Surgical Strikes

I’ve had five pairs of sunglasses this summer. Broke two, lost two, and learned the others are too small for my gigantic head. Of course, these are the only pair I still have and I can’t wear them because they give me a headache. Meaghan was about to throw them in the trash, but my genetic programming wouldn’t allow it. Last time I was at my parents’ house, I noticed my dad had five identical pairs of half-broken headphone radios. I’m sure they each kinda work if you hold down the side and don’t jerk your head, take out the batteries to turn it off, don’t care about AM, etc. He’s replaced each of these, but he can’t bear to throw out an item that still has SOME value. Even if it’s been replaced by a non-broken pair (or four). Even if it wouldn’t sell on ebay for $5. If it has value, he can’t trash it.

Knowing this could be my future, I’ve been ruthless about trashing broken items (or selling them on ebay for $5). But these were a perfectly good pair of sunglasses. They don’t fit on my cartoonishly large head, but I could donate them to charity, or find a small-headed friend. Considering they cost $7 new, the 80% ebay markdown makes it not worth the effort.

Then I realized what to do: I would leave my sunglasses on the T — on purpose. I’ve left several pairs of sunglasses on the T by accident, including at least one of this summer’s big five (I’m convinced I’m going to unpack my winter clothing or reach into the back of the freezer and find the others). It was a perfect strategy — either someone who actually wanted these sunglasses would end up with them, or they’d end up in the landfill anyway. And I’m so good at losing sunglasses, it would be right in my playbook.

Unfortunately I’ve brought my sunglasses woes to a new level: I keep forgetting to forget my sunglasses on the train. Nearly a week later, they’re out of my bag and on my desk at work, still unlost. Worst of all, Meaghan predicted this exact scenario. So today, mark my words, I’m going to lose my sunglasses.

HER: Well, you look sporty today.
ME: Thanks.
HER: Is that, like, a bowling shirt?
ME: Yeah, unfortunately. It’s totally out of style.
HER: No, that’s not what I was saying.
ME: I’m the only person still wearing these. But it’s not like I’m at all in style otherwise.
HER: No, I was just saying you look… very…
ME: Hey, if my wife had to burn one item of clothing of mine, this would be top of the list.
HER: Well, if I was your wife, I guess I can see that.
ME: So… you’re not my wife?
HER: No.
ME: Oh.

* * *

HER #2: Hey, good to see you dress up for work as much as I do.

* * *

I disposed of my few remaining long-sleeved vintage shirts last week, and I made the decision to retire the short-sleeved, too. Except they comprise a much larger percentage of the summer wardrobe, and with my seasonal clothing budget tapped, I’d rather look slightly outdated than wear the same five shirts every week. That said, maybe it’s time to retire the Williams Realty ‘88-’89 League Champion polyester number that’s identified me as Al for most of the last decade. It hd a good run, but it’s time to say good night, Gracie.

In a typical Boston fashion, when Jason Bay came to the plate in his second game, he received a long and thunderous standing ovation… then he swung and missed at the first pitch and the place went dead. “Hey, we gave you a pitch to prove yourself and you failed!” Of course, a few minutes later the ball was in the Monster Seats and Bay got a small taste of what Boston will give you if you’ll just let it. Manny seemed to forget and remember this lesson every year. It’s sort like my dog trying to eat hot scrambled eggs: “Ouch, those are hot! Hey, look, eggs! Ouch, those are hot! Hey, look!”

The latest reports out of LA after two days are that Manny wants to finish his career there. Of course, this spring he wanted to finish his career in Boston, so have a few grains of salt at the ready. But I’ve lived in both cities, and Boston was never the right fit for Manny’s work ethic and attitude. On te other hand, Los Angeles has no shortage of rich, selfish, stupid people with curiosity of interest in life outside of the small sphere they inhabit. At last, Manny’s home.

In Harvard Square yesterday, I noticed a few kids wearing shirts that said “HAHVAHD” and I instantly became annoyed. In the shadow of Harvard Yard, where you’re supposed to park your car to illustrate the Boston accent, how could this abomination stand? According to The Harvard Shop, which sells these:

Say Harvard with a Boston accent and you’ve got the humorous “Hahvahd” T-shirt

Mmmm, except that’s not how you pronounce Harvard with a Boston accent. Outside of Boston, the school’s name is pronounced Harrverrd, and “Hahvahd” is the Bostonized version of Harrvarrd. Even bad actors who misunderstand how to do a Boston accent would pronounce it Hahveuhd. The only way to spell it “Hahvahd” would be if you left the design to a computer program that translated text into Bostonese by auto-replacing every “ar” with “ah.” And we all know how hilarious the unsupervised auto-replace can turn out.

The correct pronunciation, of course, is Hahvid. But that spelling makes for a much less snappy T-shirt, especially for the tourists and transplants I’m guessing this shirt is geared toward. Retahds.

The first time I ever had email I was probably nine years old and I didn’t know what it was. This was on our Apple IIE, circa 1985, and my dad got me onto a “bulletin board.” I fet great satisfaction at having my own account on there, and it came with email. I remember logging on and checking my mailbox to see if anyone had written me. I didn’t know my email address, I didn’t know anyone else with email; I guess I thought Publisher’s Clearinghouse or Ed McMahon might send me something, or maybe someone would try to be my friend. I just remember having no idea what to do, but still logging on every now and then just in case.

I didn’t give another thought to email until senior year of high school. I’d fallen in with an older crowd, so when they went off to college, they came home talking about emailing each other, and I was intrugued. My first week at college, I led the charge among my friends. Of course, email was on the verge of its tipping point then, so it’s not like I was so far ahead of the curve.

I first really got on email 15 years ago; my old roommate first got on a few months ago. I thought her husband was late to the party for waiting until 1997, but she definitely wins. This week we’ve been trading emails, and it’s quite a different experience — she’ll send me an email and then call to say, “Hey, I sent you an email. Did you get it?” It’s pretty charming, actually, if completely self-defeating.

I’ve already stooped to letting a YouTube pass as a post, I guess I’ll slink one level lower and list some of the silly subject lines of spam emails I’ve recently received. I haven’t been paying as much attention spam lately, so maybe these have been well covered elsewhere, but the fake news just cracks me up:

• Lindsey Lohan died in car crash
• Schwarzenegger reduces minimum wages
• Obama bribes voters
• Pepsi sues Coke for $892mn
• Pope shot in attack in Australia
• Mermaid discovered off NZ coast

They’re really wonderfully imaginative, all jaw-droppers guaranteed to make you open the email… if only the sender wasn’t CHEAPV1AGRA!!!!@scam.tv or whatever.

My personal favorite:

• John Mccain Selects Laura Bush As His Vice President

In this one, Oprah becomes Obama’s VP. He could do worse (for instance, John Edwards). Runner up:

• Ninja attack in New York Times Square

This writer knows how to get my attention, that’s for sure. I ordered a six-pack of Levitra just to say thanks.

Rich Kuras visits ComicCon and learns that Super Mario’s voting for Obama:

When I was in Zimbabwe a few years ago, one of our guides told us a grim joke: A man goes into a store and leaves behind a wheelbarrow full of millions of dollars Zimbabwean money. When he returns, he finds that someone has stolen the wheelbarrow but left the money. And those were the good old days: today one American dollar will buy you 10 billion in Zimbabwe.

I was there in 2004, when the (stronger) US dollar was merely worth the hundreds of thousands in Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe came to power in 1980 and instituted a series of reforms that collapsed he country’s economy. He has has since refused to cede power, plunging the country into ever worsening economic turmoil. So even though it’s one of the seven wonders of the world, Victoria Falls is no longer a prime tourist destination — the large casino near our hotel was all but deserted. With so few tourists, the sellers at the open market begged for our business, and it was begging like I’ve never seen — we were followed for hundreds of yards, with the pleas quickly changing from “can’t you buy something?” to with “I’m so hungry.” It was hard to handle: buying from one person meant making his day, but why him and not the guy next to him? Instead of spending $20 on one guy, I wanted to give $1 to 20 guys. But there was no easy way to do that, and in the moment I was so panicky I did give one guy $20 and then pretty much fled. Even four years later, I feel guilty.

Mugabe’s opposition triumphed in a recent election, but it was a plurality, so he declared a runoff, then imprisoned his rival and started killing supporters. The opposition candidate withdrew in the hopes of saving his supporters, and shock surprise, Mugabe “won” the new election. Because South Africa is in bed with Mugabe, they blocked any real UN intervention. Bush has amazingly pushed for some action despite Zimbabwe’s lack of oil and Mugabe never trying to kill his dad. And now it sounds like some semblance of “power-sharing” may occur (I’ll believe it when I see it). Still, until this new recalibration of the currency, bread costs over 100 billion Zimbabwe dollars. It’s bad.

I do know that the two Zimbabweans I was briefly friends with — our guides Eddie and Charles — are likely okay. Employed by the tourism company, they have some of the better paying jobs over there. Zimbabwe is probably no longer part of the itinerary (the national park we visited has been ravaged by droughts the government can no longer afford to fix, and animals are dying), but much of our trip was spent in Botswana and Namibia, and I’m sure the tours find them plenty of work. So Eddie and Charles are probably okay. But all their friends and extended family… it’s just too sad to fully contemplate.

Once upon a time, I made mix tapes. It required not just choosing the songs, but listening to them as they dubbed onto the tape. I took great pride not only in the song selection, but in the order, and I’d sometimes meditate on the end of the song to determine what the next song should be. What sound does that sound flow into? To this day, I expect “Won’t Get Fooled Again” to segue into “Helpless” like it did on my 1994 Vinyl Fantasy mix (made from my record collection).

Making a mix tape was a labor of love, which is why every girl I had any legitimate interest in from 1994 on got one. Here’s the intro to some liner notes (!) I penned in early 1998:

Just like in High Fidelity, I consider a mix tape deeply personal, and I wouldn’t dream of making a tape for someone I didn’t have a strong connection with. On this, I’ve tried to create a balance of things I know you like, with things you should like if you have any semblance of taste, and things that will make you laugh and be impressed with the breadth of my music collection and my ultimate superiority. I’ve also allowed your zeal for sarcasm and kitsch to influence choices, but remember that all songs are here because of how they sound, not necessarily for their lyrics. No hidden messages, got it? Now listen to it. And dig it. ’Cause I dig you.

Looking back on how annoying I was, I’m lucky she didn’t dump me. And that she agreed to walk the dog tonight.

I would formulate lists ahead of time, constantly rearranging the order, making adjustments on the fly. Not only did I make sure there was no tape clicking (pause button instead of stop) but I also made sure there was zero dead air between songs. If I was taping from a tape, I even rewound half a second with my finger to make sure the song started immediately. My musical tastes were iffy (my first effort opened with Ice-T followed by James Taylor) but my mix-making skills were top-notch.

Then I got my first CD burner — an external one! — and the whole process changed. I still had to load CD’s one by one after preparing a set-list, but I didn’t have to listen to it record, which also meant I could only guess at whether the songs flowed properly. Also, there was only one side, which meant a different general pacing.

Then I got an iPod and starting keeping all my music on iTunes, so making a CD began with arranging a playlist. Now that I could preview the mix ahead of time, reviewing individual transitions or in some cases, listening to the whole thing to see what felt out of place.

Then I started burning data CD’s for friends. So instead of finding the perfect 24 songs for a friend, I’d choose 24 albums, or 180 songs. or whatever would fit.

And now in the last month, I’ve started churning out data DVD’s, which hold almost a thousand songs. Making a disc for Bubba Ray Gracie over the weekend, I found myself indiscriminately throwing in 20 songs at a time. “Does he already have Sparklehorse? Ah, hell, I’ll just give him their whole catalog.” It’s quicker, it’s easier, and it nets my friends a lot more music than they’d otherwise get from me. Plus, I always half-suspected my friends would listen to a mix once, if at all, and then throw it in the general pile. This way they can pick and choose what they like and I don’t have to feel like I wasted my time.

But I never did. The elegance, the sense of achievement, the statement of a well-crafted mix tape… there’s a reason I still can’t bear to throw mine away.

I released him back “into the wild,” which is why he’s no longer in my (7x washed) lettuce in this this photo, but on the railing to my back deck. Hopefully the resulting salad will not make me feel too sluggish.

AHAHAHAHA!

Earlier this month we visited the Old Chatham Sheepherding Company, a farm with 1000 sheep they milk daily to make yogurt and cheese. As I wandered around, petting sheep and breathing through my mouth, I couldn’t help but wonder: how many rams could they possibly need? The ewes give the milk, and the wool, while the rams only serve a purpose when they need to make more sheep. So how many rams could they possibly need for a thousand sheep? A hundred? Twenty? One really virile Wilt Chamberlain ram? And then, odds are half the new flock are going to be… more superfluous males. Same should go for those poor abused hatchery chicks: wouldn’t half those eggs hatch as roosters who can’t lay more eggs?

In the interest of taking all the fun out of eating, I wrote my friendly farmer at our meat CSA, ans she confirmed that the animal world, males tend to be fairly useless. They have a 50:1 ratio of ewes to rams, and a 75:2 heifer to bull ratio. And while they raise their roosters to sell (for less than the cost of the feed they eat) she confirmed my suspicion that not too many of baby chicks who get tossed down the male slot do so well:

In  a commercial facility the roosters are destroyed… all that dog food that claims chicken - some of the chicken is actually baby roosters from the hen farms.

So yes, the attempt at vegetarianism continues apace. It’s been eight days since my last commercial meat, when I had a couple hot dogs at a work barbecue and proceeded to feel ill for the rest of the night.

UPDATE: A shameless pictorial from the Old Chatham lamb pens:

I’m not crusading for vegetarianism. But I do think there’s value to understanding what it is you’re eating and where it came from. Being mindful.

Sometimes when it rains and I don’t need to water the plants, I know how my mom must have felt when I got my license and she no longer needed to drive me around: relieved, but also a little sad.

I completely missed the boat on The Wire. When it premiered, there still was an embarrassment of HBO riches, and the pilot bored me, and now the whole series has come and gone without us joining the elite fraternity of its ardent fans. The same thing happened on a smaller scale with Deadwood, except we never even sampled that. We did manage to jump on the Lost train a third of the way though the first season, and joined Nip/Tuck around Season 2… we do okay, but good TV can be hard to catch up with.

So it’s with great pleasure that we’re spending the week catching up on a season’s worth of Mad Men, just in time for Season 2. And after the first 3 1/2 episodes… I like it, but I’m wondering about the hype branding it some of the finest television of the past 25 years. I mean, there’s some good acting and some good writing and they make some interesting choices, and the period fashion and decor is amazing… but I’m not yet seeing it as a revelation. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be for me to enjoy it.

In other media, I’m reading Running with Scissors five years after everybody else, and I’m enjoying it the way you enjoy Perez Hilton or McDonald’s at 2 am: as a fun, trashy diversion. Of course, it also makes me feel incredible normal and not weird — in a good way — and that’s no small feat. I picked it up when my previous fun diversion, The Abstinence Teacher, left me as disappointed as the other two Tom Perrotta novels I read and disliked. Unlike Nick Hornby, I haven’t found much good to counteract the bad, so I guess I’m done with him.

Facebook friends nominated: 2
Hairstyling nominees who have cut my hair: 1
Nominated shows in which my mother-in-law was the subject of an episode: 1
Former employers nominated: 3
Nominated shows that offered me a job I declined: 3
Shows that offered me a job I took that are still on the air: 0
Potential Emmies that may be brought to Thanksgiving this year: 1
By me: 0
Potential Jello molds that may be brought to Thanksgiving this year: 1
By my mom: 1
Shows I worked on with the multi-nominated creator of Mad Men: 1
Out of 28 jobs I had in LA, where I’d rank the experience of working on that show: 28 (not his fault)

An old man wearing a suit and Red Sox hat.

I’ve had some bouts of self-consciousness in my reading over the years, During The Nanny Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada, I went to great lengths to hide the title from any on-lookers. My copy of Money was misprinted with 100 pages inverted, so it looked like I was reading upside-down. But it’s been a triple threat with Interpreter of Maladies. I shouldn’t be ashamed of it in and of itself — it won a Pulitzer, and it’s wonderful — but there have been a few times now when I’m acutely aware of how others may be reacting to my book of choice.

For starters, Watson J. Dog has partially eaten my copy. Which means I’m reading a book where the pages are not just dog-eared, but dog-toothed. (Rim-shot.) Next I realized I’d added the book to my facebook page immediately before reconnecting with an Indian woman I went to college with, and I hoped she didn’t think I was reading a book written by an Indian woman and suddenly thought, “Hey, I should look up Indian women I’ve known in my life.” Instead of the trick of timing it actually was.

Maybe worst of all, this afternoon I’m having Indian buffet for lunch. My therapist is in Central Square, and Central Square is chock full of fantastic Indian food, and I love the stuff — last week I have Indian three times over four days. One particularly good restaurant has been my post-therapy go-to, and I became a regular. One day, the waiter even decided to engage me in conversation, first asking me for money for his daughter’s school, then making things increasingly awkward.

HIM: So, you like Indian food?
ME: Yeah, I love it.
HIM: You come here a lot.
ME: Yeah, this is my favorite place.
HIM: Where do you live?

At this point, I panicked. For some reason, I decided I didn’t want to give him my real life story. Partly, I always think it’ll be fun to make up stories but always lose my nerve. How many weddings have I been to where I plan to tell people I’m a dentist and chicken out with the truth? Plus, I wasn’t feeling like telling my waiter that I regularly had my head shrunk. It’s no secret, but it’s also not his business. So, where was I? Ah yes, panicking:

ME: I live in Inman Square.
HIM: And you come all the way over here?
ME: Well, yeah, I have a standing appointment every week… I, uh, meet with a friend. We’re, uh, writing something together. We meet at 1369 Coffeehouse every week. Then I come here. Yup.

At this point, he started to look like I was telling lies, which I was, so I paid the bill and left and didn’t go back to that restaurant for two months. It was a disaster. But I so realized why I’d ended up at India Castle after sampling so many other buffets: it’s the best in town. So last week, I swallowed hard and made my sheepish return. I saw that same waiter, but we didn’t ackowledge each other. Still, I’m sensitive to his surprise at my regular visits and passion for his restaurant, so I feel like walking in reading a book by an Indian author is going to lead him to accuse me of having curry fever. I wonder if I can finish the book before lunch?

UPDATE: Nobody noticed my book, but that same waiter was really weird and never brought my change. What to do, what to do…

Thanks to the electric water kettle I bought for my office, my current breakfast of choice is a return to oatmeal with peanut butter. Seeing Josh Hamilton, Kerry Wood, Christian Guzman, and even Miguel Tejada and J.D. Drew in the All-Star Game made me realize that 2008 is really the year of the comeback. This morning on the train a very pretty black woman flagged me down… to tell me my fly was unzipped. What’s amazing about Interpreter of Maladies is that every story is good until the ending, at which time it becomes truly great. Unless my information is faulty, one of my facebook friends received a wall posting from his ex-wife: “You are so special…and that’s why i’ll always love you!” Put on pants and my desk again this morning, and might I add that the door to my office is made of glass. With the format of this posting, I continue to push the envelope of blog stupidity. I fear I’m incapable of making my wife enjoy swiss chard.

Today I heard the T would be running shuttle buses between Park Street and Harvard, which on a moderately toasty day like today, sounded execrable. I contemplated telecommuting, or calling in sick, all of which were subests of calling in lazy. But I realized that if calling in lazy was a real option, I might never go to work at all, so that’s a door best left unopened. As it turned out, there were no shuttle buses to be found, just a straight shot, so maybe the gods of public transportation were rewarding me for sucking it up and trudging into the office.

During the 2004 World Series when I was sure the Red Sox would find a way to blow it, I got nervous about the Fox lead-in to Game 3, something to the effect of, “Pedro Martinez is brilliant, but here’s why the thinking sports fan should worry about Jeff Suppan.” Panic-time! Of course, Suppan gave up four runs in less than five innings while Pedro had seven scoreless in his Series debut. And I realized this kind of hype was less unbiased analaysis than plea for ratings. “They’re down 0-3, but the Cardinals/Rockies can totally win this thing! Better stay tuned!” Just a lot of invented drama so people wouldn’t get bored with a foregone conclusion and turn their attention elsewhere.

In unrelated news, John McCain is doing well in the polls, and all the news I read seems to suggest that the thinking Democrat should worry about John McCain. Better stay tuned!

Last weekend, we visited the family farm in Ghent, NY where the woman who played the evil terminator in T3 grew up. Several years ago in LA, I saw the evil terminator from T2 in Jamba Juice. And the closest I ever got to original evil terminator, aside from living under his governorship for three years, was when my boss told us all about speaking to him on the phone to discuss their heart surgeries. Not a bad run, although if I was John Connor, that would have been one distastrous Peenya Kowlada (with Immunity) smoothie.