My First Guest Post

My co-writer on the currently-dormant (but not-quite-dead) SleepingPoliceman, jz, had a story to tell me recently. Being an occasional commenter in this space (as the simply monikered "Joseph"), jz knows the format of how I approach things. Since his re-entrenchment in the academic world has separated him from his blogging life, I wanted to give him the chance to get back out there with the first ever Awesome/Not Awesome Guest Post. (Sponsorship pending.)

I hope you enjoy.

From: jz
To: ptm

So last night I had my statistics final. About half and hour into the exam, the teacher announces to the class that none of the potential answers to question #24 were correct. Just do the problem, and show your work and he'll grade the question accordingly. Which was perfect timing, because I had been going over the question for about five minutes, trying to see what I'd done wrong and why my answer wasn't option A, B, C, or D (multiple choice exam).

A few minutes later, one of the students goes up to the front of the class to ask a question about #24. All the class hears is the teacher saying, "No, that's not right. I just did it, and the answer's not there. Go back and try it again. And just show your work."

The kid goes back to his desk. The teacher looks straight at me.

Professor: Did you do #24 yet?
Me: Yeah.
Professor: Let me see it.

So in front of the entire class, I had to get up and show the professor my exam so that the he could make sure his answer was correct.

We both had the same answer.

If the class didn't already hate me (my grades on each of the four exams in the class were: 96, 94, 97, and 97), they certainly did after that point.

Why I am awesome: the teacher and the entire class know that I fucking own statistics.

Why I am not awesome: turns out the kid was correct, and both the professor and I had made the exact same math mistake and the answer was, in fact, there all along.

When I'm Part Of The Problem

In general I hate when the media focuses on sensationalized "news" stories that, in the grand scheme, have nothing to do with anyone's life. The "missing blond kid du jour" kind of story and that sort of thing. But every once in a while, against my better instincts, I fall off my high horse and get completely sucked into one of them. For the past week, I've been really digging the "Craigslist attacks" stories coming out of Boston.

At first, it was a drag - a woman who was either a legit masseuse or a prostitute is shot in a fancy hotel, and we should care not because a desperate woman died but because of the sophisticated locale. There's nothing there except a garden variety murder and the kind of unnecessary fixation to stir up the class warrior inside me.

But then things got real interesting when the suspect turned out to be a young medical student. Who was engaged and had a wedding website. And who may or may not have had a gambling problem, and who may or may not have pronounced mood swings. And who, of course, definitely has the unswerving and potentially misguided support of his fiancee and family. (I can only hope that, if I were to ever be accused of a horrific series of crimes, my loved ones don't throw me under the bus and say something like, "Oh, yeah - he was always such an asshole. I'm not surprised one bit.)

Throw all that in with the details of stakeouts and email traces, and this is just a winner all around. It's like watching an episode Law & Order, except someone actually died and a few more people's lives were totally ruined in order to bring it to me. So, news media, while I normally hate you for blurring the line between news, entertainment and voyeurism, I just can't be mad at you this time. I'm too busy staying fixated on the latest developments to lament the death of journalistic integrity.

Why I Am Awesome: I'm a wonderful boy, just absolutely wonderful, and couldn't be better.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I'm just not right in the head, and you knew it, and probably other people did, too.

For Some Reason, They Never Released A "Game Man"

As Kotaku reminded me, twenty years ago today, Nintendo released the original Game Boy.

Which means that it's been about 19.5 years since I convinced various family members to pool their resources and get me one for Christmas.

Which further means that, given my current age, I've had this little piece of plastic around for two-thirds of my life.

Why I Am Awesome: I proved all those family members wrong when they said this would be a passing fad that I'd grow out of after a few months.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I've still never completed Gargoyle's Quest.

No Lotion Can Salve This

While going out and about in the city of angels recently, I ended up in a conversation with a friend-of-a-friend. (According to Facebook, he is actually my friend directly. However, since I have to this point only ever see him via a mutual acquaintance, I think describing him as a FOAF seems most accurate.) It was one of those situations where a big group of people standing around had broken off into a few different conversations, with he and I left on the outskirts. We had temporarily become like the remainder table at the wedding, the one made up of the three friends from work, the extra cousins, and the two guys from college who don't get along with anyone they actually know.

Our conversation began with the exchange of pleasantries. How was your day?, Yeah things have been good, oh man nice weather huh?, etc. It then somehow, naturally but randomly, got to this point:

Him: How old are you again?

Me: I'm 30.

Him: Really? Huh. You don't look 30.

Me: Thanks, it's because I moisturize.

Laughter, a decent joke, well played and timed. Nothing too remarkable, but solid. Then, after the awkward silence of "what the hell else do we have to say to each other?" fell over us for a few seconds:

Me (cont): Yeah. I do. It helps the skin.

Him: Yeah, it definitely does.

Me: I didn't realize, how...uh. How much it would. Until...but, it's good.

Him: Yeah.

Me: Yeah.

Why I Am Awesome: I no longer have dry, flaky facial skin.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I continue to have conversations that make me feel like an awkward 8th grader trying to pick up the girl with big boobs at the school dance.

Laying The Groundwork For This Summer's Decrease In Blog Posts

Yesterday, I met with the professor who will serve as my adviser for my thesis preparation work. She will work with me over the course of the summer as I figure out the idea(s) for my book, flesh them out, and get about 50 pages into a first draft.

Why I Am Awesome: I have no idea what it's going to be about, but, holy shit, I'm totally going to write a novel.

Why I Am Not Awesome: Holy shit, I totally have to write a novel, and I have no idea what it's going to be about.

We Did Not Use Enhanced Recording Techniques

Included in the monthly rent for our new apartment is a full boat package of DirecTV. (I only just now, after years of commercials, noticed that there's only one T in there. Huh.) Part of this glorious celebration of televised goodness: my very first DVR. The potential for recording countless episodes of mindless television shows and movies to completely destroy my life will be examined at a later date, provided my life has not been, up to that point, destroyed.

Once we had everything all hooked up, the TV watching started. And, lo, it was glorious. Until the screen made a little popping sound and text came up telling us that the channel was about to change. But, uhh, we're knee-deep in an episode of Tough Love - you can't deny us our trash escapism.

Turns out the reason for this interruption was that the DVR still retained all the settings of the previous tenants of our place. Before we moved in, our landlord had told us that these people had spent all their time smoking weed with the blinds drawn. They were so filthy that in 11 months they put six years of wear on the brand new carpet, what with the footprints and the cigarette burns and the soy sauce stains. So it was not surprising that the DVR looked like the lineup for a stoner marathon: South Park, Adult Swim cartoons, and a bevy of random nature shows. (Do you know how many episodes of the Simpsons aired on L.A. television in the past month? Almost a hundred. It's a popular show.)

Going through the season pass settings and the shows still in the library, I felt like I was intruding somehow. Sure, when we agree to have a piece of technology controlled by a third party record and save things for us, we know that some stranger might see it. I'm just not used to being that stranger, eavesdropping in on someone else's life. And judging that life. Don't forget the sweet, sweet judging.

Why I Am Awesome: I'm a great tenant, and I treat all floor-coverings with respect.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I replaced those admittedly great cartoon shows with CBS sitcoms. I'm apparently 45-59 years old.

These Changes Always Hinge On Something

Before heading home tonight, I went into the main campus library to get some work done. I sat down at one of the tables in the East Asian Library (which has the best mix of quiet areas and available outlets, in my ever so humble opinion). When opening up my computer, I thought, "Huh, that's weird. Why does the monitor feel so loose?"

The answer: because the right hinge on the laptop had somehow separated from the keyboard base. Not fully broken, but definitely damaged. The computer is almost four years old and has been, shall we say, "quirky" for the better part of the past year. Given this latest development, it looks like I need to seriously explore the market for a new laptop.

Why I Am Awesome: I might become a Mac person.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I might become a Mac person.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

As part of my whirlwind tour of seeing friends and family during my time back home, I arranged to spend some time last night Olde Magoun's Saloon, a bar in Somerville. It's a spacious place, and they serve amazing fries. Highly recommended if you are in the area.

Besides being centrally located to a lot of people I know, it was also chosen because when I worked in the area I had spent many a day there, during lunch and after-work hours. How much time did I spend there, you ask? Well, mind you, I have spent a total of about 20 days on the east coast since mid-August. This was my second time in the establishment since I stopped working at my local job in late July. I haven't set foot in there since mid-December.

When I walked in and sat down last night, the waitress came up to me and said, "Diet Coke and fries, right? And did you get a haircut?"

Why I Am Awesome: It's nice to be remembered.

Why I Am Not Awesome: Utter predictability.

The Third In The Trilogy Usually Disappoints

As referenced earlier, we moved out of our old apartment over the past few days. We finished around 5pm on Friday; at 6pm we left to go to the airport to fly to Boston for a long weekend. This puts us in the awkward position of coming back home on Tuesday and going to a "home" we've never lived in. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. (It will probably be the bridge over Glendale Blvd, when 1st Ave becomes Beverly.)

Because we moved, there will no longer be any stories centered around the building elevator, which has come up once or twice before. As a parting gift, I present to you the picture of the big red sign that hangs in the elevator. I read every day I lived there, and every day it amused me.

[NOTE: I have to figure out the best way to upload this picture. Once I do so, you'll be able to see what I'm talking about. I'll try to not leave you hanging for too long. See what I mean about disappointment?]

[NOTE II: I think I got it.]

[NOTE III: I don't got it.]


Why I Am Awesome: I never had to push the button marked "alarm."

Why I Am Not Awesome: In an emergency, I would have become alarmed.

One Ticket, Not To Paradise

When I got back to my car after leaving class Thursday evening, I found a parking ticket on it. I found this strange, as I have a valid parking pass for the garage I was in. So, what the hell?

Turns out that I got a $50 ticket for parking over the double lines in my spot. I looked and, OK, I was technically parked over the lines. By about two and a half inches. That's about ten dollars per half inch.

The ticket also smugly (and loudly, I guess) states that "PHOTOS WERE TAKEN" of the incident. Standing in the garage, I wondered out loud if photos were taken of the white Mazda that had been parked in the spot next to mine, the one parked so crooked I had no choice but to park my car the way I did. Did that guy (or gal) get a ticket? Or am I alone paying out of pocket to cover his (or her) crappy parking job?

I was unhappy.

Why I Am Awesome: I have drafted a letter to send to the university parking department along with my check, letting them know how I feel about the situation, and stating that I look forward to the first time someone from the alumni association calls me asking for a donation to the school. I will tell them no, and I will explain that it is because I already donated fifty dollars unnecessarily to this place.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I'm only going to send the check.

Such as "Today he became a True Angel"

Last night, Nick Adenhart, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim), died in a car accident. Two other people died with him. The driver of the other car involved apparently has a long history of drunk driving, and had had his license revoked.

The accident happened about a few hours after the end of the best start of the 22 year old's young career, pitching six scoreless innings in a game the Angels ultimately lost.

Apparently about 36 people died yesterday due to drunk driving. More people died needlessly in the world thanks to war, genocide, guns, drugs, domestic violence, etc etc. Nevertheless, there's something especially gut-punching about some kid who had it all at 7:05pm and lost it all less than six hours later. Especially in the unfortunately rare circumstance when it was completely and totally not his fault.

Why I Am Awesome: I am the permanent designated driver.

Why I Am Not Awesome: Despite the sadness of the incident, I still laughed at the gallows humor.

We Will Likely Use Large Trash Bags Too

This week we move to a new apartment. The time-frame for this move developed a while ago - Lisa's contract (mercifully) ends tomorrow, so our free housing runs out on Saturday. We've had a lease on the new place for a few weeks now. We set up furniture there a while back and have it all ready to go once we get our stuff over there.

(Full disclosure: Lisa set the furniture up. I lifted things when necessary, and mainly stayed out of the way by reading a book on the new couch.)

The issue now is getting our stuff over there. Because the stuff remains scattered throughout the current apartment. Sure, we said during the past few weeks, "Well, we have access to the new place; we'll just move stuff over there a little at a time and it won't be a big hassle at the end." Yeah. We didn't do that. And it's the end.

So for the next few days, we will frantically throw together duffel bags and boxes full of random shit we've collected in the past three months. And we'll make a bunch of trips from the Los Feliz humongo apartment complex to the quaint little Echo Park house to dump stuff on our new carpets. All while we also battle class assignments, work commitments, application deadlines, and the looming Friday night appointment with a plane back east to Boston. We'll get it done; but a certain degree of whining and squabbling will be prominently featured.

Why I Am Awesome: I've done a little bit more packing than Lisa has. Even minor victories are still victories.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I keep forgetting I still have to do my taxes too. Dammit.

Someone Said Something About Sausages

Last night, I went to an event at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The event had readings, video displays, DJ sets, and two cash bars. The night explored a special exhibit about Germany in the Cold War. People I know read their poetry and prose to a crowd of arty people who could pose for pictures in a fake igloo or a giant pair of lips. I enjoyed myself.

Why I Am Awesome: I go to art museums.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I almost never go to art museums.

I Preferred The Comfort Of The Lie

At the university where I work, like the last university where I worked (the cycle remains unbroken), two barrels sit by each desk. On the right, your standard office gray, with a green trash bag in it. As the name of the bag might indicate, trash goes into this one. To the left, the other one is a July-sky blue, more brashly advertising its use: a big white triangle of arrows above even bigger white letters spelling R-E-C-Y-C-L-E. In smaller letters underneath: "...paper only..."

(Which does not stand as a demand to only recycle paper. But that you shouldn't put plastic and cans and whatever in there. They, instead, go in the green bins, of which there are approximately zero around campus. Unless you have a copy of the student newspaper in your hand and want to get rid of it; then you have green bins swarming around you like narcs at a Dead concert, with nary a blue bin in sight.)

I like having the barrels. It helps provide a small bit of order and sense in a usually chaotic situation. And you can feel good about yourself, because every day you do a little bit to help save the world. Maybe we're just rolling the rock uphill, but at least we aren't Sisyphus' jerky friends who just stayed at the bottom of the hill, smoking and littering.

The other day, I got to work earlier than usual. The janitor, who I usually never see, came by while my computer booted up. She smiled and we exchanged some light pleasantries. As we did so, she picked up the gray barrel by my desk and dumped the contents into her big bin of trash. She put the gray one down, picked up the blue one - and dumped all its paper into the same bin. She smiled again and rolled the bin down the hall, heading out to empty every other color-coded pair into the same place.

Why I Am Awesome: Despite having my faith in humanity, society, and College Recycling Services completely shaken, I continue to put all paper products in its proper blue receptacle. My silent protests will encourage them to amend their ways; eventually, they will see the effort people put forward and will start actually recycling the contents of the recycle bins.

Why I Am Not Awesome: That's completely delusional.

History Through A Pillow

I don't sleep normal hours. When I announced earlier this week that I would head to bed early, I went under the covers at 1:30am. And that is early.

On most days, I stay up until around 3 in the morning. Which is fine - I like being awake at night, working and reading when most around are still and quiet. It's less fine when I have to get up at 8 the next morning to go to work.

Because of my immature desire to not let the "real world" stop me from doing what I want to do (have I really changed that much from the four year old kid who wanted to stay up to watch Dukes Of Hazzard every Friday night?), I end up napping. At least once a week, in the late afternoon/early evening hours, upon arriving back home after a medium-length day of work, I catch up on two or so hours of sleep.

Today, while the sun shone in the late afternoon sky, and the pool outside and the park nearby called out to me, as the collected pent-up energy of a week teetered at the edge of the weekend release, when I had the time to do anything I wanted to in this new city I yearn to explore, I napped. If I had been a kitten in a hammock, I would have looked like this:

(yes, I can haz nap. easyart.co.uk)

Two and a half hours of time I will never get back. Restful, yes, and very refreshing. But, to a degree, somewhat regret-inducing. At least until I hit up a German beer garden to celebrate a friend's birthday and I forget all about my time-wasting ways.

Why I Am Awesome: While I slumbered, another state legalized gay marriage.

Why I Am Not Awesome: Last November 4th, I stayed awake all day.

The Best Arguments For Random Sequence Generators

While driving the streets and freeways of Los Angeles in the last few months, I have seen the following California license plates:

1. "2-VETT-4-U"
This was on a Corvette. It was not a classic Corvette. A recent model whatever-style Corvette. Which means this lived up to its billing: it was, indeed, too much Corvette for me.

2. "GREG-[Heart]S-DAWN"
(Where [Heart] is an actual heart symbol. On the license plate. An official state license plate.)
That's very cute. It will be less cute when a serial killer easily lures Greg and/or Dawn into his white van by addressing them by name. Why would you want any complete stranger to immediately and without question know what to legally call you? And these aren't just any complete strangers; these are L.A.-based drivers cruising the freeways. You should guard your anonymity with complete vigilance.

3. "[Heart]S-2-Wax"
I honestly don't know if this means that this woman really enjoys her Brazilian-y job at a salon, or if she prided herself in maintaining her body follicle-free. Long shot candidate: she was in the tub yet was neither a butcher nor a baker.

4. "I-[Heart]-LRH"
I won't disparage you for being a Scientologist and following the teachings of Dr. Hubbard. (At least not publicly.) But, really, I think it's time for us to collectively re-think the idea of allowing a heart symbol on required vehicular identification tags. No good comes out of it.

Why I Am Awesome: I will never, ever have a vanity license plate.

Why I Am Not Awesome: In Massachusetts, I paid extra for special Red Sox state plates. Which is as obnoxious as having a vanity plate, but without displaying any of the latter's individual creativity.

(the following image courtesy of CALPL8S.com, a site that is not part of the solution)

Elevator Action

Continuing our theme of things that occur in my building's lifts, this past Saturday evening I saw a note posted in the south elevator of our building. I must admit that I sadly did not record the exact text, but the following approximates it reasonably well:

Hello ladies,
We are two men in our 20s who have just moved here from Indianapolis. We are lonely and have no plans for tonight.
If any females are interested in hanging out, please contact us.
*names*
*apartment number*
*phone numbers*
*email addresses

This note was written on a torn-out piece of notebook paper, and posted next to the floor number buttons in the elevator. With duct tape.

Did it work? Did this missive ensare any hapless, lonely females in the building who have a thing for desperate mid-western men? As of now, I don't know. But I just staple gunned a notecard to the alarm button asking what ended up happening. I'll update you when I get a response.

Why I Am Awesome: Unlike these two zeroes, I don't damage my soul rooting for a team led by the insufferable Peyton Manning.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I have not found a way to get a referral bonus for pointing sad, pathetic men in the direction of Craig's List.

A Pursed Incident

When Lisa headed down to her car to meet her friend for lunch today, she forgot that she had left her credit card in a different purse. Because I have a history of never being able to find anything in even the smallest of her handbags, it made the most sense for me to just bring her whole purse down to the garage after she called requesting plastic delivery.

As the elevator chugged to a halt on the second floor, halfway down my journey to the garage, I realized the sight that whoever came on board would see: me, wearing a white t-shirt, red shorts, and slippers, leaning against the wall with unwashed hair and half-asleep eyes, a gold Coach bag clutched to my side. Sure enough, the lady who came on gave a very subtle double take, her second one lingering on my temporary man-bag. I almost explained the situation, but didn't for fear that excuse making only would make it look weirder. I just kept my lips shut. An awkward silence hung the rest of the ride down.

Why I Am Not Awesome: despite a generally progressive and forward-thinking world view, I still felt a strong desire to explain my non-traditional fashion accessory. I should have felt comfortable enough in my own identity to not even worry about it.

Why I Am Awesome: the bag totally matched my new yellow slippers.

The Flyer Remained Unforwarded

Tonight I will be doing my first reading. Not that this will be the first time I've read; I've been doing that since I was 4 or 5 years old. (Or 3, if that makes me sound like a baby that would hang out with Christopher Lloyd.) Nor will this be the first time I have performed in public. I've been in plays and I've taught classes. I'm performed improv to a crowd of over a thousand people.

But this will be my first public performance-type reading of a piece that I have written. It's going to be strange to so openly and nakedly present my work. Not something that I came up with on the spot, or interpreted through someone else, or a vague lesson plan I'm trying to get through. But my words and thoughts and ideas, constructed in what I apparently think to be the best possible way to get them across.

To be honest, I feel some serious trepidation. But I know it will go fine. I'll be as excited and happy about it afterward as I was nervous beforehand. And next time, when I do one of these things, I'll have this experience to recall and bring to the table. When I go next time, I'll enjoy it more. And next time I might even tell people about it more than a few hours before it starts.

Why I Am Awesome: I've got all the voices down and the story flows nicely when I practice it. I'm gonna kill it when I get up there.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I'm still bringing out the "crowd of 1,000 people" line even though that happened almost a decade ago and they were freshmen required to be there. I need to get over myself.

Something To Make Us All Happy

Tomorrow evening, I will attend my fantasy baseball draft. Except I won't really. For the first time in the five year history of this particular league, I'm not on the same coast as the other members. I will participate via an online chat.

As always, I do not feel prepared for this draft. And as always, I will be really happy with my team once I've chosen it. And, again, as always, I will hate it within 30 minutes.

While cosmically unimportant, I put a lot of weight on how my team does. Yes, it's just a compilation of statistics from a bunch of random players on teams I don't care about. But it's a fun social distraction, a chance to banter and bitch and have fun with some of my friends. It's a good part of my life, and I'm always glad when everyone gets together because of it.

Except this year, I won't be there. Sure, I'm glad for the L.A. Adventure I'm having. Sometimes, though, I miss things from back home, and wish I could easily transport myself back there. Alas, science continues to fail me in that regard, and I will stay stuck here.

So tomorrow night I will boot up an online chat and curse quietly yet forcefully as my laptop continually drops my wireless connection. It will be a good time spent with good friends. But it won't be the same.

Why I Am Awesome: With a championship and three semi-final appearances in the past five years, I have shown that I am quite adept at running a fake baseball team.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I occasionally cannibalize my material.

Actually, I Got Them All Cut

On my way home from work today, I stopped in at Rudy's and got a haircut.

Why I Am Awesome: I look fly.

Why I Am Not Awesome: At the end, there was enough hair scattered around my chair to make three Trump toupees.

Would "Detailitated" Be More Accurate?

While on the aforementioned trip to San Diego, I got to get my first experience of their world-renowned zoo. I was especially excited about going because I hoped to see at least one animal that had been on the Tonight Show. If it's been on television, it must be famous!

I, of course, had a really great time. The place is huge, and there are tons of ridiculous animals there. I saw a gorilla mom holding its baby, camels nuzzling, and something that looked like a weird half-pig/half-deer. (That may have been a holdover fever dream, though.) It's such a sprawling experience, we spent almost five hours there and somehow missed the giraffes and the elephants. And those are big animals to miss.

The two biggest highlights:

1. Seeing the cuddly panda bear wandering dope-ily around his enclosure in front of a hushed crowd of huddled spectators - and then watching him stop, look up at us, and poop. (Panda poop is bright yellow, by the way. Must be all the bamboo.)

2. The random grotesque sight of a decapitated / shedded lizard tail flopping around on the sidewalk. The stump was still bloody, and it twisted and twirled in its death throes. This was right in front of the camel enclosure, with no lizard displays around. I have no idea where it came from. (I have a video of it on my camera - when I figure out how to upload it, I'll add it here. I promise.)

Why I Am Awesome: In my continuing battle to overcome my fear of heights, I rode the somewhat rickety Skyfari with relatively little complaint. Victory will be mine.

Why I Am Not Awesome: The money I spent on ticket purchases pays for animals to be imprisoned and traded, not rescued and rehabilitated. Or so I've been told.

Thanks, Lots

Lisa and I took a trip down to San Diego this weekend. (Sadly, I did not utilize a for-hire vehicle designed by Knight Industries.) Because she was working during the day Thursday, we didn't leave L.A. until almost 9:30pm. That led to an 11pm arrival in "America's Finest City."

The late hour and the not-insubstantial drive left me susceptible to crankiness. This came into play when we pulled up to the entrance to the two self-parking lots for our hotel. The setup was simple: press button, get ticket, gate rises. Thank you, now go park your car.

So I drove up to the machine and pressed the button. A brief whirring, and out rolls the ticket. Grab the ticket and start moving the car forward. The gate, however, does not move. Another car has moved in behind me already, so I can't back up and try again. This leaves me stuck with nowhere to go, trapped with a useless ticket in my hand.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I may have loudly spent a few minutes turning into a totally crazy conspiracy theorist, loudly blaming Marriott for intentionally using a faulty device to force us to pay extra for valet parking. I may have made this argument to the valet who was trying to help us.

Why I Am Awesome: L.A. to S.D. in an hour and a half? I drive to win.

Has "Anti-Social Networking" Become A Cliche Yet?

Tonight, I logged onto my Facebook account for the first time in almost two days.

Why I Am Awesome: I don't need to constantly check my online profiles in order to feel validated as a human being.

Why I Am Not Awesome: My friends, family and random acquaintances had to go almost 46 hours without a single update on my status.

A Shadowy Flight Into The Dangerous World Of Livery Vehicles

While riding down the 5 south of Los Angeles at night, on an empty stretch of road where only headlights illuminate, I noticed a blue taxi cab. Across the trunk, in faded letters that almost looked like a whisper, was written a name: Knight Rider Taxi.

I immediately imagined myself stepping up to the front of a taxi stand and the theme song surrounding me. I saw a hack triggering oil slicks and turbo boosts to survive the freeway. I pictured rides to LAX that began with a soothing Mr. Feeney voice greeting me with, "Good morning, Michael." I wanted us to drive ahead quickly, so I could look over my shoulder to try to make out a red whoosh-whoosh "scan bar" in the front.

I didn't have the chance, though. Almost as soon as I saw it, the KITT cab turned toward an exit ramp and was gone.

Why I Am Awesome: I may have caught a fleeting glimpse at something kept secret to the general public: basically, the greatest cab in the history of all private hire vehicles.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I succumbed to Google's temptation and destroyed the illusion for us all.

Not-stalgia

When I was a kid, I played video games.¹ I spent way too many hours playing on my Nintendo Entertainment System. Here's how nerdy I was about it, and how far removed we all were from the internet age: there was an 800 number you could call that, if you waited through a long pre-recorded message, would lead to a Nintendo of America representative who could look up information for you. I would call semi-regularly in order to ask when new games were coming out. The thought of a wiki list of upcoming releases would have blown my mind.

In 1991, after I had enjoyed the hell out of my NES for a few years, the word came out that a new system would be coming out: the Super NES. Since everyone knows "super = better," people were hyped up for this. It was going to launch with a new Mario game, entitled Super Mario World. And it would have face-melting 16 bit graphics like this:

(hat-tip to ps3gamelist.com, a PlayStation site that for some reason has this Nintendo image. I apologize if your face has suffered any harm from seeing this.)

I, however, was realistic, and knew that I would likely not be able to convince my parents to outlay some cash for a whole new system when I had a perfectly functional one up in my room. That's fine, I thought - I'll just get the watered down NES version of the game.

Then I spent about 16 minutes on the phone one day, waiting to ask someone when the NES Mario World would come out. And some guy in Seattle told me, "Uh, never." To get the new Mario, you had to get the new system. Feeling this was completely unfair, I wrote off Nintendo and Mario games for 16 years.²

After all these years, I have buried the hatchet. Using my Nintendo Wii, I paid eight dollars to download Super Mario World. I sat down and spent today exploring the Donut Plains and Yoshi's Island, spin jumping and cape-feathering, enjoying the revolutionary (for 1991) parallax scrolling.

I don't know if you can feel nostalgic for something you never actually had as a child. But if I could go back to that smaller me ending a sad phone call to Nintendo from my parents' kitchen, I can tell him that we finally got to play this game.

Why I Am Awesome: I never got shaken down for a Super NES. Principles: stuck to.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I am terrible at this game. I ran into a shell-less Koopa twice within the first two minutes of playing. Really, just embarrassing.


¹ I do not mean for that statement to imply that I no longer play video games just because I'm older. In fact, you would already know that if you read the full post instead of jumping down to this footnote.

² Even from a young age, I had a very particular belief in consumer fairness when it came to my toys. I swore off Transformers after there was a TV ad that, I felt, encouraged kids to steal toys from their friends. And at the age of 5 I was banned from FAO Schwartz in downtown Boston for standing in the main aisle and telling customers what suburban stores had better prices on action figures. I was like the Ralph Nader of cheap plastic trinkets.

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Basic Human Necessity: Conquered

I may have previously been a little too cocky about my presumed victory over illness. After that post, I found myself unable to sleep. Lying down led to a vicious cough that kept me from rest.

Eventually, I slumbered for 45 minutes by sitting in a living room chair with a blanket wrapped around me. After that, it was time to wake up and face a full day. Work at 9am straight through a class which ends at 10pm. I should have been completely wrecked by the end of the day - coming off an illness, getting next-to-no sleep, and carrying on living the up-tempo, swingin' life that I lead.

Yet, when I was parking the car (the furthest away I've ever had to, natch) tonight, I felt strangely calm, and not all that tired. While I had every right to just collapse upon getting inside, instead I opened up the computer to tool around online for a bit. Heading to bed did not stand out as a top priority.

Why I Am Awesome: I have evolved past the need for sleep. I am better than such trifling matters now.

Why I Am Not Awesome: .... Nope, there's no downside here. I truly have moved beyond all human understanding, become one of the greatestzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Out Here They Could Call It A Slightly-Chilly

After circling around me for about three weeks, causing a little extra fatigue here and there, the occasional headache, and some extra morning nasal congestion, the cold finally pounced on me yesterday. Which isn't really that surprising. While I don't consider myself to be particularly sickly, I recognize that every once in a while I'm going to get sick. I usually have to deal with a cold or two as the winter months progress.

(I do know people that consider their immune systems impenetrable to illness. They're the kind of people who would show up at work with 103 degree fevers and insist they just had the heat up too high in their car. They, in turn, got everyone around them sick due to their stubbornness. This would be fine, if they didn't then turn around and say that anyone who got sick in their wake was "weak" for letting an illness affect them. These people are jerks.)

The strange thing about this was the context. I've never gotten a winter cold when living in a place that has no winter. Sorry, Angelinos, but having to wear a sweater because it dips into the 50s at night doesn't cut it. It felt strange stumbling out of bed at 1:30pm today to see blue sky and palm trees still existing outside my window. Maybe I had just had a good run through the fall and early "winter" months - but I think part of me really thought that by avoiding snow and slush, I would sidestep these annual bouts of infirmity.

Alas, that was not to be. So Tuesday morning I banged in the day at work and slept until 12:30pm. Then I went to bed at 11 (you may not know that's early if you haven't yet received a nocturnal email from me) and slept for 14 and a half hours. In the meantime, I spent my waking hours zoned out in a Snuggie, watching random soccer matches, World Baseball Classic games, and reruns of various Vh1 countdown shows. I felt so lethargic, I didn't even get around to completing a shower for over 60 hours.

(In my defense on that point, I started to bathe myself Tuesday morning, but it was showerus interruptus because my building shut off the water mid-day to do some maintenance. Just my luck.)

My throat remains scratchy and if I take too deep a breath I start coughing - but I think we're on the downslope of this thing. Thanks to copious amounts of DayQuil, Zicam and special deliveries of Yogurtland by Lisa. Hopefully, I've successfully served my Sick Duty for the season, and can avoid a relapse. If I don't, well, cable and the Snuggie are always there for me.

Why I Am Not Awesome: Given that I had two solid days with all mundane commitments pushed aside due to this cold, I could have gotten a solid chunk of work done on my various writing projects. Instead I loafed around and accomplished nothing. Sure, I have the mild illness itself as an excuse. Nevertheless, I find that I never spend as much time as I should dedicated to doing that which I want to dedicate myself to (if that makes sense). Somehow, it's too easy for me to kill time instead of being productive. I've gotten better at this, but it remains an issue I have to consciously deal with in order to improve myself.

Why I Am Awesome: I rooted for Liverpool, Netherlands and Josh - everyone I support wins! I also took a shower tonight, which is awesome for us all.

Patterns

A blogging compatriot mentioned to me recently that she didn't like the structure of the posts in this blog. "You put the 'Not Awesome' sections at the end," she said. "I walk away with a negative impression. I think it might be better for everyone involved if you put the 'Not Awesome' stuff first and closed the post with the 'Awesome.'"

Why I Am Not Awesome: I bristled at this recommendation. Didn't she see that I have clearly established a pattern here, and that to break it would be to ruin the whole structure of this endeavor? I then spent a few minutes inside my head, conversing with myself about how such a drastic change, even just once in a while, would destroy the central integrity of my blog, eventually vowing to never do as she had suggested.

Why I Am Awesome: Sometimes I'm flexible.

If Plants Had Emotions, They'd Feel Fear

At one of my previous jobs, I sat at a cubicle. Actually, at almost all of my past workplaces I have been in a cubicle. Sometimes I've been at an actual hardwood desk, but out in the open along with everyone else around me. Once I actually had an office, with a door that closed, a window that opened and a thermostat that worked. Then the people in charge of the building realized I had an office and they kicked me out so a tenured professor could move in there. I ended up in another cubicle.

But I'm thinking of a particular cubicle. It was the middle one in a row of three cubes. Undergraduate student workers sat in the one in front of me, running interference with anyone who wandered into our office from the main lobby. The cube behind mine nominally also sat waiting for a student employee to work on "special projects." But since we never had anything special to do, it mainly held reams of paper and boxes of Starbucks grounds for the nearby coffee machine. To my right, a row of tall gray file cabinets, all of them holding sensitive information on individual students, none of them locked because no one knew how to fix the electronic combinations. To my left, a bare blank wall.

Into this cubicle came a cactus. A co-worker friend (thankfully, I had a lot of friends amongst my co-workers) gave it to me as a birthday present. Or maybe a Christmas present. Or maybe it had just been on sale and she bought one for me. I don't really remember. But she got it for me, and I set it up in my cubicle. It looked a lot like this:

(image courtesy of Desert Canyon Gifts, which is not where my friend bought my cactus)

I really liked having it around. It was a pleasant little green beacon on top of the yellow-brown formica desk where I kept my stacks of gray folders. (I'm not exaggerating the drabness here - the branch of the department I worked for had gray colored files. Other people worked with the purple, red or green cases. I had the gray ones.)

I didn't have much access to anything that you could classify as not "office oppressive." Fluorescent light twitched above me all day. The nearest window peeked out of the conference room door to the right of the front student cubicle. Having the cactus gave me a little dose of nature, without all the pressure of something you have to take too much care of. The little instructions card stuck in the dirt it came in said to water it once a week. So I did, every Thursday at 2pm. I set up a reminder on my Outlook calendar and everything. What could go wrong?

After a few months, a small brown spot appeared on one of the folds. It didn't seem like a big deal, I didn't pay much attention to it. After a week, it grew bigger. It looked like I had a battle-damaged cactus. Nevertheless, I still didn't think it was a problem. Plants get things on them all time, and eventually they go away. Besides, a cactus can live in the desert for decades - surely it can survive a stretch of time in my field of gray.

Once the third splotch had appeared and the needles started to sag, I began asking people around the office for their opinion. "That don't look right," was the general consensus. Everyone agreed that they had never seen anything like it. No one had any ideas what I should do to fix it. I kept watering it every Thursday, hoping that regular hydration would allow it to gather its strength and overcome its situation.

During my cactus' final week, it slowly collapsed upon itself, like a poorly made souffle. By the last day, it lay deflated, almost completely flat in its pot. I honestly don't know what's inside of a healthy cactus, but whatever it was had rotted away. Its vibrant green completely replaced by ugly brown. You could barely tell where the dirt ended and the cactus began. Knowing we had gone beyond the point of no return, I unceremoniously dumped it into the trash can next to my desk. I never got another companion, plant or animal, to help spruce up that drab cubicle.

Why I Am Awesome: Someone thought of me while doing some horticultural shopping and picked up a gift to help brighten my day. Such a gesture seems small, but I'm lucky to have people who think of me and do nice things for me.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I killed a cactus. This was a plant designed to live in the harshest of conditions that nature can concoct. Death Valley can't kill cacti, but I can. Just remember this if you ever ask me to pet- or baby-sit.

Dead In Your Tracks

Out at a local bar recently, Beyonce's song "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)" started playing. This prompted every single woman in the establishment to whoop and leap to their feet. Pushing aside the small-hat hipsters and the tattoo-ed bouncer/empty-glass-picker-upper, they rushed to the middle of the bar to create a makeshift dancefloor. Once there, they flung their bodies around, drunkenly trying to re-enact the choreography from the video. They were generally unsuccessful, though they did get a lot of the hand gestures down.

In the moment, my friends and I had three sequential reactions. The first was to question whether this song was going to replace "I Will Survive" as the tune that galvanizes all the unattached women and gets them to stand in a cluster on the dance floor shouting along loudly. The second was to question the songs central thesis. (You should put a ring on it if you love it; if you only like it, you should just stop sleeping around with other people.)

The third was to discuss the hotness of the aforementioned (and aforelinked) video. Surely, it is a well done clip, and one that must have been successful on whatever television outlet that still plays music videos. But while Single Ladies hypnotizes you, it doesn't have the power to stop you dead, demanding you do nothing but pay attention to it.

We talked about this for twenty solid minutes. The consensus examples we came up with:


Chris Isaak - Wicked Game
(Does anyone even remember that Chris Isaak is also in this video?)


Britney Spears - ...Baby One More Time
(Remember when finding school girls attractive wasn't OK?)


Beyonce - Crazy In Love
(Back when this came out, this video not only stopped a conversation between myself and a friend of mine, but when the song was over we couldn't remember what we had been talking about.)

D'Angelo - Untitled (How Does It Feel)
(This one caused every straight woman and gay man I knew to completely lose their mind.)

Now, could we have brought up more artistic videos, or ones with a better thematic consistency, or even classic ones from our childhood days? Of course. But these have just too much raw sexual power, in a way that make you unable to be distracted even when you just hear the tracks on the radio. And that's an even stronger legacy than bringing all the adamantly unattached women together on the dance floor.

Why I Am Awesome: I suggested and pushed for the D'Angelo song, because I didn't want the conversation to be completely heteronormative and sexist. Plus, I've given you all these videos in one place, so you can enjoy them without having to do any more work.

Why I Am Not Awesome: Despite such intentions, there's no way that such a conversation can't be deemed sexist. Discussing what fits into the upper echelon of videos automatically reverts to choosing what clips best objectify people, especially women. There's something inherently demeaning in this exercise. In other words, I'm part of the problem.

A Poor Seating Layout Brought It To This Point

I went to dinner yesterday evening with Dave, a friend of mine who is visiting L.A. for the week. We went to a restaurant in Los Feliz called Home. Seeing as how that morning he had woken up in 10 degree weather in D.C., he thought it would be fun to sit outside. The extensive availability of patio dining is a unique feature of southern California living that I had never expected. Not to say it lacks logic; it makes perfect sense. I just never pieced together the fact that constantly temperate weather, combined with well placed propane heat lamps, would allow for increased al fresco opportunities.

The seemingly-stoned waiter waved vaguely at the area around him. "Anywhere you like." In response Dave and I bounded across the patio, looking for the best of the surprisingly diverse options. High stools? Low table? Curvy booth! Curvy booth always wins.

The problem: the only curvy booth available was in the corner of the patio, right next to a small table where a lone man sat reading a Philip K. Dick book. That in and of itself isn't a problem - there's no shame in dining alone, and what kind of person hasn't read Do Androids Dream In Electric Sheep? No, the issue stemmed from the fact that neither Dave nor I realized that once we sat down at the booth we would be practically hovering over this guy. His chair, not pushed back remarkably far from his table, stood almost flush against the side of Dave's booth seat.

While recognizing the potential awkwardness, Dave and I acted as we would normally. Which means conversing about life fragments both critical and banal. And our volume - well, neither of us frequently get asked, "Can you speak up? I couldn't hear you." As we got into a perfectly acceptable, PG-rated conversation, the guy shot a glance, but didn't say a word. After a few minutes, he called the waitress over, asked if he could move, trundled up his bag, book and beverage and moved to a small empty table near the patio's central fountain.

While I had a good time and really enjoyed seeing Dave, I spent the rest of the meal thinking about how this had shaken down. Which is sort of stupid. I mean, so what? We weren't being rude. We didn't arrange the tables this way. And this was the only curvy booth available. There were plenty of two-person low tables for the picking. If we bothered him (and we did), he could just move (and he did). No big deal.

But then again, I couldn't help wanting to apologize. All this guy wanted was to read his science fiction and have a quiet meal in peace. Instead, he got shuffled out of his chair and displaced across the patio. Sure, he could just slide back into his book after a couple of minutes of internal fuming - but I still felt bad that I had interfered with his solitude. We all have moments when the last thing we want is someone intruding into your life.

I spend more than enough time complaining about jerks acting jerky, reciting laments of how their random jerkitude ruined something for me. On this hip L.A. patio on this particular March night, with absolutely no intention whatsoever, I felt that I had become the person that I complain about. And that's unfortunate, no matter how good the waffle fries were.

Why I Am Awesome: The fact that I spent any mental energy feeling bad for this guy and wondering if I had committed some sort of passive offense in this situation shows that I have more empathy and self-awareness than most people. Also, he moved and I didn't, and I got to enjoy a curvy booth. Two points for ptm.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I have never read Do Androids Dream In Electric Sheep?

A Very Particular Set Of Skills

Over the weekend, myself and a few of the nearest and dearest gathered together to watch a fun cinematic romp called Taken. For those not aware of the plot, you can pretty much get the entire thrust of it from the trailer:

(the trailer is slightly better without the the annoying pop-up ads.)

Usually, I'm indifferent to these types of movies. But I found myself completely sold on this movie from the first time I saw that trailer on a TV screen in the lobby of a movie theater (because, apparently, we can't travel more than 100 feet without having something projected at us). I mean, how can you say no? First off, you have Liam Neeson filling the Steven Seagal role. The trailer hints (and the movie confirms) that this gave Neeson the chance to do some respected-actor-genre-movie-slumming and have fun with it.

(As opposed to the respected-actor-genre-movie-slumming he did in Phantom Menace, which only provided him with months spent in front of a green screen followed by a lifetime of having to curse silently to himself everytime a fanboy approaches him and earnestly says, "Qui-Gon, man. Qui-Gon.")

In addition to affording us the chance to watch Oskar Schindler let loose and kick some ass, the movie also promised a clear, defined thesis: "If you don't [let my daughter go], I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you." The entire plot and narrative thrust of the movie encapsulated in a sentence. Syd Field would be very proud.

Now, the movie has its negative points. Specifically, the potentially "borderline racist" depiction of Arabs. I don't know if I'd go right to the word "racist," but it does have some very cartoon-y portrayals of various Middle Eastern stereotypes. In addition, it goes without saying that the "white American breaks faces, tortures and kills to get the information he wants" / 24 vibe of the film is worth questioning in today's world.

The bigger issue for me was the "ZOMG THA WORLD IZ SCARRY!!!" vibe. I understand that, for plot purposes, the daughter has to get kidnapped once she decides to travel to Europe. (Otherwise, it's 90 minutes of Neeson smashing noses as he works his way up the Wal-Mart customer service chain to get a full refund on a busted karaoke machine.) Still, I figured she would travel to a couple of countries, or at least go see some sights in Paris. Nope - within 15 minutes of landing at Charles De Gaulle, she's scooped up. The movie made it look like customs had three lines: "E.U. Passports," "All Other Passports," and "White Girls Headed For Sex Slavery." The big takeaway? Never travel outside the U.S. or else you. Will. Die.

So perhaps xenophobia is the proper social disorder on display here. Still, it seems strange for "all non-Americans stink" to be the intended message, as almost every member of the behind-the-scenes creative team are from France themselves. There's no way the movie was set up to be a right-wing screed to scare off any potential Parisian visitors from leaving America. No, it's much more likely that this was an attempt to show American audiences why the French hate Algerians so much. Maybe that's why it doesn't feel so bad - when surrendering to entertainment through prejudice, at least have said prejudices be a different culture's.

Or maybe the dinner scene is just too great to let politics get in the way. I'll get back to you on that after I watch it again.

Why I Am Awesome: I am confident that I am not racist and that I fully support the quest for universal human rights.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I nevertheless enjoyed watching Liam Neeson jam electrodes into the legs of a "shifty Arab dude" and flick a light switch until he got the information he wanted. Looks like I might have to return my Amnesty International membership card.

I Am Becoming One Of Them

The other night, while driving home from campus, something happened. After it had happened, I said to the next person I talked to, "When I get home, I'm going to blog about this."

Why I Am Awesome: When I got home, I blogged about it.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I said, "When I get home, I'm going to blog about this."

Red Redone

(image courtesy of dasgamer.com, a website I've never been to.)

I'm not a musician, but I have no doubt that it's very difficult to pull together a finished album. You (individually or collectively) work for so long composing melodies, sketching lyrics, marrying elements, trial-and-erroring your way to three to five minutes you're satisfied with. And you have to then do that nine or more times to successfully generate enough material for an album. Not to mention the time and energy put into recording and mixing processes and all that other stuff that makes no sense to me. Figuring out how to order said material in the finished product must get only a fraction of the attention that every other element gets.

You probably know Weezer, even if you aren't into music made after 1980. They've had some pretty big hits and some stretches of pop culture relevance for 15 years now. If you have any affinity for them, you probably already know this basic timeline: two stellar albums in the 90s, band goes on sabbatical, comes back in 00s with four more albums. The reactions to the latter tend to vary between "very good" to "serviceable yet patchy" to "wretched."

As someone who is generally more forgiving of their later work, I picked up (if you can pick up an iTunes download) their most recent album, Weezer (aka The Red Album) (which would be their third self-titled/color coded release, making them the most successful alumni of the Peter Gabriel school of album naming). Though it felt like it should have been their strongest post-Pinkerton album, listening to it left me with a strong sense of "meh." A lot of it was great - a few really nice rock songs, and some more intricate (relatively) things that hearkened back to their heyday. But it didn't really hold together, with some songs not passing muster (I'm looking at you, Heart Songs and Everybody Get Dangerous) and Brian Bell's contribution leading to awkward and heart-breaking comparisons to Uncle Kracker.

Thankfully, I threw out the extra dollars in my purchase to get the expanded edition, which had five extra songs. In this batch were two excellent, quirky songs based around animals and death (Pig and Spider), and the best song they've done since their heyday (Miss Sweeney, an awkward yet touching song about love and/or sexual harassment).

I have no idea how these were kept off the finished official record. Clearly, somewhere along the line, somebody dropped the ball. Thankfully, I'm here to help Rivers Cuomo & Co by telling them how they need to re-arrange things for any future pressings of the album. So here you go, the improved running order for The Red Album:

01. Dreamin'
02. Troublemaker
03. Pork & Beans
04. Pig
05. Cold Dark World
06. The Spider
07. Automatic
08. Miss Sweeney
09. The Greatest Man That Ever Lived
10. The Angel And The One

Why I Am Awesome: I am better than established musical artists at assembling their albums.

Why I Am Not Awesome: None of Rivers, Karl Koch or representatives at DGC Records will return my calls or emails.

Roxanne? Sorry, You Do Have To

In the process of slowly making my way up Vermont Avenue tonight, I sat at a red light. (I don't know what the cross street was - somewhere around the low numbers, maybe Beverly.) I patiently waited for the pedestrian light outside the passenger window to switch from white walking man to blinky orange hand to steady orange hand. The light above it, aimed at the cross street in front of me, switched to yellow then to red.

And a-one, and a-two...

My light turned green. I took my foot off the brake and rolled forward. I wanted to get home, but I wasn't rushing. My whole car was in the intersection and my foot still had not hit the gas. Which turned out to be good.

I caught motion out of the side of my left eye. Instinctively, I hit the brake. Which was also good, because when I turned my head I saw a late-90s maroon luxury car bombing through its red light and zooms across the street. Seriously, he had about four full seconds of red light before entering the intersection with extreme prejudice. I leaned on my horn, hoping the sound would act as both a warning to the other cars around me and to give an aural "screw you" to this crazy dude. The car in the lane to the right of me didn't stop as quickly as I did, and came within two feet of smashing into the back of the red-light-runner.

Why I Am Awesome: Thanks to a combination of good instincts, solid peripheral vision and dumb luck, I did not end up in a twisted wreck in the middle of an L.A. street. Which I'd call a good thing.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I ignored my following instincts to slam my car to the right, track down this moron and pull a GTA on him, throwing him onto the street and kicking the living crap out of him. Which I, of course, would never have actually done. But I could have at least written down his license plate number and report him, in the hopes that some sort of punishment would come from his reckless driving. But instead I just kept going straight and went home. It might not have been an intelligent plan, but you have to admit that pursuing a medium-speed chase to track down this evildoer would have been pretty awesome. Maybe next time.

Academic Cycles

This week, in addition to launching this fabulous blog, I also started up a new job. It's nothing fancy - it's a work-study position in an academic department at the university I'm attending for graduate school. I worked as a teaching assistant in this department during the fall semester, but thanks to a confusing maze of college policies, politics and pollution (of the intellectual variety), the professors weren't allowed to hire me back.

Which has led me to sit at the front desk of this small department, answering phones and sorting mail and directing visitors to where they need to go. Tomorrow I'll get to work on updating their website. As a student position, it's very decent. I loved teaching, but from the standpoint of doing my own work for my classes, this serves as a very viable alternative. I'll spend less time working for this job than I did teaching but make the same amount of money. Not a lot of taxing work + free time to dig into stuff for my own classes + a solid pay rate = quality job.

Plus, having become friends with the people who work in the department (and who are over-taxed on a daily basis due to a lack of practical support from other professionals), I feel honestly rewarded in helping them out. I feel better about this job than any one I had in my undergrad years, and I liked my undergrad jobs.

Why I Am Awesome: new job, making decent money, helping out friends and not having it interfere with my school work. I probably couldn't have scripted a better position for myself, and you know how much I love scripting perfect things.

For the past four years, before taking the masters-program leap, I worked in university administration. The benefits were solid, the hours respectable, and I never felt in danger of being downsized or laid off. But more often than not, the job(s) would be hellish. Over-educated professors clashing with under-educated administrators, none of them having a clue how to maintain a decent organizational structure, but having the clout and the budget to do anything they want...except give you that raise they promised.

Have you ever heard the pithy aphorism that the reason the politics in academia are so vicious because the stakes are so small? Well, it's true. And you know who gets hit with the most shrapnel from that viciousness? The unassuming little guy who only took the job to make some money and take some free classes, the one who never wanted to carve out a career path and who just wants to do a good job and leave at the end of the day feeling fine about his life. That's who.

(By little guy, I am of course referring to my relative position on the job ladder; sadly, the stress of these positions did not stop my from eating and cause me to drop 50 pounds in an unhealthy yet svelte-inducing manner.)

I won't bore you with stories about my escapades - they're probably more whiny than anything else, and part of me still thinks I can use them for something worthwhile in the future. But it's fair to say that when I packed up my cubicle (not an office, couldn't be an office, the world would end if they gave me an office) back in August to head west and start school again, I told myself I was free from the anchor of my crappy jobs. That I wouldn't continue down this path. That the last place I would ever find myself again was back in a desk in a university department, answering phones from behind a three-foot partition.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I spent at least fifteen minutes today thinking I might never, ever be able to leave this horrible track I have set for myself due to a lack of focus and strong initiative. I pictured myself someday ending up with office window lettering declaring me the Associate Dean of Super Not Awesomeness. And the worst part was I thought of all of this after I left work, which means I didn't even get paid to think about it.

The Debate

Over St. Patrick's Day weekend 2007, the bachelor party I co-organized for my friend Brian went down. Ten friends made their way to Montreal, most of us from Boston but one flying in from Michigan and another from the Bay Area. The clockwork travel arrangements hit a serious snag when the only serious winter storm of the year hit on the Friday we were leaving; flights were canceled, surprises ended up sprung earlier than anticipated, a 5 hour drive became almost 11 hours.

But by midnight on St. Paddy's Day, all 10 of us were sitting in McLean's Pub, enjoying the oddly delicious burger-with-cream-cheese special and watching a member of our crew offend a suburban mother and her teenage daughter. (He had arrived the day before the storm, and had spent the entire day drinking and watching college basketball; at midnight, he loudly demanded that this poor woman tell him if the French word for 'douchebag' was 'sack du douche.') The weekend proceeded just as any gathering of male friends in their late 20s should, with some good drinks, good food, gambling, reminiscing, roasting and a dash of strippers.

(Note: if Brian's now-wife is reading this, there weren't really any strippers. We spent most of the early morning hours in Future Shop, staring at their HDTV selection.)

Why I Am Awesome: this party would not have succeeded without my planning. I served my co-best man title well, and as we checked out of the hotel I got to have one of my best friends in the world tell me he got exactly the bachelor party he wanted.

Things didn't look so hot on the Thursday night. As the week had progressed, the weather forecast had evolved from "meh, we'll be getting a couple of inches," to "there will be some accumulation," to "STORMTRACKER 2000 predicts that few will survive this, the ultimate revenge of Mother Nature." With two attendees already in Canada, and two others flying in from separate parts of the country, the whole trip looked on the verge of crumbling into disaster.

As the chief organizer, I sat in my darkened bedroom, with the sickly blue glow of WBZ's 11 O'Clock news flickering around me. Despite my girlfriend Lisa's best attempts to assuage me, I became convinced that I had screwed up the entire operation. I was the one who had picked this weekend. I had decided to plan a surprise around flights arriving without delays. I had gotten my hands on a simple plan, and since I was involved it had, inevitably, all gone to shit.

In other words, I threw a woe-is-me hissy fit. When Lisa pointed out gently that I was being completely ridiculous, I stormed out of the room, tearing a swath of destruction in my path.

(Destruction might be overstating it. This wasn't, like, a pre-Another-Brick-In-The-Wall-III flip out where I smashed the TV and threatened to toss a loved one out the window. I did slam the door to the bedroom as I stormed out to the bathroom, causing two chips of paint to fall off the door. But if you think Lisa has ever let me forget them, you are horribly wrong.)

Why I Am Not Awesome: Despite every positive element in my relatively quite privileged life, I felt the need to somehow try to blame the shifting of cold fronts and winter weather patterns on my own karma. In addition to a bachelor party for a friend, I decided to throw a whiny and immature pity party for myself. And I have the blood of two paint chips on my hands; and that blood will never wash off.