What Passes for Professional Correspondence These Days

I received the following in my inbox this morning. All names have been changed to protect the guilty and irritating:

This woman is a total loser. Like a dead fish. I’ve met heard and have spoken with her before and after meeting and she’s only ever managed a cracked smile at best. Before I rang her, I rang AAA (Hoochi…) at the big UK engineering company WWW – that XXX committee member I met at the last user group. He was nice and said he remembered vaguely YYY being mentioned several months ago, but the committee hasn’t met for awhile. So I mentioned this to sour-sack-of-shit BBB when I rang her and she was pitiful in her response. “She” would appreciate that I didn’t contact committee members directly. Well “She” can f’ing piss off. Who the hell is she? She’s responded NOT AT ALL to us. And she didn’t even want to take my call today because she was in the middle of something. That always gets me. Don’t take the bleedin call if you are busy. And they were busy selecting a venue for the next user group (..so actually my call is well timed). Loser bureaucrat no body. Anyway, I was sales-slut cheerful and all that and said “oh it was coincidental – It was in fact a lead from a reseller”. Stupid woman. How does she know I’m not a friend of AAA or whatever. ANYWHO… In usual form, I’m not giving up. And in fact we do have ZZZ as a customer AND XXX likes us including CCC of XXX who spoke at their last stupid XXX user group. Whatever…… Just to share

Boredom

What is it about boredom that makes it a self-perpetuating experience? I am actually rarely bored, but sometimes, boredom sets in and I’m trapped. I always have books with me, the internet is nearly always available, I've got things to think about, and things to do, but when I hit the wall of boredom, nothing seems to free me.

Sitting here these past days, I’ve begun to realize in part where my experience of boredom comes from. These past days, I’ve felt trapped—waiting, serving, tolerating, enduring. When I feel stuck, having to endure interminable interruptions, I get bored. And then I get annoyed at the boredom and annoyed at myself for not being able to escape it, and perhaps even resentful of those whom I want to hold accountable for my boredom. Ultimately, and as a good Taoist, I really do believe that no one but myself is responsible for my boredom or my release from that boredom.

And that leads me to wonder if I really am a good Taoist if, despite my awareness of my own control of the situation, I am still unable to free myself from that boredom.

What do you think?

Hola Tacos!

When I was a kid, about 7 years old, I really wanted to try tacos. Being a kid from the upper mid-west, where black pepper is considered a “hot” spice, tacos were something exotic, a forbidden fruit to be partaken of only by those with strange tastes and experimental palates. I had no idea what tacos would taste like. I didn’t even know what was in a taco, but I knew that I wanted to have one.

My desire for what I then considered a magical Mexican food (actually, I’m not sure I knew tacos were Mexican at the time) got the best of me, and I began to beg my mother for tacos. This would be my upper mid-western mother who thinks black pepper is hot and who has a completely un-adventurous palate.

On a trip to the grocery store, I found an Ortega taco kit (the only taco kit available in the area) and presented it to her with even greater pleading, still having no idea what a taco consisted of. My mother’s response was, “I’m not making you tacos. You’ve never even had them and I’m not going to waste money on something you don’t know you like and probably won’t eat.” (Looking back this seems an odd argument coming from the woman who made me eat some of everything she put on the table and everything that made it to my plate. You’d think she’d just make me eat the tacos whether I liked them or not.)

Then it happened, before I even knew what I was getting into. I lied to her.

“Momma, I have had tacos before. And I LOVE them. Brad’s mom made them for us for lunch one time. I know I LOVE them and I REALLY want some. Please, momma. Can we have tacos?”

If my dad had been with us, the taco kit would never have made it to the cart, and I probably would have gotten in trouble for asking for something in the first place, but mom’s a softie at heart and she relented.

She had to read the instructions on the taco kit, not knowing herself what a taco consisted of. We picked up ground meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese, but no salsa. I don’t think you could even buy salsa in Wisconsin in the seventies.

Later that week, after a bit more pleading, tacos made it onto the nightly dinner menu. I’m not sure how she managed to slip them in without my dad making a ruckus, but she did. I think he secretly must have sampled tacos at some restaurant over his lunch hour because he actually helped her prepare them by warming the shells in the oven. Mom chopped the lettuce and tomatoes, putting them into bowls on the table. She tore open a package of grated cheese (another taboo but much coveted item in the dairy state) and began to cook the meat. When she added the Ortega season packet to the hamburger, I had my first experience of what a Taco Bell must smell like.

Finally, dinner was ready. We all sat around the table, said Grace before we could touch anything (a hard and fast rule in our house), and then we got to assemble our tacos (half the fun as far as I’m concerned). And you know what? I really loved tacos. Unfortunately, and I suppose I should have expected it, mom did not. Future taco dinners were no easier to come by than the first. Each one was a negotiation: It’s my birthday. I’ve been a good boy. I got good grades.

It was until 10 years later, when my family moved to Texas, that mom began to like Mexican (or at least TexMex) food. She in fact LOVES TexMex food. I suspect it has something to do with the sheer amount of cheese that’s included in nearly every TexMex dish. Remember, she is from Wisconsin. Interestingly, even though she now loves Mexican food, she’s never learned to like tacos.

And I’ve never told her I lied about having them before she prepared them for me.

Where Oh Where Are My Fave Three?

When recently asked who the top three people from my past are that I'd like to get in touch with again, the following three came to mind almost instantly:

Daisy

Seema

Brant

If you folks are out there somewhere, give me a shout!

Who's on your Fave Three list?

It’s the Little Things

Happiness truly comes in small forms, and usually unexpectedly.

My happiness today was driving to the office in my car that was probably cleaner than it’s been since I bought it. It’s no secret that I loathe driving and hate the hassle of dealing with cars. The result is that I generally keep my car in very good running condition, but I never wash it or worry about cosmetic maintenance. It’s not worth my time, effort, or money.

Yesterday, however, I was surprised with a car spotlessly cleaned inside and out and complete with new hubcaps. I never would have done it, but it has made me very happy, and mostly because it was unexpected.

I’m off to lunch now to be happy in a warm sunny day with my clean car. Hope you find some happiness today too.

A Good Postmodern

Skajlab takes a view of writing and speech that only a “good postmodern” could espouse. Writing is betrayal. It contains its own suicidal death within its own birth. Once written, or spoken, that which is written or spoken is no more, eternally deferred a la Derrida. We can only approximate the reality we try to convey in our writing and speech, in our own articulation of ourselves. We can never really get there though. For once that utterance is made, once that word is written, the I doing the writing has escaped to places unknown. The beingness of ourselves, then, is in fact not being, but becoming—a process, a perpetual movement forward, a perpetual cycle of birthing, dying and being reborn.

The solace to be found then in being betrayed by one’s own words, one’s own image, one’s own mother, is the regenerative and reincarnative possibilities of language itself.

Message to an Unwelcome Presence

You don’t belong here. I never invited you and I never wanted you here. So be gone with you. You’ve caused enough trouble. Now that I know who you are and what you’re kind is like, I’m done. You frighten me, but I’m stronger and I won’t let you win. I won’t give up until you’re gone. So make it easy on us both and go quietly.

My Heart-Shaped Box of Love

I’ve begun to realize, as I’ve grown older, that my taste in things celebratory is fairly low brow. It’s not that I don’t appreciate genteel and tasteful elegance. It’s just that the low brow markers of celebration (those giant colored lights lining windows at Christmas, or the light up plastic figures in the yard) remind me of my childhood growing up in a low brow working class Midwestern town where everybody had big colored bulbs around their windows and plastic figures in their yards.

On Valentine’s Day, my favorite things are heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and heart-shaped cards cut from folded pieces of construction paper. And the boxes of chocolates don’t need to be the high-end “quality” chocolates. I love those boxes wrapped in cellophane with cheap silk flowers attached that you can buy in the supermarket. As a child I would beg my dad to get my mom a heart-shaped box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day. I loved how pretty those boxes were and was fascinated by the construction of a heart-shaped box. Boxes in general are fascinating. They hold secrets and surprises. They beg to be opened. I have many boxes on my desk and at home—some with secrets, some with surprises. I’m always just a little bit excited about opening them, and never disappointed even when they’re empty.

The heart-shaped box is something extra special though—it’s beautiful, decorated, interesting in design, and filled with candies that weren’t everyday candies. My sister and I would argue over who got to keep the empty box after mom finished the chocolates. On the occasions when I won out, I treasured those boxes, opening and closing them, finding trinkets and treasures to put into them, until they faded and wore out.

This year my sister gave me a heart-shaped box of chocolates. It was obviously cheap (my sister is poor), and the chocolates were terrible (which is saying a lot since I’ll gladly savor just about any chocolate candy), but I absolutely loved it. I don’t need fancy dinners with wine and dessert, or expensive gifts as tokens of love. Each year all I want is a heart-shaped box of chocolates, and maybe a construction paper heart that reads “Be Mine.”

Happy St. Valentine’s Day

Porn Royalty

The route I take home from work passes by a house that is brightly decorated for Christmas each December. Last year, along the 100 foot fence lining the yard, the phrase “Jesus, the Reason for the Season” was written with lights. At the very end of the fence, however, was a large statue of Santa Clause emerging from a chimney and burdened with the requisite sack of toys. This juxtaposition of seemingly contradictory “reasons” for the season (setting aside “reasons” such as harvest festivals, the winter solstice, the birth of Mithra, not to mention capitalism/consumerism) I find amusing, and perhaps even unsurprising. Like so many of the stated values and actions that are justified with Christianity, the “reasons” for the season expressed by the owners of that home are varied and incompatible, and the homeowners are likely not even aware of those incompatibilities. And I think that’s why I have such a problem with the influence and power of “Christianity” in the United States.

This past holiday season, the same house had a new message. It was supposed to read, “A New Born King.” (Santa was conspicuously missing this year.) Instead, however, some of the lights had gone out, and were never noticed by the homeowners. The message read, “A New Porn King.” Now I’m not sure if that was a statement about the occupant of the house having launched a career in the entertainment industry, or merely a(n) (un)fortunate glitch in the wiring, but it’s definitely a celebration I could get into.

Resolving to Make Daily Resolutions

This New Year’s Eve, as I look back on 2006 and look forward to 2007, I know that I am better than I was on 31 December 2005, that I have made progress on my personal journey through life. One year ago, I wrote about how I’m somewhat disappointed by the idea of resolutions made in earnest on New Year’s Eve and then abandoned by the 15th of January. Instead, I want self-reflection and self-consciousness to be a part of my daily life. How good might the world be if we all made self-reflection and self-consciousness a part of our daily lives?

In 2006, I came closer to this goal than in the year preceding it. For 2007, I resolve to get even better about my own self-awareness on a daily basis. There are many specific goals, dreams, and objectives that are part of my resolution to be more self-aware—-the usual sort of stuff: exercise more regularly, eat better; as well as the perhaps not so usual: learn to play my recorder. But ultimately, if on 31 December 2007 I can look back and feel that I am better than I was on 31 December 2006, if I am more of who I want to be and am expressing and experiencing more of what I value, then I have succeeded, even if only by the smallest measure. Today, 31 December 2006, I can say with confidence that I have succeeded this past year. And that’s a good thing.

Happy New Year to all.

Homeward Bound, I wish I weren't

They say one can never go home again. I've never believed this platitude. I do believe one can go home again, it's just that home is never the same and never as we expect or desire it to be. And that's OK.

But what happens when one doesn't in fact want to go home again?

Anniversaries

We tend to think of anniversaries as happy events—weddings, birthdays, and the like—and perhaps it’s good that we do. But there’s nothing inherently good and happy about an anniversary. Anniversaries merely mark the moment of an event, both good and bad events, happy and sad.

It’s been one year since Ms. Clover left. I still miss her and feel her absence sharply—today more than other days. She had a profound impact on my life and I feel love for her as deeply today as I did one year ago, and the eleven years before that.

Here’s to you Mama Cat. You’re not forgotten.

The Post Where SHmonkey Muses About the Rain

An early fall rain on a Sunday afternoon in September makes the already shortening days seem dark and wintry. But the heat of the day and the sound of rumbling air conditioners tells me it’s not yet time to pull out the sweaters. I have given in on one point though and slipped into my house shoes that I only wear November through February rather than go barefoot.

The power of nature is subtle today. No wind, lightening, or rolling thunder. Just water coming down and down and down. The rain is steady and straight, filling the space between me and other objects, yet just as intangible as that space. It washes clean my path, my porch, my car, the air itself. But can it wash my soul?

Five Final Visits

Last night, SHmonkey told Skajlab about a game he came up with at the office: if you knew you were soon to die, but could revisit five places you had already been to, what would those five places be? Skajlab was the first to post his list, but here is SHmonkey’s, in no particular order:

Café du Monde, New Orleans, LA
Café du Monde is one of SHmonkey's all time favorite places. When Katrina hit New Orleans, it was the first place SHmonkey mourned (aside from all of the people and animals). SHmonkey was saddened to know that its long streak of continuous operation without closing was broken by the evil Katrina. SHmonkey was also thrilled to hear that Café du Monde re-opened within weeks of the hurricane--one of the first places to be back in business. SHmonkey has spent many afternoons at the Café with wonderful dear people—Skajlab, Minerva, Blanche—watching the world go by in Jackson Square. Thanks go out to SHmonkey's assistant, a Katrina evacuee, who brought SHmonk a gift pack from Café du Monde this week and reminded him of how much he loves the place (and thus inspiring this game).

Black Forest Café, Prague, Czech Republic
The Black Forest Café is just down the road from the castle in Prague and very close to Golden Lane. Skajlab and SHmonkey spent a wonderful cold afternoon there sipping hot coffee. SHmonkey has rarely felt happier or more content.

Tecolote or Plaza Café, Santa Fe, NM
SHmonkey loves the entire city of Santa Fe, which seems odd to him since he's generally a big city monkey. SHmonkey has been to Santa Fe numerous times—always with great friends (Skajlab, LaRango, Minerva), which may explain his affection for it. Each trip to Santa Fe includes stops at these two cafes, where some of the best food is served in the mountain air.

Lake Front, Milwaukee, WI
After more than 22 years apart, nothing can change SHmonkey's affection for his most beloved location in his beloved hometown. You can take the Bohunk-Kraut out of Milwaukee, but you can’t take Milwaukee out of the Bohunk-Kraut.

Hawksnest Beach, St. John, USVI
Simply because it is likely the most beautiful place SHmonkey has ever been.

In the running for the second five:

Miyajima Island, Hiroshima-ken, Japan
Coit Tower, San Francisco, CA
Stonehenge, Salisbury, UK
Greenwich, UK
Miedzy Nami Café, Warsaw, Poland

What are your five?

We All Scream for Ice Cream

Good news for the loyal hedgehog subjects of the British Crown. The British Hedgehog Preservation Society, along with the Scottish SPCA has, after several years, successfully lobbied McDonald’s to change the design of the McFlurry ice cream container. It seems that hedgehogs are attracted by the smell of the ice cream in discarded McFlurry containers. On crawling into the containers, the hedgehogs become trapped only to die of starvation and dehydration.

In a bow to animal protection, McDonald’s has now introduced a re-designed McFlurry container with a smaller opening—a hole too small for the hedgehog to enter, but big enough to get the ice cream out. As one who cuts apart my plastic six pack rings to save the birds, and who won’t release a helium-filled balloon so as not to choke a whale, I am very happy. Now if only we could get McDonald’s to bow to human protection and cease business completely, we’d all be better off. This week it was announced that despite recent efforts at educating the public about the dangers of obesity, the already fat populace is getting fatter. I’m sure there’s some overweight glutton somewhere pissed off that he now has to slow down his consumption of the McFlurry due to the smaller opening all in the name of protecting a hedgehog. I just hope that overweight glutton isn’t me!

The End of the World as We Knew It

It’s the end of an era. Just like when Rachel moved out and Chandler moved in. The International Astronomical Union of Nerds has declared that Pluto no longer fits the definition of a planet.

I for one am deeply saddened at Pluto’s demotion. The very foundations of my knowledge and understanding of the universe have been shaken. Pluto not a planet. How can it be?

Since the early 70s, when I first learned about space, I have “known” there to be nine planets. Pluto was my favorite (with Saturn a close second). Pluto was the underdog planet, the smallest, most distant, and most recently discovered. Pluto was the “and sometimes Y” of the solar system, the oddball, the black sheep. Pluto was lonely out there at the margins of the solar system, never having been visited by human beings or even a human-built space craft, and likely never to be visited. Pluto needed my love and affection.

The smallest Styrofoam ball attached to the longest wooden dowel on my model of the solar system represented Pluto. I always painted it in my favorite color because of Pluto’s underdog status, in the hopes that Pluto would get the recognition it deserved, and perhaps not feel second-best to the other planets (Yes, like the astronomers, SHmonkey too is fairly nerdy having personified both numbers and letters, in addition to planets, while growing up. Fours were stupid, nines were mean, sevens were cool—and their characteristics changed based on the other numbers they kept company with.).

And now, of all the indignities, Pluto has been kicked out of the planetary family all together. Dear Pluto, you will forever remain close to my heart. I will now look at the solar system kits in the craft stores (yes, I still look at them wistfully—see comment above regarding SHmonkey’s nerdiness) and date them based on whether they contain eight or nine planets (much like I date maps and globes based on whether or not they display a Soviet Union, a Yugoslavia, Rhodesia, etc.), and I will refuse to buy a model that fails to contain a Pluto out of loyalty (it should be noted that I do buy up-to-date maps out of political pragmatism, but I do appreciate the old ones as novelties).

Who's Watching Now?

The news today is that the White House’s domestic surveillance program is in fact much larger than first thought. It seems the government has been creating a huge database of phone records on millions and millions of Americans. These records are gathered from the various phone companies around the country, and while they don’t involve wire tapping and voice records, they do include data on who we call, when we call them, and how often we call. This project of record gathering has been going on since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Now, of course I am aware that phone companies keep records of our phone calls, just as libraries keep records of the books we borrow, video stores keep records of the films we rent, and so. But there is something vastly different when our government, the state itself, establishes a huge, permanent, and searchable database of the calls private citizens make. Why is there not a greater outcry against this system? Our fundamental rights to privacy and free speech are being violated, and we’re losing what distinguishes the American experiment. I for one am horrified.

Don’t think for a minute this blog isn’t also watched, or that someone, somewhere isn’t keeping track of the URLs and IPs you visit.

Knowledge Isn't Always a Good Thing

Just yesterday, at my corporate job, one of my fellow employees sent an email to the entire office listing a website whereupon entering an address, a list of registered sex offenders in the area surrounding the address is returned, complete with photos. The email came with the following message:

“[X] and I don't have any kids, but if and when we do, I think this site would be pretty useful and scary.”

The email closed by inviting our office staff to visit the website and check out their local areas. This email was then replied to by numerous other employees thankful for the URL, as well as by one employee who suggested we all enter the addresses of our high schools to check on “that teacher everyone always wondered about.”

I resisted the urge to go to the site out of curiosity because I don’t want to give the organization any site traffic, and I won’t be listing the site here. Setting aside the fact that this is a completely inappropriate use of company resources, I do have to comment on the rampant fear of “sex offenders” that has developed in recent years.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a liberal. That being said, I think the issue of sex offender registration is ridiculous and functions to breed unnecessary fear and unwarranted self-righteousness. The term “sex offense” covers a wide-ranging set of crimes, not all of which are equal. Included in this category are heinous crimes involving sexual abuse of children to be sure, but also included are “crimes” of eighteen year olds having sex with seventeen year olds, and adult men or women participating in sexual activities with willing minor partners who are fully aware of what they’re doing.

What good does it do anyone to know where registered sex offenders live? At what point do we stop the witch hunts and allow people who have paid for their crimes to go on with their lives. (These comments clearly constitute the liberal part of my post. And yes, I’m aware that just because an individual has served time in jail, paid fines, and attended some sort of counseling doesn’t mean the individual is rehabilitated and no longer a threat.)

I firmly believe that the panic I’ve seen about knowing where sex offenders live is more about parent’s willingness and perhaps desire to hand over the rearing and protection of their children to the larger society. It’s the same argument for censoring books, television shows, and many other things. Rather than be an engaged parent who looks after his or her child and monitors what the child is exposed to, many parents seem to want to require that society create a kind of insulating bubble around all children, and then the parent can be relieved of responsibility.

Knowing that a sex offender lives down the street or next door does not protect children from anything nor does it excuse parents from their responsibilities. What about all of the sex offenders who are not registered? What about the sex offenders who have never been caught and therefore don’t have records? If I had children (and I wish I did), I would want my child to know how to handle himself or herself around any kind of threatening person. I would want my child to understand how the world really operates, and I would want to prepare and equip my child to engage that world fully, rather than live in fear.

Dreaming

In the haze of that place between being awake and sleeping, I saw you heading for the door.

“You going out now?”

“Yeah, I’m going out.”

You were wearing a loose summer shirt, short sleeves, un-tucked, and pair of light-colored khakis. You had on that straw hat you don’t often wear, and were sporting a well-groomed beard. You looked just the way I like you to look.

I could see you talk to the native woman, the woman who always told us where to go and how to keep safe. You crossed the ravine and began walking along the field to meet to man who would take you to where the danger is.

It was only then that my fog cleared and I realized you where going without me. I leapt from the makeshift bed in the living room of our German hosts and ran out the door, still in my underwear and barefoot. The morning light was soft, the air still sweet from the cooler night.

I couldn’t remember why we came here, what we hoped we could accomplish, or why today I had stayed in bed. I could see you on the other side of the ravine, walking quickly so as not to be late. In my panic, I realized facing the danger with you was more important than self-preservation. I began running and calling your name, my voice hoarse from lack of use. I ran and ran, calling for you, your straw hat bobbing in the distance. My lower body covered in mud from the damp earth, my face just as wet from tears and screams. I began to gain on you. My calls finally reached your ears and you turned. Seeing me, you paused. I crossed the ravine, ran the few feet between us, and grabbed you in my arms.

“Never leave without saying goodbye,” I sobbed.

You held me at arms length and smiled.

Waiting

Each time I have to wait for a train to pass, I watch the windows of the compartments for my father’s face. I imagine that traveling by passenger train must be romantically pleasant—rich upholstered seats and walls (always in deep red), people dressed well in an “old world” sort of way, men reading newspapers, women flipping through literary magazines.

Most often, the trains look old and run down, graffitied and dirty. The passengers inside look even more run down—tired, weary from the day, the week, the month, the endless years of riding those trains and waiting. Waiting to get to where they’re going. In the morning, waiting to get to work, where they wait for the day’s end to wait for the trains to carry them home again. The expressionless faces at the windows expressing unconscious dreams that the interminable waiting were over, and yet not knowing what they would wait for if they believed they had a choice.

I wait too. Wait for the train to pass and the gates to rise so that I can continue on, and wait for something else. Each time I have to wait for a train to pass, I watch the windows of the compartments for my father’s face. My father has been dead for years now, and he never rode trains, but I never stop expecting that I’ll see him there, riding and waiting.