No, the figgy pudding wasn’t fatal.

I haven’t ‘blogged much cuz I’m in Texas, and there are two things I do when I’m in Texas: 1) Go to coffeehouses and pubs. 2) Provide tech support for my parents. Today and yesterday have been tech support. They just bought a new iMac, and the responsibility for making it work the way they want falls on me.

Now, I have no problem with helping them in this way, but it’s rather annoying sometimes, mostly for irony’s sake. See, they’re both brilliant people; she’s an accomplished writer, he’s a geophysicist. They’re just scared to freaking DEATH that they’ll do something ABSOLUTELY WRONG if they DOUBLE-CLICK instead of SINGLE-CLICK. Questions like this:

“Ok, so what do I do if I want to delete this email?”

To which I answer:

“Select it, and click on the delete button.”

“How do I do that?”

“Select it by clicking on it.”

“You mean like this?”

“Yes, like that.”

“And when it turns green like that, it’s selected?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, how do I delete it?”

“Now that it’s selected, click on the delete button.”

“You mean this one?”

“No, the one that says ‘delete’ and looks like a trash can.”

“OH!!!”

…and like that. I’m convinced that they’re convinced that they don’t know what they’re doing, which is why they can’t remember that they already know how to do it. They’ve been navigating the old Mac LC II since it was brand new, 12 years ago; Outlook Express can’t be that complicated a user interface by comparison, can it?

Maybe I should start some kind of ROPES course attitude training for computer-phobes.

Figgy pudding.

(My nephew says it’s awful.)

Texmas

(note: I wrote this yesterday and would have blogged it, but the opportunity eluded me.)

Music: ‘Christmas In Suburbia’ – Martin Newell

My family isn’t all that different from other families. Perhaps I have it better than most; upper-middle-class, resources and money, generally emotionally open, active in the neighborhood/church/community. My sister and her husband have two kids, my brother has three. I’m the non-breeder, apparently, but it’s no big deal. They’re reasonably successful by any social standard, while I’m not, and that’s not a big deal either, really. My nephews and niece like me, the way you like an uncle. I like them, I like my sibs, I like my parents, there won’t be any drunken sniping at Christmastime.

Sometimes, in moments of small virtue, I wish I was in an abusive pressure-cooker of a family. It’s just so pleasant, so unfilled with strife or politics, so uninteresting. How sick is that? There’s no story to tell. It sounds like the inside of a Hallmark card if I tell it. The biggest conflict so far this Xmas: Who was supposed to bring candy? Seriously, there was a tense moment about whose duty was to bring some candy. Voices were raised, someone produced a gun. No, not really. Nothing of the kind. Mom had gotten an extra bag of candy at the store anyway.

It’s a nice, day, too. It’s actually sunny. A small miracle for me, coming from Seattle. Out of this blue, my dad and my brother-in-law and myself went for a walk at the Edith L. Moore Nature Sanctuary, which also happens to be the headquarters for the Houston chapter of the Audobon Society. It’s a beautiful 17 acres along Rummel Creek. It’s also the place I’d go to without fail for solace and solitude during my long, long (long long long) battle with crippling depression, so I feel really connected to it. It was nice to get there, with two men who figure prominently in my life.

The sanctuary is a victim of development, of course. The city built a huge underpass nearby for a 10-lane highway, altering the watershed dramatically. Neighborhoods flooded, so there was outcry for the city to increase the capacity of Rummel Creek. Of course, the city couldn’t dig up the nature sanctuary, so there’s this huge creek-cum-drainage ditch that empties tremendous amounts of water into the undeveloped creek within the sanctuary. The place is eroding away rapidly; we’re talking a few banks that are 6-10 feet wider than they were six months ago.

But it remains beautiful, and is essentially the only source of shakti for the surrounding square mile or so. Hopefully it’ll survive the assault of development.

I also spent an evening with stjnky a few nights ago, drinking beer and regaling tales. It’s also kind of sad, too, because our favorite pub, The Ale House, inside a three-story house built in the 1920s, was torn to the ground for PARKING. Yes, that’s right, a real, honest-to-goodness place of community and history, flattened so that more people can park at Borders books. So I hooked up with stjnky at The Stag Head, built to take up the pub-related slack the Ale House left. Nice place, nice company.

My relatives have given me lots of clothes for Xmas, since I had to jettison my luggage in Oakland to avoid missing more planes due to waiting in line. Sweaters, shirts, a fleece hat.

Have A Happy Whatever-Solstice-Holiday-You’re-Celebrating!

Nampambulisti asks if perhaps I work at an airport, which might explain why I’m so forgiving of airport employees. And my answer is: no. I don’t work at an airport. It just turned out this way:

When I was in the Phoenix airport at 11pm, with the prospect of spending an extra night there looming large in my mind, and I went to the ticket desk to ask what they could do for me, Janice was kind enough to reserve an actual bonafide seat for me on one of the next day’s flights, instead of just shafting me to a stand-by. And I thought to myself, ‘I wish I had a gift of some kind to give this woman, who has been here since 5:30am, and who has not only helped me out, but helped me out in a timely, polite, courteous fashion.’ And I told her. I said, “I wish I had a Christmas gift to give you.” She smiled and handed me my new ticket. Maybe she thought I was coming on to her or something.

And then, since I was exhausted, too, and one’s mind does strange things when one’s exhausted, I began to think about what the world might be like if everyone in it were as together as Janice, even under such a stressful situation as hers had to have been that day.

And that’s when I wrote the ‘blog before this one.

Oh, and by the way: This ‘blog is an ad for Southwest Airlines. Just so you know.

Some Things To Consider When Travelling By Air, At Christmas, During Threat Of Terrorism

1) Carry No Luggage. Luggage is your enemy. Luggage is death. Luggage make you miss flights. Carry-on only. Buy clothes at a thrift store at your destination.

2) Hell Is Other People. People get cranky, people get irrational. People will lead you to do something patently unwise, simply because they are frustrated. Further, you will do the unwise thing because you are frustrated.

3) Waiting Is An Art Form. Some people wait poorly; they pace, they are frustrated, they do unwise things. They yell and scream at people who are doing their best in a horrible situation. Some people wait adequately, eager to be led around and reassured. Some people, however, have elevated waiting to a unique expression of their personal identity and its relation to society, to the world. One such man was in front of me in line earlier; he remained himself.

4) Do Not Bump Into An Armed Guard. In the US, there are men in airports, wearing camoflage, carrying loaded M-16s, with their fingers on the triggers. Do not cause them any inconvence.

5) People Will Deny Reality. Waiting in line on the sidewalk, I saw at least a dozen people drive up to drop someone off. The traveller would assume that the line didn’t apply to them, simply because they had imagined that they would just show up and waltz to the plane. There was always a period of about a minute and a half, where they would stand still, their mouth forming silent words, their face registering confusion, the wheels turning in their minds, trying to understand the challenge ahead of them. At one point in this line, there was a gap where it went across a driveway that needed to be kept clear. People would go to this gap and assume it was the end of the line, even though it was blatantly obvious that another two hour’s worth of line existed in plain sight on the other side of the driveway. It would take three or four repetitions by complainers to get people to allow themselves to come to this realization.

6) “May I have your attention. Please do not leave luggage unattended. All checked and carry-on items are subject to search. Please report any request to carry articles for others or any other suspcious activity.”

7) Be Nice To Airport Workers. There are two reasons you should be nice to airport workers: 1) No matter how bad your situation is, they’ve been having a worse day, since 5am. They’ve been dealing with jerks and assholes since before you showered this morning. The outlook they face is bleak, because it is YOU. Making their day worse should be a crime. 2) Even if you think the airport worker deserves your contempt, you will not be able to get what you want if they hate you. As their day progresses, their hate is more and more automatic, and you must work harder and harder to not push them over some kind of edge. In fact…

8) Take Gifts To Airport Workers. On your way to the airport, buy flowers or something for your seat-assignment clerk. Give gift certificates at random to anyone in a uniform. Remember that there are security considerations, so choose the gift(s) carefully.

9) Ask. Ask which line to wait in. Ask what the airline can do for you. Ask what the person you’re dealing with can do for you. Remember what Rob Breszny said: “You can have anything you want, if you only ask for it in an unselfish tone of voice.” Talk to the information desk instead of the guy next to you. Make no assumptions. Going to the front of the line, asking what it’s for, and then walking to the end again is quicker than waiting in line to find out you were should have been waiting in another one. The guy at the end of the line probably made the assumption you’re making, and do you really trust that?

10) Human Beings Crave Reassurance. If they can’t have reassurance, they get horribly irrational, making reassurance harder and harder to give. This is an irony of the human condition. Further, if you can give reassurance to an irrational person, that person will follow you off a cliff if you so desire. Is this a responsibility you can deal with?

11) Air Travel Equals Waste. On every leg of the trip I’m on, the plane has been full of people. On the first leg, I overheard the captain of the plane say, “A tush for every cush. A full plane. That’s making a lot of money.” The fundamental flaw here is that a full airplane is equivalent to an untold number of man-hours of misery and grief. First is the baseline set of misery. Travelling at any time by air carries a minimum amount of waiting in line, dealing with irate people, undergoing security checks. These go along with the way airports are set up, and the way the airline industry works. But at peak periods, such as Christmastime, the misery of the travel experience is maximized, while the joy and happiness are driven down into the ground. Every ounce of any sort of wonder you could get from being in an airport or dealing with ticket agents evaporates. This is a social waste; the systems of an airport are poorly designed and not flexible enough. The assignment of success based solely on the economics of that single plane’s expense versus net is horribly short-sighted. A real value to society would be found if the process of travelling on a plane was actually pleasant, or at least somehow sensical.

12) The Only Time Anyone Looks At The Art In The Glass Case Near The Ticket Desks Is When The Ticket Desks Are Closed.

13) Everyone Is As Crazy As Everyone Else. There’s a popular myth perpetuated by everyone in a uniform at an airport, and that is that while you are going crazy with travel plans and late schedules, they are calm, collected, and in control. The truth of the matter is that they’re frazzled, too. Don’t believe the hype. See #7.

14) Cell Phones Really Have Changed The World. Now you can be waiting in line and talking on the phone to whoever was foolish enough to agree to pick you up about how you won’t be making it until the next day.

15) “The baggage carousels are dangerous when in motion. Please do not a sit or allow chilrden to place their hand on the carousel at any time.”

16) Breathe Deeply. This is the fundamental truth of travel. Breathing deeply cures all ills, and allows one to understand that fear, loathing, misery, waiting, and air travel are merely another expression of the human urge to exceed the limits of common sense and good taste. As such, it’s totally hilarious. Laugh out loud.

CitizenParasite puts the ‘Oh’ back in ‘poet.’

GO SEE LORD OF THE RINGS. Even if you didn’t play Dungeons And Dragons as a kid.

It’s art. It’s commerce. It’s exciting and good and wonderful. It makes me happy that people make movies. And like Marco said:

It makes up for Star Wars.

An Evil Christmas Wish

So before I embark on my transcontinental journey, made all too trivial by the convenience of air travel, I’d like to leave you folks with this:

anole asks, “Am I evil for rejoicing when I hear retailers are having a bad Christmas?”

I say, “I can’t answer that, but it’s a great opportunity to rant like this:”

Right near my favorite espresso stand (it’s my favorite because it’s close. I’m not that choosy), there’s one of those Xmas tree vendor set ups. You know the archetype: Some chain-link fence set up in an unused corner of a parking lot to keep people from stealing Christmas trees, dying trees gasping for their last breath, hapless consumers trying to decide if they like conical or cylindrical and how tall, a flocking machine making that horrible noise, a hidden spray can of green vegetable dye to hedge the bet.

Now, being me, when I see such a vendor set up, I instantly see where all those trees grew, how much energy was put into keeping them alive and healthy for the three or four years it took for them to get as big as they are, the constant grooming and trimming to make them look like something you’d find on a Hallmark card, the fertilizer, the pesticides, the eventual harvesting, the bundling with plastic mesh, the stacking on trucks, the shipping halfway across the country, the money changing hands.

I see that, almost instantly. It’s a flash before my eyes, across my mind. All I can do is smile and think, ‘Silly humans. All that trouble and waste for something you could plant in your yard and keep and watch grow. You could keep Christmas around all year.’

Brazarre