[Larger.]
I’m a Baltimorean and a Poe fan, so I have Poe on the brain this year (his 200th!) This is my Lil Edgar toy, posing as a farmer or Zen gardener in the Zen garden on my desk in my office. He has the company of a Poe action figure (pictured) and a Poe bobble-head. My Poe Little Thinker is at home, sadly.
Photo Friday: Costume.
Aristotle claims that a certain amount of leisure is necessary for philosophical contemplation — key to the good life. Some amount of leisure is necessary for real human happiness.
In Walden, Thoreau says that a philosopher should be able to clothe and feed his-or herself better than ordinary people. And we know how big he was on leisure time for walking and writing, though perhaps he might not call it “leisure” like those “really” industious folks among us might. (What?)
I would contend that, if you are mentally…robust (and bored) enough for philosophizing, you are smart enough to do the things you have to do (like poop, eat, cook, travel, etc.) better than other people. Whether you do is another matter, and I never knew a whole lot of philosophers who were also very competent people. I pride myself on my own expediency in personal matters and efficiency in practical ones. This is, of course, because I am very lazy and value my leisure, no?
If you get good grades but can’t do anything practical better than anybody else, you might just be mis-using your own intelligence. Pretend that the laundry or cooking breakfast is school. You’ll learn to apply your brain to things that don’t get you grades but that get you something better, like a tasty egg sandwich and enough time to read spy novels to boot.
Or, you might just not be very smart at all. I resent people who claim, “I am booksmart,” when it turns out that they are fucking idiots and/or morons and/or dumbasses. If all you can do is school, despite really and actually and honestly trying to do other things well and intelligently, you are probably not as smart as you think you are. I have known a good number of scholarly folks of this kind who turned out not to be any kind of smart. They excelled academically only through excessive studying and concerted effort.
Not that I am down on academic excellence in itself and certainly not down on effort. Anyone who knows me knows how weak-willed I can be when it comes to work I don’t see a point in doing. But I want to start throwing bitches off of buildings when such over-glorified memorization and regurgitation masquerades itself as actual intelligence. I had a metaphysics professor at BC who I admired very much. And he contended in his book that intelligence begins with reflection. I joked with him that, under his definition, the whole fucking world is stupid.
He just laughed.
I used to watch a solid 2 films every weekend, when I lived in a boring town in Illinois. Don’t watch them so regularly these days. It was good to lounge this weekend, and Mrs. P was sick. My freakin legs hurt by last night, though, from not moving. Felt good to cycle in the snow this morning, before it died out. I’m looking forward to cycling in the snow tomorrow, though I have to work until 9 pm, so it might not be the best idea.
The basic truth: that shit is shit and is prone to being imperfect to start with (my bike was scratched when it was new, and it bugged me for an hour because I am stupid and forget these things) and that it only gets worse. And when you view things/shit/stuff as ends in themselves, you drive yourself crazy because you forget this. I forget all the time. Or I don’t know it in the correct part of my brain.
I had an early meeting. Rode my bike through the snow on the Jones Falls Trail. Got in early and happy as hell. Only almost got doored twice and didn’t really slip around much. It was a fantastic ride.
Watched the Inauguration in my office online alone, which is extremely depressing now that I think of it.
Dropped my bike riding the elevator with my boss on my way out yesterday. Appeared that I only smacked the back of the stem and dinged it a little, and all was well. But it was loud and scared the shit out of me, since I don’t make a habit of dropping my bike.
Went to the Chillage to run some errands for Mrs. P’s birthday (yesterday). Riding up the access drive on Charles Street, going very slowly, I hit some black ice with a backpack full of birthday stuff and a roll of wrapping paper strapped to my back like a sword. More or less stopped and tried to keep myself upright with my left leg, but there was ice there, too. I went down, with my bike on me and with me on my bike. My leg must have knocked the frame pump into the downtube because there’s a gash there in the paint, and Mr. Pump was on the ground. Knocked chain off chainrings but got it back on with a stick I pried off the frozen ground. Shaken up a bit.
Rode to Hampden to pick up a package (new camera). Found out later that it’s broken. So was my printer when I tried to print an Amazon return label. I kicked said printer/scanner. Yelled at it. Still didn’t work. Apparently angry enough to forgot how cause and effect actually work.
Enjoyed wrapping presents at night, though, and having Beamish Stout and pasta. Much better mood. Good enough to keep me awake until 2:00am when I had to get up early.
I learned later that hot pixels are a fact of life, and I know that scratches on a bike you ride everywhere are part of Bike Life (and easily covered up with a sticker). That in fact it’s just stuff/shit anyway, so who cares? Taking photos and riding are what’s important, and nothing’s gonna stop that.
So then I felt better.
I made it to see Obama Saturday. It was amazing.
We bundled up, mounted our bikes and met a co-worker and fellow Nation Service member and walked down. We waited in line for about an hour or an hour and a half and then made it to the metal detectors. Everything went very smoothly, save me having to get wand-ed, even after removing all my metal and AmeriCorps pins. We got some Donna’s hot chocolate and found good spots, maybe a third of the way from the front. Considering that we didn’t get to the event area until nearly noon, I thought that was pretty good. I was mildly afraid that we weren’t going to get in.
At any big public event, a lot of folks are rude and butt in front of one another and hold their cameras up in front of people’s faces, etc. I think this was less widespread that day, or, at least, people weren’t so militant about it. (One note though: owning an SLR does not make you a Photographer and does not mean you can be a jerk. The dudes next to me were screwing over the people behind them during the whole speech holding multiple large cameras over their heads, and all their photos were poorly composed and blurry from what I could see on their LCD. Wankers. All that gear, and you still can’t take good pictures.)
But. Yeah. OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There were people there from all over. I was afraid it would be the Roland Park crowd or just students, etc. But no. The mix of people was fantastic and, frankly, unusual for a sometimes-self-segregated Southern city like Baltimore. In itself, it was worth the cold and lack of coffee.
Anything would have been worth standing in a crowd of Baltimoreans and hearing Barack Obama stand up and shout, “Hello, Baltimore!” I get chills and tear-up a little thinking about it. I’m listening to the Inaugural events on NPR right now, and I’m still thinking about seeing Obama in my city this past weekend.
There were a lot of bikes around, but mine was in my office. I wished I’d brought it closer to brag about riding in the cold. But I think anyone who was outside deserved credit and could brag about the chill we all braved Saturday. But it was so worth it, I think it was more about the benefit and less about bravery.
I am wearing a blue and white flannel under a red sweater today. Rode in the snow to get to work. It’s a good day.
Photo Friday: Iconic.
The windchill was -2 this morning when I left. Not counting the chill of riding downhill four miles to work. Not as cold as some parts of the country. But very very very cold for Maryland, where our summers are beastly. It was awesome. Read more.
I am pissing myself with excitement over Obama stopping in Baltimore Saturday. Transportation and anxiety are keeping me from the Inauguration, even though I wanted to cycle down there badly. I was beginning to feel badly about missing out.
But in Baltimore City? I would not be able to live with myself if I missed it, pending a real and serious and dire emergency. I am willing to walk if I have to. I’ve walked downtown from North Baltimore before. It’s a fun walk. But I’ll likely ride my bike with Mrs. P to UB where my office is and leave my bike there and walk the rest of the way. (I imagine bikes locked near the event or the train station will be frowned upon.) But if UB is locked up because of its proximity to Penn Station, well, like I said. I’ll walk.
I’m going to weep like a pinched baby Saturday, too. I can’t help it.
My brother and a friend of mine are going nuts because they work in transportation and supply for the National Guard, who are all on call already this weekend for the Inauguration and then Saturday on top of it. I don’t envy their stress, but I’m glad that very competent people are working to protect Obama and to protect all of us. Okay, fear mongering over.
I’m not scared; I’m excited.
I am home sick today. Sinus infection was winning yesterday. Gotta get a better handle on him. Went to transfer pix from my camera, and there’s a big dead/stuck/fired (it changes, really) pixel right in the middle of everything. Shit. Guess I’ll send my Canon pack for repair, then this one. The return period just expired, but maybe the sumbitches will take it back. I don’t want this one. It makes me mad. If I’m gonna be mad, I’ll do it with a Canon.
I am tired of digital cameras.
And tired of the digital life. So much time spent on forums and blogs and especially Flickr. So much looking at other people’s notebooks while mine sits neglected for a week while I bottle up everything inside along with other people’s lives which might not have been any of my business from the start.
Shit.
Looked into lomography. But that’s more obsession and bullshit for me. I don’t seem to be able to do anything or like anything without having to be “into” it.
I guess I’m having one of my Luddite moments. I think I’ll write and watch Fight Club and reflect on how superficial and stuff-orientated I’ve let things get, as I periodically do and then periodically get freaked out over.
I have all my wisdom teeth. Almost. One is about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way in. My bottoms did screw with my “bite” so that my front teeth don’t touch, and I have to cut up pizza usually. But I didn’t have to do the surgery thing like my former dentist said I would. Which, I think, is a win. Plus, you know, reconstructive surgery to fix my bite is nothing I want to do, which I’d have to go through in order to admit that mistake. Not very constructive in any way, save admitting mistakes, something I don’t think I’m terrible at. I don’t need a lesson and my jaw broken.
My jaw was hurting early last week on the upper side of said not-all-the-way-in wisdom tooth. I got worried. Finally got off my ass to look up “impacted wisdom tooth,” and I read that if it’s half out and you have room and it’s not biting your cheek and your gums aren’t infected, you’re good. I thought I’d read something in the past that said they were impacted if they were not out all the way, but I couldn’t find anything to say that. It’s been years; maybe the research changed or something. Whatever. My teeth never actually hurt, and my usually sensitive teeth were not more sensitive than usual, so I assumed all was well.
So I thought maybe I pulled a jaw muscle or whatever. Played with the inside of my cheek so much that I made it bloody and tender for two days.
Then I realized that my sinuses have been poopy lately. I had a bad cold two weeks ago, and I spent last week throwing up in the morning when I brushed my teeth, from a dripping nose. And my head was hurting. Duh, I think I have a sinus infection. Turns out jaw pain/cheek pain is a big symptom. Doh.
At first this was great news. No digging a big tooth out of my head. (Knock on wood!) But this weekend, I felt too crappy to move. I stayed home all day Saturday and only left Sunday for a short ride. In retrospect, I should have stayed home, but I was very excited to ride with my buddy. Fatigue is another big part of a sinus infection, and I want to stay home, read and watch movies all day. But I have a community meeting I don’t want to miss tonight and some stuff to get done. So I’m going to work. Hopefully the four-mile-downhill ride there will help a little.
I am finished bitching for the day. At least I have a job I really like, and I don’t have to suffer through a sick soul to boot. I am a lucky guy with a cute neti pot.
I got drenched earlier this week riding my bike to work in all that rain. I mean like hanging my clothes to dry drenched. It was awesome. My new fenders kept most of the slosh and slush and sludge off of me and off of my drivetrain.
But I was still looking forward to the sunny, clear and cold weather of yesterday and today. I had on very warm winter cycling gloves, a puffy vest, scarf, flannel or sweater and LONGJOHNS. Yes, longjohns. Rather than getting home with pink and chapped and stingy legs, I get home toasty and warm and happy and full of fuzzies because they are new. And my hips smell like ink from the dye.
Of course I also sit in my office with very warm legs, which is very strange. Especially if you’re a hairy man like me. And you know you’re not supposed to wear anything under longjohns, right? When your underwear touches your socks, it feels like you’re (to quote Ned Flanders) “wearin nothin at all!” I’m not exactly into that, uh, ahem, lack of support. It’s very odd.
Totally worth it to be able to cycle through a winter which is certainly colder than some places, but not quite New England or Upper Midwest either.
Rider status indicates that there are still in fact some cyclists in Baltimore who are, uh, brave/crazy enough to ride through the winter. I’m not alone, and I don’t want to be. Even when it’s raining and 35 degrees, there were folks out.
Possible fun joint ride Sunday. If you’re in Baltimore, comment here and come!
I guess it’s sometimes a post-holiday or back-to-school thing, where you have a bunch of new stuff all at once. Maybe I just don’t shop a lot. I don’t know. But I rode to work this morning with a new Thermos of coffee in my backpack with my new planner, a new book, wearing a new vest, new socks, new gloves and being kept dry by new fenders. The only thing I bought was the planner and the book, and those were to fill voids left by an old planner and all the books I’ve already read. I feel spoiled somehow, like I don’t have the right to be toting around all this shiny new shit that I didn’t buy but instead just took out of a gift box. The people I care about do give me some wonderful presents. So maybe I am spoiled in a way.
And of course having a bunch of new stuff makes a lot of people (myself included) re-examine their relationship to material possessions. I really love my new gloves and fenders and Thermos, but it’s the cycling in winter weather and not dropping five bucks a day to have good coffee at work thing that I really like. I suppose that’s a healthy relationship to gear, right? Using it?
I do have the tendency to pet my things though and often get very upset when a new scratch joins the dozens of others on my bike or when dust gets under the screen cover of my camera. Then I think about my bike and not riding and my camera and not taking pictures. Then, as Tyler Durden would say, the things I own end up owning me.
I’ve always struggled to have a healthy relationship to possessions, my body, my health. You can’t just ignore your pains or bike maintenance, but you can’t get attached to them, either. Tricky, I tell you. Tricky.
Photo Friday: Meditation.
Okay, so Christmas and all those other winter holidays are over. I can’t tell if I’m sad or glad.
I remember when I first became a Christmas Grown Up wherein shopping and gift giving replaced getting presents as the hallmark of holiday excitement. Instead of staying awake at night thinking about that awesome slot car set or my first CD player, I would get so thrilled with being the instrument of happiness in giving gifts that I would constantly drop hints and think about nothing else than how my brother would shit when he opened that custom garden gnome holding a sign with our last name for his new house or the look on my girlfriend’s face when she put on the necklace I picked out as a teenager. Etc. Christmas went from being fun because you were lucky enough to get presents to being lucky enough to give presents. But it still all hinged on shit wrapped in boxes or lazily thrown into those cheesy giftbags.
At some point, though, Christmas became about family and togetherness and traditions and that kind of thing, probably because I spent most of my 20s living far away from all of the people I care about. It became why I would drive for 18 hours through the mountains and snow and traffic without sleep and dodging deer carcasses to see the people I wanted to see, which is no huge deal for me because I do in fact really like my family. At least my immediate family.
But then people get married or engaged or pregnant, and too many families try to still have their same holidays when they are connected to other Family Christmas Networks. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has accidentally gone to someone else’s Big Family Party under the pretense of it being some kind of integrated party that transcends last names and bloodlines.
Everyone has traditions they enjoy, and everyone thinks their holiday awesomeness is more awesome than your holiday awesomeness, and because of the limitations of space, time and our being embodied beings in the world, there’s only so much you can do. So we all take turns giving up what we like to do during the holidays if we’re lucky. If we’re not, we never get to do anything we like to do.
Even when you try to not take a shit all over someone’s party or traditions, you wind up doing it. My youngest brother and I are very particular about Christmas Eve. If anyone trys to mess with it (and people always do), it gets messed up — no matter how good the intentions are or even how much frikkin fun the plans might be. We get pissed and ruin it for everyone. Maybe from rigidity. Who knows? One could argue that our Christmas Eve activities are so long-standing that we’re almost allowed to be rigid and that anyone who knows these plans and trys to change them is a dickweed. I wouldn’t argue it, though, since I realize that we’re not going to get to perform our Christmas Eve rituals much longer and probably, most likely, almost definitely, never again. Even if sitting around watching those stop-motion animation things and drinking coffee is not as fun as some of the stuff people have gotten us to do, we’re pissed and resentful, and we’ll be unhappy on Christmas Eve until we can accept that what we used to like to do is over.
The bad part about traditions: Their rigidity.
Of course, the other bad part that we’ve seen is that traditional people seem to enjoy pushing their traditions on other people, which is of course what my youngest brother and I did to my wife with our favorite mode of Christmas Eve.
So this year, as I was prevented from doing most of the things I like to do, I was pissy and a jerk and overly critical of other people. Then empty. I wondered if I should have a kid soon to recapture some of the “magic” of the holiday season. I don’t know. It might work, but that’s a stupid reason to have a kid in itself.
What I wonder is if it is possible for a creature of habit like me to have a tradition-free holiday without making that a tradition. That would be a fun holiday. At least, with little pressure.
But would it be Christmas without all the annoying things you have to do?