Being With Others

Believe I spent more time in the company of other people this weekend than I have in years. From noon on Saturday to about 8 pm on Sunday I was actively with at least one other person, not just sitting next to people on the trolley, waving hello to neighbors passing by, handing money to store clerks, or briefly chatting with coworkers. It felt peculiar but pleasant. How strange my adult life as been.

Peripheral Vision Triptacular

The other day I told a co-worker that people can't really see colors using peripheral vision. Moments after I said that, I backtracked because I couldn't recall the source of this information.

While I was looking for a definitive answer to the color question, I found this triptacular site.

Throwing Down the Gauntlet

When I took my daily peek at Lipby's livejournal site, I learned that one of his many comment makers had challenged a certain shitbird to a fight. Since I tend to avoid reading comments on Lipby's site so that I can spare myself from the shitbird's intricate and incendiary stupidity, I don't know if the whole thing was a joke or not. Either way, good for the challenger, says I.

I am a peace lover, but I guess I'm not a pacifist. I cannot deny that there are some people who are just begging for someone to go Aaron Burr on their asses. I'm not saying they deserve to be shot or run through with swords, but I wouldn't mind if they were at least slapped upside their bony heads.

There are fighting words. When some coward insults the very essence of my humanity, the call for satisfaction resonates in my chest. This is the scary stuff that cannot be explained by clockwork notions of human behavior. Fighting words and other realities of social interaction might not and should not hold up as an excuse for violence in a court of law. I haven't assaulted anyone since elementary school, but since then I've had some pretty gruesome ideas about what certain people deserved. I wonder what might push me to act on those ideas. I suppose if I believed I was truly in a corner and had no escape or recourse, I might do violence. I'd like to believe that I'd never really throw down the gauntlet, but that doesn't keep me from admitting that I wouldn't complain if certain people I've encountered got punched in the face.

I vote for the Echidna

The deer, the birdy, the squid, and the whale (especially the baleen order). These are the the star creatures of the hipster craft fair and urban boutique, silk screened across the hearts of cool kids everywhere.

Last night I wondered if the jellyfish had made it into the chic menagerie yet. Sure enough, ETSY is already swimming with them.

So which ugly hot creature will be next? I vote for the Echidna.

Interesting, Indeed

"It's interesting, by the way, how John McCain's hotheaded ways are admired as part of his so-called maverick qualities, a willingness to follow his passions and go against the grain; it's part of his essential Americanness. Michelle Obama's candor, by contrast, is seen as entirely foreign and not a little threatening."--Erin Aubry Kaplan at Salon

This reminds me of a little piece of wisdom that was given to a family member in the not so distant past: Are you mad? Well, you better scratch your butt and get glad!

Aw, shucks

The interns are discussing James Joyce amongst themselves. Aw, and now they're talking about the classics. One of them read Dante in Italian. Ain't that cute?

Too bad one of them wasn't sure if Dublin is a city or a country.

Sentence Interuptus and the Challenge of Listening

"Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it."-- George Carlin

I begin this post with this quote because while many people like to think of conversation interruptions as a men vs. women problem, I don't think it's that simple. Gender is a factor, but so are individual tendencies.

It is my natural tendency to want to finish other people's sentences for them, especially if I am truly excited by what they are saying. Strange as it sounds, I used to believe that by completing other people's sentences, I was saying "Wow! Yes! I'm right there with you on that!" Of course, what the people I was interrupting heard instead was "Yeah, yeah, yeah, you Slow Talkers of America snail. Get on with it." or "I'm so smart I already know what you're about to say, so give me a biscuit." While most of my interruptions were caused by excitement, many were also caused by the feeling that a slow talker would surely drive me mad with her plodding and deliberate speech.

Through much effort and mindfulness, I have greatly reduced the number of times that I complete other people's sentences for them and I believe that has really smoothed most of my relationships and conversations. Unfortunately, I am beginning to suspect that my new ability to hold my tongue (She's holding her tongue? Yes, I am.) isn't helping my conversations with my boyfriend. Perhaps as some kind of karmic retribution, I find myself attached to a real talker. I think I'd feel a lot more comfortable talking with him if I revert to my obnoxious ways. At least I'd get a word in.

So the wise and perfect woman adjusts her conversation style to her audience. She is attentive and demure at tea, but assertive and boisterous at the local bar. It's a noble ideal to strive for. It's also a pain in the ass. Oh well.

What does it mean to really listen to someone? It cannot be simply passively absorbing their words, allowing their ideas to fill some empty space in my mind. Maybe it's not nice or whatever, but when I listen to people, I am trying to figure out how what they are saying relates to stuff I already know or don't know. I'm asking is this news? is it true? do I care? Sometimes I look away from the speaker because it helps me listen better. I don't know how this comes off. I've been told that it looks as though I'm not listening or that I've got something to hide. I can't pull off that that Nancy Reagan you-are-the-most-fascinating-and-important-creature-in-the-universe face.

Few things burn me more deeply than the sense that people I am talking to aren't so much listening to me as merely waiting for me to finish talking so that they can say what they wanted to say 45 seconds ago. I can see this behind their eyes. I would rather that they look away from me or space out when I'm talking instead of staring blankly at me, biding their time. I would rather be interrupted than patronized.

It seems ridiculous to say it, but when I'm speaking, I want to be understood. I believe that is what everyone wants. The challenge is that understanding has so many meanings and that everyone has a different way of demonstrating that they understand.

Grillemma

Yesterday I was all perplexed about the gas v. charcoal grill question. Which bbq method is less environmentally evil? The folks at Slate.com read my mind.

News Flash: Pills Fail to Make Job More Interesting

This week I decided to try an new med for the old ADHD.

I'd given up taking ritalin daily long ago, preferring to keep it in stock in case of emergencies (long meetings, solemn ceremonies, filing taxes). It tended to make me feel tight in the chest.

For a while, I found that listening to music and using a fitness ball as a chair (it's bouncy!) seemed to work just as well as ritalin to keep me from spacing out or flitting from one chore to the next in my cubicle. But then I hit the doldrums at work and I became anxious about my productivity, so I asked my doctor for a new drug. I also tried placing my to do list in a new spot.

Unfortunately, there's no generic version of the flavor of adderall that was prescribed, so this new experiment with speed was a bit expensive. As I paid the pharmacists, I thought if these pills help me stay focused on the job, they may be worth it.

While the adderall does make me feel focused and less restless without feeling like I'm wearing a corset, it does not make routine tasks seem any less dull. So I guess adderall will be my new go to med for intensely boring situations. I'll have to find other ways to make my job less tedious.

I Saw Addie

Yes, it's true. I ran into Addie today at lunch time. She looked gooood. I hope she enjoyed her plain slice.

Happy Loving Day

Some interesting stuff from lovingday.org:

What is Loving Day?

Loving Day is an educational community project. The name comes from Loving v. Virginia (1967), the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage in the United States. Loving Day celebrations commemorate the anniversary of the Loving decision every year on or around June 12th.

The Loving Day legal map is particularly interesting. Since each state had its own intermarriage laws, a kid could become a bastard simply by crossing state lines. If you click on the states where interracial marriage was illegal, you can read the laws banning such unions. Here's a quote from the Pennsylvania Statute, circa 1725:

[Section VIII.] And it be further enacted...That if any white man or woman shall cohabit or dwell with any negro under pretense of being married, such a white man or woman shall forfeit and pay the sum of thirty pounds or be sold for a servant not exceeding seven years by the justices of the respective county court, and the child or children of such a white man or woman shall be put out to service as above directed until they come to the age of thirty one years.

The law goes on to state that the punishment for "free negroes" who married whites in PA was slavery for life. The punishment for free negroes who fornicated or committed adultery with whites was seven years of servitude. So it was better to just screw than to actually get married in the eyes of the law.

These bans were not simply between whites and blacks. Maine banned marriages between whites and negroes and whites and Indians. In Arizona, whites had to stay away from those Malays, Mongolians and Hindus (not Indians, though?) as well. Montana specifically banned marriage between whites and Chinese, but didn't bother mentioning unions between whites and other Asians. Some states went so far as to let white people know how much negro or Indian (not to be confused with Hindu, I guess) was okay to marry--usually less than one eighth. If you weren't white, I suppose you could marry any non-white person you liked, so long as they weren't Mexican.

Social Swirl

All of the sudden I'm popular. At least that's the way it seemed last weekend. On Saturday, Mama Ass came over for breakfast and A/C installation. That afternoon, I enjoyed the return of the monthly scrabble fest at Yoko and Lipby's place. Next, I hoofed it to a bridal shower. And finally, MJP met me for a date.

As if that weren't enough activity for a weekend, on Sunday MJP and I took his offspring to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for cheap A/C and culture. Although the museum did have a special family education room with glue, sparkles, little pictures of Frida Kahlo, and awesome blocks, it could not compete with the violently spinning carny ride being offered for free just outside by a consumer bank. Ugh. My semicircular canals are still reeling.

After a tasty meal at Sabrina's, through which the offspring slept, we returned to my wee apartment to feed the kid some PB&J and Tito Puente. Then MJP kindly endured the post Odunde festival traffic and his child's "fresh" comments about her crotch to drop me off at my kickball game. And it was worth it because my team won.

Serenity Now

For some reason, I'm just not that pissed off anymore. The world hasn't changed much. One thing that has changed over the past 24 hours is that I haven't read the comments on any mass media online articles.

Yesterday, I though I was coming down with a cold, but I managed to suppress it.

Just outside my office window, gentle bird song fills the silence left by the demolition/remodeling crew's lunch break.

A Valuable Anger Lesson

The Purpose of Anger

Anger serves a purpose. It alerts me to dangers in my environment. Sometimes it sends out a false alarm. Sometimes the alarm is warranted, but the rational part of me can't perceive the danger, like a dog owner shrugging when her dog appears to be barking at nothing. While it would be foolish to go ballistic every time I felt a bit hotheaded, it would be equally foolish to ignore these warning signals for the sake of politics and propriety.

Instead of letting my brain stew in a pressure cooker of someone else’s making, I am going to analyze my anger and pinpoint its sources. Once I have found the sources of my rage, I am going to write about them here, unless they are "personal."

One source of my anger is the idea that I'm not supposed to get angry.

4 Hour Party People

Last Saturday I was thrust into the decadent world that is the preschool birthday party circuit. In this hedonistic social whirl, there’s no such thing as extravagance when it comes to the kids. When it comes to conversation among the parents, no bodily function is taboo. Am I too square for this swinging scene?

While I was a bit overwhelmed, the birthday girl was perfectly comfortable in her sea of newly acquired Polly Pocket paraphernalia.