I'm short on time and energy this weekend. Lil' S1 has a busy schedule, which means I have a busy schedule as well. Also, I haven't been sleeping enough. I'm on a roughly 1:15 a.m. - 7:45 a.m. sleeping schedule, which is manageable if I can sleep-in one weekend day. Like, if I sleep six and a half hours, six days a week, and then sleep in without an alarm on Saturday or Sunday, I'm good. I just need on morning to totally crash out and pay off my sleep debt that accrues throughout the rest of the week. I used to be able to do that, but now Lil' S1 has soccer Saturday mornings, and S has sessions with a personal trainer on Sunday mornings, so I'm S.O.L.
Also, I might be coming down with something. Or I'm just feeling the effects of forgetting to drink coffee this morning. I'm not sure. I have a pot on now, so we will see if I feel better after I get my drug in me.
All of this is to say I don't have time for a long entry this weekend. But I wanted to post something I saw online by Bill Watterson, the guy who wrote Calvin & Hobbes, my favorite strip of all-time. It's a comic about "success" that really rings true to me. One line that particularly grabs me: "Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities ... is considered a flake." Sometimes I think that I should be more ambitious with my career -- try to "move up the ladder," try to make money, try to take on more responsibility, try to acquire more prestige. But then I think "nah ... that sounds terrible." And I go back to the crossword puzzle or the blog I was working on.
Anyway, here's the comic. I found it genuinely touching.
(Note: the writing is kind of small/blurry below, so here's a link to a clearer copy.)
I'm on a neighborhood listserv, which sounds like a good thing in theory -- keep up with what's going on around me and whatnot -- but might not be such a good thing in practice. For one thing, the amount of messages to read is annoying. (I fiddled with the settings, so that I only get one actual email each day, but it often contains ten or more messages.) For another thing, it often turns into nothing other than a crime alert, and that's what I'm unsure of. Is that good or bad? I want to be aware if there is a major crime spree going on in the neighborhood, but do I really need to hear everybody's individual tale about how their car was broken into? Is that helpful or is it just alarmist? I don't know. (And try reading about crime and then staying up late listening to a podcast on the Charles Manson murders. You're jumping out of your seat at the smallest creek or bump.)
Thankfully the crime in my neighborhood is mostly nonviolent, and we've experienced very little of it. A few years ago, my in-laws' car was broken into, but that's it. Now we don't keep anything of value in our car, except the car seats, which are actually quite expensive (one of them is at least), but, I imagine, they aren't great targets for potential thieves. They take a few minutes to unhook and pull out of the car, and they are relatively heavy and cumbersome -- they aren't amendable to smash and grab. Also, I like to think there is honor among thieves and that kids' stuff is off limits. But that's probably just romantic thinking on my part. If somebody is low enough to break into your car and take, say, your purse, they probably would take your car seat too if it was worth their while.
Having your car broken into is concerning, but it's not downright frightening like the thought of having your house burglarized. We've never seen any signs of anybody trying to break into our house, but it does happen in my neighborhood. I think (hope) we'll be OK, because 1) despite the individual cases that people put up on the listserv, our neighborhood is still pretty safe -- the vast majority of people aren't getting burglarized and never will (we have packages delivered almost everyday, and nobody has so much as stolen a package off our porch); 2) we have a good alarm system; 3) we're on a major road and our backyard is not accessible by a side street or an alley. That last one seems to be key, as in every case on the listserv, the criminals accessed the back door of the house through an alley.
One reason the listserv definitely is good, however, is because it brings together neighbors, so that they can coordinate possible solutions. For example, people are talking about buying security cameras and aiming them strategically, so that they cover most the alleys, which I think is a great idea. I'm a pro security camera guy. I've done almost a complete 180 on them from where I used to be; whereas before I found them extremely distasteful and intrusive, now I'm OK with the idea of every public area being recorded at all times. I'm aware of the downside -- the privacy concerns -- but I think the upside far outweighs this.
We actually have the technology to do this -- as a society, I mean. You can put a camera in the air and have it record an entire city all day. Once the footage is captured, the technology is so good that it can zoom in on any part of the city and see what is going on. You can only see broad shapes, but that is often sufficient. For example, if somebody broke into a house, you could find the house at the time of the robbery, and see what was going on outside the house. If there was a get-away car, you could follow it to see where it went. I learned all about this on a podcast, but I can't remember which one. Ah ... it was Radiolab. I recommend giving it a listen; it was a good episode. Actually, they're all pretty good. It's a good program. I could go without all the noises and sound effects -- it's a bit overproduced at times -- but that's a small nit.
Anyway, I think the main reason people don't like security cameras is because a) it feels kind of creepy to know you're being recorded at all times; b) they are worried that the government is going to turn into Big Brother. On a), I think we just need to get used to this. The technology is there, and it isn't going away. Even if it's not an "eye in the sky," it's security footage from a residence or a business or a passer-by with an iPhone. Being that we all carry around with us little cameras pretty everywhere we go, we should probably just behave as if somebody is filming us all the time.
On b), I think this fear is based,literally, on fiction. The term Big Brother is from a fictitious novel. I think books like 1984 are so good and so powerful that we collectively forget that they are complete make-believe. And basing your life philosophies on make-believe is a great way to lose touch with reality and look like a fool. (See examples here and here and here.) I mean, I love George Orwell, but what if he just got it wrong? He wasn't a seer; 1984 isn't a prophecy (although Animal Farm seems to get truer and truer each election cycle). Yes, things like the NSA illegally spying on citizens are concerning, but really that's still a far cry from Big Brother. And on the flip side, what about the good that all this surveillance can do? It seems to me technology is being used not so that the government can oppress the people, but so that people can more effectively police themselves and in many cases, police the government. Think about it -- what's the hottest topics right now in policing? Bodycams.
The key, in my view, is not whether or not we should exploit surveillance technology, but rather who has access to the footage. If we all have access to it -- if, for example, anybody can go online and watch footage of any public place at any given time -- and we all know that anybody can do this, then why is this a bad thing? Won't it just make us all safer and more accountable? Or at the very least, won't it be better than the alternative, which is that this technology is out there and is being deployed in an ad-hoc manner of nebulous legality. It seems to the answer is clearly yes.
But, I dunno, maybe I'm way off on this, and if we don't limit surveillance soon, it's only a matter of time before the world becomes doubleplusungood, and I'm in Room 101, sleep deprived and defeated, while the Octonauts song "Creature Report" torments me on endless loop in the background... Oh wait, that's my life now.
The good news is Hurricane Joaquin is almost certainly not going to hit Washington D.C. -- or anyway else is the mainland United States. The bad news is that its residual storms are here right now. It has been raining since Thursday morning with nothing but rain through the weekend. I feel like I've been living on Venus for the past few days. (That's a reference to Ray Bradbury's excellent short story "All Summer In a Day", but of course, you already knew that.) I've been trying to come up with a good pun to described how wet it is here, and I've come up with three candidates.
It's not raining cats and dogs; it's raining cattle and dogies. (Eh ... kinda weak.)
I guess that's why they call it WASHington. (Not much better.)
We haven't had a reign this bad, for this long, since George Bush was in the White House! (Get it -- reign/rain? It works better verbally when there is no difference between the two, but it's not terrible written.)
I like the name Joaquin for a hurricane, because it reminds me of Joaquin Andujar, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals in the '80s, who frequently resembled a hurricane on the mound because he had such a bad temper. One of my earliest baseball memories is of him going ballistic in Game 7 of the 1985 World Series and having to be physically restrained by his teammates to keep from throttling umpire Don Denkinger. Andjuar was a hothead and undoubtedly upset that his team was about to lose the World Series (they lost Game 7 11-0), so some of it was just his own shit. But also the entire Cardinals team was anti-Denkinger for a notoriously awful (and crucial) call he made the game before. In fact, it is not out of the question that Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog put the temperamental Andujar in the game (already a blowout) for the express purpose of needling Denkinger.
But enough about rain and baseball...
In other news, my kids are a pain in my neck. Literally. I woke up this morning with some sort of funky neck strain. It's quite uncomfortable -- to the point "painful" might be a more apt adjective -- and I think it can be attributed to my kids. Lil' S1 jumps on my back and climbs on me every chance he gets, and Lil' S2 is so fussy these days that the only way I can get him to calm down is to hold him and walk around, which after like 20 twenty minutes, starts to put a strain on my body. Last night was the worse. I had him from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m., and I think he slept a total of a half hour during that time. He kept doing that thing babies do where they fall asleep in your arms, and then the second you set them down they snap awake and start crying inconsolably. So then you are left in the no-win situation of either letting them cry it out, which is incredibly stressful (what's worse than a wailing baby?), or picking them back up and starting the cycle anew. And it would be one thing if they just let you hold them and sit on the couch, but Lil' S2 does not go for that. He wants you carrying him and walking around while you do it. Somehow the position that is most comfortable for you is inversely proportional to the position that is most comfortable for him.
Well, if there is any consolation, it is that I get to listen to a lot of podcasts. The podcast is, in my opinion, the greatest innovation of the "smartphone era." I listen to several hours of podcasts everyday. I don't know how I did mundane activities before them. Seriously, how did I get any chores done pre-2010? Was I just bored all the time? The newest one I started listening to is called You Must Remember This. The podcast is about early Hollywood, a subject I don't know if I would be generally interested in, but there is a 12-episode series on Charlie Manson that is just riveting. It's the most intriguing podcast I've heard since Serial, and it might even be better than Serial, because it's more of an "experience." Sarah Koenig narrates the events of Serial in a very Ira-Glass-esque, half-reporter, half-understated-storyteller type of way, which makes sense (she used to be a reporter and Ira Glass is her boss), and it works for her, but that style is honestly a bit played out. I think because This American Life is so successful, too many budding podcasters have copied its format and style, so now, through no fault of its own, it's kinda tired. (Though I still very much enjoy it.) It's like when a really good song gets played on the radio too much, you get sick of it, even though it is still a really good song. (Hey ya ... Hey ya ... Shake it ... shake it ... shake it like a Polaroid picture ...)
You Must Remember This, on the other hand, is much more -- I don't know what the right adjective is -- edgy? gritty? spooky? Whatever it is, I love listening to it. Karina Longworth, the narrator and creator, does a fantastic job with it. It helps, of course, that the Manson story is so fucked up and intriguing on its own, it doesn't really matter who is telling it, but Longworth's vibe and storytelling definitely add to the experience. One thing I didn't know about the Manson story is how involved Candice Bergen was in the whole thing -- indirectly, through her ex-boyfriend Terry Melcher -- but still... It's weird to hear all this stuff about Bergen, as I don't have any recollection of her pre-1988, so the whole time I'm listening to it all and thinking: "Murphy Brown?"
