The Aerie
Well, so much for New Year's Resolutions.
I think I'm officially out of compliance with all of them. My life is
most pointedly NOT balanced, I am not hitting the gym, and I don't
want to know what my weight is, thanks.
Of course, this is all due to having too much work, and earning too
much money, so there IS an upside. Not that I'm wealthy, or even
prosperous, but compared to last September (with its complete lack of
fiscal input), it feels terrific to be able to say "Well, I can pay my
bills THIS month."
So I have to take the bad with the good.
Meanwhile spring has finally arrived. You can feel it in the air. Oh,
winter will probably deliver a parting swipe of her claws, but even
that is in doubt: from "blizzard Friday" the local weatherfolks are
now down to "50/50 chance of snow". This means that there will be no
snow. I've [1]explored elsewhere that weather forecasters are absolute
Cassandras, forecasting doom and gloom in order to get you to tune in.
On the other hand, they also cover their butts pretty thoroughly with
this practice. Alberti's Law of Pessimism is "A pessimist is never
disappointed, and always pleasantly surprised," and certainly weather
forecasters make a living on this philosophy. If they tell you Friday
will be earthquakes, with a 75% chance of a flaming rain of blood,
then you the viewer will not only tune in on Thursday night, but
you'll be happy when the forecast is incorrect.
But this morning was lovely, the kind of weather the British term
"fine," a warm vernal sun slanting thinly through the budding branches
of the trees. The wife and I walked over to the [2]Birchwood Cafe for
breakfast, a rare treat but one we could afford because our babysitter
didn't show up Monday night. We ran into a neighbor with a new baby
and had a nice chat while walking home together. Very nice, very
relaxing.
And I'm listening to Nikka Costa's latest album. And my office is
halfway clean. And I have a little bit of a chance to relax today. So
hopefully if my resolutions for the year are utterly collapsed, at
least I can salvage a bit of sanity from the rubble.
And next week... I get to go to El Paso! Oh rapture!
[3]Last
I'm in a quandry.
On the one hand, it feels somehow disrespectful to have a blase
attitude about a war. Legions of young men who were born after I
graduated from high school are advancing through hell, it seems only
right to pay attention.
On the other hand, this war has been and is being manufactured and
packaged almost as if it's some sort of really expensive reality
television program. "Embedded" journalists, live feeds from Baghdad as
the bombs explode, celebrity reporters "playing Ernie Pyle" as one of
them put it, Geraldo in Afghanistan and Dr. Bob Arnot outside Basra.
Intro music, three-level crawls, blaring pundits and each battle with
its own font and logo.
Is it disrespectful to ignore a war when they turn it into a show you
don't want to watch?
The most annoying element so far has been the "Shock and Awe"
controversy. The news networks positioned themselves for this immense
onslaught of explosives, and the military failed to meet the network's
schedule. So the networks began whining. From NPR to Fox News, the
pundits carped about the delay in the bombings like bored children in
the gloaming of another July Fourth.
And part of me wants to scream, "'Shock and Awe' is death and ruin!" I
mean, even if you back this war, you can't be so excited to see the
explosions that you ignore the fact that civilians are going to be
maimed and incinerated when it starts... can you?
George Orwell was more thoughtful and Aldous Huxley more artistic, but
the future has turned out to be closer to "The Running Man" than
either of the noted authors.
It's arrogance, and it's ignorance, is what it is. A generation grown
up with peace is deluding itself about the costs of war. A generation
raised on tales of World War II heroism recklessly charts a course to
war in order to measure themselves against the legends. A generation
grown accustomed to giant strength of America arrogantly approaches
war as a thing that can be patrolled and predicted.
Yet it was in the Mideast where David slew Goliath.
Does that seem laughable? That America could lose?
Oh, we won't have Saddam Hussein in the White House. We won't be
enslaved in order to paint mustachioed murals. America won't become a
colony of Iraq.
But we will can win the battle and lose the war. We can exercise our
unstoppable power, and simultaneously lose our moral strength. We can
demonstrate our might, and lose our sense of right and wrong. We can
be Goliath in this war, and defeat David.
But that makes us Goliath, then, doesn't it?
[1]Last
Has it been ANOTHER week since I posted? Sigh.
I was going to say "my business level has been dropping slowly,"
except that I don't mean business-business, I mean busy-ness business.
How CAN one distinguish between the two words? Business, meaning work,
has NOT been decreasing, it's been staying nicely, er, busy. But
BUSIness, or busy-ness, has been decreasing slightly, since much of
what I'm doing for work is now of a nature that when it's done, it's
done, and I don't have to keep working on it evenings and weekends.
That was a confusing paragraph.
Anyway, with a little more breathing room in life once again, I was
hoping toget back to going to the gym. Alas when I arrived I
discovered that in my absence they had cut the lock off my locker.
Fortunately the locker had nothing in it -- I'd taken my clothes home
to wash them -- but without a lock I couldn't secure my belongings in
the locker room after changing.
And would it have killed them to call? Ah well.
So I have YET to get back to the gym. Soon, I hope. Like, as soon as I
can figure out where I put all those other locks I've got in the
house.
I realized the other day I am now supposedly working on writing THREE
books at the same time. This will all be very impressive if I ever get
them published, of course, but for now its simply ridiculous. I'm
working on revising my game sourcebook "Mitlanyal" for publication
this summer; I'm working on my Tekumel novel for publication whenever
I get it finished; and I'm working with some colleagues on a security
book for business. Three books, while also doing everything else.
As I've said elsewhere, my fire is mostly irons.
Or to put it another way, I'm nuts!
Meanwhile spring is finally arriving. I've heard the usual comments
from Minnesotans emerging from winter hibernation, but I'm not buying
them. Sure, we had some cold snaps this winter, but we had almost no
snow and spent a lot of the time in a kind of suspended autumn-ation,
waiting for winter to arrive. As I've said elsewhere, if this is
global warming, bring it on! It's been two winters in a row now that
we haven't had a "real" Minnesota winter, and frankly I'm enjoying the
break.
Although it's amazing the fuel efficiency I get from my little Metro
in subzero weather. Engines become more efficient the greater the
difference in temperature between the engine operating temp and the
ambient temp, and when it's 10 below zero I get almost 40 mpg city.
With prices heading towards $2/gallon, this is a good thing.
And of course I'm not talking about the war, which by the time you
read this may have both started and/or ended. I figure, everybody's
talking about the war, and I can't claim to have any particular
knowledge of the situation anyway, so why add to the white noise? I
mean, it's a bad business all around, and I'd really like it if people
didn't get hurt. That's about all I can say on that grim matter.
Spring is here, the buds should be emerging soon, war is in the air,
and I'm rushing through life in a ridiculously mad fashion.
[1]Last
Has it been a week since I posted? Sigh.
I wasn't on vacation for a week, although I was on vacation for four
days. It was very instructive. One thing I learned is that in hard
economic times, enforcement picks up in order to bring in additional
income.
In other words, I spent more in traffic tickets than I did on any
other aspect of the trip.
The first one was obtained in [1]Prairie du Chien Wisconsin, a tiny
hamlet near the Mississippi River whose name means "Dog Field", (or,
more generously, "Prairie Dog", but I'm not feeling generous towards
them right now -- I've already been generous there). It was the
standard ticket for having Minnesota plates in a small Wisconsin town.
Travelling through the city they had a half-mile stretch where the
speed dropped from 45 to 35, and then back up to 45 again. I was
travelling with the rest of the traffic when suddenly the lights came
on behind me. Busted. They offered to take my $200 fine right there,
Visa or Mastercard. Or, of course, I could go to prison, presumably
while my family waited in the lobby.
The second one was on my return home. Apparently it had snowed on
Saturday, and by the time we returned home at 4:30 on Sunday my car
had been ticketed under the [2]"Snow Emergency" rules. It was another
$20, and I guess I was lucky that I wasn't towed, a lot of people
were. That would have been another $200.
So we spent $220 on traffic tickets, and about $200 on hotel.
Of course, a few years ago this wouldn't have happened. Oh, I may have
gotten the Wisconsin ticket I suppose: getting a ticket for having
Minnesota plates in Wisconsin is an unavoidable part of life. Well,
unless you avoid Wisconsin, which so many people DO. I had decided to
follow the Mississippi from Minneapolis to Davenport for the scenery
-- the travel-planning websites showed almost no difference in travel
time if you took the scenic route instead of taking 35W straight south
and I80 straight east. And ticket aside, the drive was certainly
pretty. Not $200 worth of pretty, but pretty, and we got to see a
couple of eagles.
But both the speeding ticket and the plowing ticket were due to the
financial crunch everybody's under. Minneapolis, in particular, has
been plowing, salting, and re-plowing the streets after every single
flurry. It's that usual civil- service paradigm: spend the budget, or
next year the budge will be cut. And we CAN'T let our budget be cut,
that just isn't done.
Add to that the incentive of ticketing and towing vehicles, and I was
fortunate to get off with just $20.
What did we DO on the vacation? That will have to wait. My crazy life
continues, and I have to run...
[3]Last
Hmmm... how do I cushion the blow? I mean, how can I couch this so
that you understand?
We're off to DAVENPORT!
Yes, as tensions mount in the former Ottoman Empire we're not going to
hide abed. No, we're going to chaise our joy on a longue road trip. I
hope this news doesn't leave you fainting, couch-ed as badly as it is.
Yes I love seat-ing myself in the van, digging change out of the
cushions, and heading down the road, bolstered by hot java, (or
sometimes I set tea in the cup).
So I'll be back sometime Sunday. Try to enjoy yourselves by thinking
up more outrrrrrrageous puns based on home furnishings. I'm on
vacation!
[1]Last
Just a few more hours and we're off for the four-day weekend.
Boy will I need it.
Yes, we're off to visit my birthmother and half-sister in beautiful
Davenport, Iowa, the cultural hub of the quad-cities area!
This week has continued the madness of last: I DID have a brief break
last night, and it was deeply appreciated (although I never made it to
the bath tub). Tonight I have a meeting at 7:00, after which, why, my
time is my own!
At least I ought to be able to get started on my book now. I can't
imagine next week being as busy as the last four have been.
The only other interesting news I've heard today is of this absurd
notion to NOT build a new downtown Minneapolis library, after having
torn down the old one and raised taxes for the new one. I think in
political parlance, this idea is what they call a "non-starter," but
nonetheless the politico's seem to be entertaining the idea.
Gary Schiff is "considering" it, the new (today) library director is
"weighing the options," and the press is giving it actual play.
Meanwhile, of course, Syd Hartman is sitting in some dim corner by
himself muttering about how we still need municipally-funded football
AND baseball stadiums. Good old Syd.
This whole fiscal crisis is rather striking. How did we get into this
mess? The Minnesota congress wants to blame Ventura's tax cuts, but
every city in the nation is in this quagmire. I don't know whether the
90's just lured every city planner into a paroxysm of false optimism,
or if the conservatives are leveraging the recession to justify
cutting anything and everything in the government portfolio of
services (except of course their own tax cuts). Either way, it's an
amazing situation. I just wish they'd get this stupid war over with so
that the economy could have a chance to recover.
Well, my 7:00 pm meeting just moved itself up to 6:00, so I'm off!
[1]Last