****Spinning Blues

Readers who actually read posts about my personal exercise regime may remember Bob, the despotic spinning instructor who turned fear into devotion with his military-style Friday evening spinning class (see November 7, 2005). Bob’s terrifying but motivating yelling, supplemented by wanton dance moves, chased away the work week’s stressful monotony. He was addictive.

Last Friday, I left work needing Bob desperately. Entering the spinning studio and finding instead Leah, a thick sporty girl with huge bug eyes, was a huge blow. I almost didn’t go in but I was fiending for spinning of any sort. I got on my bike and Leah immediately came over to me. “You’d be more comfortable if you moved your seat back,” she said. Whatever. I’ve been spinning on and off for five years, and I’ve never bothered to determine and actuate my ideal bike set-up. I move the seat and occasionally the handlebars, and as long as I’m not in pain, I ignore the other half-dozen minute adjustments that could be made. Life is just too short.

But she seemed very concerned about the position of my seat, so I hopped off the bike and moved the seat back. She eyed me and moved to the front of the room to start the class. “Hi, I’m Leah. For those of you who don’t know, I’m taking this class over for Bob.”

Blood and disappointment rushed to my head. I looked around and noted that this was not Bob’s regular crowd of Type A jocks. It was all female and largely large, and many were already in the "visible discomfort" stage of exertion. The music was upbeat Adult Contemporary, turned down low so we could hear Leah talk. She talked constantly, in fact, mostly about perceived exertion, proper body position, heart rate, and other canned spinning banter. Then she hopped off her bike and came over to my corner of the studio.

“Is someone’s bike clanging?” she asked. It was mine, in fact, and I raised my hand. “That doesn’t bother you?”

“No, not really.” I had this bike before and knew that if the tension was set low, it would inevitably make a noise that would go away soon as I turned the tension up. If I ever got to.

“Well, okay.” She returned to her bike and we did some hops, switching into second position and then sitting back down repeatedly. “Woah!” she said. “Great effort everyone!”

We pedaled some more and listened to her talk. “Keep your upper bodies relaxed!” she said a few times, and then got off her bike and came over to me. “Relax your shoulders!” she told me. “You’re tensing your upper body. Keep it relaxed.”

Everyone is staring, probably enjoying the spectacle of the only jock in the room getting repeatedly reprimanded. And with all the flagrant violations of proper spinning form that was occurring in that class, I have no idea why she focused on my upper body. I wanted to inform her that my upper body was, in fact, totally relaxed, and the reason why it may appear tense is because unlike every other woman in the room including her, I have upper body muscles that aren’t enshrouded in inches of fat tissue. It is known in the world of fitness as “muscle tone.” You think Arnold Schwarzenegger has ever looked relaxed?

But it is difficult for me to sass authority figures, even numskulled, self-important spinning instructors. Instead, I stopped pedaling, got off my bike and collected my things.

“I’m not trying to embarrass you,” she said into her headset microphone. “I want to help you.”

“Oh, it’s okay, I just think your class is my style,” I said. “Nothing personal,” I said in a way that implied it was completely personal.

“I see.”

She kept looking at me as I left. “Okay, let’s get ready for today’s endurance hill!” I heard as the door shut behind me.

I found a treadmill amid the busy Friday after-work crowd and slipped on my earbuds. The Misfits' “Ratfink” blared as I set the speed to 6.8. This workout’s for you, Bob, I thought, conjuring his castigation to sustain my puissant stride.

****Restaurant Review: Rendezvous in Central Square, Cambridge, Massaschusetts

Disclaimer: I have never eaten nor ever been in Rendezvous.

Rendezvous (here) opened late last year in what used to be a Burger King. Not just any Burger King. It was the most depressing Burger King ever. The glass storefront displayed an institutional cafeteria of fixed-seat tables, filled with squalid derelicts drinking coffee and eating fries. Not to romanticize such drudgry, but derelicts and their haunts are being gentrificated out of Central Square by college kids and young professionals like myself, who prefer that charming pressed-sandwich shop down the street. So Burger King closed, sat empty for a good six months, and then underwent extensive renovation that included ripping up the sidewalk with jackhammers. And then Rendezvous opened to glowing reviews, was named the 2005 Best Restaurant of the year in the Boston Phoenix, is currently featured in Gourmet magazine, and is a bonafide smash among Boston Metro foodies.

Needless to say, Rendezvous has attracted attention from upstanding citizenry who would not normally frequent Central Square unless they were slumming it. Central Square has historically been mostly a black and immigrant community, with a solid base of adult white hipsters and eccentrics. But inevitably, this rough but cozy neighborhood has been invaded by the polished Harvard and MIT night crowd, promenading to chic eateries like Cuchi Cuchi and Zuzus through the throngs of panhandlers, punk rockers, drunk homeless men, and crack whores. Yes, crack whores.

And frankly, I don't want this element in my neighborhood: Snobs seeking fulfillment from blowing hundreds of dollars on braised Niman Ranch pork "osso bucco" with w/pimentón and jamón serrano, creamy truffled parsnip soup, and lemon-buttermilk pudding with huckleberry sauce. Sound good? Yeah, sure. Better than Whopper or Sausage, Egg & Cheese Croissan'wich. But for me, ordering expensive food in hip restaurants turns dinner into this weird ceremonry of culinary appreciation in which one is compelled to dutifully savor every exquisite bite, because it's more than food... it's a universally-acknowledged masterpiece of harminous comestibles.

Someday, I'll eat at Rendezvous. I'm sure I will. I'll have an okay to decent meal, and drink too much wine. Then I'll wake up the next morning and think "That meal cost as much as groceries for 2 weeks." Then I can get on with my life, none the more enriched by having eaten at Rendezvous, except to be able to say that I did.

****Tales from the T

Outbound Commuter Rail Train to lovely West Natick, last Saturday. A couple boards the train and sits in front of me. They are obviously married because they look alike in a way that only married people look alike, like two piles of sand that have been identically shaped by the wind. Their middle-aged spreads were comparable, and they both wore drab clothes that she probably bought at Loews.

They also didn't talk much. Occasionally she would make a comment: It's pretty windy out. And he would assent: Sure is.

About twenty minutes into the train ride, she said "At 6:30 I'm going to have my snack. I can have either one hard-boiled egg and half a banana, or one pack of peanuts. I think I'm going to have the egg and banana. I never pick the peanuts."

He sighed noisily, shook his newspaper. "Why only half the banana? What are you going to do with the other half?"

She laughed, even though he spoke with an edge in his voice. "Not eat it. Throw it away."

He sighed again. "What would happen if you ate it?"

"I'm not suppose to eat a whole banana, just a half a one. That's the diet."

"What kind of a diet is this if you're eating all of the time? "

The bickering continued for another ten minutes, until she dug into her snack. He glanced at her as she piously consumed her allotted provisions. Then he said "That's more than half the banana. That's two-thirds."

****Where Are You?

A friend told me about a free Web statistics program that analyzes this site's logs and tells me who reads it. Not your names, just general things like your ISP, country, and how you like your eggs cooked.

****Al Lives Afresh

Today my company dedicated our new lunch area (replete with a long-promised pool table) to a long-time employee who died last year named Al. Al's whole family was there: 3 kids, 11 grandchildren, several siblings, and a teary but charming widow. Lunch was served (Italian, Al's favorite), speeches were made, and then Al's son commissioned the pool table by breaking a rack. If he sunk one ball on the break, the CEO promised everyone the rest of the day off. I would crumble under such pressure, but lucky for him, a ball tentatively dropped at the last moment.

The tribute was touching. I walked home early in the cool sunshine, pondering Al. I worked with Al when I first started at the company 4 years ago as a Project Assistant, which was 90% administrative grunt work with a promise of something better if I proved myself. Al was a senior member of my old department, which was mostly older men who traveled all over the world, inspecting buildings. Working in such an environment pained me daily. Here I was, the young cute red-head bustling around an office filled with men who treated me with amused condescension, like I was there for their gratification.

Al was not one of those guys. He always said good morning and good night, but never really took much notice of me. And I only have one concrete memory of an unpleasant encounter with Al, which, considering my track record in that department, speaks quite highly of Al.

One afternoon I was doing what I spent an extraordinary amount of time doing: Hand-assembling hundreds of facility reports. Essentially, I put papers in binders. "Meredith," Al said, dropping a huge pile of manila folders in front of me. "I need six copies of everything here."

I looked at him. Any college graduate with an ounce of integrity would have felt the same burning urge to grab the pile and toss it in the air. Luckily, I could just say no. Only managers had the power to task me with jobs, and though Al was a senior member of the department, he was never promoted to manager... maybe it was his near-retirement age, maybe because he could not articulate himself tactfully, or maybe it was his knee-jerk bouts of anger. I'm not saying he wasn't smart, he just wasn't someone who could effectively placate an angry client.

"I can do it tomorrow," I said. "I'm doing reports for Tom."

"These need to be copied today.! We're leaving tomorrow morning."

"Sorry. These reports need to go out today, too."

He sputtered, looked around, and marched over to a manager's desk. I could here every word: "These need to be copied and she won't do it! She says she's doing work for Tom! No, no, she says she won't listen to anyone who's not a manager!" The project manager didn't want to get involved because he knew that the demands on my time were such that my servitude was on a first come, first served basis.

The matter closed, I continued putting papers into binders, then headed over to the photocopier to see how my next round of papers were progressing. And there's Al. He had moved all my papers over to the table, and was fussing with his manila folders. "It was finished, so I moved them," he said curtly. Indeed he did! He just grabbed everything off the 12 collating trays and stuck it in two piles. It was an aggressive move for Al, who, like everyone, regarded the photocopier as my domain. I sighed noisily as I tried to re-sort my papers. I watched him use the photocopier and realized that I could do it twice as fast as him. But I refused to be subservient to this old guy who had tried to treat me like his own personal secretary.

As I walked home after today's tribute to Al, I pondered this episode. I wish I had seen his perspective: Photocopying is not something a prestigious facility consultant does, it's something the 24-year old Project Assistant does. I wish I had said "Hey Al, it's alright, I'll take over," and made amends for my peckish attitude. To most people, regret is a sad emotion. But regret can be a reminder to act in a manner that won't lead to regret. As Thoreau said, "Make the most of your regrets. . . . To regret deeply is to live afresh." And knowing Al, he would have been thrilled to know that I was living afresh that moment in front of the photocopier.

****Fashion Faux Pas of the Moment

First, to clarify: I know nothing about fashion. Like most people, I maintain personal style guidelines of what I will and will not wear. For example, I will wear black pants, I won't wear yellow pants. I will wear cardigans, I won't wear vests. Additionally, I have the capacity to judge how others are dressed, and assume things about them based on a glance. For example, if a man on the T is wearing a Brooks Brothers suit, and the man sitting next to him is wearing a hodgepodge of urine-soaked sweat clothes, I will assume they are both reprobates.

Generally I don't critique other people's garment choices. How can I? Today I wore a green sweater and scarf set, ill-fitting black pants, and maroon Mary-Jane style combat boots with two inch soles. Downright offensive to a true aesthete. However, certain garb grabs my attention. Baggy pants that cinch at the ankle, scarf belts, hats with fake flowers, and men in pink shirts all strike me as just wrong.

In the past five year or so, knee-high black leather boots became a mandatory item in every women's wardrobe. That's right, the knee high boot isn't just for dominatrices, strippers, and general sluts anymore. It's a fashion that I personally embrace, having two pairs myself - One heeled, one flat, and both unable to comfortably accomodate my bulging calf muscles.

But I also think it's a fashion that only slender woman under the age of 35 should attempt to carry off. There's nothing more depressing that watching an overweight woman huff it up a broken escalator with her ankle routinely slipping off the heel and yanking the boot's sheath down her leg. And Mothers: Your kids don't want to see you in eff-me boots.

Another aspect of the knee-high black leather boot that irks me is women wear them with anything: Laura Ashley dresses, boring lavender coats, peach-colored tweed skirt suits, long knit sweater coats, loose hippie skirts. The juxtaposition of the innately sexy knee-high black leather boots with prim, priggish attire just strikes me as odd. Are you a career woman, or a sultry little sexpot? Or is it today one of those days that you felt compelled to wear all your luxury brands at once?

And if you can't walk fast in a pair of knee-high black leather boots, don't bother at all. The brisk strut is essential. It says, "I'm wearing these ridiculous things on my feet for a good reason," even if you're just wearing them because you never wear them, which is why I usually wear them.

****Money Talks

Today a regular trip to the grocery store turned notable when the cashier handed me a dollar bill with a red ink stamp: See where I've been Track where I go next! www.wheresgeorge.com.

How lucky am I! It's that crazy website that follows the adventures of money as it makes it way through circulation. Recipients of stamped bills are urged to go to the website and enter the serial number and zip code of where it was found. You can see where your money's been, and the people who stamp the bills can see how far their money travels. Since defacing money is illegal and participants live in constant fear of government reprisal, a thriving subculture (here) has sprung up for this nerdy band of criminals .

Where's George reminds me of Balloon Day in elementary school, when all the kids stood in an open field and simultaneously released a helium balloon with a postcard attached to it. The card-finders would mail them in, and we marveled at how far they traveled: 5, maybe 10 miles! My balloons were never found. I managed to take this personally. Balloon Day was stopped after firm admonishing from environmental groups who claimed birds and frogs routinely choked to death on the refuse of Balloon Day. Where's George is an obvious improvement over Balloon Day, because unlike a wind-propelled helium balloons, money won't get blown into lakes and trees. Money really goes places. That's why I was disappointed to learn that my money came from Allston, which is 1.7 miles away (here for my bill report ).

I was more impressed at how Where's George epitomizes the Internet's ability to make possible things that we never dreamed possible, or even necessary. Like finding out where a particular piece of money has been used, or celebrity death polls (here), or resources for stay-at-home dads (here), or polygamy personal ads (here ). Twenty years ago, communicating with society-at-large was like standing in an open field and letting go of a helium balloon. Now anyone can find track the movements of currency over hundreds and thousands of miles. Whether this improves civilization is debatable, but no one can deny that some sort of communication evolution has occurred.

****Consumer Rage

9:30am Saturday morning: My phone rang while I loitered in the laundromat (not the Lost Sock). It was the Best Buy Geek Squad. “Your computer’s all set,” the Geek informed me. “It runs fine… all your files are okay… You can come pick it up.”

The moment for which I yearned for the past 20 days! I walked to Best Buy along the Charles River in the last moments of a miraculous January thaw. Joggers and cyclists were out in force, and everyone was giddy, me especially. Soon I would be holding my laptop atop my lap, tickling its yielding board of keys with fluid caresses.

The Geek who waited on me couldn’t explain why my laptop cost $118 to service when it is covered under their 2-year Performance Service Plan, and when they didn’t have the promised DVD back-up of my data. In fact, he couldn’t tell me what was wrong with it and how they had fixed it. But I handed over my credit card and signed the document stating that the Geek Squad’s services have been done to my satisfaction. I also bought Norton Anti-Virus 2006, assuming my laptop had been stealthily attacked by a Windows-based worm and learning that one cannot be neglectful of virus protection.

After going home and arming my laptop with some serious anti-virus protection, I start a hard drive scan, then wonder away for 5 minutes. When I check on the scan's progress, imagine the sudden spike in my blood pressure upon seeing a blazin’ Blue Screen informing me it was taking a “core dump.” Blinding rage ensued. It really almost killed me.

So today, a very special Geek Squad member-in-spirit sat at my kitchen table for 5 hours and proceeded to fix it. My beloved Gallic Geek diagnosed it instantly: The poor thing lacks the juice to run the RAM-intensive applications that I am foisting upon it. No virus at all. And all Best Buy appeared to do was install Windows Updates that would’ve been installed anyway… for $118!

After experiencing what it's like to deal with a sick PC, I have decided to buy a Mac PowerBook and regulate my PC for use only when Windows applications are necessary. Buying a new computer is extravagant behavior for me, but the money is there and I’m convinced of the superiority of the Mac after having used both OSses extensively. And everyone knows Macintosh Geeks are intellectually and morally superior to Windows Geeks.

My PC is now functioning, though simple tasks like file navigation and opening system apps are done reluctantly. I staved off the desire to orchestrate a gang-style mass execution of the Best Buy Geek Squad for ripping me off by relaxing MSG style: Clean my room, crank up the New Bomb Turks, engage in my homebrew Tae Kwon Do/gym class calisthenics routine followed by some restorative streching and bastardized yoga. I then thanked Best Buy for reinforcing the importance of only giving money to companies that you believe in. The only thing I believe about Best Buy is: Only schmucks shop there. I hearby invoke whatever loyalty you, dear reader, feel for me, and urge you to boycott Best Buy as well as to speak ill of them always.

****UMassochistic Thoughts

Jill Carroll, the journalist who is being held hostage in Iraq, graduated from UMass Amherst in 1995, the same year as me (here). I cannot recall ever knowing her, but our paths probably crossed, maybe in a general education class or elsewhere in the meanderings of campus life. At the very least, I saw her work in the Daily Collegian, the campus newspaper I read everyday but never motivated myself to write for.

Carroll’s current plight distresses me, because it’s proof I’ve done nothing interesting with my life. In the same number of years that I’ve spent ekking out a mildly successful desk job existence and considering my paycheck the chief reward, Jill has written for a host of stellar news organizations, immersed herself in a foreign culture, and is now achieving international infamy by being dramatically kidnapped by Muslim extremists. I guess a degree from UMass Amherst hasn’t been what’s holding me back.

****Movie Reviews: The Squid and the Whaleand Brokeback Mountain

I will now juxtapose the only two movies that I've seen in a theatre this year: Brokeback Mountain, which deals with unconventional love in a conventional Hollywood way, and the Squid and the Whale, which features conventional love in an unconventional indie cinema way. Both are love stories with cringe-inducing, unfettered male sexuality, but only one of them uses sensationalized shock to prove its legitimacy as a movie, and buckaroo, it ain't the one with gay cowboys.

The Squid and the Whale is based on the childhood experiences of director Noah Baumbach. Basically, his parent's decision to divorce coincides with his own sexual awakening. It's not an epic, to be sure; it's cable TV material that seems a bit more interesting because it's set in the early 1980s. The main plot device is cataclysmic joint custody. The parents, in particular the father (a failing novelist played by Jeff Daniels with just the right amount of swarmy intellectualism) are obsessed with "who's night it is" as the Baumbach character and his younger brother are shuffled between them without regard to any stability, leading to the boys acting out in predictable but still disturbing ways.

After all this, which grows old and pointless pretty fast, Baumbach is at a loss to end it, so he slaps together a metaphor using a Museum of Natural History exhibition of a squid clinging to a whale. And we're supposed to ponder the poignancy, and wonder: Who's the squid, who's the whale? To which I answer: Who cares. They're all effed. The statements and conclusions that the movie makes are so obvious and hoo-hum, yet it tries so hard: Dysfunction! Flagrant cursing! Lying! Extreme under-aged drinking! Public masturbation! And hell, why not: Billy freaking Baldwin!

Based on previews alone, I fully expected to love The Squid and the Whale, and be confounded by Brokeback Mountain. I'm not a fan of westerns. Cowboys are innately a boring, predictable lot, prone to uttering clichéd dialogue and spending a lot of time riding horses and herding cattle. But the boys in Brokeback Mountain ain't your grandpa's cowboys. For one thing, instead of herding cattle through the prairie, they're driving sheep in the mountains of Wyoming and having violent but tender sex in their down time.

In the popular imagination, cowboy sex is sort of like prison sex. But honestly, this is a love story, presented with all the sweeping ardor of any big-budget Hollywood love story. It was so wonderful to see a gay movie that didn't fall to its knees to pay sensationalistic lip service to gay rights. Although the relationship is fraught with tension and suffers from Inus's fear of discovery, it's tender and natural. Unfortunately, the story drags a little bit, and doesn't seem to know how to end itself, so it just keeps burping up heartbreaking scenes until trickling out into a yarn of bittersweet bile.

****Mitt: Toast of the Commonwealth

By chance, I watched Mitt Romney’s State of the Commonwealth address tonight (here). Since Romney’s national profile has risen to Presidential contender, everything that comes out of his mouth is either generalized dicta about improving education and healthcare that only a maniac would disagree with, or wacky right-wing credos like teaching abstinence in schools. My god, this man has potential. America might go from Born-Again George to Mormon Mitt. Why don’t we just rename the country the United States of Jesus and start baptizing immigrants?

The bags under Mitt’s eyes were so big, they cast a shadow that obscured his pupils. I can’t trust a politician without being able to search his eyes for integrity and humanity. But Mitt does have charm, and his speech-making skills have improved enough that I’ve stopped thinking of him as the Little Wooden Boy. And I don’t know if this was planned, but today the Governor re-filed legislation to allow Massachusetts residents to order wine by mail ( here), making me and probably most liberal wine-drinkers hate him a little less, for a second.

****Meeting Mr. Bachelor

Within a week of graduating from Boston University, Lana Turkington accepted a job in the payroll department at the suburban New Jersey headquarters of a global electronics giant, moved into an upscale apartment complex known as a lair of single people, and fixed upon fulfilling her life’s goal: To acquire a husband.

Lana’s only natural impulse was to couple into a permanent state of monogamy. She always wanted a husband, just like her mother had: A distant and omnipresent companion to subtly mutinize under the guise of true love and obedience. When she was six, she held Reverend Sun Myung-Moon-style weddings for dolls, matched up after careful consideration of their long-term prospects. When she turned 8, she received a ventriloquist dummy. She named him Billy and got a close friend to marry them. Sometimes she moved Billy’s mouth and they had conversation, but mostly she just sat him on her bed and referred to him when needed.

The teenaged Lana sought a living Billy in a systematic but selective manner. She learned how to earn respect, trust and finally fearful devotion from her young boyfriends. But Lana waited until after college to use this cache of cultivated charm to pounce on every established single man she met.

Most weeknights after work, Lana joined her friend Jen for drinks at Riley's and they’d get dates for the weekend. They were good at meeting men, and Lana dated corporate salesmen, engineers, product managers, and even the occasional executive, all single men in their 30s and 40s who should love a petite 24 year-old redhead offering herself for life. She'd cater to their every whim all while wielding emotional blackmail to induce commitment. But all of them were unwilling to thrash their teeth on such flagrant marriage bait.

4 years went by, and Lana turned 28. She felt frantic. One night at Riley’s, she complained to Jen about how all her relationships seemed pointless. “Why are you so focused on marriage?” Jen asked, sipping a vodka tonic and discretely scanning the room. “Have fun! Marriage happens when you least expect it.”

“Why waste time building memories with men who will be gone soon? Like last April, Jack Farley and I went on that mountain getaway. We had a blast. And then he takes a transfer to the San Diego office without a second thought about it.”

“You’ll have better times with better men. And something will click!” With some impediment from her plastic nail tips, Jen snapped her fingers.

“Jen? Jen, good to see you!” A chubby but tall man in smart khaki approached them, carrying a half-full pint of beer. He sneaked smiles at Lana as Jen scanned her mental registry of Men She Knows, chasing a name.

“Brock! Brock Bachelor! Oh, it’s been so long! I thought you moved to Texas!”

“That was just a two-year assignment, to help get an engineering plant off the ground, but I’m back for good.”

“Wow, a two-year assignment? Do you still have that great house by the lake?”

“You bet. It’s been sitting there empty. It really killed me to leave it right after renovating the master bedroom, building a 12-foot long island in the kitchen, and fencing the backyard. But I’m back, and Texas convinced me that it’s time to settle down.” He faced Lana. “Hello. I’m Brock Bachelor.”

“Lana Turkington,” she said clearly, taking his hand and giving it two slow shakes.

And thus began what Lana knew was her last courtship. Brock Bachelor demanded co-dependency beyond her wildest dreams. He encouraged her efforts to nest in his home, solicited advice on decorating, and rallied her to use his kitchen to cook elaborate meals. He probed her about her wants, needs, and dreams: “I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii… I think public schools are alright, as long as it’s a good district… My investing strategy is very balanced, because I have short and long term goals… Absolutely I’m going to be a fun mommy… When I marry, it’ll be forever.” Shopping at Crate and Barrel, Brock always steered her to the dishes and quizzed her about which patterns she liked.

And then, the ring. It was big, lavish, and presented to her after a long candle-lit meal of grilled lamb shanks, roasted root vegetables, and a delicate chocolate mousse. “What do you think?” Brock asked, softly touching her shoulder.

“I think it’s great,” Lana said, mustering enthusiasm as she stared as her raison d’etre. “It’s…terrific.” The platinum and diamond princess cut ring was her trophy, but she found its presence disturbing. At work, it furiously winked at her away as she typed. At home, she stared at it blankly as its implications seeped into her skin: Today she is Lana Turkington, but in eight months she will be Lana Bachelor.

Two months later, her friend Jen turned 30 and threw herself a birthday party in the Riley’s well-appointed function room. Brock and Lana came bearing two bottles of champagne and a gift certificate for a day spa. Jen was thrilled to see Lana’s ring. ““All those years of trying, and you’ve finally snagged a Bachelor!” Jen gushed, spilling her vodka tunic as she lurched forward for a hug. “But I regret the day that I introduced you, if only because I lost my favorite gal pal. Where have you been hiding her?” she asked Brock.

Brock put his arm around Lana’s waist. “She’s all mine now,” he said, and everyone laughed but Lana. She was scanning the crowd, spying at least six ex-boyfriends.

Lana and Brock got drinks and mingled, at first as a couple but they were soon separated. Lana found herself in conversations with Tom Chen, a Chinese-American finance whiz whom she dated for four months a few years ago. It had been a meaningful relationship – he met her parents, she counseled him through the death of his dog – but it ended when he felt they were too serious. “Marriage isn’t in my plan until I’m at least 38,” he told her then, and told her not to call him again. But Tom was happy to see her, and talked about the good times they had together. “Remember that night we were celebrating your promotion, and I didn't make a reservation at the Thai sushi place, so we couldn’t get a table and wound up at the pizza place with counter service?” he asked. “And then we went back to your place, had wild sex, and then you got all mad when I had to leave to catch a red-eye to Frankfurt?” Tom laughed. “God, I was such a jerk. I regret that.” He glanced at her ring and moved closer to whisper “You look great tonight.”

Lana felt great, like she had just gotten off a very long airplane flight. She beamed at Tom. For once, she focused on a short-term goal with a man, and a mere ten minutes later, it was attained in the front seat of Tom’s Miata. After the passion subsided, Tom held her reflexively for a few minutes, and then glanced at her ring. “So, Mrs. Brock Bachelor,” he said. “Can I see you again?”

Lana answered him with a long, soft kiss. Her whole body tingled with life. She opened the car door and walked carefully back into the party to find her fiancée. Yes, Lana Bachelor would be a totally different person.

****Tales From the T

Red Line, MLK morning. A clean old man tries desperately to engage the light crowd of glum Monday-holiday commuters in conversation. After expressing general imponderous regret over the Patriot's playoff loss and failing to ignite any acknowledgment, he turns to the young woman sitting next to him. "It's cold out there today. I can't believe this cold," he said.

The woman, a polished blond in spiked heels, glances up from her book to flash a polite, succinct smile.

"What? Which password?" Trying to wash my hands with a phone tucked under my chin, I wonder how much the people in the restroom line are loving that I'm yakking on the phone.

"[Unintelligible] Windows."

I knew which password he wanted, but it had been so long... a week, exactly... and this particular password has long been an automatic series of rapid-fire keystrokes. I combed my brain for a solid thirty seconds, during which I just said "Um" repeatedly. Finally I belted it out. After he verified it, I asked "When do you think I'll get my computer back? Is it fixed?"

But he hung up. I opened the restroom door and dodged the shoulder of a sour-looking woman as I egressed. So Best Buy has its hands on my Hard Drive. I hope they can find everything except the kiddie porn and the pirated software.

I'm getting impatient. The absence of readily available internet connectivity has lead to unseemly behavior, like unwinding at night in front of the TV... or attempting to, at least. I got through exactly 4 minutes of last night's People's Choice Awards. Immediately after the introductory roll call of B-list stars, Jessica Simpson shimmied on the stage and lip-synced her rendition of Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made for Walking" while cavorting with about 40 male dancers dressed like gay cowboys. It was terrifyingly awful. Then the host Craig Ferguson (I have no idea who he is) dazzled the crowd with ethnic jokes about French and Indian people, replete with zany foreign accents. It's 2006, and Americans still consider foreign accents to be humorous?

****Thoughts on Baltimore: If You Build Something, They Will Come

Did you ever say a really bizarre thing and think no one in the history of Man has ever strung together an identical combination of words? Like "Excuse me, I found this half-empty pint of Smirnoff and a plastic bag full of unused CVS lipsticks in the fitting room." Or "I'm gonna make you tweet like a Cardinal." Or "I genuinely enjoyed my trip to Baltimore." (Not to give Baltimore any credit, though; when I'm visiting with old friends, I could be in an Iraqi oil field and still have a ball.) Baltimore is a city so singular in its pleasures that its entire tourism souvenir industry is built around crabs. Don't get me wrong, crabs are great. While personally I question the wisdom of consuming the bottom-feeding species of our Earth’s pollutant-rich waters and have curtailed my intake of shellfish, I cannot dispute that Spider maki is a truly divine culinary concoction, and mandates crabs as homage worthy. But “crabs” has less savory connotations... should a city notorious for its sky-high STD rates really make its unofficial mascot the crab? We arrived at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor via automobile with middling traffic and only a few glimpses of the city’s EPA Superfund sites and industrial bleakness from the highway. It was a cold, dreary Saturday afternoon. The Inner Harbor seemed concrete and gray. Homeless people lined the sidewalk, asking for money in lunatic ways. "Don't you know I'm the Candy Man?" one man chanted, while another repeatedly slurred "Got a quarter, got a dime, got a penny..." in a ruined voice. In the top tourist destination of Baltimore, I feared vaguely for my safety. We fled to a restaurant, then poked around a glitzy mall packed with the trusty stores we all know and love: Banana Republic, Victoria's Secret, The Gap. A generic copy of every mall in the country, with the exception of the Baltimore-themed souvenir shops, packed with crab paraphernalia. By nature, crabs look pissed and hostile. Truly it is a symbol of Baltimore.

Beguiling Baltimore Tourists Get Crabs

Ah, Baltimore. Like all old American cities, something notable happened there, once. During the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key penned "The Star-Spangled Banner" while watching American forces repel a British naval attack. Then absolutely nothing happened until John Waters used his beloved city's cultural irrelevance and general decay as the backdrop of his cinematic assaults on greater American sensibilities.

In the '80s, Baltimore got serious about revitalization, and built itself an Aquarium. Over the course of several decades, a string of small-time attractions like the USS Constellation and the Maritime Museum along with scores of upscale retail stores and eateries sprang up around the Aquarium, and the Inner Harbor was born as a genuine tourist destination, proof that Baltimore wasn't all that bad despite its top-of-the-chart rates of crime, drug use, and STDs. The Inner Harbor gave Baltimore the bold confidence to market itself as "Charm City."

And what choice does Baltimore have but to trump its charms, as charmless as they are? With America's steady progression to a service-based economy, no industry becomes more important to a city than tourism. Not only does it give jobs to workers displaced by the erosion of urban industry, it gives a city an aura, a soul, a unifying cause for pride. So Baltimore wants to charm you into getting crabs. Its existence depends on it.

****Forced Luddism Continues...

My laptop is still gone. Expect continued scattered posts this week, with a chance of total draught.

****Meredith's Reasons Why Not She Will Watch Emily's Reason's Why Not

A solid month of a blanket advertising campaign in the freshly-renovated South Station ("Now with 800% more ad space and a shiny new command center for employees to nap in"): At every turn, Heather Graham stares at me with those moony eyes braced above her bulbous cheek muscles, plying the world with her "reasons": Because short men equal flat heels. Because I'm so through counting carbs. Because I dated his brother. Because it's a felony in some states. Because I'm no longer 21.

Can network television make these mind-blowing revelations interesting without being able to incorporate bare-naked behinds, frank discussion about kinky sex, and the occasional foul-languaged joke? Is it on the force of these witless "reasons" that this show hopes to capture the fickle hearts and minds of their target demographic?

Although Emily's Reasons Why Not may seem like a derivative regurgitated hybrid of Sex in the City, Friends, and Ally McBeal, this show is actually quite high-concept, as evidenced by the first three lines of the press release: Emily Sanders (Heather Graham) is a successful young woman with terrific taste, great friends and a fabulous job in publishing. She didn’t get to this place in life by accident. She worked hard and always followed a set of self-imposed guidelines referred to as the ‘Reasons.’ Boy, this character sounds like an absolute delight! Don't you just love people who always adhere to a set of self-imposed guidelines and say things like "I have my reasons"?

From my perspective as a non-TV watcher, it seems every new sit-com revolves around successful sexy people with glamorous jobs that never generate stress or interfere with thriving and delightfully convoluted personal lives. Yawn. TV writers should stop trying to win audiences with appeals to their aspirations and instead go for empathy and rubber-necking. One of the best sit-coms ever? Roseanne. An uneducated, vulgar, overweight woman with a crappy job, unlovable kids, and a bumbling, unattractive husband. She faces adversity with wiseacres and the occasional irrational bout of anger. Roseanne's reasons why and why not: Because life's a bitch and so am I. That's the sort of rational logic that I can relate to.

****Laptop Still Sick

Still no laptop with which to use for the sort of hard-core blogging I'm craving. I'm going to Baltimore this weekend... hopefully the Best Buy Geek Squad will have fixed everything when I return...

****Unwired

My laptop is sick... puking up blue screens, non-stop. To look on the rosy side of an otherwise devastating experience: Its 2-year Performance Service warranty expires in just 21 days. At Best Buy, a member of the "Geek Squad" took it off my hands. My confidence was buoyed by his discernable discomfort with human interaction: This geek is authentic.

Feeling bereft, I left Best Buy and aimlessly walked the mall. I watched the faces of my fellow shoppers, their dull eyes darting to and fro each storefront's prominent Sale signs. I wanted to shout: "Christmas was ten days ago! Haven't you people had ENOUGH? Break free from the grip of non-essential possession acquisition!" Me, I had a Banana Republic gift card and a genuine need for warm slacks, so I picked over the Clearance rack amid a horde of fashion-hungry women who touched everything. I bought two pairs of pants and left the mall, resolving not to buy any more clothes until spring. That's my New Year's resolution: Seasonal clothes shopping, only four times a year.

Yesterday at work I lied about my resolution, just because implies that I have some sort of "problem" with shopping. I was sampling some free candy in another department's kitchenette when the booming voice of a co-worker startled me: "Haven't seen you in a while!... How's it going?.... You have a nice New Years?.... Got any resolutions?"

"Well, um..." I was a little thrown by what seemed a personal question. What if I said "To stop sleeping around the office," "Greet every day of my dreary life with a delusion smile," or "I'm going to kick crack"? So I said "I'm resolving to drink more water," which was my resolution 3 or 4 years ago, and one of my relative successes.

"Drink more water?" he said, looking puzzled. "Well, that shouldn't be too hard. You're like me: You aim low!"