As a grad student, I was pretty miserable. I felt trapped on a path that seemed increasingly divergent from my interests and for which I felt increasingly unprepared and ill-equipped.
But if I am honest, there were bright moments. Najet was one of them.
She knocked on my apartment door. Evidently she had just moved in and was unfamiliar how the shower worked. I helped her with that, and took her grocery shopping. She cooked me a delicious meal, a curry I think, though to be honest I wasn't paying so much attention to the food. It was then that she told me that she had a boyfriend in France.
Still, we spent many months going out to eat, talking occasionally on the phone. By all external appearances, we probably seemed a couple to most people. We laughed, though internally I wept.
Then she broke up with Kader. After ten years, it was over.
In the months preceding the breakup, I remember talking with her several times. The relationship was never ideal. Sometimes she cried. I held her hand, and sometimes held her in my arms. I was a good friend.
I had learned a bad habit over the years. To deal with heartache and fear, I tended to rationalize why a relationship couldn't work out before it even started. It had taken many forms over the years.
"It's bad if we're both only children."
"I shouldn't fall for people in the same field."
"I'm a replacement for another Asian ex, and not valued in myself."
"I'm too young."
"I'm too old."
And always, in the background, my mind hissed:
"I will end up like my father. I must protect her from the horrible fate of having a mentally ill partner."
It was easy in Najet's case. Cultural difference (she was French Moroccan), religious difference (she was Muslim), and professional uncertainty (she was on a postdoc, and would leave within a year). I was also a mess at the time.
But I was a good friend. And because I was a good friend, I didn't seize upon her breakup.
And a week later, she had met someone else. Khalid. Online. In France.
We talked a bit of politics. But mostly it was about life. About relationships and family and academia and how many chickens she had killed as a virologist and whether life was out there in the universe.
Like all cases of heartache, I thought I would never get over her. But I did. We drifted apart. She moved to Germany. I moved to Maryland, and then back home. We haven't spoken in five years.
Did she ever know that I loved her? Or that I felt what I thought was love? It's hard to say. She might've known. Or maybe it's easier to believe in a less complicated friendship. Maybe I lacked the words -- or the right connection between words and feelings, in any language.
It's not just the Paris attacks that brought her to mind. I met up with Marc, a fellow grad student, on Monday. Marc speaks French. I remember when they met at a party, he and Najet were able to converse effortlessly . It speaks to my humanity, and I smile at it now. But how jealous I was at that moment! Even though I knew Marc was happily in a relationship with someone else, and in fact Najet, though less happily, was attached to one of the K boys at that time. Even though I had given up hope or ambition, still, I was in that moment, so profoundly human.
For that moment, and for all the others, I am grateful.
And so I think about her now. She is French, and spent many years in Paris, and so is in mourning. She is Muslim, and so is afraid perhaps of what is to come. I fear for her, too. I mourn with her, too.
And so this is what I think of when I think of Paris. I spent a week there, alone and somewhat depressed, in 2005. The city itself has no sentimental hold on me. But the people, I miss.
I worked with a postdoc, Frantz from France. He was seven feet tall. His wife might've been under five feet. He was so kind; even as my world and my mind was falling apart, he always treated me kindly and as a valued colleague. We talked about family, about the future. Though perhaps more than either me or Najet, he had a greater sense of calm and certainty. Maybe that came from aikido. Maybe it came from his own wisdom.
I remember one of the last times I went into the department, I heard his deep bass voice shout, "Ryan!" I didn't turn around; I was so depressed and lost at that time I felt numb. But I wish I had, and wish I had told you how much you had done for me. You hadn't saved my graduate career, but you did save a piece of my humanity and self-respect. And for that I am eternally grateful.
Frantz... he is safe. He is not in Paris. And he is not Arab. He is Safe. But Najet...
I have met other French citizens over the years. But those two loom largest. And so I can't grieve for Paris. I grieve for them. For their way of life, and what they love, and hate, and love to hate about their nation was attacked. And both the best and the worst of humanity will emerge from this. I grieve for them because I love them.
That will have to be enough.
Frantz -- I hope you are still mentoring and teaching, and doing amazing things with light that the French seem to own so well. Fresnel, Fourier, Fizeau, and Frantz. :)
And Najet -- bisou.
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
A tribute to JL, on his wedding
Just in case this story is deemed unflattering to the subject, I am using the acronym JL. Will anonymize further if necessary.
I was surprised to receive an invitation. I hadn't kept in touch. When asked, JL jokingly (I hope) said, "Oh, that was probably [my fiancee]." I somehow doubted that my volume of article repostings and random thoughts on Facebook had endeared me to her. But it was as plausible an explanation as any.
So I don't know why I was considered special enough for an invitation. But I did think about why he was special enough that I would go.
I knew JL in college. We were suitemates one year, though the "suite" in question consisted of two isolated rooms joined by a long, ominous hallway with an enormous restroom and shower. Both of our roommates were in relationships, and so we occasionally wandered down the hall of horrors to engage in conversation. This was especially true during the summer, when it was just the two of us working that summer.
I remember once during that summer I gave him my video games, in a desperate attempt to quit. A day or two later, I came crawling back for them. He refused to give them to me. Damn him! But he did give them at the end of the summer.
The rest of this post is of a more serious nature.
I am going to say something that I haven't confessed publicly, or to anyone except JL. Once in my life, I drove drunk. Worse, I drove drunk with three others in the car. I was the designated driver, but I caved to pressure and took a double shot at a house party. While driving home, I was drunk enough that I pulled over to the side of the road and pissed in public, near a railroad crossing.
JL took the keys from me and got us safely back. He claims to not remember the incident -- I don't know if he's saying that to be kind, or because he honestly forgot. But he never scolded me, or even brought it up. It was his car, and his life, at stake. I never drove drunk again, but I still feel incredibly guilty about how my gross lapse in judgment could have been fatal. Perhaps he saved our lives that night.
Many years later, in the depths of my depression and unemployment, I spent some time with JL and his then-girlfriend (now wife). I don't know if he asked me to hang out because I was depressed, or if it was just because we had been friends in high school. I had a great time, but I felt too guilty to follow up and hang out with them again. I had nothing to offer. I think I was so depressed that I might not have been entertaining company. We might have met only twice since college, but I was grateful for the lifeline. I don't think he necessarily understood what I was going through, but he was wise enough to know that understanding isn't a prerequisite for empathy.
If you want to judge someone's character, observe how they treat someone who can do nothing for him or her. I'd heard him voice this belief before, many years ago, at a fast food restaurant. It comes back to me now, that distant memory. Maybe as a man he wasn't fully formed -- who is in college? But the framework of his character was already present, and already on solid ground.
One final story. My father died a year and a half ago. I posted it on Facebook, partly because that's what I do, but also because those who know me know how tremendously I have been shaped, both positively and negatively, by my father's presence, absence, and perceived influence. I received many expressions of condolences. But there were only a few people who called, nearly all of them family.
JL called. We talked. He offered to take me out for dinner that week. I put it off, and never followed up. It didn't seem significant then, though in retrospect, it was amazing. I hadn't seen him in a couple years, and yet he felt compelled to reach out with a phone call, nearly anachronistic, incredibly quaint in its courtesy.
He works for one of the most modern companies in the world. And yet, somehow, he's both old school and new tech.
The day of his wedding, my stepdad went to the ER. I almost didn't make the drive to the wedding. But he told me to go. I had to leave the evening celebration early because he had returned to the hospital.
But I'm so glad I went. It was my small way of repaying the many kindnesses I have received from him over the years, to celebrate his commitment to a wonderful woman who, from the first moment, treated me with open-handed friendship.
I cannot claim to know them well. But I am glad to know them. I told them in an absurd post-it note (substituting for a wedding card -- the madness of this week being my excuse) that they were part of my tribe. I mean it. They've met the cutoff of Dunbar's Number. I just need to do better to show it.
Congratulations, JL. I am proud of you, and proud to know you.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
A Valentine's Day Story
Warning: this is actually very sad. I use **** instead of the man's name because I don't want to compromise his privacy any more than I'm already doing by writing this post.
I didn't have a valentine this year. I don't think there's been a single year where I really was in love or in a relationship. There are perhaps reasons for this, but needless to say I don't commit well.
Some people, some people really do commit.
I've lived in Hacienda Heights since about 2010. I have a large, south-facing window that looks out to the street. Often, I'm home during the mornings and early afternoons; most of my tutoring happens later.
I've gotten used to seeing an ambulance in our small cul-de-sac. For as long as we've been here, three times a week, an ambulance stopped by at the house across from us. Always, two young EMTs or paramedics would casually do their paperwork, open the rear doors, and take out a stretcher. They would go into the house, and retrieve a prone, quiet woman in her sixties. The husband, a quiet, completely healthy man in his sixties, would follow in one of the two cars that always sat in the driveway. He would leave in the Lexus on the right, the white one. The one on the left, the black one; that was never used.
I learned, after a while, that he was a real estate agent. He and his wife were Japanese, as in actually from Japan, which immediately made them important in my mother's eyes. His wife had suffered a stroke many years ago. I didn't know if she could speak or not. I never went into the house. But I do know that because of the medical bills, they lost their house. They rented the one across from us.
I also learned that the other car was his wife's. He never sold it. He never used it. I don't know why. I can imagine reasons for it, but I never really spoke to him. There are some Japanese stereotypes that are true, and one of them is that you tend not to discuss personal matters with, well, anyone.
Sometimes, on weekends, I'd see a Jaguar in front -- the kind of car driven by an older, wealthy person. From my own mindset, I thought that maybe my neighbor did have someone else, that after so many years, he did have an outside relationship. Again, however, I don't know, and based on my best guess, that person was a relative of either him or his wife.
I never even knew her name. She was just always ****'s wife, at least to me.
**** always seemed cheerful and reserved. The only time my mother caught him displaying anything other than polite Japanese civility was when she caught him shouting at our cat, who was, no doubt, sneaking into his backyard to take a dump.
The ambulance stopped coming two weeks ago. ****'s wife had been moved to a skilled nursing facility, which was not a good sign. But I forgot, and didn't notice the absence of an ambulance on our street.
A few minutes ago, the doorbell rang. It's an unusual event, and I was a little concerned by who would be ringing the door on a Saturday evening. (We're not as close to our neighbors as we probably should be.) I didn't recognize **** at the door; it was dark.
He said, "Is your mother or father here?"
Still not recognizing him, I said "No", with probably some unguarded apprehension. "What can I do for you?"
He said, "Hi, I'm ****." I relaxed and went to open the security door. "No, no, it's okay." I paused.
"I just wanted to let them know that I lost my wife. Nine years."
I expressed my condolences, and opened the door. But what could I do? I couldn't give him a hug; that would be inappropriate. I awkwardly shook his hand, and he bowed. I thought about offering to attend the funeral, but was that too forward? Was it too harsh, to say the word that had the cut of finality and formality?
"I'm so sorry, ****. You have my condolences."
"Thank you. Nine years... she was like that. Would you tell them? They know."
I told him I would.
"Oh! She's going to get out!" he said, pointing to my dog, smiling.
"She'll come back," I said.
He smiled. And then he left. Still polite. Still collected.
He had been with his wife his entire adult life. They had no children. For all I know, they have no close family in the area. But "nine years", and "tell them... they know" -- they rang in my ear.
I don't even know what it would be to love someone like that. Maybe it isn't even love... maybe it's duty. But it's something so foreign to the selfish world I inhabit.
"In sickness and in health" appears in the standard wedding vows. They are perhaps the cruelest portion of the vows, for embedded within it is real terror. My neighbor and his wife lived that, for nine years. But they had good years before that. And maybe those nine years were good, in their own way, in a way that warrants our respect, not our pity.
If I think of a Dylan Thomas poem, I usually think of "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night." I've been thinking about it more lately, because my father is dying. But the Thomas poem appropriate here is "And Death Shall Have No Dominion", especially the first verse:
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
Happy Valentine's Day, **** and his late wife. Though lovers be lost, love shall not.
I didn't have a valentine this year. I don't think there's been a single year where I really was in love or in a relationship. There are perhaps reasons for this, but needless to say I don't commit well.
Some people, some people really do commit.
I've lived in Hacienda Heights since about 2010. I have a large, south-facing window that looks out to the street. Often, I'm home during the mornings and early afternoons; most of my tutoring happens later.
I've gotten used to seeing an ambulance in our small cul-de-sac. For as long as we've been here, three times a week, an ambulance stopped by at the house across from us. Always, two young EMTs or paramedics would casually do their paperwork, open the rear doors, and take out a stretcher. They would go into the house, and retrieve a prone, quiet woman in her sixties. The husband, a quiet, completely healthy man in his sixties, would follow in one of the two cars that always sat in the driveway. He would leave in the Lexus on the right, the white one. The one on the left, the black one; that was never used.
I learned, after a while, that he was a real estate agent. He and his wife were Japanese, as in actually from Japan, which immediately made them important in my mother's eyes. His wife had suffered a stroke many years ago. I didn't know if she could speak or not. I never went into the house. But I do know that because of the medical bills, they lost their house. They rented the one across from us.
I also learned that the other car was his wife's. He never sold it. He never used it. I don't know why. I can imagine reasons for it, but I never really spoke to him. There are some Japanese stereotypes that are true, and one of them is that you tend not to discuss personal matters with, well, anyone.
Sometimes, on weekends, I'd see a Jaguar in front -- the kind of car driven by an older, wealthy person. From my own mindset, I thought that maybe my neighbor did have someone else, that after so many years, he did have an outside relationship. Again, however, I don't know, and based on my best guess, that person was a relative of either him or his wife.
I never even knew her name. She was just always ****'s wife, at least to me.
**** always seemed cheerful and reserved. The only time my mother caught him displaying anything other than polite Japanese civility was when she caught him shouting at our cat, who was, no doubt, sneaking into his backyard to take a dump.
The ambulance stopped coming two weeks ago. ****'s wife had been moved to a skilled nursing facility, which was not a good sign. But I forgot, and didn't notice the absence of an ambulance on our street.
A few minutes ago, the doorbell rang. It's an unusual event, and I was a little concerned by who would be ringing the door on a Saturday evening. (We're not as close to our neighbors as we probably should be.) I didn't recognize **** at the door; it was dark.
He said, "Is your mother or father here?"
Still not recognizing him, I said "No", with probably some unguarded apprehension. "What can I do for you?"
He said, "Hi, I'm ****." I relaxed and went to open the security door. "No, no, it's okay." I paused.
"I just wanted to let them know that I lost my wife. Nine years."
I expressed my condolences, and opened the door. But what could I do? I couldn't give him a hug; that would be inappropriate. I awkwardly shook his hand, and he bowed. I thought about offering to attend the funeral, but was that too forward? Was it too harsh, to say the word that had the cut of finality and formality?
"I'm so sorry, ****. You have my condolences."
"Thank you. Nine years... she was like that. Would you tell them? They know."
I told him I would.
"Oh! She's going to get out!" he said, pointing to my dog, smiling.
"She'll come back," I said.
He smiled. And then he left. Still polite. Still collected.
He had been with his wife his entire adult life. They had no children. For all I know, they have no close family in the area. But "nine years", and "tell them... they know" -- they rang in my ear.
I don't even know what it would be to love someone like that. Maybe it isn't even love... maybe it's duty. But it's something so foreign to the selfish world I inhabit.
"In sickness and in health" appears in the standard wedding vows. They are perhaps the cruelest portion of the vows, for embedded within it is real terror. My neighbor and his wife lived that, for nine years. But they had good years before that. And maybe those nine years were good, in their own way, in a way that warrants our respect, not our pity.
If I think of a Dylan Thomas poem, I usually think of "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night." I've been thinking about it more lately, because my father is dying. But the Thomas poem appropriate here is "And Death Shall Have No Dominion", especially the first verse:
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
Happy Valentine's Day, **** and his late wife. Though lovers be lost, love shall not.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
A letter from dad
Son,
I'm dying for real this time. Slowly, but definitively.There are things I need to tell you, things you need to hear.
I'm sorry I was a lousy father. I loved you, and still do. I loved you as much as I could. But I was also a raging maniac other times. I'm sorry for the times I said you were a terrible son. I'm sorry for melting down in front of you, with no one to help you. I'm sorry I made physically threatening movements to you and your mother; I didn't intend to follow through on them, but you, as a child, didn't know that. I'm sorry I asked you for money, and never paid it back. I'm sorry I put myself in the hospital for using meth.
I'm sorry for the smaller, but still hurtful, things too. I'm sorry I broke so many promises to quit smoking, and exposed you to tons of secondhand smoke. I'm sorry I needed you to pay for everything. I'm sorry I paraded you around the halfway houses and institutions, not only because I was proud of you, but because I was using you and your success to legitimize my existence.
I'm sorry I didn't teach you how to be a man.
I'm sorry I use "couldn't" when I should say "wouldn't". Maybe if I had tried harder, some of these things would have happened.
I will go to my end to accept what judgment may come. But I hope, now, I can teach you a few things.
Please learn from my mistakes. I was 63 when my father died. Part of me never felt free from him. I let him, or what I thought of him, hold me back for most of my life. You will be younger when your father dies, but it's still been too damn long to wait. When I'm gone, life won't get better. I'm not saying it will get worse. But you will retain your ambivalence toward me, and by extension, your own identity, even after I'm gone, if you don't work to challenge those beliefs today.
Please find something to do with your life that both gives you pride and makes you a better person every day. My job as an engineer gave me the former, but it didn't always do the latter. I could've made it about patriotism, about the pursuit of excellence, but I ended up making it about myself, and how I was "the best engineer that ever walked through those doors". I clung to those words from my boss, and never questioned whether I really earned them, or if they actually should be meaningful for me.
Please, please, don't wait for someone to fix your life for you. I waited for decades, entertaining dreams of going back to school, going back to work. But to be honest, I was scared. I didn't want to face the reality that maybe I was unhireable, maybe I didn't have my mental illnesses under control. I chose to not try rather than fail, or accept a job with less prestige and pay.
And finally, please, try to love life. I've stayed alive despite everything because I enjoy myself. Too much sometimes, I know. But you're a goddamn party pooper. Go get laid. Try not to take yourself so seriously; you've read enough biographies to know that a good sense of humor and a willingness sometimes to leap before you look are qualities of some of the great men in history. Pull the stick out of your ass and go fight the world with said stinky stick.
Sorry, I tried to inject some humor into a pretty serious letter. Don't think it worked. Know that I love you, but didn't show it well. Decide what you needed from me, and didn't get, and go find it elsewhere. I say this not dismissively, but humbly, knowing that I failed in many ways.
Remember the good times, too. Our lives can and should be judged not by specific moments of pain, but by the sum total of experiences. It's how we learn to forgive ourselves and others. In time, I hope you can forgive me.
Love,
Dad
I'm dying for real this time. Slowly, but definitively.There are things I need to tell you, things you need to hear.
I'm sorry I was a lousy father. I loved you, and still do. I loved you as much as I could. But I was also a raging maniac other times. I'm sorry for the times I said you were a terrible son. I'm sorry for melting down in front of you, with no one to help you. I'm sorry I made physically threatening movements to you and your mother; I didn't intend to follow through on them, but you, as a child, didn't know that. I'm sorry I asked you for money, and never paid it back. I'm sorry I put myself in the hospital for using meth.
I'm sorry for the smaller, but still hurtful, things too. I'm sorry I broke so many promises to quit smoking, and exposed you to tons of secondhand smoke. I'm sorry I needed you to pay for everything. I'm sorry I paraded you around the halfway houses and institutions, not only because I was proud of you, but because I was using you and your success to legitimize my existence.
I'm sorry I didn't teach you how to be a man.
I'm sorry I use "couldn't" when I should say "wouldn't". Maybe if I had tried harder, some of these things would have happened.
I will go to my end to accept what judgment may come. But I hope, now, I can teach you a few things.
Please learn from my mistakes. I was 63 when my father died. Part of me never felt free from him. I let him, or what I thought of him, hold me back for most of my life. You will be younger when your father dies, but it's still been too damn long to wait. When I'm gone, life won't get better. I'm not saying it will get worse. But you will retain your ambivalence toward me, and by extension, your own identity, even after I'm gone, if you don't work to challenge those beliefs today.
Please find something to do with your life that both gives you pride and makes you a better person every day. My job as an engineer gave me the former, but it didn't always do the latter. I could've made it about patriotism, about the pursuit of excellence, but I ended up making it about myself, and how I was "the best engineer that ever walked through those doors". I clung to those words from my boss, and never questioned whether I really earned them, or if they actually should be meaningful for me.
Please, please, don't wait for someone to fix your life for you. I waited for decades, entertaining dreams of going back to school, going back to work. But to be honest, I was scared. I didn't want to face the reality that maybe I was unhireable, maybe I didn't have my mental illnesses under control. I chose to not try rather than fail, or accept a job with less prestige and pay.
And finally, please, try to love life. I've stayed alive despite everything because I enjoy myself. Too much sometimes, I know. But you're a goddamn party pooper. Go get laid. Try not to take yourself so seriously; you've read enough biographies to know that a good sense of humor and a willingness sometimes to leap before you look are qualities of some of the great men in history. Pull the stick out of your ass and go fight the world with said stinky stick.
Sorry, I tried to inject some humor into a pretty serious letter. Don't think it worked. Know that I love you, but didn't show it well. Decide what you needed from me, and didn't get, and go find it elsewhere. I say this not dismissively, but humbly, knowing that I failed in many ways.
Remember the good times, too. Our lives can and should be judged not by specific moments of pain, but by the sum total of experiences. It's how we learn to forgive ourselves and others. In time, I hope you can forgive me.
Love,
Dad
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
A little faith
I think, somewhere over the last few years, many people have concluded that this country isn't worth saving. We haven't always done it publicly, or noisily. But, secretly, a lot of us sort of gave up.
It shows, too. In any relationship, it shows.
Somewhere along the line, we got more scared about our jobs, and felt like we had less time to worry about that of our neighbor.
At some point, we became more calculating and less trusting -- rationalized by the belief that that's what made individuals successful. Maybe it's even true. But it's not how a nation becomes great.
There are those of you who are itching to say that America never was that great -- that the hagiography of decades past is part of the national delusion that got us into this mess. I'm inclined to agree. However, that's not at all inconsistent with the truth that a belief that we are, or can be, the shining city on the hill actually helps us to be better.
Perhaps most telling, we have someone else to blame. What about our contribution to the failure of the relationship? Blame is more important, easier, more comforting, and a hallmark that the relationship is dying.
And yet I'm strangely hopeful.
Maybe it's historical perspective -- as crappy as we are to each other now, we have only to go back a few years, or decades, or centuries, to reveal how truly shitty humans can be to each other.
It's actually better now, on average. It just doesn't feel that way.
I think in some ways, I understand how conservativism increases with age. As we get older, we remember how things were worse at the beginning of our lives. And yet, there is no sense of pride, or satisfaction, or even the barest sense of hope that comes from that knowledge. There's only the gnawing sense that this should've felt better, and that people keep demanding more, that the battles are often the same ones we fought (or were spectators to) when we were young and stupid and had faith.
I'm not sure where this blog post came from. I'm supposed to be thinking about a humorous speech for Toastmasters. But I think it comes from a slow, steady, and hopefully growing sense that I do have faith in this country, in its peoples and The People. Not much. But enough to keep going, and maybe do a bit more. I am too old to put my faith or reasons in broad ideas. It resides in specific people, in moments, in which the unreachable heights of idealism find their best, beautiful, and beautifully flawed expression.
I don't know whether it's better to thank people for loving me, or to thank them for helping me learn to love this country. Fortunately, there is tremendous overlap. It's for you -- and not a piece of paper, or dead Founding Fathers who, through death, are absent fathers -- that I'll try to remember whenever I start to lose faith, or become too complacent.
The picture of Bobby Kennedy is coming down. Or, at the very least, the pictures of people I know personally have to join him. I work for the living, not for the dead. And that's as pure a faith as I care to have.
It shows, too. In any relationship, it shows.
Somewhere along the line, we got more scared about our jobs, and felt like we had less time to worry about that of our neighbor.
At some point, we became more calculating and less trusting -- rationalized by the belief that that's what made individuals successful. Maybe it's even true. But it's not how a nation becomes great.
There are those of you who are itching to say that America never was that great -- that the hagiography of decades past is part of the national delusion that got us into this mess. I'm inclined to agree. However, that's not at all inconsistent with the truth that a belief that we are, or can be, the shining city on the hill actually helps us to be better.
Perhaps most telling, we have someone else to blame. What about our contribution to the failure of the relationship? Blame is more important, easier, more comforting, and a hallmark that the relationship is dying.
And yet I'm strangely hopeful.
Maybe it's historical perspective -- as crappy as we are to each other now, we have only to go back a few years, or decades, or centuries, to reveal how truly shitty humans can be to each other.
It's actually better now, on average. It just doesn't feel that way.
I think in some ways, I understand how conservativism increases with age. As we get older, we remember how things were worse at the beginning of our lives. And yet, there is no sense of pride, or satisfaction, or even the barest sense of hope that comes from that knowledge. There's only the gnawing sense that this should've felt better, and that people keep demanding more, that the battles are often the same ones we fought (or were spectators to) when we were young and stupid and had faith.
I'm not sure where this blog post came from. I'm supposed to be thinking about a humorous speech for Toastmasters. But I think it comes from a slow, steady, and hopefully growing sense that I do have faith in this country, in its peoples and The People. Not much. But enough to keep going, and maybe do a bit more. I am too old to put my faith or reasons in broad ideas. It resides in specific people, in moments, in which the unreachable heights of idealism find their best, beautiful, and beautifully flawed expression.
I don't know whether it's better to thank people for loving me, or to thank them for helping me learn to love this country. Fortunately, there is tremendous overlap. It's for you -- and not a piece of paper, or dead Founding Fathers who, through death, are absent fathers -- that I'll try to remember whenever I start to lose faith, or become too complacent.
The picture of Bobby Kennedy is coming down. Or, at the very least, the pictures of people I know personally have to join him. I work for the living, not for the dead. And that's as pure a faith as I care to have.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
O Magnum Mysterium
This is beautiful, in part, because I don't understand the words.
When I first fell in love with astronomy, it was in this way. It was the stately beauty of Neptune, taken with precious little energy at the far reaches of the solar system. It was the eerie beauty of a sequence of Messier objects, representing a bizarre diversity, even by the standards of a child growing up in the modern world.
I fell in love before i knew what I was falling in love with.
With time, I began to tease apart those amazing structures. I learned the calculus that allowed me to express, in partial elegance, with partial clarity, the nature of stars. I learned the physics that gave me the beginnings of the understandings of the depth behind these things. I even learned a bit of computer programming, that I might better participate in peeling back the curtain of the unknown.
And somewhere along the way, I lost that wonder. I lost the ability to look, and just see what my eyes see, and not the questions, and work, and challenges behind those high resolution images.
Some can do so. For some, the odd combination of challenge and complexity, wedded with a firm belief that understanding is possible, gives a richer sense of beauty. These people enjoy a long, happy marriage to space -- not without its challenges. But they still feel enough to work at the relationship and find new, mature beauty as the relationship continues.
I was not. I found its very comprehensibility, and my limits at comprehension, too harsh. It was that, or it was other things -- opportunity cost, more terrestrial thoughts, hopes, and fears. So we ended our relationship, and unlike some, I never looked back and missed it. Those feelings were just gone.
And so I enjoy this song, and do not seek to look up its lyrics. For the unknown itself is what I find alluring, as long as it remains, unknown.
Maybe this is why, despite the best efforts of relatives and my therapist, I don't seek a greater connection to God. For when I do, I find my interest torn asunder by questions of doctrine, historical origins, temporal contamination of divine intent, Biblical literalism, and the like. I can only appreciate faith from a distance, and so there is where I remain, and where I am happiest.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Sample of what goes on in my head
Stuff that goes on in my head
(Morning, going to pharmacy and tutoring appointment)
Gotta go pick up this medication, even though it doesn't work, because Mom will keep nagging me otherwise.
Sigh -- hope that student is ready to learn today.
Speaking of which, what do you need to learn?
I guess I could learn some more programming.
Ugh.
Do you still have that IDL book?
I bought a new one to replace my professor's.
Was he a dick that he didn't give you one outright?
I don't know. He did put his name on it. Maybe it was his?
But there were no notes inside. And you brought your own funding!
Fuck it -- I'm not revisiting this.
Well, what about programming?
Sigh... I probably do know IDL better than I think. Maybe I should pick up a good C++ book.
Do you want to teach?
Maybe. Gotta send out those CC applications.
Will they take you? You don't have any curriculum! No syllabi! No teaching experience!
Hey, fuck you. I'm supposed to be more positive now.
You know, a good course would revolve around the car.
Yeah, yeah, you've said this before.
Huh. I probably should study a bit about that. The engine could be modeled as some irreversible thermodynamic reaction.
Yeah, you need to figure out how to explicitly make the connections to other subjects.
And, uh, the, uh, steering wheel thingy--
Power steering, dumbass?
Shut up! Yeah, that. I guess you could use a rotational model involving some sort of frictional torque.
Have to be a function. A constant wouldn't work.
Yeah.
Speaking of mechanics, how about giving tensors another try?
I still don't really appreciate the difference between that and a matrix.
Yeah, that kind of makes you relatively retarded compared with other physicists.
Saul Teukolsky would say "retarded" when we were doing special relativity in Electrodynamics class.
*giggles*
Stop that! It's inappropriate.
What's inappropriate is that I'm still trying to pretend to be a physicist.
Well, until you decide to drop that mantle of legitimacy that you cling to like a chewed teat, you probably could afford to revisit them.
I still don't know how I passed GR senior year.
Or how you got an A in that fields class.
Yeah.
You know what was a good tensor? The antisymmetric tensor.
Yeah! That made cross-products a bit easier.
And Lambda, or whatever it was called, that was the four-dimensional tensor used to keep track of the sign differences when talking about time and space.
Yeah. Those were the Good Ones.
Yeah, that was before you got way in over your head with Gamma functions and other shit you didn't understand.
Again fuck you.
Cross-products? I gotta review magnetic fields.
Speaking of which, how awesome is it that Tesla's on currency?
Yeah, we'd never have a scientist on currency here.
Maybe Edison.
Exactly. Edison was an asshole.
Actually, you're assuming that based on what little you've read about Edison and Tesla.
I read enough.
Huh. Aunty referenced Washington's birthday yesterday. He was born in 1732, right?
February 22, 1732. Though it was recorded differently because they used some shitty weird Julian calendar during the Colonial era.
Yeah. Say, wasn't he put on the quarter in 1932?
Yeah. Come to think of it, Lincoln got put on in 1909, a hundred years after his birth.
What about FDR?
Not sure. And I don't know whether 1938 was a significant anniversary for Jefferson.
God, you WERE a coin nerd at one point.
Numismatist, please!
Do you think your FB friends would care enough to read about the transition on coins from Columbia to Presidents?
Do you think I care enough to research it?
Probably not. But it does look like some function whereby the time between when they were born/died and when they get their face on a coin decreases with time.
But what about Jefferson?
Oh, right. Forget about it.
Kennedy got a coin the year after his assassination.
Wonder how that was pushed through.
Oh, wait. We're here. Time to buy medicine.
(evening, going to Panera before another tutoring appointment)
Wow, that girl sitting outside is hot.
[redacted]
You're too old! Jesus.
What's the cutoff?
Berlin Wall.
What?
Die Schandmauer. Has to be born before it came down.
That's what... anyone over 24?
Yeah.
Sigh. I'm broke and out of shape, anyway.
Yes. Yes. That's why we can't have nice things. Go in, fucker.
(enters Panera)
Huh, this is the wrong entrance.
Where's the bathroom?
Huh, that's not the right one.
Damnit, that server totally thought you were awkwardly checking her out.
She was in the fucking way! Besides, I made extra sure to be looking over her head.
Are you always so self-conscious?
Shut up. Time to pee.
(Goes into restroom, pees)
Goddamn it, you didn't shake enough times!
You're not supposed to shake more than twice; otherwise you're playing with it.
Fuck that shit. You're getting older. You gotta hold and squeeze at least four times now.
Wonder if I've got prostate problems.
Fuck. Are you really gonna put this on your blog later?
Yeah, probably.
You're fucked up and an attention whore.
Thank god you're wearing black pants. Why'd you wear a suit today, anyway?
I don't know. I think I wanted to see how the haircut would look with a suit.
That's stupid. And you didn't get one.
Well, Eugene's Hair Salon was closed.
But you walked into that other place. What happened?
Well, they didn't have Time magazine.
So?
All they had was weird tattoo mags and other crap.
Wow, how classist of you.
Shut up. Besides, I thought about it, and I don't think either of the stylists there could cut Asian hair.
You're probably right. That's why you didn't go to the old Mexican guy that cusses, right?
Yeah. He cracks me up and he's cheap, but I get a few patches on the side.
That's because you've got a lumpy head.
Mom shouldn't have told me about those times I fell out of the high chair.
Make you self-conscious?
Well, what if it made a difference?
You're an idiot. Go order some food.
(gets in line)
Huh. What's that? Looks like a nameplate that says "Republic of El Salvador" on that table with those two youngish guys.
Weird. Model UN?
"Excuse me."
Oh, I'm in the way of someone carrying dishes.
Oh! She's incredibly hot!
[redacted]
I think I'm about to say something.
"Oh, sorry."
Ok. Done.
Wait!
Why am I about to say more things?
"Excuse me. Is there a Model UN going on here?"
What the hell are you doing!?
"Uh, what?"
You know what, that's probably a binder that you're viewing edgewise.
"You know, a model UN. I'm not sure myself. See that sign?"
That makes you kind of an idiot.
"What?"
"Er, never mind. I'll ask them myself."
(she smiles, and walks away)
What the hell was that shit?
Uh, I don't know.
Did you have to act like a blathering idiot in front of an attractive woman?
Does it matter that she was an attractive woman? It was weird to say anyway.
Oh, well, THAT justifies it.
Shut up. Do you care about that name tag anymore?
No. Do you?
No.
Besides, who the fuck doesn't know about Model UN? Fuck her!
You barely did it in high school, fucker. Maybe she didn't do it.
Maybe I didn't enunciate.
WHO THE FUCK CARES?
MAKE BABIES
NOT WITH HER
Ok, I'm done.
Good, because you've done enough weird shit already today.
Go sit down and write.
But I haven't bought anything yet.
Fuck it. I need to get out of this line.
(Morning, going to pharmacy and tutoring appointment)
Gotta go pick up this medication, even though it doesn't work, because Mom will keep nagging me otherwise.
Sigh -- hope that student is ready to learn today.
Speaking of which, what do you need to learn?
I guess I could learn some more programming.
Ugh.
Do you still have that IDL book?
I bought a new one to replace my professor's.
Was he a dick that he didn't give you one outright?
I don't know. He did put his name on it. Maybe it was his?
But there were no notes inside. And you brought your own funding!
Fuck it -- I'm not revisiting this.
Well, what about programming?
Sigh... I probably do know IDL better than I think. Maybe I should pick up a good C++ book.
Do you want to teach?
Maybe. Gotta send out those CC applications.
Will they take you? You don't have any curriculum! No syllabi! No teaching experience!
Hey, fuck you. I'm supposed to be more positive now.
You know, a good course would revolve around the car.
Yeah, yeah, you've said this before.
Huh. I probably should study a bit about that. The engine could be modeled as some irreversible thermodynamic reaction.
Yeah, you need to figure out how to explicitly make the connections to other subjects.
And, uh, the, uh, steering wheel thingy--
Power steering, dumbass?
Shut up! Yeah, that. I guess you could use a rotational model involving some sort of frictional torque.
Have to be a function. A constant wouldn't work.
Yeah.
Speaking of mechanics, how about giving tensors another try?
I still don't really appreciate the difference between that and a matrix.
Yeah, that kind of makes you relatively retarded compared with other physicists.
Saul Teukolsky would say "retarded" when we were doing special relativity in Electrodynamics class.
*giggles*
Stop that! It's inappropriate.
What's inappropriate is that I'm still trying to pretend to be a physicist.
Well, until you decide to drop that mantle of legitimacy that you cling to like a chewed teat, you probably could afford to revisit them.
I still don't know how I passed GR senior year.
Or how you got an A in that fields class.
Yeah.
You know what was a good tensor? The antisymmetric tensor.
Yeah! That made cross-products a bit easier.
And Lambda, or whatever it was called, that was the four-dimensional tensor used to keep track of the sign differences when talking about time and space.
Yeah. Those were the Good Ones.
Yeah, that was before you got way in over your head with Gamma functions and other shit you didn't understand.
Again fuck you.
Cross-products? I gotta review magnetic fields.
Speaking of which, how awesome is it that Tesla's on currency?
Yeah, we'd never have a scientist on currency here.
Maybe Edison.
Exactly. Edison was an asshole.
Actually, you're assuming that based on what little you've read about Edison and Tesla.
I read enough.
Huh. Aunty referenced Washington's birthday yesterday. He was born in 1732, right?
February 22, 1732. Though it was recorded differently because they used some shitty weird Julian calendar during the Colonial era.
Yeah. Say, wasn't he put on the quarter in 1932?
Yeah. Come to think of it, Lincoln got put on in 1909, a hundred years after his birth.
What about FDR?
Not sure. And I don't know whether 1938 was a significant anniversary for Jefferson.
God, you WERE a coin nerd at one point.
Numismatist, please!
Do you think your FB friends would care enough to read about the transition on coins from Columbia to Presidents?
Do you think I care enough to research it?
Probably not. But it does look like some function whereby the time between when they were born/died and when they get their face on a coin decreases with time.
But what about Jefferson?
Oh, right. Forget about it.
Kennedy got a coin the year after his assassination.
Wonder how that was pushed through.
Oh, wait. We're here. Time to buy medicine.
(evening, going to Panera before another tutoring appointment)
Wow, that girl sitting outside is hot.
[redacted]
You're too old! Jesus.
What's the cutoff?
Berlin Wall.
What?
Die Schandmauer. Has to be born before it came down.
That's what... anyone over 24?
Yeah.
Sigh. I'm broke and out of shape, anyway.
Yes. Yes. That's why we can't have nice things. Go in, fucker.
(enters Panera)
Huh, this is the wrong entrance.
Where's the bathroom?
Huh, that's not the right one.
Damnit, that server totally thought you were awkwardly checking her out.
She was in the fucking way! Besides, I made extra sure to be looking over her head.
Are you always so self-conscious?
Shut up. Time to pee.
(Goes into restroom, pees)
Goddamn it, you didn't shake enough times!
You're not supposed to shake more than twice; otherwise you're playing with it.
Fuck that shit. You're getting older. You gotta hold and squeeze at least four times now.
Wonder if I've got prostate problems.
Fuck. Are you really gonna put this on your blog later?
Yeah, probably.
You're fucked up and an attention whore.
Thank god you're wearing black pants. Why'd you wear a suit today, anyway?
I don't know. I think I wanted to see how the haircut would look with a suit.
That's stupid. And you didn't get one.
Well, Eugene's Hair Salon was closed.
But you walked into that other place. What happened?
Well, they didn't have Time magazine.
So?
All they had was weird tattoo mags and other crap.
Wow, how classist of you.
Shut up. Besides, I thought about it, and I don't think either of the stylists there could cut Asian hair.
You're probably right. That's why you didn't go to the old Mexican guy that cusses, right?
Yeah. He cracks me up and he's cheap, but I get a few patches on the side.
That's because you've got a lumpy head.
Mom shouldn't have told me about those times I fell out of the high chair.
Make you self-conscious?
Well, what if it made a difference?
You're an idiot. Go order some food.
(gets in line)
Huh. What's that? Looks like a nameplate that says "Republic of El Salvador" on that table with those two youngish guys.
Weird. Model UN?
"Excuse me."
Oh, I'm in the way of someone carrying dishes.
Oh! She's incredibly hot!
[redacted]
I think I'm about to say something.
"Oh, sorry."
Ok. Done.
Wait!
Why am I about to say more things?
"Excuse me. Is there a Model UN going on here?"
What the hell are you doing!?
"Uh, what?"
You know what, that's probably a binder that you're viewing edgewise.
"You know, a model UN. I'm not sure myself. See that sign?"
That makes you kind of an idiot.
"What?"
"Er, never mind. I'll ask them myself."
(she smiles, and walks away)
What the hell was that shit?
Uh, I don't know.
Did you have to act like a blathering idiot in front of an attractive woman?
Does it matter that she was an attractive woman? It was weird to say anyway.
Oh, well, THAT justifies it.
Shut up. Do you care about that name tag anymore?
No. Do you?
No.
Besides, who the fuck doesn't know about Model UN? Fuck her!
You barely did it in high school, fucker. Maybe she didn't do it.
Maybe I didn't enunciate.
WHO THE FUCK CARES?
MAKE BABIES
NOT WITH HER
Ok, I'm done.
Good, because you've done enough weird shit already today.
Go sit down and write.
But I haven't bought anything yet.
Fuck it. I need to get out of this line.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Shitty dates
I've told people these stories in person, but never typed them out.
I haven't really "dated" much. I've hooked up a couple times, or met people in other contexts. But actual "dates" just don't work for me. In case you're wondering, I have had some good dates. But they're a lot less fun to talk about, and sometimes involved me being the only party aware that it was a date.
I've gone on dates with a diplomat, who, oddly enough, was a terrible conversationalist -- the kind of person who would be content to eat dinner in complete silence, which is what would happen if you didn't occasionally attempt to offer a humorous anecdote, or inquire into their life, or do anything to mask the giant sucking sound that is all the atmosphere and energy being vacuumed to a place with people who actually care about living. I tried going on a date twice with this woman, who, on top of it all, was probably 50 pounds underweight and had weird acne scars all over her face. Maybe that makes me superficial, but when there's no fucking substance, superficial is all you got.
And I think I've mentioned my first and last attempt at dating via OkCupid. I chatted with someone and bounced a few emails back and forth. We set up a date. I drove an hour to meet her in small-town Upstate New York. The first thing I noticed when I picked her up was that she was at least a hundred pounds heavier than I expected, based on her significantly outdated profile pictures. But, as I had foolishly believed myself an old-school gentleman, I accepted immediately that this wasn't a problem, and took her to an Italian place. I ate some really shitty spaghetti, though, to be fair, the shittiniess of the spaghetti might have been due to the fact that I was learning all about her incredibly depressing life. I learned that her family was shit; her school was shit; her friends were shit; her ex-boyfriend was shit; her computer was shit. I tried to make her feel better, but at a certain point I nearly choked on a shit meatball in order to prevent myself from laughing at the absurdity of the avalanche of shit I was hearing on a first date in a town that was ground-zero of a shit bomb of Rust Belt capital flight.
At the end of it all, she asked to borrow a hundred bucks. And yes, I gave it to her, because I felt sorry for her. When I tell this story, I often lie about this bit in the story, as some of my friends will give me tremendous amounts of shit if they know that I actually agreed to her request. Well, now you know that I've got a rescue complex AND I'm a liar.
That, by the way, wasn't the worst date I've had.
This is.
***
I met a girl at a party. She was a PhD student in English -- which should have been enough of a flag, but either I knew less about that particular career path, or I was drunk on mulled wine and didn't give a fuck. Being me, I tried to impress her with my surface knowledge of Yeats and other poems/novels, because I'm an idiot and my benchmark for well-readness is "I read a couple books in addition to the required reading in K-12 education over the course of my lifetime." As it turns out, she was more interested in the fact I was an astronomer because she was a sci-fi dork. We went outside to chat -- I still remember one of my friends saying "goodbye" to me in the knowing way that indicated he thought I was going to go home with her and didn't potentially prevent me from making the worst mistake of my life. Asshole. Well, I didn't, and that turned out to be A Good Thing. We exchanged numbers, and I promised to call in the morning.
I picked her up in the morning, and the first thing I notice is that she was... well, not that pretty in the face. Or anywhere else. Hate to say it, but she had a bit of a Helen Thomas vibe about her, though in fairness to the disgraced doyenne of the Washington Press Corps, Helen Thomas is fucking old. Again, I blamed the wine for this predicament. But, again, I thought that the cover doesn't matter so much, and that as long as we got along well, everything would work out. (How goddamn noble of me.)
We went to a hippie coffeeshop -- Gimme! Coffee, for you Ithaca folks, and sat down.
I know that rules of etiquette generally dictate that politics, religion, and money are off-limits in polite conversation. (Probably should probably add sex to that list, especially on a first date.) But, naif that I was, I thought that it shouldn't really matter. Besides, we're talking about me. What the hell else am I going to talk about? The 2006 analogue to Kim Kardashian?
So, we talked politics. It was early 2006. George W. Bush was president at the time, and Ithaca was, and remains, a pretty liberal community. (This, despitethe fact that Cornell gave birth to a lot of the famous neoconservatives. Ann Coulter is a fucking feather in your cap, second-tier Ivy League.)
I forget what we were discussing precisely, but she was going off on some predictable and not-very-nuanced-or-deep rant about Bush and the Iraq War. One of the few things I hate more than conservative pablum is liberal pablum, mostly because I expect better of fellow lefties. Don't worry -- that belief and the belief in being a gentleman have long gone, no doubt replaced by other, more dangerous cognitive biases.
But, all of a sudden, she had to reaffirm her solid support of Israel. (She was Jewish, and had visited Israel as part of that program that helps fund young Jews abroad to visit.) She started saying some pretty bigoted things about Muslims. I asked for clarification using a hypothetical situation, in which she made it clear that she'd feel uncomfortable about law-abiding Saudi doctors living on her street.
Ooookay, I thought. No, that's a lie. I really thought, "What the FUCK is this person saying? How the FUCK did I end up with some sort of weird selective wingnut?"
I tried to deflect. I started a discussion about family. I happen to have a cousin I cared about (and still care about, even though we disagree on a HUGE range of policy issues) who studied engineering in college, but ended up dropping out as a junior to go to a Bible college and become a youth leader/minister. This immediately triggered a tirade about Christianity -- even though I had made it clear that I loved this cousin and respected his choice. Again, pablum. Also -- what the fuck? I just said someone close to me chose this path. Were you even listening? Was she really a prototype of some sort of chat bot, scanning for keywords, going into an automatic program once one was said? Is she what's on the other side of those chatbots that try to convince me to join a porn website? Gross.
Now, I'm used to defending Christianity. I'm used to defending science. Maybe all that defending will make me defensive. I was about to prepare what I hoped would be a nuanced rebuttal that didn't involve me getting my nuts violently ripped off my body. But I didn't get a chance to do so, as things were About To Get Interesting.
A fortysomething woman came over to our table, and interrupted politely. "Excuse me. I just happened to be sitting there overhearing this conversation. I'm an ex-Catholic myself. But I just came back from Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. I met a lot of wonderful people who were deeply religious, and even though I didn't share their beliefs, we found some common ground and were able to do some wonderful things. Really, I think you should stop talking, because this is representative of what is wrong in America right now."
I believe this is a very accurate rendering of what she said. I should know because my dawning awareness of this crowning moment of awesome seared this into my consciousness like the explosion of a million suns. (Or technically a million 8 solar mass stars. Because stars like our Sun don't explode. Unless you count the evaporation of the outer hydrogen layers in late stellar evolution as an explosion. Back to the story.)
There was silence. I think I said something about how I know plenty of awesome ex-Catholics. She smiled, and excused her self.
Now, if you've been following the narrative, you might have caught that my date hadn't responded to what, I would have to say, was a very pleasant-looking woman with lovely salt-and-pepper hair. So guess what my date did then?
She responded. To me.
"Well... well... I just wish she would have given me a chance to say what I think!"
And so I got to hear what she thought.
Instantly, my thoughts went back to first grade. It was in first grade that I became interested in the volcanoes of the world. Did you know that Cotopaxi is the highest active volcano on Earth?
I sat there, and honestly don't remember what she was saying. But about a minute or two in, she paused, and said,
"You're grimacing."
I did that check that one does to sort of gain better kinesthetic awareness of my face without physically touching or moving said face to determine if she was correct. She was. But, being polite (or scared), I decided to play it off.
"Grimacing?", I asked rhetorically, grimacing. "I'm not grimacing! This is just how I look when I smile."
I can't believe she bought it, but I suppose she wanted to run along with whatever she was babbling about.
I also can't believe I faked having an ugly smile to cowardly dodge whatever the hell awaited me if I did have to explain that I was grimacing at the sheer volume of incoherent worthlessness emerging from the bowels of her distended face.
At some point, I overheard some employees, on break, in a nearby booth. One pointed his foot in our direction, and muttered something about "having a When Harry Met Sally moment". Haven't seen the movie, but I imagine it has to do with some date awkwardness. May need to check it out at some point.
Also, fuck you, employees, for your isolationist stance. I was in need of armed intervention, and you did nothing. Where's Wilsonianism when you need it?
Obviously, somewhere in this process, I seriously wondered why I hadn't followed that other woman out the door, even if she was older than me by at least 20 years. She even looked better than my date.
After all that, we went walking around in the snow. I don't think I offered my arm, but she took it, and I didn't recoil in horror. Again, I was afecking eedjit masochist gentleman. I don't remember what was being discussed -- we stumbled by the planet walk, and after the clusterfuck of other conversations, I was tremendously relieved to be talking -- talking! without histrionic interruptions! -- about boring things like Mars.
She thought it was a great date, and kissed me on the cheek good night. Contrary to expectations, it didn't leave the Mark of the Beast.
I didn't schedule a second date. At some point, she did contact me via AIM; we had a brief conversation that ended up with her arguing with me when I was trying to agree with her -- probably something about the unemployability of English PhDs.
It was as if Fate was making absolutely sure that I knew that, no matter how lonely, or horny, I got, I was not to go anywhere near her again.
Anyway, with the passage of years, I found some pity in my heart for her. For life is not going to be particularly kind to a physically ugly, emotionally unstable, abrasive, bigoted, narrow-minded English PhD.
I'm also grateful because I've gotten far more joy retelling this story, to the amusement of my friends, than I would have ever gotten dating her.
If you're out there, lady, I hope you've become a better person. But failing that, fuck you for ruining mulled wine and Irish poetry for me.
I haven't really "dated" much. I've hooked up a couple times, or met people in other contexts. But actual "dates" just don't work for me. In case you're wondering, I have had some good dates. But they're a lot less fun to talk about, and sometimes involved me being the only party aware that it was a date.
I've gone on dates with a diplomat, who, oddly enough, was a terrible conversationalist -- the kind of person who would be content to eat dinner in complete silence, which is what would happen if you didn't occasionally attempt to offer a humorous anecdote, or inquire into their life, or do anything to mask the giant sucking sound that is all the atmosphere and energy being vacuumed to a place with people who actually care about living. I tried going on a date twice with this woman, who, on top of it all, was probably 50 pounds underweight and had weird acne scars all over her face. Maybe that makes me superficial, but when there's no fucking substance, superficial is all you got.
And I think I've mentioned my first and last attempt at dating via OkCupid. I chatted with someone and bounced a few emails back and forth. We set up a date. I drove an hour to meet her in small-town Upstate New York. The first thing I noticed when I picked her up was that she was at least a hundred pounds heavier than I expected, based on her significantly outdated profile pictures. But, as I had foolishly believed myself an old-school gentleman, I accepted immediately that this wasn't a problem, and took her to an Italian place. I ate some really shitty spaghetti, though, to be fair, the shittiniess of the spaghetti might have been due to the fact that I was learning all about her incredibly depressing life. I learned that her family was shit; her school was shit; her friends were shit; her ex-boyfriend was shit; her computer was shit. I tried to make her feel better, but at a certain point I nearly choked on a shit meatball in order to prevent myself from laughing at the absurdity of the avalanche of shit I was hearing on a first date in a town that was ground-zero of a shit bomb of Rust Belt capital flight.
At the end of it all, she asked to borrow a hundred bucks. And yes, I gave it to her, because I felt sorry for her. When I tell this story, I often lie about this bit in the story, as some of my friends will give me tremendous amounts of shit if they know that I actually agreed to her request. Well, now you know that I've got a rescue complex AND I'm a liar.
That, by the way, wasn't the worst date I've had.
This is.
***
I met a girl at a party. She was a PhD student in English -- which should have been enough of a flag, but either I knew less about that particular career path, or I was drunk on mulled wine and didn't give a fuck. Being me, I tried to impress her with my surface knowledge of Yeats and other poems/novels, because I'm an idiot and my benchmark for well-readness is "I read a couple books in addition to the required reading in K-12 education over the course of my lifetime." As it turns out, she was more interested in the fact I was an astronomer because she was a sci-fi dork. We went outside to chat -- I still remember one of my friends saying "goodbye" to me in the knowing way that indicated he thought I was going to go home with her and didn't potentially prevent me from making the worst mistake of my life. Asshole. Well, I didn't, and that turned out to be A Good Thing. We exchanged numbers, and I promised to call in the morning.
I picked her up in the morning, and the first thing I notice is that she was... well, not that pretty in the face. Or anywhere else. Hate to say it, but she had a bit of a Helen Thomas vibe about her, though in fairness to the disgraced doyenne of the Washington Press Corps, Helen Thomas is fucking old. Again, I blamed the wine for this predicament. But, again, I thought that the cover doesn't matter so much, and that as long as we got along well, everything would work out. (How goddamn noble of me.)
We went to a hippie coffeeshop -- Gimme! Coffee, for you Ithaca folks, and sat down.
I know that rules of etiquette generally dictate that politics, religion, and money are off-limits in polite conversation. (Probably should probably add sex to that list, especially on a first date.) But, naif that I was, I thought that it shouldn't really matter. Besides, we're talking about me. What the hell else am I going to talk about? The 2006 analogue to Kim Kardashian?
So, we talked politics. It was early 2006. George W. Bush was president at the time, and Ithaca was, and remains, a pretty liberal community. (This, despitethe fact that Cornell gave birth to a lot of the famous neoconservatives. Ann Coulter is a fucking feather in your cap, second-tier Ivy League.)
I forget what we were discussing precisely, but she was going off on some predictable and not-very-nuanced-or-deep rant about Bush and the Iraq War. One of the few things I hate more than conservative pablum is liberal pablum, mostly because I expect better of fellow lefties. Don't worry -- that belief and the belief in being a gentleman have long gone, no doubt replaced by other, more dangerous cognitive biases.
But, all of a sudden, she had to reaffirm her solid support of Israel. (She was Jewish, and had visited Israel as part of that program that helps fund young Jews abroad to visit.) She started saying some pretty bigoted things about Muslims. I asked for clarification using a hypothetical situation, in which she made it clear that she'd feel uncomfortable about law-abiding Saudi doctors living on her street.
Ooookay, I thought. No, that's a lie. I really thought, "What the FUCK is this person saying? How the FUCK did I end up with some sort of weird selective wingnut?"
I tried to deflect. I started a discussion about family. I happen to have a cousin I cared about (and still care about, even though we disagree on a HUGE range of policy issues) who studied engineering in college, but ended up dropping out as a junior to go to a Bible college and become a youth leader/minister. This immediately triggered a tirade about Christianity -- even though I had made it clear that I loved this cousin and respected his choice. Again, pablum. Also -- what the fuck? I just said someone close to me chose this path. Were you even listening? Was she really a prototype of some sort of chat bot, scanning for keywords, going into an automatic program once one was said? Is she what's on the other side of those chatbots that try to convince me to join a porn website? Gross.
Now, I'm used to defending Christianity. I'm used to defending science. Maybe all that defending will make me defensive. I was about to prepare what I hoped would be a nuanced rebuttal that didn't involve me getting my nuts violently ripped off my body. But I didn't get a chance to do so, as things were About To Get Interesting.
A fortysomething woman came over to our table, and interrupted politely. "Excuse me. I just happened to be sitting there overhearing this conversation. I'm an ex-Catholic myself. But I just came back from Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. I met a lot of wonderful people who were deeply religious, and even though I didn't share their beliefs, we found some common ground and were able to do some wonderful things. Really, I think you should stop talking, because this is representative of what is wrong in America right now."
I believe this is a very accurate rendering of what she said. I should know because my dawning awareness of this crowning moment of awesome seared this into my consciousness like the explosion of a million suns. (Or technically a million 8 solar mass stars. Because stars like our Sun don't explode. Unless you count the evaporation of the outer hydrogen layers in late stellar evolution as an explosion. Back to the story.)
There was silence. I think I said something about how I know plenty of awesome ex-Catholics. She smiled, and excused her self.
Now, if you've been following the narrative, you might have caught that my date hadn't responded to what, I would have to say, was a very pleasant-looking woman with lovely salt-and-pepper hair. So guess what my date did then?
She responded. To me.
"Well... well... I just wish she would have given me a chance to say what I think!"
And so I got to hear what she thought.
Instantly, my thoughts went back to first grade. It was in first grade that I became interested in the volcanoes of the world. Did you know that Cotopaxi is the highest active volcano on Earth?
I sat there, and honestly don't remember what she was saying. But about a minute or two in, she paused, and said,
"You're grimacing."
I did that check that one does to sort of gain better kinesthetic awareness of my face without physically touching or moving said face to determine if she was correct. She was. But, being polite (or scared), I decided to play it off.
"Grimacing?", I asked rhetorically, grimacing. "I'm not grimacing! This is just how I look when I smile."
I can't believe she bought it, but I suppose she wanted to run along with whatever she was babbling about.
I also can't believe I faked having an ugly smile to cowardly dodge whatever the hell awaited me if I did have to explain that I was grimacing at the sheer volume of incoherent worthlessness emerging from the bowels of her distended face.
At some point, I overheard some employees, on break, in a nearby booth. One pointed his foot in our direction, and muttered something about "having a When Harry Met Sally moment". Haven't seen the movie, but I imagine it has to do with some date awkwardness. May need to check it out at some point.
Also, fuck you, employees, for your isolationist stance. I was in need of armed intervention, and you did nothing. Where's Wilsonianism when you need it?
Obviously, somewhere in this process, I seriously wondered why I hadn't followed that other woman out the door, even if she was older than me by at least 20 years. She even looked better than my date.
After all that, we went walking around in the snow. I don't think I offered my arm, but she took it, and I didn't recoil in horror. Again, I was a
She thought it was a great date, and kissed me on the cheek good night. Contrary to expectations, it didn't leave the Mark of the Beast.
I didn't schedule a second date. At some point, she did contact me via AIM; we had a brief conversation that ended up with her arguing with me when I was trying to agree with her -- probably something about the unemployability of English PhDs.
It was as if Fate was making absolutely sure that I knew that, no matter how lonely, or horny, I got, I was not to go anywhere near her again.
Anyway, with the passage of years, I found some pity in my heart for her. For life is not going to be particularly kind to a physically ugly, emotionally unstable, abrasive, bigoted, narrow-minded English PhD.
I'm also grateful because I've gotten far more joy retelling this story, to the amusement of my friends, than I would have ever gotten dating her.
If you're out there, lady, I hope you've become a better person. But failing that, fuck you for ruining mulled wine and Irish poetry for me.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Not boyfriend material
I'm not boyfriend material.
Before you contest this, let me emphasize that I'm not boyfriend material now. Maybe, I will be in the future. Maybe I'll have the capacity and the interest to be an outstanding partner. It'd be too much a product of depressed thinking to assume my state is static and inevitable. It's not, and I know this-- at least on an analytical level, if not an emotional one.
But I really am not, not now, or for the near foreseeable future.
Here's why.
I don't have a job. This is used as a screen by most middle-class women in America. While on paper many might think that there are many out of work due to the general economic malaise, and not because of some specific fault of character or intelligence of the person, in practice many women have confided in me that it is an automatic deal-breaker. In practice, it's probably a deal-breaker for someone of my attractiveness level, but not necessarily automatic in general. And those who know me reasonably well would probably conclude that my unemployment is due to more structural concerns, and therefore an accurate red flag.
I'm still depressed. I imagine it is difficult to be in a relationship with a depressed individual, even if the individual seems, or is, less depressed with company. Most people I engage in conversation don't comment on an aura of general sadness that follows me around, probably because it dissipates momentarily with good conversation, or because I'm reasonably good at hiding it, or because people are less perceptive than they think. But being in a reasonably close relationship with someone will probably reveal the nature and scope of depression eventually, making it difficult on the partner. And while it is difficult to continue a relationship with a depressed individual, it's generally crazy to even consider starting one with someone openly depressed. Why bother starting with someone operating at half capacity, even if, arguably, being half there is to still be superior to many other men they've dated?
I've never been boyfriend material. I still remember, to my shame, a girl in high school explaining, matter-of-factly, that I'm the kind of guy they like to marry, not date. Harsh, but accurate, especially because I was way more of a doormat/counselor in high school than I am now. I think I also valued words more than I should have -- I remember giving my backwards dance date (Sadie Hawkins, for older folks) a poem. Why? Because I wrote poems back then. It wasn't good, but it was original and specific to the person. Anyway, at this point, words have continued to desert me, so I don't think I could even muster sophisticated, elegant compliments or whisper eternal truths into a beloved's ear, even if I had the motivation.
Most importantly, I don't think I crave companionship. I desire it abstractly. But, perhaps as part of the depression, I don't seek some sort of completion of myself. It makes sense -- a person who, at some level, believes he is broken and unfixable won't seek repair through someone else. (However, I know plenty of people with non-depression neuroses that do precisely that -- try, and largely fail, to complete their lives and fix problems in their own psyche through relationships.)
Now, you might be asking, why would I even consider dating now? Well, a counselor once pointed out that certain things can only be worked on within a relationship. Fixing oneself to prepare for better and more relationships of all natures looks good on paper, but there is a limit to which a person can do this independently, or even with the structure provided by counseling.
But what has held me back, at some level, for ages, is the chronic fear of mental illness, and the desire to protect a partner from that. It kept me from long-term relationships when it was a neurotic fear. It sure as hell will keep me from them now that, arguably, the fear itself paradoxically led to a distinctly sourced, but still difficult, chronic depression. The same belief -- now intellectually registered as faulty, though emotionally still present -- caused me at an early age to decide not to have children. To make it crystal clear, I didn't want to be the kind of father to kids that my father was to me.
I'm not good boyfriend material, but not for the reasons I believed when I was a teenager, though partly due to actions and beliefs born from that time.
This is both depressing and liberating. It is depressing because, despite the philosophical arguments I have with myself, I remain emotionally hidebound to a crippling belief -- that I am somehow damaged beyond repair, destined to be mentally ill forever. It is a belief that has crippled me socially, professionally, and intellectually. And the persistence of the belief may be reason enough to, again, spare anyone from having to share this hell.
It is liberating in that, by not caring about it, even on an abstract level, I feel a bit more free to be imperfect. While my family and friends still have to deal with whatever the hell is keeping me from realizing some vague and poorly characterized potential, I will at least rest easy that I won't subject a close person to this hell for the duration of a relationship or marriage. (Even that sounds depressing, but if you can wrap your head around it, it is finding freedom from a fear by embracing the reality of its existence and materialization. Often, the fear of something is worse than the thing itself.)
Hopefully, this will free up energy to become a better friend. We do need better friends in our lives, especially friends that aren't trying to get into our pants. I suppose some of us need that, too, though there are plenty of other people willing and able to do that job. I'll defer to their expertise and enthusiasm.
Before you contest this, let me emphasize that I'm not boyfriend material now. Maybe, I will be in the future. Maybe I'll have the capacity and the interest to be an outstanding partner. It'd be too much a product of depressed thinking to assume my state is static and inevitable. It's not, and I know this-- at least on an analytical level, if not an emotional one.
But I really am not, not now, or for the near foreseeable future.
Here's why.
I don't have a job. This is used as a screen by most middle-class women in America. While on paper many might think that there are many out of work due to the general economic malaise, and not because of some specific fault of character or intelligence of the person, in practice many women have confided in me that it is an automatic deal-breaker. In practice, it's probably a deal-breaker for someone of my attractiveness level, but not necessarily automatic in general. And those who know me reasonably well would probably conclude that my unemployment is due to more structural concerns, and therefore an accurate red flag.
I'm still depressed. I imagine it is difficult to be in a relationship with a depressed individual, even if the individual seems, or is, less depressed with company. Most people I engage in conversation don't comment on an aura of general sadness that follows me around, probably because it dissipates momentarily with good conversation, or because I'm reasonably good at hiding it, or because people are less perceptive than they think. But being in a reasonably close relationship with someone will probably reveal the nature and scope of depression eventually, making it difficult on the partner. And while it is difficult to continue a relationship with a depressed individual, it's generally crazy to even consider starting one with someone openly depressed. Why bother starting with someone operating at half capacity, even if, arguably, being half there is to still be superior to many other men they've dated?
I've never been boyfriend material. I still remember, to my shame, a girl in high school explaining, matter-of-factly, that I'm the kind of guy they like to marry, not date. Harsh, but accurate, especially because I was way more of a doormat/counselor in high school than I am now. I think I also valued words more than I should have -- I remember giving my backwards dance date (Sadie Hawkins, for older folks) a poem. Why? Because I wrote poems back then. It wasn't good, but it was original and specific to the person. Anyway, at this point, words have continued to desert me, so I don't think I could even muster sophisticated, elegant compliments or whisper eternal truths into a beloved's ear, even if I had the motivation.
Most importantly, I don't think I crave companionship. I desire it abstractly. But, perhaps as part of the depression, I don't seek some sort of completion of myself. It makes sense -- a person who, at some level, believes he is broken and unfixable won't seek repair through someone else. (However, I know plenty of people with non-depression neuroses that do precisely that -- try, and largely fail, to complete their lives and fix problems in their own psyche through relationships.)
Now, you might be asking, why would I even consider dating now? Well, a counselor once pointed out that certain things can only be worked on within a relationship. Fixing oneself to prepare for better and more relationships of all natures looks good on paper, but there is a limit to which a person can do this independently, or even with the structure provided by counseling.
But what has held me back, at some level, for ages, is the chronic fear of mental illness, and the desire to protect a partner from that. It kept me from long-term relationships when it was a neurotic fear. It sure as hell will keep me from them now that, arguably, the fear itself paradoxically led to a distinctly sourced, but still difficult, chronic depression. The same belief -- now intellectually registered as faulty, though emotionally still present -- caused me at an early age to decide not to have children. To make it crystal clear, I didn't want to be the kind of father to kids that my father was to me.
I'm not good boyfriend material, but not for the reasons I believed when I was a teenager, though partly due to actions and beliefs born from that time.
This is both depressing and liberating. It is depressing because, despite the philosophical arguments I have with myself, I remain emotionally hidebound to a crippling belief -- that I am somehow damaged beyond repair, destined to be mentally ill forever. It is a belief that has crippled me socially, professionally, and intellectually. And the persistence of the belief may be reason enough to, again, spare anyone from having to share this hell.
It is liberating in that, by not caring about it, even on an abstract level, I feel a bit more free to be imperfect. While my family and friends still have to deal with whatever the hell is keeping me from realizing some vague and poorly characterized potential, I will at least rest easy that I won't subject a close person to this hell for the duration of a relationship or marriage. (Even that sounds depressing, but if you can wrap your head around it, it is finding freedom from a fear by embracing the reality of its existence and materialization. Often, the fear of something is worse than the thing itself.)
Hopefully, this will free up energy to become a better friend. We do need better friends in our lives, especially friends that aren't trying to get into our pants. I suppose some of us need that, too, though there are plenty of other people willing and able to do that job. I'll defer to their expertise and enthusiasm.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
The Great Facebook Purge
It started, oddly enough, with a birthday update a few days back.
Facebook was reminding me to wish so-and-so a "Happy Birthday!" Usually I deliberate briefly whether or not I feel like saying "Happy Birthday!", or "Happy Birthday X!", or, rarely, something even more customized.
Then it occurred to me. I have absolutely no knowledge of this person's life. Not just her recent life -- her life. I didn't know her well in school, and and I know her even less well now.
Why were we "friends", or, more specifically, "Facebook friends", that most tenuous of connections that can run the gamut between extreme hatred and adoration on one side, and complete indifference on the other?
It was then that I resolved to purge everyone with whom I can't remember having communication with in the last year.
As I went along, I made some exceptions. Some people I had kept out of misguided political thinking -- so-and-so was ambitious/proactive/well-connected. Then I realized that it has done a fat lot of good, and in a couple cases, had produced net pain in my life through oblivious inquiry when something was needed, and rapid departure back into the rarefied (to me) world of gainful employment in something socially estimable.
Some were obnoxious, and I cut them even if they had posted on my wall within the last six days.
Some were completely non-factors -- I hadn't noticed a single post by them in ages, either due to the sorting algorithm or their choice to spend their time differently. Not everyone uses Facebook the same way, nor should they.
Sometimes it was just me. I had done, or said, something weird, and thinking about communicating with that acquaintance just made me sick.
I also had no fucking clue who some people were. I blame the ability to change your name -- my memory is generally pretty good, even going back to high school. If I didn't remember you in high school, it's probably because you knew me by reputation, but I didn't know who you were. Sorry, but it's true.
And I unfriended my mom and stepdad. Really, they don't need to be my Facebook friends. If they want to get a status update, they'll yell from the next room. (Spoiler: I live at home! And I'm almost 30! He's a keeper!)
I also chuckled when I unfriended one member of a couple. Although it was invariably because I'm a non-factor in their lives, I get my jollies by thinking about whether it would ever come up in a conversation late at night, before they get to sleep. "So... Ryan was your friend?" Of course, silly. I never liked it when he started dating you, yet you glommed on like a barnacle. (Kidding in most cases. Dead serious in a few.)
I'll be honest -- I kept a couple people who are just physically attractive. Men as well as women. We like to be surrounded by beauty in this world, regardless of our sexual orientation or intensity, and I am no exception.
There were a few people I kept because of a handful of conversations in which I gained insight and sensitivity to them. One was a student who, when I explained feeling out of depth in a class sense at Cornell, told me his dad was a bus driver. I don't remember what his mom did. But it struck me, and something in that conversation still resonates, one-off as it might have been. Then there were HMC math professors who told me about their own humble backgrounds, or their fantastic volunteer work in education, for which they would get no academic advancement, but did anyway because they were damn decent human beings.
Similarly, a couple I kept because of the strength, or seeming strength, of friendship in the past. It was strong enough, and valuable enough, that I decided to keep them, though the relationship at present might be only so many stored variables on a hard drive somewhere. In some ways, it's like having photos of inspirational people on your wall--only these people were known to you, and mere time and distance, not the veil, have caused you to lose touch.
Also, there are a few people that are just too damn interesting to unfriend. They're as close as I get to celebrity watching. (None are "celebrities" or celebrity-types.)
I also noted that a reasonably large number (~30 or so) had up and left Facebook without me knowing. Their baby blue silhouettes were easy to discard, though I mourned some of them. Some of them would have been kept.
But in general, I found it surprisingly, disturbingly easy, and getting easier. And I admit -- I lied when I posted a while back congratulating the people that remained. I had pared away the surface, but refrained from making substantive cuts. That was probably a cut from 750 to 700.
This time is different. I cut to 324. That may still seem like too many friends, but keep in mind the "museum-piece friendships" described above.
Facebook does provide one thing: it provides an opportunity to reflect on the beginnings and endings of relationships in a way that memory alone, kind and cruel in its porousness, does not permit.
Without a regular job, or affiliation at a school, or clubs, I don't meet many new people. It has provided me with the necessity and opportunity to get to know some people better online than I had ever known them in school. I didn't expect this, and in some ways I didn't desire this, but so it is, and in some ways, I'm better for it.
It's easy to decry shallowness in relationships that aren't in-person; but a generation or two ago, people would have pen pals and letter correspondence for this reason. Think of it: what did it say about the strength of the distant relationship (or the fragility and facile nature of the local ones) that people would engage in long, wonderful letters, filled with more contemplation and thoughtfulness than, perhaps, a face-to-face conversation ever could? For some of us use penstrokes and typeset to communicate our hearts better than improvisation ever could.
At the same time, I can see that many relationships were ones of convenience. They are not to be diminished for them -- it's human nature that we bond with our roommates, or our classmates, or officemates, or people we see on a regular basis.
Doing a mental post-mortem on each relationship can be exhausting. But for a few, I paused, considered how I could've been a better friend, or how they could've contributed something more or different. In the vast majority of cases it was just a lack of sufficient compatibility on ideas, interests, and humor to make anything more of it.
But in a few cases, I feel there was something really to be mourned. A missed opportunity, or a quiet betrayal, or just bad luck. We can't be all things to all people, but there were a few I wish I had held more closely to me. (And while it might not be eternally "too late", it is, for the moment, prohibitive to repair the breach.)
Overall, I welcome this process. It helps me identify some common themes, whether it is humor, or thoughtfulness, or travel, that keeps me watching certain people, if not actively engaging with them regularly.
Finally, to anyone who might happen to be miffed at being cut and did a search for me that ended up here: please don't take it too personally. It's Facebook, for chrissakes. But if you want to have a comment fight over it, you can do so here. Who knows? It might be just what's needed to save a relationship, or build a new one from scratch.
Facebook was reminding me to wish so-and-so a "Happy Birthday!" Usually I deliberate briefly whether or not I feel like saying "Happy Birthday!", or "Happy Birthday X!", or, rarely, something even more customized.
Then it occurred to me. I have absolutely no knowledge of this person's life. Not just her recent life -- her life. I didn't know her well in school, and and I know her even less well now.
Why were we "friends", or, more specifically, "Facebook friends", that most tenuous of connections that can run the gamut between extreme hatred and adoration on one side, and complete indifference on the other?
It was then that I resolved to purge everyone with whom I can't remember having communication with in the last year.
As I went along, I made some exceptions. Some people I had kept out of misguided political thinking -- so-and-so was ambitious/proactive/well-connected. Then I realized that it has done a fat lot of good, and in a couple cases, had produced net pain in my life through oblivious inquiry when something was needed, and rapid departure back into the rarefied (to me) world of gainful employment in something socially estimable.
Some were obnoxious, and I cut them even if they had posted on my wall within the last six days.
Some were completely non-factors -- I hadn't noticed a single post by them in ages, either due to the sorting algorithm or their choice to spend their time differently. Not everyone uses Facebook the same way, nor should they.
Sometimes it was just me. I had done, or said, something weird, and thinking about communicating with that acquaintance just made me sick.
I also had no fucking clue who some people were. I blame the ability to change your name -- my memory is generally pretty good, even going back to high school. If I didn't remember you in high school, it's probably because you knew me by reputation, but I didn't know who you were. Sorry, but it's true.
And I unfriended my mom and stepdad. Really, they don't need to be my Facebook friends. If they want to get a status update, they'll yell from the next room. (Spoiler: I live at home! And I'm almost 30! He's a keeper!)
I also chuckled when I unfriended one member of a couple. Although it was invariably because I'm a non-factor in their lives, I get my jollies by thinking about whether it would ever come up in a conversation late at night, before they get to sleep. "So... Ryan was your friend?" Of course, silly. I never liked it when he started dating you, yet you glommed on like a barnacle. (Kidding in most cases. Dead serious in a few.)
I'll be honest -- I kept a couple people who are just physically attractive. Men as well as women. We like to be surrounded by beauty in this world, regardless of our sexual orientation or intensity, and I am no exception.
There were a few people I kept because of a handful of conversations in which I gained insight and sensitivity to them. One was a student who, when I explained feeling out of depth in a class sense at Cornell, told me his dad was a bus driver. I don't remember what his mom did. But it struck me, and something in that conversation still resonates, one-off as it might have been. Then there were HMC math professors who told me about their own humble backgrounds, or their fantastic volunteer work in education, for which they would get no academic advancement, but did anyway because they were damn decent human beings.
Similarly, a couple I kept because of the strength, or seeming strength, of friendship in the past. It was strong enough, and valuable enough, that I decided to keep them, though the relationship at present might be only so many stored variables on a hard drive somewhere. In some ways, it's like having photos of inspirational people on your wall--only these people were known to you, and mere time and distance, not the veil, have caused you to lose touch.
Also, there are a few people that are just too damn interesting to unfriend. They're as close as I get to celebrity watching. (None are "celebrities" or celebrity-types.)
I also noted that a reasonably large number (~30 or so) had up and left Facebook without me knowing. Their baby blue silhouettes were easy to discard, though I mourned some of them. Some of them would have been kept.
But in general, I found it surprisingly, disturbingly easy, and getting easier. And I admit -- I lied when I posted a while back congratulating the people that remained. I had pared away the surface, but refrained from making substantive cuts. That was probably a cut from 750 to 700.
This time is different. I cut to 324. That may still seem like too many friends, but keep in mind the "museum-piece friendships" described above.
Facebook does provide one thing: it provides an opportunity to reflect on the beginnings and endings of relationships in a way that memory alone, kind and cruel in its porousness, does not permit.
Without a regular job, or affiliation at a school, or clubs, I don't meet many new people. It has provided me with the necessity and opportunity to get to know some people better online than I had ever known them in school. I didn't expect this, and in some ways I didn't desire this, but so it is, and in some ways, I'm better for it.
It's easy to decry shallowness in relationships that aren't in-person; but a generation or two ago, people would have pen pals and letter correspondence for this reason. Think of it: what did it say about the strength of the distant relationship (or the fragility and facile nature of the local ones) that people would engage in long, wonderful letters, filled with more contemplation and thoughtfulness than, perhaps, a face-to-face conversation ever could? For some of us use penstrokes and typeset to communicate our hearts better than improvisation ever could.
At the same time, I can see that many relationships were ones of convenience. They are not to be diminished for them -- it's human nature that we bond with our roommates, or our classmates, or officemates, or people we see on a regular basis.
Doing a mental post-mortem on each relationship can be exhausting. But for a few, I paused, considered how I could've been a better friend, or how they could've contributed something more or different. In the vast majority of cases it was just a lack of sufficient compatibility on ideas, interests, and humor to make anything more of it.
But in a few cases, I feel there was something really to be mourned. A missed opportunity, or a quiet betrayal, or just bad luck. We can't be all things to all people, but there were a few I wish I had held more closely to me. (And while it might not be eternally "too late", it is, for the moment, prohibitive to repair the breach.)
Overall, I welcome this process. It helps me identify some common themes, whether it is humor, or thoughtfulness, or travel, that keeps me watching certain people, if not actively engaging with them regularly.
Finally, to anyone who might happen to be miffed at being cut and did a search for me that ended up here: please don't take it too personally. It's Facebook, for chrissakes. But if you want to have a comment fight over it, you can do so here. Who knows? It might be just what's needed to save a relationship, or build a new one from scratch.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
You are very special
Yes, you are.
If you're reading this, then we are probably Facebook friends. And, believe it or not, that means something.
It means I spent some time contemplating and weighing the benefits and costs of maintaining what seems like the tenuous of connections. But remember: Facebook is my window to the outside world, to people scattered across the globe, from various points in my life. And so, the finger of judgment hovered, and sometimes lingered. But it ended up judging in your favor.
What does it mean, then?
It might mean that I think you're doing an amazing job studying/working things that I find both esoteric and amazing. I appreciate your commitment to knowledge and understanding, however specific or broad, or your dedication to your craft.
It might mean that I appreciate the standard you set in character -- that I still remember your kindness, your compassion, your thoughtfulness toward others.
It might mean we've laughed a lot -- a lot. As I grow older, humor is becoming increasingly important. Someday, it might surpass kindness, or generosity, or even courage. I don't think it will ever surpass truth -- I think humor is often profound truth wrapped in a comprehensible way.
It might mean that I find your thoughts and ideas fascinating. Or frustrating. Or downright ridiculous. But in any case, I appreciate your unique perspective (and in some of your cases, it's got to be unique).
It might be because you've taught me about family, about what it's like to be a good mother or father. Even though I don't think I'll ever raise children, I draw from your struggles, your heroism with the ordinary inconveniences and trials of parenthood, and am proud of your love for these little, vulnerable beings. I can put up with a lot of bullshit and ridiculousness from a person as long as I am convinced that they are a good parent.
It might be because I served as a mentor or teacher to you, and I care about you -- yes, you! -- enough to keep the door open. I've learned a lot about myself in guiding you, and for that, you have my gratitude. As long as you don't disappoint yourself, you'll never disappoint me.
But in all cases, it's because there is at least one thing about you that I find admirable. I should tell you specifically what it is, and I might, especially if it encourages you to focus on that and stop doing all the other nonsense that drives me nuts.
Thank you for your patience. In matters of care and consideration of others, I'm often negligent. You deserve better, and I hope to be able to deliver.
Thanks for reminding me of my honor, and of what this life has to offer. Please continue to remind me.
Thanks for reading.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Memories of a gay stepfather and mentor
There is a news story out about how Romney has been pretty rotten/tone-deaf to gay people. Yes, they do have children.
I don't want to focus on that. Instead, let me tell you a story.
By my second year of grad school, I was pretty depressed for a lot of reasons. It made it difficult to plan at any level, and I found myself desperately casting about for housing when my previous residence was sold. Fortunately, I had a friend who lived in a remarkably beautiful house near downtown Ithaca. My room was a 10x10 coffin, but that's all I really needed. Rent was very cheap.
The dining room gives an impression of the overall house. There was a table for eight, with wonderful wooden chairs that were comfortable and stylish. The tablecloth was white - always white - some sort of synthetic, with doilies beneath a candle centerpiece. Above, there was a small glass chandelier. The windows looked out to a yard with modern stone sculptures. An antique credenza housed the plates and cutlery. Most remarkably, the flooring had bits of a composition painted on the borders -- I can't remember which piece -- with phrasings in German.
He was a piano professor at Ithaca College -- a liberal arts school often overshadowed by Cornell, but one with an outstanding music program. I heard him play Rhapsody in Blue, which was, as expected, wonderful. Given his hand span, I think it would've been great to see him play a Rachmaninov piano concerto (2 or 3).
Despite my very comfortable living situation, I was pretty depressed out of my mind at this point in grad school. I was lonely. I was lost. My landlord noticed this, and we had a chat. We talked about fathers. He shared about how it was challenging dealing with a very macho Brazilian father, and empathized with my struggle to define my relationship with my dad.
He, refreshingly, talked openly about therapy, and celebrated it -- "I think everyone should have it!" He isone of the most cheerful, optimistic, kind-hearted individuals I had ever met. He was one part father figure, one part older brother, at a time when I desperately needed it.
He is also gay.
Perhaps a mark of age, or maturity, or just his special type of patience: he wasn't easily angered or bothered by ignorance about homosexuality.
I remember we were discussing it, and I said something expressing confusion how homosexuality would fit in the larger biological picture, and whether it really was a human cultural phenomenon. Instead of getting angry, or expressing shock, he smiled, quietly went to a bookshelf, and handed me Biological Exuberance, documenting homosexuality and bisexuality among many different species. I paged through it, was surprised, and learned something. We talked a bit more. From his admittedly ever-present smile, I think we were both glad that he trusted me to be open-minded and to update my views in the face of new information.
My friend is also a stepfather.
I forget where he met his partner - it could've been in an airport (how Hollywood!), but it was definitely abroad somewhere. He visited Ithaca a couple times, and it was clear that they were serious.
The third or fourth time he visited, he brought his eight-year old son.
I still remember how nervous my friend was about making a good impression when his partner and his son came to visit. The ice was broken via finger-painting -- not the kindergarten variety. He used high-quality paints and a real canvas. I could tell the kid enjoyed it. It wasn't a breakthrough -- but it was the beginning.
Eventually, he left a tenured position at Ithaca College to move to Germany for love. Some probably thought he was crazy, either for leaving a highly prized position, or for moving to Germany, a nation which is culturally and climatically pretty different from Brazil. He probably was -- love makes people crazy. But I think he's still happy there.
So, I know one gay man who is doing a damn fine job of being a father. I know this, in part, because he was a fantastic mentor to me in my hours/months/years of need. Surprisingly, to my American self, he still keeps in touch at least once a year. I know this because I saw how much he worried about making a good impression on his partner's kid.
He's in Germany still, so he can't be an advocate and representative of the human decency of gay fathers. So I suppose it falls to me, and the others whose lives he touched, to be advocates for him. In the unlikely event that he could be seduced from Europe to bring his talent and great heart back to America, I'd like to see him welcomed as a scholar, a gay man, and a father.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
The homecoming dance
There's an incredibly heartwarming story about a town rallying around Whitney Kropp, an unpopular sophomore girl who was nominated to her homecoming court as a prank. It reminds me of an event that happened to me in high school. I have to stress that I was the "victim" of kindness instead of cruelty, and while less monumental than Whitney's story, it does highlight the quality of people in the Class of 2001 from Rosemead High School.
Long ago, in the year 2000, I was nominated to the homecoming court senior year as a result of a conspiracy. The smart, attractive, and popular women my year basically decided it would be nice to have someone not popular for football or chiseled good looks (my words, not theirs). I missed the announcement due to sickness, so the ASB and Senior class presidents visited me at home, where I was embarrassed that my room smelled like I hadn't showered in a while (which, given the flu, it's possible I hadn't). Kinda embarrassing, especially since these two were gorgeous and charismatic as only Thai women can be.
So, I got fitted for a free rented tux (the first and only time I've worn one) and posed for pictures with the guys at the dance, all of whom were genuinely good guys.For instance, I'd known Jorge since grade school. He was always the kindest person, and the single best double-dodge player to have ever played at Shuey Elementary. Update: Apparently I didn't know the guys on court that well, but they were nice. Old age has caused me to substitute someone better-known to me. If it's this bad at 29, I don't know what it'll be like in whatever numbers come after that one.
I was told that all the guys were bringing their moms to the dance, and I complied. However, I, being the social and anxious moron that I was, didn't even think to bring a real date as well.
It dawned on me at some point early in the dance. Yeah, it's a little weird to show up with your mom as your date, even if all the other guys are doing it, and then to realize they're all dancing with people born during Reagan's presidency while you are attempting to cha-cha to house music with your mother.
I think my exact words at that point were, "This sucks. Let's leave."
Now that I think about it, this was one of two dances I attended in high school. There was a Sadie Hawkins' (or Backwards, or whatever the hell you damn kids call it nowadays) dance where I helped my date serve churros the entire night. Again, socially awkward.
All this to say, I, too, had a Cinderella story, thanks to people at RHS. But I'm also proof that a frog in a tux is still a frog. There's still time - maybe instead of trying for a Masters in Engineering/JD/MD, I should go to finishing school.
Then, maybe I'd be king, and not just a prince. Damn you David Flores! Floreeeeeeeeeeeeeees!
Long ago, in the year 2000, I was nominated to the homecoming court senior year as a result of a conspiracy. The smart, attractive, and popular women my year basically decided it would be nice to have someone not popular for football or chiseled good looks (my words, not theirs). I missed the announcement due to sickness, so the ASB and Senior class presidents visited me at home, where I was embarrassed that my room smelled like I hadn't showered in a while (which, given the flu, it's possible I hadn't). Kinda embarrassing, especially since these two were gorgeous and charismatic as only Thai women can be.
So, I got fitted for a free rented tux (the first and only time I've worn one) and posed for pictures with the guys at the dance, all of whom were genuinely good guys.
 |
| I'm the Asian one. Also, check out my awesome scanning/photo editing skills. |
I was told that all the guys were bringing their moms to the dance, and I complied. However, I, being the social and anxious moron that I was, didn't even think to bring a real date as well.
It dawned on me at some point early in the dance. Yeah, it's a little weird to show up with your mom as your date, even if all the other guys are doing it, and then to realize they're all dancing with people born during Reagan's presidency while you are attempting to cha-cha to house music with your mother.
I think my exact words at that point were, "This sucks. Let's leave."
Now that I think about it, this was one of two dances I attended in high school. There was a Sadie Hawkins' (or Backwards, or whatever the hell you damn kids call it nowadays) dance where I helped my date serve churros the entire night. Again, socially awkward.
All this to say, I, too, had a Cinderella story, thanks to people at RHS. But I'm also proof that a frog in a tux is still a frog. There's still time - maybe instead of trying for a Masters in Engineering/JD/MD, I should go to finishing school.
Then, maybe I'd be king, and not just a prince. Damn you David Flores! Floreeeeeeeeeeeeeees!
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Preliminary lessons from No Ordinary Time
I have finally finished No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. It was a great read, filled with amusing stories as well as gripping drama. The book is too long and too interesting for me to feel comfortable summarizing it. However, it's also too important for me to not at least try to capture a bit of the lessons learned.
1. A mask of charm is both an invaluable political tool and incredibly hollowing. Both FDR and Reagan had a charm that seemed effortless. But both had been characterized by those closest to them as individuals for whom there remained a wide gulf between their essential self and the outside world. That gulf could not be bridged even by those closest to them. It seems a hard way to live, but I suppose being President is not easy.
I can't speak for Reagan, but FDR's pattern of charm and distance was established well before he contracted polio. It appears to stem from the early death of his father, his demanding (even domineering) mother, his status as a sheltered only child, and perhaps his social difficulties at Harvard.
I have been told by those somewhat close to me that they are surprised when I am honest with them about my past, about my feelings, and about my despair. Evidently I also use charm as a way of distancing myself, although obviously with considerably less facility than FDR.
2. It is important to have both a hammer and an anvil to effect social change. The anvil is sedentary and patient. The anvil waits for things to come to it. The hammer is impatient, restless, relentless. The hammer seeks to achieve through sheer determination a changed world. But the anvil knows that, with the hammer's help, good things will ultimately be forged.
Eleanor Roosevelt could accurately be characterized as a battleaxe, but for this analogy, she is the hammer. For her own personal reasons, and personal tragedies, she had a restless, relentless drive. This often led to a lack of focus - and in the case of Japanese-American internment, perhaps a critical level of diffusion that prevented an eleventh hour rescue from internment. But she was incredibly consistent, and very aggressive about pushing everyone, especially her husband, for change.
FDR, on the other hand, was a careful student of polls, and often moved very slowly on issues of social justice, economic restructuring, or other policy changes he knew were not widely supported. It is perhaps his genius, as well as a stain on his legacy, that he did not lead on issues of African-American rights, labor's struggle with crony capitalism, or war mobilization.
But it is fair to say that he depended upon Eleanor as a way of saying and doing things he could not, by virtue of his twin handicaps - one physical, and one vocational. Often, the President can't lead, and it's not because he lacks courage. It is because, by coming from the President, things that should be broadly supported, or self-evident in their justice, become immediately contentious. Recent history illustrates this.
It's also fair to say that Eleanor alone could not have done what she did without FDR's backing. Even though he was called upon repeatedly to rein her in, he refused. FDR trained Eleanor to really investigate things - to ask specific and incisive questions, to observe and remember. His gifts of memory are legendary; what I did not know was how he literally taught and trained his wife to become such a keen judge of organizations and individual character.
It's worth noting that they were aided tremendously by a press that regulated itself regarding the president, his wife, and the president's relationship with women. This probably will never be possible again - the press was, by and large, very deferential to the office and to the man. Even as his powers were failing in his fourth term, the press, his staff, and even members of Congress would do their best to conceal his lapses.
Eleanor also benefited by having a weekly column. She got plenty of hate mail over it, especially from the South over her support of African-American civil rights. Still, I wonder whether any first lady would, or could, write a weekly column appearing in newspapers across the nation, and the extent to which that could be a bully pulpit for change.
Catt needed Paul in Women's Suffrage. King needed X in Civil Rights. FDR needed Eleanor to preserve the home front, even as foreign affairs consumed him.
3. The story of race relations is intimately tied to the story of the American labor movement. I did not realize how little I knew about American Labor, nor about its role in the advancement of African-Americans. Even with the existential threat of world war, the fight for manufacturing jobs and combat roles for blacks was a brutal one. Perhaps less dramatically violent, but equally powerful, was the struggle to allow women to do factory work. Eleanor later realized that the war did more for the poor and the oppressed than the New Deal ever did, or perhaps could.
This period saw the increased militancy of African-American groups and American labor, including some incredibly unpopular mine strikes during the war. Fortunately for everyone, they were resolved more or less peacefully, with the president exercising some wisdom on the matter (of course supported by Eleanor's field reports).
4. Great individuals often depend upon several people to give them what they need to be great. FDR fed voraciously among various men and women for social company and relaxation. It wasn't parasitic, but it was a very aggressive symbiosis that often threatened the ability of others to enjoy basic levels of independence. Few gave more to the President than Harry Hopkins, but Roosevelt resented that Hopkins' marriage would eventually lead his key social and intellectual partner to move out of the White House.
Eleanor, similarly, depended upon Joe Lash, Lorena Hickok, her daughter Anna, and a number of people as sounding boards, foils, and, ultimately, sources of love. I'd say each of them demanded, and got, almost the entirety of the lives of ten individuals.
It's teaching me to be both more giving and more demanding of the people I would have close to me. Each of us has to find the handful of people -- rarely biologically related -- that make time and make a difference.
5. FDR overruled his military in key strategic decisions, and was right. But he did not try to fight the war himself, and he did not interfere at levels below grand strategy. To do this required tremendous confidence in one's self. In fact, it was Roosevelt's ability to remain calm even in the darkest days of the war that stunned, even creeped out, many who observed him.
This was a surprise to me, as I had previously read Partners in Command: George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace. In it, it appeared that the American general staff in general, and Marshall in particular, possessed unusually clear insight into the strategic aspects of the war. However, as No Ordinary Time reveals, Marshall himself admits he was wrong about a number of things - notably the need to support Britain and the Soviet Union early in the war, at the expense of US readiness. Also, both books acknowledge that American combat forces were too green, and would have been slaughtered had a premature European invasion taken place. Rather than a sideshow, the African and Italian campaigns helped harden American ground troops, and prepared them for success in Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge.
After Korea and MacArthur, civilian leaders were especially wary of military overreach. After Vietnam, civilian leaders were unnerved by the use of force. One hopes America is only now finally emerging from an unhealthy period where both military and civilian leadership lacked the self-confidence, tempered by the wisdom of restraint, to exercise effective leadership.
6. One can be in love with someone and mostly live separate lives. In many ways, FDR and Eleanor's relationship has strong parallels to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Both couples loved each other, and drew upon each other's strengths. Both wives were betrayed by their husbands, and in important ways, never forgave them. But both women also used the experiences as proof that they had to develop their own separate lives.
The American Experience: Clinton (one of a fantastic set of documentaries about American presidents, including FDR) mentions that Hillary Clinton actually moved back to Arkansas during one of Bill's early campaigns, and looked as if she was going to become a housewife, albeit one who worked outside of the home.
FDR and Eleanor redefined their love, what it was to be in love, even as they both needed emotional support and got it from people other than their spouse. Even more than the case with the Clintons, one gets the sense that something is keeping them together that is larger than either political necessity nor the mores of the time. It's fair that both were in love with each other, but both were also exasperated by each other. They depended upon key intermediaries to know how to manage them, singly and together. Most couples are not so lucky.
7. Sometimes, we can be surprised by the simplicity of the needs and desires of people far form home.
I'll mention briefly that one poignant vignette concerned Eleanor's visits to field hospitals in the Pacific. She was initially worried that the troops were going to be disappointed, as security procedures only announced that "a woman" was coming to visit. Eleanor, ever conscious of not living up to her mother's beauty, was worried the men would be expecting a pinup girl. But she found that they appreciated her visits, because she was something they hadn't seen in a year of service - an American mother.
Of all the things that tug at the heart in this book, this seemed a particularly touching insight.
There are many other lessons. But this is a good starting point.
1. A mask of charm is both an invaluable political tool and incredibly hollowing. Both FDR and Reagan had a charm that seemed effortless. But both had been characterized by those closest to them as individuals for whom there remained a wide gulf between their essential self and the outside world. That gulf could not be bridged even by those closest to them. It seems a hard way to live, but I suppose being President is not easy.
I can't speak for Reagan, but FDR's pattern of charm and distance was established well before he contracted polio. It appears to stem from the early death of his father, his demanding (even domineering) mother, his status as a sheltered only child, and perhaps his social difficulties at Harvard.
I have been told by those somewhat close to me that they are surprised when I am honest with them about my past, about my feelings, and about my despair. Evidently I also use charm as a way of distancing myself, although obviously with considerably less facility than FDR.
2. It is important to have both a hammer and an anvil to effect social change. The anvil is sedentary and patient. The anvil waits for things to come to it. The hammer is impatient, restless, relentless. The hammer seeks to achieve through sheer determination a changed world. But the anvil knows that, with the hammer's help, good things will ultimately be forged.
Eleanor Roosevelt could accurately be characterized as a battleaxe, but for this analogy, she is the hammer. For her own personal reasons, and personal tragedies, she had a restless, relentless drive. This often led to a lack of focus - and in the case of Japanese-American internment, perhaps a critical level of diffusion that prevented an eleventh hour rescue from internment. But she was incredibly consistent, and very aggressive about pushing everyone, especially her husband, for change.
FDR, on the other hand, was a careful student of polls, and often moved very slowly on issues of social justice, economic restructuring, or other policy changes he knew were not widely supported. It is perhaps his genius, as well as a stain on his legacy, that he did not lead on issues of African-American rights, labor's struggle with crony capitalism, or war mobilization.
But it is fair to say that he depended upon Eleanor as a way of saying and doing things he could not, by virtue of his twin handicaps - one physical, and one vocational. Often, the President can't lead, and it's not because he lacks courage. It is because, by coming from the President, things that should be broadly supported, or self-evident in their justice, become immediately contentious. Recent history illustrates this.
It's also fair to say that Eleanor alone could not have done what she did without FDR's backing. Even though he was called upon repeatedly to rein her in, he refused. FDR trained Eleanor to really investigate things - to ask specific and incisive questions, to observe and remember. His gifts of memory are legendary; what I did not know was how he literally taught and trained his wife to become such a keen judge of organizations and individual character.
It's worth noting that they were aided tremendously by a press that regulated itself regarding the president, his wife, and the president's relationship with women. This probably will never be possible again - the press was, by and large, very deferential to the office and to the man. Even as his powers were failing in his fourth term, the press, his staff, and even members of Congress would do their best to conceal his lapses.
Eleanor also benefited by having a weekly column. She got plenty of hate mail over it, especially from the South over her support of African-American civil rights. Still, I wonder whether any first lady would, or could, write a weekly column appearing in newspapers across the nation, and the extent to which that could be a bully pulpit for change.
Catt needed Paul in Women's Suffrage. King needed X in Civil Rights. FDR needed Eleanor to preserve the home front, even as foreign affairs consumed him.
3. The story of race relations is intimately tied to the story of the American labor movement. I did not realize how little I knew about American Labor, nor about its role in the advancement of African-Americans. Even with the existential threat of world war, the fight for manufacturing jobs and combat roles for blacks was a brutal one. Perhaps less dramatically violent, but equally powerful, was the struggle to allow women to do factory work. Eleanor later realized that the war did more for the poor and the oppressed than the New Deal ever did, or perhaps could.
This period saw the increased militancy of African-American groups and American labor, including some incredibly unpopular mine strikes during the war. Fortunately for everyone, they were resolved more or less peacefully, with the president exercising some wisdom on the matter (of course supported by Eleanor's field reports).
4. Great individuals often depend upon several people to give them what they need to be great. FDR fed voraciously among various men and women for social company and relaxation. It wasn't parasitic, but it was a very aggressive symbiosis that often threatened the ability of others to enjoy basic levels of independence. Few gave more to the President than Harry Hopkins, but Roosevelt resented that Hopkins' marriage would eventually lead his key social and intellectual partner to move out of the White House.
Eleanor, similarly, depended upon Joe Lash, Lorena Hickok, her daughter Anna, and a number of people as sounding boards, foils, and, ultimately, sources of love. I'd say each of them demanded, and got, almost the entirety of the lives of ten individuals.
It's teaching me to be both more giving and more demanding of the people I would have close to me. Each of us has to find the handful of people -- rarely biologically related -- that make time and make a difference.
5. FDR overruled his military in key strategic decisions, and was right. But he did not try to fight the war himself, and he did not interfere at levels below grand strategy. To do this required tremendous confidence in one's self. In fact, it was Roosevelt's ability to remain calm even in the darkest days of the war that stunned, even creeped out, many who observed him.
This was a surprise to me, as I had previously read Partners in Command: George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace. In it, it appeared that the American general staff in general, and Marshall in particular, possessed unusually clear insight into the strategic aspects of the war. However, as No Ordinary Time reveals, Marshall himself admits he was wrong about a number of things - notably the need to support Britain and the Soviet Union early in the war, at the expense of US readiness. Also, both books acknowledge that American combat forces were too green, and would have been slaughtered had a premature European invasion taken place. Rather than a sideshow, the African and Italian campaigns helped harden American ground troops, and prepared them for success in Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge.
After Korea and MacArthur, civilian leaders were especially wary of military overreach. After Vietnam, civilian leaders were unnerved by the use of force. One hopes America is only now finally emerging from an unhealthy period where both military and civilian leadership lacked the self-confidence, tempered by the wisdom of restraint, to exercise effective leadership.
6. One can be in love with someone and mostly live separate lives. In many ways, FDR and Eleanor's relationship has strong parallels to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Both couples loved each other, and drew upon each other's strengths. Both wives were betrayed by their husbands, and in important ways, never forgave them. But both women also used the experiences as proof that they had to develop their own separate lives.
The American Experience: Clinton (one of a fantastic set of documentaries about American presidents, including FDR) mentions that Hillary Clinton actually moved back to Arkansas during one of Bill's early campaigns, and looked as if she was going to become a housewife, albeit one who worked outside of the home.
FDR and Eleanor redefined their love, what it was to be in love, even as they both needed emotional support and got it from people other than their spouse. Even more than the case with the Clintons, one gets the sense that something is keeping them together that is larger than either political necessity nor the mores of the time. It's fair that both were in love with each other, but both were also exasperated by each other. They depended upon key intermediaries to know how to manage them, singly and together. Most couples are not so lucky.
7. Sometimes, we can be surprised by the simplicity of the needs and desires of people far form home.
I'll mention briefly that one poignant vignette concerned Eleanor's visits to field hospitals in the Pacific. She was initially worried that the troops were going to be disappointed, as security procedures only announced that "a woman" was coming to visit. Eleanor, ever conscious of not living up to her mother's beauty, was worried the men would be expecting a pinup girl. But she found that they appreciated her visits, because she was something they hadn't seen in a year of service - an American mother.
Of all the things that tug at the heart in this book, this seemed a particularly touching insight.
There are many other lessons. But this is a good starting point.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Dear Lexi
Dear Lexi,
Today is our last day together. (Technically, today was also our first day together.) But we have been together long enough for me to understand the trajectory of our relationship, the people involved, and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment is wonderful, but I will find a way of screwing it up eventually, so I'm leaving.
To put it in the simplest terms, our interests are just too diverse.
But seriously--You are so sweet, and beautiful, and charming. You are everything I'd ever dreamed, and then some. Your voice is adorable, and your eyes -- I could be lost in them until the end of days and still not have the words to describe them. I have done my best to be true to Yeats' words:
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face
We bonded over nerdy things. You enthralled me with tales of Huey Long, and I told you about the stories I'd learned about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Why didn't it work out? I may be asking myself that question until my dying day -- and on that day, I will have your name upon my lips, a prayer to the only thing I ever believed in.
It wasn't the other men. Or the women. It wasn't their fault, or yours. I know you are a woman of appetites... many... many... varied appetites. I knew it was part of your job -- you were my Elizabeth, and it is not an easy thing to love the queen. I knew the openness of our relationship was not supposed to touch our love - that our love was above it - but I am a petty, jealous man. I cannot shake the lingering mores of my Protestant upbringing, though believe me when I said I did love you as openly as I have ever loved, more openly than I ever thought possible.
If I may be frank, it was your insistence that Attack of the Clones was the best Star Wars movie. My dear, so many things ought not come between our love -- yet there are some chasms that cannot be bridged by the greatest of efforts.
Remember always that I am, and remain, proud of you. No one clapped louder for your award for Field of Schemes 5 than I did. Please remember that, even as I passed out from embarrassment at the after party, that I gave you and your career my utmost support.
Though our relationship was brief, it was spectacular. Lexi, you shall always be my southern Belle, my guide star in the dark night of my pathetic, somnambulant existence. I'm sorry I couldn't be the man (or woman) you needed. Yet even so -- oh dastardly pride! -- I harbor the hope that there will be a small part of your heart to which I can lay the gentlest claim. You are truly a pornstar with a heart of gold.
With love,
Ryan
PS: Please keep the ring, as a token of memory. Besides, I'm pretty sure the battery's busted.
Friday, March 9, 2012
A letter to an old friend, offering a promise of hope
I recently had a conversation with an old acquaintance-turned-friend from a distant land. I do not know how or why we have remained in touch - we disagree on a number of things concerning politics and human nature. More to the point, I offer nothing professionally, and am, in many ways, a failure in his field. Someday, perhaps, I'll know why.
He recently ended his leadership of a scientific institution, and was looking forward to retirement. We chatted recently when he was in town, and he seemed a bit more gloomy than normal.
If I can paraphrase what he communicated, it would be as this:
In my life I have fought in two wars. I have seen war. I have seen peace. I have built a family, a career, an institution. I have mentored students. I have watched walls rise and fall, and rise again. And now, as a forced retirement looms, my pessimism grows. The democratization of education has led to a decline in quality. Students now feel entitled to degrees, or good grades. I fear that, very soon, the only meaningful research that will be done will be in monasteries, as we enter a second dark age.
It was painful for me to hear. Although I had a sense that he was, generally, a pessimist when it came to human nature, it was the most grim I had ever heard him.
I recall the fall of the Wall, the grandeur of Voyager, and the optimism following the collapse of the Soviet Union. I recall that optimism give way to a blend of terror and inaction in Rwanda, in Yugoslavia, in the Congo, in Lebanon and Gaza. I remember 9/11. I remember protesting, naively, ineffectually, the march to war in Iraq. I remember Katrina, and its revelation of the Third World within America. I remember the financial crisis. I remember the Arab Spring. I remember the histrionics of the last two years of politics.
On the specific issues of education and science, I wonder if the democratization of truth, and the monetization of education, will continue to undermine American science and American progress, and whether it will do so irreparably. Our declining attention span, our ability to know increasing numbers of "things" without a corresponding increase in understanding, our worship of beauty and youth over enduring character: all speak poorly of our national priorities and our private chatacter.
And more to the point, I remember my own failure to live up to the standards I had for myself over the last decade. It brings me daily shame and fear, and I do not go to sleep without considering what I have wrought on myself, and on my family.
Although I have not suffered as acutely as others through it all, each failure, each realization of the limitations of human goodness and justice, took away, piece by piece, my faith in America, my faith in democracy, my faith in humanity and God. And it robbed me of my faith in myself.
There is much to lament, much to cause us to lose hope in progress, or in the future.
Yet, as a person who has become acutely aware of the self-destructive nature of certain thought patterns, I feel it is my duty to challenge this bleak outlook. Maybe its cognitive-behavioral conditioning. Maybe it's more primal - the instinct that a life devoid of hope is meaningless and intolerable.
I can't speak for my friend's nation or his people; I can only speak as an American, for it is what I know, and, with the passage of time and distance from school and work, perhaps one of the few identities I have left.
I do not believe in the arc of history, or laws of historical change. Civilizations have reverted to barbarism too frequently to believe in such a thing as permanent progress. This is not to undervalue progress; it is to recognize its fragility. It is also to recognize that it is to the credit of our ancestors, and ourselves, that something approaching an arc - interrupted and irregular that it may be - has emerged. For each step could have been otherwise, were it not for enough brave individuals, of different talents, backgrounds, and dispositions, to see value in the fight.
Through that lens, every step forward becomes important - because there are no guarantees that we, the people, may be led backward, all too often, our own cowardice. Not leaders. Not economics. Not even history. But our own courage, or lack of it.
Every individual, in every generation, either finds the courage to change themselves, and their world, or not.
I am a weak, weak, man. But enough strong women and men have loaned me their courage. And I have enough shame and honor that I know I must at least try to repay the loan, over time.
To those people who have inspired me, and continue to inspire, by their unflinching, irrational, and passionate loyalty to emboldening those around them with, first, courage, then wisdom and a voice: I thank you. For you have stayed the self-destructive demons that would have robbed me of everything, including life itself, long ago. They range from close family members, to kind strangers, to friends come and gone, to lost lovers, to brilliant and compassionate colleagues. This jumble of experiences, emotions, and people form an inchoate, but passionate, philosophy and faith, a reason for being.
We who have lost our faith now prepare to rebuild it on a stronger foundation, on a recognition of what is and what can be. It is a faith in every sense of the word - irrational, based on unprovable assumptions, and often held even in the face of contrary argument or evidence. Yet it is a faith that demands of us enough open-mindedness, enough forgiveness, and enough activity, or we will fail to be worthy of the name "American".
It's the only faith I have left.
But damnit - it's mine! And I believe it's yours, too - bloody, bruised, beaten, but yet not dead.
That faith gets me through the memories of a chaotic half-decade and gives me the confidence that my judgment, my courage, and my compassion will return to what it was, and grow beyond their previous limitations.
It's what causes me to laugh, with confidence as much as exasperation, at today.
It's what gets me out of bed and makes me drive across Los Angeles to sponge a free dinner off a friend and strangers.
Future posts might explore in more concrete detail the state of education, and of scientific research, and of American democracy, and what steps can be made to improve these institutions. They will hopefully be practical, immediately applicable, and effective.
But sometimes, we need a simpler reminder of why we bother going on.
So take heart, distant friend. We must labor for "a land that never has been yet- and yet must be".
I know, these are just words. Whether they are empty or not depends on what comes from them.
Words and promises written in the bloody history of our peoples. Words and promises written in the smile of your grandson.
You loan him, and me, a bit of your courage. In turn let me loan you a bit of hope, until such time that you find enough for yourself to pass it along to others.
Words - they are a start, a promise that "for all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Time to get back to work. Take care, friend.
He recently ended his leadership of a scientific institution, and was looking forward to retirement. We chatted recently when he was in town, and he seemed a bit more gloomy than normal.
If I can paraphrase what he communicated, it would be as this:
In my life I have fought in two wars. I have seen war. I have seen peace. I have built a family, a career, an institution. I have mentored students. I have watched walls rise and fall, and rise again. And now, as a forced retirement looms, my pessimism grows. The democratization of education has led to a decline in quality. Students now feel entitled to degrees, or good grades. I fear that, very soon, the only meaningful research that will be done will be in monasteries, as we enter a second dark age.
It was painful for me to hear. Although I had a sense that he was, generally, a pessimist when it came to human nature, it was the most grim I had ever heard him.
I recall the fall of the Wall, the grandeur of Voyager, and the optimism following the collapse of the Soviet Union. I recall that optimism give way to a blend of terror and inaction in Rwanda, in Yugoslavia, in the Congo, in Lebanon and Gaza. I remember 9/11. I remember protesting, naively, ineffectually, the march to war in Iraq. I remember Katrina, and its revelation of the Third World within America. I remember the financial crisis. I remember the Arab Spring. I remember the histrionics of the last two years of politics.
On the specific issues of education and science, I wonder if the democratization of truth, and the monetization of education, will continue to undermine American science and American progress, and whether it will do so irreparably. Our declining attention span, our ability to know increasing numbers of "things" without a corresponding increase in understanding, our worship of beauty and youth over enduring character: all speak poorly of our national priorities and our private chatacter.
And more to the point, I remember my own failure to live up to the standards I had for myself over the last decade. It brings me daily shame and fear, and I do not go to sleep without considering what I have wrought on myself, and on my family.
Although I have not suffered as acutely as others through it all, each failure, each realization of the limitations of human goodness and justice, took away, piece by piece, my faith in America, my faith in democracy, my faith in humanity and God. And it robbed me of my faith in myself.
There is much to lament, much to cause us to lose hope in progress, or in the future.
Yet, as a person who has become acutely aware of the self-destructive nature of certain thought patterns, I feel it is my duty to challenge this bleak outlook. Maybe its cognitive-behavioral conditioning. Maybe it's more primal - the instinct that a life devoid of hope is meaningless and intolerable.
I can't speak for my friend's nation or his people; I can only speak as an American, for it is what I know, and, with the passage of time and distance from school and work, perhaps one of the few identities I have left.
I do not believe in the arc of history, or laws of historical change. Civilizations have reverted to barbarism too frequently to believe in such a thing as permanent progress. This is not to undervalue progress; it is to recognize its fragility. It is also to recognize that it is to the credit of our ancestors, and ourselves, that something approaching an arc - interrupted and irregular that it may be - has emerged. For each step could have been otherwise, were it not for enough brave individuals, of different talents, backgrounds, and dispositions, to see value in the fight.
Through that lens, every step forward becomes important - because there are no guarantees that we, the people, may be led backward, all too often, our own cowardice. Not leaders. Not economics. Not even history. But our own courage, or lack of it.
Every individual, in every generation, either finds the courage to change themselves, and their world, or not.
I am a weak, weak, man. But enough strong women and men have loaned me their courage. And I have enough shame and honor that I know I must at least try to repay the loan, over time.
To those people who have inspired me, and continue to inspire, by their unflinching, irrational, and passionate loyalty to emboldening those around them with, first, courage, then wisdom and a voice: I thank you. For you have stayed the self-destructive demons that would have robbed me of everything, including life itself, long ago. They range from close family members, to kind strangers, to friends come and gone, to lost lovers, to brilliant and compassionate colleagues. This jumble of experiences, emotions, and people form an inchoate, but passionate, philosophy and faith, a reason for being.
We who have lost our faith now prepare to rebuild it on a stronger foundation, on a recognition of what is and what can be. It is a faith in every sense of the word - irrational, based on unprovable assumptions, and often held even in the face of contrary argument or evidence. Yet it is a faith that demands of us enough open-mindedness, enough forgiveness, and enough activity, or we will fail to be worthy of the name "American".
It's the only faith I have left.
But damnit - it's mine! And I believe it's yours, too - bloody, bruised, beaten, but yet not dead.
That faith gets me through the memories of a chaotic half-decade and gives me the confidence that my judgment, my courage, and my compassion will return to what it was, and grow beyond their previous limitations.
It's what causes me to laugh, with confidence as much as exasperation, at today.
It's what gets me out of bed and makes me drive across Los Angeles to sponge a free dinner off a friend and strangers.
Future posts might explore in more concrete detail the state of education, and of scientific research, and of American democracy, and what steps can be made to improve these institutions. They will hopefully be practical, immediately applicable, and effective.
But sometimes, we need a simpler reminder of why we bother going on.
So take heart, distant friend. We must labor for "a land that never has been yet- and yet must be".
I know, these are just words. Whether they are empty or not depends on what comes from them.
Words and promises written in the bloody history of our peoples. Words and promises written in the smile of your grandson.
You loan him, and me, a bit of your courage. In turn let me loan you a bit of hope, until such time that you find enough for yourself to pass it along to others.
Words - they are a start, a promise that "for all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Time to get back to work. Take care, friend.
Monday, March 5, 2012
The Undersexed Nerd
As the trope goes, the nerdy academic has one shot at getting close (albeit frustratingly so) to the attractive, popular girl. He can be the tutor/friend. Sure, he probably still will fail to form a romantic bond, but he deludes himself into thinking that there is a possibility, even if the crushing realization ends up being worse than being spurned from great distance. (Note: I feel justified in the use of "he". Even though there is obvious evidence that women are kicking the tar out of men at the high school and college levels, this sort of skewed, masochistic attitude I find more characteristic of nerdy males. Women definitely make poor choices, and definitely are vulnerable to the "friend-in-waiting" to stupid, unworthy men. But I think the dynamic still tends to be a bit contextually different.)
Do you know how pathetic I am?
I've never really exploited my gift at schoolwork to get remotely close to attractive women.
In fact, I was recently called upon to loan my academic giftedness to help someone else get closer to a hot, but lazy women. Describing himself as lazy, he turned to me.
If the world needs anything, it's more attractive, lazy people procreating.
Gonna go to my dark place now. Or read about Iran's nuclear program. Both are semi-effective, though ultimately self-defeating, ways of coping with my irrational terror of actually trying to do a damn thing to start a relationship of my own.
Fuck me.
Also, in case you were wondering, here's the question I was asked, and the response I supplied.
A 200 mg sample of a solution is 22 ppm in sodium ions. what mass of sodium ions are contained in the solution? How many moles of sodium ions are in the solution?
Sodium ions have a mass of 22.9898 g/mol
Water has a molecular mass of 15.994+2(1.00797) = 18.0153 g
22 parts per million of the soluition is sodium. This means for every million moles of the solution, there is
22(22.9898 g) = 505.7756 g of sodium
for every
(999,978)(18.0153 g) = 18,014,903.6634 g of water.
In other words, the mass fraction of sodium in the solution is
505.7756 g/18,014,903.6634 g = 2.80754x 10^-5.
So for a 200 g solution, there is
(2.80754x 10^-5)(200 g) = 0.005615 g of sodium.
To convert from mass to moles, divide by the mass of one mole of sodium:
0.005615 g Na (1 mol Na/22.9898 g Na) = 0.1291 mol Na.
Do you know how pathetic I am?
I've never really exploited my gift at schoolwork to get remotely close to attractive women.
In fact, I was recently called upon to loan my academic giftedness to help someone else get closer to a hot, but lazy women. Describing himself as lazy, he turned to me.
If the world needs anything, it's more attractive, lazy people procreating.
Gonna go to my dark place now. Or read about Iran's nuclear program. Both are semi-effective, though ultimately self-defeating, ways of coping with my irrational terror of actually trying to do a damn thing to start a relationship of my own.
Fuck me.
Also, in case you were wondering, here's the question I was asked, and the response I supplied.
A 200 mg sample of a solution is 22 ppm in sodium ions. what mass of sodium ions are contained in the solution? How many moles of sodium ions are in the solution?
Sodium ions have a mass of 22.9898 g/mol
Water has a molecular mass of 15.994+2(1.00797) = 18.0153 g
22 parts per million of the soluition is sodium. This means for every million moles of the solution, there is
22(22.9898 g) = 505.7756 g of sodium
for every
(999,978)(18.0153 g) = 18,014,903.6634 g of water.
In other words, the mass fraction of sodium in the solution is
505.7756 g/18,014,903.6634 g = 2.80754x 10^-5.
So for a 200 g solution, there is
(2.80754x 10^-5)(200 g) = 0.005615 g of sodium.
To convert from mass to moles, divide by the mass of one mole of sodium:
0.005615 g Na (1 mol Na/22.9898 g Na) = 0.1291 mol Na.
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