You egged my Corolla.

How to Drive on Unplowed, Narrow, One-Way Cambridge Streets; Or, An Exercise in Skidding Tastefully

2012-01-22T15:38:00.001-05:00

I had a 3pm appointment to get to in Brookline yesterday, and it was snowing. Powdery, packing-snow, and some four inches had fallen throughout the morning. The City of Cambridge, personified, was offstage wringing his hands, spotlight-shy, fretting over his entrance. No plow to scrape the asphalt streets, no salt to melt the slush-mire. Through this I drove my trusty Corolla, tentative at first. All cars on the road (actually cars and not trucks, vans or SUVs: this is Cambridge) were struggling, 20 mph tops and fishtailing periodically as they hit particularly powdery, slushy bits of unplowed road. [A note from a Buffalo native: 4 inches is not a lot of snow. And yet, road conditions were legitimately treacherous, because none of those four inches had been removed from the streets.] I've been paying a bit more attention lately to doing things properly: Downton Abbey has of course inflamed nascent passions for ascots and stickpins, and I've finally broadened my collection of garishly-colored argyle socks to include tasteful colors, such as lilac. When a little depressed last Tuesday night, I set about cheering myself up by polishing up a pair of wingtip brogues and practicing a flawless full Windsor knot. So as I made my way down Garden St., skidding periodically, it occurred to me that this, too, could be done properly.

Notes on skidding well:

-Foremost, it is rude to swerve into oncoming traffic. One ought to exercise caution in one's right turns.

-When driving down narrow, winding, unplowed one-way streets with moderately expensive cars parked on either side of you, the asshole behind you honking his horn can go fuck himself.

-Turn on your headlights in daytime. This is primarily a courtesy to other drivers, as it helps to distinguish your car (moving! or intending to move when not stuck!) from cars that are parked or stranded, or when visibility is poor, from snowy expanses of empty road.

-Anticipate stops and turns. Start braking for stops earlier than in non-snowdrift conditions, as your stopping distance increases unexpectedly when tires lose traction. If possible, approach turns at a low speed and maintain that speed throughout the endeavor, so that you are neither braking nor accelerating into the turn.

-Do not forget the pedestrians. They are still out there, walking, and it is more miserable for them in this weather than it is for you.

That's the extent of my meditation on snow-driving, so here's wishing everyone a good Sunday.

-R.

Memory Space

2011-10-06T04:23:00.002-04:00

Steve Jobs died today. I realize that it is strange to comment on this here, on this blog -- which has till now focused on nebulous vengeance, autumnal sensory descriptions and ruminations on being lured into captivity in Cambridge, MA -- but hold out with me. I offer no direct commentary on Apple or Macs or even generally, technology: I barely know what I would write about these things. All I have to offer, and what I want to write about, is a memory -- one that was stirred up tonight as I read and reflected on this man's great legacy. I don't know how to introduce this memory; to preface it properly. How about this: Remember HyperCard?

My grade-school computer experiences consisted mainly of fleeting dalliances with educational computer games such as that fish-eating-other-fish game, Oregon Trail and Mario Teaches Typing. (Wikipedia says the fish game was called Odell Lake -- a useless name for a computer game played by 7 year-olds -- and I vividly recall playing it on Mrs. Barnes' second grade classroom Macintosh II. Back then I found the now-caustic bright blue background inexplicably soothing; also, that was how I learned that there was such a thing as a Mackinaw Trout, a fact that has never since been of use to me. And sorry Mario, but to this day I type with my eyes glued to the keyboard.) It was not until seventh grade, at the ripe old age of twelve, that I actually had time to play with a computer.

This came about because I was enrolled, along with two other students in my grade, in a math program run at the University at Buffalo. Since we took math classes after school, the three of us had a free period when most of our contemporaries were sitting in math class. Happy coincidence led my school to experiment with block-scheduling during 1997-98 school year, and so instead of a relatively brief free period everyday, we had a shared, giant free block every other day. Teachers, at a loss for what to do with us, sent us to the library, where we would ostensibly direct our own educations or get bored and cause trouble. (Note that the "or" in that statement has a possible "and" tucked inside of it. One, the other, both. They teach you that in after-school math :-p)

And so we explored the library. We quickly exhausted its store of interesting literature. In just one week's worth of free blocks, my classmate narrated a thrilling plot summary of The Lord of the Rings. I read Ender's Game multiple times. Awkward books describing puberty and condoms were located, giggled over and finally reshelved. And then, and then, my classmates taught me to use HyperCard. That was it. Suddenly, we had a craft period. Not a free period -- boring, devoid -- but a craft period. That was our time to create something: something with buttons, something that took inputs and spat back outputs, did something, showed something. Animations -- crude ones, and I mean really crude, in all senses -- were the king fish, the Mackinaw Trout of HyperCard undertakings. The thrill in my heart when I pressed "Show All Cards" was utterly new, utterly shocking. It had not even occurred to my 12-year old self that I could do this -- think of something, implement something, animate something, by myself, on a computer. (If you've never seen a HyperCard animation, here is someone else's example. Interestingly, it depicts a stick figure falling to its death, which is broadly consistent with our collective efforts in the library: at various points we blackly animated stick-figure death by beheading, hanging, vehicular manslaughter, and explosion, all with loving precision and a certain artistic flair that I think is particular to 12-year olds. Alas: Stick figures, once drawn, are doomed to die.)

All of this was stirred up this evening as I watched the news, a deep and long-buried nugget of emotion: creative impulse, gumption and pride all forgotten, all rolled into one. All of this comes back to Steve Jobs, though at first glance it might seem that none of it comes back to Steve Jobs. Wikipedia, ever-enlightening, provides the fact that HyperCard specifically was abandoned on Jobs' orders about 11 years ago. Yet a Google search yields video of Jobs giving HyperCard props for its accessibility, for the potential to allow everyone to create. And that's exactly where my recollection resonated. At twelve, busy with increasingly intricate stick-figure death scenes, I was nonetheless acutely aware of the the options that thrilled at my fingertips: there were buttons, scrollbars, code, unexplored. I could make machines, I could make art. That is what mattered about my thoughts today, and having written that down, I will go to sleep. Rest in peace, Steve Jobs.

I Resent the Intimation That It's Already Fall

2011-08-28T16:16:00.001-04:00

It's August, still, but just barely. The mood shifted in my absence, of its own accord, without my assent. Languid late summer gave way to that energetic crackle of the-week-before-classes-start, and I am dimly aware that I ought to buy pencils. The undergraduates are moving in, setting up their dorm rooms, excited for a new semester. I returned to Cambridge to find things pretty much as they were all summer: warm breeze through the window, feet up on the couch, fudgesicles in the freezer. Whatever shift occurred on campus this past week, it left our apartment untouched. Do I forge ahead into the fall semester? In mood and thought I am still immersed in that easy absence of nervous excitement inherent to summer; there's just a little bit of it left, and shouldn't I do that little bit justice? I'm certain that I'll emerge from this happy summer indolence, make the shift, but it's all too early now. Classes begin August 31st -- appalling -- this year. I think I'll catch up once it's properly September.

In other news, I can't hear anything. I caught a cold while on the Hawaii field trip, and the congestion is awful. My poor little eardrums have been through a cruel Hawaiian altitude wringer -- Kilauea, sea level, Mauna Loa! sea level, Kilauea, sea level, Mauna Kea! sea level etc. etc. repeat. And then I got on an airplane. My ears still haven't popped, and everything sounds dim, distant. Oddly this lack of aural functionality is making it difficult to write -- I feel as though I can't hear my own internal monologue. Head is too stuffy. I'm off to chug some Gatorade and hope that things clear out.

-R.

Hello Blog; Hello World.

2011-06-09T23:59:00.000-04:00

Hello blog.

Hello world.

It's been a while.

I am sitting on my couch again, and am happy to report that I'm back to loving it, in all its old-person flowered fabric and above-the-mean comfort-level glory. If you've never sat on this couch, I do contend that you are missing out. That said, I'm sure that it was these qualities precisely that did annoy me so the last time that I wrote, given that I was in such a mood as to be perpetually annoyed. I cannot offer an explanation for the fact that I have slipped into the circuitous locution and leisurely cadence of a Southern lawyer (please read this paragraph with a suitable drawl), expect perhaps to say that I loved Matlock as a child. It did not occur to me that I fell far outside the intended demographic for that show until much later. Part of me is still waiting to grow up and be Tyler Hudson.

And, a lightning storm. There was a lightning storm in Cambridge, MA last week; it was our allotted aftermath of the tornado-bearing storm that damaged the western part of the state. I was terrified by all the flickering, flashing and rumbling going on, but I wanted to see what it looked like in replay-format, wanted to watch from the immoderate comfort of my couch; safe, later. So I propped up my little point-and-shoot on my windowsill, put it in video-recording mode and pressed Go. Unfortunately the battery only lasted for 4 minutes, but I caught the onset of the storm, and it constitutes a sort of time-integrated view from my window, if you will:

I'd never seen it flicker like that.

That's all for now, but I promise to write regularly again.
-R.

I Am Sitting Comfortably on My Couch, Which I Hate With an Abiding Passion

2010-11-03T01:51:00.003-04:00

I hate everything right now, except for this pretzel.

That's not really true.

(I rather like my flannel pantaloons.)

It's November, again, and it's time to take stock. Buckle down, count the beans, tighten the laces and whatnot. Let's start with the positives. The Corolla is chumming along happily, in fall, covered with bright yellow leaves. In a week's time, those leaves will be crisp and brown, and it will smell definitively of autumn in Cambridge. Fall in academia is bright, trenchant, new; new talent, new thoughts, new challenges. I have a wonderful set of students this year. I am writing a paper on an entirely new topic of study. I am learning to play a mandolin (named Hermes).

Well, that worked. I should start with the positives more often. You see, I have been irrationally irritated by things -- specific objects -- in the past few days, and I'm not entirely sure why. Remote controls, for instance. The couch. Plastic bags. I won't get into it -- actually I did, I wrote quite a bit, but then erased it all. Therapeutic, that. You'll never know just how irked I was by that bottle cap.

That said (ha!), I think it's better now. This couch is lovely, and comfortable, and warm. And now I think it's time for bed. Sweet dreams, travelers and friends.

-R.

Summer Doldrums, Over and Over

2010-08-02T02:25:00.001-04:00

I started today by failing to kill a mosquito. A sitting duck on the bathroom wall. I slapped at it with my flip-flop, then flailed in anger as it floated away. Two minutes later, it bit my ankle while I brushed my teeth. Spiteful bastard.

I've been traveling all summer. Like, non-stop. First, NYC for PPPCon. Boston. Then Buffalo, to drive to Chicago for brother's commencement. I enjoyed the drive. Always loved driving west on the 90. Always felt like an adventure, a new undertaking -- Go west, young man, and all that. Towards Chicago, City of Industry. This time it felt solidly like a return, which was interesting. Took 10 hours, as usual. We entered Indiana around 5pm, and spent the next few hours eagerly exiting it. The state of Indiana obliged by allowing us to legally drive 5 miles faster per hour, which was thoughtful. Soon enough, the smokestack-skyline of Gary, Indiana loomed before me. We were done. I was back.

It was fun to drive through Chicago again. I love cities planned on grids. My parents have a thorough distaste for city driving, so I was given free reign to drive us all over the place. Evanston, Lincoln Square, Streeterville, the Loop. I took the parentals out on the museum campus one clear night for a photo-op:

Lovely trip. More thoughts on the Midwest, and the theme of Returning, later, perhaps.

(I've fallen in love with commas, a bit. The hesitation, the halting, waffling, a step, forward, back, so on, so forth. It suits my state of mind this summer. It's all crap.)

Long story short: after Chicago, Knoxville for a week. Boston. Then Santa Barbara for three weeks. I'm currently wrapping up my three week stability-grounding phase in Cambridge, soon bound for Buffalo, Cleveland, and finally Yosemite. FINALLY, COMMA, YOSEMITE. To be honest, I am eager to be on the other side of August. Perhaps when the new school year starts, I will regain my inherent stylistic distaste for hesitation, and commas, and waffling, and return to straight, direct prose. Here's hoping.

-R.

Spring Forward, and All That

2010-03-13T17:58:00.003-05:00

March. March? Really? Ok, I guess.

It is my quals semester. I should be stressed out, but I've been ~~conscientiously reading some other dude's PhD thesis~~ watching Alex Cabot episodes of SVU and practicing the secret extra verse to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air's intro rap (watch Season One, fools).

It's getting warmer, and Cambridge walks are wonderful. Garden Street, ever-menacing, fed my deep-seated fears of being lured into captivity once more: Wednesday morning, I counted twenty to thirty brightly-colored candied oblate spheroids strewn between Grey Gardens and Robinson. Orange, yellow, brown. Thought: If M&M's, not likely to be effective child-trap. Reds and the greens are crucial to maintaining visual appeal. Second thought: probably Reese's pieces. Reese's pieces?! A bit lavish, no? I guess jelly beans didn't pan out very well, huh? Third thought: most likely explanation presumably involves inadvertent candy-loss by children (primary consumers?), notoriously unable to hold on to anything. Children of North Cambridge: stop spilling candy everywhere. It's a waste of good sugar, and it makes me anxious.

Walking on Huron Avenue a couple nights ago prompted further contemplation. I was trudging north, grocery-laden, when my peripheral vision picked up on a dark masculine figure emerging from a doorway to my right. Not quite emerging. Lurking. Inexplicably holding a large dry sausage. I'm not resorting to crude euphemism here: the guy was just standing in a doorway, looking out over Huron Ave, holding sausage, preoccupied. Note to self: If at any point you absolutely must be in possession of a large dry sausage, do not lurk. (We mustn't lurk in doorways. It's rude --Ed.). I'm sure this guy was waiting to go out to some dinner party and had decided to bring sausage, which is thoughtful.

Anyway, it's high time I did something productive with my day. Hope all is well, regards,

The R--ts

2010-01-28T17:25:00.001-05:00

I somehow bought the clean version of The Roots' Phrenology, which is essentially all just bleeped out. The Seed (2.0) is especially ludicrous. Beware of poorly-labeled Amazon downloads.

Is it weird that I hesitate before typing "ludicrous?" As though "Ludacris" might actually be the proper spelling?

A Thought About Carrots

2010-01-26T00:29:00.001-05:00

Eating an adult carrot is somehow much more satisfying than eating an equivalent mass of baby carrots. Perhaps it feels like more of an accomplishment, having vanquished the behemoth root. I ate a carrot, dammit. Much better, more heroic than having gnashed my teeth over a handful of tender, defenseless little orange carrot nubs. Well, defenseless is a loaded term -- I shall not inject morality into this comparison, especially with regard to vegetables that are, in actuality, fully grown*. But the heroism -- this is a surprisingly accurate reflection of how I view my relationship with food: meal conquered, I digest. I congratulate myself often, after meals.

Psychology aside, I think adult carrots exhibit superior taste and texture.

*Baby-cut carrots are whittled from imperfect grown-up carrots to reduce food waste.

Monsters in Bed

2010-01-14T15:47:00.002-05:00

Prediction: Zombies will never be sexy.

Vampires, werewolves, even mummies I can sort of see. But zombies -- eyes vacant, unromantic; drooling bits of brain -- will never be sexy. The gauntlet is thrown; a challenge; let all writers of popular prose take heed. Make zombies sexy. Just you try.

I've been watching a lot of Bones lately. The show offers a winning combination of sexual tension and the temperately grotesque: Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz are terrific, and clean bones are not that scary. Given one's tendency to saturate when watching gore-heavy crime dramas, this is a nice thing.

* * *

On topic, you should all take a listen -- carefully -- to Lady Gaga's second album, The Fame Monster. First let me declare that Lady Gaga is brilliant. The Fame was pure, odd, trashpop brilliance. There was something foggily familiar about much of the music, and Gaga was decidedly kooky yet I felt like maybe she was actually holding back to build pop appeal. And, I loved it.

With The Fame Monster, the familiarity is still there (take 'Alejandro;' compare with 'La Isla Bonita' by Madonna), but it's not what's important. The tracks are infectiously, joyously danceable; Gaga's pop sensibility is flawless. The icing on the cake is thematic: the album is filled with blankly-delivered non-subtle references to monsterhood, embracing the current pop obsession with sexed-up humanoids (see Twilight) and simultaneously stepping beyond it into grittier, kookier territory. Gaga's vampires would not sparkle, benign, in the sunlight. They would consume us, darkly, in the dark (primal fear! darkness of soul! darkness of environs. teehee. anyway). She casually croons to us about half-wired broken jaws, heart-eating, brain-eating (flirts with zombie-territory, big points in my book), and her offhand delivery demands that we accept these all as reasonable lyrical sentences. It is great. I particularly enjoy 'Monster,' 'Alejandro,' and 'Speechless' (aside from 'Bad Romance,' of course).

***

Anyway, enough of the grisly/macabre. I have a bad headcold, and will take a nap.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T13:22:00.001-05:00

Happy 2010, my friends. A few notes from winter break:

- A public health service announcement in Logan airport proclaimed: "If you have hands, wash them." This seemed to me a needless cruelty, a needle in the consciousness of the handless.

- I have read Mrs. Dalloway. I felt while reading that this book was just enormous. Now that I've finished, it's clear that I'll be peeling back, unwrapping, poking at this book for years to come. It's gorgeous; an enormous book.

- After devoting 251 minutes of our lives to the Twilight movies, K and I declared ourselves (a) confused and (b) Team Jacob. What could be more clear? Jacob Black was dependable, gruffly handsome and, most importantly, comparatively good for Bella Swan. Edward was a drama king (always with the biting and the wanting to bite, and then with the revulsion and the random, sudden misgivings). However, to address (a) I committed to sitting down and reading the novels. I suddenly have greater appreciation for Kristen Stewart's deadpan monotone: Bella was written that way (by the way, I love it -- Kristen Stewart's deadpan monotone). I haven't gotten too far yet, but I hear that I will appreciate Edward more via written word. I look forward to a new view.

Other things have occurred to me, but I'm blanking on them now.

Till later,

Returns, Some Triumphant, Others Incurring a Fine

2009-10-14T19:37:00.005-04:00

It is winter here in Cambridge. The statement is false, but serves to better illustrate the blogger's state of mind. We are experiencing a frigid mid-October, and it is difficult to reconcile myself with this. I did not fully notice when it was summer; perhaps this explains the shock and resistance to a rather expected and incremental change.

I went for a walk to return a library book (overdue -- evidently one does not grow up, one only grows taller), and remembered that Harvard Yard in autumn is nice. How sad, that I had not crossed the Yard since the late summer: crisp air, red leaves, the notebooks tucked away under elbows, all came as a surprise. I struck an irregular (but deliberate) path across it, pausing briefly at the old stops, examining the old rocks. We are grading our students on rock identifications around University Hall, you see. A responsible TF would refresh her memory, you see; I had a reason to be there. Mostly I just wanted to see them again.

* * *

On that topic, teaching is a blast, teaching is a treasure. Teaching is the highlight of my week. Once a week, for three hours, I win. It is a brilliant feeling to TF the same first introductory course that you took in your future field. That said, it will not do to have the sleep-deprived leading the sleep-deprived. This seems to me a disastrous concoction.

Hope all is well,

*There are many facets to returning to one's alma mater for graduate school: academic, emotional, geographical. The Yard has taken on the quality I associate with hometowns: a place well-loved; left; regained. But I'll switch focus to the academic-emotional, rather than the geographical-emotional.

Better Than a Candy Heart, but Not as Good as a Necco Wafer

2009-08-06T23:42:00.006-04:00

The 2nd floor geochemistry message board is currently playing host to an anonymous, rapidly updated dialogue-by-means-of-pushpin. The exchange has lasted some three weeks. It began, or at least I noticed it, when a smiley face morphed into "Hi!," which was shuffled to a "Hey" overnight. I have the identity of one participant (a labmate); the other is a mystery person in the halls of Hoffman. Having established that I was not involved, the labmate and I recently gathered enough pins to eke out "Who?" on the board. This was replaced, overnight, with a somewhat disappointing "Me." So much for the direct approach.

* * *

My labmate has left for the rest of summer, and the pins have mirrored a slide from assurance to confusion: a smiley face dropped to "?!" Today's reaction to the prolonged radio silence: a heart with an arrow through it. For one thing, that took a lot of pins. I scanned the hallway for pin-poor posters hanging off the wall. Logistics aside, hmm. I wonder who in Hoffman is heartbroken.

Scars: Relating to Sharp Surfaces, or Otherwise

2009-08-04T00:00:00.005-04:00

I've developed a nifty double-struck scar across the knuckles of my left hand. Back alley, fist fight vs. Shadow ninjas. One fist. Left.

Actually, I slammed the back of my hand against sheet metal and got sliced twice, by both the upper and lower edges (think: top face meets side; bottom face meets side. Both edges are sharp). It seems I walk with ~10% precision, and this has its consequences. I don't much like getting scars on my hands. Yet, much of my work is manual, and I seem to be collecting them. This parallel pair of shiny fine lines is particularly conspicuous. I suppose that's fitting; subtlety (physical, verbal, emotional; grammatical?) seems beyond my reach.

Thing I like: ambiguous syntax. It's infuriating in the context of academic writing, but delightful when it rears its head in more frivolous settings. (Note to self: the adj form of "levity" is not levitical*. "Lighter" would have sufficed, but "frivolous" is less ... ambiguous.)

Consider this example for the night: top 40 pop song by Sean Kingston titled "Fire Burnin'." Lyrical snippet, sans punctuation:

Somebody call 911 shorty fire burning on the dance floor

Is that: call 911, shorty -- there's a fire burning on the dance floor? Or, call 911 -- there's a shorty-fire burning on the dance floor? I prefer the latter, for the sake of imagery. Ah, but it appears neither is correct:

She's fire burning fire burning on the dance floor
That little shorty's fire burning on the dance floor

It appears that "fire burning" functions as an augmented gerund: fire, as an entity, packaged in, enveloped. It is oddly more illustrative than just plain "burning." One could burn with fever, lust, jealousy; smolder with rage, all without actual flames. If one is fire burning, there can be little doubt. Still I prefer the shorty-fire.

*For some practical advice, and what is arguably one of my favorite parts of the Old Testament, see Leviticus 13 (on leprosy).

Say It All

2009-07-01T21:52:00.005-04:00

The wookies' farewell to Yoda. D is moving out tonight, and this was on TV; I looked at K and said, "That's us." It was true.

Everything Old is New Again

2009-06-01T20:43:00.005-04:00

My thoughts have recently spun around the theme: returning, and the associated task of perceiving old things anew. Two things came to mind.

(1) Re-reading books. I've found that my perception of a novel changes -- a shift in focus, a shift in meaning, new weight-- as I get older and read it again. I first read To Kill a Mockingbird with a 13 year old's eyes. Accordingly, I think I paid the most attention to the motives and actions of Scout and Jem -- these were spelled out most clearly, and at that age they seemed like the obvious bits with which to concern myself. I read the book again recently. Suddenly rich narrative fabrics were apparent; new threads emerged soaked with new empathy, new understanding. I was shocked at the narrowness of my prior reading; shocked, but then reassured. I had grown since then. One ought to grow, to see things with new eyes. I mistrust the eighth grader who slides straight to Understanding, without trudging through Experience first.

This reminded me of returning to classics, of looking for new wisdom in old places.

(2) The second return is physically manifest: I am living in Cambridge, again. The first time was different. It occurred to me that as an undergraduate, I did not do terribly well with the college campus metaphysical mindset, this strange awareness of being not-at-home. However, I did not understand this at the time -- it was only this evening, as I waited for sushi at the Porter Exchange, that I put my finger on what bothered me. Campus life is partially institutionalized homesickness: we form South Asian associations, world music groups; we inform and enrich one another but do so largely to surround ourselves with comfort, for we are far from home. This vague persistent undercurrent of out-of-placeness confused me, frankly. I did not dare call Cambridge home; that would be treason to my hometown of Buffalo. Campus housing was clearly temporary: we were transient kings of milk crate-castles. Every year we sacked the fortress and cleared the venerable halls for summer. This was hardly motivation to call a place home. I was deeply unsettled with being...unsettled. I felt placeless.

The intervening year in Chicago was an opportunity to see what things could be like. I chose to live there, I was part of the workforce, I commuted daily. When there was traffic in downtown, I knew about it. I returned to Cambridge with hope.

And it's different this time. I have to remind myself to look at familiar places -- Cambridge Common, Harvard Square proper -- with new eyes, but much of the rest is coming naturally. I know the neighborhoods, I ride my bike, I go to the yard sales, I yell at the kids. It is distinct from returning home, but I have returned, and this is home. Good.

Hope things are well,
R.

Update: Jellybean Menace, Really Big Antlers

2009-03-31T00:43:00.006-04:00

K reported a second linear candy trail sighting, also on Garden Street: skittles this time.

I was away in Houston for LPSC, and it seems to have rained the whole week in Boston. I returned last night. This afternoon on the walk home, I saw the now-familiar jellybeans still on the sidewalk, swept to the side and bleached white by rain, like ET. Little ET jellybeans. I wondered if they were still delicious.

Also, Tycho Brahe lost part of his nose in a duel. He lived the rest of his life with a prosthetic nose made of precious metals. He also had a dwarf and a domesticated elk in his court, but the elk drank too much beer one day, fell down some stairs and died. It is sad, but this is what makes the history of science worth reading about.

The moral of the story is, keep your domesticated elk out of the cask ale.

This image is on my blog...

2009-03-18T22:30:00.001-04:00

...for March Madness bracket purposes. They needed an active link.

Look up "Engelbert Humperdinck"

2009-03-15T22:28:00.012-04:00

As I was walking home last night, I noticed a yellow jellybean on the sidewalk. An orange one. Some reds. A trail of jellybeans, strewn along, some stuck in the gaps between brick cobbles. All on my path to home.

I grew suspicious. What if I were walking into a trap!? I felt helpless. Sensible alternate routes were not available: I was nearly home. The rest of the walk was jarring, especially since I knew not to follow candy trails anywhere. This brought up some thoughts:

1) Why a trail, and not, say, an explosion of jellybeans? Assuming a stationary point source, one would expect roughly radial candy-spatter. Perhaps not stationary. Perhaps a jogger, eating jellybeans. This would be most unwise. Subsequent loss of jellybeans would illustrate that one ought not eat while jogging: caution, choking hazard; tragic loss of jellybeans may also occur.

2) It is also possible that the beans were dropped from a stationary source and were subsequently dispersed along the sidewalk by oblivious pedestrians. I would not kick those jellybeans, myself. I would not touch them with a 10 foot pole. *

I am not writing from the basement terrarium of a somerville madman / cat lady, so rest assured that I did not fall into a trap.

* * *

The anecdote brings me to my larger point. I am certain that whoever dropped the jellybeans did not intend to alarm anyone (and, I'll admit, was probably not setting a trap). The circumstance of the jellybeans being on the ground was not significant. The hard cold fact of my fairytale-related paranoia was likewise generally insignificant. But in each other's presence they had life; resonance pushed the system into something altogether unintended. This got me thinking about things that were unintended, but happened anyway.

I did not intend to drive myself crazy with work this semester, but this somehow happened anyway. Again, I propose that this has to do with a superposition of signals: academic circumstance, overly ambitious advisors and my own intrinsic idiocy. What was I thinking? I had a moment last Thursday where I was struck with the silliness of it all: were we really discussing what shape magma lenses might take under mid-ocean ridges? Wouldn't we all be better off learning a trade? The world might thank us to stop being so useless. But then someone said something crazy about helium isotopes, and I was brought back to my old self again. I've decided this episode was a symptom of topical boredom rather than actual crisis of purpose. But still, I need a break.

I did not intend to neglect friends, but this happened anyway. This has to do with the paragraph above. I do not know where January went, or February for that matter. Is it March? Good lord. I'll see you in May, I hope.

This is taking the tone of an apology. I feel guilty. This might have to do with a dream I had last night, in which I did several naughty things for which I should feel guilty, all of which were strange and involved people I know. This must be it. Dear great void: the dream was unintended, and happened anyway. Truly sorry. Moving on.

I'm sure that this is probably not it, but that will have to do for tonight on the vague-persistent-unease front. I'll think about it and get back to the void.

Hope you are all well,
R

* May seem extreme, but I associate stray sweets with the candied house with sugar windows where Hansel und Gretel were trapped, and Hansel nearly eaten, be he fat or lean. Menacing. I paid attention as a child.

Valentine's Day Cookie and Albuterol Cocktail

2009-03-01T22:16:00.004-05:00

A return to curiosities:

1. Cake + cookie = ? Around Valentine's Day at Shaw's I found a heart-shaped chocolate cake covered with white frosting, a blue-frosting cookie monster AND A COOKIE ON TOP. This was ground-breaking, to me. I've had cake with cookies, cookie cake, severely frosted cookie cake, and even cookie cupcake (aka Lump of cookie). It had never occurred to me to put cookies on top of cake. This marvelous invention was my Valentine's Day present to 81 Huron, and it equaled delicious.

2. Living out nerd paradigm This week the stars conspired against (?) me: I had two diff eq math projects due in a span of two days, and then my docs put me on an inhaler because I couldn't breathe. Given my post-flu mental and physical haze, it was all I could do to keep track of the derivatives of Bessel functions and the number of species in a given fauna at time T, and -- brace for the nerd statement of the year -- I lost my inhaler. On some level, I felt that this established additional nerd cred that in regular circumstances would have been beyond my reach, because really, I am a field hockey-playing science nerd, and there is just something extra special about asthmatic mathematicians. +5 points

We end with an Amy Adams quote from Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

You need to go out there, and you need to rev your engine, you need to fire it up. You need to grab a hold of that line between speed and chaos, and you need to wrestle it to the ground like a demon cobra, and then, when the fear rises up in your belly, you use it. And you know that fear is powerful, because it has been there for billions of years, and it is good. And you use it. And you ride it; you ride it like a skeleton horse through the gates of hell, and then you win, Ricky. You win! And you don't win for anybody else. You win for you, you know why? Because a man takes what he wants. He takes it all. And you're a man, aren't you? Aren't you?

This ranks up there with Theoden's inspirational speech to the Riders of Rohan, in my reckoning.

Posts will be sparse this semester, a warning.

Ghosts, Thieves, Ninjas: A Compelling and Well-Reasoned Argument in Favor of Sleep Medication

2008-12-30T13:51:00.012-05:00

The ghosts are returning.

More specifically, the imaginary intruders are returning. Did you ever do this? In my night-time childhood paranoia, I would lie awake constructing elaborate scenarios to match the odd creaks and pops that propagate through a middle-aged house as it adjusts to sinking ground (ah, western New York) and heavy wind. Thieves, but not just lumbering men in masks with crowbars and burlap sacks. Thieves in my mind always turned out to be Shadow Ninjas: smart, stealthy, agile. When I was terrified enough for forced bravery, I would check the closet ceilings to make sure no ninja-thieves were there suspended. In, out, undetected.

Anyway, I am at home for winter break, and it is windy in Buffalo. 75-mph-gusts-windy. Our houses were not built for this kind of stress, and the duration and intensity of floorboard-creaking gives the impression that other people are walking around in our house while we sit together, with shared expressions of alarm, in the kitchen. A thorough room-by-room check reveals no intruders, or at least no physical manifestations of intrusion. Ghosts I still worry about.

* * *

Lastly, my brother bought a cake today that was, believe it or not, too chocolatey. My brother and I both agreed on this. I couldn't decide if the baker deserved congratulations or censure for the achievement. Censure, I think, for intemperate use of chocolate. Wait, does that even make sense? No. How could I write such a thing. More chocolate is always better. Odds are he or she just used massive amounts of chocolate poorly. Improper use of chocolate. Personal foul. Half the distance to the goal line.

And with that, I remember that I have not yet eaten lunch, and should probably do that before I eat dinner.

I Left My Bart in San Francisco

2008-12-19T01:50:00.008-05:00

I am on the road, at AGU. Some quick notes:

(1) Whose idea was this:

Baffling urban hikes. The good bars, restaurants, ceaseless Christmas tunes and highly musical homeless people make up for these.

(2) Yerba Buena Gardens, Geary Street: recommended.

(3) Tide stain remover: "Does not work well on Grease, Blood, Ink"
(In that order.) Staying classy in my stain-removed shirts, schmoozing, acting presentable.

There may be a saga ahead, with respect to travel. Blizzard coming into Boston, and I would be flying through it twice (SF to Phoenix to Boston; Boston to Buffalo). This probably isn't going to go smoothly. Will write if something great happens.

Leaves Fall, Children Stumble; November is Upon Us

2008-11-16T14:16:00.008-05:00

It's November, already. Specifically, it is mid-November, already. How do we all feel about this? I feel dazed.

It's been a couple of months since I started grad school. Grad school is wonderful.

The anniversary of the Egging of My Corolla passed without incident. On Nov. 3rd I spent a moment, a loving gaze, a half hour removing leaves, seed-copters, detrital tree matter from the nooks, crannies, trunk, hood of my car. Tree matter gets everywhere.

I love autumn scents, especially right around now. In October, leaves change colors and cling, stubbornly, to their branches. By November, the futile grasp is broken, overcome, gravity prevails, the leaves fall. Tumultuously, dramatically, silently, fall. Here I imagine a few days' period of separation anxiety. Once it is clear that the process is irreversible, the leaves settle and get down to the business of decaying. Herein the source of wonderful autumnal scents, the smell of decaying plant matter. Add some burny smoky smells from wood fires and chimneys, and you have November. (Science! Autumn smells good due to the breakdown of complex hydrocarbons!)

A new thing: I live in an apartment between Fresh Pond and Harvard Square. Nearby are two or three elementary and pre-schools. I had interacted with small children on campus before: for instance, small children existed in Adams House. However, those small children existed in an environment suited for young adults; it was jarring, sometimes, (though always delightful) to see them. Now I see kids in more traditional environments -- in two straight lines, holding hands with their walk-buddies, herded across the street from their school by teachers who are my age, possibly younger. Where were these kids going? I remember myself crossing streets in lines of two, noting interesting leaves, chestnuts, acorns, patterns on the sidewalk. I remember plastic raincoats, and decaying smells. But I do not recall where were going, or if we were going anywhere at all, in particular. Perhaps we were just taking a walk, and I got exactly what was aimed for out of it: leaves, chestnuts, fall detritus. I think this is the point of fall walks.

Motives aside, I observed what I think is my favorite method of child-arrangement while walking across the public park called Cambridge Common. A rope was held on either end by a towering adult; one in front, the other at the end of the line. From this axial rope stemmed symmetric rope-branches, to each of which was tied a single pre-schooler. Sixteen small children were thus arranged in two even lines, and securely attached to the adults responsible for them. As I watched the toddler chain-gang progress across the Common, I thought to myself: Yes. There was something to be admired in this. While restrictive, it was simple and efficient. Similar things could be done with drunkards.

At any rate, I heartily approve of fall walks, toddlers, and also drinking. To follow this line of thought, I will wind down this post and pour myself something strong and smoky. I hope you all are well, and kind regards,

R.

Sometimes you feel like a nut...

2008-09-30T23:24:00.004-04:00

I say, what a dry spell on this weblog. I've had plenty to write about, but all this 'plenty' has itself been preventing the writing. Plenty is a wily one, you see.

I've started grad school. That is a loaded statement; that could go in a lot of different directions. I've started grad school, so watch out! The tone on this motherfucker is about to get academic. I've started grad school, ah, shit. I have no time to do anything. I've started grad school, and now I live off processed cheese product. I am an irradiated puff of processed cheese product. Anyway. There is anxiety, excitement, a whole glut of emotions running high over here. It's a beautiful, glorious, mess.

The point of this post is to signal that the blog is alive and well. I'll write more about the summer-fall transition at a later date.

I used to work in Chicago, I used to work in a store...

2008-07-08T15:01:00.005-04:00

Aforementioned wrench.

The Thing About Chicago's South Side is: It Has a Great View Northwards

2008-06-24T01:31:00.013-04:00

This evening, the sun was dipping low, the lake was touched with silver, and the view from the Point struck me as a prime photographic opportunity. So I hiked up my gym shorts and marched my frightened ass out to the lake shore at 57th street with a camera. The sound of Lake Michigan is insistent, robust; splashy. It is not like Lake Erie; that Lake has patience, a well-worn sense of time and the history that has played out on its shores. (This is distinct from the bland weariness of Lake Ontario--but one does not blame poor Ontario for its exhaustion, post-rapids and cataract. If you'd been through that sort of trauma, I'd let you just lie there, too. A boring Lake. But I digress.)

Lake Michigan twitches with industry. You can feel it when you stand ankle-deep on the shore: the waves insist, they are itching to move you, somewhere, anywhere, westwards, preferably. Ships steam across her and the Lake nods her approval: splash, splash. Go, move, do. Industrious urgency is in its very character, and this befits the lake-mistress of the great American city, Chicago. New York bustles, LA glitters; but Chicago cranks, chugs, whistles and stamps. Chicago needs a lake that can keep up. Ontario would be flat on her back after an hour. Lake Michigan wants more.

That said, I will miss Chicago and its fearsome semi-sexually voracious Lake. I cut my adult teeth on this city, felt its pulse and longed to be part of its workforce. And then I was. Nuts, bolts, rivets! How appropriate that my job here involved rusty hardware. But one year was enough. Now I look homewards, eastwards, to Lake Erie.

There they have grass, and trees, and sunlight. That Lake remembers. When one sits on its shores, one gets the impression that the Lake is remembering. It remembers the settlers, the immigrants, the ships, the clapboard houses that cropped up on its shores. It remembers barges, mills, factories, remembers when it urged young men westwards, when it was the fountainhead of western industry. Now Lake Erie sits back, and collects on the industry it sent west decades ago.

Waters from Chicago make their way eastward to Erie; in the end, all things come home. And so do I.

Lila, Green Child of the (Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center)

2008-06-21T21:02:00.001-04:00

For my beloved Lila: someday, for your birthday, we will get you a green screen session. In fact your wedding should just be entirely green-screened. Think of the editing possibilities! There could be a YouTube contest: Lila in Space! The Light Sabre version! Prison Thriller! A Senate hearing on CSPAN-2. I could go on. Anyway here's the video that got me thinking:

It's "Over and Over" by Hot Chip. And of course, we would keep the version where everyone -- everyone -- is wearing a green spandex bodysuit. Are you reading this, Mrs. Fontes?

* * *

And now that I've gone and rewatched the Prison Thriller video, I might as well post this amazing Prison version of Soulja Boy/ Can't Touch This by the same crew of Filipino inmates:

Man, I wish I could dance like that. At a wedding, perhaps.

Today is Tuesday, June 17th 2008

2008-06-17T19:34:00.000-04:00

Today I saw a caterpillar. It was thin, brown and patterned with blue. It moseyed on the sidewalk; I am not certain where it aimed to go. I watched it for several seconds.

Another observation: The entrance to the John Crerar Library at the University of Chicago is adorned with an arch made of fossiliferous limestone. It is not the gloriously fossiliferous type that comprises the columns outside Widener Library; in fact, it strongly resembles poured concrete from two feet away. But if you look from really, really close up (less than 1/2 inch), you can distinguish shell fragments, oolites and other fossiliferous objects. I love that word. I really only wrote about this so I could say it out loud a few times. Fossiliferous.

That said, I hate sedimentary rocks and think fossils are boring.

Volcanic rocks are exciting, though. Especially volcanic rocks from paradisiacal ocean islands such as the Cook-Australs, aka Thesis Islands. I have been writing about these islands a lot lately, but not on this page. More on that, later in the summer.

I don't have any good ideas for a title. And so, my title is just a statement of plain fact, regarding today. My brain is tired, what with all the writing about islands, and obvious things are bringing me the simplest pleasures. My toes are small. Tonight I will eat a Hot Pocket. Later I will drink a beer. A Newcastle, obviously.

My humble apologies for a spaced-out post. In the vein I've been following on Facebook and elsewhere, I'll end with a delightful snippet from E.M Forster's A Room with a View:

Conversation was tedious; she wanted something big, and she believed that it would have come to her on the wind-swept platform of an electric tram. This she might not attempt. It was unladylike. Why? Why were most big things unladylike? Charlotte had once explained to her why. It was not that ladies were inferior to men; it was that they were different. Their mission was to inspire others to achievement rather than to achieve themselves. Indirectly, by means of tact and a spotless name, a lady could accomplish much. But if she rushed into the fray herself she would be first censured, then despised, and finally ignored. Poems had been written to illustrate this point.

There is much that is immortal in this medieval lady. The dragons have gone, and so have the knights, but still she lingers in our midst. She reigned in many an early Victorian castle, and was Queen of much early Victorian song. It is sweet to protect her in the intervals of business, sweet to pay her honour when she has cooked our dinner well. But alas! the creature grows degenerate. In her heart also there are springing up strange desires. She too is enamoured of heavy winds, and vast panoramas, and green expanses of the sea. She has marked the kingdom of this world, how full it is of wealth, and beauty, and war--a radiant crust, built around the central fires, spinning towards the receding heavens. Men, declaring that she inspires them to it, move joyfully over the surface, having the most delightful meetings with other men, happy, not because they are masculine, but because they are alive. Before the show breaks up she would like to drop the august title of the Eternal Woman, and go there as her transitory self.

Ah, Forster: witty proponent of egality in Joy, Life. Goodnight,

RP

Things that Resonate

2008-06-16T01:26:00.000-04:00

First let me say, Orangina: the Champagne of orange juices.

It's a weird run here, chucks. I've got two weeks left in Chicago. The furniture is gone from the ol' apartment, Casey is in Morocco, it's just me, a camping chair and the cable televizions. I am watching CSI as I type; it is awfully quiet without the TV on.

But the acoustics! Who knew this apartment was so damn echoey. I sneeze; the building rings with the rage of my respiratory reflex. It is as though I have shattered the sanctitude of a temple I did not realize existed, until I broke its stillness with my thoughtless fits of allergic hypersensitivity. It is dusty without the furniture here.

Speaking of resonance, I find myself bursting into song these days. Any place with promising acoustics, I try on for size: quietly, if I must; resounding, if I may. Deeply, richly, robustly, if I am drunk. (It seems to me that I sing well, when I am drunk. This feels like tautology, but it is too late for me to work that out properly.) I digress; location-location-location. Bathrooms, bathtubs, banks; all hold promise, some deliver on it. The public aspect of publicly bursting into song has yet to hit home; there is glorious anonymity in wandering a big city alone. Though I must say: good acoustics make me happy, but other people who notice/enjoy good acoustics make me even happier. (This is an invitation for you all to belt out a tune in my presence, should you wish to do so.)

Another topic: Some of you have noticed that my Facebook page has become a repository for E.M. Forster quotes. Truth. I have confessed to some already, and here I make a general statement: A Room with a View -- a novel, a 176 page comedy of manners and societal mores -- is the fountainhead of a good deal of my personal philosophy. I recommend it.

Let me first say: I do not identify with Mr. Emerson, certainly not with Lucy, nor with anyone else in the novel (though in Freddy Honeychurch, I declare a favorite). Rather, I appreciate the fabric, the environment of this story. Below the romantic current, there rests a riverbed manifesto against repression, restriction, the rubbish that cumbers the world. ("The rubbish that cumbers the world." E. M. Forster. A Room with a View. Hayes Barton Press, 1908. Chapter 13. I quote this book constantly, naturally. I lost the reflex long ago to make "air quotes" with my fingers.) This world-cumbering rubbish seems particularly appropriate food for thought in the present day. Though we speak freely about sex, bodily functions, and the letter "S" (stomachs), confusion, conflict, and willful self-deception abound as strongly today as in any other period of history. Though society as a whole may never move beyond the rubbish, as individuals, we would all do well to see across it.

Alright, that's enough philosophy for tonight ('"I say, what about this bathe?" murmured Freddy, appalled at the mass of philosophy that was approaching him.' Chapter 12. Echoes in my head). Spike has switched from a CSI marathon to a thinly-disguised infomercial for unnatural male enhancement, and I think this is a signal for me to wrap things up. Since I have made heavy use of quotation marks in this post, I will end with a sign we saw on the bus today:

"Do not drill here"
Electrical wires

I leave it to you to puzzle out the rationale there. Farewell, and goodnight,

-RP

Light Skin, Dark Skin, My Asian Persuasion...

2008-05-12T04:19:00.001-04:00

Saw this at a club last night and thought, this video is so me:

I'd heard the song before, and noted the amazing lyrical snippet above. But Janet Jackson! Space rocks! Planets! Shiny spider-spacewalk-dancers! Dancing on planets! Also, supertight group dance sequence. Only thing missing: some lasers in space.

Hot.

Missed Connections

2008-05-01T19:25:00.001-04:00

You were the angriest baby I'd ever seen. You sat up in your stroller, your hands clenched in tiny fists. You glared at the people who walked through the quad: undergrad drifters looking for lunch, grad students blinking in the daylight. You did not cry. But I thought to myself: man, that baby looks pissed.

* * *

Also, I found a gigantic wrench.

It was buried in a scientific debris pile in the high-pressure mineral physics lab, which has been abandoned / inhabited by vagrants for decades. It's more than two feet long, two inches thick, and weighs something like 25 lbs. You might ask, so what? It's a long wrench. But it's not just a normal wrench that has been stretched out, length-wise. It's a normal wrench that has been blown up, proportionally, into a comical Novelty Wrench made of solid steel. It's Wayne Szalinzki, "Honey I Blew Up the Kid!" except he missed, and hit the tool box.

The funniest thing about this wrench is that it was, I think, actually functional. Somebody (here I envision a brawny, tanned high-pressure mineral physicist) wielded that thing, swung it up and used it to tighten some massive bolts. I wonder if the bolts are lying around somewhere, too.

* * *

This brings me to my last point. Have you ever encountered something so strange and wonderful that you felt a need to broadcast, to shout it from the mountaintops? I did this today with the wrench ("I found a gigantic wrench!"), and all of my conversations (real and electronic) came to a glaring halt. Glorious non sequitur; electronic silence. Well, once you write it, you can't take it back (can you? is there an 'undo send?'). I'll make up for it by being robustly sane for the next few weeks. That ought to take care of it.

Meditation on a Treadmill

2008-04-29T23:45:00.000-04:00

There's a certain zen to the feel of sweat running down your face. Remember when you were a kid, tracing raindrops with your finger as they zigzagged their way down a window? It's like that. Except rain is beautiful, and sweat is kind of gross.

Also windowpanes are cold, and my face is very hot.

Crime, Punishment, Assorted Curiosities! Scenes from the daily UChicago grind

2008-04-28T21:50:00.006-04:00

Redacted. -- Ed.
Click here for the full post, or email me for access.
* *

Alright chucks.

March and April gone, with nary a post from me. Some of you have noted that I only write when something extraordinary, outrageous, fantastical! happens my way. This is, in general, true; however, it's true by default rather than design. Tonight I steer the blog towards calmer waters: waves may be lower in amplitude but higher in frequency. But why?! you might ask. Well reader, extraordinary is by definition rare, and this is boring, for me and for you. So let's put extraordinary aside, and set our sights on curious.

Things that I have found curious (which have come to my attention within the scope of the past two months, and which I have failed to address in the course of daily conversations, these being sadly limited) are:

(1) Marathons. Not the kind where you run. The kind where you sit on a couch, toss your remote, and submit yourself to the will of a single cable television station, only to find that it has devoted its entire daytime lineup to a [addictive network TV show] -dash- marathon. I love this. I have watched Scrubs-marathons, House-marathons, separate and distinct marathons of CSI, CSI: Miami and CSI: New York, marathons that render entire days useless, marathons that glide seamlessly into nights of untroubled sleep. In the process, I have convinced myself that I have Cushing's syndrome (thanks House), and grow ever more mistrustful of my potentially-homicidal officemates (thanks CSI). Also, thanks Jorja Fox. Nothing specific. Just thanks.

(2) Germans, specifically Emo-Germans, extra-specifically the Emo-German Thomas. Thomas is stuck on a rollercoaster ride of conflicting emotions towards yours truly, aka his personal chauffeur (no joke, this is how he introduced me to his friends in Houston).

(3) Shark Bites!! (fruit snack) How are they so delectable? It seems wrong.

It's Not Delivery; It's DiGiorno! Wheat Futures in Record Territory

2008-02-27T12:07:00.002-05:00

Eat pizza, boost economy.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The little-known Minneapolis Grain Exchange is suddenly one of the hottest spots in the global financial markets as the price of its flagship commodity -- the wheat used to make bread and pizza crust -- shatters records, enriching farmers and fueling fears about shortages.

What a photograph. Kudos, Associated Press. What range! What expression, played out across the faces of these honest Minnesotan folk. Monumental triumph, anticipation, earth-shattering restraint! All come crashing out of the great solution of human emotion, drawn down by the prospect of wheat futures.

However! While Bald, Portly Gentleman in Blue brings us a certain joy with his irrespressible personal optimism, Purple Shirt, Yellow Jacket (aka the guy from Ferris Bueller?) does well to exercise caution. Fear runs in rivulets, out there in the trading pits. Unprecedented volatility draws disbelief and worries of market collapse.

Keep an eye on this one.

The Moonstone

2008-02-10T18:11:00.001-05:00

LOST: Silver bracelet, set with moonstone jewel.

(If the title of this post got you all hopped up and ready for a riveting discussion of the 1868 Wilkie Collins novel of the same name, apologies. The book happens to be sitting on my desk. As soon as I do finish it, I'll write something up.)

This post is actually about a recent minor catastrophe. I lost my moonstone. Years ago, a Hindu astrologer, having channeled the dictates of various star charts and arcane numerological calculations of unassailable veracity, determined that I should wear a moonstone as my birthstone, and also that I should beware my coworkers, for they are untrustworthy.

Well you take the good with the bad, and there you have it. I have worn a moonstone on my wrist ever since, and in the back of my mind there ever lurks a dim mistrust of officemates.

One's birthstone is a thing of some importance in my family. It is the single object that belongs to one from birth, sort of a spiritual possession. I am particularly fond of moonstone in general: it's a cloudy sort of stone, and holds light in a calm sort of way; a soothing foil to the skittish brilliance of other cut stones. The bracelet I've been wearing every moment for the past 2.5 years was made for me in India--commissioned by my mother from a prominent Calcutta jeweler, its authenticity guaranteed by a threat of professional exposure by her daughter, the Harvard geologist (I loved this -- thanks Mom).

And I lost it. Lost it! Yesterday, between shopping for groceries and walking to the bank. So, for the past two days I have been (a) methodically retracing my every step from Saturday 1pm to 530pm, and (b) struggling to convince myself that my identity has not been lessened or lost, though the stone is beyond my sight.

In my anxiety for bracelet-recovery, I trudged up and down 53rd street, left phone numbers with every store I had entered, then drove to Target Store #3722 and wheeled my way through each and every aisle, scanning the floors for a glimmer or shine. I resigned myself; the bracelet is probably lost.

And yet this afternoon, I realized that I'd been fundamentally going about this the wrong way. Having realized that, I became free to go about this the right way. I have decided that my bracelet, being part of my identity, has been granted a traveling allowance. It is now free to roam, to see the world on my behalf. It may even see in the inside of a pawn shop -- a most interesting locale.

Having settled that, I should address the sole lingering worry. The lasting failure here, in losing this bracelet, revolves around plans I held for the distant future. A notion of posterity, of heirloom, of future's interest in past. I imagined this piece would be passed down in the family collection for at least two generations, and that someone would show my grandchildren the jewel that their grandmother wore at her wrist. Well, that's out. So:

Dear grandchildren,

The bracelet is made of sterling silver chain, with five or six rings and a hook at the ends; it is set with an oval-cut moonstone sized at about half an inch the long way. It was lost in Chicago in 2008. Go find it. Check the local pawn shops.

But I know you won't find it, because I didn't, and I looked all over the place. Ah well. Don't obsess, brush your teeth; eat oatmeal, it does wonders. And if you don't know what a moonstone is, look it up, for shame.

There ends my converse with the future, for now. I have addressed all my major concerns in this affair, and therefore close the document with a heavy sigh, last tribute to lost treasure. From here on out, I look to the next moonstone (there will be a next), and I'll be sure to let you know when I get it.

Goodnight,
RP

ieggedyourlexus.blogspot.com

2007-11-28T02:16:00.000-05:00

On a sidenote, tonight in the grocery store parking lot I witnessed a display of self-centeredness so gross that I think it merits its own post. The driver of a Lexus RX300 presumed that the rest of the us, we world-weary parking-lot crutlins, would be in such awe of his vehicular majesty that we would move ourselves out of his way as he backed out of his parking spot.

As I was situated perpendicular to this Lexus with no one behind me, this involved putting my car into reverse, in order to avoid the impending slow-motion collision bred from arrogance and idiocy. I kept backing up, and he kept backing out. I gave, he took. And then, a honk. Another car had arrived behind me, a black one, with dim lights, moving forward. Three cars converging, and there I was, caught between one idiot with an ever-inflating head and another idiot, clinging stubbornly to normalcy in the face of frank self-importance and presumption. The latter idiot, though impractical, had it right: this was the way things ought to be. Cars going foward continue to go forward; out-backers, even Lexuses, wait.

This made me mad, mad enough to consider vengeance by egging. What would have happened, I wonder, if I had not caved under Mr. Lexus' pressure? Would he have rammed my car? He might have honked, loudly. He might have had an expensive gun in that fancy car, and might have shot me with an expensive bullet, and that would have been bad.

One thing I've noticed is that when faced with illogical behavior, the nice guy always loses. Historically, this is how idiots have gotten away with being idiots. The rest of us don't know how to react. We get flustered, baffled, confused; we acquiesce before we even think to challenge. At least I did tonight. But really, I don't exactly advocate sticking up for yourself, because you might get shot. Sometimes idiots are strangers, unstable and possibly dangerous. Instead I will content myself with taking a deep breath, swearing profusely, winding up my throwing arm and lobbing that imaginary chicken-egg at every arrogant dumbfucker in a Lexus who thinks to muscle his or her way into my path. The satisfaction will be finite, but you know what? Logic will be on my side.

Squeegees, a carwash, and the persistence of egg yolk on a finished surface

2007-11-27T23:16:00.003-05:00

Redacted. --Ed.
Click here for full post or email me for access.

Many a week has passed since the events detailed above. Having shirked my update-related responsibilities long enough, I assembled a recap of the momentous de-egging of my Toyota Corolla. It follows.

Stage One: The BP Squeegee
Nothing brings out the color in your paint job like fluorescent lights and the murky glowing mystery of gas station squeegee fluid. On Monday morning, I drove my egg-streaked Scooter down route 55 to my job at Argonne Labs, a 30 minute drive at something like 70 mph. Upon exiting the vehicle, I saw that the yolk streaked along the top of my car had been whipped into a streamlined froth; there were egg-bubbles on my car, and they were leeeeeaning back. Enjoying the sunshine. Also, bits of eggshell were stuck on the paint, and these made me anxious. Something had to be done.

After work, I drove directly to a gas station. A two-stage attack had been planned: First, I would manually loosen the shell debris and solidified yolk streaks as well as was possible with a courtesy squeegee. Then, I would drive my buddy through the automatic carwash to remove whatever eggstuff that was left.

My coworker/superior, Thomas, assisted me with Stage One. Together we spent approximately ten minutes in the cold night air, slopping blue-green squeegee fluid onto my car under the bright fluorescent lights of the BP. I took a moment to admire the effect: as I mentioned before, nothing has ever brought out that deep bright blue like those glaring lights and mystery fluid did. However, we did little to nothing in the way of clearing the egg debris. Thomas insisted that a slow coaxing motion would loosen anything given time (such was his faith in the Squeegee), but as our fingers began to stiffen with cold, win or lose, it was time to move on.

Stage Two: Workin' at the Carwash (Yeah)
Never will anything, aside from the beatles' song itself, evoke the words "magical" and "mystery" as strongly as the BP automatic carwash did that night. The magic was all beeps and whirring; rocking, thumping, fwap-fwap-fwapping; wonder and joy resurfaced from my childhood memory-cistern and ran rampant as I stared, exclaimed, sat back, in awe of simple automation running in an everyday application. Then I recalled myself, and the mystery stepped in. The mystery was how all this whirring and fwapping and powerblowing was supposed to remove any eggshit from my car. I was intrigued, incredulous, and ultimately disappointed. The carwash did not help; if anything, it smeared yolk around and made my tires look like they had been doused with milk. Alas. But the ride itself was worth the $5.

Anyway, it's late. An account of my triumph over yolk and shell will follow soon, but not tonight. Slumber beckons.

*sorry, I love EM Forster, and also plagiarism.

Step 2: Talk about it.

2007-11-05T02:03:00.000-05:00

It's never good to keep things bottled up. Having entertained suspicions that the car-egger was a young resident of my own apartment building, I decided to broach the general subject of car-egging with my building-mates. I would do this in the form of a note, posted in the entrance:

Dear All,

It seems that a great monster chicken projectile-ovulated in our parking lot this weekend. Please be careful; chickens can be dangerous.

If nothing else, it would entertain the innocent; if luck were on my side, it would provoke the culprit into repeating his mistake. In the latter case, I'd have a reason to speak with the suspect's guardian about eggs: how they should not be airborne, how they should not be airborne in the vicinity of my car. How he should discuss these guidelines with his charge. If it had no effect, at least I would have opened a dialogue.

To bring us closer to the present tense, now that we are mired in tricky verb agreements: I have posted this note inside the entrance to the building. I have opened the dialogue. Now we can only wait. Now we are waiting. Now we will wait. Ooh.

Alright kids, rage all addressed for the night. Will update as soon as there are developments.

Step 1: Sweat it out.

2007-11-05T00:45:00.000-05:00

First step towards addressing internal angst: Hit the gym, sweat it out, think it over. So I bobbed my way through 4,328 elliptical strides, 38 minutes of inordinate rage. One question rang in my oxygen-deprived brain. Why egg my car? Five sedans are routinely parked in a private lot behind my apartment building. None of them are fancy or expensive. Why egg my blue Corolla?

Possible reason #1: Beef
Do I have beef with people? This is intriguing; I don't know anyone in this city.

Possible reason #2: Metaphysical
Some crazy fucker realized that the world didn't fit. Nothing made sense, people were suffering, existence, causality, truth collided and converged into glorious and terrifying reality. The unapologetic chaos that rang throughout the universe made this fucker profoundly uneasy--but somehow it would be more right if there were eggshit on my car. That's why he did it.

Possible reason #3: Senseless act of vandalism
This seems most likely. Some juvey dipshit thought he'd have fun on a Saturday night, and sad as I am to admit it, I was probably the only one who stayed in all weekend. See #1.

Having settled on #3, I sorted through the candidates for juvey dipshit of the week. Two possibilities: a broad category of unknown miscreants, or the 'troubled' kid who lives across the hall. I hatched a plan to disciminate between the two, and thus began phase two of my quest for blazing vengeance.

You egged my Corolla. And now I've started a blog about it.

2007-11-04T23:55:00.001-05:00

As I unlocked the doors to my Toyota Corolla this evening, I noticed a large quantity of broken eggshell and egg yolk frozen onto the exterior of my car. Preliminary ballistic analysis revealed that 5 or 6 eggs had been thrown from the west-southwest; egg remnants had solidified upon the roof, passenger side, and trunk of my vehicle.

You heiny motherfuckers egged my Corolla. And now I've started a blog about it.

First, a list of questions.
(1) Do I know you?
(2) What? It's a Toyota Corolla.
(3) Would you prefer a hockey stick or a hoola hoop up your ass, because I have both, and I am coming to get you.

Since I don't know where you are, I will settle for metaphysical revenge tonight. I have a lot of rage, and I intend to address it. Address it till you cry and scream for mercy, motherfuckers. That's right, watch yourselves.