Waa-aah!

Is it just me or are more and more people these days being bigger and bigger titty-babies?

It just seems like all these adults are whining about not getting stuff that—while they might in some sense deserve—they don’t really have much justification to expect.

And it’s not just Republicans in Congress, it’s a perfectly reasonable folks who are otherwise no more annoying than any others of us.

I don’t know what it is—so I’ll blame in on the internet and cell phones, naturally—but whatever, I continually be surprised with the sense of entitlement people have about what strikes me as relatively minor stuff.

By comparison, I myself am all stoic and self-possessed even though I have huge complaints to make—notably, of course, that I didn’t get my invitation to last night’s White House State dinner! Not that I would have gone, mind you, even though the meal was vegetarian, but it’s the principle of the thing, the principle being, waa-aah! Who’s the titty-baby now?

Being the country’s most highly-acclaimed writer of 327-word essays should, I think, count for something, but I guess not; that’s what comes from speaking truth (or at least truthiness) to power—which is just what I was doing last night as I yelled at my battery pack, hah!

You see how easy it is to fall into the habit of complaining? Not that I’m complaining about that, I’m merely pointing out what others have failed to notice—even some of those who DID eat Roasted Potato Dumplings with Tomato Chutney off of Castleton china and Lenox crystal.

I suppose I could be grateful that I wasn’t asked (or that my invite got lost in the mail, that’s more likely), because, apparently, the after-dinner entertainment included a performance by the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by none other than Broadway has-been Marvin Hamlisch.

Not that I’m complaining, but I might lost my pumpkin pie tart with caramel crème at that.

Sad and Lonely

I used to be all for living alone. In my late teens and twenties it was by far my preferred mode of habitation.

I had a sparsely furnished one-bedroom apartment in Hollywood during the early 80s where I wrote unproduced film scripts and bad poetry while standing up at the IBM selectric typewriter I kept perched on my $39.95 Aaron Brothers drafting table.

When I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico in ’84, I lived in a furnished guest house by myself for a year before moving into a small apartment whose tables and chairs I bought in one afternoon at the local food and drug superstore.

What I enjoyed best about solitary living was the way everything would always be just as I left it when I went out and came home (except on the days the cleaning lady would come, but then it was even better) and how I could eat whatever I want, whenever I wanted, usually standing over the sink.

The comedian Larry Miller used to do a bit about living alone and how strange ideas would start to seem normal, like, “Hmm…I wonder how I’d look if I shaved my entire body,” and while it never quite came to that for me, it was interesting to see which of the social norms and niceties you’d be apt to abandon when no one was around to see; the bathroom door, for instance, becomes fairly redundant, as does washing out one’s coffee cup after each use.

Good times.

But now, I’m having a little taste of the solo life with Mimi and Jen gone ahead to the Midwest since Saturday, and I’ll be damned if it isn’t all sad and lonesome at home alone. Sure, it’s nice that the only pair of shoes I ever have to pick up are my own, but I miss the pitter-patter of their owners’ feet way more.

Eating over the sink is still cool, but just not enough.

Wet

In Seattle, if you don’t ride your bike in the rain, you won’t be riding your bike very much—at least, (if things are typical) in late November and all through December, not to mention most of January through July.

Last night, I went out to hear some music—the band Head Like a Kite, who were more like a clever performance art ensemble than the funky groovemeisters I expected them to be—and I almost didn’t, given how steadily it was pissing down from just after dark all night long and well into the morning through the time I went out for my usual sunrise coffee and pastry and beyond.

The standard for wetness is achieved for me when I have to don my shoe covers: lots of time, the damp can be managed with just wool, which is pretty ideal for the misty drizzle that typifies the season in our part of the Northwest. If it’s coming down a little harder, I go to my Gore-Tex rain jacket; if it’s still worse, out come the nylon pants; finally, then it’s the overshoes, whose dorkiness is so manifest, I prefer to hold them out as a last resort.

But fashion succumbs to practicality fairly quickly when the heavens open wide, and so I set aside most qualms about bagging myself all up from head to toe before I set sail last night. Consequently, I arrived at the club reasonably dry on the inside, even though everything I was wearing on the outside was sopping.

In fact, I got wetter taking all my stuff off and stowing it than I did while I was riding, which really made me think that—as a public service—nightclubs should be forced to have coat checks. As it was, you had all these people ranging around the show in their puffy coats and ski caps—which probably put something of a damper on the dancing, too.

Damper, hah! That’s funny.

Tidy

Jen and Mimi have gone on ahead to the Midwest, where I will meet them on Thanksgiving day to partake of the feast (and a feast it will no doubt be) in Madison, with my sister Deb and her family.

So I’m home alone for a couple of evenings and it sure is quiet around here with just me and the dog. There’s also not much to do, it seems, even though I have school projects and plenty of grading to tackle if I feel so moved—which, surprise!, on Saturday night, I do not.

So, mostly, I occupy myself by wandering around the house tidying things up. What this entails primarily is restacking stacks of things, putting books and dishes away, and even, from time to time, dusting off a countertop or bookshelf—nothing that would really count as cleaning; it’s more like organizing or reshuffling; mainly, though, I think it’s probably a little bit of OCD mixed in with anal retentiveness and control-freakism, shaken gently.

I’m one of those people who keeps his desk as clean and clutter-free as possible; my standard line when others remark on this is, “Well, I’ve got a messy mind, so I like a tidy office.” And that’s essentially true, I would say; I know, for instance, that when the papers and books pile up all over my work surface, it makes me sort of nervous. I start to feel like my external environment is getting too close to what’s going on inside me.

And that’s when it’s time to toss stuff in the trash and get out the cleaning spray.

I think part of my weirdness about this has to do how freaked out I was as a kid by some of the homes of people I came collecting at for my paper route.

One guy had newspapers and magazines piled ceiling high throughout his apartment; talk about a cluttered mind; I can’t even bear to think about it.

Bike Pile

It has always made me happy to see a pile of bikes outside a joint, especially my own neighborhood version, and tonight was no exception.

I got to continue the discussion I’d been having earlier in the evening during class about the greatest good for the greatest number and the problem of how Utilitarianism seems to commit you to accepting injustice towards the few in service to the many, which is just, I fear, what happens to any of us who end up giving more than our share—whatever that is.

And then I got to admire the manner in which our next destination was set out for: like some sort of hive organisms, we buzzed around for a while and then set off, following the rider in front of us; that was fun.

And then, we got to hang out under a cherry tree whose spidery arms against the indigo and chalk sky illustrated how thoughtfully planned was the fantastical setting.

Afterwards, and just as we regrouped somewhat painfully, the tailwind seemed to cup me from behind all the way across the Cut and then up around the University to farther than I would have gone without such meteorologically-induced momentum.

And then I was reminded of how fruitless it is to fear the weather yet to come at this time of year, for on the way uphill from the water the rain was slanting from behind and I was sure I’d be paying for it on the way home.

But get this: after just one drink, I started south and already it was warm and dry again, just like the evening started off.

That was all part of the night’s lesson for me, I think: if the utilitarian principle tells us that acts are right insofar as they maximize overall happiness, it follows that usually, the right thing to do is maximize the size of bike piles and elongate (within reason) the length of bike rides.

Lottery Paradox

It was a happy event for an unhappy reason: a party at the Pike Place Brewery with a raffle to raise money to help beloved bike mechanic and all-round swell human being, Val Kleitz, pay for his cancer-treatment medical bills.

Bittersweet, you’d call it, but the good news is that, according to Val himself, he’s on the mend, feeling stronger, and perhaps best of all, back on the bike already and pedaling with renewed vigor.

All the local bike shop royalty was there: Alex from 20/20, Aaron from ABR, Bob from Elliot Bay, Kent from BikeWorks, Eric from JRA, and probably lots more who I either didn’t see or don’t know by sight; if a bomb had hit the pub last night, you wouldn’t be able to get a dropout realigned or a threaded fork cut in Seattle for who knows how long.

I drank more beer than was prudent for a Tuesday evening and got to be all bike-nerdy with other fans of Val and had some good laughs when, during the raffle, Alex W., who’s always busy with something, won like four or five different prizes out of the ten or so that were drawn for.

This is what happens, apparently, in a raffle, when you buy way more tickets than anyone else.

One of the standard puzzles in epistemology is lottery paradox, where, since you know for any ticket you hold, it’s unlikely to be the winning ticket, so it’s reasonable to believe you won’t win; however, that belief will be true of every other ticket, even though you know that one of the tickets will win. Thus, taken together, your set of beliefs is inconsistent. You’re justified in believing about each ticket “This ticket will not win,” while simultaneously believing “Some ticket will win,” in other words, which is contradictory.

Unless, of course, you’ve got a tableful of tickets spread before you; then, there’s no reason to believe you won’t totally clean up.

It's Here

Today was the first day that my bike commute home from Bothell (well, actually just to the UW-Seattle, where I’m taking a class Monday nights) was like I expect it’s going to be pretty much for the next five months: chilly, wet, and dark…and not really all that bad.

My gear got pretty soaked and the waterlogged arms of my rain jacket leaked all over my long-sleeve wool shirt, but the foul weather kept the riff-raff of the Burke-Gilman trail, which made for pleasant, if somewhat lonely riding.

Plus, the millions of shades of gray in the sky set off the muted colors of the last few remaining leaves on the trees ever so poignantly; it makes for such a delicious flavor of melancholy that it’s all I can do to not start writing poetry—a strange bit of synchronicity since I was reading something in Kierkegaard today where he talks about how the poet has to embrace pain so he will have something to wax poetic about.

Which I guess is sort of what we in the Northwest will be experiencing until next July or so rolls around: all the rain will make us that much more introspective and thoughtful—that is, until it doesn’t, probably around early December at the latest.

The main thing, I think, is not to get defeated by the endless precipitation; last night, I was contemplating a ride of less than a mile to the store to pick up a much-needed six-pack; I looked out the window and seeing sheets of rain illuminated by the streetlamp, decided against it. But then, I thought, “No! I’m not made of salt! I won’t melt!” and so hopped on the 420 bike and pedaled to the store.

And the thing is, it wasn’t so bad at all; I got a little wet, but it wasn't nearly at lousy outside as it looked. And I had that six-pack to keep me company while I dried.

Between Books

I’ve been on kind of a lucky streak with books since last spring, when I finally read Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang. I found it not only wry, amusing, and wildly entertaining, but also quite poignant from the standpoint of its perspective on environmental destruction and natural spirituality.

Soon after that, I enjoyed T.C. Boyle’s A Friend of the Earth, which has to be most delightful post-apocalyptic tale I’ve ever come across.

During the summer, I took on at least one important novel, Steinbeck’s East of Eden, as well as Faulkner’s short masterpiece, The Bear.

About a month ago, I was floored by Dave Egger’s novelistic non-fiction tome, Zeitoun, which had me weeping quietly on the bus as I read its last few pages.

Then, because I’d been reminded of it by reading The Book Thief, I re-read, over the last few weeks, nobel-prize winning Gunter Grass’ The Tin Drum, which—although it got a little long around page 500 or so—blew me away with its narrative voice and metaphorical import.

On Friday, I sat on my ass for a couple hours devoring Nick Hornby’s About a Boy, which was much more charming, complex, and nuanced than I expected it would be.

So yesterday, after having done all my Saturday chores, and made a few preparations for the upcoming school week, I looked on my bookshelf for some recreational reading, but nothing really caught my eye. I spend a little bit of time with Wittgenstein’s Poker, the historical account of the time Ludwig Wittgenstein allegedly threatened fellow Cambridge philosopher Karl Popper with a fireplace iron, but it didn’t really do it for me. I also read Logicomix, the graphic novel about the foundations of mathematics, but that only took about an hour to finish.

So now, I’m sort of stuck between books, although I did pick up at the library Hesse’s Siddhartha, which I haven’t read since I was seventeen; otherwise it’s the Times magazine.

As Advertised

The promise was that at least a couple people would be offended, and it was probably more than that, although I’ll bet fewer of those on the bike ride and more of those who worked at the joint, especially when people started hula-hooping.

The Hooter’s Casino itself is strangely wholesome; pretty much the most erotic thing going was Derrick getting down with his hot wings—(right up there on the offensive scale, too)—and since their gambling features only cards, no dice, I was happy to just drink beer and puzzle out American foreign policy with the Major and the evil librarian.

Above all, I was delighted to have caught up with the ride after last week’s failed search and frankly, surprised that I actually knew the way there, over the bridge and along the Duwamish trail to south South Park. I had almost given up when it became apparent that here in the 21st century, nobody answers their phones, they just ring back—which doesn’t really work when you’re calling from one of those drug dealer-proof pay phones in Pioneer Square that blocks you from speaking on incoming calls so that you just stand there holding the receiver helplessly while the person on the other end goes, “Hello? Hello? Anyone there?”

And it would have been particularly offensive to have missed out on the first return visit of the season to the hidden hobo fire pit—which I never could have found on my own—where Joeball fell from the trees and tore a big old rotten tooth of a post from the ground and burned the hell out of it.

Once again, lack of beer eventually impelled us from the site, just in the nick of time to keep open the kitchen at the Orient Express restaurant, where we were installed in our very own Blue Velvet-inspired private karaoke room.

The place was so perfectly creepy, I could only stay for two songs.

No offense.

Veteran's Day

Last week, there was a New York Times piece about this guy who claimed that the luckiest year to have been born among those lucky years of baby-boomer prosperity was 1957; having come into the world myself at that time, I’m not so sure. I always thought I got gypped by not being in the heart of the boomer years; all those hippies eight or ten years older than me got the Beatles and LSD; my class got the Bee-Gees and angel dust.

That said, there is one aspect of being a child—at least a boy child—in the United States sprung from the womb in the year of our lord nineteen-hundred and fifty-seven: I was the first group of 18 year-old males who didn’t have to register for the draft.

And while this made the year or so I’d spent attending Quaker meetings on Sunday mornings in hopes of being able to establish conscientious objector status all for naught, it is something I’ve always been thankful for. Not that I would have been likely to have been called up and sent overseas (that’s what student deferments were all about, right?) but still, at the very least, it gave me the freedom to drop out of college the first time after a month and hitchhike across Canada without that being a way to avoid military service.

All of which is to say how much my heart goes out to men and women in the military on this Veteran’s Day; I’m grateful for their service to our country even though, I have to admit, I’m not entirely sure what that service is supposed to be doing all of the time.

The promise of the Obama administration, I thought, was that we would get straight answers to the question, “Why are Americans being sent overseas to die?”

I sure hope that, in the spirit of today, that the President explains soon what we’re going in Afghanistan and why.

(Almost) One Hundred Percent

Joe Mallahan, the on-leave telecommunications executive committed to “driving efficiencies” in the public and private sector, conceded the Seattle mayor’s race yesterday to former Sierra club activist and dedicated bicycle commuter Mike McGinn; hooray.

Besides this being a win for fans of two-wheeled transportation everywhere and a victory for the little (bearded) guy over the forces of corporate greed and CEO business-speak, it also represents for me, an unprecedented occurrence in all my more than 30 years of voting.

Every single candidate I cast my vote for and all the ballot measures and initiatives I supported (or opposed) won (or lost) as the case may be.

Even the one I was most passionate about (usually a sure sign that I’ll end up on the losing side), the terribly wrong-headed, selfish, and misguided Proposition 1033, which would have effectively eviscerated the Washington state budget and totally devastated higher education and social services from Spokane to Bellingham went down in flames, even though as recently as a month or so ago it looked like my fellow citizens in the Evergreen state might, out of cluelessness, greed, or an inability to find it on the ballot, actually push it to victory.

And even though it turned out to be closer than I expected, Proposition 71, the “all but marriage” measure in support of what I can’t see how anyone doesn’t construe as ensuring a basic human right for gay people managed, mainly with the support of folks west of the Cascades, to prevail.

Plus, in the race for King County executive, the better candidate, Dow Constantine, clobbered the more photogenic, former TV news anchor and Sarah Palin-wannabe, Susan Hutchison in a race that surprised me with how close it wasn’t.

So, I don’t quite know what to make of all this success; I must be turning into the establishment or something.

In fact, the only race in which my candidate didn’t prevail was my write-in of Derrick (Ito) for sheriff.

Easy

Shades of gray and green, lots of yellow; that’s what caught my eye.

I liked seeing many things today, none the least a brother and sister in profile.

I had hoped to ride west to buy raffle tickets for Val’s sweepstakes, but there was little traction for the idea, especially after the fellow mechanic left. So, I got to stand around on a porch catching my breath and cooling off, but then, what a fine tour for a visitor, starting out so pleasantly with a walk across the locks and a climb over the bridge and up the path to Magnolia.

Things got interesting on the Elliot Bay trail where the first of the afternoon’s mechanicals was dispatched with efficiency and verve. We saw an eagle and a ship called the Arctic Eagle, I think.

The attitude I tried to cultivate—in keeping with the New Orleans breakfast theme—was one of being the big easy to please; I didn’t always succeed, especially when impatience overtook me, but mostly, I was perfectly happy to be perfectly happy with whatever was happening.

Except, of course, when I could have strangled that guy for being such a loudmouthed American male, but maybe I’m just jealous I’m not so young—although probably not.

I was especially impressed with how game people were for carrying on; I was all ready to stop and start on a beer before we’d even made it out of Pioneer Square, but I was glad that more ambitious heads prevailed and that somebody else had a phone to get details I would simply have despaired of.

I got to scream in a long group going through the I-90 tunnel and ride first with a headwind and then later with a tailwind across the bridge.

But probably my favorite moment was when we walked into the Mercer Island “Louisianathon” and got to crack up at the very idea of such an event with nothing but white folks

Soul Picture

The highly-influential (and probably bi-polar) 20th century philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, is quoted as saying, “The best picture of the human soul is the human body.”

I think what he probably meant—given that he also said, “philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday,” and was someone for whom words that weren’t seen to have some way, at least in principle, of empirically testing their meaning were, strictly speaking, meaningless—was that the term “soul” is best rendered in everyday speech as referring to a person’s observable physical characteristics.

And I think I mostly agree with this, except for when I look at myself and see someone staring back at me from the mirror who doesn’t really resemble the person I imagine myself to be. This though, of course, is not usually a phenomenon I experience when observing other people, for whom physical presence is indeed pretty much all I can use to make judgments of what their “souls” look like.

So then, like this morning, when I’m sitting in the coffee shop having my usual Sunday AM coffee and scone, and I cast my eyes around and see all these middle-aged Seattleites bundled up for autumn, I have to conclude that their “souls,” like mine, are all feeling a bit soggy and gray—not that this is a bad thing, but it is one that reflects the overall somber mood of these last few days, rife with reports of crazed gunmen shooting cops and soldiers, rich people getting richer, and pizza pie plates overflowing.

And then, to top it off, there’s the terrible news that beloved local bicycle mechanic hero, Val Kleitz, is battling cancer, and it’s no wonder that a person’s “soul,” (specifically mine) wants to do nothing else than crawl back into bed, pull the covers over his head, and shiver gently with flu-like symptoms he seems to be having.

Or maybe it is the weather or perhaps just another Sunday without a Steelers game.

Limits

I’m interested in the idea of what’s necessary, so limits tend to intrigue me.

327 words, for instance.

Tonight, I tried out “just one phone call allowed.” What I liked was not knowing what was going to happen. What kind of sucked was how lonely it’s been.

In philosophy class, we wondered about when it’s reasonable to hold a belief even if it isn’t, strictly speaking, rational to believe it.

My example tonight is, I guess, “I believe if I pay attention and don’t move too quickly, I will run into the bike gang.” Even though it didn’t come to pass, none of the adventures I ended up having tonight would I have had, had I not had that belief.

So, there was good reason for having it, even if I had no prior proof that it would be a good idea to have.

Although even now, I’m not sure.

What I do know is that I’ve got to pay attention early in the evening so as not to keep getting hit by cars: I forgot that 2nd Avenue was two ways and almost got creamed pedaling off only looking right.

And I was also reminded that it always pays off to stop at the bar in question and have a beer. If I hadn’t failed to do that the first time I arrived at the Hulu, the bartender might have remembered where people rode off to.

On the other hand, had I known, I wouldn’t have ridden south to Goldies under cool clear skies, nor would I have left in time to get caught in the hail and thunder storm that even managed to knock out the power in my neighborhood, Leschi, where, with lines buried underground, we never lose electricity.

Except that it seemed so right to have these blocks around here enshrouded in darkness to share in the commemoration of the great loss that occurred in my neighborhood last Saturday.

Peace. Be safe. Enough.

Leaving Lost Wages

I lost my wallet the other night with eighty bucks in it, my credit and debit cards, driver’s license, two library cards, and some school pictures of Mimi, which, in the end, I miss most. Moving around through the world these last few days without that familiar bulge in my pocket, but more to the point, without my official documents has, for some reason or other, made me feel slightly unmoored, giving rise to more than the usual amount of self-doubt and introspective recrimination, causing me to ponder as I pedal, with greater frequency than is typical, what the hell I’m doing with my life and whether any of it matters in any meaningful or even authentic way.

I keep thinking of that film (which I didn’t even really like at the time) Leaving Las Vegas, in which Nicolas Cage plays this guy who goes to Sin City to drink himself to death, and I wonder, why not? What difference would it make? Who gives a damn what I—or anyone—does? On what grounds is it any better to go to work and make a living than it is to simply throw in the towel and sink into oblivion?

Oh, I know it’s important to be a responsible father and husband and to remain a contributing tax-paying member of society and all, but as long as your don’t become an undue burden to family, friends, and fellow citizens, then who cares?

All of us exist in a complex, interwoven web of social and familial connections and no doubt have some sort of responsibility to contribute to the overall well-being of others, but at the same time, can there by anything so wrong about just wanting to disappear and have the zipper pulled closed?

If I didn’t have to do anything, I’d probably do nothing, but maybe it’s just the prospect of going to the DMV to replace that lost license that’s got me feeling this way.

Fun, I Guess

Here’s another reason I’m glad I’m not a world-famous actor or something: there I was, in the parking lot behind the Old Rainier Brewery, wearing a blonde fright wig in a Hooters girl costume, complete with 44 triple-D balloon breasts, slightly more than slightly tipsy, peeing against the wall of the building. That’s when it occurred to me that this would make a killer photo on the TMZ website, and I—or my publicist, probably—would have a lot of explaining to do.

As it was, I was able to complete my business in relative anonymity and return to the Halloween party with no one the wiser about it…until now.

So, all in all, it was a pretty fun evening of dress-up, but I am kind of glad it’s over and I can return to less elaborate costuming—as soon as I manage to remove the semi-permanent dye that Jen applied to my lips in my effort to achieve some degree of character authenticity to go along with my outfit.

I managed to achieve full-on bacchanal status quite early in the night, well before arriving at that almost tipsy stage, as I succeeded in losing my wallet for real somewhere outside the first party. In my defense, if I need one, it’s all because of having no pockets; I should have stuck the thing in my pantyhose, but that left too much of bulge.

Now I see why women wear purses, although I’m not sure I could have found one to match my white tennis shoes and orange hot pants.

And then, to top it off, there’s no getting through to the bank this morning to cancel my credit cards; no doubt the day after Halloween is among the more popular—if not the most popular—day for discovering you’ve misplaced your shit. Perhaps New Year’s day offers some competition, or the day after St. Paddy’s.

At least I’ve got an extra hour to wait on hold.

Dress Up Ride

After circling around Ballard for a while, trying unsuccessfully to raise anybody via telephone, and even attempting to manifest the ride by taking an individual safety meeting at the deserted Fremont firepit, it became obvious that the only way I was going to locate the bike gang, out on its annual Halloween dress up catastrophe, was to don my own outfit and trust that the magnetic attraction of asshats on bikes in costume would inexorably pull me towards wherever the collection of characters—including, I knew, a pocketless Fred Flintstone, at least one Santa, and the inevitable Ronald McFondle—had tumbled into.

And it worked like a charm: for no sooner did I slip into my Tonya Harding tutu, than I passed by, on the Burke, near Gasworks, a rider already calling it a night, who informed me that people had already left Flowers in the U-District and were heading towards the Wild Rose on Capitol Hill.

I figured that, at barely 10:30, it was probably way too early for that plan to take hold, so I reckoned the Met, and was rewarded in my conjecture by happening upon the bike pile outside the Crescent on Olive, guarded, sorta, by Batman, Pee-Wee Herman, and the random G.I. Joe, I guess.

Inside was, among others the Crayola Crayon, the Unicorn, and scariest of all, Mini-Me Derek, complete with five o’ clock shadow and Kozmo.com bag.

Songs were sung, beers were swilled, and eventually, the anthem was shouted, which made it all the more strange that a microphone should disappear (later, I’m told, to reappear) as we made our way back on two wheels into the night.

They loved us at Dick’s—at least I thought so—and Cal Anderson park welcomed the bedraggled pack of remainders; I pedaled off towards home after sharing a nightcap with Herr Flintstone; unlike some, I’ll bet, I didn’t wake up in costume; I know, though, that magic is found when it’s on.

Spiritus Mundi

It’s been an odd week or so at school: things seem to be proceeding just fine in the classroom, but around campus, all sorts of odd little confrontations and conflagrations keep sprouting up. For instance, I had to break up an almost-fight between a couple of students last Friday, or for another, more than one of my fellow faculty members have received sort of veiled threats from students, or at the very least have been the implied target of implied aggression, whether or not those threats or aggression really have any authentic intent behind them.

On the one hand, I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for this—it’s the start of the school year, folks are adjusting to new schedules and demands; the economy sucks and that makes people more stressed-out and brittle than usual; as faculty union president, I tend to hear more about this stuff these days even if similar things have gone on in the past—but the hippie in me wants to make sense of the situation by ascribing it to something more: the movement of the Sun in Scorpio, maybe, or perhaps some emerging zeitgeist struggling to be born—but whatever the case, it sure seems to be coming in waves, and the more it piles up, the more it piles up, those waves crashing harder and harder against the shore we cling to in what increasingly seems like a vain attempt to persevere.

I’m usually not such a downer, but it’s hard to feel otherwise when the gyre seems to keep widening and the worst remain so full of passionate intensity. Unlike Yeats, I don’t imagine any Second Coming—I’m not even convinced there was ever a first—but I do think the spirit of the world is hurting right now.

I’ve been planning on going as a Hooters girl (or perhaps ghoul) for Halloween night; maybe instead, I’ll dress up as a rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born.

Apocalypse

In stories like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or Stephen King’s The Stand, or that Will Smith movie where he’s the last man alive, or I guess maybe most paradigmatically, Mad Max, you’ve got this hardy band of survivors (even if it’s only a band of one) doing all they can to persevere and carry on the human race against all odds and in the absence of convenience stores, television news, or professional sports.

Good for them.

But if it comes down to that for me, I think I’ll join the faceless masses who didn’t make it; I’m not all that interested in doing whatever it takes to make it after the apocalypse or Armageddon or the invasion from outer space that devastates the human race.

I mean, I don’t even like it all that much when the internet goes down for a morning because of fallen phone lines; it’s not that I’m a big old sissy about roughing it—although there’s that, too—it’s more that I appreciate the benefits that accrue from being a member of a functioning society. If I’ve got to hole up in my basement with a cache of canned food and an AK-47, I think I’d just rather call it a day—and a pretty crummy one, at that.

Which is another reason I’m voting against that terrible, selfish, misguided, and inane Tim Eyeman initiative I-1033. Basically, the result, should it pass, will be to help create the conditions whereby civil society as we know it is set to crumble.

Are you the sort of person who appreciates the fire department, police force, higher education, social services, and roads you can drive on? Then you should be against it.

Are you the type of person who looks forward to living on canned goods and sleeping with your automatic weapon at your side? Then you shouldn’t be voting, anyway.

Am I overstating things? Maybe, but when you’re talking apocalypse, better safe than dead.

Wide Margins

Wendell Berry, in his essay, “Solving for Pattern,” offers a number of criteria of what he calls a “good solution.” Among these is that a good solution has wide margins.

The idea, as I understand it, is that a good solution is one in which you can fuck up royally and still succeed. He cites the example of Earl Spencer, a farmer who managed to make his farm profitable by doing more with less, the point being that when you develop solutions whose tolerances are way too tight, too much can go wrong too easily and consequently, nothing really works.

I mention this because the lesson has been for me these last two Thursday nights that the bicycle has such margins.

Last week, for instance, a person (admittedly one like no other) could take a swan dive on metal diamonds and still be up for a night out six days later. And then, tonight, another human being can roll his bike smack into the front of a speeding car and still arrive for tipsy karaoke singing less than an hour afterwards.

Compare either of these to similarly spectacular accidents on four wheels with a motor and all of us would have been attending two funerals in the past 8 days, which isn’t to say that we all shouldn’t be saying, “Fuck! Be careful!” but which is to notice that if you’re gonna be a stupid idiot, then there’s no better place to do so than on a bike.

Put the fun between your legs, definitely, but I guess it’s worth noticing that if you’re dead, it doesn’t matter where the fun is, anyway.

The other thing that’s become patently obvious is that while homing in on and catching up to the ride is kind of like a satisfying detective novel, what I really miss is arriving at the start of things, having no real idea how they’ll turn out, but being confident that wide margins will prevail.

Two Hours Alone in Your Head

My school installed wi-fi throughout the building last year and students have taken to it like Kirstie Alley after donuts; everywhere you go, you see them sitting around, emailing, checking their Facebook accounts, and playing World of Warcraft or Halo; and once in a while, even connecting to the library to download the readings I’ve assigned.

I’m pretty relaxed about this because, after all, I’ve got no real room to complain; as I sit at my computer working, I’m constantly looking to see if I’ve gotten that one important electronic mail message that is going to change my (admittedly pretty good) life for the better, or occasionally logging into the bike gang’s forum for updates on inanity and injuries, or reading the New York Times online between opportunities to keep up on blogs written by friends, family, and strangers who I know only by their online words.

Still, what I don’t get is why a solid handful of students--and I notice this much more when I visit other teachers’ classes, although I know it goes on just as much in mine—have to slyly and not-so-slyly check up on the interwebz during the mere one hour and fifty minutes (minus a break!) they’re sitting in class. This is addiction, pure and simple.

Unlike my life, by contrast, which really might feature an email from the Secretary-General of the U.N. requiring immediate attention, or, even more critical, a text update from my kid to bring home some magic markers from work, what possibly could be so urgent in the life of a 19 year-old that he or she would have to stay on top of it 24/7?

I keep thinking that, look, you’ve got another fifty or sixty years to be connected online; you’ve only got 110 minutes to bask uninterrupted in the ideas of Descartes, Plato, and Bertrand Russell, so set close up the screen, okay? And try thinking with your mind!

Yours truly,
Andy Rooney

Rising in the Dark

Shades of seventh grade, when—in the cold and dark of the Pittsburgh winter—I would rise, as the plastic tab that made the numbers in my pre-digital era alarm clock, flipped over from 4:29 to 4:30 AM, and drag myself through the pre-dawn streets, canvas bag stuffed with Pittsburgh Post-Gazettes over my left shoulder and flopping against my right hip, like some sort of underground miner, my entire work day (mine a mere hour and a half as opposed to more than eight, though) taking place in the pitch black, until I could finally make it back home and fall back into bed, still before the sun rose, and then get up for real when at last the day had faded into gray, and run as fast as my pre-teen legs could carry me, to slide into my seat in homeroom just as Mrs. Hyman began calling roll.

Well, only “shades” of that, but still, I’m not digging these mornings at all; they’re the one where I do have to get up when it’s still dark and am compelled to pretty much complete my entire yoga practice before the sun peeks its head above Lake Washington to the east.

It’s no way to live, really; people weren’t meant to wake up when it’s still dark—except maybe on weekend mornings to go skiing or take a bike ride.

We’ll get a little reprieve next weekend, I guess, when the Bush-era extended Daylight Saving Time ends, and also, in as a bonus, another much-needed hour for carousing on Halloween night.

I’m looking forward to that, even though it means that the long lines of cars on the 520 highway waiting backed up to cross the floating bridge that I pass by on my bike ride out to school won’t be quite so long, (thanks to daylight); that means I won’t get to feel quite so smug; however, I will, at least be more awake to enjoy it.

Viable Viaduct

Mimi had a birthday party to go to yesterday; I’d finished all the grading I was going to do for the day; Jen set her projects aside and so the two of us went downtown in the afternoon for a late lunch that turned, instead, into early happy hour.

We landed for a time at Lowell’s in the Market, a place I always forget about when I’m looking for somewhere to have a beer mid-day, which is a shame, because it’s quiet, reasonably dark, and really has a great view, not only of the eye-burningly hot Asian girl bartender, but also, more to the point, of the Sound, and even more to the point of this piece, of the Alaskan Way Viaduct below.

That point being: as I stood gazing out the west-facing windows of the restaurant, enjoying the way the sun played off the water between downtown and Alki, and I could see the way drivers couldn’t help but slow slightly and turn their heads to the right to take in the view, it came to me in one of those (what my friend Richard Leider always calls) blinding glimpse of the obvious…

Save the Viaduct!

Don’t tear it down; don’t dig underneath it; don’t replace it with a boulevard.

Save the Viaduct!

We already have what we all want: a reasonably fast auto route along the western edge of the city, with unobstructed access to West Seattle.

And it has a view!

Moreover, it’s just inconvenient enough to have the desired traffic-calming effects and, while it doesn’t get everyone out of their cars, it envisions a time when traffic was no worse than in 1962; a worthier enough goal to aim for.

All it needs are a few improvements:

There’s got to be a bike lane, of course.

And ideally, more pedestrian access from beneath to the waterfront.

Some kind of planting would be nice.

And it shouldn’t fall down; we can certainly afford that.

Sobered Up

In the list I’m compiling, “Everything I Need to Know I Learned in point83”, number .27 is “If you want to see a bunch of drunken assholes turn into paramedics, take a face plant.”

I’ve witnessed it happening twice now in person and have read evidence in other instances, my point being it’s a reliable principle, and no longer needs to be tested empirically, okay?

The predominant experience for me this evening was how fine it was to see faces, familiar faces in familiar places, faces I like to look at, faces to be seen.

At first…

Everyone was on their worst behavior:

I showed up at the ride just as it was getting kicked out of a bar more or less on purpose. We split up all over the place on the way to the Knarr, even though both Derrick and white Scott (welcome home!) were wearing dresses.

One of the notions I recall bandying about was the valuable function of just getting drunk sometimes; to do so has got to be an element in the human condition; I’ve seen it lots of times and shared a case for it with Ben; we are allowed that.

The sobering thought for me is how much more important are the connections among us than the differences between us.

I guarantee that all the shit any of us were fighting over, either in our heads or with one another or both, is set aside when you see somebody wreck on their bike, or even, as in my case, come upon the crash to be right there witnessing that transformation I mentioned above.

We all know what really matters—even though we require misfortune to notice—is simply being there when we really need each other.

We had to call for an ambulance; I like living in a city in a state where that happens; it’s all going to be okay, but only because we’re in it together.

No on I-1033.

Meat Anxiety

I’ve been a vegetarian (I think it’s weird when people say “practicing vegetarian, as if it’s something you try to get better at through repetition) for about 20 years.

Occasionally, during that time, I’ve had a bite (or more) of meat; I don’t think of myself as a fanatic or anything; it doesn’t bother me if other people consume animals; (I even happily grill a steak for the kid); and while I do believe that there’s an ethical dimension to our consumption practices, I can’t really see on what grounds it can be very wrong to eat a cow or pig that has been raised humanely and slaughtered as painlessly as possible (factory farming practices are another matter altogether); in short, my vegetarianism is more a matter of personal taste—I never really craved flesh all that much, seeing hot dogs and hamburgers, for instance, mainly as condiment carriers, a function that Gardenburgers and soy franks do just as well—than it is a moral decision, and I’m sure that if I lived in a place or a way that required me to get my protein from dead animals, I’d have no problem with it whatsoever.

So it’s weird to me that I occasionally have these dreams where I find myself eating meat, wondering why I’m doing so, and then sort of accepting it only to awake—sometimes literally, sometimes in the dream—feeling kinda sick and kinda sick of myself.

Like last night, I was at some table outdoors and there I was chomping down on like five or six breakfast links; I could taste the chewy pork and the little fat globules that give the sausage its consistency. And I remember thinking, “Why am I doing this? Shouldn’t I be eating soysage or something?”

Then, I was pouring off like eight ounces of grease into a Pyrex measuring cup; it was golden brown and smoking; right then is when I remembered I don’t eat meat.