While making a playlist/cd for tonight's party (Libby and I are cohosting a New Year's party at her place) I thought back to all the strange places I've been in the past 365 days, and the music that has been the soundtrack to those travels and travails.
Turns out it's not quite what I would expect.
Here are the songs I've played the most on my laptop
New Slang by the Shins. Not sure it's going to change my life, but it sure got played a lot.
Changes--Tupac. I guess it's fitting that in a year filled with changes, this became a semi-anthem
HOVA--Jay Z. What can I say, when do you not want to hear the live version of HOVA. Never.
Forgot about Dre--Eminem. Apparently I did not forget about Dre. In fact I remembered him a lot.
Popular Mechanics f0r Lovers--Beulah. This song was on repeat throughout August. It's fucking inspired.
Raise Up--Petey Pablo. This is part of my pregame psych up mix, so it got a lot of play. Plus I captained a team named Raze...so you have to figure I played this twice or three times before every game we played. Like I said, a lot.
July, July--The Decemberists. Just as PMFL was August's soundtrack, this song was September's. All day, nearly everyday. Great song, strange, Neutral Milk Hotely. Worth a listen.
Yeah--Lil Jon and Usher. Um, yeah, I listened to this a lot. Usually involved me gesticulating around my kitchen in some strange new variation on Tom Cruise's Risky Business dance. Needless to say I'm glad people don't walk by too often. Yikes.
Jesus Walks--Kanye West. Part of the psych up cd. After watching Jarhead I couldn't get enough of this song. The opening 8 notes or so are like musical crack. As familar as the bum bum from Law and Order.
Down to the River to Pray--Allison Krause. A new favorite. A late bloomer, it became a huge part of November's music for me. Wonderous.
Such Great Heights--Postal Service. This song defines my time in Seattle. So it's with mixed feelings that I think about it. I cannot hear it without thinking of the Spaceneedle, and sadly, without thinking of Jen. I recently realized that it's again song that I enjoy listening to. For a while it was like picking at a scab, not that that stopped me. But now it's back to a good song that makes me think of the good times in Seattle, and with Jen....but without me feeling bad about my life now. I guess that's part of the lesson of this year.
I finish this year on a much stronger mental footing (strange image, I know) than last year, and certainly than a lot of this year. I'm happy with work, I have amazing friends, and I'm enjoying dating Jesseca. In fact it's going really quite well. Do I sometimes have miss things with Jen--or at least have bitter sweet thoughts.? Of course. Do I sometimes miss Seattle, or have those same bitter sweet thoughts (ie, it's so beautiful...but oh, right, it's also rainy and dark)? Yes. Do I miss DAPAC? Fuck no. I realized just how fortunate I am upon my return to DC. I was planning on Metroing home but earlier in the day got an email from Paul asking if I'd like a ride. I replied quickly and affirmatively. Right after I landed I got a phone call from Liz. "We're outside, have you landed?"
Me: "we?"
Liz: "Sure, we all came."
Paul, Liz and Libby had all come to pick me up at the airport. My friends. Nearly enough to make me weep. I'm a fortunate man. This year made me wonder about my luck and worth a few times. But in the end, I leave it feeling more confident and loved than ever before. Not too shabby.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Saturday, December 24, 2005
While cleaning my desk at work.
Woody Allen once famously said that 80% of life is just showing up. Yesterday at work that percent approached 100. Work was a cobbling together of effort at appearing busy with the full recognition that it was on all accounts recognizably false. I moved papers, quite literally across my desk. Piles of reports moved like the shadow on a sundial, charting my progress through the day. While cleaning I did come across a notebook that I bought immediately before visiting DC in May. The notebook is filled with jotted, slant-written notes on meetings with people in polling. Interspersed with notes like, "learn to talk about numbers," and "call Diane Feldman," are other nearly journal like sections.
It's a good chart of my thoughts as I first came to terms with life and work in Washington. A couple of notes republished here:
"Numbers when presented correctly can gain the force and fluidity of language, the power, perusasion and meaning of wordsa not just the tally of items. To take disaggregated truths and make of them a coherent reality that's the great pay off."
What can I say, I was trying to figure out how to talk about numbers. Apparently the only way I can talk about numbers is to make them more word like. When in doubt change topics..."numbers, yeah those are great, especially when they're like words. Did I mention I like words."
"A man should carry a pen. A strong, heavy pen. Something that suggest in form a seriousness and weight of thought if not of intellect. A heavy pen reminds a man to choose carefully his words for excess is strain." Not really sure if I believe this. It feels like something from a long discarded Thoreau-vian effort. It's an aphorism for someone not named Aaron. Lord knows I love the excess of verbosity. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but witty people are annoying. So full of themselves...oooh look at me I'm able to communicate profound thoughts without wasting thousands of characters. Jerks.
Later in the journal/notebook there is a section of date ideas. Haven't used any of them. Maybe I shouldn't publish them here for fear that I'll be thought unoriginal, though stealing from yourself seems fair game. I guess it's finding things like this notebook that make me wish I'd kept a journal. And then I realize, I have. This blog. I sometimes forget that I can go back and look at the archives. it somehow seems regressive or overly nostalgic, maybe even a little self-congratulatory to go back and look at what I've written. Inevitably I am surprised by what I read, not the ideas mentioned but the words I've used. They are either more accurate than I knew, or more naive than I'd like to admit.
2005 has been a pretty remarkable year for me. I started it in Washington and will finish it in Washington. The two dates are separated by 3,000 miles and 12 months, two jobs, two frisbee teams, new friends blended with old. And some other changes as well. Mainly I'm happy to be where I am, emotionally, physically, and geographically. Here's to the changes to come. I know I'll have this space as a place to return in a year and realize all the strange changes that defined my next year.
It's a good chart of my thoughts as I first came to terms with life and work in Washington. A couple of notes republished here:
"Numbers when presented correctly can gain the force and fluidity of language, the power, perusasion and meaning of wordsa not just the tally of items. To take disaggregated truths and make of them a coherent reality that's the great pay off."
What can I say, I was trying to figure out how to talk about numbers. Apparently the only way I can talk about numbers is to make them more word like. When in doubt change topics..."numbers, yeah those are great, especially when they're like words. Did I mention I like words."
"A man should carry a pen. A strong, heavy pen. Something that suggest in form a seriousness and weight of thought if not of intellect. A heavy pen reminds a man to choose carefully his words for excess is strain." Not really sure if I believe this. It feels like something from a long discarded Thoreau-vian effort. It's an aphorism for someone not named Aaron. Lord knows I love the excess of verbosity. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but witty people are annoying. So full of themselves...oooh look at me I'm able to communicate profound thoughts without wasting thousands of characters. Jerks.
Later in the journal/notebook there is a section of date ideas. Haven't used any of them. Maybe I shouldn't publish them here for fear that I'll be thought unoriginal, though stealing from yourself seems fair game. I guess it's finding things like this notebook that make me wish I'd kept a journal. And then I realize, I have. This blog. I sometimes forget that I can go back and look at the archives. it somehow seems regressive or overly nostalgic, maybe even a little self-congratulatory to go back and look at what I've written. Inevitably I am surprised by what I read, not the ideas mentioned but the words I've used. They are either more accurate than I knew, or more naive than I'd like to admit.
2005 has been a pretty remarkable year for me. I started it in Washington and will finish it in Washington. The two dates are separated by 3,000 miles and 12 months, two jobs, two frisbee teams, new friends blended with old. And some other changes as well. Mainly I'm happy to be where I am, emotionally, physically, and geographically. Here's to the changes to come. I know I'll have this space as a place to return in a year and realize all the strange changes that defined my next year.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
I am not alone
BoingBoing notes that NPR's online game reviewer sides with me. That's right me.
From npr.org: 'Robert Holt is a manager for NPR.org and an avid player of online games. He reviews games for NPR's All Things Considered. His first online gaming experience was in 1986, playing the strategy game Diplomacy on a computer bulletin board system. Holt explains some of the terminology and methods of paying to play -- and why he thinks it ruins the gaming experience'
"Sure, it's great to be all-powerful, or 'uber' in game parlance. But at what cost? I consider it cheating to buy your way in to an uber character. In order to be truly 'uber,' you need to earn it. Besides, it takes a lot of skill to use a high-level character's abilities to their fullest, so an inexperienced player that has purchased a high-level character will very often lose a battle or die because they don't have the experience of all that playing time.
For me, the point of playing these games is not to win -- it's to be immersed in the worlds, and to interact with fellow players. You miss out on truly experiencing the world if you don't earn your items and character abilities."
From npr.org: 'Robert Holt is a manager for NPR.org and an avid player of online games. He reviews games for NPR's All Things Considered. His first online gaming experience was in 1986, playing the strategy game Diplomacy on a computer bulletin board system. Holt explains some of the terminology and methods of paying to play -- and why he thinks it ruins the gaming experience'
"Sure, it's great to be all-powerful, or 'uber' in game parlance. But at what cost? I consider it cheating to buy your way in to an uber character. In order to be truly 'uber,' you need to earn it. Besides, it takes a lot of skill to use a high-level character's abilities to their fullest, so an inexperienced player that has purchased a high-level character will very often lose a battle or die because they don't have the experience of all that playing time.
For me, the point of playing these games is not to win -- it's to be immersed in the worlds, and to interact with fellow players. You miss out on truly experiencing the world if you don't earn your items and character abilities."
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Almost Heaven
A couple of weekends ago, Jesseca and I decided to get out of the city. I guess it wasn't until this trip that I realized just how much I missed being out and about in the woods. Washington DC is treating my exceedingly well, better than I may deserve, and certainly better than I would have expected. But while it has monuments they are nothing compared to mountains. The reflecting pool is nice, but it's no lake, etc. My frustration with being confined to a city must be nothing compared to that of a lifelong resident of Alaska. I grew up in and among sprawl. She grew up with Applebees, sure, but it was next to a fucking mountain, and I have to assume only accessible by dogsled or snowshoe.
So we made plans to rent a car and head to West Virginia. The day began fairly early with us heading over to Union Station and picking up the car. As a relatively poor guy, with some vague belief in environmental causes (I'm pretty sure it's in that order), I wanted to rent the smallest car available. Instead we ended up with an HHR. It's not unlike the PT Cruiser. It handles pretty well, though it has god-awful visibility. It's like driving while wearing a knight's armor. Oddly enough as we left Union Station, Tom and Ray Magliozzi were talking about how great the HHR was. Right about that time, coincidentally, I just happened to decide that I didn't mind driving it nearly as much as I had before. Funny how those things work.
We made our way to Ikea where I promptly fell into a bit of a funk. Realized the last time I was in Ikea was with Jen, and under very different circumstances-- made me sad. But you know what, that's just going to happen, and I'm getting better about having it just be something that I let wash over me, instead of swimming in the currents of self doubt and obsession.
In fact, Ikea ended up being tons of fun, for any number of reasons. I've found that the time I spend with Jesseca is remarkably hassle free. It's pleasant and easy. And she is truly understanding of my little freakout moments, though I have to imagine they're really hard to deal with (hopefully they'll be less frequent in the weeks to come). Ikea was a special treat, no matter my mental health. Think of it miles of well designed furniture, all seemingly cheaper than makes sense. I wanted to get a duvet, duvet cover and a bookshelf. We found a fine flarke bookshelf. Later after some agonizing and lots of squeezing, I settled on a quilt and still later on a cover. Pretty good deal, all things considered.
After Ikea we headed out to Virginia to watch the OSU-Michigan game with Susan. It was a great time, made that much better by getting to watch an OSU win.
Then we finally, at 4PM headed west. Leaving Virginia on our way through Maryland to Shepherdstown, Maryland. The drive was easy and uneventful. We found the little town and settled in for the night. No camping for us, it was all king sized bed. Not a bad deal for a person who until about 2 weeks ago was sleeping on an airmattress. We went to dinner at a cute little place, and then spent the evening lazing around the room watching the Food Network. Bliss.
Next morning we headed towards Sharpsburg and into the mountains. We hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail (Annapolis Rock). The entire hike was something like 5.6 miles. A nice hike. At the crest the trail opens out onto a wonderful view of the valley punctuated with some really nice rocky outcroppings. We saw what I have been assuming (though JKD can maybe confirm) were buzzards. Or maybe turkey vultures. Hideous creatures. They should be cross bred with puppies or something to increase their attractiveness quotient.
Photographic evidence of birds, and that we in fact hiked and "summited."
Jesseca and I are the ones who don't look like horrifyingly mangy birds that would eat your soul.
After hiking we returned to Shepherdstown and ate at Stone Soup, a local organic place. One of the best meals I've had in years. Now some of that is probably a function of fresh air, hiking, and pleasant company. But my garlic and herb roast beef sandwich was transcendent. But when complemented with a Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout it was almost heaven (with apologies to John Denver).
Lunch was followed by a drive around the Antietam Battlefield. It took me nearly 20 minutes to realize that the markers with CSA on them referred to the Confederate States of America. For some reason this caused me to fly into a rage. That there was this battle field, where 23,000 men died, and we still have this deferential view of the South. You know what, fuck off. You tried to leave our country. They tried to destroy this nation that they now pretend to be overly patriotic about. Irrational, sure, but man was I livid. Thousands and thousands of people lay dead beneath me, and the heirs to that legacy are busy explaining that it's not hatred, it's heritage. Even if I granted the argument that the symbols of the Confederacy are not the symbols of racial violence and oppression...they're still the symbols (the flag) of an army which tried to destroy this country, and slaughtered 12,000 American soldiers in a single day.
The actual cemetary is surprisingly small and, to my thinking, fairly unimpressive. I believe I may have violated some basic principle of human decency, by setting up my camera and taking this photo of Jesseca and I. Not sure that's teh right thing to do. But it came out pretty well, so maybe it's worth it.
After Antietam we drove back to DC. At this point in the trip I'm loving having a car. I am seriously considering bringing Norman (my white saturn) to the District. Having a car would be so wonderful, I am thinking. Then I tried to park the HHR. And I was quickly returned to the world of harsh realities. Namely, I live in a neighborhood where trying to park on a regular basis would cause me to stroke out.
All in all, it was a pretty terrific weekend. Good purchases (I love my duvet), good games (go Bucks!), good company, good weather, good bed, good tv, good hiking, great food-- pretty hard to argue with 48 hours spent in such good conditions.
So we made plans to rent a car and head to West Virginia. The day began fairly early with us heading over to Union Station and picking up the car. As a relatively poor guy, with some vague belief in environmental causes (I'm pretty sure it's in that order), I wanted to rent the smallest car available. Instead we ended up with an HHR. It's not unlike the PT Cruiser. It handles pretty well, though it has god-awful visibility. It's like driving while wearing a knight's armor. Oddly enough as we left Union Station, Tom and Ray Magliozzi were talking about how great the HHR was. Right about that time, coincidentally, I just happened to decide that I didn't mind driving it nearly as much as I had before. Funny how those things work.
We made our way to Ikea where I promptly fell into a bit of a funk. Realized the last time I was in Ikea was with Jen, and under very different circumstances-- made me sad. But you know what, that's just going to happen, and I'm getting better about having it just be something that I let wash over me, instead of swimming in the currents of self doubt and obsession.
In fact, Ikea ended up being tons of fun, for any number of reasons. I've found that the time I spend with Jesseca is remarkably hassle free. It's pleasant and easy. And she is truly understanding of my little freakout moments, though I have to imagine they're really hard to deal with (hopefully they'll be less frequent in the weeks to come). Ikea was a special treat, no matter my mental health. Think of it miles of well designed furniture, all seemingly cheaper than makes sense. I wanted to get a duvet, duvet cover and a bookshelf. We found a fine flarke bookshelf. Later after some agonizing and lots of squeezing, I settled on a quilt and still later on a cover. Pretty good deal, all things considered.
After Ikea we headed out to Virginia to watch the OSU-Michigan game with Susan. It was a great time, made that much better by getting to watch an OSU win.
Then we finally, at 4PM headed west. Leaving Virginia on our way through Maryland to Shepherdstown, Maryland. The drive was easy and uneventful. We found the little town and settled in for the night. No camping for us, it was all king sized bed. Not a bad deal for a person who until about 2 weeks ago was sleeping on an airmattress. We went to dinner at a cute little place, and then spent the evening lazing around the room watching the Food Network. Bliss.
Next morning we headed towards Sharpsburg and into the mountains. We hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail (Annapolis Rock). The entire hike was something like 5.6 miles. A nice hike. At the crest the trail opens out onto a wonderful view of the valley punctuated with some really nice rocky outcroppings. We saw what I have been assuming (though JKD can maybe confirm) were buzzards. Or maybe turkey vultures. Hideous creatures. They should be cross bred with puppies or something to increase their attractiveness quotient.
Photographic evidence of birds, and that we in fact hiked and "summited."
Jesseca and I are the ones who don't look like horrifyingly mangy birds that would eat your soul.
After hiking we returned to Shepherdstown and ate at Stone Soup, a local organic place. One of the best meals I've had in years. Now some of that is probably a function of fresh air, hiking, and pleasant company. But my garlic and herb roast beef sandwich was transcendent. But when complemented with a Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout it was almost heaven (with apologies to John Denver).
Lunch was followed by a drive around the Antietam Battlefield. It took me nearly 20 minutes to realize that the markers with CSA on them referred to the Confederate States of America. For some reason this caused me to fly into a rage. That there was this battle field, where 23,000 men died, and we still have this deferential view of the South. You know what, fuck off. You tried to leave our country. They tried to destroy this nation that they now pretend to be overly patriotic about. Irrational, sure, but man was I livid. Thousands and thousands of people lay dead beneath me, and the heirs to that legacy are busy explaining that it's not hatred, it's heritage. Even if I granted the argument that the symbols of the Confederacy are not the symbols of racial violence and oppression...they're still the symbols (the flag) of an army which tried to destroy this country, and slaughtered 12,000 American soldiers in a single day.
The actual cemetary is surprisingly small and, to my thinking, fairly unimpressive. I believe I may have violated some basic principle of human decency, by setting up my camera and taking this photo of Jesseca and I. Not sure that's teh right thing to do. But it came out pretty well, so maybe it's worth it.
After Antietam we drove back to DC. At this point in the trip I'm loving having a car. I am seriously considering bringing Norman (my white saturn) to the District. Having a car would be so wonderful, I am thinking. Then I tried to park the HHR. And I was quickly returned to the world of harsh realities. Namely, I live in a neighborhood where trying to park on a regular basis would cause me to stroke out.
All in all, it was a pretty terrific weekend. Good purchases (I love my duvet), good games (go Bucks!), good company, good weather, good bed, good tv, good hiking, great food-- pretty hard to argue with 48 hours spent in such good conditions.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Two photos
I should be able (and eager) to post more photos later tonight or maybe mid-week. I have some shots from the trip Jesseca and I took to West Virginia, and some of my family, etc.
But for today, I'll just post these two, old photos of me playing ultimate. These come from Minnesota, when I'd play a weekly pickup game with Wellstone staffers.
Not the greatest game, nor the greatest photos, but each fun in their own way.
As you might imagine, I am the person laying out.
As you might imagine I am not the incredibly muscular shirtless guy. But I am the person about ready to score. So I got that going for me.
But for today, I'll just post these two, old photos of me playing ultimate. These come from Minnesota, when I'd play a weekly pickup game with Wellstone staffers.
Not the greatest game, nor the greatest photos, but each fun in their own way.
As you might imagine, I am the person laying out.
As you might imagine I am not the incredibly muscular shirtless guy. But I am the person about ready to score. So I got that going for me.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
After my last frisbee outing (the clique league tournament) my knee was really sore. It was stiff and falling in many of its knee-ly duties, most importantly the part about allowing my lower leg to move without pain and in a stable fashion. In what I can only hope becomes a trend, I decided rather than whine and wait I would see a doctor and get it looked at.
As a true liberal (old use of the world) I tend to believe that education and training improve a person. These things make a person more capable of understanding their world, and improve their ability to function within their chosen field. When politicians run for office as an "outsider" and decry the damage that Washington experience does to ones judgement or capacity to govern, I often recall a little witicism (I like to believe it's witty, though maybe I'm a bit self-congratulatory, here) I came up with in a class back at Oberlin: "When I need brain surgery, I'd prefer a doctor not a dockworker." I think that specializing and training make you better at something. I don't expect my doctor to know how to use a fork lift, or how to move freight. That's not their job, that's not the skill set they've chosen to enhance through training and education and prolonged experience.
Yeah, well sadly, I think my doctor may be trying to practice medicine like our president practices politics, as a purposefully ignorant outsider. Upon arriving at the office on Monday I was promptly greeted by the first of two exceedingly helpful nurses. The nurses asked me about my knee and about the other cause for which I was visiting. They seemed able to judge the importance of various words I used, and were able, as best I could tell to faithfully relay information gleaned through listening into their short term memories, supplementing their recollection of my injuries by carefully writing down what I had said. This seemed neither novel, nor like it would be the most demonstrable sign of competence I was to witness this visit. Sadly, it was. After weighing and measuring me (I am now, officially, by independent standards exactly 6 feet tall. No more guessing. That's it, that's all. I am also 158 lbs, meaning I've lost about 14 lbs since I lived in Seattle.) I had my blood pressure checked. I'm pleased to report that my blood courses through my veins at a healthy 120/80.
After all the basic steps, I was ready to see the doctor, and shortly thereafter he was ready to see me. Dr. Theobalds is a rounded man. He seems to have had some of his features worn my time, and travail. He gives off an appearance of kind wisdom, which is why the incompetence he so ably embodies is something of a shock. He promptly asked me about the non-knee condition. We talked for a bit and without really talking about changes in health, age, weight, work, or anyother factors normally related--he represcribed medication for me that I haven't really taken since I was 21. So that was the first sign that there might be some bad doctoring going on. He then proceeded to prescribe a dosage of a medication that, upon visiting a pharmacist later, I came to find does not exist.
After dispensing with the non-knee concern, we turned our attention to my knee. Actually, that's a lie. I turned my attention to my knee, rolling up my pant leg and indicating the knee with such terms as, "this is the knee that hurts, my right knee." The doctor, for his part, turned his attention to my foot. "Let's have a look at that foot." To which I helpfully responded, "actually it's my knee."
Doctor: "Oh, right." [pause] "So how long has your foot hurt."
Nurse: "Doctor, it's his knee."
Doctor: "Foot?"
Me: "Knee."
It felt a little like the Simpsons where Marge tries to order something besides beer in Australia. Or quite like the King from Monty Python and the Holy Grail who is constitutionally unable to count to 3. I'd prefer that my medical professional's behavior not call to mind such images.
I figure that medicine is hard. I have friends in med school and some who have just graduated. They're bright people, able to memorize many obscure things, competent in what I believe to be a challenging field. I never once figured that in order to be more capable than my doctor all I would need to have done is memorize the children's song "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." Because, I can safely say that having learned that song, I, unlike my doctor know what and more importantly where a knee is.
After convincing the doctor that my knee was injured, I hoped his years of training might equip him to offer insight as to why it hurt. Alas, twas not to be. He put his hand in the knee and moved my leg towards him once. Then back. Then he pulled my lower leg slightly to the left and then to the right. That's it. When I was injured at Regionals, Shana (an Oberlin alum) playing on the team we faced came over and conducted, a considerably more thorough exam with me laying on the ground.
Dr. Theobalds then said, what I later had retranslated into English, that I needed to get an x-ray to determine if I had degenerative arthritis and then when that was negative (as it will almost undoubtedly be) that I should get an MRI. No other questions, no other advice. Nothing. I have conducted more thorough examinations of fishing rods, and cantaloupes. I realize that an MRI is necessary to properly diagnose a knee injury, but that he could offer no possible insight beyond that, is surprising.
There is something wholly unsatisfying about going to a professional and knowing in your heart that the only service you received was that a person whom others have certified as compentent looked at you. Nothing he did in my presence required him to know anything about medicine. He didn't do anything except give me, no questions asked, medication in the dosage I requested (though he did change my request for 2 20mginto one non-existant 40mg), and send me to someone else to look at my knee. To make it worse the only thing he actively did, he did wrong. After receiving a faulty prescription I returned later in the week to get the prescription re-written, but this time for a drug that actually exists, I asked for him to prescribe a dosage that would permit me to get a generic. He protested saying that the generic has less of the active ingredient, and "you know you get what you pay for." The only definitive statement I've heard him make, is factually incorrect.
I still believe that experience and education matter, but just to be certain I'm calling Blue Cross and seeing if there are any dockworkers in my network.
As a true liberal (old use of the world) I tend to believe that education and training improve a person. These things make a person more capable of understanding their world, and improve their ability to function within their chosen field. When politicians run for office as an "outsider" and decry the damage that Washington experience does to ones judgement or capacity to govern, I often recall a little witicism (I like to believe it's witty, though maybe I'm a bit self-congratulatory, here) I came up with in a class back at Oberlin: "When I need brain surgery, I'd prefer a doctor not a dockworker." I think that specializing and training make you better at something. I don't expect my doctor to know how to use a fork lift, or how to move freight. That's not their job, that's not the skill set they've chosen to enhance through training and education and prolonged experience.
Yeah, well sadly, I think my doctor may be trying to practice medicine like our president practices politics, as a purposefully ignorant outsider. Upon arriving at the office on Monday I was promptly greeted by the first of two exceedingly helpful nurses. The nurses asked me about my knee and about the other cause for which I was visiting. They seemed able to judge the importance of various words I used, and were able, as best I could tell to faithfully relay information gleaned through listening into their short term memories, supplementing their recollection of my injuries by carefully writing down what I had said. This seemed neither novel, nor like it would be the most demonstrable sign of competence I was to witness this visit. Sadly, it was. After weighing and measuring me (I am now, officially, by independent standards exactly 6 feet tall. No more guessing. That's it, that's all. I am also 158 lbs, meaning I've lost about 14 lbs since I lived in Seattle.) I had my blood pressure checked. I'm pleased to report that my blood courses through my veins at a healthy 120/80.
After all the basic steps, I was ready to see the doctor, and shortly thereafter he was ready to see me. Dr. Theobalds is a rounded man. He seems to have had some of his features worn my time, and travail. He gives off an appearance of kind wisdom, which is why the incompetence he so ably embodies is something of a shock. He promptly asked me about the non-knee condition. We talked for a bit and without really talking about changes in health, age, weight, work, or anyother factors normally related--he represcribed medication for me that I haven't really taken since I was 21. So that was the first sign that there might be some bad doctoring going on. He then proceeded to prescribe a dosage of a medication that, upon visiting a pharmacist later, I came to find does not exist.
After dispensing with the non-knee concern, we turned our attention to my knee. Actually, that's a lie. I turned my attention to my knee, rolling up my pant leg and indicating the knee with such terms as, "this is the knee that hurts, my right knee." The doctor, for his part, turned his attention to my foot. "Let's have a look at that foot." To which I helpfully responded, "actually it's my knee."
Doctor: "Oh, right." [pause] "So how long has your foot hurt."
Nurse: "Doctor, it's his knee."
Doctor: "Foot?"
Me: "Knee."
It felt a little like the Simpsons where Marge tries to order something besides beer in Australia. Or quite like the King from Monty Python and the Holy Grail who is constitutionally unable to count to 3. I'd prefer that my medical professional's behavior not call to mind such images.
I figure that medicine is hard. I have friends in med school and some who have just graduated. They're bright people, able to memorize many obscure things, competent in what I believe to be a challenging field. I never once figured that in order to be more capable than my doctor all I would need to have done is memorize the children's song "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." Because, I can safely say that having learned that song, I, unlike my doctor know what and more importantly where a knee is.
After convincing the doctor that my knee was injured, I hoped his years of training might equip him to offer insight as to why it hurt. Alas, twas not to be. He put his hand in the knee and moved my leg towards him once. Then back. Then he pulled my lower leg slightly to the left and then to the right. That's it. When I was injured at Regionals, Shana (an Oberlin alum) playing on the team we faced came over and conducted, a considerably more thorough exam with me laying on the ground.
Dr. Theobalds then said, what I later had retranslated into English, that I needed to get an x-ray to determine if I had degenerative arthritis and then when that was negative (as it will almost undoubtedly be) that I should get an MRI. No other questions, no other advice. Nothing. I have conducted more thorough examinations of fishing rods, and cantaloupes. I realize that an MRI is necessary to properly diagnose a knee injury, but that he could offer no possible insight beyond that, is surprising.
There is something wholly unsatisfying about going to a professional and knowing in your heart that the only service you received was that a person whom others have certified as compentent looked at you. Nothing he did in my presence required him to know anything about medicine. He didn't do anything except give me, no questions asked, medication in the dosage I requested (though he did change my request for 2 20mginto one non-existant 40mg), and send me to someone else to look at my knee. To make it worse the only thing he actively did, he did wrong. After receiving a faulty prescription I returned later in the week to get the prescription re-written, but this time for a drug that actually exists, I asked for him to prescribe a dosage that would permit me to get a generic. He protested saying that the generic has less of the active ingredient, and "you know you get what you pay for." The only definitive statement I've heard him make, is factually incorrect.
I still believe that experience and education matter, but just to be certain I'm calling Blue Cross and seeing if there are any dockworkers in my network.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
So maybe I could be a grad student
After work I came back to the apartment, a man with a mission. Opened up my laptop, loaded excel and spent the next 3 hours entering numbers, creating variables and basically trying to find something interesting. Now, the only problem was that the subject was not work, nor was it politics, nor any other subject legitimately considered academic.
I was analyzing the results from the UPA Championships. Some interesting thoughts, do teams with a larger roster do better in close games? Do they play more close games? Are teams that play and win close games more likley to be ranked highly in the spirit rankings? What factors most directly correlate (I still can't really run regressions) with high spirit rankings? What region has the largest roster size? How does playing a game where the final score is less than 15 (ie, meaning a lot of turnovers, or, more likely a lot of foul calls) correlate to spirit rankings. And then finally if success in terms of games won and success in terms of spirit are considered who are the BEST (of both worlds) TEAMS in frisbee, this year.
The good news is that for 3 hours I sat in rapt attention staring at my little 15 inch screen. The bad news is that I don't know the answers. At least not completely.
I can say (with not so much confidence) that teams with larger rosters play and win more close games. Though it's a pretty low correlation (.385). Teams that win more games (overall) are ranked lower in the spirit rankings. (-.348). Teams that win more games where the final score never reaches 15 are less likely to have high spirit rankings (-.206). But since I can't really do regression analysis I can't figure out how relevant each of these factors is in determining success or spirit. And because it's a game, you can't really factor in that Sockeye has Alex Nord who does things like this. So for instance, my correlations don't include what we'll call the NORD factor. (No Other Reasonable Determinant).
All the same it reminded me that if interested I can sit and focus and play with numbers. Just think what I could do if I had more numbers or was dealing with politics. It's exciting to say the least.
I was analyzing the results from the UPA Championships. Some interesting thoughts, do teams with a larger roster do better in close games? Do they play more close games? Are teams that play and win close games more likley to be ranked highly in the spirit rankings? What factors most directly correlate (I still can't really run regressions) with high spirit rankings? What region has the largest roster size? How does playing a game where the final score is less than 15 (ie, meaning a lot of turnovers, or, more likely a lot of foul calls) correlate to spirit rankings. And then finally if success in terms of games won and success in terms of spirit are considered who are the BEST (of both worlds) TEAMS in frisbee, this year.
The good news is that for 3 hours I sat in rapt attention staring at my little 15 inch screen. The bad news is that I don't know the answers. At least not completely.
I can say (with not so much confidence) that teams with larger rosters play and win more close games. Though it's a pretty low correlation (.385). Teams that win more games (overall) are ranked lower in the spirit rankings. (-.348). Teams that win more games where the final score never reaches 15 are less likely to have high spirit rankings (-.206). But since I can't really do regression analysis I can't figure out how relevant each of these factors is in determining success or spirit. And because it's a game, you can't really factor in that Sockeye has Alex Nord who does things like this. So for instance, my correlations don't include what we'll call the NORD factor. (No Other Reasonable Determinant).
All the same it reminded me that if interested I can sit and focus and play with numbers. Just think what I could do if I had more numbers or was dealing with politics. It's exciting to say the least.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
The Last Shall be First and the First Shall be Last..
would be a great headline if we'd stormed through our pool and won a bunch.
We didn't. We played hard, and we played really well. But we picked up only 1 win today.
First game: Harshmellows. Funny team name. Generally annoying and entitled. I've rarely been on a field where the other team just figured you owed it to them to quit and let them win. These guys (and to some extent their women) were salty and surly. I play fairly well. I start the morning winded. Something about not eating more than 4 meals in the last four days...apparently that's not a good choice. It's funny I make a big deal of training for frisbee, but I do things like skip meals (repeatedly) in the week before the tournament. Despite not being able to catch my breath for most of the day, I have a great time in game one and play really quite well. The team does well and we make it closer than the 15-8? score suggests. We force these guys to actually play defense, but as a veteran squad they're able to clamp down and roll through the second half.
Game Two: Sludge. Also veterans, but much nicer. They run zone all day and we do a good job of getting through it. RAZE does not have the strongest handlers on earth, and we sometimes (myself primarily) make some dumb hero throws (as in...this is really hard, but if it works I'll be a hero). Midway through, I have a huge layout (don't get the disc, stupidly) and really come down hard. Entire left side of my body is sore. Shoulder, hip, and chest. The strain sets off some vaguely spasm-y things in my lower back. And midway through the game it hurts to cut because of a bruise on my left heel. And yet, it's a great game and I'm loving it. We lose.
Game Three: Cardinal Sins. Mainly this team has 4 weapons. A guy named Dave Epping who is, throughout the DC ultimate scene, known for being a jerk. A foul calling machine, he's a decent handler but in general not a nice guy. True to form, a couple of points in I sky him (my waist at his shoulders) come down turn and throw. And a couple of seconds later I hear him call "foul." His explanation, "I feel like you might have pushed me to get to the disc." This, of course, did not happen, but we send the disc back, and play on, because I don't play well angry. Arguing it won't make it better.
Their other weapons are much nicer, Chris Schultz (played on the D-line for Drive Through Liquor, a perennial nationals team from Colorado) and his wife Kiska, and this guy Bobbins. I spend most of the game being guarded by Schultz, and find myself able to fairly easily get the disc. Turns out I'm able to play with nationals level players. Good to know. We go up a point or two. They take half. We come out flat after half, then rally and finally fail. Throughout the game we're losing players to injury. Shamik goes down (comes back). Matt has a calf cramp. Tin (is cramping). It's frustrating. Certainly a game we could have won. But it's B league, which to me means that it's not worth being really concerned about. So following our third loss we get the...
BYE. We have a 3rd round bye. The team hangs out and we get in some pretty stellar heckling. Shamik and I go heckle for heckle, each getting some good ones. The harshest was mine which can written but was never used--as it was too vicious: "His hucks are like old people's bladders: inconsistent and with frequently embarassing results." Funny, but too harsh to be said to anyone. Especially coming from a guy like me, who generates a bunch of turnovers.
Game Four: Sunday's at Six. We win. They're exhausted, we're tired and stiff from our bye. Mainly it's chance to play with and against friends (several BRDMers on their team). Good time. Nothing terribly remarkable.
So we finished the season at 2 and 9, winning our first game and our last game.
As I head off to bed, I realize that I can finally breathe fully (my chest hurt until a few minutes ago), that while my hip and leg ache, they still work and it's only a bruise. Though I have discovered that my knee is swelling or at least not functioning very well. And yet, as you already know from reading this: 1) I wish I could play more 2) I will play more 3) I'll complain, but next weekend I'll wish there were a tournament at which I could again reinjure myself.
Such is the nature of my obsession, such is the depth of my addiction.
===
The next morning update: After nearly 12 hours of sleep, my hip still hurts, though not too much. My back is realigned and no longer sore. My knee is not doing well. It doesn't hurt A LOT but it certainly hurts. But, and this is great, I have a doctor's appointment at 10am on Monday. So I'll be able to get my knee checked out. How's that for good timing.
We didn't. We played hard, and we played really well. But we picked up only 1 win today.
First game: Harshmellows. Funny team name. Generally annoying and entitled. I've rarely been on a field where the other team just figured you owed it to them to quit and let them win. These guys (and to some extent their women) were salty and surly. I play fairly well. I start the morning winded. Something about not eating more than 4 meals in the last four days...apparently that's not a good choice. It's funny I make a big deal of training for frisbee, but I do things like skip meals (repeatedly) in the week before the tournament. Despite not being able to catch my breath for most of the day, I have a great time in game one and play really quite well. The team does well and we make it closer than the 15-8? score suggests. We force these guys to actually play defense, but as a veteran squad they're able to clamp down and roll through the second half.
Game Two: Sludge. Also veterans, but much nicer. They run zone all day and we do a good job of getting through it. RAZE does not have the strongest handlers on earth, and we sometimes (myself primarily) make some dumb hero throws (as in...this is really hard, but if it works I'll be a hero). Midway through, I have a huge layout (don't get the disc, stupidly) and really come down hard. Entire left side of my body is sore. Shoulder, hip, and chest. The strain sets off some vaguely spasm-y things in my lower back. And midway through the game it hurts to cut because of a bruise on my left heel. And yet, it's a great game and I'm loving it. We lose.
Game Three: Cardinal Sins. Mainly this team has 4 weapons. A guy named Dave Epping who is, throughout the DC ultimate scene, known for being a jerk. A foul calling machine, he's a decent handler but in general not a nice guy. True to form, a couple of points in I sky him (my waist at his shoulders) come down turn and throw. And a couple of seconds later I hear him call "foul." His explanation, "I feel like you might have pushed me to get to the disc." This, of course, did not happen, but we send the disc back, and play on, because I don't play well angry. Arguing it won't make it better.
Their other weapons are much nicer, Chris Schultz (played on the D-line for Drive Through Liquor, a perennial nationals team from Colorado) and his wife Kiska, and this guy Bobbins. I spend most of the game being guarded by Schultz, and find myself able to fairly easily get the disc. Turns out I'm able to play with nationals level players. Good to know. We go up a point or two. They take half. We come out flat after half, then rally and finally fail. Throughout the game we're losing players to injury. Shamik goes down (comes back). Matt has a calf cramp. Tin (is cramping). It's frustrating. Certainly a game we could have won. But it's B league, which to me means that it's not worth being really concerned about. So following our third loss we get the...
BYE. We have a 3rd round bye. The team hangs out and we get in some pretty stellar heckling. Shamik and I go heckle for heckle, each getting some good ones. The harshest was mine which can written but was never used--as it was too vicious: "His hucks are like old people's bladders: inconsistent and with frequently embarassing results." Funny, but too harsh to be said to anyone. Especially coming from a guy like me, who generates a bunch of turnovers.
Game Four: Sunday's at Six. We win. They're exhausted, we're tired and stiff from our bye. Mainly it's chance to play with and against friends (several BRDMers on their team). Good time. Nothing terribly remarkable.
So we finished the season at 2 and 9, winning our first game and our last game.
As I head off to bed, I realize that I can finally breathe fully (my chest hurt until a few minutes ago), that while my hip and leg ache, they still work and it's only a bruise. Though I have discovered that my knee is swelling or at least not functioning very well. And yet, as you already know from reading this: 1) I wish I could play more 2) I will play more 3) I'll complain, but next weekend I'll wish there were a tournament at which I could again reinjure myself.
Such is the nature of my obsession, such is the depth of my addiction.
===
The next morning update: After nearly 12 hours of sleep, my hip still hurts, though not too much. My back is realigned and no longer sore. My knee is not doing well. It doesn't hurt A LOT but it certainly hurts. But, and this is great, I have a doctor's appointment at 10am on Monday. So I'll be able to get my knee checked out. How's that for good timing.
Friday, November 11, 2005
RAZE Up
So tomorrow is the tournament for B league. The rag tag team of misfits that I've been captaining, RAZE, goes into the tournament seeded...oh let's just say, if it's not last it's pretty close. We've been bad this year, we've lost every game except for the first one. It's been sorta ugly. But tomorrow is another day. We have four games and a chance to break seed. I've decided that to the best of my ability I'm going to try and be a dominant presence in these games. Somedays I just sort of play and let things happen around me, and other days I decide I want the goddamn disc and go and make plays. I'm hoping tomorrow can be one of those days. If not, I'll be plenty content to spend a day hanging out with Libby and JKD and Shamik and running around, shouting silly things. Then tomorrow evening I get to hang out with Neil and Aaron, and Dave. Life is favoring me. Quite nicely.
We'll see what I have to write when the games are done. My captaincy has not been marked by the best win loss record. I'd like to think it's about personel, but I think it may just be that I'm a shitty captain. Oh well. Nothing ventured nothing gained.
We'll see what I have to write when the games are done. My captaincy has not been marked by the best win loss record. I'd like to think it's about personel, but I think it may just be that I'm a shitty captain. Oh well. Nothing ventured nothing gained.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Greatest Hits
So I'm thinking of putting a new feature on the side bar.
I was going to have a couple of categories and within each have links to "best of" posts.
Just wondering what posts people would put into a best of collection. if I can get a list of maybe 10 or so I'll try to think of logical categories and group them.
So assuming you've read a couple of posts and liked any of them...what should I put into the best of?
Aaron
I was going to have a couple of categories and within each have links to "best of" posts.
Just wondering what posts people would put into a best of collection. if I can get a list of maybe 10 or so I'll try to think of logical categories and group them.
So assuming you've read a couple of posts and liked any of them...what should I put into the best of?
Aaron
Sorry to be such a downer
I'm sorry this blog has so frequently been a downer recently. Yet again, as in Seattle I'm finding that as frisbee season ends and the weather gets colder and the days shorter that I'm not doing as well. But I know that I have a good group of friends here in DC. They've pushed me to make sure I go to the doctor and do basic things like take care of myself. It's a good group of people and I'm lucky to have them.
In other good news: I have a tournament this weekend (Saturday only). In better news Neil and Aaron are coming down to visit. That's right it's Neil, Aaron and myself together again. I'm very excited. I believe there will be some singing of Silver Jews, some smoking of cigars. Undoubtedly some mocking of Dave, who is coming down for the festivities. It promises to be a good weekend. A reminder that while I may have lost some friends I've retained many more.
In other good news, next weekend I'll be watching the OSU Buckeyes take on, and hopefully beat Michigan, afterwards Jesseca and I are heading out to go for a hike in Boonsboro. Then Sunday we may see Antietam (sp). Should be a good time. Looking forward to being out of the city. I love little vacations. And since I'm old I can rent cars. It'll be the first time I've driven a car in roughly 6 months. Yikes.
It'll be nice to put some miles on the car. I, sadly, have missed driving, quite a bit.
In other good news: I have a tournament this weekend (Saturday only). In better news Neil and Aaron are coming down to visit. That's right it's Neil, Aaron and myself together again. I'm very excited. I believe there will be some singing of Silver Jews, some smoking of cigars. Undoubtedly some mocking of Dave, who is coming down for the festivities. It promises to be a good weekend. A reminder that while I may have lost some friends I've retained many more.
In other good news, next weekend I'll be watching the OSU Buckeyes take on, and hopefully beat Michigan, afterwards Jesseca and I are heading out to go for a hike in Boonsboro. Then Sunday we may see Antietam (sp). Should be a good time. Looking forward to being out of the city. I love little vacations. And since I'm old I can rent cars. It'll be the first time I've driven a car in roughly 6 months. Yikes.
It'll be nice to put some miles on the car. I, sadly, have missed driving, quite a bit.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Updates since the 25th
Some basic updates:
1. Round about the 27th...I think I decided that in the not terribly distant future (next 2 years or so) I will go to grad school. I want to be a politics professor. It remains an occupation that I thnk I could do well. And moreover it's one that I think is important and one that I would enjoy. So, that's something.
2. There are rumblings and stirrings that one Ms. Willemssen may find herself relocating to DC. This is very good news. I will have to assemble a greeting party of wonderful, elligible bachelors to greet her at the airport. Or maybe just some dorky guys like me. It'd be strange to live in the same city as both Ann and Melissa. Hell, maybe Jen will end up here, there are plenty of public health jobs.
3. Halloween party. I cohosted (with my upstairs neighbor) a tremendously well received Halloween Party. A good time was had by all. I dressed up, for the first time since I was 12 when I was Bernie Kosar. This year I went as Richie Tenenbaum. And I have to say, I was stunning. Seriously I looked good as R.T. Though I also had a few drinks and therefore my self (and really all) perception was a bit screwy. Libby carved beautiful pumpkin art, Liz came as Waldo, Jesseca as a flapper, Jared came as me, etc. It was a great evening.
4. Last weekend I went up towards Philly for PADA MOSH. A tournament up in the Philly area. A recap would take a while. Suffice to say, it was one of the best Saturday's I've spent at a tournament. I guarded and was guarded by people who the weekend before had been playing at Nationals. And I took it to them (especially Knappy from Donkey Bomb). I felt good. It felt good. Laughed, and lost my voice. It was an amazing day. Sunday was less good, but you know what, a bad tournament is still better than most things I can imagine.
5. Work continues apace. We do good work. I sometimes wonder if I am doing good work. I feel like I am a poor writer. I described my writing style as like that of streetballers, able to get by with flashes of brillance but never fundamentally sound. I dunk well. But I don't play much help defense. Something like that.
So that's the news from Mt. Pleasant, where all the men are neurotic, the women are talented, and the children are spoiled.
1. Round about the 27th...I think I decided that in the not terribly distant future (next 2 years or so) I will go to grad school. I want to be a politics professor. It remains an occupation that I thnk I could do well. And moreover it's one that I think is important and one that I would enjoy. So, that's something.
2. There are rumblings and stirrings that one Ms. Willemssen may find herself relocating to DC. This is very good news. I will have to assemble a greeting party of wonderful, elligible bachelors to greet her at the airport. Or maybe just some dorky guys like me. It'd be strange to live in the same city as both Ann and Melissa. Hell, maybe Jen will end up here, there are plenty of public health jobs.
3. Halloween party. I cohosted (with my upstairs neighbor) a tremendously well received Halloween Party. A good time was had by all. I dressed up, for the first time since I was 12 when I was Bernie Kosar. This year I went as Richie Tenenbaum. And I have to say, I was stunning. Seriously I looked good as R.T. Though I also had a few drinks and therefore my self (and really all) perception was a bit screwy. Libby carved beautiful pumpkin art, Liz came as Waldo, Jesseca as a flapper, Jared came as me, etc. It was a great evening.
4. Last weekend I went up towards Philly for PADA MOSH. A tournament up in the Philly area. A recap would take a while. Suffice to say, it was one of the best Saturday's I've spent at a tournament. I guarded and was guarded by people who the weekend before had been playing at Nationals. And I took it to them (especially Knappy from Donkey Bomb). I felt good. It felt good. Laughed, and lost my voice. It was an amazing day. Sunday was less good, but you know what, a bad tournament is still better than most things I can imagine.
5. Work continues apace. We do good work. I sometimes wonder if I am doing good work. I feel like I am a poor writer. I described my writing style as like that of streetballers, able to get by with flashes of brillance but never fundamentally sound. I dunk well. But I don't play much help defense. Something like that.
So that's the news from Mt. Pleasant, where all the men are neurotic, the women are talented, and the children are spoiled.
Neglect
I find myself tonight with a bit of time and a lot to think about. I'm not certain whether I'll be able to commit most of these thoughts to this blog as they're either too roughly sketched, or too deeply felt (and potentially too raw). I've been thinking a bit tonight about neglect. About how I've neglected this blog, how I've frequently in my life and at the present time, in fact, neglected my own most basic needs. I haven't eaten more than one real meal each day this week. I've neglected to clean my room, except for a few work shirts I've neglected to launder my clothes. I need a hair cut. In general I am failing at the basic essence of being alive, self control and preservation.
All that said, I feel confident that I can say I try mightly to avoid neglecting others. I take care of me when I get a chance (sometimes not at all), others I like to worry about. It seems like I'm far better at listening to another person's problems and helping think of positive thoughts for them, than I am about my own problems. A friend called recently because she was going through a rough relationship patch. We talked. It was a good chance to catch up. I talked because I like her a bunch, but also because I know in my worst moments that there is something powerful about being a "good person." There is something that's reassuring about knowing you're not selfish-- a reward for helping someone out. A belief that you're a giving person. Someone who would care for others. But in knowing that, maybe you are being selfish. I've been toying around wth this idea. I don't really know how to think about that. Is it wrong to do something beneficial for another person if you know that part of the reason you're doing the right thing is because you want to be known as the person who does the right thing. Does self awareness destroy the goodness of an act.
The idea of neglect (maybe the wrong term here) is also fresh in my mind because I feel like I have several friends who have basically just cut me off. I'm no longer in their immediate day to day lives and they've decided that it's better that way. Either they never really liked me as much as I imagined, or something about me, now, rubs them the wrong way. Or something else all togheter, but still there was, that I know of, no falling out, just simply their decision that my role in their lives needed to end or be severely limited. I guess neglect isn't the right word, but I can think of few things more painful than being told (without the courtesy of words, no less) that you're no longer worth the effort (minimal as it may be). I've never found myself (even on a campaign) that busy, so I presume it's not simply a function of schedule rather a choice. A prioritizing. And I guess there's no use lamenting it, because why would you want to be friends with someone who doesn't want to be your friend. And yet, at the end of the day it's certainly no less hurtful than it was in kindergarten when you would brazenly ask one another, "Do you want to be my friend." There was a social contract even at that age, you could never answer no. I guess for the first time in a while, I've been told "no." "No, I don't want to be your friend." Maybe I'm overreacting. Quite possible. That's the thing about the lack of communication. It's easy to misinterpret it. Maybe it's more complex than that, more nuance, more intricacies. But unless I'm missing something, neglecting some delicate aspect of interpersonal discourse, I'm being told "No, no you can't be my friend." or at least "I'd rather you not be my friend anymore." and you know, just as I'd imagined as a child, it's none too pleasant.
All that said, I feel confident that I can say I try mightly to avoid neglecting others. I take care of me when I get a chance (sometimes not at all), others I like to worry about. It seems like I'm far better at listening to another person's problems and helping think of positive thoughts for them, than I am about my own problems. A friend called recently because she was going through a rough relationship patch. We talked. It was a good chance to catch up. I talked because I like her a bunch, but also because I know in my worst moments that there is something powerful about being a "good person." There is something that's reassuring about knowing you're not selfish-- a reward for helping someone out. A belief that you're a giving person. Someone who would care for others. But in knowing that, maybe you are being selfish. I've been toying around wth this idea. I don't really know how to think about that. Is it wrong to do something beneficial for another person if you know that part of the reason you're doing the right thing is because you want to be known as the person who does the right thing. Does self awareness destroy the goodness of an act.
The idea of neglect (maybe the wrong term here) is also fresh in my mind because I feel like I have several friends who have basically just cut me off. I'm no longer in their immediate day to day lives and they've decided that it's better that way. Either they never really liked me as much as I imagined, or something about me, now, rubs them the wrong way. Or something else all togheter, but still there was, that I know of, no falling out, just simply their decision that my role in their lives needed to end or be severely limited. I guess neglect isn't the right word, but I can think of few things more painful than being told (without the courtesy of words, no less) that you're no longer worth the effort (minimal as it may be). I've never found myself (even on a campaign) that busy, so I presume it's not simply a function of schedule rather a choice. A prioritizing. And I guess there's no use lamenting it, because why would you want to be friends with someone who doesn't want to be your friend. And yet, at the end of the day it's certainly no less hurtful than it was in kindergarten when you would brazenly ask one another, "Do you want to be my friend." There was a social contract even at that age, you could never answer no. I guess for the first time in a while, I've been told "no." "No, I don't want to be your friend." Maybe I'm overreacting. Quite possible. That's the thing about the lack of communication. It's easy to misinterpret it. Maybe it's more complex than that, more nuance, more intricacies. But unless I'm missing something, neglecting some delicate aspect of interpersonal discourse, I'm being told "No, no you can't be my friend." or at least "I'd rather you not be my friend anymore." and you know, just as I'd imagined as a child, it's none too pleasant.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
3yrs.
3yrs.
Today's weather is eerily familiar, the Mid Atlantic's version of that day in Minnesota.
I miss Minnesota. I miss Paul. Somedays, like today, I miss knowing that the work I do touches millions. Say something important to someone important, seems like the right thing to do today.
The best speech about Paul and one of the best I've ever heard.
I cry nearly every time I hear it, and get goosebumps every single time. You don't have to, I just do.
Today's weather is eerily familiar, the Mid Atlantic's version of that day in Minnesota.
I miss Minnesota. I miss Paul. Somedays, like today, I miss knowing that the work I do touches millions. Say something important to someone important, seems like the right thing to do today.
The best speech about Paul and one of the best I've ever heard.
I cry nearly every time I hear it, and get goosebumps every single time. You don't have to, I just do.
Friday, October 21, 2005
Aaron Leavy: Trendsetter.
At 6PM this evening I will be conveyed to New York by that most noble of steads: the Chinatown Bus. Washington DC has a Chinatown, though the veracity of that title is highly questionable. There are a couple of Chinese restaurants and a few grocery stores. But mainly there is the MCI Center. I have to figure that a parade of hockey fans sorta overwhelms what little Chinatown-y vibes may exist.
On the other end (in NYC) I'll get to see Mark and Stacy and of course Brian. Should be a good weekend. I have no idea what we'll be doing. But I'm hoping it's cheap.
I'm bringing my BRDM jersey. Time for some guerilla brand awareness in the mecca of hip. Soon some asipring designer will dredge up from the recesses of their memory the image of an oh-so cool guy with a wonderful red machine logo...and I can only imagine what kind of brilliant gear will result from that. Soon everyone will want to wear our jersey. We will become, as Paul says, more of a marketing phenomenon than a team. Or maybe not.
On the other end (in NYC) I'll get to see Mark and Stacy and of course Brian. Should be a good weekend. I have no idea what we'll be doing. But I'm hoping it's cheap.
I'm bringing my BRDM jersey. Time for some guerilla brand awareness in the mecca of hip. Soon some asipring designer will dredge up from the recesses of their memory the image of an oh-so cool guy with a wonderful red machine logo...and I can only imagine what kind of brilliant gear will result from that. Soon everyone will want to wear our jersey. We will become, as Paul says, more of a marketing phenomenon than a team. Or maybe not.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
The Wheels on the Bike Go Round and Flat.
This week I've decided that, as a time and money saving measure, I will bike to work. My bike, purchased in Fort Collins in order to create another point of shared harmony with Jen, is heavy and in general not so great. But it is certainly good enough to meet my most basic bike needs. Ie, I can sit on it, and traverse the distance between home and work in a time that is less than or equal to the bus. That's it. Those are the needs.
Yesterday I get up and am feeling great about this decision. I get this sanctimonious feeling as I pass buses on the way to work. Thinking about how good I am (me personally) for the environment, and how fit and buff I'll be after all this biking. How rewarding this will be. It's a glorious morning, crisp and cool. I start to head down 16th and encounter a long hill, but as with everything this morning it's all downhill. Nothing to stand in my way.
Yeah, well that's not entirely true. Even as I'm enjoying this great morning, I realize, my tires need some air. Well that's not entirely accurate. It's my tubes inside my tires that need some air. And well, that's not entirely correct because some suggests that there is any air in my tubes to start with. As I finish coasting down the hill I realize that the normal rhythm of the bike tires on the ground has started to have a little more bass than usual. I'm sounding more like Snoop than I'd like, as there is a fairly consistent (every revolution as it turns out) sound coming from my back tire. My tire separated from the rim.
I am forced to abort my glorious ride and address the harsh reality that I'm walking my bike to work. So I walk the last 8 blocks to work and lock my bike. Locking my bike is a challenge as the U-lock is too short as is the cable lock. So the brilliant inter-locking patterns of my mind, whereby I am completely secure become something more akin to a taut tie between my bike and the rack. But I digress.
After trying with Paul's help to inflate the tube (no luck, though a special thanks to Paul for the effort), I take my bike to the bike shop. It is then that I meet the biking equivalent of every indie rock record store clerk. He is dismissive and basically scoffs at my bike. As we are walking out he says, in a strangely confrontational yet paternalistic tone: "Given 6 hours I could make this a good bike." I say, oh, what's wrong with it. Knowing full well several things, but wanting an appraisal, not a reprisal. Well I get the second. His answer: Oh...everything, but you don't care. You don't care do you. I feel like my pedatrician is accusing me of replacing formula with gin. I'm trying to be a good bike owner (having now spent nearly 80 bucks on a bike worth 150, just to lock and inflate it). So I pay and leave. The bike ride home is nice. The hill on 16th mocks me on my return trip. Every push of the pedal reminds me that for every stretch of downhill, there's always an uphill on the way back.
Yesterday I get up and am feeling great about this decision. I get this sanctimonious feeling as I pass buses on the way to work. Thinking about how good I am (me personally) for the environment, and how fit and buff I'll be after all this biking. How rewarding this will be. It's a glorious morning, crisp and cool. I start to head down 16th and encounter a long hill, but as with everything this morning it's all downhill. Nothing to stand in my way.
Yeah, well that's not entirely true. Even as I'm enjoying this great morning, I realize, my tires need some air. Well that's not entirely accurate. It's my tubes inside my tires that need some air. And well, that's not entirely correct because some suggests that there is any air in my tubes to start with. As I finish coasting down the hill I realize that the normal rhythm of the bike tires on the ground has started to have a little more bass than usual. I'm sounding more like Snoop than I'd like, as there is a fairly consistent (every revolution as it turns out) sound coming from my back tire. My tire separated from the rim.
I am forced to abort my glorious ride and address the harsh reality that I'm walking my bike to work. So I walk the last 8 blocks to work and lock my bike. Locking my bike is a challenge as the U-lock is too short as is the cable lock. So the brilliant inter-locking patterns of my mind, whereby I am completely secure become something more akin to a taut tie between my bike and the rack. But I digress.
After trying with Paul's help to inflate the tube (no luck, though a special thanks to Paul for the effort), I take my bike to the bike shop. It is then that I meet the biking equivalent of every indie rock record store clerk. He is dismissive and basically scoffs at my bike. As we are walking out he says, in a strangely confrontational yet paternalistic tone: "Given 6 hours I could make this a good bike." I say, oh, what's wrong with it. Knowing full well several things, but wanting an appraisal, not a reprisal. Well I get the second. His answer: Oh...everything, but you don't care. You don't care do you. I feel like my pedatrician is accusing me of replacing formula with gin. I'm trying to be a good bike owner (having now spent nearly 80 bucks on a bike worth 150, just to lock and inflate it). So I pay and leave. The bike ride home is nice. The hill on 16th mocks me on my return trip. Every push of the pedal reminds me that for every stretch of downhill, there's always an uphill on the way back.
Monday, October 17, 2005
It makes the world go 'round, and makes me nutty
It's pricey to live in Washington, DC.
And not really even for the reasons you might assume. I pay less in rent here, than I did in Seattle. I don't have a car, and therefore don't have to pay for gas. Though I do still have to pay for insurance--the car lives at my parent's house, it's like after years of unfaithful service it's been put out to stud, to procreate and annoy future generations of car owners. But having friends and little time to cook, that destroys my budgets like a paper airplane in a forest fire. Summary of expenses of the past 24 hours.
Metro to frisbee: 1.35
Metro from frisbee to lunch: 1.35
Lunch (ordering very cheaply): 10.71
Bookstore browsing: free
Movie (matinee): 6.75
Metro home: 1.35
Metrobus to work: 1.25
Breakfast burrito: 3.85
Lunch: 5.45
Metro to Paul's: 1.35
Bike lock: 34.00
Bike reflector: 12.00
REI membership: 15.00
Total for the past day and a half: 94.41
And it's certainly not as though I'm leading an extravagant lifestyle. I'm grateful that to be with my friends I don't have to go and drink, because I'd be even poorer. And yes the bike lock was bought for several good reasons: 1) to promote me exercising more, 2) cutting down on Metro fare. And the bike reflector is so I don't die, which seems like an expense worth making.
It's just annoying. I spend so much of my time worrying about money. I don't know what it's like to be unconcerned about it. I always have this fear of some horrible expense, or being fired, or some other financially destructive wave. It's really fucking annoying, frankly. I don't spend lavishly. I don't travel. (much). I don't drink (much). I don't smoke (at all). I don't buy Cds, one in the past 6 months. I spend less than 6 bucks at lunch nearly every day. I don't use a car. and yet I always seem to find some way to fuck up my budget. One month it was replacing my glasses. One month it was paying for the next 6months of car insurance. There's always something. I'm sick of it.
I usually try to have these posts have some arc, some whining, some good part, some funny, some earnest. This one doesn't have those features, it's really just me being frustrated with the cost of living, and not sure what to do. I guess I will have to wake up earlier and make lunches. That'll help a little. And I figure if I bike a few days a week I can save maybe 20 bucks a month that way.
Sorry for the tirade. I'm sure the next post will be much happier. And things will get back to normal.
And not really even for the reasons you might assume. I pay less in rent here, than I did in Seattle. I don't have a car, and therefore don't have to pay for gas. Though I do still have to pay for insurance--the car lives at my parent's house, it's like after years of unfaithful service it's been put out to stud, to procreate and annoy future generations of car owners. But having friends and little time to cook, that destroys my budgets like a paper airplane in a forest fire. Summary of expenses of the past 24 hours.
Metro to frisbee: 1.35
Metro from frisbee to lunch: 1.35
Lunch (ordering very cheaply): 10.71
Bookstore browsing: free
Movie (matinee): 6.75
Metro home: 1.35
Metrobus to work: 1.25
Breakfast burrito: 3.85
Lunch: 5.45
Metro to Paul's: 1.35
Bike lock: 34.00
Bike reflector: 12.00
REI membership: 15.00
Total for the past day and a half: 94.41
And it's certainly not as though I'm leading an extravagant lifestyle. I'm grateful that to be with my friends I don't have to go and drink, because I'd be even poorer. And yes the bike lock was bought for several good reasons: 1) to promote me exercising more, 2) cutting down on Metro fare. And the bike reflector is so I don't die, which seems like an expense worth making.
It's just annoying. I spend so much of my time worrying about money. I don't know what it's like to be unconcerned about it. I always have this fear of some horrible expense, or being fired, or some other financially destructive wave. It's really fucking annoying, frankly. I don't spend lavishly. I don't travel. (much). I don't drink (much). I don't smoke (at all). I don't buy Cds, one in the past 6 months. I spend less than 6 bucks at lunch nearly every day. I don't use a car. and yet I always seem to find some way to fuck up my budget. One month it was replacing my glasses. One month it was paying for the next 6months of car insurance. There's always something. I'm sick of it.
I usually try to have these posts have some arc, some whining, some good part, some funny, some earnest. This one doesn't have those features, it's really just me being frustrated with the cost of living, and not sure what to do. I guess I will have to wake up earlier and make lunches. That'll help a little. And I figure if I bike a few days a week I can save maybe 20 bucks a month that way.
Sorry for the tirade. I'm sure the next post will be much happier. And things will get back to normal.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Bright Smile.
A fairly normal weekend this one. The amazing thing is how fortunate I feel to have weekends (at all) like this. I'm certainly in the right place these days.
At 6P I left work and walked to my bank, dropped off my check and wandered over to 2nd Story books. I feel, irrationally, like I'm cheating on a lover whenever I go to any bookstore in DC that's not Kramer Books and Afterwards. I look around to make sure no one I know sees me going in. I had about 20 minutes to kill before I met my friends at the Metro. I spent the time eagerly and gingerly going through hundreds of maps, lithographs and woodblock prints-- most under 30 bucks. When I get a little more money, or a little less self-restraint (more likely of the two options) I'll pick up a few lithographs to decorate the house. I had this long time where I found lithograpsh really lacking. But after spending time at the Met and really looking at the works and thinking about how they are constructed, I became something of a convert. So it'll be nice to get one of those for the bare concrete walls of my apartment.
After 2nd Story I met JKD, Liz, Jesseca and Amanda. We were heading to Virginia to see Josh Ritter and the Frames. I have burned Josh cds for Amanda (when we were in Minnesota), and Jesseca and Liz. I'm like the Johnny Appleseed of Josh Ritter.
We jumped on the Metro and headed deep (well sorta) into Virginia. I, for one, don't like Virginia. I don't like visiting, I don't like being there really at all. It's a place that just feels weird and for reasons that I cannot fully articulate I just don't like it. It's a bit like trying to explain the feeling right before you sneeze. It doesn't really make sense or compare to any other feelings...but I have that kind of feeling about Virginia, it's like something awkward, loud and phlegmy is going to happen. Yuck.
We get to the venue, get some tix and head out for Thai food. Great Thai food. Good conversation. The evening is working well.
Getting into the venue is tricky. I have my messenger bag and am forced to throw out my bottle of water, and I have to argue and plead to avoid having to throw out the tupperwear container with Paul's lasagna from the night before (sadly I forgot to refrigerate it). JKD is unable to bring in a thermos, apparently there is some great concern about contraband liquid in the venue.
The concert itself is amazing. Josh comes out in a long coat. He's in good voice, energetic. and it's clear that my friends are enjoying themselves. Which was probably my biggest concern. I think some people may have gone mainly to humor/placate me. And knowing that they weren't going to regret that decision was great. Mixed with cheap PBR, familiar songs and good friends the evening was a pleasure.
Josh is, as ever, smiley and dopey. "Our little rockstar," as JKD calls him.
The Frames are tremendous. High energy. Clearly having fun. They cover To Be of Use by Smog (with the memorable lyric, "Most of my fantasies are of making someone else come.") They cover as part of another song Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka. It's a great fucking evening. Just a hoot.
Saturday:
I wake up early. Far too early. Put on some Petey Pable (Raise Up) and get ready for Raze's game. I head over to JKD's and meet Amanda and Libby there and we drive to Virgina (grrr) for a game. I'm fired up. I am sick of losing and decide that I am going to be dominant in this game. I am going to get open all the time, I am going to throw well, and most importantly that I am going to shut my guy down on defense. And you know what, I did those things. It felt incredible. I played really strong defense and it was, for the first time, more fun than offense. And yet. We lost.
A wonderful leisurely drive back to the District under a heroically blue sky. I got home and just hung out for the rest of the day. Made some guacamole, drank a beer or two, watched Almost Famous.
Later in the evening I went to Jesseca's friends' party. The preponderance of Jesseca's friends in the district are Jewish. I walked into a room filled will relatively short, semitic looking guys with scruffy beards, with names like Micah and Juda and Chaim (okay that I made up, but seriously it was an incredible assemblage of 20 something Jews). There were 3 Brandeis grads. I'm glad I started growing my beard earlier in the week, otherwise I'd have been cast out. It was a good time. Good conversation, good beer, great goat cheese. A fine evening. Sadly the hosts of the party were throwing the party as a last hooray before they move. I'm quite certain I'd be good friends with them, and it's sad to know that's not going to happen now (or at least less likely).
Sunday:
Pickup at the Polo fields. Decent turn out. The energy I mustered for defense on Saturday was wholly absent on Sunday. I did have spiffy new socks courtesy of Ms. Sproat. Quite nice. Sadly my play was considerably less spiffy than my socks, but a good time was had by all. Afterwards headed to Dupont for lunch/dinner, book shopping, and a movie (The Aristocrats). Now I'm going to remove my contacts, pour myself a Magic Hat, plant myself on the 14yr old makeout couch and remind myself why I loved The Great Gatsby as a 10th grader.
I lead a blessed life, and I try hard to remember just how fortunate I am. I have friends whom I adore. People to learn from (and make eggs with , and get socks from, and make stupid jokes to)...life isn't too shabby for Aaron.
At 6P I left work and walked to my bank, dropped off my check and wandered over to 2nd Story books. I feel, irrationally, like I'm cheating on a lover whenever I go to any bookstore in DC that's not Kramer Books and Afterwards. I look around to make sure no one I know sees me going in. I had about 20 minutes to kill before I met my friends at the Metro. I spent the time eagerly and gingerly going through hundreds of maps, lithographs and woodblock prints-- most under 30 bucks. When I get a little more money, or a little less self-restraint (more likely of the two options) I'll pick up a few lithographs to decorate the house. I had this long time where I found lithograpsh really lacking. But after spending time at the Met and really looking at the works and thinking about how they are constructed, I became something of a convert. So it'll be nice to get one of those for the bare concrete walls of my apartment.
After 2nd Story I met JKD, Liz, Jesseca and Amanda. We were heading to Virginia to see Josh Ritter and the Frames. I have burned Josh cds for Amanda (when we were in Minnesota), and Jesseca and Liz. I'm like the Johnny Appleseed of Josh Ritter.
We jumped on the Metro and headed deep (well sorta) into Virginia. I, for one, don't like Virginia. I don't like visiting, I don't like being there really at all. It's a place that just feels weird and for reasons that I cannot fully articulate I just don't like it. It's a bit like trying to explain the feeling right before you sneeze. It doesn't really make sense or compare to any other feelings...but I have that kind of feeling about Virginia, it's like something awkward, loud and phlegmy is going to happen. Yuck.
We get to the venue, get some tix and head out for Thai food. Great Thai food. Good conversation. The evening is working well.
Getting into the venue is tricky. I have my messenger bag and am forced to throw out my bottle of water, and I have to argue and plead to avoid having to throw out the tupperwear container with Paul's lasagna from the night before (sadly I forgot to refrigerate it). JKD is unable to bring in a thermos, apparently there is some great concern about contraband liquid in the venue.
The concert itself is amazing. Josh comes out in a long coat. He's in good voice, energetic. and it's clear that my friends are enjoying themselves. Which was probably my biggest concern. I think some people may have gone mainly to humor/placate me. And knowing that they weren't going to regret that decision was great. Mixed with cheap PBR, familiar songs and good friends the evening was a pleasure.
Josh is, as ever, smiley and dopey. "Our little rockstar," as JKD calls him.
The Frames are tremendous. High energy. Clearly having fun. They cover To Be of Use by Smog (with the memorable lyric, "Most of my fantasies are of making someone else come.") They cover as part of another song Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka. It's a great fucking evening. Just a hoot.
Saturday:
I wake up early. Far too early. Put on some Petey Pable (Raise Up) and get ready for Raze's game. I head over to JKD's and meet Amanda and Libby there and we drive to Virgina (grrr) for a game. I'm fired up. I am sick of losing and decide that I am going to be dominant in this game. I am going to get open all the time, I am going to throw well, and most importantly that I am going to shut my guy down on defense. And you know what, I did those things. It felt incredible. I played really strong defense and it was, for the first time, more fun than offense. And yet. We lost.
A wonderful leisurely drive back to the District under a heroically blue sky. I got home and just hung out for the rest of the day. Made some guacamole, drank a beer or two, watched Almost Famous.
Later in the evening I went to Jesseca's friends' party. The preponderance of Jesseca's friends in the district are Jewish. I walked into a room filled will relatively short, semitic looking guys with scruffy beards, with names like Micah and Juda and Chaim (okay that I made up, but seriously it was an incredible assemblage of 20 something Jews). There were 3 Brandeis grads. I'm glad I started growing my beard earlier in the week, otherwise I'd have been cast out. It was a good time. Good conversation, good beer, great goat cheese. A fine evening. Sadly the hosts of the party were throwing the party as a last hooray before they move. I'm quite certain I'd be good friends with them, and it's sad to know that's not going to happen now (or at least less likely).
Sunday:
Pickup at the Polo fields. Decent turn out. The energy I mustered for defense on Saturday was wholly absent on Sunday. I did have spiffy new socks courtesy of Ms. Sproat. Quite nice. Sadly my play was considerably less spiffy than my socks, but a good time was had by all. Afterwards headed to Dupont for lunch/dinner, book shopping, and a movie (The Aristocrats). Now I'm going to remove my contacts, pour myself a Magic Hat, plant myself on the 14yr old makeout couch and remind myself why I loved The Great Gatsby as a 10th grader.
I lead a blessed life, and I try hard to remember just how fortunate I am. I have friends whom I adore. People to learn from (and make eggs with , and get socks from, and make stupid jokes to)...life isn't too shabby for Aaron.
Like Oprah, kinda.
So as I child I remember shopping with my mom and walking to the checkout counter and seeing a tabloid with the inside scoop into Oprah's miraculous weight loss or her terrifying weight gain. Well this is the requiste post about Aaron's facial hair. Starting Tuesday morning...I began Operation Winterize. I'm bringing back the beard. A focus group of close friends reveals that attitudes are mixed on the issue. Some friends see the beard as a sexy choice, one that fits with their values. Others see the beard as a barrier towards ones kissibility. I may later conduct some polling to gain a more projectable sense of the public's opinion on the matter. For now I'm behaving like the bold leader we always knew I was...bravely acting even in the face of uncertain polling numbers. That's right, I don't make decisions based on polls. I'm far more whimsy-prone than that.
We'll see how long this lasts. Turns out I can grow facial hair pretty quickly. I'm past the indie-rock stubble and towards what Mark would certainly call a respectable beard after less than a week.
We'll see how long this lasts. Turns out I can grow facial hair pretty quickly. I'm past the indie-rock stubble and towards what Mark would certainly call a respectable beard after less than a week.
Friday, October 14, 2005
What month am I...
I was talking with my friend Katie White. She has recently moved with her boyfriend to Florida. she was recounting the incredible heat and the consistent weather. I realized why this bothered me (for her specifically). I've always associated Katie with the period in Late fall before Winter comes. She's a november person. She seems to best emody her own specific talents, values, and virtues in that time. I got to wondering, what season to I think best fits other people I know.
Brian is August. Baseball season, dark shoes, black shorts.
Mark is trickier, I'd say September. His birthday. When we met. The start of school. the start of football season. it's the time when his relentless belief that things can be better and different seems most real, most true.
What about others? do people associate themselves, me, others with a month.
Who belongs to what month, who belongs in what season.
I think I'm May. Something about the liminal state between spring and summer. The transition from growing to blossoming. The period when late afternoon naps spent under a single sheet with the windows open are possible.
Brian is August. Baseball season, dark shoes, black shorts.
Mark is trickier, I'd say September. His birthday. When we met. The start of school. the start of football season. it's the time when his relentless belief that things can be better and different seems most real, most true.
What about others? do people associate themselves, me, others with a month.
Who belongs to what month, who belongs in what season.
I think I'm May. Something about the liminal state between spring and summer. The transition from growing to blossoming. The period when late afternoon naps spent under a single sheet with the windows open are possible.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
After After Ashley
Went with Brian (who is visiting this weekend, or at least for part of it) to see Susan's play: After Ashely. Sadly it's been, I calculated, nearly 3 years since I've seen any theater. That's terrible. Same thing with dance (I have seen one piece since Ann and I broke up). So this week I am rectifying these transgressions against my artistic health.
After Ashley was, first and foremost, great fun. It was interesting, funnny, and challenging. And it was free. So maybe that's first. I think the show itself warrants its own post. When I was in HS and did theater people brought you flowers when they came to see your show. So I thought, well I'll get Susan some flowers and bring them to her. Apparently this was above and beyond. All the cast were shocked to see the ASM (assistant stage manager) with flowers. I just figured it was a nice thing to do for a friend in the "biz."
After "After Ashley" we went to Jaleo for tapas. I hate tapas. I find it over priced, over hyped and wholly underwhelming. But we went to tapas. I cannot stress enough the degree to which I find tapas to be the most annoying of new trends. The food always seems greasy and prepared haphazardly. Over presented and under cooked or underwhelming and over priced. I think of tapas sort of like Polly Pocket. Being small and easily shared doesn't make something distasteful better. It just makes it smaller, and supposedly cute. I for one, have no use for cute food. I love appetizers. I love sharing food. But something about the tapas I've had has left me unsatisfied.
I ordered a full plate meal. It consisted of chicken. just a bunch of chicken, poorly seasoned, ill prepared and exceedingly chewy. Jaleo and I are not friends. We will, god willing, not be seeing any more of eachother.
After Ashley was, first and foremost, great fun. It was interesting, funnny, and challenging. And it was free. So maybe that's first. I think the show itself warrants its own post. When I was in HS and did theater people brought you flowers when they came to see your show. So I thought, well I'll get Susan some flowers and bring them to her. Apparently this was above and beyond. All the cast were shocked to see the ASM (assistant stage manager) with flowers. I just figured it was a nice thing to do for a friend in the "biz."
After "After Ashley" we went to Jaleo for tapas. I hate tapas. I find it over priced, over hyped and wholly underwhelming. But we went to tapas. I cannot stress enough the degree to which I find tapas to be the most annoying of new trends. The food always seems greasy and prepared haphazardly. Over presented and under cooked or underwhelming and over priced. I think of tapas sort of like Polly Pocket. Being small and easily shared doesn't make something distasteful better. It just makes it smaller, and supposedly cute. I for one, have no use for cute food. I love appetizers. I love sharing food. But something about the tapas I've had has left me unsatisfied.
I ordered a full plate meal. It consisted of chicken. just a bunch of chicken, poorly seasoned, ill prepared and exceedingly chewy. Jaleo and I are not friends. We will, god willing, not be seeing any more of eachother.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Winter goals
1. ENDURANCE I. I want to be able to play at full intensity 3-5 more points per game. I usually can play 80% of my points at full intensity and then the rest at 75%. I want another 3-5 at full speed, full recover.
2. ENDURANCE II. I'd like to be able to play long all game. I've played so much handler that or mid that I don't really have the stamina to play long (with 5 yard set ups and 40 yard cuts) for long points all game. This needs to change and to do so I need to start to run. I've never run more than 3 miles in my life. This winter I want to finish being able to run 6.
3. VERTICAL. I want 3-5 inches on my vertical. Any increase in my vertical will result in a stronger first step. and lord knows that can't hurt.
4. BACKHAND BREAK. I didn't break mark at Regionals with a backhand. This needs to change.
5. HECKLING. I'm a good heckler. But I need to really think about the essence of mockery, really explore the mental space and find ways to taunt while educating, humiliate while being humorous.
In service of these goals, I went for a little run this evening. 2.8 miles in about 25 minutes. Felt nice.
Completely unrelated thoughts: I'm trying to think of songs (ideally well travelled hip hop or something easily recognized) to turn into frisbee songs that we can sing on the sidelines during games.
One team started their game by singing Milkshake by Kelis. I'm proposing Nothing But a G Thang, maybe Holiday Inn...something that has a fun chorus that people know, and we can adapt. Thoughts?
2. ENDURANCE II. I'd like to be able to play long all game. I've played so much handler that or mid that I don't really have the stamina to play long (with 5 yard set ups and 40 yard cuts) for long points all game. This needs to change and to do so I need to start to run. I've never run more than 3 miles in my life. This winter I want to finish being able to run 6.
3. VERTICAL. I want 3-5 inches on my vertical. Any increase in my vertical will result in a stronger first step. and lord knows that can't hurt.
4. BACKHAND BREAK. I didn't break mark at Regionals with a backhand. This needs to change.
5. HECKLING. I'm a good heckler. But I need to really think about the essence of mockery, really explore the mental space and find ways to taunt while educating, humiliate while being humorous.
In service of these goals, I went for a little run this evening. 2.8 miles in about 25 minutes. Felt nice.
Completely unrelated thoughts: I'm trying to think of songs (ideally well travelled hip hop or something easily recognized) to turn into frisbee songs that we can sing on the sidelines during games.
One team started their game by singing Milkshake by Kelis. I'm proposing Nothing But a G Thang, maybe Holiday Inn...something that has a fun chorus that people know, and we can adapt. Thoughts?
Belarus and Spinal Tap
A couple of random anecdotes from the past week or two.
1. A couple of weeks ago when Rita was bearing down on Houston (etc) a friend remarked that meteorologists were forced to reclassify Rita. It was larger than a Category 5 so they called it a monster. See this is bad science. If there are categories for hurricanes you really need to have one that encompasses all kinds of hurricanes. Seriously, just make there be a Category 6. For instance maybe Category 6 is a hurricane that is so giantic that it causes the earth to spin against its own axis. You can't have something that's beyond the Category system. Reminds me of the scene from Spinal Tap. This one goes to 11. Why don't you make 10 higher... Same thought.
2. My coworker answers the phone, "Belden, Russonello and Stewart" and gets this perplexed look on her face. Finally after a few slowly spoken sentences she says, "I'm pretty sure you have the wrong number." She hangs up and begins laughing uncontrollably. Turns out the caller was asking for the Belarus Embassay. I guess it's not that hard to confuse Beldon, Russonello and Stewart with Belarus...and I'm pretty sure that BRS (our abbreviation is the same as that for Belarus).
1. A couple of weeks ago when Rita was bearing down on Houston (etc) a friend remarked that meteorologists were forced to reclassify Rita. It was larger than a Category 5 so they called it a monster. See this is bad science. If there are categories for hurricanes you really need to have one that encompasses all kinds of hurricanes. Seriously, just make there be a Category 6. For instance maybe Category 6 is a hurricane that is so giantic that it causes the earth to spin against its own axis. You can't have something that's beyond the Category system. Reminds me of the scene from Spinal Tap. This one goes to 11. Why don't you make 10 higher... Same thought.
2. My coworker answers the phone, "Belden, Russonello and Stewart" and gets this perplexed look on her face. Finally after a few slowly spoken sentences she says, "I'm pretty sure you have the wrong number." She hangs up and begins laughing uncontrollably. Turns out the caller was asking for the Belarus Embassay. I guess it's not that hard to confuse Beldon, Russonello and Stewart with Belarus...and I'm pretty sure that BRS (our abbreviation is the same as that for Belarus).
Friday, September 30, 2005
This word hero, I don't think it means what you think it means
"I think that if Barbara Lee would read the history of Joe McCarthy she would realize that he was a hero for America."
Strange. I am struggling to invent a sentence that's less true.
====
In highly unrelated news: I'm playing in Regionals this weekend. This will be my first trip to Regionals. I realized that I have the least big tournament experience of anyone on my team. I will be on the starting line (most likely) at Regionals, and everyone else will know that feeling but me. It's like I missed a couple of steps along the way. You're supposed to work your way up, playing with increasingly strong teams. I apparently skipped that step. Went from teams that would get bageled at Regionals to playing an integral role for a team that will be competitive. I don't harbor delusions that we're going to make nationals or that we'll finish in the top 5-6. But it's certainly possible for us to finish around 8. No matter the finish, I'm excited about next year and thrilled to be playing with this team. Good people, good approach (overall). Should be fun. Here's hoping I can walk come Monday. I make no promises. I hear that ACLs are valuable. And groins, hamstrings are pretty sweet from what I can gather, ankles do their thing and you love them for it. I'm just hoping that my parts love me after this weekend. Lord knows I'm a horrible abuser, but they seem to take me back time and again.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Arrogance
I've never read a book by Tom Wolfe. Growing up, my parents had a ratty paperback copy of Bonfire of the Vanities on the shelf next to their bed. It was an ugly book. I was vaguely aware that there was a movie of the same name. Never appealed to me, and sadly since it was a book owned by my parents in paperback I sort of assumed it wasn't high literature. Not sure it is, but that's neither here nor there.
Last night while discussing branding and this Onion article, JKD emails me this link. It's hard for me to imagine the talent that justifies this much ego. Tom Wolfe looks like a small town mayor from the 30s dressed up for his office portrait. It's hard to imagine that he himself is so potent as a brand as to justify this kind of arrogance.
The whole thing suggests a new level of personal definition. It's strange. Branding has gone from something you do to the ass of cattle, to something that companies seek, to something that major companies devote budgets somewhat akin to the GDP of small Asian nations to define, and now people are becoming brands. I read somewhere that David Bowie offered stock in himself. Now Tom Wolfe is making himself a brand. The only other person who I know of who has self branded as effectively is Thomas Kincaid. I, myself, hate Kincaid like he stole my date, and shot my dog. His work is so purposefully devoid of talent. So fuzzy and readily digestable as to make Norman Rockwell seem like Maplethorpe. Kincaid is like the pureed carrots of art. It asks nothing of the viewer and, sadly, offers nothing to viewers. But he has branded himself. He has factories that produce posters to which he applies a few highlights and then sells them as original works. I guess two dots of paint on the snow capped roof of yet another warmly lit cottage in the middle distance is almost like an original work. Granted using the term original to describe any of his works is a fallacy of incredible proportions. I find his work so cloyingly annoying that I often wonder that there are enough shitty motels to justify his continued creation. And yet, he is a brand. Hooray! Remind me that if I ever try to brand myself I should first do it with a hot iron.
Last night while discussing branding and this Onion article, JKD emails me this link. It's hard for me to imagine the talent that justifies this much ego. Tom Wolfe looks like a small town mayor from the 30s dressed up for his office portrait. It's hard to imagine that he himself is so potent as a brand as to justify this kind of arrogance.
The whole thing suggests a new level of personal definition. It's strange. Branding has gone from something you do to the ass of cattle, to something that companies seek, to something that major companies devote budgets somewhat akin to the GDP of small Asian nations to define, and now people are becoming brands. I read somewhere that David Bowie offered stock in himself. Now Tom Wolfe is making himself a brand. The only other person who I know of who has self branded as effectively is Thomas Kincaid. I, myself, hate Kincaid like he stole my date, and shot my dog. His work is so purposefully devoid of talent. So fuzzy and readily digestable as to make Norman Rockwell seem like Maplethorpe. Kincaid is like the pureed carrots of art. It asks nothing of the viewer and, sadly, offers nothing to viewers. But he has branded himself. He has factories that produce posters to which he applies a few highlights and then sells them as original works. I guess two dots of paint on the snow capped roof of yet another warmly lit cottage in the middle distance is almost like an original work. Granted using the term original to describe any of his works is a fallacy of incredible proportions. I find his work so cloyingly annoying that I often wonder that there are enough shitty motels to justify his continued creation. And yet, he is a brand. Hooray! Remind me that if I ever try to brand myself I should first do it with a hot iron.
9.23:07
A while back I was introduced to Over Heard in NY. Basically it's hundreds of people who record the minutae and ridiculousness of overheard conversations in the Big Apple. My fellow commuters tend to be both somber and sober in the mornings, so I get few interesting overheard nuggets. I have witnessed a woman dilligently recording in a nicely bound leather journal every text message she received (or sent) from a lover of hers. The book was open directly under me (as I stood) and several of the passages were particularly sweet and corny. One indicated that her paramour "thinks of her roughly every 37.8 seconds." The strange thing, to me, was that she was recording the date, time and second that she received each and every message. It became more like an autistic librarian effort than a catalogue of love letters.
But who am I to criticize young lover. I've done some strange and (I thought touching) things while deeply in love, so here's to the text message lady. Hope it works out.
But who am I to criticize young lover. I've done some strange and (I thought touching) things while deeply in love, so here's to the text message lady. Hope it works out.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Putting a puzzle together, wearing mittens
I’m laying on the couch I call the "14 yr old makeout couch." This couch, acquired by my roommate Dave has as its primary defining characteristics two features which suggest to me the dreams of 14 year old boys. The couch is sort of suede-y, and most importantly it functions a bit like a chaise lounge. If you pull the arms of the couch towards you, they can be lowered into full recline, as can the back. It converts from a velvety/suede couch into a bed of same. Dave loves it, though thankfully not for those reasons. I on the other hand find it not a little preposterous and generally silly. But it serves the purpose, and I have taken a few naps in its gentle embrace, so I shouldn’t complain too much.
I’m sitting here alone. As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been leading the life of a galavanting socialite or someone similarly engaged in evening activities. I’ve lamented this fact, and whined about it. And tonight I find myself occupying my apartment in total solitude. And without being too blunt, I’m bored out of my fucking mind. I want to be talking to people, making friends, telling stories, hearing jokes, throwing Frisbees, doing something. Instead I’m checking and rechecking my email, and now sitting to write this.
And yet, whining aside, it’s terrific. In the final analysis, I think I may be overloading on people right now, if I’m this distracted and bored while sitting alone. I may want to try and spend a little more time with just Aaron, otherwise I may lose my damn mind.
I guess I need alone time, but though how much is still an issue of some debate. Tonight I’m buzzing with thoughts about this weekend’s Sectional tournament. (to read more you can check out another blog project of mine http://www.brdmultimate.blogspot.com/) But the realization that there are tons of people with whom I could be hanging out right now, several just a few blocks away, well that’s just peachy keen. I’m thinking about the various new friends I’ve made and trying to sort out what it means that I’m making considerably more female friends, and um…well, what comes next. I never really bought the thesis of When Harry Met Sally that it’s hard to have cross gendered friends without some (some) relational pressures interceding, but I think it may be on to something.
All of which leads me to a strange conclusion. I now realize. I’ve never really dated before. I’ve only ever entered into relationships with close friends. The idea of asking someone whom I don’t *really* know to a meal or movie is completely foreign. Not so much scary or intimidating, as simply foreign. And if you ask someone to diner who is in possession of XX chromosomes, does that have to be a date? What signals am I sending? I feel like a jittery telegraph operator, I'm undoubtedly sending and receiving signals that mean nothing. I don’t know. When is a movie just something you watch with another person, and when is a movie a signal of some primal dating instinct. It's all Greek to me.
Unlike the 14 yr old whom I imagine loves my couch, I don’t really have the basic experience of dating. I don’t know the official rules. It feels a little bit like trying to piece together the rules of cricket by watching a test match. I get the general goal of the game, and some of the terms, but the strategy is impenetrably confusing to me.
But, even if I'm struggling with the rules and basic truisms of dating or the precursor to dating (really). But, the best part of all of this is the realization for me that dating someone and ending the romantic part of that relationship doesn’t have to come with the requisite strife and sorrow that ending a 2 year relationship does. I have been worrying that I better choose really carefully, lest I mess up and have to endure another gut wrenching break-up. This isn't going to hurt like my last break up. This is pulling off a Band-Aid not Civil War field surgery.
People date all the time. You can date and find out that after a few days, weeks or months it isn’t working and that’s fine. It’s not some earth shattering upheaval, hell, it can be less of an ordeal than changing long distance carriers.
So the past few weeks have been spent trying to figure out what people think of me vis a vis dating, and what I think of them. But it’s funny. How can I know what another person is thinking when, with unfettered access to my own thoughts, I’m often flummoxed. I gotta imagine that if I don’t know what I think, knowing what they think is like cleaning the Aegean stables. I was talking about this with a friend (Liz) and described the quandary as trying to put together a puzzle with mittens on. Seems about right. And yet, it’s still pretty fun. Further vague updates as events warrant.
I’m sitting here alone. As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been leading the life of a galavanting socialite or someone similarly engaged in evening activities. I’ve lamented this fact, and whined about it. And tonight I find myself occupying my apartment in total solitude. And without being too blunt, I’m bored out of my fucking mind. I want to be talking to people, making friends, telling stories, hearing jokes, throwing Frisbees, doing something. Instead I’m checking and rechecking my email, and now sitting to write this.
And yet, whining aside, it’s terrific. In the final analysis, I think I may be overloading on people right now, if I’m this distracted and bored while sitting alone. I may want to try and spend a little more time with just Aaron, otherwise I may lose my damn mind.
I guess I need alone time, but though how much is still an issue of some debate. Tonight I’m buzzing with thoughts about this weekend’s Sectional tournament. (to read more you can check out another blog project of mine http://www.brdmultimate.blogspot.com/) But the realization that there are tons of people with whom I could be hanging out right now, several just a few blocks away, well that’s just peachy keen. I’m thinking about the various new friends I’ve made and trying to sort out what it means that I’m making considerably more female friends, and um…well, what comes next. I never really bought the thesis of When Harry Met Sally that it’s hard to have cross gendered friends without some (some) relational pressures interceding, but I think it may be on to something.
All of which leads me to a strange conclusion. I now realize. I’ve never really dated before. I’ve only ever entered into relationships with close friends. The idea of asking someone whom I don’t *really* know to a meal or movie is completely foreign. Not so much scary or intimidating, as simply foreign. And if you ask someone to diner who is in possession of XX chromosomes, does that have to be a date? What signals am I sending? I feel like a jittery telegraph operator, I'm undoubtedly sending and receiving signals that mean nothing. I don’t know. When is a movie just something you watch with another person, and when is a movie a signal of some primal dating instinct. It's all Greek to me.
Unlike the 14 yr old whom I imagine loves my couch, I don’t really have the basic experience of dating. I don’t know the official rules. It feels a little bit like trying to piece together the rules of cricket by watching a test match. I get the general goal of the game, and some of the terms, but the strategy is impenetrably confusing to me.
But, even if I'm struggling with the rules and basic truisms of dating or the precursor to dating (really). But, the best part of all of this is the realization for me that dating someone and ending the romantic part of that relationship doesn’t have to come with the requisite strife and sorrow that ending a 2 year relationship does. I have been worrying that I better choose really carefully, lest I mess up and have to endure another gut wrenching break-up. This isn't going to hurt like my last break up. This is pulling off a Band-Aid not Civil War field surgery.
People date all the time. You can date and find out that after a few days, weeks or months it isn’t working and that’s fine. It’s not some earth shattering upheaval, hell, it can be less of an ordeal than changing long distance carriers.
So the past few weeks have been spent trying to figure out what people think of me vis a vis dating, and what I think of them. But it’s funny. How can I know what another person is thinking when, with unfettered access to my own thoughts, I’m often flummoxed. I gotta imagine that if I don’t know what I think, knowing what they think is like cleaning the Aegean stables. I was talking about this with a friend (Liz) and described the quandary as trying to put together a puzzle with mittens on. Seems about right. And yet, it’s still pretty fun. Further vague updates as events warrant.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Underdogs
Longtime readers (or long time friends) no doubt know that one of my closest friends is Brian Fusco. You may remember him from the various Red Sox vs. Yankees posts this time last year. Brian is, and has been for as long as I've known him (almost 10 years now) a devoted Yankees fans. His devotion to the pin striped ones is always best described as nearly religious. It fulfills, as best I can tell, a bonding function in his family. It's something that his brothers and father share, and something that is a point of commonality. And lord knows that's important.
His fandom is also a source of fairly frequent teasing from Mark and I -- we who dislike the machine that is (or recently was) the Yankees.
But the odd thing, as I've come to realize is that Brian in his professional life always roots for the underdog. And in some cases for the preposterous, jaw dropping, eye-rubbing underdog.
Instance 1. Brian moved out from New York to join me, JKD and Tanner in Iowa. He moved without a job (same for the others, I'd already been hired) in order to do numerous tasks of dubious personal enjoyment to help a fiesty, spine-bearing Democrat compete in Iowa...against the life time party guy, John Kerry. He willfully moved to Iowa to do this (I guess I did so as well, but other people's devotion to these things amazes me, my own just seems like a programming error).
Results. Um, yeah. We lost. But I challenge anyone living in a non-Schiavo like state to tell me we weren't right. Each of the things that men and women of lesser vision attacked us for turned out to be diversions from a weak argument of their own. But, we lost. And in a Jana Novatna sort way.
Instance 2. Less risky, but still somewhat outlandish in theory. Brian moved to Wisconsin. Specifically to La Crosse. He did this to so that he might help re-elect (see less outlandish) a guy who voted against the Patriot Act. This is at a time when every Democrat (well, lots of the ones I don't like) were saying that you had to be strong and tough. Apparently the way you demonstrate these values is by whining like a girl with a hop-scotch related injury. You whine about how you were tricked, how you really thought you could trust the president. Anyways Brian packs up and moves to help a nebbish Jewish guy try to win in Wisconsin. Because why not. Now I also worked for Paul Wellstone. A nebish Jewish professor...but again the insanity of others amazes, mine just feels normal.
Results
Now I guess technically Russ Feingold isn't an underdog, but how many people figured he'd basically prevent Kerry from getting his ass whooped in Wisconsin. That's right the regal senator grabbed on with both hands to little radical Russ' coatails and let the ground work of clinically insane people like Brian, and the Matts carry him to victory in Wisconsin.
Instance 3. Brian moved back to New York and is working for a white woman running for city council in.....wait for it, Harlem.
Results. We'll find out on Tuesday.
I guess when your childhood team is the winningest team in the history of sports, you can make your life's mission to work for long shots.
Good luck Brian.
His fandom is also a source of fairly frequent teasing from Mark and I -- we who dislike the machine that is (or recently was) the Yankees.
But the odd thing, as I've come to realize is that Brian in his professional life always roots for the underdog. And in some cases for the preposterous, jaw dropping, eye-rubbing underdog.
Instance 1. Brian moved out from New York to join me, JKD and Tanner in Iowa. He moved without a job (same for the others, I'd already been hired) in order to do numerous tasks of dubious personal enjoyment to help a fiesty, spine-bearing Democrat compete in Iowa...against the life time party guy, John Kerry. He willfully moved to Iowa to do this (I guess I did so as well, but other people's devotion to these things amazes me, my own just seems like a programming error).
Results. Um, yeah. We lost. But I challenge anyone living in a non-Schiavo like state to tell me we weren't right. Each of the things that men and women of lesser vision attacked us for turned out to be diversions from a weak argument of their own. But, we lost. And in a Jana Novatna sort way.
Instance 2. Less risky, but still somewhat outlandish in theory. Brian moved to Wisconsin. Specifically to La Crosse. He did this to so that he might help re-elect (see less outlandish) a guy who voted against the Patriot Act. This is at a time when every Democrat (well, lots of the ones I don't like) were saying that you had to be strong and tough. Apparently the way you demonstrate these values is by whining like a girl with a hop-scotch related injury. You whine about how you were tricked, how you really thought you could trust the president. Anyways Brian packs up and moves to help a nebbish Jewish guy try to win in Wisconsin. Because why not. Now I also worked for Paul Wellstone. A nebish Jewish professor...but again the insanity of others amazes, mine just feels normal.
Results
Now I guess technically Russ Feingold isn't an underdog, but how many people figured he'd basically prevent Kerry from getting his ass whooped in Wisconsin. That's right the regal senator grabbed on with both hands to little radical Russ' coatails and let the ground work of clinically insane people like Brian, and the Matts carry him to victory in Wisconsin.
Instance 3. Brian moved back to New York and is working for a white woman running for city council in.....wait for it, Harlem.
Results. We'll find out on Tuesday.
I guess when your childhood team is the winningest team in the history of sports, you can make your life's mission to work for long shots.
Good luck Brian.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Hey there...
So the past month has been hectic. I looked back at my calendar and for every single day over the past 4 weeks I've had something. Practice or games (14 times). Visitors. Birthday parties. Dim Sum. Trips to Phoenix. In general, I've been busy. And while I love being busy (as it keeps me social and prevents me from worrying about...well, a lot of things) I'm overloaded. I haven't gone to bed early in what feels like forever. Never one to favor the lukewarm middle ground I've gone from feeling sedentary in Seattle to wired in Washington.
Which brings me to this blog, this blog which I love and of which I have been neglectful. I realize that there are a couple of people who seem to enjoy reading it, and I've been unable to generate any content, largely because I've been alone for 10-15 minutes a day for a month. I'm going to try and return to writing more. I feel good when I write, and I've missed doing it. So for any of you, if there are any, who wish I'd written more--sorry. I'll try to do better.
Basic updates:
After journeying hither and yon yesterday I finally found cufflinks (for my new shirt) at the Dollar Store in Mount Pleasant. I walked in there, exasperated at not being able to find these incredibly simple things. I also was cursing my father, aren't cufflinks the kind of thing that a father gives to his son. Some sort of strange and pointless father son moment that is supposed to make up for a lifetime of distant parenting and mixed messages. Turns out I got the good father and no cufflinks. So I guess it's a fair trade. Anyways after searching high and low (well, a few stores anyways) I finally wander into the Dollar Store and ask for cufflinks. The woman working there informs me that "no" they do not have any, they've just sold out. Immediately another employee shouts to her something in a language I don't recognize and then says in English that they do have cufflinks. Later it is related to me that the 1st woman was certain I'd asked for Cornflakes. Apparently my English isn't nearly as good as I'd hoped, or at least my diction isn't.
After cufflinks were purchased, it was time for a return to Alex's Unisex Hair. Avid readers will remember my spicy visit earlier this summer. I liked the results from that first cut, so I ventured back. This time I was greeted by a woman who spoke absolutely no English besides the word clipper. Non-marine, white guy hair cuts are pretty rare in this place. But the price is right, it's close to home, and hell how badly can you mess up a man's haircut. After gesturing and trying to convey length, the woman asked me if I wanted clippers. Not waiting for the answer she asked Uno, Dos. I'm guessing that's shorthand for the length of cut. I gesticulated wildly making scissors out of my fingers. It was like an impromptu Roshambo had broken out and I was playing alone. Finally a guy a few chairs down translated, my motion into Spanish for scissors and out came the blades and the clippers were replaced.
Normally when I get a haircut I spend a lot of time having conversations about really mundane things, and generally sort of wishing I could just veg out. Well this was wholly appropriate situationally. She asked no questions, and I offered no small talk. She worked and watched tv, and I stared at myself in the mirror. Realizing for the first time, just how deeply creased my face is. I've developed wrinkles or at least marks that indicate age. It's not really something that troubles me, more just the strange realization that I don't know my own face as well as I thought.
Finally the hair cut was finished. The woman combed all of my hair straight back into something that resembled the look you'd see on a 80s film version of a mobster. My hair, in this process, acquired more grease and than a Rizzo appreciation festival. But the hair cut was cheap (11 bucks) and quick, and I didn't have to say anything. I parted with my best, and most sincere "gracias," which brought a smile and a patronizing (wholly deservedly) "something something something something, poquito (sp) Espagnol." I smiled. She smiled and laugh.
I guess 4 years of crappy highschool French doesn't really help so much when you live in a Hispanic neighborhood. Maybe I can pick up some Spanish along the way. I know (think, I know) poquito means small...she was being generous, I know one word, that's not a small amount that's nothing.
Which brings me to this blog, this blog which I love and of which I have been neglectful. I realize that there are a couple of people who seem to enjoy reading it, and I've been unable to generate any content, largely because I've been alone for 10-15 minutes a day for a month. I'm going to try and return to writing more. I feel good when I write, and I've missed doing it. So for any of you, if there are any, who wish I'd written more--sorry. I'll try to do better.
Basic updates:
After journeying hither and yon yesterday I finally found cufflinks (for my new shirt) at the Dollar Store in Mount Pleasant. I walked in there, exasperated at not being able to find these incredibly simple things. I also was cursing my father, aren't cufflinks the kind of thing that a father gives to his son. Some sort of strange and pointless father son moment that is supposed to make up for a lifetime of distant parenting and mixed messages. Turns out I got the good father and no cufflinks. So I guess it's a fair trade. Anyways after searching high and low (well, a few stores anyways) I finally wander into the Dollar Store and ask for cufflinks. The woman working there informs me that "no" they do not have any, they've just sold out. Immediately another employee shouts to her something in a language I don't recognize and then says in English that they do have cufflinks. Later it is related to me that the 1st woman was certain I'd asked for Cornflakes. Apparently my English isn't nearly as good as I'd hoped, or at least my diction isn't.
After cufflinks were purchased, it was time for a return to Alex's Unisex Hair. Avid readers will remember my spicy visit earlier this summer. I liked the results from that first cut, so I ventured back. This time I was greeted by a woman who spoke absolutely no English besides the word clipper. Non-marine, white guy hair cuts are pretty rare in this place. But the price is right, it's close to home, and hell how badly can you mess up a man's haircut. After gesturing and trying to convey length, the woman asked me if I wanted clippers. Not waiting for the answer she asked Uno, Dos. I'm guessing that's shorthand for the length of cut. I gesticulated wildly making scissors out of my fingers. It was like an impromptu Roshambo had broken out and I was playing alone. Finally a guy a few chairs down translated, my motion into Spanish for scissors and out came the blades and the clippers were replaced.
Normally when I get a haircut I spend a lot of time having conversations about really mundane things, and generally sort of wishing I could just veg out. Well this was wholly appropriate situationally. She asked no questions, and I offered no small talk. She worked and watched tv, and I stared at myself in the mirror. Realizing for the first time, just how deeply creased my face is. I've developed wrinkles or at least marks that indicate age. It's not really something that troubles me, more just the strange realization that I don't know my own face as well as I thought.
Finally the hair cut was finished. The woman combed all of my hair straight back into something that resembled the look you'd see on a 80s film version of a mobster. My hair, in this process, acquired more grease and than a Rizzo appreciation festival. But the hair cut was cheap (11 bucks) and quick, and I didn't have to say anything. I parted with my best, and most sincere "gracias," which brought a smile and a patronizing (wholly deservedly) "something something something something, poquito (sp) Espagnol." I smiled. She smiled and laugh.
I guess 4 years of crappy highschool French doesn't really help so much when you live in a Hispanic neighborhood. Maybe I can pick up some Spanish along the way. I know (think, I know) poquito means small...she was being generous, I know one word, that's not a small amount that's nothing.
Friday, September 02, 2005
FRT
A random 10 from my itunes (I've started bringing my laptop to work to serve as a jukebox, because my beloved ipod has fallen on hard times).
You're Missing--Bruce Springsteen
Cut your hair--Pavement
Memory Lane--Elliot Smith
All is Grace--Palace Brothers
Rival--Pearl Jam
Sidewalk--Built to Spill
That was your mother--Paul Simon
Ohio--Neil Young
Sad But True--Metallica
Angels on her shoulders--Josh Ritter
I'm listening to a bunch of new stuff (to me) lately. Lots of Shins and Decemberists. Highly recommend each. I realize I'm late to catch on to each of them, but still, great stuff.
You're Missing--Bruce Springsteen
Cut your hair--Pavement
Memory Lane--Elliot Smith
All is Grace--Palace Brothers
Rival--Pearl Jam
Sidewalk--Built to Spill
That was your mother--Paul Simon
Ohio--Neil Young
Sad But True--Metallica
Angels on her shoulders--Josh Ritter
I'm listening to a bunch of new stuff (to me) lately. Lots of Shins and Decemberists. Highly recommend each. I realize I'm late to catch on to each of them, but still, great stuff.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
"Yeah, Sports!"
Like my life, this blog, I fear (know? expect?) has been taken over by ultimate. It’s a slow, creeping process where by I relinquish any pretense that the silly game which I love is some temporary external activity. It’s ceased to simply be something I do, a choice among choices, it has a far more definitional feel about it. Ultimate represents some sort of boundary within which my personality and personal drama are acted out. The community of people with whom I share this passion or I guess, affliction, continues to grow in size and prominence. Like any similar change, the movement into a new community comes with gains and losses. I’ve made new friends in DC. The community has come to mean meeting people with whom I shout silly things, scrape knees (I’ve come home bleeding 5 out of the last 8 nights), commemorate victories pyrrhic and epic, and generally recount the great fortune, that is, sharing this passion. And in general I love it. There are days when it can be absolutely taxing, just emotionally wrengching. And somedays, I do wish I could better explain it. I’d love to be able to give voice to the deep need in my life that ultimate fulfills. But we all have our goals, some want to buy the world a Coke, and that’s hard too.
The emotionally wrenching part is hardest to explain. Some days I expend so much energy on the sidelines and on the field that I’m almost in tears in the quiet moments that follow the incredible physical and I’m almost embarrassed to admit, spiritual high of shared competition. Tonight I’m residing in one of those moments. There is a classic sporting expression, an exhortation to further sacrifice: “leave it all on the field.” I’ve always been partial to this expression and the sentiment it represents. My own personal mantra has been something similar, “it only hurts when you lose.” For me the notion of losing is a fairly amorphous one, there is losing in the absolute fashion (scoring fewer points) but there is also the loss that comes from feeling like something less that your best was offered in support of your teammates. The gnawing, clawing painful realization that people, friends who count upon you (even in a silly game) received less than your last full measure (not in the Lincoln sense—I’m not that crazy) of effort. And so I play ultimate with a willful disregard of its toll on my body. I layout eagerly, knowing full well it will destroy my shoulder, bruise my chest (and occasionally ego) and often tweak my knee. And while it’s not true, in any real sense, I believe that it only hurts when you lose (the will to compete or to give of yourself, that is)
And so, in general, I try my best to leave everything on the field. When I was younger and liked team sports less, the goal was to impress my parents, or prove to older bullies that I was more than just the smart kid in class. I guess that was the first and, for a long time, dominant reason that sports mattered to me. I was constantly trying to prove to kids who hated me that I was worthy of their admiration or at least tolerance. The one sentence, never uttered, for which I played was: "Wow, Aaron, you’re smart and you can really play ______" (insert sport X). In service of this goal (acceptance) I adopted a sporting persona dramatically different from my everyday life. In normal life I was, when younger, different from my peers and woefully uncool (by their measures). I cared about things that never mattered to my classmates. I was a progressive child in a conservative suburb. Even more so, I was tender. When teased, I cried. When upset I cried. When frustrated, which was pretty much all the time, I felt alone and unloved by my peers. None of these things are remarkable, nor do I assume them to be, they just are necessary explanations in order to better understand the transformative role that sports played in my younger life—and may help to explain why ultimate is such an emotionally relevant part of my current life.
As a kid, if I was tripped or bullied or just embarrassed I felt helpless. No where in the rules of the playground could I find a loophole that permitted safe harbor for the geeky, hyperactive kid who cared more about national politics than pop music. But sports allowed me an outlet. It was a place where I could reinvent myself. Instead of being the kid who got hit and cried, I became the kid who sought physical contact and never ever cried. If I was hit (as happened) in the knee with a pitch while catching I immediately tried to stand up. In this case, my knee failed to support my weight and I came crashing back to the ground. But I kept trying to stand and protested loudly and angrily at being taken out of the game. A failure to complete an inning was akin to admitting personal failure, personal limitations and sports was, and maybe still is, about killing that part of me. About bringing to the fore an Aaron who can destroy by force of will the part of me that worries about my peers and fears their condemnation. I should further explain that I was never the strongest (pretty clear), fastest (see previous parenthesis) or more capable. But I was among the most intense players. My sports of choice growing up were baseball and basketball. I was never officially allowed to play football, though our backyard variety further reinforced the theme. We had a standing rule in the football games of my younger days where you could perform an onsides kick. This basically involved throwing the kickoff as high as you could and while the ball was descending from its great and loping arc you would gather around the poor sap who decided to catch the football and then as absolutely deck him. You would try to gather as much momentum, and turn it into as much pure force as possible only to release it on a supposed friend at his most vulnerable moment.
I was always the receiver of the kickoffs. I always wanted the ball. I wanted to know that, on a sports field, I could take whatever hit was delivered and that I would not fumble and would not fail.
In my other “official” sports the story was much the same. I pitched and caught in little league. Loving above all other moments, the collision at the plate. It was the chance for the skinny kid with the strange inability to shut up or be normal to take the best shot from the larger, well-loved boys. And with the armor of my position and my persona fully intact, I felt invincible. In school I could be bullied, harassed, taunted, mocked and sometimes made to cry. Behind the plate I was tougher than you, harder than you, and never ever dropped the ball. In 9-10 collisions at the plate in my little league days, I never dropped the ball. I was hit so hard and so flagrantly fouled in one game that the offending player was ejected, but I never dropped the ball—doing so was showing weakness, and that was the role of Real Aaron. Sports Aaron fit in, oh sure he’d reference NPR instead of WBZZ, and he’d talk about the righteousness of Lloyd Bentsen and the folly of Dan Quayle instead of ….oh I don’t know, nearly anything else, but overall he played a role, he was of value.
In retrospect, my elementary and middle school peers were some pretty desperate people. It was a desperation borne of recognition. They knew that there had to be winners and losers. They recognized far earlier than I did that childhood social interactions are built around who is winning and who is losing. Who knows the grossest thing, who knows the most about this taboo of taboos we call sex (Answer everyone else but Aaron. I was, and maybe still am, remarkably clueless). If the answer was you, you were winning. If you could pick on someone else you were winning. As a child I thought of social interactions as something more than a zero sum game. I was not interested in defining my role in opposition to yours. Never occurred to me. I thought we could all be winners. It sounds naïve and probably was. It’s only now, I mean literally right now as I write this that I realized just perfectly sports fit into my childhood. Sports were a place where keeping the tally of who was winning and who was losing was fair. It was based on performance, on effort, on ability. It had nothing to do with whether you were cool. For a few months in the summer people like me would be valued, would contribute and would undermine the veracity of the stereotype which I so ably wore during the school year.
So what, if anything, does this have to do with my life today. I think ultimate plays a similar role to sports from my youth. I have an insatiable need to prove that I’m worth something. This gnawing insecurity that maybe I’m no good. Either objectively or in relative terms. I’m not sure where this insecurity comes from. But I know that something about ultimate helps me cope. Something about testing myself and finding my actions worthy of occasional admiration makes me feel like a tolerable human being. Ultimate is a chance to prove to myself and to people about whom I care a great deal that I’m worth caring for. That any affection they may have for me is not misplaced because I’ll give whatever I have to be worthy of it. This probably sounds a bit absurd, and over the top, and may be just that. But there is a part of me that feels it might be true.
And so I play ultimate with a reckless abandon. In the end, for me, it is about offering up to the good of the team all your physical gifts and making yourself completely emotionally present throughout the games and practices. I show up to games having spent the morning pacing around my apartment because I cannot calm down. I want to play so badly. I pace on the sidelines because I cannot sit still. I just want to be helping my teammates so badly. Even these people, whom I’ve known for a matter of months, I love. It’s a weird love, not the full lasting deep kind. Not the real kind. So maybe love is the wrong word, but it’s a devotion that’s similar to that. It’s a feeling of kinship, or maybe fellowship. But it’s emotionally draining. To spend a weekend with people you adore, yelling, screaming, diving, straining, bleeding and fighting is taxing. And after the joy of shared competition is over and after the cars are packed and the players returned to their normal Sunday routine (icing, trying to explain to significant others why they are hurt, again) we’re all back to being real, normal people. It’s like the end of the summer as a child. The end of every tournament is the end of the magical space in which I can redefine my ability and personality. I have to talk in sentences that makes sense. I won’t be able to say “Yeah, BRDM” or “Yeah, Paul*,” “Yeah, tapping the keg” (ad nauseum) and have it make sense. I lose that world at the end of every tournament. After “leaving it all on the field” I have almost nothing left. I’m emotionally spent, I’m just wiped out.
And while I know it’ll be back to this world again soon, and that unlike in my youth, my real life is pretty fucking stellar, it’s still sad. It’s an emotional remnant of a time when sports allowed me to feel worthy, and know that I could be valuable. I guess we all need that, and so maybe that’s how I should explain ultimate. It’s my community, it’s my place where I want desperately to be found worthy, and where I want to be a part of something where winning and losing aren’t just a zero sum game. This weekend, we lost every game, and as I came back to my apartment yesterday and my roommate’s friend asked me as I struggled to walk and bled all over my socks, "Was it worth it?" To which I replied “There’s no where I’d rather have been, and nothing I’d rather have been doing.”
*I realize this is a pretty unfunny post, and may read terribly in the morning. But right now it says a lot of things that I need to say, so it’s going to get posted. But, also one really funny movement from the weekend. So while playing ultimate it is very common for people to shout, “Yeah, BRDM.” Basically the syntax is as follows, Yeah followed by any noun, many of the verbs or any concept. You can cheer for just about anything you can imagine. Case in point, a teammate of mine throws a very errant pass to another teammate. The disc is coming down slowly and several people are gathered under it. I’m on the sideline and say hopefully, it’s alright he’s going to catch it. The disc is predictably swatted away by one of three defenders. I take a beat and turn to Shamik, who heard my previous assurance that “he” was going to catch it and say, “I never said who ‘he’ was.” To which Shamik replies, “Yeah, caveat.”
The emotionally wrenching part is hardest to explain. Some days I expend so much energy on the sidelines and on the field that I’m almost in tears in the quiet moments that follow the incredible physical and I’m almost embarrassed to admit, spiritual high of shared competition. Tonight I’m residing in one of those moments. There is a classic sporting expression, an exhortation to further sacrifice: “leave it all on the field.” I’ve always been partial to this expression and the sentiment it represents. My own personal mantra has been something similar, “it only hurts when you lose.” For me the notion of losing is a fairly amorphous one, there is losing in the absolute fashion (scoring fewer points) but there is also the loss that comes from feeling like something less that your best was offered in support of your teammates. The gnawing, clawing painful realization that people, friends who count upon you (even in a silly game) received less than your last full measure (not in the Lincoln sense—I’m not that crazy) of effort. And so I play ultimate with a willful disregard of its toll on my body. I layout eagerly, knowing full well it will destroy my shoulder, bruise my chest (and occasionally ego) and often tweak my knee. And while it’s not true, in any real sense, I believe that it only hurts when you lose (the will to compete or to give of yourself, that is)
And so, in general, I try my best to leave everything on the field. When I was younger and liked team sports less, the goal was to impress my parents, or prove to older bullies that I was more than just the smart kid in class. I guess that was the first and, for a long time, dominant reason that sports mattered to me. I was constantly trying to prove to kids who hated me that I was worthy of their admiration or at least tolerance. The one sentence, never uttered, for which I played was: "Wow, Aaron, you’re smart and you can really play ______" (insert sport X). In service of this goal (acceptance) I adopted a sporting persona dramatically different from my everyday life. In normal life I was, when younger, different from my peers and woefully uncool (by their measures). I cared about things that never mattered to my classmates. I was a progressive child in a conservative suburb. Even more so, I was tender. When teased, I cried. When upset I cried. When frustrated, which was pretty much all the time, I felt alone and unloved by my peers. None of these things are remarkable, nor do I assume them to be, they just are necessary explanations in order to better understand the transformative role that sports played in my younger life—and may help to explain why ultimate is such an emotionally relevant part of my current life.
As a kid, if I was tripped or bullied or just embarrassed I felt helpless. No where in the rules of the playground could I find a loophole that permitted safe harbor for the geeky, hyperactive kid who cared more about national politics than pop music. But sports allowed me an outlet. It was a place where I could reinvent myself. Instead of being the kid who got hit and cried, I became the kid who sought physical contact and never ever cried. If I was hit (as happened) in the knee with a pitch while catching I immediately tried to stand up. In this case, my knee failed to support my weight and I came crashing back to the ground. But I kept trying to stand and protested loudly and angrily at being taken out of the game. A failure to complete an inning was akin to admitting personal failure, personal limitations and sports was, and maybe still is, about killing that part of me. About bringing to the fore an Aaron who can destroy by force of will the part of me that worries about my peers and fears their condemnation. I should further explain that I was never the strongest (pretty clear), fastest (see previous parenthesis) or more capable. But I was among the most intense players. My sports of choice growing up were baseball and basketball. I was never officially allowed to play football, though our backyard variety further reinforced the theme. We had a standing rule in the football games of my younger days where you could perform an onsides kick. This basically involved throwing the kickoff as high as you could and while the ball was descending from its great and loping arc you would gather around the poor sap who decided to catch the football and then as absolutely deck him. You would try to gather as much momentum, and turn it into as much pure force as possible only to release it on a supposed friend at his most vulnerable moment.
I was always the receiver of the kickoffs. I always wanted the ball. I wanted to know that, on a sports field, I could take whatever hit was delivered and that I would not fumble and would not fail.
In my other “official” sports the story was much the same. I pitched and caught in little league. Loving above all other moments, the collision at the plate. It was the chance for the skinny kid with the strange inability to shut up or be normal to take the best shot from the larger, well-loved boys. And with the armor of my position and my persona fully intact, I felt invincible. In school I could be bullied, harassed, taunted, mocked and sometimes made to cry. Behind the plate I was tougher than you, harder than you, and never ever dropped the ball. In 9-10 collisions at the plate in my little league days, I never dropped the ball. I was hit so hard and so flagrantly fouled in one game that the offending player was ejected, but I never dropped the ball—doing so was showing weakness, and that was the role of Real Aaron. Sports Aaron fit in, oh sure he’d reference NPR instead of WBZZ, and he’d talk about the righteousness of Lloyd Bentsen and the folly of Dan Quayle instead of ….oh I don’t know, nearly anything else, but overall he played a role, he was of value.
In retrospect, my elementary and middle school peers were some pretty desperate people. It was a desperation borne of recognition. They knew that there had to be winners and losers. They recognized far earlier than I did that childhood social interactions are built around who is winning and who is losing. Who knows the grossest thing, who knows the most about this taboo of taboos we call sex (Answer everyone else but Aaron. I was, and maybe still am, remarkably clueless). If the answer was you, you were winning. If you could pick on someone else you were winning. As a child I thought of social interactions as something more than a zero sum game. I was not interested in defining my role in opposition to yours. Never occurred to me. I thought we could all be winners. It sounds naïve and probably was. It’s only now, I mean literally right now as I write this that I realized just perfectly sports fit into my childhood. Sports were a place where keeping the tally of who was winning and who was losing was fair. It was based on performance, on effort, on ability. It had nothing to do with whether you were cool. For a few months in the summer people like me would be valued, would contribute and would undermine the veracity of the stereotype which I so ably wore during the school year.
So what, if anything, does this have to do with my life today. I think ultimate plays a similar role to sports from my youth. I have an insatiable need to prove that I’m worth something. This gnawing insecurity that maybe I’m no good. Either objectively or in relative terms. I’m not sure where this insecurity comes from. But I know that something about ultimate helps me cope. Something about testing myself and finding my actions worthy of occasional admiration makes me feel like a tolerable human being. Ultimate is a chance to prove to myself and to people about whom I care a great deal that I’m worth caring for. That any affection they may have for me is not misplaced because I’ll give whatever I have to be worthy of it. This probably sounds a bit absurd, and over the top, and may be just that. But there is a part of me that feels it might be true.
And so I play ultimate with a reckless abandon. In the end, for me, it is about offering up to the good of the team all your physical gifts and making yourself completely emotionally present throughout the games and practices. I show up to games having spent the morning pacing around my apartment because I cannot calm down. I want to play so badly. I pace on the sidelines because I cannot sit still. I just want to be helping my teammates so badly. Even these people, whom I’ve known for a matter of months, I love. It’s a weird love, not the full lasting deep kind. Not the real kind. So maybe love is the wrong word, but it’s a devotion that’s similar to that. It’s a feeling of kinship, or maybe fellowship. But it’s emotionally draining. To spend a weekend with people you adore, yelling, screaming, diving, straining, bleeding and fighting is taxing. And after the joy of shared competition is over and after the cars are packed and the players returned to their normal Sunday routine (icing, trying to explain to significant others why they are hurt, again) we’re all back to being real, normal people. It’s like the end of the summer as a child. The end of every tournament is the end of the magical space in which I can redefine my ability and personality. I have to talk in sentences that makes sense. I won’t be able to say “Yeah, BRDM” or “Yeah, Paul*,” “Yeah, tapping the keg” (ad nauseum) and have it make sense. I lose that world at the end of every tournament. After “leaving it all on the field” I have almost nothing left. I’m emotionally spent, I’m just wiped out.
And while I know it’ll be back to this world again soon, and that unlike in my youth, my real life is pretty fucking stellar, it’s still sad. It’s an emotional remnant of a time when sports allowed me to feel worthy, and know that I could be valuable. I guess we all need that, and so maybe that’s how I should explain ultimate. It’s my community, it’s my place where I want desperately to be found worthy, and where I want to be a part of something where winning and losing aren’t just a zero sum game. This weekend, we lost every game, and as I came back to my apartment yesterday and my roommate’s friend asked me as I struggled to walk and bled all over my socks, "Was it worth it?" To which I replied “There’s no where I’d rather have been, and nothing I’d rather have been doing.”
*I realize this is a pretty unfunny post, and may read terribly in the morning. But right now it says a lot of things that I need to say, so it’s going to get posted. But, also one really funny movement from the weekend. So while playing ultimate it is very common for people to shout, “Yeah, BRDM.” Basically the syntax is as follows, Yeah followed by any noun, many of the verbs or any concept. You can cheer for just about anything you can imagine. Case in point, a teammate of mine throws a very errant pass to another teammate. The disc is coming down slowly and several people are gathered under it. I’m on the sideline and say hopefully, it’s alright he’s going to catch it. The disc is predictably swatted away by one of three defenders. I take a beat and turn to Shamik, who heard my previous assurance that “he” was going to catch it and say, “I never said who ‘he’ was.” To which Shamik replies, “Yeah, caveat.”
Sunday, August 21, 2005
What's in a Number, What's in a Name
DC Nasty, the team I joined upon moving to DC, has undergone a transformation. After several years with the same name and a rotating lineup, we chose to change our name (and hopefully keep our lineup). It's been a period of changes for the team. For one thing many of our key players are completely new. My teammates Ed, Shamik, Paul, Lily and Megan are all new to the team. Though I think I may be the newest of that group. That’s some serious turnover and I think those additions will help (though I cannot speak to the players whom we replaced). All the same an old name failed to capture the soul of this new entity.
So we did what all good democratic entities do: we voted. Everyone on the team was encouraged (frankly I hounded people) to submit names to the group. In the end we accumulated 41 names. Many stunk, some of your author’s choices, in retrospect, were a bit off. Though I will continue to believe that St. Eugene could be a great name (St. Eugene is the patron saint of dysfunctional families, a pretty apt description for most ultimate teams). After voting (a 3 choice weighted vote administered by yours truly) we whittled the list to three choices: Wiki, U-Dog and Polly and Illuminati. Wiki as in the –pedia, and it’s Hawaiian for fast and informal, U-dog is a reference to the 60s cartoon, and Illuminati just sounded cool to enough folks.
Following a tournament we gathered together to consume some grilled meats and down a few beers in the hopes of uniting this motley crew of folks into a team. Never underestimate the value of shared meals, stories and humiliation as team building exercises. We managed to achieve each of these goals, and we also decided on the team’s name.
Drumroll.......
Big Red Death Machine.
Yeah, turns out like most democracies, decisions are made by those who show up. After talking about the various choices upon which we had voted, we decided that they all sucked so we went with Big Red Death Machine. I think it’s sufficiently ridiculous and despite sharing it's ackronym with that of boredom (BRDM) it's a good name and moreover I really enjoying playing with this group of people and feel more included now that we’re ALL calling ourselves this new thing. It’s nice, when I first moved here I was trying to choose between two seemingly disparate ways of playing ultimate: regionally competitive men’s ultimate and midlevel regional co-ed. I still wonder from time to time where my skill set places me, meaning if there were some sort of ultimate draft at what level would I be playing. Would I be able to play nationally competitive, regionally or mid-regionally? But that’s only one part of the equation the other part involves enjoying every minute of practice, and sharing in the creation of a team. That's the part of this sport that I love even more than playing, being a part of something larger than myself. It's a little like a campaign, you take a bunch of crazy fuckers bind them together under a common flag and then ask them to do things that are beyond sound judgement and their own perception of self-limitation. Oh and there's usually a fair number of attractive members of the opposite sex just to keep the lizard brain happy.
And as it turns out, I’ve really loved playing with BRDM. We’re a team that’s starting to figure out what it’s like to be a team. We are cheering one another, we’re going out for dinner and drinks. Teammates tease, taunt, and support each other. It’s a good situation. This is the first time I’ve been involved with naming a team, and it’s the first team for which I’ll have a jersey with numbers and the whole shebang.
Which forced me to select a number.
As a child I never had a favorite number. It seemed like numbers were symbols devoid of much communicative power, and so I never really picked one as my own. Oh, and even more importantly playing baseball most of our shirts were assigned by height. So the smallest child wore #1, while the largest was usually assigned #19. As a lanky kid who didn’t like tight shirts, I think I tended to get 11. That seemed the right size for me. But I never really cared about the number I wore. So when I got to pick my number here it was strange how easily I chose my number: 25. I first thought about selecting 25 when Jen and I were still dating, and it was the date of our anniversary, but the strongest attachment to the number comes from, sadly, Paul’s death. He died 10.25, and for some reason the number 25 has seemed a pretty powerful symbol since then. So I’m number 25 on this team…a childhood of Michael Jordan worship, and I pick 25 instead of 23. I guess I can think of myself as having grown up.
After picking my number (which I should add, I’m really proud of) I went to ESPN to try and find out what famous players have worn my number. (I guess it should be the other way around, presumably KC Jones didn’t select 25 in admiration of me). The most famous players to wear 25 are Barry Bonds….Mark McGuire….Rafael Palmerio….and Jason Giambi. So astute readers, what do each of these men have in common? That’s right they’re all baseball players. Oh, and they are all fucking steroid-ed out of their minds. There’s more juice in them than a carafe of Tropicana. These are men with veins with diameter of a garden hose and forearms that require headbands not wristbands. I have inadvertently selected the universal symbol for ‘roid head. Terrific. It’s hard to imagine a person less likely to be accused of using “the juice” than me. I once described my earlier physique/fashion choices as looking like a toothpick being wrapped in Kleenex. Put another way, I have a much easier time filling out a 10-40EZ than I do any shirt. But now I’m in the company of these great cheaters -- Mighty Caseys of the “medical” enhancement revolution, and Aaron: a modern redux of the 98lb, sand-kicked, weakling. Pretty great..
But what’s in a number. A lanky player wearing any other number would layout just as sweet.
So we did what all good democratic entities do: we voted. Everyone on the team was encouraged (frankly I hounded people) to submit names to the group. In the end we accumulated 41 names. Many stunk, some of your author’s choices, in retrospect, were a bit off. Though I will continue to believe that St. Eugene could be a great name (St. Eugene is the patron saint of dysfunctional families, a pretty apt description for most ultimate teams). After voting (a 3 choice weighted vote administered by yours truly) we whittled the list to three choices: Wiki, U-Dog and Polly and Illuminati. Wiki as in the –pedia, and it’s Hawaiian for fast and informal, U-dog is a reference to the 60s cartoon, and Illuminati just sounded cool to enough folks.
Following a tournament we gathered together to consume some grilled meats and down a few beers in the hopes of uniting this motley crew of folks into a team. Never underestimate the value of shared meals, stories and humiliation as team building exercises. We managed to achieve each of these goals, and we also decided on the team’s name.
Drumroll.......
Big Red Death Machine.
Yeah, turns out like most democracies, decisions are made by those who show up. After talking about the various choices upon which we had voted, we decided that they all sucked so we went with Big Red Death Machine. I think it’s sufficiently ridiculous and despite sharing it's ackronym with that of boredom (BRDM) it's a good name and moreover I really enjoying playing with this group of people and feel more included now that we’re ALL calling ourselves this new thing. It’s nice, when I first moved here I was trying to choose between two seemingly disparate ways of playing ultimate: regionally competitive men’s ultimate and midlevel regional co-ed. I still wonder from time to time where my skill set places me, meaning if there were some sort of ultimate draft at what level would I be playing. Would I be able to play nationally competitive, regionally or mid-regionally? But that’s only one part of the equation the other part involves enjoying every minute of practice, and sharing in the creation of a team. That's the part of this sport that I love even more than playing, being a part of something larger than myself. It's a little like a campaign, you take a bunch of crazy fuckers bind them together under a common flag and then ask them to do things that are beyond sound judgement and their own perception of self-limitation. Oh and there's usually a fair number of attractive members of the opposite sex just to keep the lizard brain happy.
And as it turns out, I’ve really loved playing with BRDM. We’re a team that’s starting to figure out what it’s like to be a team. We are cheering one another, we’re going out for dinner and drinks. Teammates tease, taunt, and support each other. It’s a good situation. This is the first time I’ve been involved with naming a team, and it’s the first team for which I’ll have a jersey with numbers and the whole shebang.
Which forced me to select a number.
As a child I never had a favorite number. It seemed like numbers were symbols devoid of much communicative power, and so I never really picked one as my own. Oh, and even more importantly playing baseball most of our shirts were assigned by height. So the smallest child wore #1, while the largest was usually assigned #19. As a lanky kid who didn’t like tight shirts, I think I tended to get 11. That seemed the right size for me. But I never really cared about the number I wore. So when I got to pick my number here it was strange how easily I chose my number: 25. I first thought about selecting 25 when Jen and I were still dating, and it was the date of our anniversary, but the strongest attachment to the number comes from, sadly, Paul’s death. He died 10.25, and for some reason the number 25 has seemed a pretty powerful symbol since then. So I’m number 25 on this team…a childhood of Michael Jordan worship, and I pick 25 instead of 23. I guess I can think of myself as having grown up.
After picking my number (which I should add, I’m really proud of) I went to ESPN to try and find out what famous players have worn my number. (I guess it should be the other way around, presumably KC Jones didn’t select 25 in admiration of me). The most famous players to wear 25 are Barry Bonds….Mark McGuire….Rafael Palmerio….and Jason Giambi. So astute readers, what do each of these men have in common? That’s right they’re all baseball players. Oh, and they are all fucking steroid-ed out of their minds. There’s more juice in them than a carafe of Tropicana. These are men with veins with diameter of a garden hose and forearms that require headbands not wristbands. I have inadvertently selected the universal symbol for ‘roid head. Terrific. It’s hard to imagine a person less likely to be accused of using “the juice” than me. I once described my earlier physique/fashion choices as looking like a toothpick being wrapped in Kleenex. Put another way, I have a much easier time filling out a 10-40EZ than I do any shirt. But now I’m in the company of these great cheaters -- Mighty Caseys of the “medical” enhancement revolution, and Aaron: a modern redux of the 98lb, sand-kicked, weakling. Pretty great..
But what’s in a number. A lanky player wearing any other number would layout just as sweet.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Xenobotany
Monday Morning. I rise at 6:30. Well that’s a fib. The alarm ended my sleep at at 6:30, I arose after a few trips back into the land of dreams and consequence free action. Around 7:00 I jumped up and got ready to head to my bosses’ house. (and yes that is, I believe, the correct punctuation...the home of two of my bosses, they are married). Wandering over to Heller’s Bakery to grab a croissant and bagel (planagel really…to be eaten on the plane) I embraced the thick morning heat of my newly adopted city. It’s 7:30 am and the heat conspires with my block long walk to create intricate sweat-based Rorschach designs on my newly pressed shirt. Wonderful. I think this one under on my right pec reminds me of a dancing bird trying to eat its own wing. Fantastic…some sweat, some sweets, and some psychoanalysis. Carbohydratic nourishment in hand, I returned home and for the first time in my life (I believe) I called a cab. I do not, as a matter of course, make use of cabs. They make me nervous: 1) it’s rare that I really know where I’m going 2) Even though I love making conversation under normal circumstances, the cab conversations I’ve had have just been a bit strange or at least strained. But the walk to the residential portion of DC where my bosses live seemed more than just a bit daunting under the watchful gaze of the hateful sun. So a cab was my option. Oh, and to add to the desirability of this option was the fact that I was traveling on business and because I’m no longer working for a 2-bit operation we can afford to reimburse for travel expenses. The cab arrived at 8:00 and we were off. On the way I relayed my destination: Phoenix. “But it’s a dry heat, ” offered the cab driver wearing one of those scotish hats that seem too stereotypically perfect for a real cabbie to actually wear. “Yes”, I replied, “though so is an oven.” The surface of the sun is also fairly dry, and similarly unappealing as a summer destination (though I guess the sun is pretty much off limits year round, from the little astrophysics I know). I was informed by my cab driver that the real place to visit is New Mexico, because that’s where Don Imus lives. This struck me as patently ridiculous. Who bases their geographic preferences on a radio celebrity, let alone Don Imus. Proximity to Don Imus means nothing. He’s a radio personality. He exists in the ether. By his very definition he can exist (in manner in which this man encounters him) in numerous places at once. Don Imus could live in the right back tire of a monster truck parked at the Stuckeys on I-90 in Wall, South Dakota, and you wouldn’t know. But I chose not to mention my theories on the role of Don Imus as a tourist attraction. Instead we talked (he talked) about how “fucking environmentalists have made DC terrible with all the imported trees.” Apparently the driver was fleshing out a theory wherein everyone in DC has sinus problems solely because there are too many trees, especially Asian trees. There may, in fact, be a botanical point to be made here, but I just admitted the truth, “that I hadn’t thought of that.” Similarly I’d never thought of trying to weight train by bench pressing a canvass sac full of rabid foxes while eating deviled eggs. See there are lots of things I’ve never thought of.
Eventually we pulled up to John and Nancy’s house and I disembarked, tipping well. Odd conversation aside, we made great time and that’s what he gets paid for, so why not tip well. Plus, I gained new insight into what I’ll forever think of as xeno-botany. The people you meet.
Eventually we pulled up to John and Nancy’s house and I disembarked, tipping well. Odd conversation aside, we made great time and that’s what he gets paid for, so why not tip well. Plus, I gained new insight into what I’ll forever think of as xeno-botany. The people you meet.
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