A weird little thing

I picked my car up from the body shop today. The door panel looks good as new...oh wait! It is new! They replaced it. And the door opens from the outside again. No more leaning over from the back seat. Only there's this one weird little thing. I kind of smells like skunk inside the car. Not a lot, not enough to be really bothersome, just a little. But why? How? I don't get it. I hope it goes away. When I took it in, it still even had the tiniest bit of new car smell left in it. After a year and half, that's pretty good! So where did this skunky aroma come from? I'm at a loss.

I've got this kid...

He's one of those kids (and I use the term loosely now) about whom everyone always used to say, "He'll go far!" Well, he certainly did...about as far as you can go before you start getting closer again. All the way to the other side of the planet. My dear firstborn now resides in China. I won't go into the whole story of how he ended up there, but there he is, in Shanghai. Of course when I tell people that, they always say, "Oh how interesting! What does he do?" And that's where I go all mumbly. I don't know how to describe it.

He's sort of in partnership with some other guys he met over the last couple of years there. (By the way, he's all of 22.) They're trying to put together all these various development projects. Construction projects, financing projects, what have you. They're spending lots of time going to lots of meetings with lots of different Chinese officials and businessmen in lots of different cities trying to put these deals together. If any one of them works out, ka-ching! We're talking major bucks. But so far, he hasn't made a dime at it. I guess the short way to put it is, he's a wannabe player. Sometimes I tell people he's honing his world domination skills.

He's really, really smart. He's like a knowledge sponge. He didn't speak a word of Mandarin when he went to China, and now he's totally fluent. People who know him are all convinced that he's going to be wildly successful.

And yet, I still have this vision of him 20 or 30 years from now, a shady-looking middle aged guy with three-day-old stubble and frayed cuffs, scrounging drinks from some young yuppie types, feeding them all these stories about how he used to be somebody important.

It's a mother thing.

Strange Day

This picture has nothing to do with my very strange and unsettling day. It just makes me happy to look at it. It's sort of an antidote.

12 people got laid off at work today. I was not one of them. I'm still not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. Right now I'm leaning toward bad. It was not a total surprise, although I didn't know it would be that many. A few I am very happy to see gone. They made working there very difficult. Others I liked, some I didn't really know very well. But even so, it was weird. What it means for those of us who are left is that we will have a lot more work to do. A lot. And of course there's no more money in it for us. Financial problems are the reason all those people were let go.

Instead of feeling optimistic and psyched about the challenge, I am feeling a like a huge boulder is about to be dropped on me. Also, at the staff meeting after the deed was done, we were told that the board is considering merging our museum with another cultural institution in the city. When that happens, it probably means we'll be let go. That won't happen for many months, if it does. But I think it will. So I'm thinking I should probably start looking for another job now. Because even if we do a spectacular job at bringing in new funding, we're still going to probably lose our jobs. I could be wrong, but I think it's definitely time to start looking. I really don't feel like job hunting right now.

Mojitos strike again

I thought my head might explode today. I actually became distraught...over something totally not worth it. After slogging through some incredibly stressful days and swimming through some evil dren without breaking a sweat (or at least without creasing my brow too deeply), I finally blew a gasket over a stupid newsletter. But it was so bad, in so many ways, I couldn't wrap my head around it. Let me explain that I have in the course of my working life created and put together god knows how many newsletters. It's one of the things I do. And here was one that was so awful, I mean just so unbelieveably bad! It set my teeth on edge. And the person who did it had no idea how awful it was. She thought it was fine. That's part of what sent me over the edge.

I knew at noon that I was headed for mojitoville after work today. And that is exactly what I did. I met a colleague at the bar. My boss in fact. And she told me that half the staff is being laid off on Monday. I, sad to say, will not be one of them. But the perpetrator of that newsletter atrocity will be. And again sad to say. I'll probably be asked to take on that task. That's fine, but I already have enough to do. But since we're losing three people from our department, we'll all have to take on some new responsibilities. More money, did you say? Not a chance! That's one of the reasons we're losing all these people...financial problems.

Why stay, you ask? Inertia for starters. I'm already there. Also, even though the salary sucks, they do pay 100% of the health insurance. Which is not to be sneezed at these days.

Should be an interesting week coming up. More news as it becomes available.

More fungus

Inspired by fermicat's fungus picture, I searched out a shot I had taken about a year and a half ago at a cool little nature reserve not far from my house. This place is a great place to lose yourself, figuratively anyway. It's not really big enough to get seriously lost. But it has enough places where you can feel completely removed from everything. I grew up near an enormous wildlife sanctuary. Probably hundreds of acres. There were lots of hiking trails; one went up a (small) mountain to a fire ranger's watch tower. I loved the feeling of being completely surrounded by trees. Interesting though, because one of my favorite things is being able to see a long way. I love huge views. I loved the view from the fire ranger's tower. But back to the trees for a minute. I love the sensation of complete quietness. No other voices. Just tree noises and maybe birds. Nothing like it.

So why do I live and work in a huge city? What can I say, I'm very complex.

Stupid Way To Start The Day

Some jerk in a Ford Bronco sideswiped me this morning. I was sitting at a red light, in the far right lane of a four-lane limited access sort-of-highway. The light had just turned green and I don't think I had even started moving when the aforementioned jerk comes up on my left and plows into my door. His excuse was that the woman in the car next to me wasn't going fast enough, so he swerved to go around her. Never mind that I was there. He was angry at her! Brilliant, huh? He also hit her but I think I got the worst of it.

So we all pulled over and traded information and called the police. They were very nice (and pretty cute, too) and told meI was in the clear as far as fault, which I already knew. I had a nasty dent and scrape on the driver's side door, which is ugly but is only cosmetic. Then I discovered that I couldn't open my door from the outside. The cops tried it and they had the same problem. So now, until I get it fixed, I have to get in the back and reach up to open the door from the inside. Put me in a rather cranky mood. And it also made me an hour late for my Italian class.

Router Issues Redux

So I went and got a new wireless router. I didn't get the Mac Airport router because of the price - about $189. I opted for the cheaper solution, another Linksys. Right away, things began to go south. No instructions, no user manual. Instead, a setup tutorial disk. Great! Except it's only for Windows. So I try the tech support route. I call Verizon. My experience with them is hit or miss. Either I get a knowledgeable person with real problem-solving skills or I get a moron. This time it was moron. They made a token effort, then told me to call Linksys. Of course Linksys tech support is only there until 9 PM and it was too late.

So I figure, I'll try their website. Gotta be something there. Bingo! Downloadable instructions. Which I do. Only problem is, it's only for Windows. So I poke around some more. A link! I try it. It gets me closer. It gives me the numerical IP address -- which I now remember from the last time -- that I need to go to to do the setup. Problem is, the page won't load. I try three different browsers. No luck.

So I just plug my ethernet cable into my computer for the time being. Works fine, but kind of blows the whole notion of a wireless laptop. I hustle home from work today so I can spend some time on the phone with tech support. I'm on hold for about five minutes and then there's Bangalore Bill. I can't hear him too well because that big earthquake off the coast of Taiwan had really caused havoc with the fiber optic cables to Asia. But anyway, we start trying stuff. He finally comes to the conclusion that the router is faulty. He says bring it back and get a new one. But that still doesn't answer the question of why the page won't load.

So...(feels like it never ends, right?) I check out the community forums on the Linksys page. I hit paydirt! Jackpot. Right there is a posting about the problem with the new WRT54G routers and how Macs can't load the setup page! Yippee! The guys posts a link to the download for the firmware that will fix the problem. I'm so excited, I can hardly stand it. I download the thing. I try and open the thing. It won't open. I update my Stuffit. The thing still won't open. All the air has gone out of my balloon.

I think I'm going to bite the bullet and get the Airport router. I've already spent more than the difference in aggravation.

Tired of being the smartest kid in the room

Went for drinks after work to that place with the killer mojitos, which I'm sure I mentioned before. $5 during happy hour -- you can't beat it. Anyway...there were three of us; me, a co-worker and our boss. I got into a conversation with my co-worker about an art exhibit at one of the museums in the city. We were chatting away about American expressionists and our boss was trying gamely to keep up. But it was obvious she knows close to nothing about art. That's fine. She's a good sport and a very loyal boss.

But I got to thinking about when was the last time before this that I had a conversation of any substance with anyone I worked with. You know, about something besides movies, TV and food. No, even counting those things. It was probably several years. And I realized that I was tired of always having to dumb myself down to fit in.

I wonder where the smart people are. That's not to say that everyone at work is a moron. Okay, maybe a few of them are. But most are reasonably bright, or at least good at their jobs. But no one with real wit and intelligence. Or at least some intellectual curiosity. Well, now I know there's one at least. Can't tell you how happy that makes me.

Sometimes the good guys actually win

Well, who'd a thought? The abysmally bad situation at work has taken a 360! The stupid, ineffectual president of the board of trustees resigned and the nasty, petty, incompetent executive director was fired. I'm very nearly speechless. This is very, very, very good news for me and my colleagues in my department. It means that the people who were trying to discredit us and force us out are gone. Of course it also means that now we have no one to blame but ourselves if we fail to accomplish what we want to. But that's a good thing. I'm all for accountability.

But yipee! No more having to try and raise money for stupid programs that nobody wants. No more being stymied and undercut. Now we get to set the agenda. Or at the very least, our ideas will be listened to.

This year is starting out very interestingly.

Perfect way to welcome in the new year

So I went into New York and had dinner with some people in a lovely apartment on the 38th floor with a spectacular view of the city. Great dinner, fairly unexciting evening. We ate well, discussed deeply and were done by 11:00. I was home in time to watch the ball drop in Times Square. I was not in front of the TV though, because the phone range and I was in the other room. But I heard the countdown. Woo hoo.

Call me old and jaded but I really don't care about that part any more. I did the wild blowout New Year's Eve party. I don't feel the need to do it any more. I think the thing that really breaks you of the habit is having young children. They don't care that you've been up till 3 and drunk way too much. They still want to get up at 6:30 or 7:00. Ack. So when my guys were little like that, we started having New Year's Day open house parties. Soooo much more civilized. And I always thought New Year's Day was such a bringdown of a day anyway, after all the night-before partying. This was a mellow and very festive way to enjoy the holiday. So I just got into the mode of skipping the night before and doing the party thing on the day.

So I've got my champagne chilling for tomorrow. I'll start drinking mimosas around noon and just sail on through the rest of the afternoon like that. Great way to welcome in the New Year.

Oh. The other thing I like to do is (don't laff) clean my house. Give it a thorough going over. Move the furniture, vacuum under absolutely everything. Scrub the cabinets and the appliances. I put jazz on the stereo, get my mimosa buzz on and I'm good to go. It is a wonderful way to start the year.

Happy Holiday

How do you get in the "holiday spirit" when you don't buy into the myth behind it? That's something I have struggled with for quite a while. Yes, it's been secularized but as a secular holiday, it doesn't have much of a clear reason for being. Wishing one another peace on Earth? That's nice, but why is it any more sincere at this time year? Giving gifts is nice too but there are plenty of other times when it might be more appropriate.

Well, I read a piece yesterday that made me feel a little happier with the situation. It talked about how Christmas has evolved into the perfect American holiday. As a patchwork of borrowed rituals and mythologies, Christmas is a great analogy for a country founded and populated by immigrants. It's the quintessential melting pot holiday, from the 12 days of Saturnalia (ancient Rome) to the decorating of trees (Druid) to the winter solstice (every pre-Christian civilization) to the lighting of candles (Judaism). Then throw in Hannukah and Kwanzaa and you've got the perfect all-purpose festival. I had known most of this before, but the way it was presented suddenly made more sense to me. I think if it were acknowledged by the promoters of the holiday that it was a joyous amalgam of celebrations, I'd like it even more.

But anyway, I'm feeling pretty festive now. Still not expecting Santa down my chimney but I've got a nice bottle of pinot noir just waiting to be uncorked with dinner tomorrow and that's reason enough to celebrate.

The Ideal vs. The Reality

It's been a particularly difficult and weird week at work, and I intended to sit down and write about it. And I will. But as I imagined recounting this story, I also realized that this is not what I had planned this blog to be. This was not supposed to be a place to delve into all the little things that make up one's daily life. I mean, you can do that with your friend at lunch, or over the phone, or even online, in one of those essential but totally ordinary conversations that we have every day, countless numbers of times.

No, this was a place for bigger things. A place for hashing out the big questions. The universal topics. The thoughts that needed to see themselves written out. Not my stomach flu or my vacation. So what happenend? Reality is what happened. The universe reminding me yet again that things rarely turn out the way we want or even expect.

So let me get back to the work thing. Back in July, as I was (as we freelancers like to say) between assignments, a friend recruited me to work for her in a full-time position. The job was in a small non-profit cultural instituion, in the development (fundraising) department. I was ambivalent but I took the job. Lousy pay but great benefits. It did not take me long to realize that the place was badly run. But okay, I came in, I wrote my grant proposals, I got paid. There were a couple of good people in my department. The job had its stressful periods and required more sustained mental engagement than I really wanted to give it, but I did. Because that's what you do. You do your job to the best of your abilities.

Over the six months that I've been there, the political situation and the atmosphere in general has become more and more unpleasant until it is now downright toxic. There are a lot of very real reasons and causes for the ills that beset this poor place, but that's doesn't excuse the powers that be from taking action to stop the ship from sinking.

Honestly, I've never worked anywhere where there is so much outright hostility and acrimony between individuals and departments. It's a conspiracy theorist's playground. None of this nastiness is directed at me personally, but a huge amount is directed at my friend, who runs my department. This week in particular, it seems the gloves have come off. No one is even making an effort to hide their animosity and malice. My buddies and I look at one another and shake our heads. I can't understand how anyone expects that a) we don't notice or b) we don't mind or c) we have any desire to take sides. So the last few days I have spent picking my way through a minefield, all the while trying to get out a proposal and a final report, and complete my goals and projections for the coming year.

I had a worse job. I had a hateful job that I kept for four years because I had to. I used to say I worked in hell. That place was depressing and demoralizing, but everyone felt that way. We were all in it together. This is different. I don't feel personally oppressed, as I did at the other place. But I feel as if any minute I'm going to get caught in the crossfire. The whole thing has been so surreal. I half expect to come back after Christmas and find that the whole building has collapsed under the weight of nastiness that's filling it. Just crushed to dust.

When you say you work at a museum, there's a certain cachet attached to it. Y'know, it sounds kind of classy. But the reality of it is, it's a half-assed operation run by a bunch of amateurs who are constantly sniping at each other, sapping whatever positive energy there is there.

So there you have it: the ideal vs. the reality. Kind of like my plan for this blog. Hey, what do you know! There's my bigger thought!

Pre-holiday bug

I have been laid low all weekend by a nasty virus. Friday night was spent clutching my toilet bowl. Saturday I shuffled painfully from bedroom to kitchen to living room sofa and back to bedroom again. By mid-Saturday at least I could eat again. That is to say, it was staying put. But absolutely nothing was appetizing, except raspberry sorbet. Cool, sweet and thirst quenching, the perfect apres-sick food. Also works for a hangover, by the way. Flavor is optional. Today is marginally better but I'm still exhausted. This is the longest 24-hour bug I've ever had. Don't know if I'll go to work tomorrow. The christmas party is tomorrow evening though. I don't really care that much, so it won't be a tragedy if I miss it. Guess I'll see how I feel in the morning. Wonder how many sick days I have left.

Why is it?

Why is it that I always put myself out for my friends but they never seem to want to reciprocate? Is it that everyone else is just so self-involved? Or am I just bad at picking friends? This leads me to the larger question: why are some people the ones who others do things for, and why are the rest of us the ones who do the things? My theory is, it's pheromones. But who knows. Maybe it's gravity.

I had dinner with a friend tonight. An old friend, in fact she's now the friend, of those who I still see, who I've been friends with the longest. We're pretty close. We've been through some stuff together. But I've come to realize that her comfort and convenience always comes first for her. So tonight, well...forget the details, but suffice it to say I'm pretty annoyed at her disregard of my situation. And this leads me to another larger thought. Maybe I should start a "why me" blog. And maybe it should be communal. A place where we could all come and complain and carry on about the things that really piss us off, but that we feel stupid or petty complaining about in other venues. I think it might be good. I think it could get very creative and very entertaining.

Yes, I'm going to have to think about this.

God, I love online banking!

I do, I love it! I resisted for a while but I'm so glad I finally gave in. Just paid my Amex bill. Rather, I scheduled it for payment in two weeks. Now, as soon as the bills come, I schedule the payment and forget about it. I haven't been late with anything in months!

I gave up trying to balance my checking account a long time ago. When all I did was write checks it was easy. But now that I pay for stuff with my debit card all the time, and take cash out from the ATM, who can keep track of it all? I used to worry about it, but now if I want to know what my balance is, I just go online. I'm telling you, this is a wonderful thing.

And no, Bank of America did not pay me to say that.

This is where you find out how geeky I really am

I was reading this article in the paper today on the way home from work. It was about how this guy who was a master cryptographer during the Cold War is now working on analyzing the mountains of data gleaned from DNA sequencing. It went on to say how biology at the pure science level has become an information science. Now the people working on cutting-edge biology are physicists and mathematicians and the like. It was at this point that I got really excited. Why, you wonder? I'm neither a biologist nor an astrophysicist. In fact I'm not a scientist at all.

I discovered a while ago that one thing that really tickles my brain is when I notice how systems and processes in one realm have analogs in other realms. Examples: after watching countries in Eastern Europe form and break apart and reform after the fall of the Iron Curtain, it occurred to me that it was like plate tectonics. The rules that govern how the planet works also govern how the people on it work. And the same with space.

So I'm reading this and the writer in me is jumping up and down, yelling, "There's a story in here somewhere, I just know it!" Kind of like the little kid who saw the huge pile of horseshit and got all excited because she was sure there had to be a pony in there somewhere. There may in fact be no story at all in there, but it made the rest of my commute home very happy.

More on this subject as it oozes out.

I am SO there!

Have I mentioned how much I am enthralled with Mars? I have, right? So imagine my delight and excitement to read that it looks like there may be actual water on Mars! Actual liquid water that actually flows...well, from time to time, anyway. But water means life is possible. I'm not talking about indigenous Martian life, although that may be there as well. I'm talking about human life that's going to be there. I think it was highly likely anyway, but this just about seals the deal. I can be packed in, like, an hour! Sadly, realistically, I'm sure I won't get to go. By the time that mission gets off the ground, I'll be too old and of no possible use. But at least I hope I'm around to see it happen.

I'm convinced there is life out there somewhere. But who knows, maybe Earthlings will be the first to venture out, the first to colonize other planets. Again, that's probably not so. But maybe. Years ago, I read a great book by Ursula LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness. It was one of her Hugo or Nebula prize winners. In it, a representative of the planetary alliance (forget exactly what it was called) made a first visit to a new planet. This new planet had a highly advanced civilization but they had never ventured into space. They had never even built aircraft. Why not? Because there was no bird life on the planet. They had never seen creatures fly, so it never occurred to them to try it. So you never know.

Router issues

Hmmmm. Seems as though my wireless router has bit the dust. After trying all kinda things and making several tech support calls (2 to Verizon and 1 to Apple Care), I've given up on the darn thing and just plugged the ethernet cable into my Powerbook. Not that it really matters right now -- the computer is spending most of its time on the desk. At least I can get online.

Question now is, do I chuck the stupid router and get a new one? It's probably a rhetorical question since nobody fixes this stuff. Also my printer died. I only had it for about 3 years. My first printer lasted me for at least twice that, probably longer. I would still be using it except it's so old, nobody has the drivers for it any more. I hate how all computer stuff is so disposable.

New router, new printer. Not cause I want to, but because I need to. Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas.

R.I.P. Sweetie

I realize that that might be a little misleading. No, Sweetie did not get flushed away. I just thought it would be appropriate to post a photo of her in a typical pose. She loved to drink out of the toilet. So there she is, doing what she loved.

After ten years of being a Splendid Cat, Sweetie developed kidney problems, as older cats often do. Fortunately it was not a long, protracted decline. Within about a week of my noticing that she was not eating very much and was acting kind of sad, her kidneys were in near total failure. I brought her to the vet, suspecting it might be a kidney-related problem, having been through it several years ago with another cat. A quick exam, a couple of blood tests, and within an hour we knew that her prognosis was grim. Rather than drag it out and make her remaining days miserable with misguided attempts to prolong her life, I told the vet to put her to sleep. He agreed with my decision.

Her funeral, if you could call it that, was like something out of a Stephen King novel. After leaving with vet with Sweetie wrapped in a blanket and stowed in a carton, I took her to my ex's (and my former) house for burial in the family plot. Actually it's a patch of brambly earth behind the old stone garage. It was 8 PM by this point and completely dark. So there we were, by the stark light of a bare bulb, digging a grave in the Pet Sematary. Quite funny, actually. A good way to end a sad day.

A thought from the subway

I'm wondering today if people behave the way they do totally in response to others around them? Not just reacting to someone who annoys you at work or bumps into you on the street. I mean, do we calibrate our behavior to elicit certain responses from others? It's obvious we all do this sometimes. A woman will act silly or sultry or do what's necessary to attract the attention of a guy she's interested in. Or a person in a relationship will do things or say things to please his or her partner. I'm talking only about adults here, not kids. People free of the need or desire to get the grownups approval or to torment their siblings.

We like to think that we "are who we are" and that it comes from the inside. But how much really does? It'd be interesting to be able to observe people when they're alone. Be the proverbial fly on the wall. See if the girly girl belches out loud, or the surly guy watches weepy movies. Guess I'll just have to wonder.