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****Women on Top of an Upside-Down World

A global trend has been building for decades: Voters in countries that are popularly imagined as chest-thumping hubs of masculinity (Germany, Liberia, even Iraq) are electing more and more women into prominent leadership positions. Pollsters are quizzing Americans about the prospect of Hillary or Condoleezza in 2008 (here). But I think America perceives itself as too powerful to elect a female president. The size of our military and the girth of its current obligations precludes the possibility that Americans would consider a female leader.

Are women only suitable to run lesser countries, like Ireland, Finland, and the Philippines? Or is America just a downright traditional nation, where George Bush wears the pants (as carefully chosen by a Republican image consultant) and does manly things like: On Thanksgiving, swaddled in the comforts of the Prairie Chapel Ranch, make a call to the troops in Iraq (here... apparently, he didn't say much, as the accompanying "story" is blank) before tucking into a sumptious feast of free-range turkey, green beans supreme, fruit ambrosia, and Texas Pecan Pie with the rest of the royal family (here for complete Bush Thanksgiving menu). I mean, let's be honest, only a man could do that.

First Ladies have always acted as the feminine conscious of America. They rally around domestic issues so the man can spend more time conquering foreign lands in search of resources. So George Bush decides who lives or dies, and Laura Bush makes statements "upon Receiving the White House Christmas Tree" (here). Laura, don't you know that if you put up a tree more than a week before Christmas, it'll be all dried out by Christmas morning?

Hillary Clinton's name is still being bandied around as a possible candidate for 2008. After contemplating her dismal prospects for the millionth time, I realized that it is not so much Hillary's much touted toughness that turns off voters. It the softness that she was forced to exploit in her once-supplicant position as First Lady. I seem to recall her writing a book It Takes a Village which espouses a community approach to child-rearing. She also wrote a book that chronicled her interior design and hostess prowess (An Invitation to the White House: At Home With History, here). I once made her recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Presidential quality baked goods, I think not.

For so long, the First Lady has been relegated to triviality that a role reversal would be unseemingly. If Condoleezza is King, who is going to tout the merits of literacy and family? Would Bill Clinton be content to look pretty and play hostess to visiting dignitaries? America's First Lady is a position only befitting of a woman. Perhaps the only way we'd elect a woman President is if she had a woman at her side.

****Time to make the Junior Mints

Boston is enjoying a spat of warm if not muggy weather, so this morning I laced up my running shoes and hit the sidewalks. Felix da Housecat shuffled on just as I hit my stride. Yeah, my iPod knew what was up.

On Mass Ave, the pre-dawn air was thick with nectarous fumes from the Cambridge Brands candy factory, a subsidiary of Tootsie Roll. It is the last remaining candy factory in Cambridge. 60 years ago, when candy was the main vehicle by which people ingested sugar, more than 140 candy companies scented Boston and Cambridge with fondant. Talk about being born in the wrong era!

(A historical note about sugar-scented air that bares mention: In 1919, a molasses tank exploded and flooded the North End with a 35 mph wave of 2.3 millions gallons of molasses that killed 21 people, here. The molasses was intended for alcohol production, not candy, but still. Doopity freaking doo.)

****New Mental Ailments

To the consumer-driven psychiatric industry that acts as a dispensary for the profit-motivated pharmaceutical industry, any irrational or illogical mental tic is a sickness. Here are some of the latest maladies to be diagnosed.

Consumer Anxiety Flu
Signs and Symptoms:

• Most prevalent during the holiday shopping season, the flu strikes a large segment of the population. It induces the desire shop at uncommon times by kindling the belief that money will be saved or that the stores will run out of products. Sufferers can experience frenzied fits not unlike that of wartime looters.
• Flu victims often mentally reprise and tinker their Christmas shopping lists despite being occupied with other tasks. They describe a nagging apprehension that they will not complete their holiday shopping, which causes increased production of stress hormones that interfere with their enjoyment of a joyous time of year.
• In order to relieve this disturbance, many sufferers must finish their shopping a full month in advance. Even then, symptoms of the flu persist until the post-Christmas sales are over and they are in heavy debt to their credit card companies.

Free Office Food Addiction (FOFA)
Signs and Symptoms:

• FOFAers prowl catered meetings and office parties to which they are not invited in order to pillage food, with disregard to how gluttonous they appear to their co-workers, and despite having abundant financial resources to buy their own food.
• FOFAers devoutly believe that food, when free of cost, tastes better, even if it's been sitting in a room-temperature office for four hours or has been stored in the refrigerator overnight and heated up in the microwave for lunch the next day.
• FOFAers have erratic eating habits. They are known to gorge on vast quantities of free office food despite having just eaten breakfast or lunch. They consider cold chicken marsala to be a perfectly acceptable afternoon snack. They would rather suffer a thousand indigestions than let someone else enjoy that roast beef sandwich.

Decaffobia
Signs and Symptoms:

• Decaffobics are constantly plagued by suspicions that they are unwittingly drinking decaffeinated coffee.
• Decaffobics eye baristas like a hawk. They regard bulk coffee bean bins with suspicion. When in a restaurant setting, they quiz companions: "Are you feeling this coffee? Are you buzzed?"
• Decaffobics have been known to ingest vast amounts of coffee in order to perceive a comforting yet unhealthy caffeine buzz.

Self-Defense Victim Paranoia
Signs and Symptoms:

• Sufferers describe an acute fear of getting shot when in the proximity of armed authority figures, and often curtail themselves from reaching into their pockets or making any aberrant movements.
• Sufferers may also experience heightened anxiety when passing a fellow pedestrian on a quiet street, for fear of being considered a threat and therefore become victim to another's can of mace or martial arts training.

Premature Egress Syndrome (PES)
Signs and Symptoms:

• PESers are typically daily riders of public transit who are compelled by anxiety and the voices in their diseased brains to be the first person to exit a train or bus.
• PESers frequently push their way to the doors before the train or bus reaches its destination, despite having full awareness of how rude this is perceived by others.
• PESers are often old and slow-moving, forcing those that egress the train or bus behind them to pass them in order to walk at a normal pace.

****The 10 Year HS Reunion

About halfway through my plate of overcooked buffet fare, I leaned over to my date and confided "I finally understand the melting clocks in Dali's Persistence of Memory!" If only my former classmates had heard me toss out such a pretentious bon mot.

Time suddenly was melting. 10 years had passed, and there we were, aged but not beyond recognition, enriched by life but still young enough not to be beaten by it, and drunk but not enough to dance to songs that predated our high school years by anywhere from 5 to 25 years. Most people didn't appear to be all that different, just better defined. It was, in a word, surreal.

There were a few of those delicious reunion surprises that everyone secretly longs for. A semi-popular girl whose last name placed her near me in middle school classes (before students were segregated according to their academic prowess) was a big fat cow. Who would've predicted that her formerly tall, lithe body could accommodate so much raw heft? I ordered myself to stop staring.

The filthy rich daughter of the region's waste management empire had enormous breast implants. She was gorgeous, for sure, but appeared to be 35. I was standing near a group of guys who were and still are preppy pigs, and heard them talking about her: "Dude, she's so hot." "Man, that is perfect." One former classmate brought a woman who was a stripper or maybe worse: A tall blond with fake breasts and a dull look on her painted, bored face. I enjoyed speculating if she was a paid escort, or genuinely with this good-looking white trash idiot. Both scenarios are entirely fitting of the kid I remember.

I talked to several people who I never talked to in high school. I was surprised when a group of 3 popular boys-turned-3 interesting men came over to ask about my life and tell me about theirs. I played with 2 of them in nursery school, but beyond grade school, social strata prevented any kind of contact. I was touched they recalled growing up together, and engaged in manly banter about soccer with my date. It contrasted with another man who, when we were 5, proposed marriage to me. I beamed "Hi!" to him and he said "Hey" and looked away.

Most memorable: I saw people who I longed to see because I actually liked them. Three girls in particular, I wanted to tell everything and hear everything and reminisce about the sleepovers, the teachers, and all of the things that were horrible at the time but can now be thought of fondly, because it's over and we survived. But bridging the ten-year gap of absolutely no contact was impossible, as was focusing on any conversation. Every minute: "Omigod, is that...?" Too soon the night ended, and I am left with the persistence of my imperfect memories.

Oh, and a girl told me I looked like Gwen Stefani. That made my night.

****Rock Star Deaths

Rock stars owe it to their fans to die young. After achieving an inspired heyday, they should die a glorious tragic death and leave us with the output of their brief flash of genius so that we can shake our heads sadly and wonder what might have been, instead of watching them get old, irrelevant, and entertaining solely due to nostalgia or a public scandal.

Gary Glitter should be remembered for his glam rock hit "Rock and Roll Part 2," the soundtrack of all moments that epitomize cool. But in 1999, he was convicted on child pornography charges, smashing any hope that he'd simply be a kitschy one-hit wonder. Luckily, unlike most rock stars who become undignified, Gary Glitter has the chance to redeem himself by possibly being sentenced to execution by a Vietnamese firing squad (here) if convicted of child rape (more likely, he would be found guilty of sexual contact with a minor and imprisoned for a few years).

How many rock stars face the possibility of death by firing squad? How cool is that!? I concur that rock stars must die young, but they go about it all wrong. Picture: Jimi Hendrix suffocating on his own vomit… Janis Joplin shooting up alone in her hotel room… Kurt Cobain placing the gun in his mouth… Mama Cass Elliot choking on a ham sandwich… Jerry Garcia clutching his diseased heart… None attain any iota of coolness befitting of their life.

Death by Vietnamese firing squad, on the other hand, is the best Gary Glitter can hope for. That is the stuff legends are made of.

****Thanksunion

I'm off to Pennsylvania, for Thanksgiving with the family and my 10 year high school reunion. Planning my outfit for the reunion is worse than planning my outfit for all my "first day of school"s combined. What impression do I want to make? Should I dress to show off my figure, to prove I didn't let myself go? Should I convey my middling success as a career girl? Or do I play it casual and relaxed?

I strived for a combination of all three and wound up with an outfit that a Victoria's Secret employee might wear.

I am bummed that mon ami Amy won't be going due to a previously-scheduled event of actual importance. I don't know if I can face a high school-related event without her at my side to make it bearable. In high school, Amy made me believe that people could find me interesting. She inspired me to set off into the world to search for these people. And someday, I may find them.

****Quote of the Day

I'm halfway through Kurt Vonnegut's newest A Man without a Country. It's kinda bathroom reading for those who enjoy profoundity. I love this quote:

"[The arts] are a very human way to make life bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something."

****Don't You Just Love a Bargain?

Throughout New England and coming soon to New Jersey, there is a chain of stores called the Christmas Tree Shops (here). Guess what they sell? If you said "Christmas trees," your logic is sound, but you are wrong. They sell low-rent household goods that went unsold at other stores. The name is actually a metaphor: Shopping here invokes that delirious excitement of looking under the Christmas tree!

The Christmas Tree Shop caters to female nesters who are compelled to shop compulsively despite their tight budgets. Like many localized retailers, they earn recognition with incessant television advertisements replete with a galling jingle: "Don't you just ... love... a bargain?" a doo-wop ensemble sings playfully amid upbeat jazzy horns.

The ads always feature real female Christmas Tree Shop shoppers ransacking the store, holding up merchandise and voicing amazement over the price: "Look at these sunflower place mats with lace trim. Only $5 for a set of 8!" "These candles burn for 120 hours, and they're only $3, and they smell like baked apple pie!" "Cloth lobster bibs. $1 each!"

While I'm no wide-eyed sucker who trusts the integrity of advertisers, I devoutly believe that these women are authentic customers. With their helmet hair, Dress Barn apparel, Bostonian accents that make Mayor Tom Menino sound like Sir Anthony Hopkins, and unabashed proclivity for crap, these could only be South Shore housewives, singled out amid all other Christmas Tree Shop shoppers as radiating copious amounts of that Christmas morning joy.

A woman reverently holds up a wicker basket, waves her hand in front of it like a Price is Right Barker Beauty, and proclaims, "Bread sticks. This will be the bread basket for my holiday table. Only $8." A chubby woman in a windbreaker is amassing a stack of gigantic coffee cups in her arms. "2 for $8! Can you believe it!"

Actually, no. I've been to a Christmas Tree Shop and I was a little stunned at the steepness of the prices. After all, this is the dregs of the American marketplace. This is the stuff K-Mart shoppers shunned. But shoppers are taunted with that jingle cheerily assuring them that everything's a bargain, which perhaps makes the doggy-shaped salt and pepper shakers, the faux pearl soap dishes, and the ceramic serving platter with a pig's head on one end and a squiggly tail on the other seem that much more desirable.

****Bog Walk

Today I walked the .5 mile Ponkapoag Bog boardwalk at the Blue Hills Reservation. The walk oscillated between quiet moments of contemplating life while marveling in nature's complexity (pictured below) to a forced introduction into the exciting world of lumberjack water sports due to numerous submerged and improperly anchored logs. When faced with a board that is six inches below water, it may seem like stepping onto a nearby island of peat is a safe alternative. No. It's not.

****Movie Review: Pride and Prejudice

It would be hard not to make a good Austen film adaptation. They would've had roll up their sleeves and strategize: "How can we screw this up?" Hence, the fifth Pride and Prejudice is a thoroughly predictable event, with those irascible Bennets and all the signature Austen archetypes: Cads, snobs, hopeless romantics, frivolous girls, nitwitted women, insufferable men, and suffering husbands. And since I lap this stuff up like vanilla pudding, I was satisfied.

Emma by Jane Austen was the first real book of English literature that I ever read. At age 12, still loving Sweet Valley High but ambitious from having understood The Catcher in the Rye, I struggled through the first few chapters several times before becoming attuned to the foreign style of prose. My problem was that I expected it to be more complex than it really was. I gradually understood that Jane Austen was relaying details of a silly world filled with silly people, all obsessed with marriage, money, and status. It was 19th century England's Sweet Valley High, only these women never graduated.

But I'll always defend Austen against charges of inanity. Jane Austen was a brilliant, witty writer who only knew of one echelon of a closed society, and had no choice but to use this world to brandish her genius. It was for her legacy's benefit, because this world is the perfect backdrop for Hollywood romantic comedies.

The theatre was packed with other groups of women. As the predictable ending unfolded, sniffling fits erupted all around. After the movie, standing in a five-minute bathroom line, I heard a teenaged girl tell her friends "I liked the Jane character so much more than Elizabeth. Much more romantic."Certainly, Elizabeth Bennet is the most unlikable Austen heroine, and D'Arcy is certainly the least desirable hero, but to hear that brought home the realization that modern audiences miss the point. Austen is not a particularly romantic writer to read. She was much more interested in the society where romance unfolded, a society that largely condemned and sought to suppress romance, because romance rarely leads to the best marriage pairing.

Note: During Mr. Bennet and Elizabeth's tender father-daughter moment, I was stunned when actor Donald Sutherland smiles to reveal the whitest, straightest smile I've ever seen. There has never been an Englishman alive or dead who achieved such pearls. It really distracted me

****Fat Suits: Fashionable

Speaking of prides and prejudices, it's Fat Like Me: In a poignant attempt to depict the antipathy that severely obese Americans face, the latest trend among skinny female television personalities is to don a fat suit, go undercover in public as a 350-pound woman, film the inevitable hostility with a hidden camera, and then wax philosophical about how it affected their very souls.

"It was shocking. It was hurtful," says Entertainment Reporter Vanessa Minnillo (here). "[Construction workers] who usually whistle and screech at any woman who walks by were not only silent -- they practically broke their necks turning away from me." Oh, the pain of not getting unwanted leers from strange men. Truly, this is apartheid.

Talk-show host Tyra Banks proved that there's an obese person lurking in every former super model as she provoked the disgust of three men on blind dates: "When Banks revealed her real identity to a date, he went gaga. But, he still admitted that when he thought she was a 350-pound woman, he would not have gone out with her again" (here). Men won't date women that they're not sexually attracted to? There should be laws against this.

****The Fort Point Scandal

After receiving a call about the death of a 29-year old electronic sculpture artist from a heart attack during a "sex act," Boston police uncovered "one of the largest methamphetamine manufacturing operations in the state" not a half block away from my office in Fort Point (here). All week, officials have been dismantling the potentially-explosive crystal meth lab, with much fanfare on the street from reporters and curious on-lookers watching the non-action and gleefully recounting the seedy details: He was a MIT graduate! Found in a wet suit surrounded by bondage gear! Exhibited at the Burning Man festival! A den of drug-fueled orgies, with hamsters (here)!

Fort Point is a community of South Boston, traditionally inhabitant by artists (here for picture of my office's street). It is separated from the Financial District by a thin, dirty waterway called the Fort Point Channel, which is famous for having bridges built over it, tunnels dug under it, and tea dumped into it. Look around, and you'll see signs of the artists. Sculptures and art installations in and around the Channel are common. Occasionally during the day, you may spot a bona fide artist trolling the bridges.

But changes to Fort Point were inevitable, given its proximity to South Station and the Downtown. The box-like multi-storied buildings proved perfect fodder for office space. The artists are still here, but so is Thomson Financial, Gillette, Fidelity, the Moakley Federal Courthouse, the Children's Museum, and, just down the road, the World Trade Center and the new Boston Convention Center, around which multiple sky-rise hotels are presently being erected.

Every day at lunchtime, I walk a loop: I stroll down to the Convention Center, walk through the World Trade Center to the Harbor, and follow the water front past the Courthouse and the Children's Museum to my office. It's an interesting neighborhood, with its landmarks, Big Dig construction, commerce, and culture. It's perversely appropriate that this multi-faceted American hub had room for a crystal meth lab with a sexual dungeon.

****The Bucking Herd

After two costly years in Iraq with no end in sight, the Senate is demanding that the Bush Administration provide unclassified "quarterly updates on the pace of military and policy gains" as well an exit strategy (here).

Accountability? Bush don't like that word. He prefers to operate as a lone cowboy, with total control over his herd. The cows aren't supposed to ask "Hey, where are we going?"

****Googled

Something extremely terrifying has happened.

I have always submitted my archive pages to the Google search engine so that they may be indexed, searched, and, hopefully, indoctrinating. My little contribution to mankind, I reason. But about a month ago, I clicked through the official process to register this site on Google's radar. And now, when "Meredith Green" is se arched... this site is numero uno.

Here. Try it (here). I finally surpassed those web pages about the Robert and Meredith Green Collection of Silver Nutmeg Graters that clogged the top of the list.

My site traffic has more than doubled and I have stage fright. Not because more people are coming to my site, but because people who are looking for me will instantly find me. I'm scanning my archives critically. My heavens, I am a lunatic. I'm so mean and grumpy. I'm considering taking down all my archives, for fear something I wrote in my cavalier days of anonymity comes back to haunt me. I probably won't, if only because I'm a flaming egotist.

What's more horrifying is the little Google descriptive blurb that I wrote for this site: 'A personal web site with the sole purpose of engaging thought.' I do not recall writing such highfalutin crap. Engage thought?!? I mostly overanalyze strangers, rant typical Liberal resentments about society and politics, and earnestly discuss the weather. Truly, this website exists to hone my writing skills so that they may continue to be my life's Trade. Writing is my only talent that I take pleasure in; my other talents are rock trivia, subtle mental manipulation, and typing 40 WPM using only my right hand.

****Reality Doesn't Write Itself

In New York, a group of television reality show writers stormed a gathering of TV executives, protesting that they're not compensated as well as sit-com and drama show writers (here). "They dumped leaflets on hotel's banquet hall tables ... The entertainment chiefs looked puzzled and uncomfortable, and the protesters quickly left the room."

Excuse my naivety, but why do reality shows need writers? Aren't they candid glimpses into the homes, courtships, crash diets, phobias, and desert island strandings of everyday Americans?

****A Day of Celebration

To me, November 14 is my sister's birthday. She's 31 today. Happy Birthday, Laurie!

But to the rest of the world, today is, of course, World Diabetes Day (here): "World Diabetes Day, celebrated every year on Nov. 14, was established by WHO and the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) in 1991, aiming at coordinating diabetes advocacy worldwide. The slogan for the 2005 campaign is "Put Feet First: Prevent Amputations" (here). So let's observe today by preventing the foot amputations of diabetics. I aim to prevent at least four amputations by 10pm.

With that bit for humanity out of the way, let's get back to my sister. When people ask what my sister is like, I always tell the truth: "She's just like me, only with a noticeably better personality."

I don't know how it happened, that she turned into one of those unfailingly nice people and I turned into a total bitch, because for much of my childhood, it was exactly the opposite: I was the Angel, she was the Devil. Maybe I was a good influence on her, and she was a bad infuence on me, and we swapped temperaments. Or maybe my memories of childhood are skewed, and she seemed like the Devil because she was my older sister, and I seemed like an Angel because I was spoiled and she always covered for me.

But wait... I do think it was her sitting on top of me and tickling me until I cried and urinated and begged for mercy. Hmm.

****Recent Instances of Awkward Small Talk with Various Clerks

At CVS, with young dumpy female cashier:
"Ooh, what a pretty ring," she says.
"Thank you."
"Who gave you such a pretty ring?"
"Um... my ex-boyfriend."
"And you still wear it?"
"We're still friends."
"It's a pretty ring."
"Thanks."

At CVS, with same dumpy female cashier, after handing her my keychain with my ExtraCare card:
"What a tiny little key."
"It's for my bike lock.
She fingers the key, seemingly deep in thought. "Such a tiny key. I would lose such a tiny key."

At CVS, after successfully avoiding the dumpy female cashier for the tall, thin gray-haired black man:
"I can't give you cash back," he says immediately. "No cash back for debit."
"That's okay, I'm paying cash."
(Searches toothbrush for UPC symbol, seemingly for minutes. Repeats process with can of shaving cream. Shoots me nervous looks.)
"I can't give cash back if I don't have any cash in the drawer," he says.
"Oh, I don't need cash back, thanks."
"I don't have it," his voice lowering to an insistent whisper, as if I'm some kind of obstinate retard.
"FINE."

At Library, after handing the clerk my library card and telling her I had a book on reserve:
"Your name is Meredith Green! One of my best friends is named Barbara Green, but she's not a relation of yours, because she's black. Green's a common last name, anyway. I've known several Greens. One time, my friend Barbara Green worked with a woman whose last name was Barbara Brown. I've heard of people with the last name White, but I don't think I've ever known a White. It's like that board game, Clue?" (Returns to desk with my book, pausing for a millisecond as she scans the book.) "Let's see, there's Peacock, and Scarlet, Plum, White, Mustard, and Green! My kids love that game and my two girls always fight over who will be Miss Scarlet. They have a computer version. I don't think it's as fun as the board game, but that's just me." (Gives a woe is me, I'm so old chuckle and hands over the book.) "It's due in three weeks."
"Great. Thanks," I say.

****Beverage Review: Green Mountain Organic Fair Trade Coffee, as Interpreted by McDonalds

I rushed to South Station to catch a 6pm commuter rail train. It was 5:54. Urban-day trippers wandered around the hub station like confused ants freed from the well-worn paths of their suburban ant farms. Parents fought to keep their brood from straying to the inviting goodies displayed at the bakeries, news stands, and fast food kiosks. Kids with skateboards mulled around, trying to maintain the vestiges of cool from their day of independence in the city before facing the indignity of riding the train and picked up at the station by their parents. People snapped peevishly at each other: "You have to go to the bathroom? What is wrong with you?" a woman hissed at her husband. Old people shuffled around, perhaps looking for unattended packages, or maybe just killing time until death.

My body ached for coffee. I told it sternly that ensuring its presence on the train was more important, but having been deprived of caffeine since 7:30am, it wouldn't listen. The Au Bon Pain was mobbed. Crestfallen, I looked around the station, my eyes falling on a huge banner at the McDonalds: Now Serving Green Mountain Organic Coffee!

I had read in the NY Times about McDonald's latest ploy to brighten their global image as harbingers of a dark, soulless corporate age by brandishing the magical marketing word: Organic. They are one of many mega-corporations who seek to attract the upscale consumer by taking advantage of lax USDA labeling standards for "organic" and "fair trade" food (here). Pretty soon, the terms will be meaningless to consumers.

But, at the time, I wasn't thinking about that. I was thinking "coffee" and "train." There was a small line, but if there's one thing McDonalds is, it's fast (the food part is debatable). As the genial immigrant McDonald's employee fetched my coffee, a message repeatedly flashed on the digital register display: Average order served in 23 seconds.

My coffee was served in a Green Mountain cup with a Newman's Own label touting the wholesome organic and fair trade nature of its contents (and no embarrassing markings that would publicly indicate that I went to McDonalds). I tried to pay him. "No, it's free today," he said, smiling.

"Oh, good," I said, like getting told "it's free today" by a cashier happens to me all the time. I hurried to the train, collapsed in a seat, and sipped the watery hot fluid. It was spiked with cream and sugar without my consent. Honestly, if I was blindly handed a cup of this stuff and told to guess what it was, I would've said "hot sugar milk." Coffee would be my fourth or fifth guess. People will drink this liquid and demand a return of whatever additives McDonalds was using to make their coffee taste like coffee.

****Can't Sit at the Lunch Counter

A Boston woman is accusing the LunchDates.com dating service of "pure discrimination" for refusing to work with her because of her weight (here). Traynor, 5 feet 5 inches tall, checked off medium under "build" in the Web site's membership survey. She said she told a LunchDates counselor in a phone interview she weighed a little less than 200 pounds. "About a half-hour later, I got a call from her, and she said, 'I'm sorry. We can't help you because you're overweight.' Just like that. I think what really upset me is that it was done strictly by numbers," Traynor said.

What, does she wear her 60+ pounds of excess flab extremely well? Is it all muscle? Is she one of those medium-build 200 pound women who looks 150? When a person doesn't get a job, is denied health care, or is refused their Miranda rights because of their size, that is discrimination. Not being accepted as a client for a dating service because no man wants to go on a blind date with a 39-year old 200 pound personal chef is being a victim of sound business sense. This isn't Jim Crow. To call it discrimination degrades the true meaning of the word.

****New to Laundry

The laundromat is pretty dead at 8am Saturday morning, which is why I went. It was empty except for me and an older woman of Caribbean descent who was expertly coordinating about eight heavy loads of laundry. I walked around the neighborhood in the cool sunshine and then returned 5 minutes before my clothes were dry.

A young Middle Eastern couple came in. Please indulge my up-PC humor when I say: It was as if a bomb had gone off. They each lugged all sorts of bags and baskets, and talked heatedly in Arabic. The woman, who was attractive and wearing a dainty white silk veil, designer jeans, and a fur-fringed black jacket, appeared to be following the instructions of the man, who wore designer jeans and a leather jacket and cap. He would grab a bag, hand it to her, and point to a washer for her to put the clothes in.

It appeared he was instructing her how to do laundry. The whole time she was sighing and barking things at him as he barked back orders at her. The Arabic had reached a fever pitch right before the man left the laundromat. The woman sighed noisily then stared glumly at the washing machines. Silence was restored.

By this time, my cloths had dried so I moved to the folding area next to the other woman with her mounds of clothes. The Middle Eastern woman began to take an interest in the two of us folding clothes. Soon, she's standing behind us, watching the piles of laundered cloth turn into neat stacks. I turn around and smile at her, thinking maybe she was trying to ask us something, but she just stared at the clothes with a look of great displeasure. I am hesitant to make too many assumptions about her situation, but I felt like saying, "Welcome to laundry."

****'Can I borrow your diamond necklace?

The reality is that my former classmates will be normal and productive American citizens. While statistically, some have faced misfortune, tragedy, bankruptcy, and obesity, it is not possible that they all did. And me, well, I'm proud of what I've achieved, and I'm decidedly hotter than I was back in high school, but this is no triumphant return to the hometown, bearing international accolade and driving a Jaguar. I'm a normal and productive American citizen as well.

So in reality, my high school reunion is an opportunity to make awkward small-talk with normal and productive American citizens that I haven't seen in 10 years, while trying not to drink so much that I'll break down and fulfil another high school dream by ranting about humiliations that they've probably forgotten about and administering bitch slaps.

****Minding Children

The NY Times ran a story (here) about restaurants and other commercial venues that actively discourage the presence of misbehaving and loud children, thus facing resentment from parents who believe their parenting skills are being critiqued: "The looks I would get when I went in there made me so nervous that I would try to buy the food as fast as I could and get out," said Laura Brauer, 40, who has stopped visiting A Taste of Heaven with her two children. "I think that the mothers who allow their kids to run around and scream, that's wrong, but kids scream and there is nothing you can do about it. What are we supposed to do, not enjoy ourselves at a cafe?"

Yes. Yes. Yes. Enjoying yourself at a cafe is an adult thing. Adults go to cafes simply to enjoy themselves. Cafes are places of solace. Adults with kids go to ice cream shops. Or they stay at home and make hot chocolate. If a child is at the age where they are prone to just randomly shrieking and crying, they should not be taken to a cafe.

Says another mother who feels her social liberties are rapidly eroding: "You go to a coffee shop or a bakery for a rest, to relax, and that you would have to worry the whole time about your child doing something that children do - really what they're saying is they don't welcome children, they want the child to behave like an adult."

This disregard for the other adults who are also seeking a place to rest and relax is symptomatic of a pleasure-driven society of individualists. No one wants to be that parent administering verbal discipline to their child in a public place, but parents who look the other way are ten times more irritating. I like it when a parent says to their boisterous child, "This is not how we act in public" or says something conveying that they are ashamed or at least aware that their child is disturbing people.

The other day, killing time in Back Bay, I was the new Aveda salon, browsing the fancy personal care products with wide eyes and an irritated nose. In the salon waiting area, which consisted of three chairs awkwardly stuck up against the wall in the store section, two pretty girls decidedly under the age of seven sat by themselves, waiting for their mother to be serviced within the salon. They had tiny bouncey balls, and were attempting to hurl them onto the ground with such force that the balls would ascend to the ceiling. Their young hands threw the balls on an imperfect angle, causing the balls to hit the walls and ricochet basically all over this luxurious store, to their screaming delight.

The receptionist had obviously been appointed as their chaperone. She was young, refined-looking woman of Asian descent. "Girls," she would say. "Please stop doing that. You could break something. Your mother would be really mad."

The girls were oblivious. They laughed and continued to pelt the balls.

"Girls, am I going to have to get your mother?"

An idle threat. The girls ignored her, diving all around the small store to retrieve the ball and almost colliding into me and the two other customers.

The receptionist walked from behind her desk and knelt to the ground. "Girls, please. You're going to have to give me those. You can have them back when you leave."

The girls looked stunned, as if an adult had never before asserted authority over them. They both held out the balls and dropped them in her hands. She smiled and rose. "Go sit down and wait for your mother," she said. And that they did, like little angles. They even whispered.

Parents of America, if you won't mind your children in public places, at least assent to someone else stepping in. We'll be the bad guys.

****The Original French Hater

Do I detect notes of glee in the American media's reporting of the French riots? Certainly many Americans, fueled by France's widely-publicized condescending responses to American woes, have little sympathy for France's domestic turmoil. On CNN last night, the viewer question was "Will the US Embassy's travel advisory deter you from going to France?" Many people emailed sentiments like "The riots wouldn't deter me from visiting France, because I would never go there anyway. It's full of French people."

Is that the best you can do, America? Take a lesson from Mark Twain, the most quotable American ever and a virulent French hater: "French are the connecting link between man & the monkey." "In certain public indecencies the difference between a dog & a Frenchman is not perceptible." "There is nothing lower than the human race except the French." "A dead Frenchman has many good qualities, many things to recommend him; many attractions--even innocencies. Why cannot we have more of these?"

(Myself, I am a Francophile, in a very literal sense of the word.)

****World War 3: Coming in Your Lifetime

On Monday, the International Energy Agency (IEA), a respected energy advisor to the US and 25 other developed nations, released their World Energy Outlook (here). Among the gloomy highlights: Energy producers must invest $17 trillion over the next 25 years to meet global energy demand that will rise 52 percent by 2030, "a future that is not sustainable – from an energy-security or environmental perspective." The report also advises that we take a “determined” action to conserve fuel and invest in sustainable energy sources in order to reduce pollution and reliance on energy imports from the Middle East and North Africa, who will likely be supplying fuel for the entire world.

25 years. Not too far in the future. Yet all over America, people are covering their ears and going "LALALA-I-AM-NOT-LISTENING-LALALA..." And why? Who's benefiting from our current energy policy? The troops in Iraq? The Iraqi people? The environment? Our increasing- asthmatic children? You?

In the third business quarter of this years, the five major US oil companies earned nearly $25 billion in profits (here). There are currently Senate hearings underway to investigate charges of price-gouging, but with $25 billion to throw around and the US government waging war to secure supplies, even the threatened windfall profits tax won't hurt too much.

Here's me sounding like the paranoid fatalist that I am wont to be: I predict the next World War will be fought over oil. It will be a war that makes the war in Iraq look like a French riot. It will be a desperate and fierce war, with the US flailing like a 500-pound beast that is slowly being strangled. And not a soul will care about that windfall profits tax that the Senate slapped on the oil companies back in '05.

****Bloggin' T Blues

Last week, the Boston Herald did a story on blogs that chronicle bad Boston public transit experiences (here for "Blogs rail against T troubles"). Since about 10% of the Herald's articles cater to the rage and frustration of their train-riding readers by reporting on MBTA incompetence, it is a very meta story.

The Herald story mentions the following 3 anti-T blogs:

1. Bad Transit (here) is the only one that I've read before. It evolved from one guy's enraged venting into a movement of enraged venting. "Spotters" can post items about delayed service, dangerous conductors and drivers, and general bodily peril. Editor Mark Richards honestly hopes Bad Transit will motivate people to lobby for a better T, but there is a touch of hostile hopelessness: "We can't change the MBTA, but we can insult them, all by using their own awful performance and sordid history (here)."
2. T-Rage (here) is very new. The blogger Mike Mennonno, who rides mostly the Red Line at peak hours, compares the MBTA's estimated total trip times to his actual total trip times. But the much-whined-about discrepancies don't impress me. What, you expect the Red Line to stay on schedule during rush hour? Do you also expect highways to allow you to cruise 55 mph at 9am? Look around you... people are everywhere. Delays are inevitable. Maybe you wouldn't be filled with T rage if you threw out the train timetable and developed your own internal clock for how long a rush hour Red Line trip should take.
3. Life on the Green Line (here) laments, obviously, the Green Line. I used to live on the Green Line, so I can relate. The Green Line consists entirely of slow-moving trolleys with a packed capacity of maybe 150 people. Its main fault is the time-consuming board/egress process. Yes, it is a nightmare, especially the B line, which many BU students treat like their personal conveying service: Rather than walk the half mile from their dorms to the campus, or take the shuttle that BU thoughtfully provides, they insist on cramming into the commuter-filled trolleys to go a measly 4 one-block stops. It fulfills their "I'm living in a big city" delusions. It drove me batty. But after 3 years of the Green Line, I say with authority that there is no solution. The Green Line can never be more than a trolley. It's the first subway in America; converting it into a light-rail train requires millions of dollars and years of bus shuttle replacement service. The only solution to the woes of life on the Green Line is to move off of the Green Line.

When I first started riding the T, I was prone to spitting anger about delays and crowds. I used to write about the T fairly often, mostly about insane or insanely stupid passengers, with the occasional ripping of a new asshole for the MBTA itself. Lately, I've mellowed out. I've learned that internalized anger does not improve train service.

I wrote the following vignette a while ago, and didn't post it because it felt lacking. Yet it sums up my current T philosophy quite nicely:

Red Line, 7:50am. The Central Square platform is steadily gaining population. The popular sociology concept of the Tipping Point can easily be applied to my morning platform. With four busy stations preceding Central, if the trains don't come every four or five minutes and the crowd thickens, the only way I'm going to get on the next train is if 1- I push like an asshole, or 2- I'm in the mood to press up against wobbly strangers. Usually, I resign myself to tardiness. After five years of Boston public transit, I accept delays with a lot less outrage than I used to. Nothing I feel or think will change the situation. I'm not going to damage my health stressing out about late trains. It's entirely in the hands of the MBTA.

****How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bob

In January of this year, I wrote about a spinning class I took with an unconventional instructor (here): "Bob tossed his shirt aside and started dancing. Like, we're all on these bikes, and he's dancing around the front of the room, doing all these fancy kicks and stuff, sporadically shouting things like "Push push push!" and "I'm seeing some great form here! Great form, all across the room!" ... Bob just never stopped yelling or moving... He watched himself a lot in the mirrors. When he got off to dance, he would weave through the rows of bikes and yell. Just... yell."

I resolved never to spin with Bob again, partly because the velocity of his voice annoyed me, and partly because I couldn't fathom what he was trying to accomplish by dancing like a jackass in front of a spinning class. Was he trying to entertain us, distract us, impress us? Did he teach five other spinning classes that day and was too tired to spin again?

I occasionally spun on Saturday mornings under the tutelage of James, who plays edgy music, is engaging and motivating, and is a nice guy. Then, one Saturday, I walk into the spinning studio and there's Bob cueing his music with a look of deep concentration, like an actor mentally prepping for a performance. He saw me and the class was pretty empty, so out of pity I stayed.

To my surprise, Bob refined his routine. Rather than gradually turning into a mouth-foaming spazz, he started off straight away. He lectured us about how hard we were going to spin that day. He did it with the manner of a drill sergeant, pacing in front of us like a caged dog: "Today! We are going to do hills! Sprints! Fast climbs! Get those heart rates up!" He then turned up the bass-heavy techno and roared "Go! Turn those knobs to the right! Third position! Push! Push!"

Bob's commands to "PUSH PUSH PUSH!" intimidated me, but made me eager to obey. When I put in an especially good effort on a 30-second sprint, I could tell he noticed. "Good energy! Let's do it again in 15 seconds!" Sprint after sprint after sprint, him up at the front of the room dancing, I pedaled fiendishly the whole way through. The class was mostly guys who seemed receptive to his military-style behests.Next to me there was a woman about my age who was tall, blond, and gorgeous. I could see her in the mirror glaring at Bob the whole class, but she never failed to comply with his orders, and she looked as pleased as I was when we got off our bikes.

Since then, I have been a stalwart fan of Bob's Friday evening spinning class. Bob just doesn't play music, he uses the music in a strangely compelling way. He's got the tempo and dynamics of every song memorized. His favorite tactic is to turn down the music at a slow part to explain the next drill, and then turn the music WAY up and throw his body around the room when the melody kicks in. He likes fast dance music, pop punk, and U2. One class, he announced that he was so freaking psyched about seeing U2 in concert, he would play nothing but U2. I could tell that a lot of love went into planning that class.

Bob's ruined me for all other spinning instructors. Who wants to watch and listen to a person who is struggling to get words out as they sweat and try to look happy? I'd much rather get yelled at by Bob as he dances around the spinning studio with joyous abandon.

****Movie Review: A History of Violence

David Cronenberg is one of the rare, wonderful directors who wears his depraved obsessions on his sleeve. He's given the world M Butterfly, Crash, The Fly, and Naked Lunch, as well as other lesser-known sci-fi movies that generally involve bugs, sex, mutation, and special psychic abilities. In other words, he will not be directing a Jane Austen adaptation anytime soon.

In A History of Violence, Viggo Mortensen plays Tom Stall, a man living the American Dream. He owns a diner, is well-liked and respected in his small Indiana town, has two great kids, and is crazy in love with his hot wife (played by Maria Bello, fellow native of Norristown, PA), who is willing to spice up their sex life by initiating kinky uniformed role-playing.

Then, two killers on a cross-country spree attempt to rob his diner. They picked the wrong diner. Tom Stall viciously and heroically subdues them. His picture is slashed all over the news, causing three mobsters to come to his town and accuse him of being a guy from Philly named Joey, on whom they must seek revenge for ripping one of their eyes out with barbed wire. Is it a case of mistaken identity... or could this humble family man be a former mob thug?

Aside from one graphic sex scene and some flecks of gore, this film is more mentally provocative than visually. Often in movies, violence is filmed like a video game: The bodies disappear and the screen is repopulated with fresh humans to kill. But A History of Violence explores the multi-faceted repercussions of violence without trying to convince us that violence is always wrong. It is entertaining, compact, and likable. While this movie is edgier than typical cinematic fare, it lacks the graphic, epic style of his previous films. I wonder if Cronenberg is discovering his inner Buddist, or if he's just now realized that he is Canadian.

****Boston's Seven Veils

360 days of the year, Boston wears one or more of its seven veils: Fog, Haze, Snow, Rain, Mist, Smog, and Gloom.

Oh, Boston. You're such a pretty little town, really you are. Your cityscape combines that Puritanical zeal for business with that quaint New England glorification of nature. Why do you insist on shrouding your picturesque elegance?

****Arianna: Greek Goddess of Political Commentary

I've admired Arianna Huffington since her days as a semi-regular panelist on Politically Incorrect. Back then, she was a Conservative whose viewpoints I frequently loathed, but she proved so rational and well-spoken that one could sense the Progressive lurking under that gruff, Greek exterior.

She's so cool. Her recent blog post about The Lucky Sperm Club (here) made me want gather more evidence of her coolness:

• She's the lifeblood of the Huffington Post, my new favorite political-lite blog (here). I'm ignoring the fact that the utterly insipid Alec Baldwin is a contributor (here) because posts like the hilarious one from Julia Louis-Dreyfus and husband Brad Hall about the Defense of Marriage Act more than make up for it (here... says Hall, "Gay marriage destroys real marriage. Now, when I come home to my wife, I feel nothing. How could I? SHE COULD BE A MAN. Thanks a lot, gays.")
• She heads the Detroit Project, a "grassroots campaign to prod Detroit automakers to build cars that will get Americans to work in the morning without sending us to war in the afternoon -- cars that will end our dependence on foreign oil" (here).
• In Praise of Unruly Women (here)
• She fought like a banshee in the 2003 California gubernatorial recall debate against Arnold Schwarzenegger (here):
  HUFFINGTON: The bottom line is, unless we fix Prop. 13, we're not going to be able...
  SCHWARZENEGGER: Arianna, you cannot increase...
  HUFFINGTON: Hold on a second.
  SCHWARZENEGGER: Excuse me Arianna, you cannot...
  HUFFINGTON: You know I'm not easily intimidated. Let me finish.
  SCHWARZENEGGER: Arianna, I'm trying to tell you you can increase property taxes all you want.
  HUFFINGTON: Let's see who can talk louder in a foreign accent, all right? (here for transcript)
• She eloquently stood up for Bill Maher when Politically Incorrect was cancelled after 9/11 (here) because he dared to say controversial things. (Maher later lamented the lack of accountability for the massive intelligence failure that allowed 9/11 to happen: "I'm the only one who lost my job as a result of 9/11.")
• She gives credit where credit is due. In this interview with Wired (here), she's asked, "Do news organizations do anything right?" to which she responds, "Sure. Mainstream sports coverage is excellent!"
• And finally, this quote: "Why worry about minor little details like clean air, clean water, safe ports and the safety net when Jesus is going to give the world an 'Extreme Makeover: Planet Edition' right after he finishes putting Satan in his place once and for all?" - Arianna Huffington (here)
  
  

****Voters Do the Craziest Things

The nation is buzzing about Denver voters decriminalizing the possession of a small amount of marijuana (here), making it one of the few cities sane enough to say "Hey, let's make our police find real criminals." Of all the ridiculous things that government spends taxpayer money on, the criminalization of marijuana is as the flagrantly wasteful as last year's $2 million for the buyback of the USS Sequoia Presidential Yacht (here).

Many sane and rational people who don't have a proclivity for pot-smoking just think we should legalize and be done with it. It's inhumane that people are imprisoned because they choose to pursue happiness by smoking a non-toxic plant. It's a plant. It can be cultivated pretty much anywhere. We have declared war on a plant. When a person is caught cultivating this plant, they are sent to jail for about five years... which costs taxpayers $500,000 or so. Millions of dollars to protect society from plant smokers by crowding them into jails with violent criminals (here). One of the quickest, most painless ways to reform our over-crowded non-effective prison system is to decriminalize marijuana.

There are other illegal drugs out there, ones that basically render people unfit to function in society in sad and often violent ways. I'm not saying we should encourage it by, say, allowing marijuana companies to advertise their non-stop products during televised sporting events... although I'd love to see how marijuana would be marketed (what songs would they use? Which celebrities? Would there be joint sponsorships with Doritoes and Pizza Hut? Would they urge people to "Don't Smoke and Drive"?)

Even though most of our elected officials are aware society would benefit from an overhaul of drug policy, no career politician would ever tackle the issue. Political suicide. It is incumbent on the public to demand reform before sweeping changes can be instituted. For more information, check out the Schaffer Library of Drug Policy (here), affiliated with StopTheDrugWar.org (here).

****Rhetorical Questions

Today, in a small-talk conversation about the Red Sox losing their beloved boy wonder General Manager Theo Epstein (here), I asked, "Does it really matter?"

I received a rather incredulous and impassioned reply: "Of course it matters. The General Manager controls contract negotiations. They basically decide who is on the team. They have to weigh a million little factors about ability, money, and potential into every decision that they make. A good General Manager is the key to a strong baseball team."

I meant, "Does it matter in the grand scheme of things?" In the cosmic sense. But I smiled and nodded, feigning enlightenment.

****Ducks in a Row

There is nothing more invigorating than a mid-autumn early morning walk along the Charles, except the coffee consumed prior to and immediately following the walk.

I brought my camera, hoping to capture the fall foliage, which is peaking resplendently in a kaleidoscopic array of yellow, red, pink and orange. But the coy sun failed to rise completely during my 45-minute power walk, leaving me with nothing but ducks to work with. So I give you... ducks.

****Trick or Living Wage

Last night, a group of Harvard janitors and their families went trick-or-treating at Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers' posh gated estate. They wanted $12 per hour plus benefits, but all they got was some candy from a condescending staffer, who listened to the children's plea for an improvement in their meager standard of living and proclaimed "Fabulous! Have a happy Halloween! (here) ”

I have to hand it to Harvard University's Progressive Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM): They've been raising a very public ruckus since 1998 for Harvard to institute a living wage policy for service workers (here for platform). Though there have been no major events since a 2001 sit-in, it's rare that a collegiate group rallying for a specific social cause doesn't die out when everyone graduates. But then again, the janitors are still there, earning $10.85 an hour from an institution with a $22.6 billion dollar endowment. And SLAM's a damn catchy acronym.

Speaking living wages, of Wal-Mart's call to raise the minimum wage (here), Senator Ted Kennedy says "When even the head of Wal-Mart, one of the most anti-worker companies in the world, says that a minimum wage of $5.15 an hour is out of date, we know it’s long past time for an increase" (here). Never doubt the demonic cleverness of Wal-Mart. They want a minimum-wage increase in order to put pressure on their smaller competitors as well as to subsidize the income of their captive customers: "We can see first-hand at Wal-Mart how many of our customers are struggling to get by. Our customers simply don't have the money to buy basic necessities between paychecks" (here). If the minimum wage isn't increased, how ever will Wal-Mart successfully launch their new line of chic women's clothes called "Metro 7" (here), which looks great on a former Miss Universe but may not be as complementary on the typical Wal-Mart shopper?

Wal-Mart's self-serving gesture may also be a reaction to Outfoxed filmmaker Robert Greenwald's upcoming movie Wal-Mart: The High Cost of a Low Price, which will soon be screened at a local church, home, or community center near you (here).