Entry 110: Why Can't Everybody Think Like Me? (Part II)

In November, I posted an entry on this blog titled "Why Can't Everybody Think Like Me", in which I offered the egomaniacal conclusion that "our country -- nay, the world -- would be a better place if everybody thought like me." I now have a word to attach to this type of thinking, intellectualism. I want everybody to an intellectual.

Yes, I am aware of how pretentious and elitist this sounds (although, elitism kind of gets a bad rap, but I'll have to save that for another entry), but it's actually the opposite, if you use Lawrence O'Donnell's definition of an intellectual. Penn Jillette said O'Donnell's definition on his podcast, but I can't source it online, so I'm probably butchering it massively, but the spirit of what O'Donnell allegedly said is "An intellectual is somebody who is willing to change their thinking if the situation warrants it." Along these same lines John Maynard Keynes famously (and perhaps apocryphally) said to one of his detractors who accused him of being inconsistent, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

[Political analyst Lawrence O'Donnell. Oh, wait, that's former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback NEIL O'Donnell, my bad.]

Fact-based thinking and objective reasoning are things that pretty much everybody can partake in, regardless of your background, which is why I said that O'Donnell's definition of an intellectual is an unpretentious, nonelitist one. It affords the opportunity for everybody to be an intellectual. But, of course not everybody is one, and that's a problem. More and more people are practicing what I call the religion of ideology. They just become absolutely imbedded in their likely wrongheaded positions, and the more others try to pry them out with facts, the more they dig in. I find it really bizarre.

[Economist John Maynard Keynes. Now this dude looks like an intellectual.]

Anti-intellectualism happens across the political spectrum, but particularly among conservatives (see this link). To be a "conservative" today you have to adhere to many positions -- such as, smaller government equals better government; the private sector is always more efficient than the public sector; and low taxes, even for the super rich, are always good -- even when facts and objectivity should lead you to the contrary. (On the anti-science side of things, you can throw in denials of climate change and evolution.) Such positions are simply accepted as matters of faith and are unarguable.

As an example, I heard a piece on "This American Life" about the conservative city of Colorado Springs. It, like almost every other city in the US, is having budget problems, so the leadership responded by slashing spending and adopting an extremely businesslike, pro-private sector approach to their affairs. In some ways, so far it has been a success. They were able to put a stop to things like automatic raises to poor-performing government employees, and bloated pensions. But, at the end of the day, the implementers of the plan are hard pressed to actually point out any savings. Their response is that they believed that down the road it will save. They believe in their ideology, but it isn't so clear that it's right. Sure, in turning services over to the private sector, you can cut some inefficiencies (namely, unwarranted salaries and benefits), but you introduce new inefficiencies in needing to maximize profits (instead of simply being sustainable), and in having a bunch of separate entities serving their own self-interests instead of one entity trying to serve the greater good. Also, although getting burdensome salaries off the books might be a good thing, you have to be careful in treating a government like a business, as the salaries you're cutting are ones that would be spending in the local economy.

["This American Life" host Ira Glass. He's recently stepped into a bit of controversy regarding a different story about working conditions in Apple factories in China.]

In the same story, a woman in the Colorado Springs government suggested a property tax to pay for vital services that would otherwise be cut, such as streetlights. It would amount to around $200 a year for the average homeowner. It failed. So, they actually turned off the streetlights in many neighborhoods. People could pay the city $300 to turn them back on for a year. One guy did this for his neighborhood, and then thanked the woman in government for this program. When she asked him, if he supported her tax, and he said no, she pointed out that for $100 cheaper he could have had the streetlights and a bunch of other services. His response was still adamantly against the tax, because he doesn't support increased taxes and big government. Even when presented with a clear-cut example of how public ventures can be much more efficient, he rejected it.

[Colorado Springs.]

It just doesn't make much sense to me. I don't get why average citizens that just want to go along and get along (almost everybody) care so much about these ideological battles. People shouldn't want big government or small government, they should just want better government. Wherever that takes us, it takes us. What good does it do the average Joe or Josephina to dig in on either side of any issue and refuse to ever come out?

In other news, I just wanted to quickly comment on the conclusion of the case against Dhuran Ravi, the Rutgers student who used a webcam to spy on his gay roommate who committed suicide a few days later. He was found guilty on all charges including the most damning, bias intimidation (bullying). I was somewhat surprised by the verdict. I'm not sure I completely agree, but being pretty well-versed in the facts of the case (I become super interested in this case, for some reason ), I'm OK with it. It was a judgement call and the jury judged against him. He has only himself to blame. His defense tried unsuccessfully to play the immature-jerk-but-not-a-criminal card. As the NY Times puts it

His lawyers said he simply did not believe he had committed a hate crime. They argued that he was “a kid” with little experience of homosexuality who had stumbled into a situation that scared him.

Which I believe is absolutely true, but if your response to this scary situation is to invade somebody's privacy and humiliate them in an illegal manner, well, then you might have to pay the price, and it looks like Ravi probably will, perhaps with prison time, perhaps through deportation. Although, his lawyers will certainly appeal.

Well, that's it for this entry. I have to go to stupid Home Depot now. Until next time...

Entry 91: Why Can't Everybody Think Like Me?

I've come to the conclusion that our country -- nay, the world -- would be a better place if everybody thought like me. I'm not saying it would be better if everybody agreed with me on all issues, or if everybody liked the things that I like, or took the same moral positions as I do. I'm saying it would be a better place if everybody tried to look at issues objectively and come to fact-based conclusions like I do. I'm starting to realize that many people, perhaps even most people, don't do this. They base their positions on other things like faith, ego, or predetermined ideology (how they wish things worked, not how they actually do work), and then they try to make the facts fit their stances instead of vice versa. Probably I've known for a long time that this is how many people make decisions, but the older I get, the more decisions I see being made, and in particular the more closely I follow politics, the more egregious it becomes.

[Galileo Galilei: great thinker and the most famous person whose first and last name differ by only one letter.]

And right now, mainstream Republicans are leading the charge on this backward way of thinking. Nearly all their positions on major issues, from climate change to healthcare to the economy aren't backed up by facts. They are always complaining that their critics have a "liberal bias", but it's not a bias, it's that most of they time they're just objectively wrong. (If it's bias, then God apparently has a liberal bias.) Take one of their latest BS talking points: the 2007-2008 financial crisis being caused by government agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (This "theory" was recently espoused by independent NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg, as well.) This fits nicely with the simple-minded government-intervention-is-bad-markets-are-good ideology of the GOP, but of course, it's simply not true. (Fannie and Freddy certainly were involved in risky loans, but they joined the game too late, and had far too small a role in things to be anything close to a cause of the meltdown. You can read a somewhat wonkish take down of the GOP's position here or a completely un-wonkish take down here.)

[There is a legitimate chance that one of these people could be our next president. Gulp.]

The thing is, I can understand why people peddle horse crap if they benefit from peddling horse crap -- politicians spew BS to get elected, businesses spew BS to make money -- but what I can't understand is why anybody else believes it. I mean, the only reason the average citizen should care who caused the financial crisis is so that we can take the necessary steps to ensure it doesn't happen again. All we should care about is accuracy. Same thing for global warming, same thing for healthcare or any other issue -- all we should care about is getting it right.

And how do we get it right? We listen to smart people who think logically, use unbiased fact-based analyses, and who have gotten things right in the past. What we don't do, or at least what we shouldn't do, is listen to people who have a clear bias and twist facts. Do you think it's a coincidence that almost all studies cited by mainstream GOPers to back up their positions emanate from the same few "think tanks"? It's because they aren't real think tanks. They're puppet organizations, and they don't even try to hide it. Read the mission of the Heritage Foundation. How can you possibly treat as credible any study that comes from a group with such an openly biased mission? You may as well believe the doctors who were funded by the tobacco companies about the health risks of cigarettes. If the mission of a think tank isn't "to perform objective analyses and come to unbiased conclusions", then nobody need believe them, end of story. And by the way, this isn't some new crackpot way of thinking I just came up with -- it's called the scientific method. It's been around for, oh, the last 400 years. Let's use it people.

OK, I'm dismounting my high horse now.

[The statue in Thomas Circle, Washington D.C. -- a symbol of my figurative high horse.]

I've also come to the conclusion that you can be too analytic when it comes to personal relationships. My wife has probably come to this conclusion as well, since roughly 70% of our arguments start because she wants emotional support for something, and I, out of habit, offer only analytic support. For example, she recently ordered a box of checks from our main bank (we have five banks, but that's another story). Receiving them ended up being a whole ordeal, because they were sent late, and then we moved, and whatever, I don't know the story exactly. But finally, they were shipped to our new place, but we weren't home, so UPS put a note on our door. Our subsequent conversation went something like this.

S: Ugh! This is so annoying! We're never going to get these checks!
D: They'll try again tomorrow and the next day.
S: Nobody will be here to let them in?
D: Well then, they'll take them to a distribution center, and we can pick them up when we get the chance.
S: Yes, but we desperately need checks.
D: We still have a few.
S: Yeah, but if this whole house thing goes down, we'll need checks for everything, the deposit, the down payment, all that stuff. (We were considering making an offer on a house.)
D: We can write checks from one of our other banks. We have a bunch of checks for our other accounts.
S: We don't have any money in there. We need checks for our main bank.
D: Well, why don't we use one check from our main bank, make it out to ourselves and deposit it into one of our other accounts. Problem solved.
S: That's not the point! It's just annoying. Fine. You are right, we don't absolutely have to have checks from this bank.
D: Then why did you say we desperately need checks?
S: Why do you have to take everything I say so literally?! Can't you just let me be annoyed for a few minutes? You're always trying to tear a hole in my logic, instead of just letting me vent for a while. It just makes it worse.
D: Sorr-y. I was just trying to help.

But of course, I wasn't helping at all, because their wasn't really a problem, other than S being annoyed. I probably should've recognized this and just said, "yeah, you're right, that sucks" and given her a hug or something, but that's not really my way. I'm not really a hand-holdy type of guy. Plus, I'm still new to the husband thing. I'm sure I'll be properly trained catch on, soon enough.

In other news, apropos of my comments last entry about the iPhone, I read a piece by Malcolm Gladwell on Steve Jobs the other day. It was really interesting. The underlying premise is that Jobs wasn't the big-picture visionary that he's reputed to be. On the contrary, he was a "tweaker", meaning he took other people's grand ideas and tweaked them so that they were much better. All of Apple's big products under Jobs, the point-and-click based personal computer, MP3 player, smart phone, and laptop tablet, all already existed before Jobs got to them. But, they all "sucked" (Jobs is repeatedly quoted using some form of this word when talking about the competition), and Jobs made them un-suck.




The article also portrays Jobs as kind of, to put it eloquently, a whiny little bitch. Apparently, he was super petulant, he would unabashedly take credit for work his underlings did, and he would get furious whenever the competition "copied" Apple's products, even though Apple had already done the same thing to some other company. There is a famous moment, when Jobs allegedly assailed Bill Gates for stealing the Windows premise, and Gates responded, "Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it."

There is a biography out about Jobs that the article frequently references. I'm considering buying it. The only thing is that I read a biography about Albert Einstein by the same author, Walter Isaacson, and it was l-o-ng. It's rough reading 800 pages on somebody, I don't care how interesting they are.

Well, that just about does it for this entry. Join me next week when I detail an encounter I had recently with a few fine, upstanding, not-at-all dickheaded policemen. I'm not going to go out looking for "fights" with asshole law enforcement officers, but when they happen, and you didn't do anything wrong, and you stand your ground, you feel pretty good about yourself.

Until next week...

Entry 360: A Little Taste of Single Parenthood

It's still just me and Lil' S1 for another week.  Well, not quite a week; S gets back Friday evening, so this is the last weekend day we are alone together.  That's key.  The weekdays are relative easy/boring.  It's an hour or so in the morning mostly getting him ready for the day, and a few hours in the evening mostly getting him ready for bed.  I'm in a time pinch when I have to go into the office because of my commute, but other than that it's not bad.

But the weekends are a whole 'nother ball or wax.  Yesterday was long.  I took him to get a haircut in the morning.  Then we went to the Starbucks next door just to kill some time.  Then we got back home, the clock showed 11:00 a.m., and I thought to myself, "Great, so what do we do for the next nine hours?"  Usually we would go to the park, but it's too cold here right now.  There are indoor play areas around and things of that nature, but I'm never sure whether he's going to take to them.  If he's with a group of kids -- no problem.  But if it's just him, sometimes he just doesn't want to play, and then you're in the weird position of trying to coerce your kid into an activity that's supposed to be fun for them, because you drove all the way there and paid the $15 to get in.  You're like, "Enjoy yourself, goddammit!  Jump into that big foam pit or I'll throw you in myself!"  Actually, Lil' S1 would love it if I threw him in.  That's the other thing that happens sometimes: If there are no other kids around his age, he wants me to play with him.  This is problematic because I often physically cannot do the things he does (last time I tried to jump on a trampoline I damn near threw my back out), and because a big reason for us going is because I wanted a break.  We can play together in our basement anytime.

These interstices of single parenthood really make me appreciate full-time single parents.  It must be rough.  I mean, if I was a single parent, I would structure my life differently to help relieve some of the burden.  For example, I would move closer to my family, and I would become more involved with parent groups and play groups and things of that nature.  A big part of the reason it's hard on us when S's goes away is because we are so accustomed to having her here.  But still, I imagine there are many things that are just more difficult as a single parent, no matter how inured you get to them.

Today is nice because Lil' S1 went to some friends' house.  When our friend A found out it was just he and I for a few weeks, she offered to take for him for a day, and I said "yes" without thinking twice.  She has three young kids, and they play together nicely, so it all works out.  I'm not exactly sure what "the day" means -- she said she will just text me when she wants me to come get him -- but I'm hoping it's closer to dinner time than lunch time.  We shall see.

Anyway, I should probably go now -- I want to take advantage of this opportunity and get some stuff done around the house -- but before I do, I wanted to link to a post by Paul Krugman about an article by Matt Yglesias.  They're about Trump's brand of populism, and how a big part of it is contrasting oneself with those snooty, lefty elitists.  It doesn't matter that Trump is, at his core, a spoiled rich kid, who was born into the aristocracy, who has never had to do any "real" work in his life, and who opposes things like unions and minimum wage increases and government regulations that would actually benefit the proletariat.  All that matters is that he says he likes fast food and guns and fossil fuels and speaking English ("this is America!") and factory jobs and even Christianity (the Bible is his favorite book, after all) -- unlike those effete coastal liberals who think they are too good for all this stuff.

It really is brilliant marketing, and while I think much of the "liberals should have seen this coming!" analysis about the election is 20-20 hindsight to the nth degree (Remember: millions more people voted for Hillary!  We weren't that wrong.), I will say that people like myself probably underestimated the appeal of Trump to some extent, because we thought: Not that many people are stupid enough to fall for this, right?

And therein lies the rub.  In many ways, the white working class is right about people like me: We do think we're better -- not that our lives are any more valuable or that our experiences are any more meaningful.  We don't think we are more deserving of existence.  But we do think that we're smarter, or at least that we have more knowledge, and we can leverage this knowledge into a better country for everybody, if we could somehow get through to people.  We have good reasons for being the way we are.  We don't like fast food, because it cause health problems; we like gun control, because the data show unfettered access to guns makes it easier to commit mass murders (especially in big, dense cities, where most of us live); we don't like fossil fuel, because we believe in the science of anthropogenic global warming; we like multiculturalism because we live in places where it works (for the most part) and because we believe the economists who tell us immigration is not the job killer it's made out to be; we like factory jobs, but we recognize that technology is moving the economy in a new direction, and we need to adapt; we're fine with Christianity, until it is used to justify discrimination or teaching pseudoscience like creationism in public schools.  We feel this way not because we're on "Team Liberal," or because we have an innate disdain for working class whites, but because we, not you, have put in the time and the energy to study these issues from an objective, scientifically-minded vantage, and these are our conclusions.

Could we be wrong about things?  Of course.  Are there things we still don't understand?  Yes, many.  But that doesn't negate everything we have to say, just like a doctor's advice about how to cure a disease isn't useless, just because we haven't completely eradicated sickness.   We are constantly walking a tightrope between being confident enough to put our ideas forward, and being humble enough to question our assumptions and conclusions.  (And this humbleness often works to our disadvantage.)

Whenever I hear about elitism, I'm reminded of my favorite Isaac Asimov quote:

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”

If being an elitist means thinking highly of the acquisition of knowledge so that you can make the best decisions possible, then I am a proud elitist.  And I only want elitists running the country.  My question is, why doesn't everybody?  It always comes back to this: Why can't everybody think like me?

Until next time...

Entry 495: So Dreamy

I had a really vivid dream last night -- incredibly detailed.  Few people like reading about other people's dreams -- I know this -- but I'm going to write about it anyway, because I want to, and this blog is for nothing other than writing about what I want to write about.

["No one wants to hear, What you dreamt about unless you dreamt about them."]

I have my best dreams early in the morning, after I've already awoken once.  Usually around five am I get up and take a pee and then go back to sleep until my alarm goes off at seven or the kids wake me up, which ever comes first.  If I dream, and I don't dream often (or if I do I don't remember it and remembering a dream is a necessary part of what we colloquially call "dreaming"), it's during this time.

This morning's dream started with S calling me on my cell phone and asking me if I would go to a "mindfulness retreat" with her friend Jen (who exists only in this dream; she's not a real person).  There was a reason why -- S was going to go and couldn't or something like that -- but I can't remember it exactly now.  Despite having never before met Jen, I agree to accompany her.  In real life, last night, S told me of a woman she used to know who now teaches people some bullshit called Reiki, so, although I wasn't thinking of this actively in my dream, I suspect it was the implicit source of this narrative.  If not, it's an uncanny coincidence.

Back to the dream: I'm in a car, on the way to the retreat, with Jen, who strikes me as a nice, normal person.  She's one of those petite, energetic women, dressed casually in a v-neck t-shirt and jeans.  She's driving a red convertible; I'm in the passenger's seat.  We're driving through Tacoma, Washington, at night, crossing the Narrows Bridge into a heavily wooded area near Gig Harbor.  We're making small talk; she's touting the retreat.  She's apparently a regular at it.  We drive deep into the forest on a rural road, before coming to a massive, wooden geodesic dome.

"This is it," she says.  "You're really gonna like this."

We get out of the car and the grounds are beautiful.  We're in an amazingly lush grotto with gorgeous swimming pools.  The lights are turned down low, and we are greeted by the organizers of the retreat.  Everybody seems to know each other and know Jen, and they're speaking with a tone and a lingo that signals they're the insiders, and I'm the outsider.  The men look like hippies -- parodies of hippies, really; they're dirty and shirtless, with long hair and brown teeth -- but the women are immaculately put-together.  They are all beautiful.  Their hair is intricately coiffed; they have on glittery eye makeup; and they're clad in some sort of all-white wrap.

"Serenity, welcome," they say to Jen, "I see you brought a friend."  I can't tell if they think this is a good thing or a bad thing.  They're robotically pleasant.  Jen smiles at them, heads inside the dome, and half-motions me to come with her.  Charily, I do.  I have that Eyes Wide Shut feeling: I'm fairly certain whatever awaits won't be good for me, but I'm too intrigued to step off the path that has been laid before me.

Inside, there is a long hallway with a common area at the end, where people are mingling.  There are dozens of tiny rooms off the hallway; most of their doors are shut, but a few of them are ajar.  I peek in and see old-fashioned self-flagellation devices -- a belt with spikes on the inside*, a cilice or hairshirt, and a cat o' nine tails.  It creeps me out, and I want to leave, but I can't.  It's like I'm in an old arcade game, and I can only move in one direction: further down the hall.

*The great mathematician Blaise Pascal used to wear a belt like this, and he would tighten it a notch each time he thought an impure thought.

In the common area, Jen seems to know everybody again.  She's approached by a few folks who ask her if she's ready for a "session."  She says she is and goes off into a room, without acknowledging me at all.  I'm left to stand there and look around.  People are grouping off and going into private rooms, and the crowd is shrinking.  I'm hoping nobody approaches me, but I also don't want to be left alone.

Eventually, a guy comes up to me and starts a conversation.  He's tall, with a mane of wavy brown hair, and he's shirtless.  He's simultaneously lanky and chubby -- like, his frame is slender, but he has a flabby belly and chest.  There's an episode of Broad City in which the guy who plays Badger in Breaking Bad has a cameo, and you see him with his shirt off, and that's what this guy looks like.  That's a deep cut, I know, but it's what I thought in my dream.

"Would you like to join me in a session?" he asks.
"What do you do in a session?" I respond.
"That's the wrong question."
"What's the right question?"
"Why are you here?"
"I just came with Jen.  She's friends with my wife."
"Ah, Serenity.  Yes, she's a sorceress of mindfulness.  But, I'm interested in you.  Again, I make the proposition: Would you join me in a session?"
"I don't think so.  I'm good."
"No!  You are not good!  Nobody is good!  But, we here know we are not good, and that, paradoxically, makes us good."
"Kinda Socratic."
"I disagree.  You are not as smart as you think you are.  But, you have potential, and I would very much like for you to join me in a session."
"It's not going to happen."
"Fine.  But, I will find you on Grindr later."
"I'm not on Grindr."
"Ha-ha-ha!  Sure, dude, sure."

He vanishes from sight like people can do in dreams, and now I'm alone.  I realize I've gotten myself into some sort weird (masochistic?  sex?) cult, and I need to get out fast.  I want to find Jen to get her to take me home -- we're in the middle of nowhere after all -- but I don't know exactly what room she's in, and I sense something very bad will happen to me if I disturb people's sessions.  I bang on a door and an unidentified woman hisses at me.  I decide to just bail on my own.  I make an announcement -- "S's friend, Jen, Serenity, whoever you are, I'm leaving," -- and bolt out the door.  I think to myself, "I hope Uber has service this far out."

Outside the dome there is a checkout line.  Retreat participants are expected to be debriefed before they leave.  The line is hundreds of people deep, so I ignore it and walk toward the gates of the compound.  (Somehow it's much more secure getting out than it was coming in.)  Some guy grabs me forcefully by the wrist and tells me angrily to go to the end of the line.  He's gaunt and weak, and I break his grip easily.  I'm ready to beat his ass Brad-Pitt-at-Sphan-Ranch style*, but there's no need, and I plow ahead to the front of the line.  The woman organizing the debriefings blocks the exit with some of the other cult members, and, realizing I can't fight them all, I veer to the side and scale a chain-link fence.

*Mild spoiler if you haven't yet seen Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

On the other side, I'm back in the grotto alone.  I'm free from the cult, but I'm still stuck.  I'm now in classical anxiety dream mode.  I'm having trouble moving, and when I do move, I don't get anywhere.  I thrash through hedges and clumsily plod down pathways but always end up in the same place I started.  There is a sense of doom closing in on me, and then... I wake up.  It's a very unsatisfying resolution.  I consider for a split-second trying to go back to sleep to finish my dream, before realizing how ridiculous that is.  It's over.  The story is done.  That's the nature of dreams: They all end with the same deus ex machina.

Plus, I couldn't go back to sleep even if I wanted to.  In real life, Lil' S2 is in a standoff with S, and he's screeching at her -- I mean absolutely wailing.  He's at a stage in his life where he can (and should be) more independent than he is.  He doesn't need us to do everything for him anymore.  He can get dressed on his own; he can brush his own teeth; he can put his own shoes and socks on, etc.  He just doesn't ever want to do any of these things.  He wants S or me to do them for him.  Often he doesn't even want to walk from one room to the next; he insists we carry him.  It's all gotten to be too much for S and me.  Sometimes we have to indulge him, because we can't spend a half-hour arguing with him, but we've got to start laying down the law whenever possible.  So, although I was quite annoyed that I couldn't sleep in on my one sleep-in day of the week (and that my dream was interrupted), I am glad that S was holding the line.  It's short-term pain, for long-term peace... hopefully.

Until next time...

Entry 504: A Short and Pointless Fictional Story For Times of Quarantine

Walking Through Rich People's Backyards

Sun-Woo’s hat is tripping me out.

We’re at a party with the “cool kids” -- not just from our class, but seemingly the entire nineteen-nineties -- and he’s wearing a cow-patterned beanie.  I’m pretty sure it was a giveaway from a “Got Milk?” promotion.  It's the type of thing an alternateen would wear ironically, but that's not Sun-Woo's style.  He’s genuinely rocking the dumb thing -- and pulling it off.  He can pull off anything.  The dude is social scrap iron.  He got pounded so much when he first came to the States -- for his weird sneakers, his parents’ accents, the way his house smelled -- that he can now withstand any blow from anybody.  It doesn’t bother him.  He was forced into the gauntlet too early, but now he's already come out the other side.  All I can do is admire him from the middle: Too self-conscious to be myself, too self-respecting to be somebody else.

He's kinda ignoring me, and I don’t blame him.  Trixie Vazquez is here and the two of them have been eye fucking each other since we walked through the door.  I'm trying not to let it get me, even though I know that’s not really something I can try.  If it gets to me, it gets to me.  How can I try to stop it?  What does try even mean in that context?  I can't stop him from moving past me.  I fucked up my college chances worse than I thought, and sports aren’t around anymore for me to even things out.  If he’s getting girls now, game fucking over.

He makes his move toward Trixie.  Miggy Martinez is his wingman.  Imagine telling that to somebody three years ago.  I get an impulse to go over to him and remind him who was there for him first, when nobody else was, remind him of Mario Kart and Monopoly, of Stars games and Wendy’s runs, of INXS, of Nine Inch Nails, of Mysterious Science Theater 3000, of climbing the water tower; remind him that he still means more to me than anybody else in the world.  But, of course, I don’t do this.  It would be a bitch move.  Also, he remembers.  He remembers all of it.  It’s the only reason we are still friends.

The drugs certainly haven’t helped things.  Yeah, he does them too, but he does them like a successful person living out his youthful indiscretions.  I do them like the old fucker at this party ten years from now -- the guy my former classmates see around town when they come back to visit their parents and wonder what the hell happened to the kid who used to be the best at everything.  I was mostly spared tonight only because our hook up never came through -- a couple of musty caps each was all there was to be had.  And still I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

------------------

Brian Beck is filling up the entire staircase.  He appears to have gained 50 pounds of amorphous mass since the last time I saw him, and he was gigantic then -- only motherfucker I’ve ever heard of who had to cut weight to wrestle heavyweight.

“’Shup, Shpike,” Brian acknowledges me using a nickname nobody but him has called me since  pee-wee football.  He speaks with the lisp of a man who has just tucked a massive dip into his mouth.  The smell of it makes me nauseous.

“Brian, bra, what’s happening?!  I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“Chillin’.  You?”  He takes a swig from a can in one hand and spits into a different can in the other.  A fleck of tobacco moves from his lip to the corner of his mouth.  He laps it up with his Jabba The Hutt tongue.
.
“Just another day in paradise,” I tell him.  “I heard you’re playing football at Western, how’s that going for you?”

“Good, bra.  Real good.  I started the last three games of the season.”

“That’s awesome.”

“Yeah.  Where you at now?  You’re probably going to Berkeley or some shit now, huh?”

“No.  I'm not anywhere.  I’m here.  There was an ‘incident,’” I make air quotes, “and it kinda fucked up the whole college thing this past year.”

“Huh… the smartest motherfucker our team isn’t going to college, and my dumb ass is.  How does that work?”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways, my brother.”  I mean it sarcastically but say it earnestly.

“Truth.  Well, if you ain’t going nowhere.  What about Western?  I could put in a good word for you with coach.  We could use some linebacker depth next season.”

That no more than a year-and-a-half ago I could go toe-to-toe on the gridiron with this hippopotamus before me is one of the more unbelievable facts of my life at the moment.

“No, sir,” I tell him, “my days of getting berated by a troglodyte in warm-up pants are over.”

He gives me a disapproving look, so I change the subject.

“Groovy shindig, though, eh?  I don’t even know who the fuck’s house this is.  Do you?”

“Naw… I’m about to get up out of here though.”

“You’re leaving?  Why?  It’s early.”

“Bruh, you know how police are around here.  They got nothing better to do then bust up bullshit parties like this.  I give it an hour, tops, before this thing gets rolled.”

I think about my arrest and the terms of my probation.  It’s hard to believe, but things could actually get a lot worse for me if I caught again.

“Word.  I best skedaddle too then… It was good seeing you though, man.  Good luck on next season.”

“A'ight, Spike.  God bless.”

The mention of the cops spooks me, and it turns into a full-fledged panic when I'm hit by a wave of humans crashing out of the living room.  When did this many people show up?  I look around for Sun-Woo, but he’s not within eyeshot.  I’ll go outside and wait for him there.  I need to get outside --  now -- but I don't see a route.  The front door is a breached levee and the water is rising quickly.  The sea is filled with hostile faces I don’t recognize and, worse, friendly faces I do.  I can barely hear over the din of Snoop Dogg and drunkenness, and I doubt I can talk at all.  It's hard to talk when you're struggling to breathe.

It ain’t no f-u-u-u-u-n, if the homies can’t ha-v-v-v-v-e none...

------------------

I’m in a laundry room that smells like bleach, or is that paint thinner?  I can’t tell.  This place gives me the heebie-jeebies.  I was better off at the party, but I can’t go back now.  Somebody might have seen me go in here, and surely somebody will see me come out.  Questions will be asked, questions I’m not equipped to answer right now.

There’s a door on the back wall that must lead outside, but it seems to be permanently sealed.  It’s not locked -- I can turn the handle -- but it won’t open.  It won’t even budge.  There’s a window on the door, and it looks big enough for me to squeeze through, so I pick up a half-full can of paint and swing it at the window.  Believe it or not, this is the sanest of my options at the moment.  Glass shatters, but the can snaps back on my wrist.  The window leads to nowhere; night’s darkness is a literal wall.

My chest feels like a vise clamped on my lungs, and I’m just trying to keep the handle from spinning.  I’m counting doubles in my head ... one hundred twenty-eight, two hundred fifty-six, five hundred twelve... when Sun-Woo projects himself into the room from a higher dimension.

“Dude, what the fuck are you doing in here?” he asks.

“Huh?” is all I muster.

“What are you do-… Oh shit, dude, are you having another freak-out?”

“Nah,” I lie.

“Then why are you in this putrid laundry room?”

“I was looking for you,” I respond.

“Huh?  What would I be doing here?”

“Looking for me?”

“That actually makes sense,” he concedes.  “Listen, we gotta get outta here, stat!”

“The cops?” I squeak.

“Worse, FSU: Fuck Shit Up!”

“Eek!”

“Yeah, c’mon, Miguel’s giving us a ride.”

We exit into the backyard through an open door next to a sealed door with a broken window.

------------------

I’m feeling much better in the back of Miggy’s Dodge Charger, but he’s running hot.

“Yo!  Fuck FSU!  Fuck them dudes!  We should go back there right now and face ‘em head on!  Right now!  No matter what happens, it’d be better than running away like a buncha fuckin’ pussies!”

“You know how much I usually appreciate your can-do attitude Miguel,” says Sun-Woo from the shotgun seat, “but FSU rolls ten deep, at least.  We got three dudes, and one of them -- i.e., me -- is pretty much useless in all non-virtual combat.”

“Fuck that!  You gotta stand up for yourself!”

“By fighting a gang of racist dipshits at some lame-ass house party?  No thanks, man.  If you let losers pull you down to their level, all that happens is you become a loser too.”  I feel a tinge in my gut when Sun-Woo says this.

“And when you run away from bullies, you become a little bitch,” counters Miggy.

 “C’mon, Miguel.  You know I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

“And I’m not much of either,” I add.

“So, there you go, Miguel: ten against one.  How does that sound to you?”

“Man, I’d fuck those dudes up.  You know I can fight, Sun.  You know I can fuckin’ fight.”

“It’s not your pugilistic prowess I question, Miguel.  It’s your counting skills.  Ten against one is not a fight; it’s a gang initiation.”

“Yeah,” I say, “the worst part is that you would have to join FSU after they beat your ass.”

“Fuck off,” he snickers at me.  I cracked his veneer, and changed the mood.  He'll calm down shortly.

Miggy can fight.  It’s not talk -- or rather it’s not just talk, because the dude definitely does talk.  He’s got more boxing stories than Hemingway.  Apparently, he was some sort of Junior Golden Gloves champion before his family moved to the suburbs.  I didn't totally buy it at first -- it sounded like typical teenage-boy bluster to me -- but I do now.  I was there, after all, watching with my own two eyes, when he damn near killed that little punk Billy Tuffel with one punch.

We bailed before the cops arrived and nothing ever came of it.  Apparently, Billy told everybody he got jumped and couldn’t identify his attacker, and nobody dug any deeper.  I don’t know for sure know who actually knows the truth, and I’m not asking around to find out.  The whole thing is bad juju, and I’d just as soon it fade away completely.  If that means I have to avoid FSU the rest of my life, well, that’s not much of downside.

“Dude, Sun, what’s up with you and Trixie Vazquez?  Is that happening or what?”

Miggy is thankfully changing the subject.  I mean, I don’t really want to talk about girls -- or lack thereof, in my case -- but it’s better than the reliving Billy Tuffel's head bouncing off the concrete like a Superball.

“She's a fascinating person, Miguel -- erotic, as well, very erotic,” Sun-Woo replies with smirk.

“Yeah,” Miggy continues, “kinda a butter face, though.  Y'know what I mean?  She’s got that banging body, for sure, but the face -- eh..."  He's makes the "so-so" gesture with his hand.  "I ain’t even frontin’, though, I’d tap that in a heartbeat if I had the chance -- no disrespect.”

“None taken.  How could anybody infer disrespect from such vulgar and sexist comments?”

“You gonna be like that, huh?”

“Actually, go ahead.  Get it out of your system now, because she’s coming over tonight, and I would appreciate you not expounding on the attractiveness of her body vis-à-vis her face in her presence.”

“She's coming over?  For real?  Is she bringing any friends?”

“Well, she staying with Heather Hawkins right now, so, yeah, probably Heather will come over too.”

“Just the two of them?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Huh… it’s just… we got three dudes here, two girls coming over, seems like we’re one short.”

“What would you have me do, Miguel?  Tell Trixie she can’t come over unless she brings dates for both my friends, who can't procure female companions on their own?”

“Yeah, but don’t say it like that.”

“Sorry, dude, she’s not running a bordello.”

“Well, worse comes to worse, I guess me and homeboy can always tag-team Heather.”  He nods at me: “You down for that?”

“It ain't no fun, if my homies can't have none,” I reply.

Sun-Woo stifles a laugh: “Can you at least wait until Trixie and I are alone before you propose any group activities?  I don’t want you fuckin’ up my shit.”

Miggy shrugs.

“Hey, Miggy,” I offer, “what’s the probability we actually have a three-way with Heather Hawkins tonight?”

“Can probabilities be negative?” he asks.

“Theoretically, no,” answers Sun-Woo.

“Well, this one is.”

------------------

Sun-Woo’s house is his parents’ house, but they’re in Korea for the summer.  I slept on the couch the night Sun-Woo returned from college, and I haven’t left since.  I’m certain I’ve worn out my welcome, but I’ve got nowhere else to go.  Plus, we are still technically best friends, and letting your best friend crash on your sofa for the summer is something you should do.  And it's not like we don't get along; we still hang out all the time.  But -- I dunno -- I feel like he’s tolerating this arrangement only because he knows he’s leaving in a few months.  That’s the only reason he hasn’t kicked me out, and we haven’t had a come-to-Jesus throw-down, which is probably what our relationship needs.  Whatever.  I can’t afford rent at Darrin’s anymore, and there’s no way in Hell I’m going to my parents with my hat in my hand.  I’ll follow Sun-Woo back to college and guilt him into letting me sleep on his dorm room floor before I do that.

The girls come over, and Miggy rolls a fat blunt, which I smoke 95 percent of on my own.  We’re vegged out, watching MTV.  I’m in the easy chair by myself; Sun-Woo and Trixie are on the love seat (naturally), counting down the seconds until it’s socially permissible to abscond into his room; and Miggy and Heather are sitting on the couch together, closely, but not closely.  Beavis cuts off his hand in shop class, and everybody starts laughing hysterically, so I do too, even though I’m not that into the show.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Oh!” says Trixie, “That must be Holly.  I told her she should stop by, but I didn’t think she actually would.”

“Holly?  Holly Pine?” asks Sun-Woo.

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t… Does she even…  Isn’t she, like, Super Mormon Girl?”

“No, not anymore.  She got, like, excommunicated or something.”

I bolt up and into the bathroom at the mention of Holly Pine.  I look at myself in the mirror, but my outward appearance is fine.  It's always fine; that’s part of my problem -- the smiling dolphin with a harpoon in its gills.  I splash some cold water on my face, just to do something.

Holly Pine is my first kiss and the girl of my dreams, literally.  In junior high drama class we stole a kiss behind the curtain when nobody was looking.  Then, later in class, we did it again.  It’s that second kiss that still gets me today.   One could be a fluke -- a mistake, youthful whimsy -- but two means it was real.  It means she liked it and wanted to do it again.  Nothing -- no kinky fantasy, no dirty picture, certainly none of my real-life sexual experiences -- has ever done it for me like the memory of Holly Pine wanting to kiss me again.

I went to bed that night, in ecstasy, wondering if I now had a girlfriend.  But when I went to class the next day, I was put in a different play, and didn’t even see Holly anymore.   I found out later from her little brother Brett -- who I think always kinda looked up to me, because I was an older kid who was good at sports -- that she confessed our kiss to a church elder who told her parents about it.  The result was a family meeting, a special prayer session, and a call to the drama teacher to request Holly be moved as far away from me as possible.

We never talked again after that.  I mean, we said hi in the hallway and stuff like that, but we never had a meaningful conversation, and we certainly never discussed our kiss.  But since then I’ve had this weird thing going on where all my erotic dreams end with some version of it.  Things will start somewhere else completely -- different place, different person, different time -- but before I wake up I’m always behind the curtain with Holly in junior high drama class.

And now she’s here.

“Hey!” she says.

“’Sup,” I reply.

 “I feel like I haven’t seen you since eighth grade.”

------------------

It's awkward with Holly here, and a lot of it is the seating arrangement.  She’s in a kitchen chair, pushed back, directly behind me.  It’s hard for me to talk to her, and nobody else seems eager to speak.  That’s the other problem: Our night cycles are not aligned.  Holly wants to chat and joke and flirt, and nobody here is in a condition to meet her social needs.  Sun-Woo and Trixie have ascended to a cloud above the room; I can see the X’s forming on Miggy’s and Heather’s eyes; and my master plan was to decompose in this easy chair before the girl of my demented dreams showed up.

“I’m gonna go outside for a cigarette,” Holly announces.  “Would anybody like to join me?”

I detest all tobacco products, especially cigarettes, but I notice Trixie looking down at me with “Go! Dummy!” in her eyes, so I say sure, and follow Holly to the front porch.

She lights a cigarette for herself and hands one to me.  I slide it behind my ear.

“You saving that for later?” she asks.

“This how I like my cigarettes -- all the cool, none of the tar.”

“It's pretty hot, honestly,” she says, before realizing it’s not just a gag.  “Are you being serious?  You don’t smoke?”

“No… well, not cigarettes.”  I’ve always hated that line, but for some reason I say it anyway.

“Oh geez,” Holly sighs, “you’re not one of those snobby stoners, who smokes a bunch of pot, and then looks down on people who smoke cigarettes, are you?”

“I guess I kinda am.”

“Ugh… you people are the worst.”

I shrug.  “Pot is just a superior drug – what can I say?”

“No!  It’s not!  That’s where you’re wrong.  Cigarettes are so much better in pretty much every way possible -- so much better.”

“How do you figure?”

“Well, what are we doing right now?”

“You’re smoking, and I’m watching you smoke.”

“We’re talking.  We’re having a human interaction because of cigarettes.  If it were up to you, we’d probably be zonked out, staring at the TV like zombies.”

“Yeah, but cigarettes will kill you,” another line that regretfully jumps out of me.

“Maybe when I’m older, but for now they’re helping me survive.  Do you know how many times cigarettes have been there for me when I needed them?  How many fights with my parents, how many late-night anxiety attacks, how many all-night cram-sessions I’ve been able to get through with the comfort of my cigarettes as my only saving grace? See, that’s the problem with you anti-smoking fanatics...”

“We prefer the term zealots, but go on.”

“You always focus on the downside of smoking – as if nothing else in the world is bad for you, as if smoking is the only vice known to mankind – but you never give any credence to the upside.  I mean, do you know how boring parties would be without the smoking deck?  It’s the only place you meet any cool people!  That alone is reason enough for me to smoke.”

“Persuasive, I admit, but if it's alright with you, I'll just stick to watching.”

She takes an exaggeratedly long drag and blows a couple of smoke rings, before giving me a wink.

“I heard you got kicked out of your church,” I say.

“Maybe.  I dunno.  I don’t know the official rules, and I don’t care.  I don’t plan on ever going back again.  Whatever that means, that’s what it means.”

“What are you going to do then?"

"Burn in Hell, presumably."

"I mean, like, now.  Won’t this ruin your relationship with your parents?”

“Ha!  You’re assuming we still have a relationship to be ruined.  You’re three years behind, kid.  I mean, I dunno…  We’re kinda cool with each other, in our own dysfunctional way.  I’m actually staying with them right now – well, for one more night, anyway.”

“One more night?  What's going on tomorrow?”

“Remember Hannah Kim?"

"Cello Girl?"

"Yeah, she goes to USC now, and she told me I could stay with her for a little while, so I'm going to LA.  I haven’t even told my parents yet.  I might not – I might just go and call them when I get there.  I like having the option of hanging up on them if need be.”

"LA?  How are you even getting there?"

"Greyhound."

“Wow, so, you’re running away?”

“When you’re legally an adult, it’s just called moving.”

“What are you going to do there?”

“I’m not sure – movie star, maybe.  I’ve heard that pays well.”  She gives me another wink.

“Do you still act?” she asks.

“Still?  I never really did in the first place.  I haven’t been in a play since… since junior high.”

“That’s a shame.  You’re such a natural.”

She squeezes the cherry out of her cigarette, extinguishes it gently with her foot, and kicks the ash aside, leaving a nearly imperceptible mark on the concrete.  She puts the empty butt back in its box and slips the box back in her pocket.  It’s a well-rehearsed routine by an expert of hiding a smoking habit.

She feigns a glance at her watch.  “Well,” she says, “I guess I should go then…”  She pauses to give me time to protest, but I don’t, even though I want to.

“I kinda stole my parents’ car for the night and given what’s in store for them tomorrow, I should probably go easy on them tonight.”  She initiates eye-contact: “Unless, of course, there’s a compelling reason for me to stay.”

I'm silent.  I can’t say anything; I can’t do anything.  My compulsion is to run inside, slam the door, and hide in the coat closet until she leaves, but I can’t even do that.  I know what I want to do; I know what I should do.  I should do something -- take her hand; kiss her lips; tell her I’ve been dreaming of her since junior high; ask her to stay; ask her inside; ask her to have another cigarette, while I try to find the courage to do anything other than just stand here like I’m too cool to be bothered with this trifling encounter, like I’m the exact opposite of what I really am.

“Um… bye?” she says.

“Later.”

She gets in her car, and starts to back out of the drive, before stopping and poking her head out the window.

“Hey,” she projects.

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry I ratted us out.”

“Huh?”

“That time we kissed, at rehearsal, in eighth-grade.  I ratted us out to my parents.  I’m sorry I did that.”

“It’s cool,” I say, “if you didn’t mentioned it right now, I probably never even would’ve remembered it.”

“Well, I remember it, and it’s never sat right with me.  I always wanted to tell you I was sorry... so, sorry.”

"Okay."

------------------

Back inside, the rock under which I want to crawl is occupied.  Miggy is lying on my sofa, on his back, with one foot on the floor.  Heather is nestled between him and the cushions, her head on his chest.  It's clearly nothing more than a cuddle, but it's equally clear they aren't going anywhere.

It’s just as well.

I pull my jacket out of my hiking pack and put the rest of my belongings into it.  I don’t have much -- some clothes, deodorant, an alarm clock I haven't used since my last court date.  I put on my jacket and shoes and head toward the backdoor.  I hear Sun-Woo in the bathroom and see the doorknob turn as I walk by.  I have a split-second to escape, to slip behind the wall undetected, but I don't.  I'm tired of hiding.  I want him to catch me.  I want him to ask where I’m going.  I want to finally have this conversation.  Now is as good a time as ever.

The door opens.  It's Trixie wearing a t-shirt and underwear.  I’m filling up the bathroom frame, two inches from her, suddenly feeling like a lech.

“Oh, hey,” she says.

“Hey.”

“Are you leaving?” she asks pointing to my backpack.

“Yeah.”

“With Holly?”

“No, she already left.”

“Oh, okay.”

“I think she wanted to be alone tonight.”

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah."

“Okay.  Well, then... peace.”  She flashes me a V-sign and vanishes.

------------------

From Sun-Woo’s backyard I move to the Moss Creek trails, like Brer Rabbit to the briar patch.  But I barely recognize my surroundings.  Everything has been uprooted and plowed over to make way for new luxury houses.  The Byzantine network, we once prided ourselves on knowing like the lyrics of our favorite song, is gone.  The clearing where we played home run derby is gone.  The tree in which we hid our contraband is gone.  The big drainage pipe we once used as a hiding spot from older kids is gone.  The whole damn creek is gone.  There are no trails.  It's all gone.  I’m walking through rich people’s backyards.

The wind picks up and small raindrops spatter my face like buckshot.  I reach in my backpack and pull out Sun-Woo’s beanie.  I nabbed it from his living room floor before I left.  It will keep my ears warm, and there’s nobody around to see it.  I slide it over my head, and in so doing I notice the cigarette Holly gave me.  I take it from behind my ear, put it between my lips, and light it.  I suck forcefully and watch the ember creep toward my nose.  I fill my lungs with black smoke and exhale it into the misty sky.

She's right: This does feel good.

Entry 315: The Logistics of Watching Television

S and I started watching that Making a Murderer show on Netflix that everybody is talking about (I can only assume my Facebook feed is an accurate representation of “everybody”).  We are only two episodes in, but it is pretty good so far – intriguing.  And it brings up an interesting ethical dilemma.  No, this dilemma has nothing to do with fabricating evidence or wrongful conviction or anything like that.  It’s a lighter meta-quandary: How should one handle spoilers for a nonfiction TV show?  With make-believe, it’s simple: You avoid spoilers and make an effort not to spoil it for others.  But for nonfiction, do the same rules apply?  It seems like they can’t -- at least not in this case -- because it’s an ongoing situation.  It’s actual news in a way that, say, Bloodline isn’t.  (I just finished that one, by the way – loved it.)  You can’t expect people not to spoil real news for you.  And also, it feels a bit gauche (for lack of a better word) to avoid spoilers, because it’s like now you’re only interested in it for your entertainment.  That’s fine with fiction (obviously, that’s the point of it), but when somebody’s real-life livelihood is at stake, treating it like it’s just a tale for your amusement feels morbidly inconsiderate.

[If you are looking for a show to watch, I recommend "Bloodline."  It's about this high school football coach whose sister is a smart kid trying to fit in with the cool crowd, and their mom is the prom queen who gets blood dumped on her... or maybe I'm confusing it with three other things.] 

With that said, maybe I’m just one sick dude, because I have been avoiding news stories about the Steven Avery case.  I want to watch the full season of the show and then read all about the case.  In fact, I even went so far as to harangue S not to read about it either, because I want her to be equally surprised about it with me.  She balked at this, and in retrospect, I think she is right.  Again, it comes down to fiction versus nonfiction.  It's a bit much to ask somebody not to follow current events.

I think it was a knee-jerk reaction on my part because S doesn’t care as much about spoilers as I do.  So we might have a conversation like the following.

S: So, I accidentally found out what happens to Character X on Show Y.
Me: What?!  How?!
S: I was just looking online, and I accidentally saw an article about it.
Me: “Accidentally”… C’mon.
S: It was!
Me: Funny, that never happens to me.
S: They don’t talk about those shows on the sites you go to.  They don’t talk about them on … football dot com.
Me: Well, whatever, now it’s ruined for me.
S: Why?  I won’t tell you what happens.
Me: Yeah, but you know.  We are supposed to experience it together.  That's the whole reason why you watch a show with somebody.
S: I still want to watch it!  We will still watch it together!
Me: I know, but it’s not the same.
S: Why? I won’t tell you what happens.  It’s the same for you.
D: No it’s not, because Dr. Drew says…
S: [Eye roll]
D: … that intimacy is shared experience.  So if we aren’t sharing the same experience then we aren't developing the same level of intimacy.
S: Whatever... Speaking of intimacy, Jake bought Elaine flowers and a card and put it out for her in the morning when she went to back to work on her first day after maternity leave.  How come you never do anything like that for me?
D: You don’t even like flowers.
S: True, but that’s not the point…

[And, scene.]

[Spoiler Alert!]

Actually, it’s a minor miracle when S and I can get through any show at all.  The first problem is finding something that neither of us have seen before (S watched a bunch of stuff on maternity leave, so she's already seen almost all the good shows) and something that we want to see and that is available on a platform to which we have access (we cut the cord almost two years ago).  Then it’s finding an hour long stretch in which we both have free time and are awake.  Then it’s making it through an entire episode without one of our kids disrupting us.  (Numerous times we’ve had to pause a show in the middle to tend to one of the Lil’ S’s and then by the time we are done with that it’s too late for S to finish the show because she wakes up at like four a.m., so we finish it another time.  It’s not a very satisfying way to watch TV.)

Also, our own little idiosyncrasies can make things challenging as well.  For example, I like to turn the lights way down so that the room is almost dark; S likes the lights on full blast.  S often wants to do other things while she watches TV like look at her phone or laptop; I only want to watch a show if we can both be focused exclusively on it.  S likes to eat a snack while we watch; I get annoyed sitting next to somebody who is eating.  I mean, it's fine when you are at a movie theater and you have some space between you and the sound is cranked up so high that you wonder if it's going to damage your hearing permanently -- in that case get a bucket of popcorn and some Sour Patch Kids and knock yourself out -- but when you are on a couch cuddling, watching something on an iPad with the sound low (so as not to disturbed your sleeping children), then it's very irritating to hear *munch, munch, munch* in your ear.  

And it's one of those things where I don't want to be a dick about it.  S enjoys eating a snack while she watches TV, it's a relaxing ritual for her.  I don't want to ruin that.  But at the same time, I can't enjoy myself if I'm struggling to hear a TV show over smacking lips.  It's like trying to sleep with a dripping faucet.  It drives me crazy.  So we managed to come to something of a compromise: She can eat, but nothing crunchy.  It works okay.  Neither person is completely satisfied, but that's the definition of compromise, right?  And what is marriage if not a serious of compromises?  I mean, if Paula Abdul and MC Skat Kat can work it out, we can too.  

[Checking Wikipedia: Paula Abdul is twice divorced and never actually dated MC Skat Kat at all... crap]

Anyway, I should wrap this entry up soon.  Everybody is napping, and I have to wake them up soon.  We've been trying to find the right napping schedule for Lil' S1.  He started going down for like three hours in the middle of the day, but then he wouldn't go to sleep at night.  So we cut out the nap altogether, but then he would become insufferably cranky in the afternoon.  Now we are going for an hour or an hour and a half max.  It's been about that long.

Until next time...

Entry 338: Oops... I Forgot to Post Something Last Week

I'm back after an unintentional one-week hiatus.  Earlier this week -- Tuesday, maybe -- I thought to myself, "Hey, I forgot to write a blog entry last weekend."  The problem is that I often write on Saturday, and last Saturday I was busy from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep.  We took the kids to an amusement park in Pennsylvania called Dutch Wonderland.  Then, when we got back, I hustled off to a friend's housewarming party.

Dutch Wonderland was pretty fun.  It's on the lower side of the amusement park scale (in every way except for the cost: $75 bucks a person -- oof!).  The rides are small and dingy and the attractions are kinda... meh.  But this is actually good when you have little kids, because it means they can do most the rides -- nothing does crazy loops or has huge drops or anything like that -- and it means the lines are manageable.  Plus little kids don't really care about shoddiness.  We went to an exhibit with big replicated dinosaurs, and Lil' S1 thought it was the greatest thing ever, even though the models looked kinda cheap.  Also they have a water park.  Lil' S1 went absolutely nuts in it.  I could barely keep up with him.

[I found this photo online.  Judging by the cars it must be at least 40 years old.]

The party was good also.  My friend A just bought a place in a neighborhood of D.C. called Eckington, which I had literally never heard of before Saturday.  She's a single, corporate attorney, with no kids, so you can imagine how different it was for me walking into her place from what I'm used to.  It was the first party I've been to that didn't have goody bags in, like... I don't even know how long.  In looking at how she lives, I thought to myself, "You know, I bet if I never had a family, I would still be pretty happy."  Don't get me wrong, nothing is more important to me than S and my boys, and I would be devastated if I lost them, but in an alternate reality, in which I decide not to go that route, I think I would still find my life rewarding and pleasurable -- just in a radically different way.

Is this a bad thing to think or to say out loud?  It feels taboo to write down such thoughts, but it's not a bad thing; it's a good thing.  I mean, look at the alternative.  What if, through bad luck, I just never met somebody I wanted to marry?  Or what if I did meet this person and she didn't want kids?  Or if I had defective sperm?  What if, for whatever reason, a family just never happened for me?  Should I just be miserable for my entire life?  That seems absolutely absurd.  So I'm standing by it: Going it alone would not (and was not) my first choice, but if it happened, I'd be just fine.  I'd be in better shape; I'd get more sleep; I'd go to the movies more; I'd play more Scrabble;and I'd travel more.  But, of course, I wouldn't have pictures like the ones below, so, you know...

[This is more the type of party I'm used to attending.  Lil' S1 is hanging back; he can't be too into it having previously declared that he hates princesses.]

And maybe it doesn't even matter anyway because the fate of everybody and everything in the universe was completely determined at the moment of the big bang.  Maybe we are all just bits of matter interacting in extremely complex ways.  But maybe it is a completely predictable system if there was someway to fully comprehend all the rules and all the input data.  Maybe I'm typing this right now, not because I'm making an active choice, but because all the particles in the universe have been interacting in a way that have led to this outcome and only this outcome.

It's something I've thinking about since I started reading A Brief History of Time. (I have since stopped reading it.  I can't hang with quantum theory.)  It might sound like "whoa, man, you're blowing my mind!" stoner blather, but I think there is actually something more profound there.  Think about it: If you, like me, believe that we are products of the physical universe, and not imbued with some sort of "otherworldliness" by a creator, then we should completely obey the laws of the physical universe.  This includes our minds.  So perhaps what we think of as free will is not actually free will, but particles in our brains interacting in a completely predetermine way to give us the illusion of free will (all our thoughts and actions would be completely predictable if we fully comprehended the totality of the universe).  I mean, if a "path" was started at the big bang -- why would humans have a special power that allows us to alter this path?  We don't think the sun can choose to alter its destiny.  A comet can't decide to streak in a different direction.  Why are humans different?  We certainly are self-aware in a way that a star or a comet (seemingly) is not, but that just means we understand the concept of free-will; it doesn't mean we have free will.  Human beings represent not even a speck in the known universe.  Isn't it the height of egoism to think that we have special agency in controlling the future that nothing else seems to have?

I don't know.  And it's difficult, because assuming we don't have free will has a whole raft of terrible implications.  For example, it means the holocaust was inevitable.  It also can be used to justify any terrible action by anybody.  If you think about it, a predetermined universe is the ultimate caste system: it means, in the most literal sense, that some people were born to be happy and some people were born to suffer, and there is nothing we can do about it.  This is highly unsatisfying, to say the least.

I guess this is one reason why people are religious.  Belief in a creator is a very convenient way to side-step this entire enigma: God created the universe and its laws; God created us; God gave us free will.  Bam!  Done.  But then if that's the case then who created God?  The Coast Guard?

[The famous "Pale Blue Dot" photograph of the Earth.]

Anyway...

In other news: Brexit!  That one really sneaked up on us, huh?  I listen to and read a lot of news, and I don't recall hearing much of anything about Brexit before this week.  Then it was like, "Oh, by the way, England is voting on Thursday about whether or not to leave the E.U., and it's, like, a huge fucking deal, so pay attention!"  I'm not going to pretend like I have any inkling about the ramifications this will have on us here in the U.S. (nobody really does), but I don't think it's a good thing.  It seems to have been driven largely by xenophobia and scapegoating "others," which is unfortunate.  A lot of people have made comparisons between the pro-Brexit movement and the rise of Donald Trump, and they seem apt to me.  In fact, Trump is in the U.K. right now, Tweeting about how great Brexit is.  Of course, he's in Scotland, which overwhelming voted to stay, but, hey, Trump has never been bother by major inconsistencies before -- why would he start now?

One thing I take solace in is that Trump is in a foreign country right now instead of running his presidential campaign here in the U.S.  As Jonathan Chait, has been continually pointing out, Trump's campaign has been a garbage fire thus far.  The bad news is that a garbage fire could still beat Hillary Clinton in a general election.  It is not likely, but it is not massively unlikely either.  The latest odds have Hillary at around 75%.  So if you take four pieces of paper and put them in a hat, one of them represents a Donald Trump presidency.  Scary thought, huh?

In other other news, my throat is still bothering me.  It doesn't even feel like it's getting better at all.  I went back to the ENT on Thursday, and he had another look inside, a longer look this time, and he just doesn't see anything out of the ordinary.  As I said before, this is both reassuring and troubling.  If it was a serious issue, presumably he would see signs of that, so in that way I'm glad everything looks good.  On the other hand something is wrong -- I'm experiencing the symptoms -- and it is very unsatisfying to be told, "sorry, I don't know what to do about it."  The newest "fix" is to take Prilosec for a month (acid reflux is a possible, though unlikely, cause) and hope it goes away.  That's it.  That's where I'm at: The Waiting Game.  And as everybody knows, The Waiting Game sucks.  It's much better to play Hungry, Hungry Hippos.

Until next time...

PS -- Can you find the two hidden The Simpsons references in this entry?  The answers can be found here and here.

Entry 317: Making a Hamburger

We finished the Netflix series Making a Murderer, and I have a few thoughts on it.  Oh boy, do I have a few thoughts on it.  Immediately after watching the final scene of the final episode, I started formulating these thoughts into a coherent narrative in my head, because I wanted to write a blog post about it.  And then, in doing some further reading, I came across this article, which basically makes the exact case I was going to make -- right down to the irony encapsulated in the final lines (the filmmakers doing the very thing they caution against, but on the other side).  So now I effectively cannot write the blog post I was intending to write, because it would just end up being an inferiorly written knock-off of the linked article.  Instead I will just give you a brief summary of my Making a Murderer thoughts.

It wasn’t a bad series.  It tells a fascinating story, and the problems the filmmakers address with the criminal justice system -- both in general and with the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office in particular -- are very real.  The way the cops get tunnel vision and go after suspects, seemingly without the slightest hint that they might be wrong, is highly disturbing.  So are interrogation techniques, in which investigators feed confused and/or scared suspects the story they want to hear, and then call it a confession when the suspect inevitably parrots it back to them.  (The hardest part of the series to watch is investigators coaxing a mentally slow teenager, with no council present, into admitting involvement in a very serious crime.)  Confessions, along with eye-witness testimony (which the series touches on briefly, in the beginning), are still bedrocks of our legal system, even though they have been proven to be much, much, much less reliable than we think.  That Making a Murderer demonstrates this in a powerful, intriguing manner is a very laudable achievement.

With that said, as illustrated in the first linked article, the series has major credibility issues.  The filmmakers cherry-picked the evidence they chose to show in a way that makes the state’s case against Steven Avery and Brandon Dassey seem weaker than it really was.  Further, they omit key facts from Avery’s background and the testimony of people who knew him that paint a picture of a man with strong proclivities for sexual assault and violence against women.*  Because of this I find the series very dishonest and even irresponsible.  It’s simply not the exploration of truth and justice that it presents itself to be.  For this reason, it ultimately fails its viewers in a big way.  If you haven’t watched it yet and you want to, you should.  But keep all this in mind as you do.

And if you wondering, I think – I don’t know, but I think – both Avery and Dassey were involved in the crime in some manner, and I further think that some of the evidence was “massaged” by somebody (or somebodies) in the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office.  In my opinion, there were enough improprieties in the defendants' prosecutions that retrials should be strongly considered.  Even “bad” people deserve fair trials.  And that could have been the message of Making a Murderer.  Instead they went a different way – a way in which doubt was not properly emphasized and innocence was strongly implied – and in so doing, I believe they ruined what could have been an excellent product.

On a macro-level, what it ultimately boils down to is a question I keep coming back to: Why can’t everybody think like me?  By this I don’t mean that I wish everybody shared all my opinions or liked all the things that I like; I mean that I wish everybody tried to look at things objectively and form opinions and make decisions based on neutral observations -- that is, based on reality rather than what one might want reality to be.  We couldn't get it perfect, of course, we all have biases, but we could do a lot better than we are doing right now.

The Right clearly is the worst offenders when it comes to this.  They are the side of ideology and religion, pretty much exclusively.  But there are elements of it on the Left as well.  I was reminded of this when I was checking out Facebook and came across a long thread about how we should boycott Girl Scout cookies.  The reason?  GSA has the audacity to -- get this -- believe in science.  Sigh…

GMOs and organic food and things of the like are something I’ve done a complete 180 on.  I used to think it made sense to shop organic and go for the “natural” brands and all that, but I’ve come to realize that it is probably pretty much all bullshit.  (Although I still do buy a fair amount of organic food, because I like to support local small businesses, which are often organic, and because there are certain organic brands whose products I think taste better.)  A friend of mine from high school – a Ph.D. in chemistry – frequently posts on social media about this topic, and her arguments are largely what turned me around on the subject.  Also, Bill Nye changed his mind, and that dude is usually spot on.

[My name is Jonas, DC's in the red... Thanks for all you've shown us, your weekend is dead...]

Anyway…

In other news, it is supposed to snow here in DC on Saturday – like big-time snow, like two-feet-of-snow snow.  Of course, I remember a time when I was at UMD, and a snowstorm like this was predicted, so they canceled school the night before the storm was supposed to hit, and then not a single flake fell.  The truth is, we aren’t very good at predicting the weather.  Actually, that’s probably a mischaracterization.  The real truth is likely that future weather is a random event of which there is no certain outcome, and so the best we can do is assign probabilities to possible outcomes -- and the thing about possible outcomes is that they aren't definite.  (I remember hearing once in an academic talk that meteorologists actually do a pretty good job of estimating these probabilities – like roughly half the time they say there is a 50% chance of rain, it rains.)

I think this fact (that future weather is a random event) is part of the reason why people think meteorologists are more wrong than they are.  If somebody sees an 80% chance of rain, and then it doesn’t rain, they think the forecast was wrong.  But that’s not necessarily true, because the forecast allowed for a 20% chance of not raining – and any particular day of no rain could be part of that 20%.  The way a forecast is wrong is if its percentages don’t match up with reality over a large sample -- like if a meteorologist said there was an 80% chance of rain 100 times and out of those it only rained 30 times, then one could safely conclude the forecasting model is wrong.  (And by the way, this isn’t restricted to weather, people don’t understand randomness and statistics in many fields.  As a sports fan, this frequently drives me crazy.)

But back to this weekend.  I’m definitely not looking forward to such a snowstorm if it actually materializes.  Snow is fine if you don’t have anywhere to go and you don’t have young children.  But with a hyperactive three-year-old and a little baby to boot, heavy snowfall is going to be dreadful.  What are we going to do?  There are only so many snowmen you can build before you get cold and run out of dry clothes.  And Lil’ S1 already watches too much iPad.  And he already gets on our nerves if he’s inside for more than three minutes.  How are we going to survive three days?  It’s not even fun to drink (a snow day staple in the good ol’ days) because you know you are going to have to wake up at the crack of dawn to the sound of somebody crying in your ear (usually one of my kids… occasionally my wife).  Ugh... Kids... they kinda ruin everything, huh?

Anyway, that’s about all I have time for today.

Until next time…


*To me, the most egregious omission of evidence is the fact that Dassey told the police that he helped Avery remove the battery from the victim’s car, and then they found Avery’s DNA under the hood.  So much was made of blood samples linking Avery to the car – were they planted? – I felt totally cheated finding out later that even without the blood they could place him at the car.  The filmmakers responded to this (and other questions), but not in a very thorough or convincing manner.  They Tweeted that they omitted it because it was "disputed evidence" and "less significant."  But (a) pretty much all evidence in a criminal trial is disputed -- it's the defense's job to dispute it; (b) it's highly significant because it ties Avery to the car and it corroborates something Dassey told investigators, which they also omitted.

Also, the series really should have gone further into Avery's past.  Even if they didn't know about the stuff with his ex-fiancée there was plenty of stuff out there (I mean, it's never even explained WHY everybody in the area hates him so much).  Apparently Brendan alleged that Avery touched him inappropriately, and there were accusations that Avery molestated other family members.  The series doesn't mention this at all.  (By the way, the entire Avery family sounds like a bunch of sick fucks.  Makes me wonder what was going on in their childhood, and it also makes me wonder if the sympathy I felt for Avery's parents while watching the movie was well-founded or not -- in most cases you reap what you sow.)  And when they mention anything sordid about his past, they do so very briefly.  At one point in one of the early episodes, they quickly flash a letter on the screen he wrote to his ex-wife, in which he threatens to kill her, and then don’t say anything else about it.  And I remember being confused, and thinking, “Wait, did he just write to his wife that he’s going to kill her?”