Hot and Cold Running Blather

In Fact, Send Two Copies To My Lawyer, And A Copy To File.

2009-11-13T17:27:29Z

You know how, at the end of Take A Letter, Maria, the guy sings

I never really noticed
How sweet you are to me;
It just so happens I’m free tonight;
Would you like to have dinner with me?

to his secretary? I’ve long wondered – is this supposed to be a hopeful note, suggesting that he’s already “starting a new life” – or is this supposed to sound just as skeevy as it does now? I actually can’t remember enough about gender relations and gender politics from forty-something years ago to be sure.

(I have a less ambiguous incident. The sodden drunk who ran one of the companies I used to work for once dictated a two-page memo to his secretary – about how incompetent the secretary was. She typed it, distributed it, got her bag, and walked out.)

Some Are Born To Sweet Delight; Some Are Born To The Endless Night

2009-11-12T22:49:19Z

Recently, when I accomplish something on my own responsibility – such as parallel parking, always a challenge – I announce this with the cheerful declaration, “I went peepee in the potty!” It is possible that I need another term; nonetheless, I have certainly refrained from wetting myself.

Today, my accomplishment was a significant walk. Significant, at least, for me – I used to cover several miles without difficulty, but lately I’ve become deconditioned. I went all around Savin Hill (the hill, not the entire neighborhood) and a chunk of Morrissey Boulevard, passing in front of the Globe building and quite a number of interesting and eccentric Victorian houses. There is a nice side of Savin Hill (the neighborhood, not the hill), and a less nice side. I do not live in the nicer part. They are separated by the Southeast Expressway, so there’s little doubt which side you’re on at any moment.

Of course, I forgot my pedometer, but it’s got to be better than a mile, which is something. I did stop at McKennas for a hot dog and coffee, but a man needs sustenance.

I did make a discovery. I can’t really walk while carrying my Man Bag; after a while it throws my back out. Today I put on a light jacket and put everything I needed in its pockets. (Phone, sunglasses, camera, glucose tablets, insulin pen with heads, something to read…) I had to stop now and then to catch my breath, but I remained pain-free.

The point is, I saw my doctor the other day, and she asked if I was using this period of enforced idleness to at least increase my exercise. Sadly, I have not the faintest reason in the world not to, and I’ve been meaning to walk more…

Guess I have a new habit to form.

Priority Paralysis!

2009-11-10T00:02:21Z

I did a whole raft of housekeeper-ish chores in the morning; took out the trash we’d generated last night going through boxes from the attic, made a trash run, cleaned the refrigerator, prepped some veggies, did a recycling run, did a trash run, washed the dishes, finished my ironing. I went for a walk, with a stop at Bugger King. I finished my walk. I finished my book. (Juggler Of Worlds; more about which later).

Then I ran into a decision.

There are a whole raft of projects of secondary importance that are in various stages of completion. I have ten years of photographs to label, archive the negatives, run the rejects through the shredder (so I can’t have second thoughts), and to post in albums. I have boxes and boxes of papers that need to be gone through and either disposed of or archived. (I dipped into one last night and found my grandfather’s junior high diploma). I have piles of CDs that need to be examined, labeled, and stored or trashed. I have a whole pile of art that still needs to have a home. I have boxes and albums of old family photos that need to be scanned and labeled. I have…

As usual, my brain seized up. I watched Johnny Test, and The Future Is Wild, and found that Danny Phantom wasn’t on, and took a bit of a nap.

It’s not, you know, totally useless.

Null Set

2009-11-09T04:25:07Z

If I had anything to say, I'd post. But I don't seem to have anything to say.

Well, I tried stir-frying broccoli in just a spritz of spray oil, and that worked pretty well. And I had a pork chop.

So I had very little to say.

Our Vegetable Love Should Grow, Vaster Than Empires, And More Slow

2009-11-07T23:36:53Z

I went to Wilson Farms the other day to stock up. All they’re harvesting, now, is carrots and broccoli (so far as I could tell), but I like carrots and broccoli. I also got snap peas and green beans and the tiniest Brussels sprouts; they’re no bigger than marbles, or a cat’s intellect.

I spent some time looking at kohlrabi.

My mother used to make kohlrabi, but that was fifty years ago, and I frankly don’t remember how to use it. I did a little research, but didn’t find anything really useful. At some point, I’ll buy some and experiment.

Hell, I’m still determined to master kale.

Anyone got something clever to do with kohlrabi??

Again The Shadow Of The Wing Of Death

2009-11-07T00:39:41Z

Mrs. Professor had a blowout on the Mass Pike this morning, coming out of the Allston toll plaza. She did not die. This is a good thing.

She pulled into the breakdown lane – with difficulty, since no one would let her pull over. She called Triple A, which called the Staties, who sent a truck, which changed her tire for her and put on the donut. (She was disinclined to stand in the travel lane to do it herself. And we don’t have a jack in any case.)

Shaken, after consultation with me, she came home instead of trying to continue to work. I patted her and made her tea and settled her in her comfy chair under a quilt. I took the car off and got a new tire, and got the car aligned while I was there. It needed it. (They thought she might have run over something; it looked like an impact break to the guy at the tire place.)

This is another bad thing about my not working with her any more – she has to deal with disasters by herself. Not that she’s not competent and capable and adult, but it’s much nicer if you have company and support when it all goes in the crapper.

She’s not hurt and that’s important. I’ll have the heebie-jeebies tomorrow.

Citation

2009-11-03T19:33:12Z

I should mention that the piece I quoted the other day is Dirge Without Music, by Edna St. Vincent Millay. It's always been one of my favorites, party animal that I am, and that I am not resigned.

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Poetry/Millay/Dirge_without_Music.html

If you feel more like being resigned, here you go as well.

And you as well must die, beloved dust,
And all your beauty stand you in no stead,
This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head,
This body of flame and steel, before the gust
Of Death, or under his autumnal frost,
Shall be as any leaf, be no less dead
Than the first leaf that fall, --- this wonder fled.
Altered, estranged, disintegrated, lost.

Nor shall my love avail you in your hour.
In spite of all my love, you will arise
Upon that day and wander down the air
Obscurely as the unattended flower,
It mattering not how beautiful you were,
Or how beloved above all else that dies.

Oil. Black Gold. Texas Tea.

2009-11-03T19:27:45Z

We got an oil delivery yesterday.

“Of course you did”, you think. “You live in Boston, and winter is coming on. You’re going to have to heat your apartment pretty soon now.”

It’s, well, complicated.

It’s complicated by the fact that they landlords want to convert the entire house to gas heat. I have no position on this; so long as the radiators warm up when I require it of them, I’m satisfied. It’s possible that this might save us a bit of money; it’s possible that it won’t. Knowing this, though, we cancelled our account with our old oil company, and told them not to fill our new tank.

The gas company came by and sprayed cabalistic symbols on the roadway in front of the house. In order to pipe in enough gas, they need to lay wider mains; apparently the pipes that supply the stoves and used to supply the gas lights (the stubs of which still show in a couple of places) are insufficient.

The landlady called Mrs. Professor at work a couple days ago. The city is refusing the gas company permission to dig up the roadway. Apparently the macadam is less than five years old, and they’re disinclined to have it ravaged so soon. I actually sort of sympathize; there’s been much arglebargle lately about utility companies not sufficiently repairing the roads they dig up. But, while they wrangle and bicker, no gas heat.

Mrs. P asked the landlady which oil company they used (Brite Fuel), and called them to schedule a delivery of a mere sip, 100 gallons, to tide us over. This would be COD, but they took cheques. The delivery was to be on Monday, so I stayed in the house to wait.

I waited all day. I felt constrained from starting some complicated task (writing, ironing, shelving) lest I be interrupted. I realize, of course, that this doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I assumed that they’d be here any moment. One can, as you know, assume anything one would like; the universe so seldom is on the same belief frame as oneself.

Around 4:30, Mrs. P called and asked how we were proceeding. I reported a lack of process. She suggested, with some asperity, that I call the company and inquire; she had left me a phone number for this very purpose. Chastened, I did that, and was told that there was a perfectly good chance that they might get to me that day. Perhaps.

I called my ever-patient wife back and reported this. She inquired if she ought to call and express her disappointment in our lack of forward progress. I suggested that we wait, just in case the oil truck did arrive – and, wouldn’t you know it, as we were discussing this, the oil truck did arrive.

A terribly nice man hopped out, went downstairs to examine the tank (perhaps to ensure that the fill pipe actually terminated in one – I’ve heard of situations in which it was discovered, far too late, that one didn’t), pumped our hundredweight, accepted payment, and was gone.

I am left wondering how fast a furnace burns fuel oil – how many ergs per gallon, I suppose. That is, how long will 100 gallons last us? We may have a chance to find out; they might succeed in laying the new gas mains and convert us over before the question arises. In the meantime, at least for the nonce, we are shielded against the wint’ry blast. Cozy, it is, and so we shall be.

So Many – I Had Not Thought Death Had Undone So Many

2009-11-01T20:51:57Z

We had a Day Of The Dead service at church yesterday. People were invited to display a picture or memento of a dead person, perhaps say a sentence about them, and light a candle. Janet, intelligently, did not go. She’s under orders to not breath in the pain of the world. I was unsure about going myself. With the Wellbutrin, I have affect back, and about the fifteenth or twentieth dead person I began to leak myself

I especially enjoyed the dead children, cut down by disease to leave their parents behind..

Well, in this concept, I leave you with a dirge without music,

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Hope I Die Before I Get – Oops

2009-10-30T22:50:07Z

It’s Grace Slick’s 70th birthday today.

This is like the dull thud of the tomb door closing behind you.

At least it is if you’re a Boomer. (Old People will say “Grace who?”, and you Young People will say “Grace who??”.) If you’re a Young Person – imagine looking at the This Day In History column (just pretend you’ll have chosen to have it downloaded into your cranial implant along with the Belter mining price indexes and the Martian League scores) (and just ignore the whole problem that you people won’t get old the way we have, and the Death Of History in your shorter and shorter attention span culture, and pretend that I’d be able to recognize anything once you get to my age) and reading that Brittany Speer is 70. That sort of shock.

We Shall Hang Out Our Washing On The Siegfried Line

2009-10-28T16:40:15Z

Laundry day yesterday. We still don’t have a washer, and we’ve learned not to go to a Laundromat on the weekend.

If I need the car, I just go into work with Mrs. P and drive back. Many mornings I’ll go somewhere and have a bite of breakfast and a cuppa, waiting for the traffic to calm down. Yesterday I wanted to get an early start, so I just headed back, but the Pike was pretty clogged, so I stopped in Auburndale and went to a place I’ve been meaning to try for four years anyway.

It’s a lunch counter called The Knotty Pine. To my lack of astonishment, it’s paneled in knotty pine, a robust beadboard siding that was popular in the thirties (and, I think, in the fifties.) It was doing a brisk business with the locals, and I was brought two scrambled, bacon, wheat toast, and home fries with dispatch. The taters were good; more pan fries, with nearly ground potatoes grilled, and a just a bit of spiciness.

As I ate I reflected on the last Knotty Pine I used to hang out in. Saturdays, when I lived in Dighton in the early 60s, my father would take me up to the local roadhouse for the afternoon. He’d have a couple beer-and-a-bumps, I’d have cola and whatever salty snack they were serving. I remember watching the Budweiser sign with its moving lights with interest, and wishing I knew how to play pool – not that I could probably have come up to the bumpers yet.

(When we moved to Quincy, we shifted to a bar somewhere in Jamaica Plain, near the factory where my father was the purchasing agent. I’d drink cola and eat pistachios from the nickel machine on the counter and argue politics with the barflies.) (It wasn’t until I got married and my wife asked “You were eight years old and you spent Saturdays in a bar?” that it occurred to me to wonder about this.)

No point, I guess – just the comfort of regular hangouts and familiar places. Perhaps I ought to go back to the original Knotty Pine and have a Bud in my father’s memory. Not that I drink Bud if I can possibly find a way around it, but this is ritual, not libation, and I bet the same sign is there for me to toast as well. It was that sort of a place.

Jean-Phillipe, Crush Me To Your Great Waxed Chest!

2009-10-26T15:18:25Z

Here’s an unexpected consequence.

It’s difficult, in this illiterate age, not to end up going to chain bookstores. I’m somehow on the mailing lists of the three big ones, and they keep sending me release announcements and limited-time coupons and suggestions for further reading.

I have no idea what triggered their algorithm – I most certainly haven’t bought any – but I just got a newsletter from Borders breathlessly telling me about my chief interest, romance novels.

I’m half tempted to call them and deny, but all that would get me was soothing “agreements” and knowing looks between the customer service drones.

Now, He's Getting A Tattoo, Yeah, He's Gettin' Ink Done

2009-10-25T20:59:17Z

I’ve decided on what tattoo I’m getting.

On the back of my left hand, I’m getting the reminder, “Shut Up One Sentence Earlier”. It’ll be ever so useful.

The Professor Bobs To The Surface

2009-10-24T20:21:52Z

I have email again!

Funny story how I lost it.

Our tech pixie, Suzy, came over and repaired everything. She found that Comcast had decided that they wanted everyone to have a secure password. (I had a mix of letters and numbers, but no capital). If they felt that your password was not secure – they deleted your account. Without any notice.

To which I can only say, with vigor, “What??”

The problem with Excel was absolutely unrelated. Some alphanumeric file deep in its guts had gotten erased. The repair was made more entertaining by the fact that we couldn’t find the Microsoft Office disk, but she was able to use the error number to conjure with, and Excel works again. She also got the printer printing. We will keep her and squeeze her and pet her and … um, we said “Thank you” with great relief.

Thank heaven for competent people. And how interesting that I was so discommoded by the loss of something I didn’t even know about a few years ago.

Future 2; Professor 0

2009-10-22T00:14:17Z

Now, not only will my email not speak to me, Excel is broken too. If I start it, a little window announced that it's configuring Microsoft Office, then demands my disks.

Word is working fine.

I am retiring, hurt. (I think that's a cricket term -- I got it from Monty Python.)

The Professor Confronts The Modern World, To Little Avail

2009-10-21T16:32:04Z

Here’s another mystery of Modern Life. Our e-mail accounts refuse to receive or deliver mail. The program (Outlook) boots fine, and I can get to all of the existing emails, but our provider (Comcast) doesn’t seem to recognize our logons. Or something. (It keeps asking for our user names and passwords, and snorts contemptuously when we offer them.)

Our computer person – Suzy – is supposed to come by for dinner this weekend anyway, so if we haven’t solved this – and we won’t have – perhaps she can provide, if not relief, at least an avenue to explore. In the meantime, I am emailless.

She Would Speak Of Knots And Cords In The House Of A Man Who Had Been Hanged

2009-10-20T14:52:18Z

I have a tale of Management Sensitivity.

As I’ve told before, I was laid off in June, not quite two weeks after we’d lost our home to a fire. I took this to be the epitome of bald-faced management. (My former supervisor, at least, seems to twig that their action was questionable – he hasn’t spoken to Mrs. Professor since then, and will go out of his way to avoid her.)

The vice president who approved the termination was Mrs. Professor’s supervisor and responsibility before her promotion. She has never shown a great deal of comprehension of basic humanity – she once interrupted explaining to Mrs. P why she wasn’t getting the raise they’d promised her to describe buying a thousand-dollar purse for her whiny daughter. She avoided my wife as well, but it’s dangerous to have a VP feel uncomfortable around you, so Mrs. P has mended fences and does not voice her internal dialogue. The VP has resumed dropping in to whine endlessly about nothing; all well and good.

Until last week, when she came into Mrs. P’s office and began to talk about all of her friends who had been laid off, and how unfair it was to them, and how hard it was on their families. Luckily my wife was so frozen by astonishment and disbelief that she didn’t strangle the woman – but I do think I have a new high-water mark for “clueless” here. Really I do.

These Are Not The Droids You Are Looking For

2009-10-17T22:31:01Z

I saw Surrogates the other day. (One of the advantages of being unemployed is that I’ve been catching matinees.) I continue to be interested in media SF, and it was filmed in Boston. (Well, some of it was.)

It was not nearly as bad as it could have been.

We begin with Basil Exposition explaining how everyone came to stay at home and send their linked droids out into the world – their Surrogates. Then we move to the murder, behind a nightclub near Fort Point Channel, of a rich snot and his meaningless pickup – or, at least, their robots. Someone on a motorcycle fries them with a Great Big Phaser. Bruce Willis’s FBI Guy gets involved, and it rapidly appears that the operators of the robots are also dead – nastily dead, of massive brain aneurysms while in their chairs.

Of course, this is impossible. All sorts of nasty things can happen to the emissaries – wars are now fought in proxy, with hundreds of grunts operating stripped down soldierboys; if your robot gets shot, you just activate another and keep going. The failsafes are supposed to be ironclad.

The plot gets quite complex, and, while I thought the McGuffin was a trifle thin, it does make some internal sense and they did manage to surprise me several times. And the end was … thought-provoking. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have made the same choice. And, to my surprise, they did make me more appreciative of being a meatbag.

There were some good scenes and some good lines. Willis’s character heads home on the subway after an all-nighter working the case, and, as the car sways, everyone on it sways exactly the same. He gets home, draws a glass of water, and goes into his bedroom – and looks down on Bruce Willis, a decade older than the Surrogate, bald, human. He puts the water down, steps into the recharger, and the meat guy sits up.

He runs into his wife in the hallway. “Good morning – oh! Where’s your, ah…” suggesting that already, actual meat prescence is a trifle déclassé. (I was reminded rather of The Naked Sun.)

I also liked the comment of a meat police techy (We know he’s meat because he’s fat, eating a sandwich, and belching.) when asked why he didn’t have a Surrogate – “Oh, they’ve been trying to puppet me for years”. Basically, at least some thought went into the culture, and the consequences of the robot proxies.

I also got a thrill out of recognizing the scenes – Willis’s agent comes out of a hospital front door, and I recognize a doorway behind him. “Hey, he’s on Batterymarch!” There were, of course, also the sort of geographical mistakes that amuse natives. The FBI Guys head for Worcester, and we see them going over the Zakim bridge. (Worcester is due West. The Zakim heads you due North. But it’s ever so much more dramatic than the actual Pike west. (It’s what you see at the end of Good Will Hunting)). But at least they don’t say War-chester-errrrr, like Hollywood usually does. (It’s pronounced “Wist’a”)

And the human-normal enclave that’s supposed to be in South Boston is much bigger than the entire city and has big, abandoned mills on it. I think it’s actually Lawrence, or one of the other dead mill towns in the area.

But, in general, I liked it; it asked some interesting questions; and it held my interest. Not bad for $6.75.

Once More Unto The Breach, Dear Friends, Once More; Or Close The Wall Up With Our Action Verbs.

2009-10-16T14:51:17Z

It's raining sheets of rain everything is cold and wet,
Nobody's going out of doors;
They're all at home living it up on the internet
So I guess nobody's lonely any more
'cept you and me, babe,
'cept you and me.

It was supposed to be raining sheets of rain, but it’s just raw and threatening, so I did go out of doors. Mrs. Professor dropped me at Broadway Station, just past which she gets on the Pike, and I went for breakfast at Mul’s on West Broadway. I find that if I go out for coffee and come back to the apartment, I actually get more done than if I discover it’s three in the afternoon and I’m still in my bathrobe.

The last Get Stuff Done Day did not go well, actually; I got less than usual done. This time I’m determined to work on my damn resume (or, as these people call it, my CV), or at least get other things done while I avoid working on my resume.

Mrs. Professor mined other people’s resumes – sorry, CVs – for approved descriptions of the various projects I’ve been associated with. Being academics, the industry like to see a citation for every project and paper you’re associated with – despite the fact that I think it’s, at my level, bullshit. The work is exactly the same, no matter what the indication or intervention. If you can shovel up after cows, you can shovel up after horses with the same shovel.

Especially when my descriptions tend toward:

1993: Purchasing Manager. Software Developer’s Company (Hingham, MA). Responsible for all aspects of stock and supplies purchasing for $50/million/year software reseller.

And the official approved description of one project tends toward:

Phase IV randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled methodology study to evaluate the time of onset of antidepressant response in subjects with major depressive disorder, utilizing and examining daily electronic patient diaries in assessing rapid onset of therapy and measuring changes in serum Brain-derived Neurotropic factor (BDNF) and changes in voice acoustic variables, using an Interactive Voice Response system (IVR) for private sector client; 160 patients, multiple sites.

I’m torn between acceding to cultural norms in the industry, and not sounding like a wanker.

Maybe I’ll just work through this pile of papers that need to be filed while I think…

Weather. Or Not.

2009-10-15T03:00:25Z

It has been astonishingly cool in Boston of late. Usually it's summery until a bit after Halloween, but this year, the last few days have been November-y, in the 40s and low 50s.

The fact is, we had to turn the heat on. In October. It's embarrassing.

On the other hand, now we know the heat works. This place has radiators, instead of the forced hot air of our last place. Most of them come on when you ask. (The one in the bathroom seems to be leaking steam, and I also can't turn it back off. More study may be needed.)

I'm told the house dates from about 1902. Every room has what appears to be a neatly boarded-in hot air vent. My assumption is that originally this place had hot air, too, but not forced hot air -- you'd fire up the coal furnace, and whatever warm air made it up would suffice. Essentially, it was a hypocaust. When them new-fangled steam radiators came in, they closed off the vents and installed the modern technology.

(Of course, this means that every room has at least one steam pipe running through it, and some have two. We look on them as just one more way to injure oneself.)

(In the old place, before the landlord replaced the heating system, there was a steam pipe in the bathroom. Poor Mrs. Professor branded herself on the bum with it once.) (It would be unkind to laugh. It would be unkind to laugh...)

The Sun Is The Same, In A Relative Way, But You’re Older

2009-10-14T17:40:40Z

I’m thinking about declaring daily themes.

Monday was Cleanliness Day. We’ve been using a Laundromat over the bridge in Quincy, as it’s beside a Panera’s, and it has the Monster Washer.

(I’m always torn between “It’s a dirty, dirty monster!”, and Andy Sipowicz’s “I’m kinda used to washing that myself.”) It’s a big, 125-lb industrial machine, and we’ve been looking for an excuse to use it. This time, we brought all the quilts, and all the sheets and towels that had built up, which we figured would make a nice load. We also brought Mrs. Professor’s winter stuff, much of which had gotten sprinkled during the fire and the subsequent ceiling shower.

I have a hint. Do not try to do your laundry on Columbus Day. Everyone, their cousins, and all their children were already there. The big washer was in use, as was pretty much every dryer in the place. (It made an interesting Zippy-thrilling display, all of them going in unison). I found enough smaller machines to break the loads down into, and about when they were all dried the big machine became open and we grabbed it, and in between we repaired to the café for coffee and sammiches and baked inducements.

Tuesday, yesterday, was Medical Day.

I got my flu shot (thought they won’t have the H1N1 until next month – if then), and saw my cardiologist for my yearly sniffing. It went well. My blood pressure is good, I’m down ten pounds (privations seems to agree with me), and he said that my EKG was better than last years’. “That branch bundle block has abated”, is what I think he said. He also said that I had, essentially, a normal heart – the first time anyone has said that to me.

I was planning to join Mrs. Professor for an errand, and had researched bus routes out near Lexington and Waltham. I found one – the 70A – that stops not a mile away, and that seems to pass though Central Square. I couldn’t tell if it was going the right way when it met the Red Line, but it’d be twice the bugger to get to Watertown Square, where it seemed to originate. I got to Central Square (figuring I could at least ask the driver) just in time to see the bus I wanted drive away. I waited over an hour – it turned out the 70 A was a “limited service” route – and finally gave up. I called Mrs. P to arrange for her to pick me up at Alewife Station, walked across the road – and turned to see the bus I wanted drive away again. Ed Gruberman, you must learn patience!

Today – today is Accomplish Many Things And Work On Your Resume Day! Want to guess how well that’s going? Well, at least I can get work done while I avoid working on my resume. There’s still plenty of things to sort, shelve, and find places for.

On, Concorde!

Sunday

2009-10-14T13:29:33Z

As I say often enough, I go to the same church as John Adams and John Quincy Adams – although in their day it was still Congregational. I can prove that I do, as we have their crypt in the church basement. Nine months of the year, we have a tour program (when there’s no services), but a lot of people show up to Sunday service and ask after a tour.

As I was setting up coffee hour last Sunday, a nice lady stuck her head in the kitchenette and asked if it were possible to see the tombs. I’d far rather conduct a tour than plate cookies, and the coffee was perking away, so I took her and her party downstairs and gave them the twenty-five-cent presentation.

The point of all this is that I got to use my little joke. “This is the only place in the United States where two presidents are buried together, and of course the only burial place of a father-and-son Presidential pair – but I’m eagerly awaiting the next one”.

(I’m always gratified when I get a sound Democratic laugh out of this, which I almost always do. Why would conservatives, after all, visit such powerhouses for intellectual freedom and universal rights?)

They Call Me Mr. Fishbelly

2009-10-11T17:44:33Z

Poor Mrs. Professor has a cold. She was going to go to church, but when she went back into the bedroom to dress, she found that she’d gone back to bed. She took this as a hint and stayed home.

If one were going to miss a service, this would be one to miss. I love my people, but sometimes I have trouble keeping a straight face.

The theme of today’s service was Fuck Columbus In Both Ears, in dishonor of Columbus Day, tomorrow. It was pointed out that his last three trips were all slaving expeditions, with a little light looting, and that he opened the way for the brutal and genocidal conquistadors.

However, the actual title of the sermon and the service was Indigenous Peoples Sunday. All the hymns were “Native” themed, though written by white people (because that’s all we got). The text was Howard Zinn. Even though I’m in perfect agreement with pretty much everything, it was still painful.

However, we’re now going out to lunch with a friend for Mrs. Professor’s birthday, so with luck I can drown my troubles in brunch.

And, remember, children – Columbus was not only flat wrong (everyone knew the Earth was round – he thought it was about half the size it really is; if there hadn’t been an unexpected continent in the way, he and his crew would have died horribly), he was a slaver and a great criminal. Think of this as you shop your Columbus Day bargains.

Plans That Either Come To Naught, Or Half A Page Of Scribbled Rhymes

2009-10-09T22:01:17Z

The day started out so well, too.

I was determined to have a busy, productive day. I finished the paper; I took a shower; I washed the dishes; I cleaned up the kitchen. I went on-line to register for last week’s unemployment. (I’d, um, forgotten until last night.) My intention was to work on my resume, shrink the historical part and punch the recent bits. But working with a resume has two hazards; One, it’s both boring and anxiety-producing; Two, you’re sitting at a computer. Which does stuff.

Eventually, after quite some web comics and a deal of Spider Solitaire, I ended up going down to the local lunchroom for dropped eggs on hash, ran past the old place. to pick up the mail, came home, and read for a couple hours. Not a bad day, just not as productive as it might have been.

Part of the problem in sorting and shelving the paperbacks is that I’m constantly finding books that I want to read again. I spent the last two days re-reading three Keith Laumer books (Dinosaur Beach, A Trace Of Memory and a short story collection.) I only keep books that I either want for reference or that I will want to read again someday, and handling them just brings them to my attention.

For instance, just now, Passages is staring at me, though I’m not sure I want to put myself through that. Perhaps To Say Nothing Of The Dog, which ought to show up in the next case but one. That’s not as wracking. (When my sister gave me the book, I commented that Willis writes comedies and tragedies. My sister said “Well, this is not a comedy.”)

The Professor Makes A Good Confession

2009-10-08T01:50:19Z

Terribly sad. Terribly. I have all sorts of things to say about working for my mother and reading a book on ADD and shelving books and Kieth Laumer, but it seems that Marsala is interfering with the transmission.

If you know what I mean.