truffles, which wasn't quite as heavenly as I'd imagined, but what still very good.
On the last day of Florence, we saw the David. He didn't seem to want to go out with me, but I totally have a crush on him. So hot. So perfect. So immobile. And so huge! I had no idea how big this thing was. He's big. His expression is also far more worried/contemplative than I had realized from the pictures. I also hadn't really realized that he's holding the slingshot across his back. It all makes sense now. Anyway, that museum was otherwise mediocre...some cool unfinished Michelangelo sculptures and instruments. Oh, instruments! There was this bowl filled with water and two handles you could rub with your wet hands to generate a sound. This German dude was so excited he just stood there, eagerly rubbing the handles, showing everyone else how to do it, and beaming in his pride. He could make the sound! Do you people not understand? He made the fucking sound! So, yeah, as we walked through that exhibit, we heard naught but the wailing of the bowl.
After that museum, we walked across the river and up to the Piazza Michelangelo, a beautiful place that overlooks the city. The first photograph in this post is brought to you from there. Passing through that side of the Arno we got a little taste of what non-tourist Florence is like. Finally, we saw some outdoor cafes, with people just sitting and hanging out. As my mom pointed out, all the plazas in Spain have coffee shops around them, but in Italy there's pretty much no place to sit with a view of the piazza. Here there were little gathering areas; it was adorable. The hike up to that Piazza also got us some welcome fresh air and exercise, and it was one of my favorite parts of Florence. Not my favorite part of Florence: ridiculous crowded streets. I don't know how the cars wind through those things. Maybe that's why most people seem to be on motorcycles with a few on old bikes (there, I tied in the picture).Traffic was, however, not a problem in our final destination.
We Open In Venice
Who in God's name thought this would be a good idea? I'm just imagining the board room, "OK, so it's going to be a city...ON WATER. We go out into the sea, stick some wooden poles into the floor, wait for them to petrify, and then build an entire city on top of it. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?" Apparently this was the idea of some early Italian group who were invaded by another early Italian group and decided that their only escape was the sea. So they erected Venice. Ta-da! So now it's here and its absolutely gorgeous.Whereas in Rome and Florence we just generally did a bad job of finding the non-touristy areas, at least in Venice we could take comfort in knowing there were really no non-touristy areas to find. Only 68,000 people actually live in Venice...that's smaller than New Rochelle. So while there are a few excruciatingly pretty residential areas, most of the people there won't be there for long. And aside from the fishy smell, it's super Romantic. That's what happens when you have an organic version of Disney World or Las Vegas. It's totally an amusement park...but it's the whole city, and it's not a cheap fake.
This fine gondolier was stationed right by our hotel. You're pushing the mullet, dear, but otherwise, lovely.So anyway, the first night there (we only were there for a little over a day, and frankly, as much as I loved Venice, that was probably enough) we had a reservation at La Zucca (the pumpkin) at Jess Rivkin's recommendation. We didn't quite realize how long it takes to get around Venice, so by the time we got from the train station to the hotel and back to the shore by the restaurant, we were an hour late. And we didn't know where the place was, and Venice isn't exactly a grid. In fact, it's really, really hard to get around. So we asked people for directions, but the first few attempts failed to find us La Zucca. So then my dad had the bright idea to ask this totally crazy looking dude who was being followed around by two dogs of extremely different sizes. He began to lead us through deserted alleys (of which there were many) and Natalie and I were half-convinced he was going to mug, and perhaps kill, us all. He just kept walking and muttering, and petting the dogs until he led us straight to La Zucca. Stunning. As was the food. Once they got a table for us, we had probably the best meal of our trip in a homey wooden room overlooking the water (what isn't?). I had a stunning pumpkin-ricotta flan. Wow.
The next day we were tourists in St. Marks. You may have heard that there are pigeons in this famous Piazza. You're right. Wow, are there a lot of pigeons. This young fellow was clearly worried about picking up The Avian Flu (he had no reason to fear). It was all beautiful, anyway, although the touristiness was a bit overwhelming. We headed out fairly quickly to explore the rest of the city, via a walk to the Jewish ghetto. The ghetto in Venice was actually the first, and the word "ghetto" comes from the name of the area, "campo gheto." What else did we do? Really, little else, just walked around frickin' Venice, bitches! The restaurant on our last night was high quality (had a zucchini and cheese appetizer that was just to DIE for, dahling), but the waiter clearly hated us. Like, when we were ordering desserts, he started to leave after the first person ordered and then, when the second started, looked at us like, "Oh, you wanted more?" Pshaw! Did I mention that we spent almost every dinner shamelessly talking about other Scarsdale people? It's just a little embarrassing, but what the heck, it was so much fun. We had one night talking about whether certain parents participated in a swinging circle...I didn't know those were actually the rumors, but apparently, they are. Oh, the craziness of the hometown! Somehow the fact that a 2004 SHS grad was recently Playboy's Cyber Girl of the Week seems rather tame (props to her, by the way...although I question the decision to use her real name).
The next morning we took a water taxi (so cool!) to the airport. I was scared to death the whole time that my precipitously balanced, wildly rocking suitcase was going to fall overboard. Luckily we arrived safely and, after a bit of confusion, we got a ride to the new airport, which turned out to be steps from the old one. We flew home on a fairly uneventful flight (although I gained a strong appreciation for this Onion article). We arrived home to our sweltering house, and I went to my apartment shortly thereafter, only to find I had just missed Fleet Week. Damn you, fate!
So that's it for the Italy post! I hope you've enjoyed it. Now back to my irregularly scheduled blogging. Ciao!
Saturday, May 20, 2006
How Do You Say "I Could Kill Someone" in Italian?
Oh, wait, it doesn't matter. Because I'm not in Italy.
So, I've never been quite so excited as I was for my Italy trip. It's my first day(s) off since New Years, and I've been eagerly anticipating time away from work and sleep deprivation and with my family. And everything was going well...perhaps...too well?
So we get to the airport and we're on line to check in. I pull out my passport and I'm flipping through it. My first thought is, "hey, where are my australia stamps?" and my second thought is, "hey, why are there no stamps in here from after 2002?" and my third thought is "why don't I just flip to the front to make sure this isn't my expired passport, which I probably threw away anyway," and my fourth thought is "oh, fuck."
So we take a minute to flip out, and we call my parents' friends who graciously spent about an hour looking in the two places I could think of where the passport might be. They don't find it...so my dad and I run to rebook me on tomorrow's flight where they only have business class available, so my parents will have to spend a few thousand extra dollars for my gaff...they're thrilled. But by the time we actually get around to booking, there are NO more seats on the flight. Finally, they get me on a flight tomorrow that goes to Atlanta and another from Atlanta to Rome (Let's play a round of name that airline! If you said Delta, you know your hubs!) Luckily because it's coach and a stopover, changing my flight only costs my parents a whopping $2.96. I'm happy I'm not screwing my parents over too much.
By now it's 4:16 and their flight is at 5:20, and Natalie's standing with the luggage in another building. We're talking to the woman who's getting my tickets set up and she says, "You're flight's at 5:20? You have exactly four minutes to check in." So I RUN to Natalie and we run back. By now Natalie is, understandably, a little more than a little annoyed with the whole situation, pretty much being told to stand in one spot on her own for two hours and then being rushed like mad with the luggage. They check in, I get a car home, walk in the door, walk to the one place I didn't tell the friends to check, and find my passport within 15 minutes. The car to JFK is booked, my new tickets and passport are in my bag, the parents are texted, emailed and messaged, and I have a night to kill and a stomach to fill.
You know what word I DON'T love it when a man says? (Oh, "Sneakers" reference! Booya!)
So, I've never been quite so excited as I was for my Italy trip. It's my first day(s) off since New Years, and I've been eagerly anticipating time away from work and sleep deprivation and with my family. And everything was going well...perhaps...too well?
So we get to the airport and we're on line to check in. I pull out my passport and I'm flipping through it. My first thought is, "hey, where are my australia stamps?" and my second thought is, "hey, why are there no stamps in here from after 2002?" and my third thought is "why don't I just flip to the front to make sure this isn't my expired passport, which I probably threw away anyway," and my fourth thought is "oh, fuck."
So we take a minute to flip out, and we call my parents' friends who graciously spent about an hour looking in the two places I could think of where the passport might be. They don't find it...so my dad and I run to rebook me on tomorrow's flight where they only have business class available, so my parents will have to spend a few thousand extra dollars for my gaff...they're thrilled. But by the time we actually get around to booking, there are NO more seats on the flight. Finally, they get me on a flight tomorrow that goes to Atlanta and another from Atlanta to Rome (Let's play a round of name that airline! If you said Delta, you know your hubs!) Luckily because it's coach and a stopover, changing my flight only costs my parents a whopping $2.96. I'm happy I'm not screwing my parents over too much.
By now it's 4:16 and their flight is at 5:20, and Natalie's standing with the luggage in another building. We're talking to the woman who's getting my tickets set up and she says, "You're flight's at 5:20? You have exactly four minutes to check in." So I RUN to Natalie and we run back. By now Natalie is, understandably, a little more than a little annoyed with the whole situation, pretty much being told to stand in one spot on her own for two hours and then being rushed like mad with the luggage. They check in, I get a car home, walk in the door, walk to the one place I didn't tell the friends to check, and find my passport within 15 minutes. The car to JFK is booked, my new tickets and passport are in my bag, the parents are texted, emailed and messaged, and I have a night to kill and a stomach to fill.
You know what word I DON'T love it when a man says? (Oh, "Sneakers" reference! Booya!)
Sunday, May 07, 2006
We PWN the NYT
Speaking of cultural references (Sergi), check out my hip and nifty internet-speak. I'm so young and with it!
Yeah, it's two in the morning and I'm blogging because I want to brag. Tonight, Adam and I performed a feat almost unknown to mankind. We COMPLETED THE CRYPTIC CROSSWORD, mothafuckaaaaas!
For those of you who don't think that while we're worshipping God, God's worshiping Will Shortz, the cryptic crossword is a novelty puzzle that comes on the same page as the Sunday crossword once every six weeks or so. It's largely made of acronyms and wordplay, and you're likely to look through the whole thing without getting a single clue. Unlike the regular crossword, they do tell you how many letters are in each word of an answer. Here's the first cryptic crossword clue I ever figured out: "Oakland ball players sleep where horses race." Five letters. Think. I don't want to put the answer directly in the post, so suffice it to say it's the big headline word on this page (don't mouse over if you don't want to see). You see how it all comes together. The Oakland ballplayers. Where they sleep. Where the horses race. But you have to pull that from the clue. And that was one of the ones I GOT. There weren't many that day.
So tonight Adam Levine and I hunkered down and just went for it and did the whole damn thing. Well, he did more than I did, but I got maybe a third of them, and I think that's frickin' impressive.
In other news, earlier today I went to a Derby party in honor of the Kentucky Derby. We each picked horses out of a hat and put a two dollar bet in. The winner would get $38, while the person whose horse came in last got their two bucks back. I drew "Keyed Entry," a 30-to-1 long shot. The race started, and after just a little while, Keyed Entry pulled ahead, clearly in front of second place Sinister Minister. I couldn't believe it...with about 3/4 of the race over, Keyed Entry was winning! When all of a sudden, that sonofamare Barbaro came rushing ahead, beating everyone else by over six lengths. The nerve! Keyed Entry didn't even place or show...I couldn't see him at the end. We waited to find the full standings...was Keyed Entry fourth? Fifth? Sixth? It wouldn't help, I just wanted to know, so I could feel good about ole KE's performance. The stats came up, and Keyed Entry was DEAD LAST. 20th out of 20 horses. Which was awesome, because I got my two bucks back. Go, Keyed Entry!
Yeah, it's two in the morning and I'm blogging because I want to brag. Tonight, Adam and I performed a feat almost unknown to mankind. We COMPLETED THE CRYPTIC CROSSWORD, mothafuckaaaaas!
For those of you who don't think that while we're worshipping God, God's worshiping Will Shortz, the cryptic crossword is a novelty puzzle that comes on the same page as the Sunday crossword once every six weeks or so. It's largely made of acronyms and wordplay, and you're likely to look through the whole thing without getting a single clue. Unlike the regular crossword, they do tell you how many letters are in each word of an answer. Here's the first cryptic crossword clue I ever figured out: "Oakland ball players sleep where horses race." Five letters. Think. I don't want to put the answer directly in the post, so suffice it to say it's the big headline word on this page (don't mouse over if you don't want to see). You see how it all comes together. The Oakland ballplayers. Where they sleep. Where the horses race. But you have to pull that from the clue. And that was one of the ones I GOT. There weren't many that day.
So tonight Adam Levine and I hunkered down and just went for it and did the whole damn thing. Well, he did more than I did, but I got maybe a third of them, and I think that's frickin' impressive.
In other news, earlier today I went to a Derby party in honor of the Kentucky Derby. We each picked horses out of a hat and put a two dollar bet in. The winner would get $38, while the person whose horse came in last got their two bucks back. I drew "Keyed Entry," a 30-to-1 long shot. The race started, and after just a little while, Keyed Entry pulled ahead, clearly in front of second place Sinister Minister. I couldn't believe it...with about 3/4 of the race over, Keyed Entry was winning! When all of a sudden, that sonofamare Barbaro came rushing ahead, beating everyone else by over six lengths. The nerve! Keyed Entry didn't even place or show...I couldn't see him at the end. We waited to find the full standings...was Keyed Entry fourth? Fifth? Sixth? It wouldn't help, I just wanted to know, so I could feel good about ole KE's performance. The stats came up, and Keyed Entry was DEAD LAST. 20th out of 20 horses. Which was awesome, because I got my two bucks back. Go, Keyed Entry!
Friday, May 05, 2006
Thiiiis Is My (beat) Once-A-Year Book!
I'm at work but feeling pretty physically crappy...last night around 10:30 I was suddenly hit by a mac truck of dizziness, and I spent the Daily Show and Colbert Report running back-and-forth between watching the television and praying to the porcelain goddess. I felt good enough to go to sleep but woke up this morning with a bitch of a headache and some residual dizziness and nausea. I managed to drag myself out of bed, to the gym for a shower (Con Ed may have finally cut off the common electricity, which our landlord apparently never paid for, so we had no hot water), and to work. I'm glad I came in, but my usual post-lunch exhaustion is especially strong today, combined with all the now thankfully low-level crappiness. So I'm going to blog for a couple of minutes to keep my spirits up.
Onto the subject of the post. A few people may know that I have a hard and fast rule about my reading: I may read one and only one Chuck Palahniuk nover per year. Two years ago during dead week I read Lullaby, last year at Myrtle Beach I read Choke and now that it's almost exactly one year later, it's time to choose another. Right now I'm thinking Stranger Than Fiction, his collection of true stories, although there's this one about a house where people gather and strange things start happening (WHAT!? In a CHUCK PALAHNIUK NOVEL!?) that sounds really cool. Neither of those were at the B&N I dropped by this morning (so many gift certificates), so I've added three of their books to the list of possibilities. Anyway, hopefully I will have chosen by the end of the day. If you have any immediate tips, please let me know.
And speaking of books, I just finished a great novel by a Yale professor Barry McCrea. My friend Beth took a class with him last year and really (really) liked him, and then I saw him listed in the Advocate as a gay-writer-you-haven't-heard-of-and-you-should-HANG-YOUR-HEAD-IN-SHAME. So it turns out he has a book, The First Verse, about a contemporary Dublin student who gets involved in a literary cult. I'm always a huge fan of novels and art that combine insightful realism with an elegant touch of the supernatural (there's less supernatural here than in Palahniuk, but since he's just sitting in the paragraph above, I should mention the tie). I started admiring McCrea when I read a brief essay of his in the Sex Week at Yale magazine. He talked about unrequited love (it shows up in this book, too), and I felt somewhat grateful that he had taken what everyone refers to as an "obsessive crush" and legitimized it—couldn't hurt that it was coming from a cute, gay, brilliant, Irish teacher either. Right. He had some great behavioral observations that resonated with me, and his characters in this book are just as excitingly real. It's very prose-y, but in a way that works. Sometimes that shit doesn't, but here it does. Read it, y'all.
More later, I hope.
Onto the subject of the post. A few people may know that I have a hard and fast rule about my reading: I may read one and only one Chuck Palahniuk nover per year. Two years ago during dead week I read Lullaby, last year at Myrtle Beach I read Choke and now that it's almost exactly one year later, it's time to choose another. Right now I'm thinking Stranger Than Fiction, his collection of true stories, although there's this one about a house where people gather and strange things start happening (WHAT!? In a CHUCK PALAHNIUK NOVEL!?) that sounds really cool. Neither of those were at the B&N I dropped by this morning (so many gift certificates), so I've added three of their books to the list of possibilities. Anyway, hopefully I will have chosen by the end of the day. If you have any immediate tips, please let me know.
And speaking of books, I just finished a great novel by a Yale professor Barry McCrea. My friend Beth took a class with him last year and really (really) liked him, and then I saw him listed in the Advocate as a gay-writer-you-haven't-heard-of-and-you-should-HANG-YOUR-HEAD-IN-SHAME. So it turns out he has a book, The First Verse, about a contemporary Dublin student who gets involved in a literary cult. I'm always a huge fan of novels and art that combine insightful realism with an elegant touch of the supernatural (there's less supernatural here than in Palahniuk, but since he's just sitting in the paragraph above, I should mention the tie). I started admiring McCrea when I read a brief essay of his in the Sex Week at Yale magazine. He talked about unrequited love (it shows up in this book, too), and I felt somewhat grateful that he had taken what everyone refers to as an "obsessive crush" and legitimized it—couldn't hurt that it was coming from a cute, gay, brilliant, Irish teacher either. Right. He had some great behavioral observations that resonated with me, and his characters in this book are just as excitingly real. It's very prose-y, but in a way that works. Sometimes that shit doesn't, but here it does. Read it, y'all.
More later, I hope.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Pre-War
I met some of my neighbors tonight! It's pretty exciting. As I may or may not have mentioned, my building is largely occupied by one enormous extended family...relatives of the landlord. The landlord is actually the nephew of some uber-landlord, and somehow acquired this building from Uncle Ownesman-Hattan. So he lives on the second floor with his wife and daughter, and some other large portion of the family lives on the fourth floor (they're above me, so it's a little harder to tell who's where). We're on the third floor, in the smaller apartment, and Gertrude lives in the larger apartment. I've never met Gertrude, but Amy has. She seemed nice, I believe. As far as I knew, the fifth floor was totally unoccupied and currently under renovation. Not so!
I was coming home from transferring the laundry from washer to dryer when I see two men around 60 standing outside searching through their keys. I opened the door for them, and one asked me, "Did you just move in?" "Oh, a couple of months ago," I said. "You?" "We've been living here for 35 years." So a while, then. Actually, I believe my cousin Larry's done the same thing...stayed in the same Hell's Kitchen apartment since he first came to New York with the dream of acting. And the often rent-stabilized neighborhood changed around him, just as it changed around these guys. They've been here since 12 years before my landlord was born. Hardcore. Very hardcore.
But also incredibly endearing. To have that kind of immediate stability—same space, same person—for 35 years has an enormous appeal to it. It's almost like living a quiet country life in the heart of the nation's biggest city. I guess that's just what marriage is...the ability to have home, to have intimacy, to have a comforting anchor besides yourself in the most otherwise worldly of circumstances. I look at these guys, and I look at the couple from Thailand who runs the laundromat (I was teaching them some English words last week) and, even though they work together and live together, seem so happy in each other's presence and so comfortable in their banter, and I realize that I really, really do want to get married someday. And not just to any good guy, but someone I feel a real comfort and intimacy with. It's not about the structure for me...the picket fence (ew), the kids' soccer games (the hideous memories!), the community organizations. It's about finding someone who feels like home. I think that's a reasonable goal for the next 20 years or so...
I was coming home from transferring the laundry from washer to dryer when I see two men around 60 standing outside searching through their keys. I opened the door for them, and one asked me, "Did you just move in?" "Oh, a couple of months ago," I said. "You?" "We've been living here for 35 years." So a while, then. Actually, I believe my cousin Larry's done the same thing...stayed in the same Hell's Kitchen apartment since he first came to New York with the dream of acting. And the often rent-stabilized neighborhood changed around him, just as it changed around these guys. They've been here since 12 years before my landlord was born. Hardcore. Very hardcore.
But also incredibly endearing. To have that kind of immediate stability—same space, same person—for 35 years has an enormous appeal to it. It's almost like living a quiet country life in the heart of the nation's biggest city. I guess that's just what marriage is...the ability to have home, to have intimacy, to have a comforting anchor besides yourself in the most otherwise worldly of circumstances. I look at these guys, and I look at the couple from Thailand who runs the laundromat (I was teaching them some English words last week) and, even though they work together and live together, seem so happy in each other's presence and so comfortable in their banter, and I realize that I really, really do want to get married someday. And not just to any good guy, but someone I feel a real comfort and intimacy with. It's not about the structure for me...the picket fence (ew), the kids' soccer games (the hideous memories!), the community organizations. It's about finding someone who feels like home. I think that's a reasonable goal for the next 20 years or so...
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Never Say Die
So, it's been a month. That's a little over the top on the blogging neglect, but I haven't been feeling the urge much lately. Still, as the post title advises, I never say die.
Amy's heading to Italy for a month, so I'll be somewhat lonelier and therefore somewhat more likely to blog. This will be good for anyone who's still reading, even with the break. I will, however, be getting a temporary roommate, this dude Brook who used to date my friend Lara and ran into Amy as they were both traveling the world. I saw his documentary about his trip, and he seems reasonably cool, so I'm not fearing for my life or anything. It'll be an interesting experience to suddenly be rooming with someone I've never met. We shall see how that goes.
This weekend's been lovely and low key but not dull. Friday night I saw Festen with mom, a play I wouldn't recommend, but if you have to go, no need to weasel your way out of it. It was pretty trite and some of the acting was heinous (cough)Ali McGraw(/cough), but I wasn't sleeping through it, which is more than I can say for anything written by Eugene O'Neill. Right.
Yesterday I went to the gym (the guns are shaping up!) and had went with Ethan to Joe: The Art of Coffee (a coffee shop, not a movie). Nice place...I think I prefer Esperanto and the Hungarian Pastry Shop, but I'll put it in third place, still above The Coffee Pot. That's just in Manhattan, of course. Slave to the Grind still reigns supreme as the unsurpassed paragon of coffee shop greatness. If anybody knows any other awesome ones in Manhattan, recommendations are always appreciated. After time with Ethan, I hung around for a while, doing crosswords. I'd kept the evening free so I could buy Mike alcohol after the (NINE HOUR!) MCAT if he didn't feel like mush. He felt like mush. So around 10 PM, I took the train down to see Cat's beautiful (albeit messy) new apartment in the East Village, and then we met Evan for a bite at Yaffa. Good stuff, fun conversation.
This morning I met V for brunch, which was lovely as always. We went to the eatery (it would be a capital e if its logo weren't a large lower-case e) and I got a great poached eggs dish. It was delicious, as were some of the other customers. We walked around the neighborhood a bit, chatted and parted ways. I was somewhat impressed that Vaughan just drove in this morning despite the downpour, no questions. I think I have a lot of friends who would just call to say they didn't want to face the rain (or get out of bed) and cancel on me with hardly an apology. Props to V for not canceling. Afterwards I got coffee with Greg, and we went over the outline for his next game. I'm really excited for it...the game sounds like tons of fun, infused, as always, with his great wit and knack for creating amusing, tough-but-doable puzzles. It's going to be much longer than the first game, with better art. And he's got a new concept for the music, which should make for a more fluid and subtly diverse score. And he's got a marketing scheme up his sleeve that may work wonders. I'm going to help develop that aspect.
Now I'm just hanging around. I did the Sunday puzzle and chatted with Natalia, and I'll heat up some soup for dinner pretty soon. Good times, great oldies. Sadly, Kool 96.7 seems to be gone with the wind. It's upsetting to lose something from my formative years.
Goal for this week: Be as not tired and therefore productive at work as I was last week. I've had quite a few weeks of total exhaustion and slow research. I finally picked up the pace last week and got a bunch done for an upcoming article. Rock out.
Amy's heading to Italy for a month, so I'll be somewhat lonelier and therefore somewhat more likely to blog. This will be good for anyone who's still reading, even with the break. I will, however, be getting a temporary roommate, this dude Brook who used to date my friend Lara and ran into Amy as they were both traveling the world. I saw his documentary about his trip, and he seems reasonably cool, so I'm not fearing for my life or anything. It'll be an interesting experience to suddenly be rooming with someone I've never met. We shall see how that goes.
This weekend's been lovely and low key but not dull. Friday night I saw Festen with mom, a play I wouldn't recommend, but if you have to go, no need to weasel your way out of it. It was pretty trite and some of the acting was heinous (cough)Ali McGraw(/cough), but I wasn't sleeping through it, which is more than I can say for anything written by Eugene O'Neill. Right.
Yesterday I went to the gym (the guns are shaping up!) and had went with Ethan to Joe: The Art of Coffee (a coffee shop, not a movie). Nice place...I think I prefer Esperanto and the Hungarian Pastry Shop, but I'll put it in third place, still above The Coffee Pot. That's just in Manhattan, of course. Slave to the Grind still reigns supreme as the unsurpassed paragon of coffee shop greatness. If anybody knows any other awesome ones in Manhattan, recommendations are always appreciated. After time with Ethan, I hung around for a while, doing crosswords. I'd kept the evening free so I could buy Mike alcohol after the (NINE HOUR!) MCAT if he didn't feel like mush. He felt like mush. So around 10 PM, I took the train down to see Cat's beautiful (albeit messy) new apartment in the East Village, and then we met Evan for a bite at Yaffa. Good stuff, fun conversation.
This morning I met V for brunch, which was lovely as always. We went to the eatery (it would be a capital e if its logo weren't a large lower-case e) and I got a great poached eggs dish. It was delicious, as were some of the other customers. We walked around the neighborhood a bit, chatted and parted ways. I was somewhat impressed that Vaughan just drove in this morning despite the downpour, no questions. I think I have a lot of friends who would just call to say they didn't want to face the rain (or get out of bed) and cancel on me with hardly an apology. Props to V for not canceling. Afterwards I got coffee with Greg, and we went over the outline for his next game. I'm really excited for it...the game sounds like tons of fun, infused, as always, with his great wit and knack for creating amusing, tough-but-doable puzzles. It's going to be much longer than the first game, with better art. And he's got a new concept for the music, which should make for a more fluid and subtly diverse score. And he's got a marketing scheme up his sleeve that may work wonders. I'm going to help develop that aspect.
Now I'm just hanging around. I did the Sunday puzzle and chatted with Natalia, and I'll heat up some soup for dinner pretty soon. Good times, great oldies. Sadly, Kool 96.7 seems to be gone with the wind. It's upsetting to lose something from my formative years.
Goal for this week: Be as not tired and therefore productive at work as I was last week. I've had quite a few weeks of total exhaustion and slow research. I finally picked up the pace last week and got a bunch done for an upcoming article. Rock out.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Subconscious Update
So glad Natalie and I were able to avoid those flying and crashing Barnes and Nobles while we waited for Polina, my sophomore year acting teacher. That was a close one.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Opposite Day! Call for Submissions
So this dude has decided he's going to start "opposite day," where everyone seriously argues something he or she disagrees with. No parodies, no smirking, no choosing something you sort of understand. This is a great mental exercise, and some people have done quite a bang-up job already. I'd really like to take part, but first I need a topic. Any ideas? I suppose gay marriage is the first one that comes to mind. I've often said it's the only issue I'm really passionate about because it's the only issue where I can make up my mind. I see the case for government interference in struggling countries, and I see the case for staying out. I see the case for big spending and welfare, and I see the case for total capitalism. I'm very pro-choice, but I see a reasonable case for pro-lifeness. I'm very atheistic, but I see why people would believe in God (and I don't just think it's because they're weak). So I could do gay marriage. What else could I do? Axing funding from scientific research on alternative energy and cancer treatments?
Please send ideas. If I don't get good ones, I'll just try to do gay marriage while I'm a little more awake. And if you want to argue for something you don't believe in, go ahead. That'd be awesome.
Please send ideas. If I don't get good ones, I'll just try to do gay marriage while I'm a little more awake. And if you want to argue for something you don't believe in, go ahead. That'd be awesome.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Totally
| the Wit |
CLEAN COMPLEX DARK You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most thought to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion. You probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais  The 3-Variable Funny Test! - it rules - If you're interested, try my latest: The Terrorism Test |
My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
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| Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test |
Monday, March 06, 2006
Dakota Panning?
South Dakota finally did it. They stepped fresh over the Roe v. Wade line and banned abortions, with the one exception of allowing abortion to save the mother's life. South Dakota has now been stuffed into the same warm place of my heart where I've always held Fred Phelps. It's the "thanks for being honest" section, reserved for people who cut straight through the bullshit of politics and the silly, silly notion that middle-of-the-road = reasonable, and just take the side they want to take. They say and do what everyone else wants to say and do but won't because they're afraid of being seen as extreme. And they are extreme! But extreme can be good. Sure, moderate can be good sometimes, too, but moderate isn't always good, and you being confused doesn't mean both sides have something important to contribute.
Now, in these cases, I think Phelps and SD are dead wrong. I think a human life (that's H. sapien, not a "person's" life) means pretty much nothing without consciousness. The only other value it has besides a continuity of consciousness is the value other people subscribe to it. This is why it's crueler to tear up a 4-year-old's teddy bear than it is to break her stereo. She (sort of) thinks her teddy's a person, and you're breaking that human connection. That, I believe, is the only wrong in, say, taking Terry Schiavo off the tube: Her parents feel extra loss. So that's my view of "what makes a person." SD thinks that a zygote is a person. All right, kids. Whatev, as they say. I feel a little insulted: You think this cell, or this bobbing cluster of cells has the same value as I do? As my friends and family do? But we're all awesome! We chat and think and read and write and sing. We do amazing things from our minds, and we are so fully present while we're doing them. We each have an "I." How cool is that? But these Dakotans think I have the same value as the blastula.
Given that, however, they're doing the totally right thing. If I honestly thought the blastula had the same value as a fully developed human, abortion would be horrific! No, you can't kill someone just because you were raped, even if it was by your father. Very, very bad times for you, and gee that's a sad thing, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to kill someone, especially someone who's completely innocent. The only acception, of course, would be if you could only choose one life to save. Then, it's not so strange to choose the mother. The baby's life is less stable anyway...you have a better chance of saving the one already around. It's a sensible ban, South Dakota, given your totally absurd premise.
That said, I realize a lot of pro-lifers are really more anti-choicers. They don't like sex or impurity and want sinners to live with the consequences of their actions. I actually didn't fully believe they thought that until I saw a video today where a State Senator says he'd make an exception for a pure, religious virgin who planned on staying a virgin and was savagely raped. You just dug yourself into a hole, man. Please don't get out.
Now, in these cases, I think Phelps and SD are dead wrong. I think a human life (that's H. sapien, not a "person's" life) means pretty much nothing without consciousness. The only other value it has besides a continuity of consciousness is the value other people subscribe to it. This is why it's crueler to tear up a 4-year-old's teddy bear than it is to break her stereo. She (sort of) thinks her teddy's a person, and you're breaking that human connection. That, I believe, is the only wrong in, say, taking Terry Schiavo off the tube: Her parents feel extra loss. So that's my view of "what makes a person." SD thinks that a zygote is a person. All right, kids. Whatev, as they say. I feel a little insulted: You think this cell, or this bobbing cluster of cells has the same value as I do? As my friends and family do? But we're all awesome! We chat and think and read and write and sing. We do amazing things from our minds, and we are so fully present while we're doing them. We each have an "I." How cool is that? But these Dakotans think I have the same value as the blastula.
Given that, however, they're doing the totally right thing. If I honestly thought the blastula had the same value as a fully developed human, abortion would be horrific! No, you can't kill someone just because you were raped, even if it was by your father. Very, very bad times for you, and gee that's a sad thing, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to kill someone, especially someone who's completely innocent. The only acception, of course, would be if you could only choose one life to save. Then, it's not so strange to choose the mother. The baby's life is less stable anyway...you have a better chance of saving the one already around. It's a sensible ban, South Dakota, given your totally absurd premise.
That said, I realize a lot of pro-lifers are really more anti-choicers. They don't like sex or impurity and want sinners to live with the consequences of their actions. I actually didn't fully believe they thought that until I saw a video today where a State Senator says he'd make an exception for a pure, religious virgin who planned on staying a virgin and was savagely raped. You just dug yourself into a hole, man. Please don't get out.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
What They Don't Want You To Know
That always works as a good title, don't you think? Even if you know it's a sucker-trap, you're still going to read anything entitled "what they don't want you to know." This post: High School Edition. Here are things I've found out recently that they don't want you to know.
1. Teachers are sometimes attracted to their students. Now, this isn't usually the case, I'm sure, but one of my many friends who's started student teaching (or teaching) this year says a bunch of her fellow student teachers come to class and talk about nothing except which students are hot and are "totally into" them. Great, boys. As a recovering chronic teacher-crusher (when's my next CTCA meeting?), I feel qualified to say that the safety of the teacher not liking you back is crucial. It's not that I consciously wanted the teacher not to like me back, it just wasn't an issue. I didn't have to worry about the obscene complications that would result were that the case. And that was good. The power dynamic is so strong you can taste it (but don't), so teachers who think your students are attractive, don't even think about acting on it. Don't tempt yourself. Be professional. Find someone your own age. And if that's too much to ask, you're in the wrong line of work.
2. STD/STI transmission rates are low low low. Take a look at this slide. The chances you'll catch HIV from a single act of vaginal intercourse is significantly less than 1%. Here it is again. I don't see either of these explicitly say whether the sex studied is protected or unprotected...it looks unprotected. Because if the risk of transmission during receptive anal intercourse with a condom is 7%, I know a fair people who would probably be infected by now and aren't. Yeah, don't bottom without protection. Really, don't do anything without protection, and don't let anyone bottom for you without protection: If you infect someone that way you're a moral travesty. But I never would have thought that having unprotected sex with someone who's HIV+ would put you at a less than 10% risk for catching the virus. Apparently the risk is much, much lower.
3. College may or may not be wild and totally awesome. I'm still bitter at everyone who told me college would be the best four years of my life. I'm still even more bitter at the people who think I'm now in some sort of "we know what the wild side is because we went to college" club. High schoolers be forwarned: college is school with no parents around. In some ways it's different from high school, in some ways it's different from whatever you'll do after it, but it's not some sort of unique communal experience. Don't expect to much. You'll spend more time doing work than anything else...and it won't all be, like, feminist theory. My friends and I estimate somewhere between 15% and 25% of you will graduate virgins (estimates based on our group). You may never see anyone smoke pot during the four years you're there. If you want to go crazy, you'll have to make yourself go crazy. Good luck.
I only really had two things to tell you, but then I needed to round it out to three, so I stuck in my perpetual whinging. But if anyone thinks of anything else they don't want you to know, please post it in the comments.
1. Teachers are sometimes attracted to their students. Now, this isn't usually the case, I'm sure, but one of my many friends who's started student teaching (or teaching) this year says a bunch of her fellow student teachers come to class and talk about nothing except which students are hot and are "totally into" them. Great, boys. As a recovering chronic teacher-crusher (when's my next CTCA meeting?), I feel qualified to say that the safety of the teacher not liking you back is crucial. It's not that I consciously wanted the teacher not to like me back, it just wasn't an issue. I didn't have to worry about the obscene complications that would result were that the case. And that was good. The power dynamic is so strong you can taste it (but don't), so teachers who think your students are attractive, don't even think about acting on it. Don't tempt yourself. Be professional. Find someone your own age. And if that's too much to ask, you're in the wrong line of work.
2. STD/STI transmission rates are low low low. Take a look at this slide. The chances you'll catch HIV from a single act of vaginal intercourse is significantly less than 1%. Here it is again. I don't see either of these explicitly say whether the sex studied is protected or unprotected...it looks unprotected. Because if the risk of transmission during receptive anal intercourse with a condom is 7%, I know a fair people who would probably be infected by now and aren't. Yeah, don't bottom without protection. Really, don't do anything without protection, and don't let anyone bottom for you without protection: If you infect someone that way you're a moral travesty. But I never would have thought that having unprotected sex with someone who's HIV+ would put you at a less than 10% risk for catching the virus. Apparently the risk is much, much lower.
3. College may or may not be wild and totally awesome. I'm still bitter at everyone who told me college would be the best four years of my life. I'm still even more bitter at the people who think I'm now in some sort of "we know what the wild side is because we went to college" club. High schoolers be forwarned: college is school with no parents around. In some ways it's different from high school, in some ways it's different from whatever you'll do after it, but it's not some sort of unique communal experience. Don't expect to much. You'll spend more time doing work than anything else...and it won't all be, like, feminist theory. My friends and I estimate somewhere between 15% and 25% of you will graduate virgins (estimates based on our group). You may never see anyone smoke pot during the four years you're there. If you want to go crazy, you'll have to make yourself go crazy. Good luck.
I only really had two things to tell you, but then I needed to round it out to three, so I stuck in my perpetual whinging. But if anyone thinks of anything else they don't want you to know, please post it in the comments.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Sexual Relativity
AKA: Everyone thinks he or she is inexperienced. This continually strikes me as odd, especially because the most sexually experienced people I know tend to think they're the least experienced. This, admittedly, is probably because they're gay men, and gay men just have more partners on average than any other quadrant.
The random Durex sex facts site I find myself on says that the average man has 12.4 sex partners and the average woman 7.2. 27% have had sex exactly one person, while 21% have had sex with over 10 people. Quite the little distribution curve, there! And it must be because of that little distribution curve that lots of people feel inexperienced: The far hump is very visible. Someone like me can see the people with >10 sexual partners and say "wow, I'm really inexperienced," while someone like, um, a completely anonymous fairly experienced 30 year old gay man could have had, what, 70 sexual partners? And he could see the however many percent in front of him (5%? Maybe?) and see that there are a fair number of people who've had 500 sexual partners.
Ooh, it's totally wealth. Like how nobody feels rich. The curves are totally the same. Check out this thing:
Look at the wealth curve. You've got the lots of impoverished people (0-1 partners) and then a slowwwwly climbing middle class (2-10 partners) and then at the top, you start piling on these people with buttloads of partners. And you're always socially in a position where you can see how many people are wealthier than you/see how many people sleep with more people than you. Because class just works that way, as does, generally, sexual mores. Because of my location, politics, occupation, etc, I hang out with people who aren't all about the free love all the time but don't feel the need to wait until marriage before having sex. Hence my range. I see someone like the anonymous 30 year old gay man and think "Wow, that dude's had a LOT of sex," just like if you lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere, the person with the really big house would seem totally rich, even if they couldn't afford a one bedroom in a prime, prime area of Manhattan. But then maybe the person, being town high society, goes to a country club in Florida and sees people who drive Rollses and thinks "Damn, I'm not that wealthy," and the 30 year old gay man sees a few friends who have sex with a new person every week and thinks "Damn, I don't get any."
Everyone sees people above and below and tends to ignore those below. So one friend has kissed a few people and nothing more. He knows some people who are Shomer Negiya and won't touch the opposite sex for a handshake. They probably know people who don't even think about what it would be like to touch the opposite sex. The gradations get finer. But everyone knows those super wealthy/promiscuous people exist. And so few people can match them...you'll never meet those people. Don't bother.
I made my point two paragraphs ago. I'm just enjoying being in the city. Woot!
The random Durex sex facts site I find myself on says that the average man has 12.4 sex partners and the average woman 7.2. 27% have had sex exactly one person, while 21% have had sex with over 10 people. Quite the little distribution curve, there! And it must be because of that little distribution curve that lots of people feel inexperienced: The far hump is very visible. Someone like me can see the people with >10 sexual partners and say "wow, I'm really inexperienced," while someone like, um, a completely anonymous fairly experienced 30 year old gay man could have had, what, 70 sexual partners? And he could see the however many percent in front of him (5%? Maybe?) and see that there are a fair number of people who've had 500 sexual partners.
Ooh, it's totally wealth. Like how nobody feels rich. The curves are totally the same. Check out this thing:
Look at the wealth curve. You've got the lots of impoverished people (0-1 partners) and then a slowwwwly climbing middle class (2-10 partners) and then at the top, you start piling on these people with buttloads of partners. And you're always socially in a position where you can see how many people are wealthier than you/see how many people sleep with more people than you. Because class just works that way, as does, generally, sexual mores. Because of my location, politics, occupation, etc, I hang out with people who aren't all about the free love all the time but don't feel the need to wait until marriage before having sex. Hence my range. I see someone like the anonymous 30 year old gay man and think "Wow, that dude's had a LOT of sex," just like if you lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere, the person with the really big house would seem totally rich, even if they couldn't afford a one bedroom in a prime, prime area of Manhattan. But then maybe the person, being town high society, goes to a country club in Florida and sees people who drive Rollses and thinks "Damn, I'm not that wealthy," and the 30 year old gay man sees a few friends who have sex with a new person every week and thinks "Damn, I don't get any."Everyone sees people above and below and tends to ignore those below. So one friend has kissed a few people and nothing more. He knows some people who are Shomer Negiya and won't touch the opposite sex for a handshake. They probably know people who don't even think about what it would be like to touch the opposite sex. The gradations get finer. But everyone knows those super wealthy/promiscuous people exist. And so few people can match them...you'll never meet those people. Don't bother.
I made my point two paragraphs ago. I'm just enjoying being in the city. Woot!
Friday, February 17, 2006
In the Kitchen
It has been too long. Yes, I've been horrible about updating, but I never say die. So here I am with another post. First and most importantly, our lease has begun! And I have a picture for you folks, but with the old tennant's furniture. Isn't our living room sexy?
I have a bed, desk and computer in our new room but no internet, which, let's be honest, is the most important thing. We'll need to deal with Time Warner this weekend and get ourselves some comedy central and wireless road runner. Sweet.
We had a few issues moving in. It turns out the old tennants weren't moving out because they were taking on a third roommate and needed a three-bed; they moved out because one of them was a violent drunk who would come home at night, fight with his boyfriend and break things (including Amy's door). At least that's what the super and landlord tell us. To get revenge on the powers that be for kicking him out, the guy left the place a bit of a wreck, complete with december-expired milk in the fridge. The only problem is the powers-that-be didn't bother to clean the place before we got there, so Amy, my mom and I were stuck sweeping and swiffering and throwing shit out. My door doesn't really close. Amy has holes in her wall. We'll deal. We also didn't get keys for about 8 hours because the old dude had given them to his lawyer to hold. And the toilet overflowed...it's fixed now.
I'm still thrilled with the place. It's beautiful and generally functional and a good space to work with. The neighborhood's fun, and I'm looking forward to exploring. Ninth Avenue has some of the best food in town at a wide range of prices, and the population of Hell's Kitchen seems to be an interesting mix of gay men, latinos, and the many adorable children who go to school within a couple of blocks from our place. I'm just thrilled to be in Manhattan...it's where I've wanted to be for years. Plus, I'll be home with the parents a bunch. I won't be ditching the old folks entirely...they're great folks, and I'll probably want a little break from the constant noise of Tenth Avenue every so often. I've got plenty more to say, but work is officially starting right about now, and I've got to hit the RSS feeds and see what's going on in the "global science conversation" that's the colorful white noise of my days.
I have a bed, desk and computer in our new room but no internet, which, let's be honest, is the most important thing. We'll need to deal with Time Warner this weekend and get ourselves some comedy central and wireless road runner. Sweet.
We had a few issues moving in. It turns out the old tennants weren't moving out because they were taking on a third roommate and needed a three-bed; they moved out because one of them was a violent drunk who would come home at night, fight with his boyfriend and break things (including Amy's door). At least that's what the super and landlord tell us. To get revenge on the powers that be for kicking him out, the guy left the place a bit of a wreck, complete with december-expired milk in the fridge. The only problem is the powers-that-be didn't bother to clean the place before we got there, so Amy, my mom and I were stuck sweeping and swiffering and throwing shit out. My door doesn't really close. Amy has holes in her wall. We'll deal. We also didn't get keys for about 8 hours because the old dude had given them to his lawyer to hold. And the toilet overflowed...it's fixed now.
I'm still thrilled with the place. It's beautiful and generally functional and a good space to work with. The neighborhood's fun, and I'm looking forward to exploring. Ninth Avenue has some of the best food in town at a wide range of prices, and the population of Hell's Kitchen seems to be an interesting mix of gay men, latinos, and the many adorable children who go to school within a couple of blocks from our place. I'm just thrilled to be in Manhattan...it's where I've wanted to be for years. Plus, I'll be home with the parents a bunch. I won't be ditching the old folks entirely...they're great folks, and I'll probably want a little break from the constant noise of Tenth Avenue every so often. I've got plenty more to say, but work is officially starting right about now, and I've got to hit the RSS feeds and see what's going on in the "global science conversation" that's the colorful white noise of my days.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Free Lonnie Latham!
Continuing in their grand tradition as one of my favorite organizations in America, the ACLU has filed an amicus brief asking an Oklahoma court to dismiss charges against Southern Baptist minister Lonnie Latham.
It's important to note, as a preface, that Lonnie Latham is a total douche. He's known for being homophobic, and he supported the Southern Baptist church's adoption of a policy encouraging Baptists to befriend homosexuals and convert them to heterosexuality. Great.
So it will come as a surprise to no one that Latham actually likes sex with men. At the beginning of the year, Latham was arrested in Oklahoma for soliciting oral sex from an undercover cop, under charges of offering to engage in an act of lewdness. He could face up to one year in jail and a $2,500 fine if convicted of these charges. Of course the immediate reaction is a hearty "Should've known! Serves him right!" It's always fun to see fire-and-brimstone preachers get arrested for trying to pick up 13-year-old boys, or catching family-values-toting senators with prostitutes (preferably minorities).
But then there's the second reaction to Latham's predicament: "Wait, what did he actually do that's illegal?" He didn't offer to pay the undercover cop. The undercover cop was an adult. The undercover cop had shown some vague interest in hooking up with Latham. He didn't just whip it out in the middle of the street. Where's the crime in asking someone back to your place if they're looking you in the eye and smiling? Even if the other person doesn't seem interested, why the hell is that illegal?
The ACLU thinks it shouldn't be, and they are supporting Latham, hoping to get the charges against him dropped, and I am 100% with them. "Lewdness" is the most absurd, poorly-defined law ever. Part of the definition in Oklahoma is "the giving or receiving of the body for indiscriminate sexual intercourse, fellatio, cunnilingus, masturbation, anal intercourse, or lascivious, lustful or licentious conduct with any person not his or her spouse." So...sex with anyone not your spouse is illegal in Oklahoma? That doesn't jive with Lawrence v. Texas at all. But wait, they say "indiscriminate." What does that mean? OK, being on one end of a public glory hole is indiscriminate. But choosing a one night stand...is that indiscriminate? I don't think so. I'm not a legal scholar, but this definition blows.
So, Oklahoma, please dismiss the charges, and don't arrest people for trying to get some. And to you, Mr. Latham, stop being a douche. If people aren't hurting anyone, just let them live their lives, as the state of Oklahoma will hopefully let you live yours.
It's important to note, as a preface, that Lonnie Latham is a total douche. He's known for being homophobic, and he supported the Southern Baptist church's adoption of a policy encouraging Baptists to befriend homosexuals and convert them to heterosexuality. Great.
So it will come as a surprise to no one that Latham actually likes sex with men. At the beginning of the year, Latham was arrested in Oklahoma for soliciting oral sex from an undercover cop, under charges of offering to engage in an act of lewdness. He could face up to one year in jail and a $2,500 fine if convicted of these charges. Of course the immediate reaction is a hearty "Should've known! Serves him right!" It's always fun to see fire-and-brimstone preachers get arrested for trying to pick up 13-year-old boys, or catching family-values-toting senators with prostitutes (preferably minorities).
But then there's the second reaction to Latham's predicament: "Wait, what did he actually do that's illegal?" He didn't offer to pay the undercover cop. The undercover cop was an adult. The undercover cop had shown some vague interest in hooking up with Latham. He didn't just whip it out in the middle of the street. Where's the crime in asking someone back to your place if they're looking you in the eye and smiling? Even if the other person doesn't seem interested, why the hell is that illegal?
The ACLU thinks it shouldn't be, and they are supporting Latham, hoping to get the charges against him dropped, and I am 100% with them. "Lewdness" is the most absurd, poorly-defined law ever. Part of the definition in Oklahoma is "the giving or receiving of the body for indiscriminate sexual intercourse, fellatio, cunnilingus, masturbation, anal intercourse, or lascivious, lustful or licentious conduct with any person not his or her spouse." So...sex with anyone not your spouse is illegal in Oklahoma? That doesn't jive with Lawrence v. Texas at all. But wait, they say "indiscriminate." What does that mean? OK, being on one end of a public glory hole is indiscriminate. But choosing a one night stand...is that indiscriminate? I don't think so. I'm not a legal scholar, but this definition blows.
So, Oklahoma, please dismiss the charges, and don't arrest people for trying to get some. And to you, Mr. Latham, stop being a douche. If people aren't hurting anyone, just let them live their lives, as the state of Oklahoma will hopefully let you live yours.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Houston, We Have Apartment
We have an apartment, wooo! On February 15th, Amy and I will officially be Hell's Kitchen residents, and I couldn't be more excited. The neighborhood looks lovely, the place is BEAUTIFUL, and there are tons of perks, such as a working fireplace, roof access, and a key to the wonderful garden down the block. All this is thanks to our awesome broker, Alex. If you're looking for a place in Manhattan, let me know and I'll give you his number/email. He chauffeured us to every apartment we looked at with him, and he has an EMT parking permit, so he can park anywhere. He also prescreened apartments after the first two, so he could tell us whether they'd be worth our time or not, based on how we'd reacted to other places. Two thumbs up. Anyway, when I go later this week to measure completely I'll take some decent photos and possibly post them. Our apartment. So hot right now.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
The Defense
Well, I made #4 on The BEAST's 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2005. I suppose we all did, but I feel I should at least answer the charges. Here they are:
The evidence: Nita Lowey, bitch.
Sentence: Yeah, I suppose I'll take it. But considering I'm not totally guilty on all the charges, and they really have no evidence, I think I'll instead take a deathbed realization that my live was only wasted opportunities and not stupid mistakes...I've made a few stupid mistakes, but I'm much more of a wasted opportunities sort of gal, wasting opportunities such as college. And I think I deserve befuddlement, not scorn, and, God no, not indifference. The cold, meaningless demise? Sounds about right. Although if, in honor of my death, we could keep the thermostat at 72 degrees for just a couple of days, that would be great. I'll let you know when I'm a few days from death and willing to use all my money to pay for the wasted oil that went into heating my final hours. But hopefully the price of oil will be down by then.
In other words, I'm creating a special circle of hell for incompetent and/or scheming realtors, along with blood-sucking insurance companies. A small, vaguely special place in heaven goes to the guy in the breakfast cart who knows my order and smiles when he gives me my coffee and to the young, upbeat cab driver who makes talking about the weather seem like something slightly more than smalltalk.
4. YouOK, let's start with my pleas to the charges, in order: guilty, guilty, guilty, not guilty unless you count caffeine as an antidepressent, only slightly guilty, guilty, guilty. I guess I didn't do to well.
Charges: Silently enabling and contributing to the irreversible destruction of your planet. Absolving yourself of your responsibility to do anything about it that your immediate neighbors don't. Assuming that it's normal behavior to spend several hours each day totally inert and staring into a cathode ray tube. Substituting antidepressants for physical motion. Caring more about the personal relationships of people you will never meet than your own. Shrugging your shoulders at the knowledge that your government is populated by criminal liars intent on fooling you into impoverished, helpless submission. Cheering this process on.
Exhibit A: You don't even know who your congressman is.
Sentence: Deathbed realization that your entire life was an unending series of stupid mistakes and wasted opportunities, a priceless gift of potential extravagantly squandered, for which you deserve nothing but scorn or, at best, indifference, and a cold, meaningless demise.
The evidence: Nita Lowey, bitch.
Sentence: Yeah, I suppose I'll take it. But considering I'm not totally guilty on all the charges, and they really have no evidence, I think I'll instead take a deathbed realization that my live was only wasted opportunities and not stupid mistakes...I've made a few stupid mistakes, but I'm much more of a wasted opportunities sort of gal, wasting opportunities such as college. And I think I deserve befuddlement, not scorn, and, God no, not indifference. The cold, meaningless demise? Sounds about right. Although if, in honor of my death, we could keep the thermostat at 72 degrees for just a couple of days, that would be great. I'll let you know when I'm a few days from death and willing to use all my money to pay for the wasted oil that went into heating my final hours. But hopefully the price of oil will be down by then.
In other words, I'm creating a special circle of hell for incompetent and/or scheming realtors, along with blood-sucking insurance companies. A small, vaguely special place in heaven goes to the guy in the breakfast cart who knows my order and smiles when he gives me my coffee and to the young, upbeat cab driver who makes talking about the weather seem like something slightly more than smalltalk.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Touching Base
Wow; it's been too long. As you can probably guess, this means I've been a busy, busy girl for the past three weeks. I am now officially "Staff Writer for the Web" for Seed, which means very little change in what I actually do and very much welcome change in what they pay me. Because I am now officially a working woman, I've started the apartment search with Amy (Greenwood...a good friend of mine from high school who just got back from touring The World). We've been casually looking for about two weeks and just decided to pick up the pace by calling a real broker and getting her to find us the best places the day they come out. Last Thursday we saw the best place yet: a two bedroom on 56th between 9th and 10th with enormous bedrooms, a nice bathroom, and a small-as-all-hell-assuming-souls-are-planck-length living space. The last attribute is why we didn't take it. We planned on going on an apartment binge on Saturday, but apparently nobody shows on Saturday, so we were only able to see one apartment. It blew.
Dating Mike again is going extraordinarily well. I feel totally at ease with him—mentally, physically and emotionally. I guess that's the big perk of dating someone you've already had an intense, long-term relationship with: You don't have to get past the awkward getting-to-know-you stage. I hate that stage...with friends, coworkers, teachers, whatever. I like to be free and easy with people. It's also great that Mike doesn't socialize much and doesn't socialize at all with people I know. I'm so much more comfortable one-on-one than in group situations...or public situations. Spending hours chilling in his (awesome west village) apartment is simply perfect. The time-limit looms (September, when he goes to some random still-unknown city to teach private school), but it's a ways off, and I'm happy to enjoy the time while it's here.
More thoughts later...right now I'm exhausted.
Dating Mike again is going extraordinarily well. I feel totally at ease with him—mentally, physically and emotionally. I guess that's the big perk of dating someone you've already had an intense, long-term relationship with: You don't have to get past the awkward getting-to-know-you stage. I hate that stage...with friends, coworkers, teachers, whatever. I like to be free and easy with people. It's also great that Mike doesn't socialize much and doesn't socialize at all with people I know. I'm so much more comfortable one-on-one than in group situations...or public situations. Spending hours chilling in his (awesome west village) apartment is simply perfect. The time-limit looms (September, when he goes to some random still-unknown city to teach private school), but it's a ways off, and I'm happy to enjoy the time while it's here.
More thoughts later...right now I'm exhausted.
Monday, January 02, 2006
Vacation Winds Down
For the last time for a long time I've spent 10 days lazing about, sleeping late, and hanging out with friends in restaurants and coffee shops. It has been a lovely 10 days, and I will miss them dearly as I return to 7 am wakeups, 9 hour workdays and a bare-bones social life. It took me until Friday to really drop work from my mindset. With a combination of evil hormones and worker's residue, much of last week was spent in a restless state of anxiety I couldn't quite shake. And then it shook, and I revived myself as I was from June through September. It's such a lovely, easy way to be.
I might as well chat about the cryptic comments from a couple of weeks ago. I'm currently dating—but not in a relationship with—my ex. He doesn't want anything serious, which right now I'm all for, but I'm of course concerned that will change over time. At least the lack of seriousness and future dampens the "crawling back home (without ever going abroad)" feeling that was initially pretty strong. As it stands, seeing him is just a nice way to pass time, and I'm good with that. The other concern is that I really like hanging out with him and flirting with him and looking at him, and I trust him and feel close with him, but those things don't necessarily add up to wanting to date him. I'm not sure I do. Hopefully this will all become clearer with time. Hopefully nobody will get hurt. Hopefully the whole world will eventually find love and happiness. It's a lot to hope for.
I might as well chat about the cryptic comments from a couple of weeks ago. I'm currently dating—but not in a relationship with—my ex. He doesn't want anything serious, which right now I'm all for, but I'm of course concerned that will change over time. At least the lack of seriousness and future dampens the "crawling back home (without ever going abroad)" feeling that was initially pretty strong. As it stands, seeing him is just a nice way to pass time, and I'm good with that. The other concern is that I really like hanging out with him and flirting with him and looking at him, and I trust him and feel close with him, but those things don't necessarily add up to wanting to date him. I'm not sure I do. Hopefully this will all become clearer with time. Hopefully nobody will get hurt. Hopefully the whole world will eventually find love and happiness. It's a lot to hope for.
Reading Kids' Diaries
I think we should read kids' diaries. I'm also just a little bit pro-Bush's-spying-program, assuming he really is just scanning for terrorist plots and not preventing robberies or extra-marital affairs or meetings where people get together and burn Bush effigies or anything crazy like that. But that's not today's topic. I'm not talking about violating civil liberties for the sake of security here, I'm talking about violating civil liberties for ART.
If there is one consistent problem with all fiction (and even non-fiction) it is the unrelenting portrayal of children as adults perceive them, never the portrayal of children as they are. Now, I can't capture children as they really are—at age 22 I'm hardly in that position, and I never was able to keep a diary as a kid—but I do remember thinking, when I was a child, that every portrayal I saw was horribly charicatured and never represented the world I knew.
Exhibit A: Bullies. Stories about children are rife with bullies, children who live to make other children feel bad, and that's fine, because there are plenty of bullies in elementary school and middle school. They were, however, never of the Malfoy-Crabbe-Goyle variety. Never one obvious leader with cronies who had no other friends who would show up just to torture people. As I recall, it was the legitimately popular kids who were bullyish. The vast, vast majority of boys, especially around age 13, are obscenely insecure. It's not like college (or even high school), where the secure crowd rises to the top and wins everyone's love, and an insecure minority are stuck being assholes whom everyone kind of hates but may have some power due to sheer force. No no no. In middle school, the entire popular crowd is insecure and generally takes it out on anyone they can. And they're less explicit about their bullying. There's no obvious building themselves up...it's just about shooting the other person down. It's about exchanging looks with a group of five that say "Wow, this person just made a really bad choice. Why would anyone do THAT?" It's not about shoving people into lockers. It's about subtle mockery and exclusion. It probably wouldn't look that bad if an adult listened to the whole thing.
I'm a little too caught up in exhibit A to run through other exhibits, but they would partially concern the inner life of children. What do they think about? I famously thought about my kindergarten teachers molesting miniature versions of the von Trapp children. What do normal children think about? The exhibits would otherwise concern the interactions between children. What do they talk about? What kind of signals do they give? I have relatively little recollection. I don't think TV shows, books, plays and other art forms portray these accurately, even when they capture something fundamentally true about people. They fail to capture childhood as it is, not how we vaguely recall it to be or see it in other children. I only know because I was overwhelmingly frustrated as a child by the innacuracies. I just didn't do anything about it.
Which is where the civil liberties violation comes in. Isolate children from portrayals of themselves. Force them to keep diaries under the guise of secrecy. But then read the diaries. Read them all, and from them get an idea of the collective experience of individual children.
Of course this is impractical, but we should find some way of getting the information from them without letting them just confirm our suggestions, without them just spewing back the portrayals of them they've seen. Save art! Help human understanding! Exploit children!
If there is one consistent problem with all fiction (and even non-fiction) it is the unrelenting portrayal of children as adults perceive them, never the portrayal of children as they are. Now, I can't capture children as they really are—at age 22 I'm hardly in that position, and I never was able to keep a diary as a kid—but I do remember thinking, when I was a child, that every portrayal I saw was horribly charicatured and never represented the world I knew.
Exhibit A: Bullies. Stories about children are rife with bullies, children who live to make other children feel bad, and that's fine, because there are plenty of bullies in elementary school and middle school. They were, however, never of the Malfoy-Crabbe-Goyle variety. Never one obvious leader with cronies who had no other friends who would show up just to torture people. As I recall, it was the legitimately popular kids who were bullyish. The vast, vast majority of boys, especially around age 13, are obscenely insecure. It's not like college (or even high school), where the secure crowd rises to the top and wins everyone's love, and an insecure minority are stuck being assholes whom everyone kind of hates but may have some power due to sheer force. No no no. In middle school, the entire popular crowd is insecure and generally takes it out on anyone they can. And they're less explicit about their bullying. There's no obvious building themselves up...it's just about shooting the other person down. It's about exchanging looks with a group of five that say "Wow, this person just made a really bad choice. Why would anyone do THAT?" It's not about shoving people into lockers. It's about subtle mockery and exclusion. It probably wouldn't look that bad if an adult listened to the whole thing.
I'm a little too caught up in exhibit A to run through other exhibits, but they would partially concern the inner life of children. What do they think about? I famously thought about my kindergarten teachers molesting miniature versions of the von Trapp children. What do normal children think about? The exhibits would otherwise concern the interactions between children. What do they talk about? What kind of signals do they give? I have relatively little recollection. I don't think TV shows, books, plays and other art forms portray these accurately, even when they capture something fundamentally true about people. They fail to capture childhood as it is, not how we vaguely recall it to be or see it in other children. I only know because I was overwhelmingly frustrated as a child by the innacuracies. I just didn't do anything about it.
Which is where the civil liberties violation comes in. Isolate children from portrayals of themselves. Force them to keep diaries under the guise of secrecy. But then read the diaries. Read them all, and from them get an idea of the collective experience of individual children.
Of course this is impractical, but we should find some way of getting the information from them without letting them just confirm our suggestions, without them just spewing back the portrayals of them they've seen. Save art! Help human understanding! Exploit children!
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