I knew it was going to be a long day. How did I know that? Well, as I have mentioned a few times my employer is in the process of going through a merger. They’ve hired a woman with a CFP® and an MBA to help them integrate the two firms—I’ll call her Marie. She works out of both offices (Massachusetts and New Jersey). I enjoy working with her, but the weeks that she is in Boston are always busy, full weeks for me. This week this was doubly true because some of the integration projects have moved beyond planning and into implementation*.
As is often the case, when I find I have 5 things to do in a day I’m probably lucky to accomplish 2 or 3. At the beginning of the week Marie and I had 15 things we needed to get done together. As the week progressed I started to feel nervous about there still being 6 or 7 things left on the list. Yesterday at about 5 we made a list of stuff that still needed to get done (not just because it’s easier for us to do it when we’re in the same office but because it needed to get done, but because if we didn’t get them done other things would be delayed.) In addition to these 5 things that we needed to do, she had 5 meetings today and I had 3. One of these meetings was a kick-off meeting for a project I was supposed to lead—which is its own special kind of Hell. That’s how I knew today was going to be a long day.
I prepared for my long day. Last night I went to Harvard Bookstore to replenish my supply of mystery books. When I got home I picked out clothes to wear—a shirt with a collar and smart skirt and heeled sandals. Some days it’s important to dress comfortably and some days it’s important to dress well. People do take you more seriously when you’re dressed well, but more importantly you take yourself more seriously when you are well dressed (my colleagues in New Jersey would not be able to see how I was dressed over the telephone, but that didn’t matter).
I got up early and took an earlier train into Boston. I was both tired and wide-awake at the same time, with my stomach tied in knots. This is not a pleasant combination, but as I walked from Back Bay Station I reminded myself that while this was going to be a long day I am very, very good at managing to get multiple things done while feeling stressed out (as my coworkers and B school colleagues could attest, I do some of my best work while well dressed and jumpy) so while it wouldn’t be fun to be me today I’d still get through it all. This is not a small point.
Unfortunately for me, my Super Power is working very well in a pressure cooker. I didn’t have time to obsess over how I was going to deal with the kick-off meeting for my first inter-office project. I had to overnight the hard drive with our data on it to the outsourced IT partner, discuss the 7 things I and Marie needed to get done, call a vendor and have a difficult conversation, and papermail signed contracts to another vendor. The meeting went badly (as I knew it would—I was presenting something that I expected to be unpopular) but hey—on to the next meeting (with some of the same people—equally unfruitful).
The final meeting that Marie and I had today was with our new phone service provider. I work in a jargon heavy industry. We write IPSs (Investment Policy Statements) for our clients. We do RMDs/MRDs (Required Minimum Distributions ) from IRAs. We have a DMS (Document Management System) a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and a PMS (Portfolio Management System) and I work in the IT department so I have a copy of 201 CMR 17 (Massachusetts data privacy law) tacked to my cubicle wall and talk to my vendors about our DNS (Domain Name Server) and our VPN (Virtual Private Network) so when I say that telecom providers are the most acronym-happy people I’ve ever dealt with, I think that statement has some weight. Worse, they pronounce their acronyms. POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) is “pots” and FOC “Firm Order Commitment” is fock. This confuses things even more—I don’t tell my IT vendor that our “dennis” (DNS) is messed up and we don’t advise our clients to set up “Iras.”
So, after a long day of meetings, when Marie and I joined our last meeting of the day and the telecom happy people kept talking about the FOC date (fock date) what were we to do but giggle into our hands? It didn’t help that their participants on the conference call kept dropping the call and having to come back in (aren’t these guys the Telephone Company? Why did we hire them, exactly?)
I left work feeling like most of my brain had been replaced with tofu, but that I’d still had a productive day. FSM help me, I’ve got to have another such day tomorrow.
*I’m being vague about this because I’m feeling paranoid about what I can and can’t say about work on the inter-webs.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
This is 2011 not 1911-a rant
And I live in Beverly--not Horseshoe Bend ID or St. Petersburg in Russia. So why is the train service so unreliable?
Today I got on the 5:40 commuter whale train to Newburyport and the train left North Station, traveled about half a mile and then sat for 20 minutes. At first they told us that the previous train had left late, and so we were being held so that we wouldn't have to ride right behind it. This narrative is suspect, since the previous train didn't stop at the first 3 stops--it runs express to Salem. My seatmate was a lady who felt like talking a bit. We discussed the situation and I said "Well at least they're not backing the train into North Station, making us all get off and get on another train." (This happened to me this winter, but I'll say more on that subject later.)A few minutes later, the train started backing up. A male voice said "This is not a good sign." My seatmate and I laughed, because well, it wasn't a good sign.
Now they told us that there were electrical problems and we'd have to take an alternate route but "there is no problem with this train." Eventually we started moving again. We made it all the way to Charlestown before the train stopped again. We were stopped on a bridge. The surrounding area was industrial stuff and swamp. We were stopped for long enough that I wondered if they were going to make us get out (and how? Where would we debark?) The next announcement claimed that because of the weather (lightning storms) there were electrical problems and that was why we weren't moving but "We are doing paperwork so that'll get us moving soon." Both my seatmate and I were mystified as to how "paperwork" was likely to improve the situation. Finally we more or less started moving.
But this is not an isolated incident. This winter, when I got to the commuter rail station I felt like I might as well be living in Horseshoe Bend in 1911 as far as the train situation went "Yes there will be a train. Sometime today." When I got to North Station one evening all the trains on the board were listed as "Delayed." Yes, there was a lot of snow, but this is Massachusetts, where "a lot of snow during the winter months" is an expected condition. Shouldn't the people who run the T and the Mass Bay Commuter Rail expect this and plan accordingly*?
On one of the evenings when all the trains were delayed, I fell in with another comrade from Beverly. We both noted that some of the trains (our in particular) had changed from "Delayed" to "information coming soon." That's nice. Our train's not just delayed-it's Wicked Fucking Delayed. The announcer kept assuring us that they were bringing "new equipment" out on the track. To me "equipment" is, power drills, tape measures, screw drivers, anti-static wrist bands, hack-saws, slide rulers, calculators, paint brushes--tools that you can hold in your hand to do...whatever you plan to do--not trains. (Which is what they meant.) My buddy and I laughed about the "new equipment."
But seriously. I live in the US. We were once proud of our railroads. They were once one of the things that Made This Country Great. Now, I live on a rail line that has a bridge that was built in the 1800s and so gets stuck open (because it hasn't occurred to anyone these past 200 years to modernize it?) The last time I took the train to New York I booked Acela tickets both ways, by my train broke down on the way home in New Haven, so they put all of us on the Peasant Train that was across the tracks (the Peasant Train stops every 50 feet between New York and Boston and they are still using the same cars that they were using when I was in high school) so I rode from New Haven to Boston sitting in the aisle next to the toilets. I didn't write and complain because, well, it wasn't Amtrak's fault--strictly speaking.
My parents went to Italy last year. Meaning no disrespect to my Italian friends, my impression of Italy (while I was living in France last decade) was that it was not the most efficiently run state("oh you sent it by post to Italy? Well maybe it will get there, eventually.") However, my parents (who don't speak Italian) were able to buy tickets--with seat assignments--on a train that came on time and delivered them to where they wanted to go (Ravenna.) They were very impressed by the efficiency of the Italian railroad.
I was pleased to hear that they were impressed and that Italy had an efficiently run railroad. At the rate things are progressing in the US, I expect that somebody I talk with soon will be impressed by the Iraqui** railroad, as compared to ours.
It makes me angry that our rail infrastructure is such a bad state--not just because I use it to commute to my job or go to New York to visit my relatives--but on General Fucking Principle!
It is true that the railways did not start in the US---the first railroad was in the UK--but as I've said above, our railways were one of our achievements as a country. I don't know the history of how they were removed from private hands and made a public service, but it is shameful the state they are it as compared to other countries. When I lived in Paris I could get to London in less time and with less headaches than it takes me to get from Boston to New York. When I came back to the US and heard about the Acela trains they were planning to start using I was thrilled to death. But, the trains could not go TGV speed because the tracks were in a bad state.
I am not a politician, but I really don't understand what the payout is in *not* investing more in our railroad infrastructure. I have heard politicians moan about how Amtrak is not turning a profit, but isn't the point of making something a public service removing the profit motive? The Beverly Police Force is not earning a profit. I'm not suggesting that we defund them.
I work in Boston, so (even when I lived in Cambridge) showing up an hour late and saying "The T" is perfectly acceptable. But I feel that by not bothering to be reliable the T--whether it's the Red Line, the 39 Bus or the Commuter Rail is showing contempt for it's riders. "The T--where the Hell are you going in such a big hurry?"
*This really seems obvious to me--I did not need my business school professors to explain planning for expected conditions to me. I work in financial services. I know that quarter ends (and even more so year ends) and tax time are busy times. I plan my work around these times---I don't suggest that we roll out new software in December or in April. Whenever possible I do preventative maintenance before crisis times. I'm not a genius and this is not a new idea.
**Yes, Iraq--that country we invaded a decade or so ago where people still don't always get electricity or clean water
Today I got on the 5:40 commuter whale train to Newburyport and the train left North Station, traveled about half a mile and then sat for 20 minutes. At first they told us that the previous train had left late, and so we were being held so that we wouldn't have to ride right behind it. This narrative is suspect, since the previous train didn't stop at the first 3 stops--it runs express to Salem. My seatmate was a lady who felt like talking a bit. We discussed the situation and I said "Well at least they're not backing the train into North Station, making us all get off and get on another train." (This happened to me this winter, but I'll say more on that subject later.)A few minutes later, the train started backing up. A male voice said "This is not a good sign." My seatmate and I laughed, because well, it wasn't a good sign.
Now they told us that there were electrical problems and we'd have to take an alternate route but "there is no problem with this train." Eventually we started moving again. We made it all the way to Charlestown before the train stopped again. We were stopped on a bridge. The surrounding area was industrial stuff and swamp. We were stopped for long enough that I wondered if they were going to make us get out (and how? Where would we debark?) The next announcement claimed that because of the weather (lightning storms) there were electrical problems and that was why we weren't moving but "We are doing paperwork so that'll get us moving soon." Both my seatmate and I were mystified as to how "paperwork" was likely to improve the situation. Finally we more or less started moving.
But this is not an isolated incident. This winter, when I got to the commuter rail station I felt like I might as well be living in Horseshoe Bend in 1911 as far as the train situation went "Yes there will be a train. Sometime today." When I got to North Station one evening all the trains on the board were listed as "Delayed." Yes, there was a lot of snow, but this is Massachusetts, where "a lot of snow during the winter months" is an expected condition. Shouldn't the people who run the T and the Mass Bay Commuter Rail expect this and plan accordingly*?
On one of the evenings when all the trains were delayed, I fell in with another comrade from Beverly. We both noted that some of the trains (our in particular) had changed from "Delayed" to "information coming soon." That's nice. Our train's not just delayed-it's Wicked Fucking Delayed. The announcer kept assuring us that they were bringing "new equipment" out on the track. To me "equipment" is, power drills, tape measures, screw drivers, anti-static wrist bands, hack-saws, slide rulers, calculators, paint brushes--tools that you can hold in your hand to do...whatever you plan to do--not trains. (Which is what they meant.) My buddy and I laughed about the "new equipment."
But seriously. I live in the US. We were once proud of our railroads. They were once one of the things that Made This Country Great. Now, I live on a rail line that has a bridge that was built in the 1800s and so gets stuck open (because it hasn't occurred to anyone these past 200 years to modernize it?) The last time I took the train to New York I booked Acela tickets both ways, by my train broke down on the way home in New Haven, so they put all of us on the Peasant Train that was across the tracks (the Peasant Train stops every 50 feet between New York and Boston and they are still using the same cars that they were using when I was in high school) so I rode from New Haven to Boston sitting in the aisle next to the toilets. I didn't write and complain because, well, it wasn't Amtrak's fault--strictly speaking.
My parents went to Italy last year. Meaning no disrespect to my Italian friends, my impression of Italy (while I was living in France last decade) was that it was not the most efficiently run state("oh you sent it by post to Italy? Well maybe it will get there, eventually.") However, my parents (who don't speak Italian) were able to buy tickets--with seat assignments--on a train that came on time and delivered them to where they wanted to go (Ravenna.) They were very impressed by the efficiency of the Italian railroad.
I was pleased to hear that they were impressed and that Italy had an efficiently run railroad. At the rate things are progressing in the US, I expect that somebody I talk with soon will be impressed by the Iraqui** railroad, as compared to ours.
It makes me angry that our rail infrastructure is such a bad state--not just because I use it to commute to my job or go to New York to visit my relatives--but on General Fucking Principle!
It is true that the railways did not start in the US---the first railroad was in the UK--but as I've said above, our railways were one of our achievements as a country. I don't know the history of how they were removed from private hands and made a public service, but it is shameful the state they are it as compared to other countries. When I lived in Paris I could get to London in less time and with less headaches than it takes me to get from Boston to New York. When I came back to the US and heard about the Acela trains they were planning to start using I was thrilled to death. But, the trains could not go TGV speed because the tracks were in a bad state.
I am not a politician, but I really don't understand what the payout is in *not* investing more in our railroad infrastructure. I have heard politicians moan about how Amtrak is not turning a profit, but isn't the point of making something a public service removing the profit motive? The Beverly Police Force is not earning a profit. I'm not suggesting that we defund them.
I work in Boston, so (even when I lived in Cambridge) showing up an hour late and saying "The T" is perfectly acceptable. But I feel that by not bothering to be reliable the T--whether it's the Red Line, the 39 Bus or the Commuter Rail is showing contempt for it's riders. "The T--where the Hell are you going in such a big hurry?"
*This really seems obvious to me--I did not need my business school professors to explain planning for expected conditions to me. I work in financial services. I know that quarter ends (and even more so year ends) and tax time are busy times. I plan my work around these times---I don't suggest that we roll out new software in December or in April. Whenever possible I do preventative maintenance before crisis times. I'm not a genius and this is not a new idea.
**Yes, Iraq--that country we invaded a decade or so ago where people still don't always get electricity or clean water
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Navel Gazing Again
Yesterday my boss assigned me a project and told me that I needed to "stay focused" on it. While I often roll my eyes at unsolicited advice (particularly from management) this suggestion highlighted something I've been thinking of for a while.
I work hard (which is why suggestions on how to do my job irritate me) but I don't always "work smart." As far as focusing goes, I'm very good at concentrating intensely on whatever is in front of me--whether it's a client that can't log into our vault to see his/her statements, cleaning the mildew off of my shower curtain, reading my book on the T or editing a paper for school. What I'm not so good at is dealing with anything with a due date later than next Thursday.
Much like my tendency to panic, while I'm sure most of this is innate, it has probably been exacerbated by working in a small business environment since college. Small businesses are lucky if they can manage strategic planning instead of just moving from crisis to crisis. And while it's nice to know that even if I'm freaking out I can perform well, in order to succeed as a human it would be helpful to have some long term planning skills.
My own inability to think beyond next Thursday is also, I suspect, partly due to my fear of failure. On the whole, my inability to deal with long term projects has been a problem. When I would think of applying to grad schools or learning to drive any time in the past 12 years, the project always seemed too big or too complicated. So for a long time I couldn't manage anything more complicated that "do the laundry" or "upgrade the server and support the result." These are both necessary things, but as a grown up, I should be able to do more than react, play "what could possibly go wrong?" and think beyond nest week. While I will always be best in the here and now, I've come up with ways of dealing with larger endeavors.
No one was more surprised than I was when I actually got into an MBA program--not because I'm stupid, but because it was the culmination of a long process that was entirely self-motivated. No mentor, manager or teacher was checking in with me--I had to make myself jump through all of the hoops. I had friends who helped me (and very helpful they were!) but I had to make myself go. I succeeded by 1) frightening myself into believing I needed to get a graduate degree and 2) dividing the project into smaller bits (parts that didn't involve thinking beyond next Thursday.) First there was the GMAT project, then there was the recommendations project, then there was the essays project (this last involved three friends sitting on me while I wrote them in Gulu Gulu and one of the three editing what I'd written.)
Now, a year and a half later I have the Driver's Licence/Car project. There is a car sitting in my parents' drive way. It is my sister's former car. It's her former car because after having her third kid she needed to upgrade to a minivan (or start making her husband ride in the trunk.) The longer the car sits in my parents' driveway, the more likely it is to become a Car Shaped Object, as opposed to a Car. Since moving out of Cambridge, I've been meaning to get my license, but it's always seemed like too much hassle to learn to drive (and oh, by the way I have a project due for work/school next week.) So this Summer the only classes I'm taking are driving classes. Is learning to drive still a big scary project? Yeah, kinda. Do I have a plan for it? Yes I do and it's not anything that I need to think farther than next Thursday to execute.
I work hard (which is why suggestions on how to do my job irritate me) but I don't always "work smart." As far as focusing goes, I'm very good at concentrating intensely on whatever is in front of me--whether it's a client that can't log into our vault to see his/her statements, cleaning the mildew off of my shower curtain, reading my book on the T or editing a paper for school. What I'm not so good at is dealing with anything with a due date later than next Thursday.
Much like my tendency to panic, while I'm sure most of this is innate, it has probably been exacerbated by working in a small business environment since college. Small businesses are lucky if they can manage strategic planning instead of just moving from crisis to crisis. And while it's nice to know that even if I'm freaking out I can perform well, in order to succeed as a human it would be helpful to have some long term planning skills.
My own inability to think beyond next Thursday is also, I suspect, partly due to my fear of failure. On the whole, my inability to deal with long term projects has been a problem. When I would think of applying to grad schools or learning to drive any time in the past 12 years, the project always seemed too big or too complicated. So for a long time I couldn't manage anything more complicated that "do the laundry" or "upgrade the server and support the result." These are both necessary things, but as a grown up, I should be able to do more than react, play "what could possibly go wrong?" and think beyond nest week. While I will always be best in the here and now, I've come up with ways of dealing with larger endeavors.
No one was more surprised than I was when I actually got into an MBA program--not because I'm stupid, but because it was the culmination of a long process that was entirely self-motivated. No mentor, manager or teacher was checking in with me--I had to make myself jump through all of the hoops. I had friends who helped me (and very helpful they were!) but I had to make myself go. I succeeded by 1) frightening myself into believing I needed to get a graduate degree and 2) dividing the project into smaller bits (parts that didn't involve thinking beyond next Thursday.) First there was the GMAT project, then there was the recommendations project, then there was the essays project (this last involved three friends sitting on me while I wrote them in Gulu Gulu and one of the three editing what I'd written.)
Now, a year and a half later I have the Driver's Licence/Car project. There is a car sitting in my parents' drive way. It is my sister's former car. It's her former car because after having her third kid she needed to upgrade to a minivan (or start making her husband ride in the trunk.) The longer the car sits in my parents' driveway, the more likely it is to become a Car Shaped Object, as opposed to a Car. Since moving out of Cambridge, I've been meaning to get my license, but it's always seemed like too much hassle to learn to drive (and oh, by the way I have a project due for work/school next week.) So this Summer the only classes I'm taking are driving classes. Is learning to drive still a big scary project? Yeah, kinda. Do I have a plan for it? Yes I do and it's not anything that I need to think farther than next Thursday to execute.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Les Miz
It is rare for me to encounter a novel that works out better as a Broadway musical than it does as a novel. I'm the sort of difficult individual who will *not* see the movie made out of the book until I have read the book first. This is because I hold the book as a superior interpretation of whatever the author had to express. When one sees the movie made from the book one sees the director's (and script-writer's) interpretation of the author's work--so it's a few degrees of separation from the original. I admit this is a bit pig-headed of me and it has made people mad at me but really--if the book was that good shouldn't I just read it--instead of seeing the movie first?
This doesn't mean I won't see the movie, or the play or the musical--it just means I want to read the book first. With Les Misérables, I really had no opportunity to read the book before I encountered the musical. It opened on Broadway in the 80s--when I was way too young to be reading books that were 2.5 inches thick. My voice teacher in junior high had taught me to sing "Castle on a Cloud*" even before my parents bought the soundtrack (I preferred my voice teacher's suggested cadence to the Broadway version.) I was studying French in middle school, so I was intrigued by the idea of a French musical, and all of New York was crazy about Les Miz. But I didn't see the show until I'd at least taken a stab at reading the book (in English). I failed to work my way through the book at my first attempt at age 14. Of course, at that time I had not yet learned to love big, thick novels and 19th century novels in particular.
I saw the musical some time when I was in high school. We got student tickets and ended up in the second row. I loved every minute of it.
As I've mentioned above, I love 19th century literature and thick novels. I love Dickens and Tolstoy and I also love a lot of what Victor Hugo wrote (I read a bunch of of it--starting with "Notre Dame de Paris" aka "The Hunchback of Notre Dame") while living in Paris, but I found "Les Misérables" to be impenetrable. It was the only book I left in Paris. I see that there's a story to be told-but M. Hugo fails to make it interesting--which is why it's the only novel I've read that actually makes a better musical than a novel.
Part of the reason that the book is so hard to read, in my opinion is because the author intentionally leaves Les Miz-the miserable ones--characterless-so it's hard to sympathize with them. Furthermore, this is a miserabilist novel--designed to show the unhappiness of others. That makes it less-than-fun-to read.
I got into an argument about the book with the former proprietor of Ave Victor Hugo books in Boston (lots of used French books.) The proprietor was into 19th century authors and when I said that I liked Victor Hugo but *not* "Les Misérables" he just got a superior look on his face and said that I just wasn't ready to understand the book yet. It's been 10 years since we had this conversation, and I think I can safely say he was full of shit. I like the concepts that Victor Hugo wanted to present to the world-but he didn't do a good job of presenting them. He did such a bad job, that we must be grateful to the Broadway stage for doing a better job of presenting his ideas than he did himself.
*I also made her teach me "I Dreamed a Dream." She didn't want to--"No sweetie-you are too young for that one"--but when I sang it for her she admitted I had a point--it worked out because I was so young.
This doesn't mean I won't see the movie, or the play or the musical--it just means I want to read the book first. With Les Misérables, I really had no opportunity to read the book before I encountered the musical. It opened on Broadway in the 80s--when I was way too young to be reading books that were 2.5 inches thick. My voice teacher in junior high had taught me to sing "Castle on a Cloud*" even before my parents bought the soundtrack (I preferred my voice teacher's suggested cadence to the Broadway version.) I was studying French in middle school, so I was intrigued by the idea of a French musical, and all of New York was crazy about Les Miz. But I didn't see the show until I'd at least taken a stab at reading the book (in English). I failed to work my way through the book at my first attempt at age 14. Of course, at that time I had not yet learned to love big, thick novels and 19th century novels in particular.
I saw the musical some time when I was in high school. We got student tickets and ended up in the second row. I loved every minute of it.
As I've mentioned above, I love 19th century literature and thick novels. I love Dickens and Tolstoy and I also love a lot of what Victor Hugo wrote (I read a bunch of of it--starting with "Notre Dame de Paris" aka "The Hunchback of Notre Dame") while living in Paris, but I found "Les Misérables" to be impenetrable. It was the only book I left in Paris. I see that there's a story to be told-but M. Hugo fails to make it interesting--which is why it's the only novel I've read that actually makes a better musical than a novel.
Part of the reason that the book is so hard to read, in my opinion is because the author intentionally leaves Les Miz-the miserable ones--characterless-so it's hard to sympathize with them. Furthermore, this is a miserabilist novel--designed to show the unhappiness of others. That makes it less-than-fun-to read.
I got into an argument about the book with the former proprietor of Ave Victor Hugo books in Boston (lots of used French books.) The proprietor was into 19th century authors and when I said that I liked Victor Hugo but *not* "Les Misérables" he just got a superior look on his face and said that I just wasn't ready to understand the book yet. It's been 10 years since we had this conversation, and I think I can safely say he was full of shit. I like the concepts that Victor Hugo wanted to present to the world-but he didn't do a good job of presenting them. He did such a bad job, that we must be grateful to the Broadway stage for doing a better job of presenting his ideas than he did himself.
*I also made her teach me "I Dreamed a Dream." She didn't want to--"No sweetie-you are too young for that one"--but when I sang it for her she admitted I had a point--it worked out because I was so young.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Bonk by Mary Roach
It’s been a while since I reviewed a book so, dear readers, I would like to recommend to you _Bonk_, by Mary Roach. This book is subtitled “The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.” I thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Roach’s first book; _Stiff_; which was an exploration of what happens to cadavers in America. Her second book _Spook_ (which was about evidence-or lack there of-of life after death) was rather “meh.” However, since second books often suck, when I found _Bonk_ in the remainder section of the Harvard Bookstore I thought it might be worth purchasing. I have to say that was definitely $6.99 well spent.
Ms. Roach is a journalist. Her non-fiction books read as if each chapter was an article she had to write. She has chosen for her books the sort of subjects that inspire, um, morbid curiosity. Somehow she manages to admit this and be snarky about it while still being respectful to (in the case of _Bonk_) the human subjects who volunteer to do sex research and the scientists who do such research and (in the case of _Stiff_) the cadavers she views. Because _Bonk_ is a look into the history of scientific studies of sex I feel that if I just say it was a fun read you, dear reader, will just roll your eyes and say “duh.”
Well, yes, duh, books about science and sex can be fun, but the reason I feel the need to write this one up and share my impression with the world is because this morning the chapter I was reading on the commuter whale made me laugh out loud. I feel a bit bad for the guy who got on at Salem and had to sit next to me (in an older car—the ones with the smaller, blue seats that aren’t really big enough for two people) while I laughed as quietly as I could between Salem and about Chelsea. Unlike most commuter whale-riders he was unequipped with an ipod, a kindle, an ipad, a laptop or even a book. All he had was a folder with some notes in it and he got to sit next to me, reading and shaking with tears coming out of my eyes. Poor man.
The chapter that made me laugh so much was about suction devices designed to help with sexual dysfunction. Apparently, not only are there suction devices to help men get their thing up, but there is also one suction device designed for women (it sucks blood into the clitoris.) The chapter in question was about this suction device for women however the Eros* wasn’t what made me almost fall out of my chair. What made me laugh was the case of a man who had died while beating off with his vacuum cleaner. I’m not sure whether it was that he had suffered “burns on the area in contact with the beater bar” (Bonk, page 208) or the fact that his wife had previously caught him masturbating with the vacuum cleaner, or that when he was found dead he had “one arm encircling the canister in the manner of a lover’s embrace.” (Also Bonk, 208)
Why did these things make me laugh instead of making me squirm? Well let’s start with this one “Dear Future Soul Mate-whoever you may be-I realize that “You can’t love another without loving yourself (Shakespeare) or to put it another way, even in a committed relationship it’s okay for a human to spend “quality time” with himself, however if I catch you putting the moves on my vacuum cleaner we are going to have a serious talk.”
I admit I found the cherry-picked history of scientifically studied sex interesting (with a big eye-roll for Freud) but what really amused me was that there was a man who thought it was good fun to put his dick in contact with the beater bar of the vacuum cleaner-even after his wife caught him at it. Now maybe she suggested that this was not wise and he ignored her. He died of a heart attack while being sucked-off by the vacuum cleaner. And I found this so funny that not only did I laugh out loud on public transportation, but I also stayed up late to write about it on the inter-webs.
*The device that sucks blood into the clitoris. Available for $400 by NuGyn
Ms. Roach is a journalist. Her non-fiction books read as if each chapter was an article she had to write. She has chosen for her books the sort of subjects that inspire, um, morbid curiosity. Somehow she manages to admit this and be snarky about it while still being respectful to (in the case of _Bonk_) the human subjects who volunteer to do sex research and the scientists who do such research and (in the case of _Stiff_) the cadavers she views. Because _Bonk_ is a look into the history of scientific studies of sex I feel that if I just say it was a fun read you, dear reader, will just roll your eyes and say “duh.”
Well, yes, duh, books about science and sex can be fun, but the reason I feel the need to write this one up and share my impression with the world is because this morning the chapter I was reading on the commuter whale made me laugh out loud. I feel a bit bad for the guy who got on at Salem and had to sit next to me (in an older car—the ones with the smaller, blue seats that aren’t really big enough for two people) while I laughed as quietly as I could between Salem and about Chelsea. Unlike most commuter whale-riders he was unequipped with an ipod, a kindle, an ipad, a laptop or even a book. All he had was a folder with some notes in it and he got to sit next to me, reading and shaking with tears coming out of my eyes. Poor man.
The chapter that made me laugh so much was about suction devices designed to help with sexual dysfunction. Apparently, not only are there suction devices to help men get their thing up, but there is also one suction device designed for women (it sucks blood into the clitoris.) The chapter in question was about this suction device for women however the Eros* wasn’t what made me almost fall out of my chair. What made me laugh was the case of a man who had died while beating off with his vacuum cleaner. I’m not sure whether it was that he had suffered “burns on the area in contact with the beater bar” (Bonk, page 208) or the fact that his wife had previously caught him masturbating with the vacuum cleaner, or that when he was found dead he had “one arm encircling the canister in the manner of a lover’s embrace.” (Also Bonk, 208)
Why did these things make me laugh instead of making me squirm? Well let’s start with this one “Dear Future Soul Mate-whoever you may be-I realize that “You can’t love another without loving yourself (Shakespeare) or to put it another way, even in a committed relationship it’s okay for a human to spend “quality time” with himself, however if I catch you putting the moves on my vacuum cleaner we are going to have a serious talk.”
I admit I found the cherry-picked history of scientifically studied sex interesting (with a big eye-roll for Freud) but what really amused me was that there was a man who thought it was good fun to put his dick in contact with the beater bar of the vacuum cleaner-even after his wife caught him at it. Now maybe she suggested that this was not wise and he ignored her. He died of a heart attack while being sucked-off by the vacuum cleaner. And I found this so funny that not only did I laugh out loud on public transportation, but I also stayed up late to write about it on the inter-webs.
*The device that sucks blood into the clitoris. Available for $400 by NuGyn
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
"Le Corps d'un Ennemi Mort Sent Toujors Bon*"
I've been out of the world attending a company retreat for the two days. Yesterday, as the conversation at the breakfast table was flagging, I pulled out my phone to "read the paper" (i.e. look at Boston.com and Nytimes.com's apps.) "Osama bin Laden has been killed by US forces?" I said aloud. "Oh yeah. Didn't you know that?"asked the guy next to me.
I found the whole thing not only shocking but odd. The lead story was about Osama bin Laden's death. The next story on nytimes.com was his obituary. Huh? Do we normally print obits for people we hunt down and kill?
Before I continue musing and navel-gazing let me say this--Osama bin Laden got what was coming to him. He claimed responsibility for terrorist acts against the United States. Either he was involved with the acts with the acts (the bombing of the USS Cole and the 9.11 attack on the World Trade Center, for example) and took responsibility for them, knowing that this would make him a legitimate military target or he was not involved and took credit which still makes him a legitimate target. In the latter case he was a fool. In the former case he knew what he was getting into.
Also, he blew a giant hole in my hometown and in doing so, changed the world--and not for the better. He opened a door, and through it strode fear and jingoism. We haven't recovered from the effects of 9.11.01 and I don't feel like the death of Osama bin Laden makes things any better. I don't mean to be whiny about this, but as we're all sick of hearing "September 11th changed everything." We've changed the way we think and the way we behave. We don't like taking our shoes off or being X-rayed (or patted-down) to fly, but we put up with it. We don't like discovering that that there is warrentles wire-tapping, but we put up with it. I personally don't like the idea that someone may be tracking my Google searches, my phone calls, my personal e-mail, my text messages or my facebook account, but I put up with it.**
The death of Osama bin Laden doesn't change any of that.
I am a little put off by the rejoicing at his death, I must admit. Although I've been out of the world, I've had brief moments to look at facebook. I've seen ambivalence, jokes in bad taste (which are still funny--if we cannot laugh about something we are no longer human) and blood-thirsty GO TEAM USA comments. The last comments bother me a bit. I would have preferred that they brought Osama bin Laden to trial, but I recognize that this was not a likely outcome. It could have been politically embarrassing in many ways. But, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out, even if one hoped that bin Laden would be captured and tried, if he put up resistance was killed in the process, no one can argue that he was simply assassinated. And, as I mentioned above, even if he was simply "taken out" he was kind of asking for it, so it shouldn't have come as a shock to him. This is not a case of some 18 year old kid pulled off the streets of LA because he had family in Afghanistan and took it into his head to go home in the Spring of 2002 and got hauled off to Gitmo for it. As I said before, he got what what was coming to him.
I am not sad for him. I am not even particularly sad for his family--they must have known what he was doing and what the consequences might be. I am sad for us--the rest of the world who wonder if our e-mail is being examined, or are harassed at the airport because we're carrying breast milk in a container, or have our bags checked at Back Bay T station, by TSA employees. I am sad that people--including our president--are pointing the death of one bad man out as one of the greatest American accomplishments--personally I'd prefer the telephone or even the atomic bomb--any medieval lord/lady given enough time can track down an enemy and kill him/her. But it takes more than that to develop a computer, a telephone, the Internet etc. These are the kind of things that make me want to shout"Go USA!" not the finding and killing of an enemy.
In Assassins, by Stephen Sondheim, the narrator says about John Wilkes Booth "Damn you Johnny you paved the way for other madmen to have their day.."That's kind of how I feel about bin Laden. He was a bad man--he was an asshole. He got what was coming to him, but the rest of us are still dealing with the after-effects of his actions.
*The dead body of an enemy always smells good. A Dumas, La Reine Margot
**There's no reason why anyone might be tracking any of these things. I'm a thoroughly boring individual as far as National Security is concerned--I don't even belong to a book group, but I feel that if anyone wanted to put me or anyone else under surveillance it would be easy to do so now.
I found the whole thing not only shocking but odd. The lead story was about Osama bin Laden's death. The next story on nytimes.com was his obituary. Huh? Do we normally print obits for people we hunt down and kill?
Before I continue musing and navel-gazing let me say this--Osama bin Laden got what was coming to him. He claimed responsibility for terrorist acts against the United States. Either he was involved with the acts with the acts (the bombing of the USS Cole and the 9.11 attack on the World Trade Center, for example) and took responsibility for them, knowing that this would make him a legitimate military target or he was not involved and took credit which still makes him a legitimate target. In the latter case he was a fool. In the former case he knew what he was getting into.
Also, he blew a giant hole in my hometown and in doing so, changed the world--and not for the better. He opened a door, and through it strode fear and jingoism. We haven't recovered from the effects of 9.11.01 and I don't feel like the death of Osama bin Laden makes things any better. I don't mean to be whiny about this, but as we're all sick of hearing "September 11th changed everything." We've changed the way we think and the way we behave. We don't like taking our shoes off or being X-rayed (or patted-down) to fly, but we put up with it. We don't like discovering that that there is warrentles wire-tapping, but we put up with it. I personally don't like the idea that someone may be tracking my Google searches, my phone calls, my personal e-mail, my text messages or my facebook account, but I put up with it.**
The death of Osama bin Laden doesn't change any of that.
I am a little put off by the rejoicing at his death, I must admit. Although I've been out of the world, I've had brief moments to look at facebook. I've seen ambivalence, jokes in bad taste (which are still funny--if we cannot laugh about something we are no longer human) and blood-thirsty GO TEAM USA comments. The last comments bother me a bit. I would have preferred that they brought Osama bin Laden to trial, but I recognize that this was not a likely outcome. It could have been politically embarrassing in many ways. But, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out, even if one hoped that bin Laden would be captured and tried, if he put up resistance was killed in the process, no one can argue that he was simply assassinated. And, as I mentioned above, even if he was simply "taken out" he was kind of asking for it, so it shouldn't have come as a shock to him. This is not a case of some 18 year old kid pulled off the streets of LA because he had family in Afghanistan and took it into his head to go home in the Spring of 2002 and got hauled off to Gitmo for it. As I said before, he got what what was coming to him.
I am not sad for him. I am not even particularly sad for his family--they must have known what he was doing and what the consequences might be. I am sad for us--the rest of the world who wonder if our e-mail is being examined, or are harassed at the airport because we're carrying breast milk in a container, or have our bags checked at Back Bay T station, by TSA employees. I am sad that people--including our president--are pointing the death of one bad man out as one of the greatest American accomplishments--personally I'd prefer the telephone or even the atomic bomb--any medieval lord/lady given enough time can track down an enemy and kill him/her. But it takes more than that to develop a computer, a telephone, the Internet etc. These are the kind of things that make me want to shout"Go USA!" not the finding and killing of an enemy.
In Assassins, by Stephen Sondheim, the narrator says about John Wilkes Booth "Damn you Johnny you paved the way for other madmen to have their day.."That's kind of how I feel about bin Laden. He was a bad man--he was an asshole. He got what was coming to him, but the rest of us are still dealing with the after-effects of his actions.
*The dead body of an enemy always smells good. A Dumas, La Reine Margot
**There's no reason why anyone might be tracking any of these things. I'm a thoroughly boring individual as far as National Security is concerned--I don't even belong to a book group, but I feel that if anyone wanted to put me or anyone else under surveillance it would be easy to do so now.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
How To Never Get Laid Again
Like many concepts of human behavior, the Never Get Laid Again (NGLA) area is a spectrum. This does not include mental illness or other innate conditions (sleep apnea, IBS, speech impediments, etc.) because those conditions 1) are not your fault 2) don't necessarily result in never getting laid again(I've never heard of IBS being a turn-on but I've definitely met people who found mental illness hot ). The NGLA spectrum encompasses things that people choose to do which make it difficult for other people to find them...lovable or fuckable.
On one side you have behaviors that might cut down on your chances of getting laid--owning a hairless cat, listening to annoying music, being a Republican in Massachusetts, being a Democrat in Arkansas, saying "that's what she said" all the time--whether it's relevant or not or having too many Homestar Runner T-shirts (not that I would know anything about that.) These things may cut down on your chances of getting laid, but they won't obliterate them.
On the other end of the spectrum we have behaviors that give you a small but non-zero chance of ever getting laid again such as having an extra throat pouch installed so that you can consume a second meal, but keep it in your throat until you are hungry again, corresponding with others only in Esperanto and having your sex organs removed entirely.
In between the two ends of the spectrum lie many different ridiculous human behaviors. One of which you, dear reader are probably doing now.
On one side you have behaviors that might cut down on your chances of getting laid--owning a hairless cat, listening to annoying music, being a Republican in Massachusetts, being a Democrat in Arkansas, saying "that's what she said" all the time--whether it's relevant or not or having too many Homestar Runner T-shirts (not that I would know anything about that.) These things may cut down on your chances of getting laid, but they won't obliterate them.
On the other end of the spectrum we have behaviors that give you a small but non-zero chance of ever getting laid again such as having an extra throat pouch installed so that you can consume a second meal, but keep it in your throat until you are hungry again, corresponding with others only in Esperanto and having your sex organs removed entirely.
In between the two ends of the spectrum lie many different ridiculous human behaviors. One of which you, dear reader are probably doing now.
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