Intelligent Design was struck its first of hopefully many blows Tuesday morning in Pennsylvania when a judge, using the beautiful phrase "breathtaking inanity", banned its teaching in the Dover school district.
That we're even having this discussion in the first place is frightening, and points to a growing, I don't know really what to call it, maybe willful ignorance, on the part of people who simply refuse to acknowledge the world as it exists around them. These people instead choose to believe whatever it is they want to believe, and espouse those beliefs at an operatic pitch in hopes that by saying it enough, it becomes true.
One prime example of this is the demise of the phrase "Begs the Question". You all know this is a pet peeve of mine; I've actually gotten into arguments with people who have said, "it means what I mean it means, not what it really means." To this I respond, "then what's to keep me from calling you a jackass and saying 'oh no, I mean nice person when I call you a jackass, not what it really means!' " The response was, "Well then how is everyone else supposed to know you don't really think I'm a jackass?"
At this point I had won the argument, but my conversational adversary was never in the fight to begin with since they weren't using any sort of logical progression of thought upon which they could base any sort of real argument, they were just parroting shit they heard from somewhere else. Some people need to spend some time at the argument clinic.
Another recent case in point, Rush Limbaugh gets nailed on the drug thing; his response?
"Just because I tell someone not to use drugs while doing so myself doesn't make me a hypocrite..."
Yes, it fucking does. Have you looked it up, Rush? I do not think it means what you think it means. And yet I heard this same statement repeated in conversation while eating lunch at my favorite eatery by my place of work soon thereafter. People believe what they want to believe.
Not that this is a new thing, but it sure seems to be getting worse.
A part of the problem in the case of Intelligent Design is that its proponents are mis-handling the word "theory". Dictionary.com lists, as its first definition (of seven) of "theory":
A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
This would be the case of the theory of evolution. Repeatedly tested, widely accepted, can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena, and in addition demonstrably provable through both short and long term experimentation on both the macro- and micro-biological levels. Doonesbury had a brilliant riff on this very subject.
The last definition (of seven) on dictionary.com reads:
An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.
This, I assume, is what most Intelligent Design proponents are taking for the meaning of theory when they try to get it taught in school as an alternative to evolution. Only, and lets be very clear here : Intelligent Design is UNPROVABLE BY DEFINITION. It is not scientific, it isn't even something upon which you could run, or even devise, an experiment to demonstrate any property regarding it. It hasn't been repeatedly tested because there's no test you can devise to attempt to prove it. It isn't widely accepted unless you all those people facing the other way inside of a church, which by definition makes it something you can't teach in a public school. It cannot be used to make predicitions about anything whatsoever, seeing how is "its all god's plan," or "the mind of god is unfathomable" doesn't really point to anything very specifically. There's a theory that god exists, it's called religion, and they apparantly teach it in church far more successfully than students in public schools are being taught critical thinking. This is not to say religious beliefs and critical thinking skills are mutually exclusive (see the companion blog for direct evidence), but the two seem to intersect at appallingly wide intervals. Venn Diagrams indeed!
In any case, it's clear that the two types of theories don't belong in the same sentence, but Intelligent Design spammers would have you believe that because it's the same word it applies identically to both phrases. It's an amazingly thin veneer to spackle over a ridiculous, deeply flawed, and profoundly dangerous idea.
And for those of you who want to get all ecumenical on me (in the 2a sense), look - it's your own goddamn bible which quotes god as saying "proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing," and now you want to go on record as saying that because there's shit out there in the world we don't understand yet, it must ergo mean god exists? Don't you people know what happened to Oolon Colluphid? The self-contradictory nature of the argument would be laughable if people weren't taking it so seriously.
For me it seems even worse - if we start blindly attributing all the shit we don't know about to god, if we just stop searching for the answers to the mysteries, we lose any hope of becoming better than we are; more knowledgable about our universe; more capable of reaching for something better for ourselves than to simply die in blissful ignorance. We give to our children the same world we found, with no curiosity or wonder either implied or applied. We become incapable of evolving.
The people who object to mankind chasing down the answers most vehemently are driven purely by fear. Half of them fear that when we get down to the truth, it will be that there is no god, and so they have spent their whole lives passing on their personal responsbility and never actually taking either a chance when opportunity knocked, or the blame when cards fell out all wrong. The other half fear that there is a god, and his first words to us will be, "Jesus Fucking H. Christ, what took you people so long?"
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
An abundance of yummy goodness
I dare you to listen to each and every track on this page:
http://wingtunes.com/public/topten.aspx
I dare you to listen to this performance, and please do pay strict attention to the announcer's speech before-hand :
http://www.jazzdrummer.com/goofs/misstexas.htm
We've been crying with laughter over these, so of course nothing would do but to spread the joy.
http://wingtunes.com/public/topten.aspx
I dare you to listen to this performance, and please do pay strict attention to the announcer's speech before-hand :
http://www.jazzdrummer.com/goofs/misstexas.htm
We've been crying with laughter over these, so of course nothing would do but to spread the joy.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Sports as metaphor
Question - why don't the Marines have a football team? The Army does. The Air Force does. The Navy does. None of them are perenneal powerhouses any longer (some of them never were). Is it possibly because the supposed super-elites of the armed forces, the best young men and women this country has to offer, can't abide seeing a score line that reads as follows:
Holy Cross 56 - Marines 12
Let's compare:
The Army football team went 4-7 this year.
The Air Force football team went 4-7 this year.
The Navy football team went 7-4 this year, beating such notables as Kent State (no doubt still smarting from its loss to the National Guard football team many years back) and that football powerhouse Duke. They did, it must be noted, run the table with the other armed forces football teams. On the other hand, they lost to Stanford.
Holy Cross 56 - Marines 12
Let's compare:
The Army football team went 4-7 this year.
The Air Force football team went 4-7 this year.
The Navy football team went 7-4 this year, beating such notables as Kent State (no doubt still smarting from its loss to the National Guard football team many years back) and that football powerhouse Duke. They did, it must be noted, run the table with the other armed forces football teams. On the other hand, they lost to Stanford.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Houston, we have a problem
To add my own immediate reaction, I give fair warning to all of you :
The next person who tells me a story about a friend of yours who knows a couple who had so much trouble and just did "x" and wham they had kids, I'm going to reach down your throat and pull your fucking intestines out. I know you mean well, and I thank you for your concern, but that story isn't supposed to make us feel better, it's supposed to make you feel better about what's happening to us. It might give you hope, but we've exhausted our supply. Save us the torture of having to smile and pretend that your story, unlike all of the countless others we have heard, actually made us feel better, while inside we're mourning the slow deaths of our hearts.
There's nothing to be pleased about at this point, save perhaps we got this news of not-pregnant today and not on Christmas day, which was going to be the case if the current now-defunct cycle had continued. How's that for a silver lining. The next thing to concentrate on is making sure Wanda is healthy, and I suppose you can watch this space for news on that front when it's available.
Meanwhile, adoption has never looked better.
The next person who tells me a story about a friend of yours who knows a couple who had so much trouble and just did "x" and wham they had kids, I'm going to reach down your throat and pull your fucking intestines out. I know you mean well, and I thank you for your concern, but that story isn't supposed to make us feel better, it's supposed to make you feel better about what's happening to us. It might give you hope, but we've exhausted our supply. Save us the torture of having to smile and pretend that your story, unlike all of the countless others we have heard, actually made us feel better, while inside we're mourning the slow deaths of our hearts.
There's nothing to be pleased about at this point, save perhaps we got this news of not-pregnant today and not on Christmas day, which was going to be the case if the current now-defunct cycle had continued. How's that for a silver lining. The next thing to concentrate on is making sure Wanda is healthy, and I suppose you can watch this space for news on that front when it's available.
Meanwhile, adoption has never looked better.
Mission Aborted
Went to the clinic for an ultrasound and bloodwork, and the news is not great--well, abysmal. It seems that three months of menopause did not calm my ovaries and decrease the amount of estrogen in my blood. It is in fact worse. I have larger cysts than before the treatment. Current process aborted, and we will have a consult in a week or so. My worst fear is that I may have a tumor or something on my ovaries. I'm sure there will be further testing. No matter what, the future looks grim with regard to actually becoming pregnant. Maybe Ben can carry the baby...
In the mean time, we've decided to go full throttle on China adoption. No reason to wait any longer. I am fresh out of optimism.
In the mean time, we've decided to go full throttle on China adoption. No reason to wait any longer. I am fresh out of optimism.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Here We Go Again!
After some false starts, the big one came last night. I have not had a period like this since June, so I am grateful. No wonder I was completely mal-adjusted during yesterday's Advent Procession. Today is Day 1 of the next cycle of In-Vitro, and I'll try to keep you up-to-date. Must call the clinic and report the big flow. Until tomorrow.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Home, where my loves lies waiting, er... not-so-silently for me
When we first moved into this house, we had some brief correspondance with the former owners over matters postal. They wanted to be sure that their forwarding was working as it should (i.e. they wanted only their own mail, and not the horse and tackle magazines of one S. Musselman, who we must also presume lived here at one point, and who we must also also presume had a love for all things equine - the fence that lined the lower property boundary (and when I say lower I mean the downhill side - we live on Jan Hill, after all) looked just like the fences you might see surrounding the classical hollywood horse-pen (we detested this fence - we didn't even know it was ours until our lower neighbors (Alan and Valerie, who own the second stupidest dog on the planet) pointed it out to us, at which point we immediately yanked the thing out of the ground and turned it into the compost heap container which now resides in the back yard - in this case apparantly bad fences made good neighbors, only Alan and Val hated the thing as well)), and so were asking us to keep an eye out for any correspondance on their behalf, which we were all too pleased to do, since the whole thing with the house worked out so well for everyone.
In one of the correspondances they pointed out to us that joining the local neighborhood association wasn't good for much of anything except listening to locals complain about noise from either the Greek Festival, which happens over a single weekend every Fall, or the nearby airport. We don't notice the airport noise so much, (although I admit that there's an increasingly large number of large planes zooming overhead, and this little airport isn't supposed to be handling that kind of traffic), but when the Greek Festival gets going, I have to say it's impressively voluminous. However, the people involved are having so much fun you can't possible begrudge them the aural assault. It was definitely something we had to explore, and so a few short months after we moved in we attended our first Greek Festival. It has now become a requirement of our residency. The Greek Festival starts off our Fall in much the same way that I believe the Jazz Vespers is going to be starting off our Christmases from here out. It's just not Fall without a huge pile of Greek food and Disco Jesus.
Ah yes, Disco Jesus. Well. The Greek Festival takes place at the absolutely ginormous Greek Orthodox Church on Clairmont road, an easy walk from our house (entry to the festival is supposedly a few bucks, but the locals in the surrounding neighborhood usually just let themselves on the grounds through the back fence of the property, and the organizers of the festival turn a kindly blind eye to it). The sanctuary of this church is graced with what I hear is the largest mosaic gracing any dome in the southeast, and it is unquestionably a mighty thing to witness. You can take a really neat photo tour of the sanctuary if you like. For me, however, the best mosaic in the room is not the one on the ceiling, it's the one just to the right of the altar, and while you can sort of see it on the photo tour, I give it to you here in variously improved shades of details. Ladies and gentlemen, Disco Jesus:
What sort of fails to come across here is that, first of all, this really is a beautiful mosaic. The colors in the muted lighting of the sanctuary (the same muted lighting which makes both taking a good picture with your phone impossible and taking a good picture with a real flash camera painfully, tactlessly obvious) are breathtaking. Second of all, Jesus is wearing robes of purest white, and he's clearly executing a disco maneuver, ne'er you mind the hands of the damned he's clutching. It's a John Travolta move executed only as Jesus can execute it - no wonder they made this mosaic to depict it! Next thing that probably happened right after this mosaic was snapped was that it started to rain like hell - good thing the mosaic is under a nice domed sanctuary!
Aside from Disco Jesus, though, the Greek Festival truly is a delight to the senses. We've prefected our routine to something like this:
I believe that this finally concludes the Home series of postings. I think I remember saying I was going to post the Kia Saga from the original Chronicles, but then after that I guess I'll just have to start making new shit up.
In one of the correspondances they pointed out to us that joining the local neighborhood association wasn't good for much of anything except listening to locals complain about noise from either the Greek Festival, which happens over a single weekend every Fall, or the nearby airport. We don't notice the airport noise so much, (although I admit that there's an increasingly large number of large planes zooming overhead, and this little airport isn't supposed to be handling that kind of traffic), but when the Greek Festival gets going, I have to say it's impressively voluminous. However, the people involved are having so much fun you can't possible begrudge them the aural assault. It was definitely something we had to explore, and so a few short months after we moved in we attended our first Greek Festival. It has now become a requirement of our residency. The Greek Festival starts off our Fall in much the same way that I believe the Jazz Vespers is going to be starting off our Christmases from here out. It's just not Fall without a huge pile of Greek food and Disco Jesus.
Ah yes, Disco Jesus. Well. The Greek Festival takes place at the absolutely ginormous Greek Orthodox Church on Clairmont road, an easy walk from our house (entry to the festival is supposedly a few bucks, but the locals in the surrounding neighborhood usually just let themselves on the grounds through the back fence of the property, and the organizers of the festival turn a kindly blind eye to it). The sanctuary of this church is graced with what I hear is the largest mosaic gracing any dome in the southeast, and it is unquestionably a mighty thing to witness. You can take a really neat photo tour of the sanctuary if you like. For me, however, the best mosaic in the room is not the one on the ceiling, it's the one just to the right of the altar, and while you can sort of see it on the photo tour, I give it to you here in variously improved shades of details. Ladies and gentlemen, Disco Jesus:
What sort of fails to come across here is that, first of all, this really is a beautiful mosaic. The colors in the muted lighting of the sanctuary (the same muted lighting which makes both taking a good picture with your phone impossible and taking a good picture with a real flash camera painfully, tactlessly obvious) are breathtaking. Second of all, Jesus is wearing robes of purest white, and he's clearly executing a disco maneuver, ne'er you mind the hands of the damned he's clutching. It's a John Travolta move executed only as Jesus can execute it - no wonder they made this mosaic to depict it! Next thing that probably happened right after this mosaic was snapped was that it started to rain like hell - good thing the mosaic is under a nice domed sanctuary!
Aside from Disco Jesus, though, the Greek Festival truly is a delight to the senses. We've prefected our routine to something like this:
- Sneak through the back fence.
- Head straight for the ticket booth to get food tickets.
- Get food.
- Eat. Enjoy music coming from stage. Consider dancing.
- Get more food.
- Eat. Enjoy music coming from stage. Under no circumstance is dancing now possible.
- Go say hi to Disco Jesus.
- Get Greek pastries.
- Eat some, save some for later.
- Go see the various shops where they sell kitsch raning from religious iconery to Greek Island Portraiture. Buy nothing whatsoever.
- Go get freshly fried donuts and Greek Coffee.
- Eat.
- Consider getting more donuts and coffee, remember just in time the bag of pastries.
- Sneak back through the back fence and walk home.
I believe that this finally concludes the Home series of postings. I think I remember saying I was going to post the Kia Saga from the original Chronicles, but then after that I guess I'll just have to start making new shit up.
Friday, November 11, 2005
Cute Furry Things
Here's the requested photo of the Killer Wabbit,
in action in Carnegie Hall.
Yes, it's a well-traveled wabbit.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Under the radar, under the weather
In a race befitting the grand tradition of... oh say the Laughalympics, it appears that both the Chronicles and our companion site have been blog-slacking pretty comprehensively over the last month. In defense of Meeeegan, however, I will note that her solo output nearly doubles the Chronicles' combined two-author output, so we must be clear as to our relative measurements here. In short, we suck.
My own excuse is that I've been finishing up other projects in the hopes that I will be able to devote more time to this whole writing thing, but, in the grand tradition of great-american-novelist-wannabes, I've failed to measure up to the demands of the task. And with the Christmas season approaching, this does not appear to have a chance of changing in the near-term. I did manage to produce my first-ever DVD of an archived tennis match, however, with all of the commercials edited out, and title screens and music and everything (they're coming to take me away, ha haaa!), so the interim has not been entirely wasted. Next up on that front is a wedding dvd (one my dad can actually watch)!
I've also been fighting a head cold that Wanda brought back with her for me from New York City. My wife went to New York City and all I got was this lousy head cold. And a t-shirt from the Carngie Hall shop. Oh and a kick-ass hand-puppet of the fearsome rabbit from "Spamalot". It has sharp pointy teeth! I came out ok.
Another point I wish to make while I'm posting is that I seem constitutionally incapable of posting anything briefly like Meeeeeegan does. I think if I had to write up something as adroitly and succinctly as she always does my hands would cramp. This is a characteristic I think I must work on. Look for more one-offs in this space soon.
My own excuse is that I've been finishing up other projects in the hopes that I will be able to devote more time to this whole writing thing, but, in the grand tradition of great-american-novelist-wannabes, I've failed to measure up to the demands of the task. And with the Christmas season approaching, this does not appear to have a chance of changing in the near-term. I did manage to produce my first-ever DVD of an archived tennis match, however, with all of the commercials edited out, and title screens and music and everything (they're coming to take me away, ha haaa!), so the interim has not been entirely wasted. Next up on that front is a wedding dvd (one my dad can actually watch)!
I've also been fighting a head cold that Wanda brought back with her for me from New York City. My wife went to New York City and all I got was this lousy head cold. And a t-shirt from the Carngie Hall shop. Oh and a kick-ass hand-puppet of the fearsome rabbit from "Spamalot". It has sharp pointy teeth! I came out ok.
Another point I wish to make while I'm posting is that I seem constitutionally incapable of posting anything briefly like Meeeeeegan does. I think if I had to write up something as adroitly and succinctly as she always does my hands would cramp. This is a characteristic I think I must work on. Look for more one-offs in this space soon.
Monday, October 31, 2005
The In-Vitro Play-by-Play: Act II
God, I don’t want to pee on him. He’s too cute!
As an old married lady, I don’t have many opportunities to be viewed in the all-together by other males, so who knew that during the embryo transfer stage I would be given the chance for just such a thing. Well, after the surgical procedure of egg harvesting, we are sent home to wait for news of fertilization. While I was being sucked dry of eggs, Ben had to give up his boys into a specimen container which were cleaned and combined with my ova later in the same day. The nurse called us every day to inform us of their progress. It felt like they were baby-sitters for our future children. The first cycle was full of good news—ten eggs retrieved, eight fertilized, and five made it pass the four-cells stage. Thus two fresh ones were transferred and three were frozen for later use. The second used my previously frozen embryos, and the third cycle was absolutely abysmal—only five eggs were retrieved, and only two made it pass the four-cell stage. Diagnosis—tired ovaries.
When the pre-embryos are ready to be put into my uterus, we go back to the medical center. Since they are sensitive creatures, we are not allowed to wear scents of any kind. This was most difficult for me, since I love my Clinique Aromatics Elixir. Also you must have a full bladder for the insertion. Apparently, when your bladder is full, your uterus does not spasm (and this is a good thing when the doctor is trying to put a very long catheter into your uterus to place the four to eight-celled creatures). After we were greeted by a very cheerful nurse, a very handsome doctor walked in during my very first embryo transfer. He was very cute, and I just tried to keep it cool. By now I’ve had lots of people look in on my hoo-hoo, but never one so cute. The embryo transfer room was adjoined by the room where the fertilization laboratory. It was also where the embryologists practice their alchemy. No matter how science has illuminated the process, it is still a mystery as to which pre-embryos will survive in-utero. The doctors have referred to our pre-embryos as looking beautiful, but it’s pretty clear that flattery gets you nowhere.
My enthusiasm for the first transfer was grand. I very enthusiastically drank just about 2 liters of water, far exceeding what was needed. This would not have been a problem if everything had proceeded timely. There was a delay in beginning the procedure, and the very cute doctor had to use a second catheter. Forty-five minutes later and I was ready to burst. All the while I kept thinking to myself, “please do not pee on the cute doctor…he’s down there looking at all that…omagod she need not have pressed down so hard with the ultrasound doohickey…now I really gotta pee…and so forth.” I’m sure you’re getting the picture. Eventually the little yangtemki made it back inside me, and more waiting began. For the past year, we’ve had three negative pregnancy tests results that devastated us exponentially. Now we are getting ready for the fourth and final round, but my body is not cooperating. My uterine lining is too thick, and we are hoping to shed it with the use of Provera. Overly thick uterine lining could be a sign of cancer or other abnormalities. I’m hoping that this is just paranoia resulting from too much research. Needless to say the drama continues, but the outcome is uncertain. We are still hoping for the best and that my three months of hot flashes were well-spent. Wish us luck.
As an old married lady, I don’t have many opportunities to be viewed in the all-together by other males, so who knew that during the embryo transfer stage I would be given the chance for just such a thing. Well, after the surgical procedure of egg harvesting, we are sent home to wait for news of fertilization. While I was being sucked dry of eggs, Ben had to give up his boys into a specimen container which were cleaned and combined with my ova later in the same day. The nurse called us every day to inform us of their progress. It felt like they were baby-sitters for our future children. The first cycle was full of good news—ten eggs retrieved, eight fertilized, and five made it pass the four-cells stage. Thus two fresh ones were transferred and three were frozen for later use. The second used my previously frozen embryos, and the third cycle was absolutely abysmal—only five eggs were retrieved, and only two made it pass the four-cell stage. Diagnosis—tired ovaries.
When the pre-embryos are ready to be put into my uterus, we go back to the medical center. Since they are sensitive creatures, we are not allowed to wear scents of any kind. This was most difficult for me, since I love my Clinique Aromatics Elixir. Also you must have a full bladder for the insertion. Apparently, when your bladder is full, your uterus does not spasm (and this is a good thing when the doctor is trying to put a very long catheter into your uterus to place the four to eight-celled creatures). After we were greeted by a very cheerful nurse, a very handsome doctor walked in during my very first embryo transfer. He was very cute, and I just tried to keep it cool. By now I’ve had lots of people look in on my hoo-hoo, but never one so cute. The embryo transfer room was adjoined by the room where the fertilization laboratory. It was also where the embryologists practice their alchemy. No matter how science has illuminated the process, it is still a mystery as to which pre-embryos will survive in-utero. The doctors have referred to our pre-embryos as looking beautiful, but it’s pretty clear that flattery gets you nowhere.
My enthusiasm for the first transfer was grand. I very enthusiastically drank just about 2 liters of water, far exceeding what was needed. This would not have been a problem if everything had proceeded timely. There was a delay in beginning the procedure, and the very cute doctor had to use a second catheter. Forty-five minutes later and I was ready to burst. All the while I kept thinking to myself, “please do not pee on the cute doctor…he’s down there looking at all that…omagod she need not have pressed down so hard with the ultrasound doohickey…now I really gotta pee…and so forth.” I’m sure you’re getting the picture. Eventually the little yangtemki made it back inside me, and more waiting began. For the past year, we’ve had three negative pregnancy tests results that devastated us exponentially. Now we are getting ready for the fourth and final round, but my body is not cooperating. My uterine lining is too thick, and we are hoping to shed it with the use of Provera. Overly thick uterine lining could be a sign of cancer or other abnormalities. I’m hoping that this is just paranoia resulting from too much research. Needless to say the drama continues, but the outcome is uncertain. We are still hoping for the best and that my three months of hot flashes were well-spent. Wish us luck.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Airing our Dirty Laundry
For many of you it’s no surprise that I am laundry-challenged. Back in 1993 or so, Ben discovered that I was fond of creating pink underwear. Well, after the second or probably the fifth batch I was permanently banished from doing the laundry and when we purchased this house four years ago—the laundry room. I gleefully stayed away from it until yesterday. Wish I had a picture of the 'before,' but let’s just say that it was a mess. We have discovered or determined that I have a knack for organizing spaces, and he was ready for me to do my magic on his laundry room. After pulling every piece of stuff out, except for the washer/dryer and water heater, I swept and began to put items back in. Many items made acquaintances with the trash can, and some were moved elsewhere. After only half a day or so, we had created a sanctuary of cleanliness and seriously needed storage. I am happy.
Monday, October 03, 2005
Home, where the music's playin', part 2 of ?
I generally like dogs.
When I worked at Cox Radio Interactive my cohort Kayo owned a little maltisse named Grit. Grit was an outstanding young citizen. Whenever Kayo brought him she'd bring along his bed-cushion, and he'd spend most of the day there happily (and if sometimes I wanted to curl up with him and take a nap, I managed to resist). Sometimes he'd get up and wander around to say hello to everyone, and everyone would say hello to him and then, social duties done, he'd go and sit back down on his cushion and fall back asleep. He didn't ever pee on the furniture or floor, he never barked at anyone unfamiliar; in fact, he treated everyone as a friend - lessons for the rest of us (especially the part about not peeing on the furniture). My brother has a dog named Jane Doe - if I remember correctly they picked her up at a kennel in Orlando, Florida when they lived there (this was back in, what... 1992?). Jane is 15 (that's 105 to you and me), so she doesn't get it done like she used to, but she's been a wonderful addition to the family for all of those years - gentle, playful, inquisitive. Good dog.
I haven't always had such good luck with dogs - a pair of neighbor's dogs killed the first cat we owned (and were subsequently put down) after we moved to Lookout Mountain, Georgia (notice the error on the site - got to love Georgia government at work). Ironically, that family's son, Kevin, became one of my closest friends. A few years later another neighbor's dog, an enormous doberman, jumped up and bit me in the head as I ran by their house (which I did every day on the way home from school in stark terror, as this neighbor never leashed that fucking dog). I do not recall what became of it. At some point however, I decided, as most people do, that I was no longer afraid of any dog. That's when the aggresive dogs became merely annoying. And this brings me to the present.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Jersey.
Whenever I walk outside onto our verandah (oh yeah - Wanda has decided to call the porch a verandah now, though I'm uncertain if this is strictly correct, as every definition I've seen states that a verandah is only partially enclosed, and our porch is fully enclosed - anyone out there know for sure?), Jersey, the uphill neighbor's dog, dutifully comes charging down from his own deck and begins barking furiously at me, right up against the fence dividing our yards. If there weren't a fence there he'd charge up onto our verandah and bark at me from outside the screen door. If there weren't a screen door there he'd charge inside and bark right at my feet.
Now, we've been in this house since 2001. Jersey has been in his house since last year, and I've met him several times. That is to say, I've been out working in my yard, and Jersey has come charging up to me barking madly only to stop short, stop barking, and even cautiously allow me to pet him. One time he did this his charge was so aggressive that he wasn't able to stop in time (I had just mowed the lawn and the clippings made the surface unexpectedly slippery), and he plowed into my ankle at a near full tilt, which sounded like "yap yap yap yaP yAP YAP YAP YA-GARK!" This experience has not kept him from repeating the behavior. EVERY TIME this dog sees us, no matter the circumstances, he comes charging as close as he can and barks like his life depends on it.
EVERY TIME.
It could be morning, and we're out on the deck trying to enjoy a nice cup of coffee. Jersey spends at least 20 minutes barking at us before he goes to the other side of his yard and begins barking at the other neighbor's dogs. When that gets going it's absolute chaos - image 4 or 5 dogs separated only by a chain link fence all barking at the top of their lungs at one another. And it's always Jersey who's the instigator.
Or maybe I'm doing yardwork on a Sunday afternoon; every time I pass back and forth from the back yard to the front yard to grab or put away a tool or lawn implement, Jersey escorts me the length of his fence, barking the whole time.
Or maybe I'm just doing laundry - I go out the kitchen door, turn right, take one step, open laundry room door, enter laundry room. Jersey barks at me the entire time from his side of the fence, and for a little while after I'm out of sight just for good measure.
You get the picture.
We've even gone so far as to get one fo the ultra-sonic anti-bark trainers to try to curb the behavior. This device is pretty neat in theory - it has a sound sensor on it that understands what a dog bark sounds like and when it hears one it emits a sharp, high-frequency pitch that dogs aren't supposed to like, and the humans cannot hear. You might wonder (it does NOT "beg the question", for all of you people out there who use this phrase incorrectly : STOP THAT!!), if humans cannot hear it, how do we know it's doing what it claims? Well, the model of device which we tried had a little red LED on it to indicate when the relay had fired. It's still the case that maybe all the device does is light a little red LED when a dog barks, but we took it on faith that it's also actually emitting sound of some sort.
We took this device and placed it on the porch floor nearest to the fence behind which Jersey reigns. It didn't take long for Jersey and his new little pal (heretofore unmentioned, a new dog showed up a few months ago at the uphill neighbor's house, a smaller, yippier dog, a dog which , at this time, has no name) to come charging over and start barking at us. I was watching the little red LED and it was firing like mad, "shut up! shut up! shut UP!!!". The little dog actually stopped, got a confused look on its face, gave another little tentative bark ("shut up!"), and then ran for the safety of its own porch.
Jersey plows ahead, relentless. If anything, in fact, his barking gets even more furious. The red LED is blinking, shut up shut up shut up pleeeaasseee SHUT UP, but Jersey never even pauses for breath. The other little dog, I then noticed, was watching Jersey's heroic efforts. He gives a little bark, then his ears and tail both droop, and he's clearly thinking to himself "Oh, shit. Here we go again." He sort of slinks down the stairs, his ears flat back because the sensor is still screaming at Jersey to shut UP already and it's clearly bothering the little dog more than Jersey (who hasn't apparantly noticed anything but me the entire time), gives what I can only describe as a furtive glance at Jersey, and starts to bark at me again, though with signifigantly less enthusiasm than before.
This continued for 5 more minutes before I got bored with the show, took the batteries out of the device and took it back to the store as it clearly wasn't going to work. I don't know, perhaps Jersey has mastered circular breathing, but it became clear that, as long as I was going to stand there, he was by god going to bark at me until he'd made his point. Stupidest Fucking Dog on the Planet. Also possibly the hard-of-hearingest dog on the planet. Even the uphill neighbors are starting to get annoyed by this behavior, apparantly, as most times now when we go outside and Jersey runs over to bark at us, they'll pop out within 5 minutes or so and call him to heel, after which he seems to behave; for this we are profoundly thankful.
The Second Stupidest Fucking Dog on the Planet is our downhill neighbor's dog, Sam. As long as we've lived here, Sam starts barking at us whenever we go into our bedroom. We're not outside, he can't see us, but he can hear us, and if we dare to turn on the light it's even worse. Imagine this at 11:30 when you've just gotten back from a full day's work followed by a 2.5 hour rehearsal. You stumble into the bedroom, turn on the light, and immediately Sam is barking at you in his deep, throaty, alarming fashion. He carries on like this for some indeterminate amount of time, but never less than 10 minutes. Imagine trying to sleep with this going on right outside your window. Every night for 4 years.
I know that dogs are, or can be, smarter than this. A smart dog would realize that someone is living in the house next door that was vacant for about a week. It might take them a few days or weeks, but eventually the smart dog catches on. The not-so-smart dog, a year later, still hasn't adjusted to the idea. After 4 years, the jury is in - the dog is fucking stupid. Sam was the Stupidest Fucking Dog on the Planet until the advent of Jersey, which just goes to show you what a dog-eat-dog world this is. The competition is tough out there.
As a post-script, I would like to point out that if you go to one of the CXRI radio sites, and look around, the live "Now Playing" applet at the top, and the entire calendar on the right as well as the comprehensive concert/event system, including "Best Bets", the "Last Songs Played" listing, and the global event search are all my projects, still going strong! If you really want to see me get charged up ask me how the "Now Playing" applet works, when there are more than 90 stations all over the nation (including Hawaii!) feeding live song data all at once. That was a really cool project!
When I worked at Cox Radio Interactive my cohort Kayo owned a little maltisse named Grit. Grit was an outstanding young citizen. Whenever Kayo brought him she'd bring along his bed-cushion, and he'd spend most of the day there happily (and if sometimes I wanted to curl up with him and take a nap, I managed to resist). Sometimes he'd get up and wander around to say hello to everyone, and everyone would say hello to him and then, social duties done, he'd go and sit back down on his cushion and fall back asleep. He didn't ever pee on the furniture or floor, he never barked at anyone unfamiliar; in fact, he treated everyone as a friend - lessons for the rest of us (especially the part about not peeing on the furniture). My brother has a dog named Jane Doe - if I remember correctly they picked her up at a kennel in Orlando, Florida when they lived there (this was back in, what... 1992?). Jane is 15 (that's 105 to you and me), so she doesn't get it done like she used to, but she's been a wonderful addition to the family for all of those years - gentle, playful, inquisitive. Good dog.
I haven't always had such good luck with dogs - a pair of neighbor's dogs killed the first cat we owned (and were subsequently put down) after we moved to Lookout Mountain, Georgia (notice the error on the site - got to love Georgia government at work). Ironically, that family's son, Kevin, became one of my closest friends. A few years later another neighbor's dog, an enormous doberman, jumped up and bit me in the head as I ran by their house (which I did every day on the way home from school in stark terror, as this neighbor never leashed that fucking dog). I do not recall what became of it. At some point however, I decided, as most people do, that I was no longer afraid of any dog. That's when the aggresive dogs became merely annoying. And this brings me to the present.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Jersey.
Whenever I walk outside onto our verandah (oh yeah - Wanda has decided to call the porch a verandah now, though I'm uncertain if this is strictly correct, as every definition I've seen states that a verandah is only partially enclosed, and our porch is fully enclosed - anyone out there know for sure?), Jersey, the uphill neighbor's dog, dutifully comes charging down from his own deck and begins barking furiously at me, right up against the fence dividing our yards. If there weren't a fence there he'd charge up onto our verandah and bark at me from outside the screen door. If there weren't a screen door there he'd charge inside and bark right at my feet.
Now, we've been in this house since 2001. Jersey has been in his house since last year, and I've met him several times. That is to say, I've been out working in my yard, and Jersey has come charging up to me barking madly only to stop short, stop barking, and even cautiously allow me to pet him. One time he did this his charge was so aggressive that he wasn't able to stop in time (I had just mowed the lawn and the clippings made the surface unexpectedly slippery), and he plowed into my ankle at a near full tilt, which sounded like "yap yap yap yaP yAP YAP YAP YA-GARK!" This experience has not kept him from repeating the behavior. EVERY TIME this dog sees us, no matter the circumstances, he comes charging as close as he can and barks like his life depends on it.
EVERY TIME.
It could be morning, and we're out on the deck trying to enjoy a nice cup of coffee. Jersey spends at least 20 minutes barking at us before he goes to the other side of his yard and begins barking at the other neighbor's dogs. When that gets going it's absolute chaos - image 4 or 5 dogs separated only by a chain link fence all barking at the top of their lungs at one another. And it's always Jersey who's the instigator.
Or maybe I'm doing yardwork on a Sunday afternoon; every time I pass back and forth from the back yard to the front yard to grab or put away a tool or lawn implement, Jersey escorts me the length of his fence, barking the whole time.
Or maybe I'm just doing laundry - I go out the kitchen door, turn right, take one step, open laundry room door, enter laundry room. Jersey barks at me the entire time from his side of the fence, and for a little while after I'm out of sight just for good measure.
You get the picture.
We've even gone so far as to get one fo the ultra-sonic anti-bark trainers to try to curb the behavior. This device is pretty neat in theory - it has a sound sensor on it that understands what a dog bark sounds like and when it hears one it emits a sharp, high-frequency pitch that dogs aren't supposed to like, and the humans cannot hear. You might wonder (it does NOT "beg the question", for all of you people out there who use this phrase incorrectly : STOP THAT!!), if humans cannot hear it, how do we know it's doing what it claims? Well, the model of device which we tried had a little red LED on it to indicate when the relay had fired. It's still the case that maybe all the device does is light a little red LED when a dog barks, but we took it on faith that it's also actually emitting sound of some sort.
We took this device and placed it on the porch floor nearest to the fence behind which Jersey reigns. It didn't take long for Jersey and his new little pal (heretofore unmentioned, a new dog showed up a few months ago at the uphill neighbor's house, a smaller, yippier dog, a dog which , at this time, has no name) to come charging over and start barking at us. I was watching the little red LED and it was firing like mad, "shut up! shut up! shut UP!!!". The little dog actually stopped, got a confused look on its face, gave another little tentative bark ("shut up!"), and then ran for the safety of its own porch.
Jersey plows ahead, relentless. If anything, in fact, his barking gets even more furious. The red LED is blinking, shut up shut up shut up pleeeaasseee SHUT UP, but Jersey never even pauses for breath. The other little dog, I then noticed, was watching Jersey's heroic efforts. He gives a little bark, then his ears and tail both droop, and he's clearly thinking to himself "Oh, shit. Here we go again." He sort of slinks down the stairs, his ears flat back because the sensor is still screaming at Jersey to shut UP already and it's clearly bothering the little dog more than Jersey (who hasn't apparantly noticed anything but me the entire time), gives what I can only describe as a furtive glance at Jersey, and starts to bark at me again, though with signifigantly less enthusiasm than before.
This continued for 5 more minutes before I got bored with the show, took the batteries out of the device and took it back to the store as it clearly wasn't going to work. I don't know, perhaps Jersey has mastered circular breathing, but it became clear that, as long as I was going to stand there, he was by god going to bark at me until he'd made his point. Stupidest Fucking Dog on the Planet. Also possibly the hard-of-hearingest dog on the planet. Even the uphill neighbors are starting to get annoyed by this behavior, apparantly, as most times now when we go outside and Jersey runs over to bark at us, they'll pop out within 5 minutes or so and call him to heel, after which he seems to behave; for this we are profoundly thankful.
The Second Stupidest Fucking Dog on the Planet is our downhill neighbor's dog, Sam. As long as we've lived here, Sam starts barking at us whenever we go into our bedroom. We're not outside, he can't see us, but he can hear us, and if we dare to turn on the light it's even worse. Imagine this at 11:30 when you've just gotten back from a full day's work followed by a 2.5 hour rehearsal. You stumble into the bedroom, turn on the light, and immediately Sam is barking at you in his deep, throaty, alarming fashion. He carries on like this for some indeterminate amount of time, but never less than 10 minutes. Imagine trying to sleep with this going on right outside your window. Every night for 4 years.
I know that dogs are, or can be, smarter than this. A smart dog would realize that someone is living in the house next door that was vacant for about a week. It might take them a few days or weeks, but eventually the smart dog catches on. The not-so-smart dog, a year later, still hasn't adjusted to the idea. After 4 years, the jury is in - the dog is fucking stupid. Sam was the Stupidest Fucking Dog on the Planet until the advent of Jersey, which just goes to show you what a dog-eat-dog world this is. The competition is tough out there.
As a post-script, I would like to point out that if you go to one of the CXRI radio sites, and look around, the live "Now Playing" applet at the top, and the entire calendar on the right as well as the comprehensive concert/event system, including "Best Bets", the "Last Songs Played" listing, and the global event search are all my projects, still going strong! If you really want to see me get charged up ask me how the "Now Playing" applet works, when there are more than 90 stations all over the nation (including Hawaii!) feeding live song data all at once. That was a really cool project!
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Herbst ist hier!
Went out on the verandah this morning and enjoyed my cup of coffee. The devil dog next door, "Jersey," started screaming at me, and even it could not destroy my happiness that autumn has finally arrived. In fact, my Art of Song program this Sunday night is all about Autumn. Now that the harvest is over, we prepare for the decay of winter and renewal of spring. It's a good thing.
Saturday, September 24, 2005
The In-Vitro Play-by-Play: Act I
The Human Pin Cushion
For those of you who are squeamish around needles or thinking about needles, this is your chance to stop before you go too far. The In-Vitro fertilization process involves a lot of self-administration, and I’m about to describe the process in some detail. WARNING! THIS IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART!!!
On the first day of full menstrual flow, I administer a small amount of Lupron subcutaneously. There are many sites to choose from, but I like to use the most effective spot—about an inch or two from the navel, in the fat layer on my belly. Then, the next day I go to the clinic, have my blood drawn, and a baseline ultrasound. The blood test is to ensure that I am not pregnant, and the ultrasound is to provide an accurate picture of my ovaries as they are stimulated over the next week. Then, it’s onto daily injections of Follistim, which stimulates my follicles. Sounds hot doesn’t it? Well, this FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) treatment encourages growth in number and size of ova (that’s eggs for you and me) in preparation for harvesting. In the protocol I have to follow, this twice daily regime of injections sometimes amount to three or four shots. Thankfully they have designed this pen device which delivers the drug using a micro-fine needle. However, it’s still a sharp, pointy object that pierces through flesh. In addition I also have to administer morning injections of Lupron and twice daily shots of Heparin, a blood thinner which is used to reduce my elevated antiphospholipid antibodies. Along with baby aspirin, this therapy encourages my body not to coagulate around the embryo and prevent it from developing a blood supply. In the very first cycle I had to administer Heparin, I got a bit carried away and began injecting myself rather…adamantly, and ended up with a section of bruising to rival any kick boxer after a rough fight. My belly was black and blue, and some parts looked a bit greenish too. It’s a bit ghoulish, but I kinda liked it.
On day seven, I go in for the first of my daily trips to the clinic. Each day they take my blood to check my estradiol level and to check the maturity and number of eggs. Ovary hyperstimulation can cause a whole bunch of very undesirable effects, including pelvic pain or discomfort, fluid retention, fever over 100 degrees, and decreased urine output, resulting in possible hospitalization, and estradiol levels let the doctors know exactly how much they can push my system to produce eggs and not reach hyperstimulation. These daily visits vary from 3-7 days, depending on my response to the protocol. Then, when it’s time, Ben gives me a shot of HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) which releases the eggs to be aspirated and harvested using a long needle which is pushed through the walls of the vagina, and in my case, through the uterus. At this point you may shiver and make groaning sounds of pain along with me. Ready? Get Set. Go. AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Thirty-six hours after Ben gives me this HCG shot in the ass, or intramuscularly in the upper-outer quadrants of the buttocks, I am to be harvested. At the first egg collection, we asked the nurse to draw bull’s-eyes for where Ben should administer my progesterone shots, and he immediately nicknamed the diagram, “Mister Ass.” I’ll leave the elaboration for Ben. I have one night free from injections, and then it’s the nightly shot in the ass with a long and thick needle full of progesterone suspended in sesame oil. How’s that for ethnic appropriateness? This oil is very thick, and requires a steady and patient hand—both qualities which my husband possesses. Sometimes, when he hits a nerve (the sciatic, I’m told), sharp pain jolts through me, but now I’m mostly immune to it. You see, I was meant to give birth. My pain tolerance is ridiculously high, and should be put to good use, n’est-ce pas? I shall leave the embryo fertilization and transfer process for the next post, aptly subtitled, “God, I don’t want to pee on him. He’s too cute!”
For those of you who are squeamish around needles or thinking about needles, this is your chance to stop before you go too far. The In-Vitro fertilization process involves a lot of self-administration, and I’m about to describe the process in some detail. WARNING! THIS IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART!!!
On the first day of full menstrual flow, I administer a small amount of Lupron subcutaneously. There are many sites to choose from, but I like to use the most effective spot—about an inch or two from the navel, in the fat layer on my belly. Then, the next day I go to the clinic, have my blood drawn, and a baseline ultrasound. The blood test is to ensure that I am not pregnant, and the ultrasound is to provide an accurate picture of my ovaries as they are stimulated over the next week. Then, it’s onto daily injections of Follistim, which stimulates my follicles. Sounds hot doesn’t it? Well, this FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) treatment encourages growth in number and size of ova (that’s eggs for you and me) in preparation for harvesting. In the protocol I have to follow, this twice daily regime of injections sometimes amount to three or four shots. Thankfully they have designed this pen device which delivers the drug using a micro-fine needle. However, it’s still a sharp, pointy object that pierces through flesh. In addition I also have to administer morning injections of Lupron and twice daily shots of Heparin, a blood thinner which is used to reduce my elevated antiphospholipid antibodies. Along with baby aspirin, this therapy encourages my body not to coagulate around the embryo and prevent it from developing a blood supply. In the very first cycle I had to administer Heparin, I got a bit carried away and began injecting myself rather…adamantly, and ended up with a section of bruising to rival any kick boxer after a rough fight. My belly was black and blue, and some parts looked a bit greenish too. It’s a bit ghoulish, but I kinda liked it.
On day seven, I go in for the first of my daily trips to the clinic. Each day they take my blood to check my estradiol level and to check the maturity and number of eggs. Ovary hyperstimulation can cause a whole bunch of very undesirable effects, including pelvic pain or discomfort, fluid retention, fever over 100 degrees, and decreased urine output, resulting in possible hospitalization, and estradiol levels let the doctors know exactly how much they can push my system to produce eggs and not reach hyperstimulation. These daily visits vary from 3-7 days, depending on my response to the protocol. Then, when it’s time, Ben gives me a shot of HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) which releases the eggs to be aspirated and harvested using a long needle which is pushed through the walls of the vagina, and in my case, through the uterus. At this point you may shiver and make groaning sounds of pain along with me. Ready? Get Set. Go. AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Thirty-six hours after Ben gives me this HCG shot in the ass, or intramuscularly in the upper-outer quadrants of the buttocks, I am to be harvested. At the first egg collection, we asked the nurse to draw bull’s-eyes for where Ben should administer my progesterone shots, and he immediately nicknamed the diagram, “Mister Ass.” I’ll leave the elaboration for Ben. I have one night free from injections, and then it’s the nightly shot in the ass with a long and thick needle full of progesterone suspended in sesame oil. How’s that for ethnic appropriateness? This oil is very thick, and requires a steady and patient hand—both qualities which my husband possesses. Sometimes, when he hits a nerve (the sciatic, I’m told), sharp pain jolts through me, but now I’m mostly immune to it. You see, I was meant to give birth. My pain tolerance is ridiculously high, and should be put to good use, n’est-ce pas? I shall leave the embryo fertilization and transfer process for the next post, aptly subtitled, “God, I don’t want to pee on him. He’s too cute!”
Thursday, September 15, 2005
The In-Vitro Play-by-Play: Prologue
Yesterday was the third month anniversary of my premature menopause, and this really means that I’m preparing for the fourth and final round of in-vtro fertilization. If this round does not produce a pregnancy, then we are through. It’s off to China adoption land we go, where we shall balance out the number of white ghosts who are stealing our Chinese babies out of the homeland. If I’m sounding bitter, it’s because I am. I am bitter and angry that I have to endure all of this, and that my marriage to the most wonderful man on the planet had to be tested in this fashion. If there’s a greater plan, then I just want to let the universe know that it sucks. Feeling like a failure is not my most-favored status, and this past year has made me feel like a failure. I have failed to produce “best-quality” eggs no matter how my “best-quality heart” has desired, and I have failed to let the precious embryos implant. They were the only true Yang Temkos on the planet, and I’ve let them go to waste. Those five little Yang Temki deserved a better place to land—not the embittered belly of a reproductive retard. (I never knew I was capable of such self-hatred) Gosh, sometimes I hate that stream-of-consciousness writing that GHP taught us now 18 years ago. Now that my senses have returned, the question to be answered is: How did a hopeful couple who carefully planned their path to parenthood end up here? Well, you’d never believe it.
Ben and I were meant to be parents. We knew from the very beginning that we wanted lots of kids, and that our first-born son would be named “Alexander.” Don’t know why, but we’ve always known. Then the plan formed. We would wait until I finished that damn doctorate, and then babies would flow from my womb. A year before we actually moved back to Atlanta, as I was nearing the end of my studies, I stopped taking the pill and we started trying. For the next four years we kept trying. I studied my basal body temperature, counted days, and monitored so many other things that I’ve stopped keeping track. We used to joke that we must be having “stupid sex,” and every month when my period came there was depression of great magnitude. Once we moved back home, the diagnostic odyssey began. Once we were both gainfully employed, my OB/GYN ordered several tests. The first was a metabolic blood panel, and this revealed that I was insulin resistant. Apparently this precursor to diabetes affects fertility and ovulation; however, he did not prescribe Glucophage, which is a way to regulate your body’s ability to use insulin. I could hold it against him, but then he's no fertility specialist. Also, I had to have a HSG (That’s Hystosalpingogram for you and me), which was humiliating, or so I had perceived at the time. Now I would consider it to be no big deal. In this test a catheter is inserted through the cervix, and then a dye is injected into the uterus to observe the flow of liquid through the fallopian tubes. This is to determine whether or not the tubes are blocked. The result was that my tubes were open. It was an uncomfortable test that bordered on painful (mind you I have one of the highest pain tolerances out there, so take it with a grain of salt). My OB/GYN ignored the radiologist’s observation that my uterus seemed a bit unusually uneven, and I’m still a little pissed off about it. This should have really been a clue to what was truly the matter with me. Meanwhile, Ben had to…give of himself into a cup and deliver it to the lab to see if there were enough boys and that they were swimming well. He scored highly on all fronts. Believing that there was nothing wrong physically, I was given a chart to monitor my basal body temperature and to set a schedule for intercourse, and we acted accordingly. Mind you we had lots of fun, but the disappointment at the monthly arrival of our “special friend” was becoming a serious bore. Another shameful year of nothingness went by, and I was finally ready to put that shame aside and see a specialist. We were referred to Reproductive Biology Associates, and at last we had an answer. I have endometriosis, and I’ve had it for at least twenty years.
When we heard the diagnosis we knew that we had been fucked over by the asinine doctors in south central Indiana. One of the signs of endometriosis is mid-cycle spotting that could not be eliminated by changing the strength of the pill or by adding estrogen in the form of Premarin. Looking back, this particular therapy probably exacerbated my endometriosis, since it feeds on extra estrogen. My Hoosier doctors decided that surely I had some form of venereal disease, and proceeded to test me for Gonorrhea and Chlamydia, over and over again. Each time when the results came back negative, they had nothing further to say. Ahh, Hoosier medicine is a great thing. They were lazy and failed to do one additional test that would have determined the actual cause—an ultrasound, or histosonogram. When Dr. Carol Mitchell-Leef performed the histosonogram, the resulting diagnosis could not have been clearer. Not only did I have endometriosis, I also had polyps in my uterus and my ovaries were full of blood, or endometriomas. It was bad, very bad, but she could not determine whether it was stage 3 or 4 until she could take a closer look. To make a very long story short, I was told to lose thirty pounds, take Glucophage, and to have laparoscopic surgery to remove polyps, adhesions, and have my ovaries drained of excess fluid. After surviving all of this, the In-Vitro fun started. Since this diatribe is now transforming into a saga of Wagnerian scope, I’d better take a break. Thus ends the prologue, even though I could go on about that damn surgery and how I sang a concert three days after having my insides shredded AND how I love the South Beach diet—it’s not just a diet, it’s a way of life.
Friday, September 09, 2005
Home, where my thoughts escape - Part one of ?
It figures that after the lengthy explanation of companion blogging and how the two blogs would interact that our first writing assignments to one another would be given offline. I was given a choice to write about one of three things:
As Wanda has noticed, I tend to compress all trips I ever took to any given location into one uber-trip encompassing all of the major events that I remember about that location. I don't think I do this any more, but given this propensity for mental melding I feel it best to leave that topic be for now.
As to what I'm reading... well, it's mostly mind candy. The only book I'm not slightly embarassed by is called, ironically enough, "Dungeon, Fire and Sword", and it's all about the Knights Templar and the politics behind the crusades, which I hope, at some point in my life, to meld into the kernel of the militaristic religious society at the center of this epic story I've been building in my head (and on various notes on a collection of small scraps of paper and journals) for the better part of 7 or 8 years now.
Now my neighborhood - here is some rich fodder! Alas, as I began to write I quickly found that I have far too many stories to tell. Just the first part of the story, about my own house, was going to cause a reader to have to scroll down about a thousand times before you hit the end. To avoid this I am going to start a mini-series about my neighborhood and the people in it, the length of which is at this time unknown. I promise not to make too much stuff up.
Part the First : Our House
I love our neighborhood. It couldn't be a better location, nestled smack in the middle of the rectangle formed by North Druid Hills Road, Clairmont Road, LaVista Road and Briarcliff Road, (the word "rectangle" is being used very loosely here and should under no circumstances be construed to imply that the shape those four roads make (or any 4 roads in Atlanta, when you get right down to it) even vaguely resembles one), and is less than a mile from Sam's Warehouse, Publix, Kroger, Starbuck's, CVS, Target, and Office Depot. It is also within a mile of a good bookstore (both a new bookstore and a used bookstore), a decent shoe store, and a cheap dry cleaners. It is less than that same mile from fabulous Indian, Greek, Thai and French restaurants, as well as an excellent liquor store where we can finally get our beloved Lagavulin single malt scotch. We're 3 minutes from the freeway, 10 minutes from Symphony Hall, a very different 10 minutes from WABE where Wanda works, and, on a good day, 25 minutes from where I work (on a bad day, 3 hours).
Here's an overhead, thanks to Google Maps:
It's a very green neighborhood, with lots of trees to insulate us from the noise from the freeway (even in the winter you cannot hear a single multi-car pileup on I85), if not the occasional airplane on its way to Dekalb Airport (the trees are not this tall). The ironic twist in the story is that when we lived in Bloomington, we thought we had things so great. We were only about 5 minutes from a Target, a Kroger, a shitty mall, and a super-shitty (but very, very loud) movie theater, the same 5 minutes from a Mexican Restaurant with the single best Mexican entree' I've ever had in my life (when Wanda and I used to go there for lunch, and they'd see our car pull up in the parking lot, they'd go ahead and put our order in and have drinks ready for us - we NEVER ordered anything else), and roughly 20 minutes from Sam's Warehouse. We talked about that great convenience as something we'd miss when we got back to Atlanta, and how we'd never be able to take less than an entire afternoon to go to Kroger, Sam's, and Target all in one fell shwoop (a SHopping sWOOP, if you will). It takes us signifigantly less time to do those things now than it did then.
If you had my address you could get this map from google maps yourself, and if you do I'll warn you that it's an older map. How do I know? First of all, the tightest zoom you can get actually shows both my front and back yards in moderate detail, and two very important details are missing:
My garden looks like this:
This picture was taken in the spring, mind you, when those 6 tomato plants were young. The garden is constructed of 3 separate plots; the two closest plots being 4'x4', made with landscaping timbers and a crapload of imported topsoil (like most yards in Georgia, my yard consists primarily of red clay and variously sized rocks), and the plot behind them being 8'x4'. The tomato crop this year was insane -the vines produced fruits numbering in the several hundreds and have only just produced their last. The long plot held 5 pepper vines of various types, and while I did manage to quadruple my pepper output from a year ago, that means I got four instead of just one. The things flowered like crazy but didn't fruit until I started ignoring them entirely. All I did was weed to make sure they weren't getting strangled, and one day I noticed that 3 of the 5 bushes had a tiny pepper on them. They didn't get very big, but even a tiny fresh pepper from the garden beats anything you'll get in any store. We scrambled one of them up in an omlette with leftover sausages from the grill.... heaven!
It's harder to show a picture of the back deck - the thing is just too frikking big. There's a collection of pictures here:
http://www.yangtemko.com/benjamin/test/deckdone/
And before you start grousing at me, be assured that I am well aware of the absurdity of a computer geek like me having that shitty of a personal space on the web. Eventually I'll get around to sprucing up the joint, but for the time being other matters take precedence.
Our house isn't very large - nothing like the McMansions which are sprouting up like weeds all around us - and with Wanda and I both wanting 4 kids it's probably going to undergo some significant personality changes over the course of the next decade or so, but it feels more like home than maybe anywhere I've lived since I stopped living, well, at home. The most interesting thing is how we came across it. Wanda and I had looked at many, many houses in Atlanta before we ever moved to Bloomington, including one right down the street from this one. When we were getting ready to move back to Atlanta we knew more or less where we wanted to live, and so were able to tell a realtor what we wanted in a general sense and our relative price range. So one weekend we plotted to come down and spend a day looking at houses, just to re-wet our feet in the waters of real estate, to mangle a metaphor. Our agent gave us the most brilliant house-hunting plan ever, one I hope you will steal and use for yourself:
For us, it was the first house we walked into that day. This house. It smelled like babies (the good baby smell, not the bad baby smell), it had hardwood floors, a deck, a galley kitchen with enormous cabinet capacity, 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths - in short, everything we wanted. We saw several other houses that day but the first one pulled us so strongly that we called the real estate agent that very afternoon and asked her why we wouldn't just go ahead and grab the first house. It's hard to explain what a big thing this is - of the maybe 50 or so houses that Wanda and I saw the first time around before we left for Indiana, not ONCE did we agree on any house as being the one. We spent a lot of time arguing about which concessions to make to imperfection, in fact, until it became a moot point. But this house, it just felt like home. Immediately. Interestingly, our real estate agent had exactly the same reaction to the house - in repeated conversations with her she couldn't get that house out of her head. She didn't even bother trying to sell us any other house - she knew that house was ours.
I have other stories to tell about our neighborhood, including:
- blog about a trip you took before your tenth birthday
- blog about what you're reading these days
- blog about your neighborhood
As Wanda has noticed, I tend to compress all trips I ever took to any given location into one uber-trip encompassing all of the major events that I remember about that location. I don't think I do this any more, but given this propensity for mental melding I feel it best to leave that topic be for now.
As to what I'm reading... well, it's mostly mind candy. The only book I'm not slightly embarassed by is called, ironically enough, "Dungeon, Fire and Sword", and it's all about the Knights Templar and the politics behind the crusades, which I hope, at some point in my life, to meld into the kernel of the militaristic religious society at the center of this epic story I've been building in my head (and on various notes on a collection of small scraps of paper and journals) for the better part of 7 or 8 years now.
Now my neighborhood - here is some rich fodder! Alas, as I began to write I quickly found that I have far too many stories to tell. Just the first part of the story, about my own house, was going to cause a reader to have to scroll down about a thousand times before you hit the end. To avoid this I am going to start a mini-series about my neighborhood and the people in it, the length of which is at this time unknown. I promise not to make too much stuff up.
Part the First : Our House
I love our neighborhood. It couldn't be a better location, nestled smack in the middle of the rectangle formed by North Druid Hills Road, Clairmont Road, LaVista Road and Briarcliff Road, (the word "rectangle" is being used very loosely here and should under no circumstances be construed to imply that the shape those four roads make (or any 4 roads in Atlanta, when you get right down to it) even vaguely resembles one), and is less than a mile from Sam's Warehouse, Publix, Kroger, Starbuck's, CVS, Target, and Office Depot. It is also within a mile of a good bookstore (both a new bookstore and a used bookstore), a decent shoe store, and a cheap dry cleaners. It is less than that same mile from fabulous Indian, Greek, Thai and French restaurants, as well as an excellent liquor store where we can finally get our beloved Lagavulin single malt scotch. We're 3 minutes from the freeway, 10 minutes from Symphony Hall, a very different 10 minutes from WABE where Wanda works, and, on a good day, 25 minutes from where I work (on a bad day, 3 hours).
Here's an overhead, thanks to Google Maps:
It's a very green neighborhood, with lots of trees to insulate us from the noise from the freeway (even in the winter you cannot hear a single multi-car pileup on I85), if not the occasional airplane on its way to Dekalb Airport (the trees are not this tall). The ironic twist in the story is that when we lived in Bloomington, we thought we had things so great. We were only about 5 minutes from a Target, a Kroger, a shitty mall, and a super-shitty (but very, very loud) movie theater, the same 5 minutes from a Mexican Restaurant with the single best Mexican entree' I've ever had in my life (when Wanda and I used to go there for lunch, and they'd see our car pull up in the parking lot, they'd go ahead and put our order in and have drinks ready for us - we NEVER ordered anything else), and roughly 20 minutes from Sam's Warehouse. We talked about that great convenience as something we'd miss when we got back to Atlanta, and how we'd never be able to take less than an entire afternoon to go to Kroger, Sam's, and Target all in one fell shwoop (a SHopping sWOOP, if you will). It takes us signifigantly less time to do those things now than it did then.
If you had my address you could get this map from google maps yourself, and if you do I'll warn you that it's an older map. How do I know? First of all, the tightest zoom you can get actually shows both my front and back yards in moderate detail, and two very important details are missing:
- My above-ground garden in the front yard,
- Our screened-in back porch.
My garden looks like this:
This picture was taken in the spring, mind you, when those 6 tomato plants were young. The garden is constructed of 3 separate plots; the two closest plots being 4'x4', made with landscaping timbers and a crapload of imported topsoil (like most yards in Georgia, my yard consists primarily of red clay and variously sized rocks), and the plot behind them being 8'x4'. The tomato crop this year was insane -the vines produced fruits numbering in the several hundreds and have only just produced their last. The long plot held 5 pepper vines of various types, and while I did manage to quadruple my pepper output from a year ago, that means I got four instead of just one. The things flowered like crazy but didn't fruit until I started ignoring them entirely. All I did was weed to make sure they weren't getting strangled, and one day I noticed that 3 of the 5 bushes had a tiny pepper on them. They didn't get very big, but even a tiny fresh pepper from the garden beats anything you'll get in any store. We scrambled one of them up in an omlette with leftover sausages from the grill.... heaven!
It's harder to show a picture of the back deck - the thing is just too frikking big. There's a collection of pictures here:
http://www.yangtemko.com/benjamin/test/deckdone/
And before you start grousing at me, be assured that I am well aware of the absurdity of a computer geek like me having that shitty of a personal space on the web. Eventually I'll get around to sprucing up the joint, but for the time being other matters take precedence.
Our house isn't very large - nothing like the McMansions which are sprouting up like weeds all around us - and with Wanda and I both wanting 4 kids it's probably going to undergo some significant personality changes over the course of the next decade or so, but it feels more like home than maybe anywhere I've lived since I stopped living, well, at home. The most interesting thing is how we came across it. Wanda and I had looked at many, many houses in Atlanta before we ever moved to Bloomington, including one right down the street from this one. When we were getting ready to move back to Atlanta we knew more or less where we wanted to live, and so were able to tell a realtor what we wanted in a general sense and our relative price range. So one weekend we plotted to come down and spend a day looking at houses, just to re-wet our feet in the waters of real estate, to mangle a metaphor. Our agent gave us the most brilliant house-hunting plan ever, one I hope you will steal and use for yourself:
- See a house.
- See the next house. Compare it with the first. Choose between the two.
- See the next house. Compare it with your current favorite. Choose between the two.
- Goto 3.
For us, it was the first house we walked into that day. This house. It smelled like babies (the good baby smell, not the bad baby smell), it had hardwood floors, a deck, a galley kitchen with enormous cabinet capacity, 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths - in short, everything we wanted. We saw several other houses that day but the first one pulled us so strongly that we called the real estate agent that very afternoon and asked her why we wouldn't just go ahead and grab the first house. It's hard to explain what a big thing this is - of the maybe 50 or so houses that Wanda and I saw the first time around before we left for Indiana, not ONCE did we agree on any house as being the one. We spent a lot of time arguing about which concessions to make to imperfection, in fact, until it became a moot point. But this house, it just felt like home. Immediately. Interestingly, our real estate agent had exactly the same reaction to the house - in repeated conversations with her she couldn't get that house out of her head. She didn't even bother trying to sell us any other house - she knew that house was ours.
I have other stories to tell about our neighborhood, including:
- The Stupidest Fucking Dog On The Planet
- The Second Stupidest Fucking Dog On The Planet
- Wascally Wabbits, And How To Cope With Them
- The Greek Festival, or, The Revenge of Disco Jesus
- Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
Monday, September 05, 2005
Remote Control Terrorism
You might call me something of a technology freak. I love gadgets, always have. I fall short of my brother's titanic curiosity for gadgets - he has always possesed the mystic ability able to take them apart and successfully put them back together again, while I have only ever been able to manage taking them apart, with varying degrees of success in reassembling (though the median is very close to 0 (and yes I do SO mean median - sometimes I did more damage trying to put them back together than I did in taking them apart)). In the intervening time between childhood (defined roughly as, oh, I don't know, last week?) and now I have discovered 2 important theorms about taking something apart:
Anywy, being the scatterbrain that I am, I quickly leaped onto the PDA bandwagon. My first PDA was the first Handspring Visor they ever made. It had like 3 colors and enough memory to hold 10 phone numbers if you didn't mind it forgetting one every now and then. But, it was very slick, had a memory expansion slot (an unheard of feautre of PDA's in 1999), and made me the envy of the computer lab where I worked at IU.
I had this device for 4 years, and it served me faithfully until one fatal evening last year. I was leaving work, exiting my building on the top floor (of three) onto the external stairwell. I was putting my Visor (wrapped cozily in its neoprene rubber carrying case) into safe keeping in my internal jacket lining pocket when I fumbled it. It literally leaped out of my hand for no reason I can think of, bounced perfectly on end and, the case being rubber, bounded down the half-flight of stairs where by all rights it should have knocked against the railing and come to a halt. It did not. Its last bounce caught a funny angle as it flipped sideways and snuck through the bars of the railing, plummeting the 30 feet to the parking lot below.
"Well," I thought to myself, "it's in a sturdy rubber carrying case, it might be OK!"
I ran to the balcony and looked down to see that the thing had taken a flying leap so that instead of falling nicely into the bushes below the railing, it was instead lying in a puddle of water on the pavement.
"Well," I thought to myself, "it's water - resistant, it might still be OK!"
At this time a car backed out of a spot directly adjacent to the puddle, backed directly over my PDA case, and then drove over it again as it pulled foward and made its getaway.
"Well," I thought to myself, "That about does it."
Sure enough, I fished the poor thing out of the water, unzipped the case and saw a signifigantly flattened PDA with shattered touch screen, and I'm reasonably certain that no amount of taking-apart-and-putting-back-together was going to cure it. Time for a new toy!
Enter my current PDA, a Sony Clie' NX-60. It has many features which I adore, but my favorite by far has to be the built-in universal remote control. Since almost all PDAs come with an infra-red port for transferring files and sharing contact information with other PDAs, it seemed logical to Sony to beef that sucker up and make it strong enough to control other components, like stereos, cd players, TVs and the like. The Clie comes with a universal remote control interface and thousands upon thousands of pre-programmed remote control codes for various components.
If you're like me, this is a clear invitation to create mayhem. The first time I ever got to use this feature was while eating lunch with the St. Philips Cathedral Choir after a service. It is the habit of this group to grab lunch at any one of many local eateries after the 11:45 service (which gets out at around 1:00, if the guy facing the other way is especially long-winded, or if there are many babies in need of washing); on this particular day we were at the Rock Bottom Brewery. I was seated at the end of the table, which was perfect since the tennis match I wanted to watch was showing on the TV directly in front of me. I made vague references to the conversation around me while maintaining steady, relentless focus on the match. It was a VERY good match (although the only thing I remember about it now is that Justine Henin was playing), and I was enjoying my lunch immensely when all of a sudden the TV flickers and golf appears on the screen.
I am a tennis fan. A completely over-the-wall tennis fan. I love to play it, watch it, talk about it - if you really want to get me in a dudgeon you get me talking about why Atlanta has not one fucking professional tennis tournament despite having the Stone Mountain Tennis Center, a world-class facility (where Wanda and I saw Andre and Lindsay win gold medals). I have more than 80 matches from as far back as 1987 archived on VHS tapes. I grew up idolizing first McEnroe, then Lendl, then Miloslav Mecir (The Big Cat, as he was known, moved like a goddamn ghost, was known for his gleeful mauling of all Swedes on tour), Edberg, Agassi (ask Wanda about the shorts), Becker, Slobodan Zivojinovic (I swear that's a real name), Dr. Dirt (not a muppet), Pete Sampras, and now I dream of hitting just one shot like Roger Federer.
Suffice it to say, I was not pleased.
I then remembered that I had in my possession the means by which I could set my situation to rights again. I looked at the TV.
Sanyo.
Brought out my Clie and put it into universal remote mode. Selected TV-> Sanyo. Clicked the "last channel" button.
TENNIS!
Aw, yeah. I put the Clie down and happily resumed my meal. A few minutes later the waitress comes by. She looks at the TV as she's walking to her station and I see her do a classic double-take. Now, I know she's thinking to herself, "Hunh! I thought I changed that channel!" And sure enough, she picks up her remote and changes the channel again.
GOLF!
She puts down her remote, and the second she has her back turned I hit the "last channel" button again.
TENNIS!
A few minutes later the waitress is coming back through her station and does an identical, spot-on match of her first double-take. I can really see the wheels turning now, she's convinced that something is wrong. This time I'm ready. She changes the channel.
GOLF!
I don't wait for her to walk away this time, I immediately hit "last channel" while she still has the remote in her hand.
TENNIS!
She emits a little gasp of horror, looks at the remote as if it were stinging her hand.
GOLF!
TENNIS!
GOLF!
TENNIS!
GOLF!
TENNIS!
GOLF!
TENNIS!
She gives a little scream, drops the remote onto her station board with a loud clatter and scurries off. A few minutes later she comes back with bull-necked managerial type in tow.
"Frank," she says plaintively, "This is really wierd, you got to watch this! Watch what happens when I try to change the channel here!" She picks up the remote and flourishes it at the TV.
GOLF!
I don't do anything. The waitress is shaking a little bit, staring at the screen so hard I'm sure an alien is going to leap out of her skin and demand to know what the hell is going on. The TV remains tuned to golf. Frank the bull-necked manager glances about as askance at Waitress as I've ever seen anyone glance askancefully at anyone else, shakes his head and stalks away muttering something I wish I could have heard. The waitress is now looking at the remote, stunned. I'm looking at her. When she lifts her eyes from the remote to the TV, I strike.
TENNIS!
The waitress screams again, louder this time, throws the remote onto the ground, shattering it into many pieces and beyond all hope of further disassembling (at least, not without some serious government clearance and access to a LOT of electricity), and runs off - we do not see her the rest of our lunch; nor did anyone try to come and change my fucking channel.
Game, set, match.
My brother, who has a left-hander's view on mayhem, has an absolutely brilliant idea that involves going to a crowded, rowdy bar where some very important sporting event, such as a college football bowl game, or a super bowl or world series game is being shown on a big-screen TV, waiting until some culminating moment and at the very apex of tension, turning off the TV. The closest I've yet come to this is being at a sports bar in Chicago with my dad and my brother, drinking some damned fine beer and randomly turning off TVs behind the bar, to the great annoyance of the barkeeps. At one point some very large, burly men starting cycling through the crowd looking for the asshole with the remote; if anything is true, though, it's that a table with almost any three guys at it has a hard time looking more harmless than a table with me, my dad and my brother sitting at it, beers in hand talking about architecture, which is what we were doing in between pissing off bartenders. The Clie looks nothing like a remote, and so is the perfect weapon for a crime whose victims need to get out more anyway.
I haven't used the Clie for this sort of thing in a long time. I should probably start taking it out with me again to keep in practice, only it has developed an alarming tendancy to chew through a fully charged battery in about 8 - 10 minutes. A new Clie battery costs about $50, which isn't so bad, but...
I wonder what kind of new toy I can get?
- If you take a device apart and put it back together again, you will always find a part that you left out sitting on the table or floor next to where you were working, the absence of which doesn't seem to affect the operation of the device at all.
By repeated application of this theorm, if you take something apart and put it back together again enough times, it will eventually not have anything left in it at all and will continue to function perfectly. - Sometimes the only thing that's need to fix something is to take it apart, nose around in it for a few minutes, and then put it back together again, optionally saying something like "That should do it," without having actually done anything at all.
Anywy, being the scatterbrain that I am, I quickly leaped onto the PDA bandwagon. My first PDA was the first Handspring Visor they ever made. It had like 3 colors and enough memory to hold 10 phone numbers if you didn't mind it forgetting one every now and then. But, it was very slick, had a memory expansion slot (an unheard of feautre of PDA's in 1999), and made me the envy of the computer lab where I worked at IU.
I had this device for 4 years, and it served me faithfully until one fatal evening last year. I was leaving work, exiting my building on the top floor (of three) onto the external stairwell. I was putting my Visor (wrapped cozily in its neoprene rubber carrying case) into safe keeping in my internal jacket lining pocket when I fumbled it. It literally leaped out of my hand for no reason I can think of, bounced perfectly on end and, the case being rubber, bounded down the half-flight of stairs where by all rights it should have knocked against the railing and come to a halt. It did not. Its last bounce caught a funny angle as it flipped sideways and snuck through the bars of the railing, plummeting the 30 feet to the parking lot below.
"Well," I thought to myself, "it's in a sturdy rubber carrying case, it might be OK!"
I ran to the balcony and looked down to see that the thing had taken a flying leap so that instead of falling nicely into the bushes below the railing, it was instead lying in a puddle of water on the pavement.
"Well," I thought to myself, "it's water - resistant, it might still be OK!"
At this time a car backed out of a spot directly adjacent to the puddle, backed directly over my PDA case, and then drove over it again as it pulled foward and made its getaway.
"Well," I thought to myself, "That about does it."
Sure enough, I fished the poor thing out of the water, unzipped the case and saw a signifigantly flattened PDA with shattered touch screen, and I'm reasonably certain that no amount of taking-apart-and-putting-back-together was going to cure it. Time for a new toy!
Enter my current PDA, a Sony Clie' NX-60. It has many features which I adore, but my favorite by far has to be the built-in universal remote control. Since almost all PDAs come with an infra-red port for transferring files and sharing contact information with other PDAs, it seemed logical to Sony to beef that sucker up and make it strong enough to control other components, like stereos, cd players, TVs and the like. The Clie comes with a universal remote control interface and thousands upon thousands of pre-programmed remote control codes for various components.
If you're like me, this is a clear invitation to create mayhem. The first time I ever got to use this feature was while eating lunch with the St. Philips Cathedral Choir after a service. It is the habit of this group to grab lunch at any one of many local eateries after the 11:45 service (which gets out at around 1:00, if the guy facing the other way is especially long-winded, or if there are many babies in need of washing); on this particular day we were at the Rock Bottom Brewery. I was seated at the end of the table, which was perfect since the tennis match I wanted to watch was showing on the TV directly in front of me. I made vague references to the conversation around me while maintaining steady, relentless focus on the match. It was a VERY good match (although the only thing I remember about it now is that Justine Henin was playing), and I was enjoying my lunch immensely when all of a sudden the TV flickers and golf appears on the screen.
I am a tennis fan. A completely over-the-wall tennis fan. I love to play it, watch it, talk about it - if you really want to get me in a dudgeon you get me talking about why Atlanta has not one fucking professional tennis tournament despite having the Stone Mountain Tennis Center, a world-class facility (where Wanda and I saw Andre and Lindsay win gold medals). I have more than 80 matches from as far back as 1987 archived on VHS tapes. I grew up idolizing first McEnroe, then Lendl, then Miloslav Mecir (The Big Cat, as he was known, moved like a goddamn ghost, was known for his gleeful mauling of all Swedes on tour), Edberg, Agassi (ask Wanda about the shorts), Becker, Slobodan Zivojinovic (I swear that's a real name), Dr. Dirt (not a muppet), Pete Sampras, and now I dream of hitting just one shot like Roger Federer.
Suffice it to say, I was not pleased.
I then remembered that I had in my possession the means by which I could set my situation to rights again. I looked at the TV.
Sanyo.
Brought out my Clie and put it into universal remote mode. Selected TV-> Sanyo. Clicked the "last channel" button.
TENNIS!
Aw, yeah. I put the Clie down and happily resumed my meal. A few minutes later the waitress comes by. She looks at the TV as she's walking to her station and I see her do a classic double-take. Now, I know she's thinking to herself, "Hunh! I thought I changed that channel!" And sure enough, she picks up her remote and changes the channel again.
GOLF!
She puts down her remote, and the second she has her back turned I hit the "last channel" button again.
TENNIS!
A few minutes later the waitress is coming back through her station and does an identical, spot-on match of her first double-take. I can really see the wheels turning now, she's convinced that something is wrong. This time I'm ready. She changes the channel.
GOLF!
I don't wait for her to walk away this time, I immediately hit "last channel" while she still has the remote in her hand.
TENNIS!
She emits a little gasp of horror, looks at the remote as if it were stinging her hand.
GOLF!
TENNIS!
GOLF!
TENNIS!
GOLF!
TENNIS!
GOLF!
TENNIS!
She gives a little scream, drops the remote onto her station board with a loud clatter and scurries off. A few minutes later she comes back with bull-necked managerial type in tow.
"Frank," she says plaintively, "This is really wierd, you got to watch this! Watch what happens when I try to change the channel here!" She picks up the remote and flourishes it at the TV.
GOLF!
I don't do anything. The waitress is shaking a little bit, staring at the screen so hard I'm sure an alien is going to leap out of her skin and demand to know what the hell is going on. The TV remains tuned to golf. Frank the bull-necked manager glances about as askance at Waitress as I've ever seen anyone glance askancefully at anyone else, shakes his head and stalks away muttering something I wish I could have heard. The waitress is now looking at the remote, stunned. I'm looking at her. When she lifts her eyes from the remote to the TV, I strike.
TENNIS!
The waitress screams again, louder this time, throws the remote onto the ground, shattering it into many pieces and beyond all hope of further disassembling (at least, not without some serious government clearance and access to a LOT of electricity), and runs off - we do not see her the rest of our lunch; nor did anyone try to come and change my fucking channel.
Game, set, match.
My brother, who has a left-hander's view on mayhem, has an absolutely brilliant idea that involves going to a crowded, rowdy bar where some very important sporting event, such as a college football bowl game, or a super bowl or world series game is being shown on a big-screen TV, waiting until some culminating moment and at the very apex of tension, turning off the TV. The closest I've yet come to this is being at a sports bar in Chicago with my dad and my brother, drinking some damned fine beer and randomly turning off TVs behind the bar, to the great annoyance of the barkeeps. At one point some very large, burly men starting cycling through the crowd looking for the asshole with the remote; if anything is true, though, it's that a table with almost any three guys at it has a hard time looking more harmless than a table with me, my dad and my brother sitting at it, beers in hand talking about architecture, which is what we were doing in between pissing off bartenders. The Clie looks nothing like a remote, and so is the perfect weapon for a crime whose victims need to get out more anyway.
I haven't used the Clie for this sort of thing in a long time. I should probably start taking it out with me again to keep in practice, only it has developed an alarming tendancy to chew through a fully charged battery in about 8 - 10 minutes. A new Clie battery costs about $50, which isn't so bad, but...
I wonder what kind of new toy I can get?
Thursday, September 01, 2005
They Must Come in Threes
As I inch closer to the end of my chemically-induced menopause, I am faced with a spooky convergence. I have learned that in my life good and bad things come in a three-pack, and I’ve come to the realization that another has surfaced. Just like the month after Ben and I got engaged when three of my former gentlemen-callers came a callin’, the forces of destiny seem to be screaming to me that China Adoption is what awaits us at the end of this procreant journey. First, I bumped into the Great Wall China Adoption Agency’s workshop facilitators/China Adoptive parents at a meeting for a tsunami benefit that I’ll be MCing. Then, my sister’s mother-in-law sends an article about a couple in Topeka, Kansas, who’ve recently adopted an adorable little girl from China with Great Wall. Finally, Great Wall sends me an email reminder of an upcoming seminar/workshop. I am just Chinese enough and superstitious enough to believe. At a time like this reason does not reign. The emotional devastation from another failed IVF attempt is unfathomable, but I suppose we’ll still go on trying to become parents one way or another. Maybe this is the way the universe is trying to tell me to prepare for the worst?
What in the Wide Wide World of Sports...
So let me explain this business about a "Companion Blog".
No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
It starts a long, long time ago, in an institute of higher learning right down the road from here called Emory University. I arrived there in 1988 as a stupid, self-righteous, highly egotistical shithead. I cannot stress this point to you enough - I had no idea what I was doing, who I was, or what I wanted from life. What I did have, in spades, was an excess of self-confidence about how fucking smart I was. Sometimes, that self-confidence was all that kept me going. Luckily for me, I started meeting people who were actually every bit as smart as I thought I was. They thought the way I thought, they talked the way I talked, they read as much as I did and more, and they were a lot funnier than I was, and I would have told you back then that I was pretty fucking funny. These people taught me that I really was as smart as I thought I was, and that I could be that way and drop the excessive bullshit around it; that self-belief did not have to mutually exclude belief in others.
I'm a stubborn man, but I like to think I learned this lesson well.
One of these very bright, very funny, terribly erudite people was Megan. If for no other reason, Megan would win top awards for introducing me to one Wanda Yang, now Wanda Yang Temko, my greatest, bestest friend and co-author of this here blog. But wait, there's more.
She and I were good friends during our Emory days, but, as will happen with all human relationships there was ebb and flow in the amount of time and attention we had. Besides which, once Wanda and I were properly aligned, I had very little time I wished to spend anywhere else at all. It also should be noted that Wanda and Megan were much better friends with eachother than Wanda and I were friends with one another. In fact, you could almost say that Wanda, well... Wanda wished I would drop dead.
But that's a story for another time.
Over the years, the collective Yang Temkos and Megan were out of touch entirely with one another(s?). It wasn't until we returned from our exile in Bloomington that we finally reconnected with her, which was a delightful experience for us all. It seems that, in the intervening space, we'd all become pretty fucking interesting froods (and nobody had farther to go than I did, so this is a signifigant achievement), but more to the point the connection we all had each to the other was still strong, and meaningful, and worth building upon. Friends like Megan don't come around every dynasty.
Well, now Megan is experiencing an exile of her own. She might not have chosen hers in the same way that we chose ours, but I do not believe it is a stretch to suggest that Megan thinks of Atlanta as home. And rather than falling out of touch with her again, as would be relatively easy to do even in this golden age of communication, we have all agreed to stay in touch as thoroughly as possible, to keep a feeling of anchoring for her here should she ever find a way to come back.
Now, I have resisted the blogging trend for a long time, despite its obvious application to my occasional need to rant, or to relate an amusing anecdote about something that happened, or even just to make some shit up. But, as I alluded to in an earlier post, some things are becoming manifestly clear to me as I age.
Given this, it seems obvious that I ought to start developing other skills I can use to make a living, skills that don't require me to spin my wheels quite so fast in order to keep up. I have always loved to write, and sometimes I even write well. Unfortunately, I seem to have had trouble focusing for any length of time on any length of writing. I have two stories in my head currently. One of them is a short story, the other is epic in scope, and as much as I love it, I'm not ready to write it yet, not by a long shot. As it happens, my good friend Megan is a dramaturg of signifigant accomplishment (if you want to know what that means, I suggest you ask her) so now the path seems abundantly clear.
Enter the Companion Blog.
We kill so many birds with one stone it's a wonder the Audubon Society hasn't sent us a cease and desist. We all get to keep in touch. Megan has a forum in which to keep friends and family up to date (which I, as the official geek-in-residence to all of my friends, am all too happy to manage on her behalf), and as an extra bit of fun, Megan and I will occasionally give one another writing assignments to do, riffing on a theme of a post on one of our blogs, or maybe just making something up because it's interesting. Along with the posting on topics with which we are both comfortable with, it is my hope that we can take one another out or our respective comfort zones, enough to keep the experience organic, alive, human. It seems clear to me that I am getting more out of this deal than she is, but as long as she's willing to go along with it, I'm a fool not to take her up on it.
Blog On, Wanda!
Blog On, Megan!
(er... on Dancer and Vixen!)
No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
It starts a long, long time ago, in an institute of higher learning right down the road from here called Emory University. I arrived there in 1988 as a stupid, self-righteous, highly egotistical shithead. I cannot stress this point to you enough - I had no idea what I was doing, who I was, or what I wanted from life. What I did have, in spades, was an excess of self-confidence about how fucking smart I was. Sometimes, that self-confidence was all that kept me going. Luckily for me, I started meeting people who were actually every bit as smart as I thought I was. They thought the way I thought, they talked the way I talked, they read as much as I did and more, and they were a lot funnier than I was, and I would have told you back then that I was pretty fucking funny. These people taught me that I really was as smart as I thought I was, and that I could be that way and drop the excessive bullshit around it; that self-belief did not have to mutually exclude belief in others.
I'm a stubborn man, but I like to think I learned this lesson well.
One of these very bright, very funny, terribly erudite people was Megan. If for no other reason, Megan would win top awards for introducing me to one Wanda Yang, now Wanda Yang Temko, my greatest, bestest friend and co-author of this here blog. But wait, there's more.
- Late night rehearsals of James Taylor's 3-part arrangement of "That Lonesome Road" in the atrium of the DUC.
- Encouragement while arranging "This Island Earth" for the now defunct (in fact, for the almost immediately defunct) A-Capella group we attempted to form, and for letting me believe that it was only 4 parts, and not 5, as it clearly is.
- Introduction to more authors than I knew existed.
- Always willing to listen.
She and I were good friends during our Emory days, but, as will happen with all human relationships there was ebb and flow in the amount of time and attention we had. Besides which, once Wanda and I were properly aligned, I had very little time I wished to spend anywhere else at all. It also should be noted that Wanda and Megan were much better friends with eachother than Wanda and I were friends with one another. In fact, you could almost say that Wanda, well... Wanda wished I would drop dead.
But that's a story for another time.
Over the years, the collective Yang Temkos and Megan were out of touch entirely with one another(s?). It wasn't until we returned from our exile in Bloomington that we finally reconnected with her, which was a delightful experience for us all. It seems that, in the intervening space, we'd all become pretty fucking interesting froods (and nobody had farther to go than I did, so this is a signifigant achievement), but more to the point the connection we all had each to the other was still strong, and meaningful, and worth building upon. Friends like Megan don't come around every dynasty.
Well, now Megan is experiencing an exile of her own. She might not have chosen hers in the same way that we chose ours, but I do not believe it is a stretch to suggest that Megan thinks of Atlanta as home. And rather than falling out of touch with her again, as would be relatively easy to do even in this golden age of communication, we have all agreed to stay in touch as thoroughly as possible, to keep a feeling of anchoring for her here should she ever find a way to come back.
Now, I have resisted the blogging trend for a long time, despite its obvious application to my occasional need to rant, or to relate an amusing anecdote about something that happened, or even just to make some shit up. But, as I alluded to in an earlier post, some things are becoming manifestly clear to me as I age.
- Computers are a young man's game. The constant drive to keep up with every facet of available technology requires an enormous expenditure of energy. At this time in my life I can easily keep up; I even enjoy keeping up.
- This cannot possibly remain the case indefinitely.
Given this, it seems obvious that I ought to start developing other skills I can use to make a living, skills that don't require me to spin my wheels quite so fast in order to keep up. I have always loved to write, and sometimes I even write well. Unfortunately, I seem to have had trouble focusing for any length of time on any length of writing. I have two stories in my head currently. One of them is a short story, the other is epic in scope, and as much as I love it, I'm not ready to write it yet, not by a long shot. As it happens, my good friend Megan is a dramaturg of signifigant accomplishment (if you want to know what that means, I suggest you ask her) so now the path seems abundantly clear.
Enter the Companion Blog.
We kill so many birds with one stone it's a wonder the Audubon Society hasn't sent us a cease and desist. We all get to keep in touch. Megan has a forum in which to keep friends and family up to date (which I, as the official geek-in-residence to all of my friends, am all too happy to manage on her behalf), and as an extra bit of fun, Megan and I will occasionally give one another writing assignments to do, riffing on a theme of a post on one of our blogs, or maybe just making something up because it's interesting. Along with the posting on topics with which we are both comfortable with, it is my hope that we can take one another out or our respective comfort zones, enough to keep the experience organic, alive, human. It seems clear to me that I am getting more out of this deal than she is, but as long as she's willing to go along with it, I'm a fool not to take her up on it.
Blog On, Wanda!
Blog On, Megan!
(er... on Dancer and Vixen!)
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Benjamin vs. BMV
The following story has been slightly edited from its original appearance in the Chronicles in order to clear up some of the nested parentheticals of which I was so fond in the late 90’s. It was first published on Monday, January 5th, 1998, and what I’ve always loved about this story is the fact that the clerks at the DMV were the ones who told me, quite incorrectly, what the BMV meant in the first place. This was the first in a long line of lessons geared towards teaching me that nobody from Indiana is to be trusted.
I would like to make this story a link from a smaller post, but I cannot figure out how this might be accomplished at this time, so here it is in its entirety. I will post Remote Control Terrorism under separate cover tomorrow, along with an explanation of the meaning of Companion Blog.
I normally tend to believe that stereotypes, perhaps even most stereotypes, are unjustified, based in fear and misunderstanding.
On the other hand, there's Indiana.
Today's adventure involved getting a new driver's license and changing the title of the car. Indiana law states that within 60 days of your establishing full time residency (defined as a period of continuous and primary residency within the state borders of 180 days, or that point in time during which more than 50% of your total income is derived from in-state funds - who the hell writes these laws?) you must have your tags and title transferred to Indiana State tags and titles. So, I go to the BMV (not, for whatever reason, the DMV, or Department of Motor Vehicles, but the BMV, which doesn’t even mean Bloomington Motor Vehicles, but rather the Bureau of Motorized Visitation, as if it were some sort of holy or celestial event) to get all of this done. Well, in order to get my GA State license transmogrified to an Indiana driver's license I have to take, *gasp*, a test.
The Indiana driver’s licensing test is a unique experience. I can't even begin to make a guess as to when the testing system was designed - perhaps something in the mesozoic era. You stand at a booth and sit through the equivalent of a slide show. There's a video screen set into a desk, and what sounds suspiciously like a slide projector underneath it projects a picture with a question on it onto your screen. You have three buttons to push to indicate your response (and not anything so cool as touch-sensitive buttons on the screen itself, nosir, these are the kinds of buttons you find only on really old elevators in your grandmother's condominium - big black knobby monstrosities which you have to push in about 2 inches before they register, and when they register it’s even odds as to your getting the shit shocked out of you) and a button to push (same kind) to signify that you pushed one of the other buttons and meant it.
Why the second button, I asked?
Because, they told me patiently, in case you changed your mind.
There're only three, I pointed out, how much room for error do I really need here?
Well, I was informed, some folks don't do very well and we like to give 'em the benefit of the doubt.
Anyway, should you get one of the questions wrong, the machine emits a loud thumping sound, the entire thing shakes, and the bottom part of the screen falls away (literally - I think this is what the thumping noise is - the bottom part of your screen hitting the ground - they must raise it back up again with a piece of twine or something) to reveal the correct answer. As it turns out, I got two out of 20 wrong – enough to pass the test.
The first one I got wrong was, "What is a safe distance to follow another
vehicle?" My choices were :
a) 1 second behind the leading vehicle
b) 2 seconds behind the leading vehicle
c) 100 feet behind the leading vehicle
Well, since this was a subjective question, not a law question, I figured I couldn't get it wrong so I pushed c) , since it was the only actual distance listed in my three choices, the other two being lengths of time and not at all relevant to the question. Turns out that their answer is: b) two seconds. After the test I pointed out that :
"Uh-Uhn," the clerk lady type said, "then why is the distance between stars and stuff called a light-year?"
Hiding my amazement that she had ever heard of a light-year in the first place, I explained the concept to her and then asked for a calculator so I could show her exactly how many feet a light-year was. That was when she lost interest in the topic and got a little miffed. They promised to make note of my objections. I decided not to tell them that I come from a big city where, no matter the conditions, you follow less than 1 car-length from the guy in front of you so some other asshole can't cut you off.
The other one I missed related to an Indiana driving law that specifies (in actual feet, not in seconds) exactly how far ahead of your turn you must turn on your indicator. They've made this a law. My choices were :
a) 50 feet
b) 100 feet, or 200 feet for faster driving, such as freeway or speedway
c) whenever
You think I'm making this up. I'm telling you the truth.
My answer was 50 feet. I figured since they had probably put so much detail into the b) thing that was probably right, but since it was my last question, and I had only missed the other one about the following distance, I went with a) 'cause that's generous for most Atlanta drivers, who go with c) most of the time themselves, if they turn them on at all.
Other questions on the Indiana Driver's License Test:
(picture of a "Do Not Enter" sign, which, in case you haven't seen one
lately, says in big red letters "DO NOT ENTER" on it)
This sign means :
a) Do Not Enter
b) Yield
c) You may safely ignore this sign
Not to be outdone:
(picture of a speed limit 40 sign)
When you see this sign you may travel :
a) 45 miles an hour
b) 40 miles an hour
c) out of state drivers do not have to obey speed limit signs
(you haven't any idea the desire I had to push "c", hoping against hope
it would be true)
Lastly:
(picture from the rear of a car passing another car, halfway between the two lanes & straddling the center line, which, coincidentally, is solid on his side, also with the wrong turn signal on)
The solid line on your side of the lane means:
a) You may pass at will
b) Do not pass
c) You are on the wrong side of the road
I burst out laughing at both this one and the Do Not Enter one, prompting a few disgruntled looks from the visitation clerks in my direction - in my mind I kept picturing some poor guy leaning out of his window and yelling out at the cars passing by him going the other way "You're on the wrong side of the roadja damn fool!!"
As a postscript, there are two errata which I am compelled to report:
I would like to make this story a link from a smaller post, but I cannot figure out how this might be accomplished at this time, so here it is in its entirety. I will post Remote Control Terrorism under separate cover tomorrow, along with an explanation of the meaning of Companion Blog.
I normally tend to believe that stereotypes, perhaps even most stereotypes, are unjustified, based in fear and misunderstanding.
On the other hand, there's Indiana.
Today's adventure involved getting a new driver's license and changing the title of the car. Indiana law states that within 60 days of your establishing full time residency (defined as a period of continuous and primary residency within the state borders of 180 days, or that point in time during which more than 50% of your total income is derived from in-state funds - who the hell writes these laws?) you must have your tags and title transferred to Indiana State tags and titles. So, I go to the BMV (not, for whatever reason, the DMV, or Department of Motor Vehicles, but the BMV, which doesn’t even mean Bloomington Motor Vehicles, but rather the Bureau of Motorized Visitation, as if it were some sort of holy or celestial event) to get all of this done. Well, in order to get my GA State license transmogrified to an Indiana driver's license I have to take, *gasp*, a test.
The Indiana driver’s licensing test is a unique experience. I can't even begin to make a guess as to when the testing system was designed - perhaps something in the mesozoic era. You stand at a booth and sit through the equivalent of a slide show. There's a video screen set into a desk, and what sounds suspiciously like a slide projector underneath it projects a picture with a question on it onto your screen. You have three buttons to push to indicate your response (and not anything so cool as touch-sensitive buttons on the screen itself, nosir, these are the kinds of buttons you find only on really old elevators in your grandmother's condominium - big black knobby monstrosities which you have to push in about 2 inches before they register, and when they register it’s even odds as to your getting the shit shocked out of you) and a button to push (same kind) to signify that you pushed one of the other buttons and meant it.
Why the second button, I asked?
Because, they told me patiently, in case you changed your mind.
There're only three, I pointed out, how much room for error do I really need here?
Well, I was informed, some folks don't do very well and we like to give 'em the benefit of the doubt.
Anyway, should you get one of the questions wrong, the machine emits a loud thumping sound, the entire thing shakes, and the bottom part of the screen falls away (literally - I think this is what the thumping noise is - the bottom part of your screen hitting the ground - they must raise it back up again with a piece of twine or something) to reveal the correct answer. As it turns out, I got two out of 20 wrong – enough to pass the test.
The first one I got wrong was, "What is a safe distance to follow another
vehicle?" My choices were :
a) 1 second behind the leading vehicle
b) 2 seconds behind the leading vehicle
c) 100 feet behind the leading vehicle
Well, since this was a subjective question, not a law question, I figured I couldn't get it wrong so I pushed c) , since it was the only actual distance listed in my three choices, the other two being lengths of time and not at all relevant to the question. Turns out that their answer is: b) two seconds. After the test I pointed out that :
- the quesiton was a matter of opinion and not, therefore, a proper question for a driving LAW test,
- there's no mention of conditions of the road or the speed I'm driving, all of which are factors, and 2 seconds can't possibly cover the entire spectrum of possibilities, even if it were a distance, and
- the question asked for a distance, not an amount of time and therefore the only right answer had to be the only distance listed
"Uh-Uhn," the clerk lady type said, "then why is the distance between stars and stuff called a light-year?"
Hiding my amazement that she had ever heard of a light-year in the first place, I explained the concept to her and then asked for a calculator so I could show her exactly how many feet a light-year was. That was when she lost interest in the topic and got a little miffed. They promised to make note of my objections. I decided not to tell them that I come from a big city where, no matter the conditions, you follow less than 1 car-length from the guy in front of you so some other asshole can't cut you off.
The other one I missed related to an Indiana driving law that specifies (in actual feet, not in seconds) exactly how far ahead of your turn you must turn on your indicator. They've made this a law. My choices were :
a) 50 feet
b) 100 feet, or 200 feet for faster driving, such as freeway or speedway
c) whenever
You think I'm making this up. I'm telling you the truth.
My answer was 50 feet. I figured since they had probably put so much detail into the b) thing that was probably right, but since it was my last question, and I had only missed the other one about the following distance, I went with a) 'cause that's generous for most Atlanta drivers, who go with c) most of the time themselves, if they turn them on at all.
Other questions on the Indiana Driver's License Test:
(picture of a "Do Not Enter" sign, which, in case you haven't seen one
lately, says in big red letters "DO NOT ENTER" on it)
This sign means :
a) Do Not Enter
b) Yield
c) You may safely ignore this sign
Not to be outdone:
(picture of a speed limit 40 sign)
When you see this sign you may travel :
a) 45 miles an hour
b) 40 miles an hour
c) out of state drivers do not have to obey speed limit signs
(you haven't any idea the desire I had to push "c", hoping against hope
it would be true)
Lastly:
(picture from the rear of a car passing another car, halfway between the two lanes & straddling the center line, which, coincidentally, is solid on his side, also with the wrong turn signal on)
The solid line on your side of the lane means:
a) You may pass at will
b) Do not pass
c) You are on the wrong side of the road
I burst out laughing at both this one and the Do Not Enter one, prompting a few disgruntled looks from the visitation clerks in my direction - in my mind I kept picturing some poor guy leaning out of his window and yelling out at the cars passing by him going the other way "You're on the wrong side of the roadja damn fool!!"
As a postscript, there are two errata which I am compelled to report:
- The place actually is the DMV. I read the sign wrong as I first walked in and thought of it wrongly the rest of my days in Indiana.
- When I asked the clerk when I first walked in about why the place was called the BMV and not the DMV I was not corrected, but was instead given the above explanation of Visitation as opposed to Bureau (I guess I asked the question convincingly enough that the clerk assumed I was, in fact, correct), and to this day I am loathe to admit that this is not its actual name.
Friday, August 26, 2005
When Salad Gets Boring
While at lunch yesterday and for no reason I can think of, one of the famous ethics questions popped into my head:
If you could have sex with anyone in the world, and nobody would ever know, and they'd never remember it, would you?
And then the follow up:
What if you would never remember it?
It then occurred to me, holy shit, I might have been taken advantage of hundreds, even thousands of times, and I'd never know it! Maybe I've even taken advantage of thousands of other people - I don't know, I CAN'T REMEMBER!!!! What kind of MONSTER am I?!?!
I then devolved into a fit of giggling, which I'm certain made the table next to me pretty nervous. Maybe even the people sitting at the table, too, but they were harder to read.
If you could have sex with anyone in the world, and nobody would ever know, and they'd never remember it, would you?
And then the follow up:
What if you would never remember it?
It then occurred to me, holy shit, I might have been taken advantage of hundreds, even thousands of times, and I'd never know it! Maybe I've even taken advantage of thousands of other people - I don't know, I CAN'T REMEMBER!!!! What kind of MONSTER am I?!?!
I then devolved into a fit of giggling, which I'm certain made the table next to me pretty nervous. Maybe even the people sitting at the table, too, but they were harder to read.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night
I love a good story, especially when I get to tell it. What sometimes gets me in trouble is that I tend to like a good story more than I like a true story. One look at the books on my shelf will confirm this beyond possibility of contradiction – Isaac Asimov, G. G. Kay, Robert Jordan, Ursula K. LeGuin, all of them prevaricators to one extent or another. This particular personality trait usually manifests itself in a tendancy to… oh, call it elaborate on actual events in order to make a better story out of them, regardless of whether or not the events as they transpired were plenty entertaining enough on their own merit. Sometimes life gives us stuff that needs no embellishment at all. Sometimes, however, the embellishment is the story.
The title of this blog is “The Atlanta Chronicles”, a nod to the 4 years Wanda and I spent in Bloomington, IN while she worked on her doctorate, during which I would occasionally write a missive to the folks back home relating the things which were happening to us. These missives are collectively known as The Chronicles - contained therein are some really, really good stories. Some of them are even true. I will begin to post these stories on the sidebar of this blog, in addition to new ones that come along in the meantime. This weekend I will post two of my favorites:
I will welcome your commentary on these pieces, as they will begin to shape, with any luck, the nucleus of an attempt to build a new career.
This computer stuff, it’s for the young-uns.
P.S. – If any of you have original Chronicles e-mails squirelled away (I have no idea why you would, but some of you are pack-rats, I know it), I would love copies of them – my entire archive of Indiana e-mails has gone missing, which fact I find monumentally alarming.
The title of this blog is “The Atlanta Chronicles”, a nod to the 4 years Wanda and I spent in Bloomington, IN while she worked on her doctorate, during which I would occasionally write a missive to the folks back home relating the things which were happening to us. These missives are collectively known as The Chronicles - contained therein are some really, really good stories. Some of them are even true. I will begin to post these stories on the sidebar of this blog, in addition to new ones that come along in the meantime. This weekend I will post two of my favorites:
- Benjamin versus the Bloomington DMV, from the original Chronicles
- Remote Control Terrorism, from actual events a few years ago
I will welcome your commentary on these pieces, as they will begin to shape, with any luck, the nucleus of an attempt to build a new career.
This computer stuff, it’s for the young-uns.
P.S. – If any of you have original Chronicles e-mails squirelled away (I have no idea why you would, but some of you are pack-rats, I know it), I would love copies of them – my entire archive of Indiana e-mails has gone missing, which fact I find monumentally alarming.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
The Lack of Hormones, or the Hormonally Challenged
Just this morning as I was watching the Today Show (yes, that dreaded piece of fluff), I imagined holding our child and saying, “Your Daddy and I have been waiting six years for you to arrive…” Wouldn’t you know it? I was overcome with tears and even as I’m typing my eyes fill with tears of longing. So many women have the privilege of complaining about their pregnancies because they have never known the depth of disappointment and heart break that we’ve endured. Sometimes I want to scream at them. Wake up you ^&@%#)(‘s! Stop taking your reproductive prowess for granted! Look at how easily you created LIFE! Stop complaining, you ungrateful turds! I guess without estrogen I get a bit…aggressive.
Saturday, August 20, 2005
The Wonders of Medical Menopause
For those of you unawares (and that can only mean some poor soul has wandered into this site from out in the void - welcome!), Wanda and I have been trying to make babies for many years now. We have always wanted a large family, at least 4 kids, but so far nothing. We've had all manner of medical intervention, including 3 failed rounds of in-vitro fertilization. As you might imagine, this has proven to be something of a downer.
We have now entered the world of chemical warfare on infertility. All of our treatments in the past have been positive treatments, that is, they were designed to encourage Wanda's body to produce eggs for fertilization and to then also make it a safe harbor for the fertilized zygotes in the hope that they will implant and become viable fetuses. Our current, and final, treatment can only be described as the nuclear option. She's taken 3 monthly injections now of Depot Lupron, a chemical designed to eradicate any trace of hormones in her body, effectively putting her into artificial menopause. Yes, that menopause. Hot flashes (power surges, Wanda calls them), headaches, and Wanda's new favorite conversational ice-breaker, vaginal dryness. The hope is that 3 months of hormone starvation will kill off, at least temporarily, the endometriosis which has been the culprit in our infertility woes. Once this treatment is done, we wait for her to have her next cycle, and then we take one last stab at in-vitro, harvest as many eggs as we can, and then hope for the best.
It's not an easy road, and I must admit that I have mighty feelings of hero-worship for Wanda, who takes all of this in stride; the constant poking (depot lupron and progesterone (which is suspended in sesame oil, I swear to god!) are injected into the ass with a VERY long needle), while the egg-producing Follistim is injected into the abdomen or thigh with a micro-fine needle TWICE DAILY), and prodding (weekly and then daily ultrasounds as the treatment progresses), endless visits to the doctor, to the drug store, all of it in the name of making a baby that is half me, half her. If any of you people out there had the slightest bit of doubt before, let it be known throughout the land now :
Wanda is a stupendous badass. She's more of a badass than you, more of a badass than me (and I'm a pretty stupendous badass myself), than all of us.
We have now entered the world of chemical warfare on infertility. All of our treatments in the past have been positive treatments, that is, they were designed to encourage Wanda's body to produce eggs for fertilization and to then also make it a safe harbor for the fertilized zygotes in the hope that they will implant and become viable fetuses. Our current, and final, treatment can only be described as the nuclear option. She's taken 3 monthly injections now of Depot Lupron, a chemical designed to eradicate any trace of hormones in her body, effectively putting her into artificial menopause. Yes, that menopause. Hot flashes (power surges, Wanda calls them), headaches, and Wanda's new favorite conversational ice-breaker, vaginal dryness. The hope is that 3 months of hormone starvation will kill off, at least temporarily, the endometriosis which has been the culprit in our infertility woes. Once this treatment is done, we wait for her to have her next cycle, and then we take one last stab at in-vitro, harvest as many eggs as we can, and then hope for the best.
It's not an easy road, and I must admit that I have mighty feelings of hero-worship for Wanda, who takes all of this in stride; the constant poking (depot lupron and progesterone (which is suspended in sesame oil, I swear to god!) are injected into the ass with a VERY long needle), while the egg-producing Follistim is injected into the abdomen or thigh with a micro-fine needle TWICE DAILY), and prodding (weekly and then daily ultrasounds as the treatment progresses), endless visits to the doctor, to the drug store, all of it in the name of making a baby that is half me, half her. If any of you people out there had the slightest bit of doubt before, let it be known throughout the land now :
Wanda is a stupendous badass. She's more of a badass than you, more of a badass than me (and I'm a pretty stupendous badass myself), than all of us.
Like Sands of the Hourglass...
For those of you familiar with the Chronicles as a whole it will not come as any surprise to you that many moons have passed since this the first posting. This is the way things tend to run with me, so learn to like it.
This blog serves two purposes - it lets me and Wanda vent about shit, and also it serves as a companion blog to our dear friend Megan, who recently moved to the west coast and who also happens to be a dramaturg of some note. Some of you know I harbor not-so-secret aspirations to someday finish a book (I have two in the works, but very, very dormant), and so the other thing this blog is intended to accomplish is to get me writing regularly again. You'll see more and more stuff crop up here as I put down on... er... bytes some of my favorite stories. Megan and I will also be giving each-other writing assignments, the manner and form of which has not yet been decided. Watch this space closely.
This blog serves two purposes - it lets me and Wanda vent about shit, and also it serves as a companion blog to our dear friend Megan, who recently moved to the west coast and who also happens to be a dramaturg of some note. Some of you know I harbor not-so-secret aspirations to someday finish a book (I have two in the works, but very, very dormant), and so the other thing this blog is intended to accomplish is to get me writing regularly again. You'll see more and more stuff crop up here as I put down on... er... bytes some of my favorite stories. Megan and I will also be giving each-other writing assignments, the manner and form of which has not yet been decided. Watch this space closely.
Monday, June 20, 2005
It's alliiiivvveeee!
You'd think after all this time I'd have something more to say. Furthermore, the onus of having joined a popular movement such as blogging really bugs me for some reason, so I'll try not to get sanctimonious, monotonous, barbarous, calculus, or Oedipus too often. But the fact is you've missed a lot. We got all sorts of shit going on, just thinking of trying to post it all makes my head hurt.
So I won't.
I'll just start from today and backfill as needed to explain what the hell is going on. Chances are the digressions will take up more space than the actual story. Any of you who know me won't be surprised by this. I like parentheticals. Contrary to popular opinion, life is lived almost entirely non-linear... uh... ly, and not in any specific order.
On the other hand, as George Carlin says : "Always do whatever's next."
I think I'll go for a walk.
So I won't.
I'll just start from today and backfill as needed to explain what the hell is going on. Chances are the digressions will take up more space than the actual story. Any of you who know me won't be surprised by this. I like parentheticals. Contrary to popular opinion, life is lived almost entirely non-linear... uh... ly, and not in any specific order.
On the other hand, as George Carlin says : "Always do whatever's next."
I think I'll go for a walk.
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