I’ve always held onto baseball.  I lived in DC pre-Nationals, so I didn’t adopt a second team in my time there.  When I moved to L.A., I adopted Teresa’s Angels (after I met Teresa, that is) and continued to root for the Braves.

When I was in graduate school, I had a hard time my first summer finding a job.  I finally landed one with a company that did SAT tutoring in high school students’ homes.  I have never before (or since) had such an up-close view of affluent L.A.  Before I started the tutoring (which was mostly a late summer/fall activity, scheduled around the SAT test dates), this company hired me to answer the phone in the office.  The office was in one of the owners’ apartments down in a cool part of the city.  I wasn’t allowed to do much, just take messages.  The owner, in fact, laid me out when he heard me giving a parent a little information about what they did.  I had repeated a little bit of his spiel verbatim.  I had, after all, heard it a thousand times by that point.

He was an arrogant prick.  Very impressed with his own masculinity and Ivy League degree.  He was also a rabid fantasy baseball player.  He dismissed my curiosity about it.  Women couldn’t possibly be interested in baseball at the level fantasy required.  Certainly not mid-Atlantic educated ones, who weren’t admitted to an Ivy.  Or a seven sister.  Or…

I worked for them for one SAT season.  Never once did I ever see or experience them backing up one of their employees.  They were perfectly happy to let us line up passively in front of the bus that was angry parents of lazy student’s SAT scores.  It was a wretched experience.  If anyone wants the name of the company (they sold out to a national company, but still have the same set-up), do let me know.  I know, given the current economic situation in the U.S., there are lots of people who need jobs.  If you’d like one that will make you feel like shit, let me know and I’ll hook you up.

I left the bad company and went to work for a much more pleasant one (who did the same thing(ish) in a mini-mall east of downtown).  Company II was owned by and catered exclusively to Taiwanese immigrants.  Laying the weird meat buns I would sometimes get as gifts aside (but not those lovely red envelopes with money), it was a nice thing to do for the rest of my graduate school summers.

I held onto baseball past that.  I hoped with the Braves every year.  Felt very sad the summer of 1994.  Got back my joy with the Braves World Series of 1995.  Teresa and I went to Angels games, mixed in a Braves/Dodgers game here and there.  We also took time out to go to minor league ball in the Cal League.

My favorite experience was attending a game at the home of the Stockton Ports (now the Mudville Nine) and winning a six pack of pickled peppers.  What was not to like?

The 2002 series was unbelievable.  We breathed in and out with each pitch.  We named our new cat Halo.

Then, a few years ago, Ivy-jerk notwithstanding, I started playing fantasy baseball.  First, I played for free (with strangers) on Yahoo.  Then I joined a money league, ran the blog league and enjoyed myself (mostly).

Last year baseball started to change for me.  The money in the game has been out of control for a while.  Add the drugs.  What have I watched?  The game itself is fine.  MLB far from it.

Was Mark Lemke the last clean player?  Maybe Tim Salmon?  Bob Horner?  Bib Gibson?  Did Bart Giamatti’s untimely death ruin it for good?

When I think about my sadness around baseball–and it is surely there–some of it is tied up in fantasy.  The baseball blog league (which was terrifically fun) never attracted enough people to keep it going (unlike it’s much healthier sister blogleague football–coming soon for 09!).  The pay league, into which I was invited by my brother, has gone like this:

Year 1:  My dad and I agree to have a team.  He does nothing except pick the team name (with which I am still saddled).  I finish dead dog last.  It cost me real money.

Year 2:  I invite a blog-friend in.  I finish tied for third.  It costs me less money.  Somehow, my dad gets talked into taking a team of his own.  I try to help him on the phone.  I try to help him in person, while we’re on vacation.  It’s really frustrating.  He finishes last.

Year 3:  For some subconsciously masochistic reason, I agree to be the commissioner.  I like being the commissioner in the blogleagues.  This is not also true of the pay league.  I also switch jobs mid-summer.  Result:  I finish out of the money by 1 point, I spend a lot of time I don’t have entering changes for the league.  Mostly though, I have my integrity questioned, am accused of using my commissioner “powers” to cheat and then have a huge fight with my brother.  He tells me in the course of the fight that the guy who said I had cheated had done more for the people in the league than I would ever know.  I decide to quit.

Year 4:  I don’t quit.  I think (at the time) that I might get some love of the game back.  Be easy, enjoy yourself.  Today, again, my integrity is questioned because of a lopsided trade I agreed to.  It was lopsided trade designed to help me next year.

But today, I keep thinking about baseball.  And feeling sad. And wondering whether I should play or watch at all next year.  Or the rest of this.

I can think of a few things that might help me feel better–the Ken Burns doc, some Roger Angell, some Stephen J. Gould.  I’d say that I could go to a Rancho Cucamonga Quakes game, but we’ve had two actual earthquakes in the last three days and somehow I don’t want to go to a stadium called the epicenter.  Plus there’s that whole–I don’t like the Inland Empire much problem.  My university’s team is done for the year, so the *pling* of the aluminum bats can be no comfort now.

That’s Bronson Arroyo, one of the guys I got in the lopsided trade.  He’s curently 6-5 with an ERA of 6.56.  He’s 6’5″ and goes 195.  I don’t think he uses steroids.  That’s good, at least.

It’s a beautiful game, baseball.  I need to find out how to get back to its beauty.

The dirt’s pretty.  So’s the ball.  It’s everything around it that’s suspect.

Cue outro…

“Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio [or insert alt player, as needed]…?”  I’d like some of the joy in Mudville back but am afraid there are too many strikes now.

See?  My Gunnar Rockhound. Don’t tell me to turn on Roscoe.  I just won’t do it.

Today, though, I am coming clean about a new two wheeled addition to my life.

Here it is surrounded by its non-motorized friends…

Introductions all around, shall we?  In the back top, we have my newest bicycle, the Kona Dew Deluxe. It’s not REALLY a hybrid if it has disc wheels, right?  Underneath it (and mostly obscured) is Teresa’s Gary Fisher Tassajara.  To the right on top it my (now sold) Surly Cross Check.  We never quite got along.  Below the Surly is my Gunnar.  And in the center is my Kymco People 250. (Teresa’s Orbea Onix was inside at the time the picture was taken and her Honda Magna was in the shop–see explanation below).

There it is…

Let’s go back a few years shall we?

When I was in graduate school, I decided to get a motorcycle.  Why did I decide to do this?  Well there were a few reasons.  UCLA let you park one for free.  UCLA didn’t let you breathe for free.  They also didn’t let you park a car at all unless you lived in Amarillo and could prove your commute was too long by bus.  So, parking a motorcycle in any number of highly convenient motorcycle lots (including one right behind the building my program was in) seemed fab.

Also Teresa had one.  I like doing what Teresa does.  She’s my honey, after all.

Teresa, being the independent sort that she is, had learned to ride her bike on her own, taken the DMV test on her own, and was all set.  I’m not that adventurous.  Instead, I decided to take the Motorcycle Foundation Safety course.  It consisted of two in-class session that were a little like High School driving class.  Taught by an older guy who said he never drove a car, they were a little boring, but ok otherwise.

The class also had two riding days.  We rode little motorcycles in the parking lot of Pasadena Community College.  I was the only woman and the instructor thought me pretty much incapable.  Those two days were among the most stressful in my life.  I can, right now, conjure my late 20s self standing at the trunk of my car, on a break, my legs trembling, eating some string cheese and a nutri-grain bar.

Somehow, despite his dislike of me, I passed.  He wasn’t done, though.  His parting shot was, “do some of what you’re doing out on the road and you’ll get yourself killed.”

Pedagogically, a very weak approach, I must say.  I don’t know WHAT I did wrong that was going to put me in danger, but I do remember the fear and humiliation.

Anyway, I got myself one of these:

It’s an 84 Honda Nighthawk. I bought it in 95 or so.  I rode it to UCLA for several years.  Didn’t get myself killed, obviously.

I sold it in 99 or so.  I needed the money.  I had stopped riding it once I finished my degree.  I must say that I never quite got over the MSF guy’s warning.  I was relieved when a nice Air Force officer bought it from me.

I always regretted that Teresa and I didn’t ride more together.  We did a long ride once and I was barely able to get through Malibu Canyon because of fear.  She was fine.  I’m scarred.

Teresa kept her motorcycle and it sat in our garage for a long time, inoperable.  Last summer, with gas at almost $5 a gallon in California, she decided to get it fixed.  That’s her story.  My story, typically, is to follow along with Teresa’s enthusiasms.  No motorcycle, though.  Not this time.

I wanted a scooter.  Cute, fun, feet flat.  Automatic.  A Vespa.  I’d wanted a scooter for years.  I remember checking the alternative weekly in Washington when I lived there for one to buy. Didn’t have to be a Vespa.  Any decent scooter would do.  It was going to be different this time. I was going to be different this time.

So, I investigated.  Discovered that there were, essentially, four types of scooter manufacturers:

Italian: Vespa, Piaggio, Aprilia.  Uber-cool, super-expensive, and probably out of my league.

Japanese:  Some of the usual suspects, Honda, Kawasaki, etc.  Moderately priced.  Not a lot of choices.

Taiwanese:  Lots of choices, decent reputations, brands I hadn’t heard of:  Kymco, Sym, Genuine

Chinese:  I gather to be avoided.

I ran into a problem.  I wasn’t the only one who thought to buy a scooter last summer with gas the way it was.  Quelle surprise.  Finding a scooter in a showroom was hard.  Verging on impossible.

What you could get was a 50cc.

That Nighthawk?  It was a 700cc.

50s are great for gas mileage.  They’ll get 80-100mpg.  They also only get up to about 30 miles per hour.  I test rode one.  I really liked its looks.

I was a total freak about riding it.  Nervous and tense.  Once I got going, though, I remembered.  What to do.  Where to look.  How to use my hands and feet.

I might have bought it right on the spot, but for the 50cc thing.  And Teresa calming me down.  Bless her heart.

Most scooter manufacturers make a 150cc.  Yamaha 150s would be available in October (this was July/August).  Vespas could be sooner, but they cost $5000+.  Genuine Buddies were too small.  The world seemed to be tilting toward a Kymco.  The Kymco dealer was getting some Agility 125s in.

I haunted craigslist and ebay.  The same scooter popped up on both down in Orange County.  It was a 250cc, which seemed better for hauling my ass around.  I talked to the guy and made arrangements to come see it.  I even bought a helmet.  I brought some mountain bike gloves.  I got out cash.  Carrying around a lot of cash makes me nervous.  So does buying motor vehicles.

Teresa and I agreed that it would be better not to take it on the freeway.  Getting from Orange County to Los Angeles County without using the freeway is not easy.  I think it took about three hours.

By the time we pulled into the scooter dealer (it needed service), I was exhausted.  I was also pretty sure I had made a good decision.  It ran well, fit me nicely, and it was fun.

I ride it a couple of times a week, at least.

Sometimes, I act like a goober and stick my knee out when I turn.  Mostly, though, I just ride it.  Sitting up straight.  Following all the laws.  I never split lanes.  I always wear the gear (jacket, full-face helmet, armored gloves).  Gas costs $2 a gallon just now.  It cost me $3.11 to fill up the People last week.

Teresa and I have ridden a couple of times together.  We’ll ride some more, I’m sure.  Maybe not Malibu Canyon.  Maybe to the movies again.

Vroom.

Anyway, I was chilling (really heating) at the spa after my “service” and got to thinking about Facebook.

Teresa and I had been to this self-same spa the previous Saturday. (No treatment, just soaking–should I mention we got gift certificates for Christmas?  I’m all for keeping the economy going, but this is a lot of spa time).  Anyway, Teresa noticed that a woman was sitting behind us on a rather hard uncomfortable bench while eating a banana.  We were changing.  Not ten feet away was a padded bench next to a fountain.  Teresa decided (and I think she’s right) that this woman had achieved true spa mindstate.  Eating her banana on a hard bench while people changed clothes.  Directly behind their butts.  One might also use the word fugue.

I am never able to achieve that mindstate.

Which is why I was thinking about Facebook at the spa.  Given some of the other stuff that has been going on in my life, I was actually doing pretty well thinking about Facebook.

I was also thinking about how much my steam rooom skill has increased.

First encounter with a steamroom=pretty much total I’m drowning in eucalyptus water panic.  Now–I can be in there for a long time.  Not as long as Treecup can get beaten up by jacuzzi jets, but a long time for me.  Growth comes how it does.

I had resisted Facebook.  My brother likes it.  He has a lot of friends on it.  It seemed like something he did.

Then, last spring I was standing around on REALLY hard marble at my dissertation advisor’s retirement party.  Why does marble hurt to stand on so much?  Anyway, a bunch of people were talking about Facebook and how they had a Facebook group and and and.

So I signed up.  Which was fine.  I was friended by some people from grad school.  Then Teresa signed up.  Then a couple of blog friends who know my name found me.  Ok.  I also friended my brother and sister-in-law.  See how enlightened I can be?

Ok, so some colleagues from work found me.  Also fine/good.  One of them suggests a lot of things to me.  Also ok.   He’s like that and he’s a good guy.  I don’t have to TAKE his suggestions, if I don’t want to.  Plus, he also friended T, despite never having met her and he sends her almost as many suggestions.  In that sense, I confirm that it’s his approach to Facebook and I don’t feel either special or put upon.

Anyway, then I found a high school friend.  We had been in and out of touch, but I figured I’d poke her.  All of a sudden (and it was probably not a result of my friending her), a BUNCH of H.S. people started friending me and each other.  I agreed to all requests, but didn’t initiate any.  Recently, I looked over my friend list (which isn’t long) and my “people you may know” list and it’s 75% high school.

I live 2191 miles from my high school (and yes, I did just look it up).  I didn’t like high school very much.  I have exactly ONE person on my Facebook friend list from college.  I loved college.

The presence of people from more recent periods in my life is more easily explained.  But the high school to college ratio is puzzling to me.

The thing is, the high school folks mostly seem like the kind of people I might like now.  Funny, down-to-earth, liberal, interesting and engaged with the kinds of things I care about.

I am going to “unfriend” one of them–though I haven’t decided how confrontational to be about it–who affiliated himself with the American Family Association yesterday.

It’s odd, actually, to think so much about high school now.  It’s more than 2191 miles away in time.  I’m glad to be through and past it.  Don’t much want to look at pictures of myself from it.

Having a good relationship to my past self is not always easy for me.  Hell, having a good relationship to my present self isn’t all that easy, either…

I was also thinking this week about a friend I used to have right after college.  He called me a few months ago and assumed that I had caller id on my home phone.  I didn’t and cannot find him.  I’ve tried and recently got an e-mail about him as a result of my search that suggested his life has been very hard.  It brought me no closer to him and has made me very sad.

I can only do the best I can.  Sometimes that means looking at pictures of myself in ugly shorts and thinking about high school without being freaked out.  Sometimes it means staying a little longer in the steam room.

2191 miles traveled.  Or more.   A lot more.

(BTW, is any blog readers want to “friend me,” send me an e-mail sporksforall at gmail dot com and I’ll friend you up, yo).

Lately, I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night. For a while, I wrote it off to pee needs. Go ahead, I’d tell myself, pee and the you’ll drop right back off to sleep.

I really don’t want to get too reliant on non prescription sleeping pills. Drugs are bad. Nancy Reagan said so.

Truth is, though, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I become acutely aware of discomfort. My ears hurt from the ear plugs I wear because of the dogs. My arms hurt because I tend to fall asleep with them underneath me. My brain comes alive with it’s weird loopy patterns. Song lyrics have dominated lately. I rarely get back to sleep.

I still haven’t solved the sleep number crevasse problem. (And before anyone asks, no I didn’t call them back, despite their offer to help. I don’t have the information she asked for and can’t really get it–given that we have the “cheap ass sleep number” (or CASN).

So, for now, it’s going to have to be Advil PM or Simply Sleep. I’d blame this all on my recent transition to my fifth decade, but since it predates that, I’ll just assume it’s some kind of karmic punishment for, well, bad karma.

Point of post, for those who like such summations:

WHINE

Thank you, that is all.

It’s former space is now occupied by two coffee burr grinders and Honey’s coffee pot. We’re such coffee geeks. She’s been drinking decaf since her brain went a little jazzy on her in our visit to the fiftieth state. I acquired a second burr grinder for us, so our coffee consumption can continue unabated. To be clear, in addition to the burr grinders, we also have a filtered water drip coffee maker (for her) and a espresso pot and the magical wonder that is the aerolatte for me.

I thought about our coffee as substance this morning, when I received from the fine institution I work for the updated campus guide to a drug free workplace. I dutifully clicked through and was greeted by our policy and a list of the substances in question that might be abused. They also provided, quite handily, a chart of their nom de narcotics. For example:

COCAINE/CRACK (Blow, bump, C, candy, Charlie, flake, rock, snow)

or

ALCOHOL (Beer, wine, liquor, malt liquor, booze, juice, sauce, hooch)

They also listed the effects of these substances on the user. Back to cocaine, or as I now think of it, bump:

Irritability and depression

Impaired decision-making

Insomnia

I excerpted but have all three of those things. Hmm.

On Wednesday, I was home a little early, impaired, apparently, by my use of Charlie, though I don’t recall actually encountering it. I heard a ruckus outside. I went out to find that some kids had been playing with some safety glass that had been left deposited outside our fence. Sigh. I love our neighbors so. Anyway, the kids had moved the safety glass into our driveway. However “safe” it was, I didn’t want to leave it there for my Honey to drive over when she got home. I fetched our broom and dustpan and began to sweep it up. Seemingly out of nowhere a woman appeared.

She seemed pleasant and said she had seen the kids playing with the glass. I mumbled something about the joys of our neighborhood. She offered to hold the dustpan for me. I tried to demur, but was unsuccessful. When I looked up at her, I noticed she was crying.

It turned out that she was on her first day as a door to door salesperson for a cleaning product. “No one cares,” she said to me.

She wanted very badly to demo the product for me, which she claimed to “clean anything” including our picket fence. Why in the world would I want to clean our picket fence? Answer: I wouldn’t.

I have a long history of feeling bad for people like this and she was throwing the works at me. She said something about how tired she was, how lonely she was, that she had tried to quit at lunch, and then there was that “no one cares” mantra. The product, she said, was environmentally friendly. I asked what was in it. She didn’t know, but said it was biodegradable.

I tried valiantly to extract myself. She said her supervisor was picking her up at 7pm. She would just wait for him and smoke a cigarette. If I wanted to check out the ingredients of the product online, I could decide what I wanted to do. She asked for a match or a lighter. When I said I didn’t have one, she cried a little more and said she wouldn’t smoke the cigarette after all.

I went inside. Let the dogs into the house. I looked up the product. No ingredients listed on their website either. It had SUCH a generic name, it was practically ungoogleable. My choices? Stay inside and feel bad for her. Go back outside, give her a check for $64 for a gallon of crap I didn’t want, need, or know the make-up of. (Did I mention that the product was SIXTY FOUR DOLLARS?!) I thought some more. When faced with either/or choices, I like to try to think if there is another choice. I remembered that we had been given a lighter in our Advocate 40th Anniversary gift bag. I had proposed throwing it away. Honey, in her wisdom, had urged keeping it. I found it (it was gift boxed!) and went outside. I gave it to the saleswoman and wished her luck.

So, despite my current seeming abuse of some substance or another (if symptoms are any indicator), I was pleased to have a moment of clarity. Now, if I can just figure out what drugs to take to counter-act all these other symptoms…

Stress? Me stressed?

My tenure file was due on Friday. This event can cause stress for even the most sanguine academics. My effort was made more complicated by a number of factors.

To wit:

+This was my first file of this type. Normally people submit what’s called a “retention file” first. I didn’t have to because I just got my job permanently summer before last and because you don’t have to submit a file your first year.

+My file qualifies as weird. Most faculty teach. I do too, but my day-to-day effort focuses more on administration.

+If I don’t get tenure, I lose my job.

No pressure. None at all.

The mofo required a 5 inch notebook. Priced one of those lately? They’re not cheap. $30 not cheap.

Also, Avery needs to try a lot harder. Don’t sell 12-tab dividers when the template doesn’t work with Word for Mac. I managed to find some 5-tab dividers in the office. Someone had left a sheet in the box that had all the labels pulled off. I formatted carefully, printed and discovered that I had printed on a used, no-label sheet. Um-Hmm. Would you put a used-up sheet back into the label box? Neither would I. Did we have any more 5-tab labels? Nope. Did I need to reformat for 8-tab labels? Yep. Total time making, printing and applying the labels? Well over two hours.

If Avery lodged itself firmly on my office product shit list, Swingline became my office product hero. How? Well, they make this wondrous thing:

Behold the bit of magnificence, friends and neighbors, that is Swingline’s electric three hole punch. A friend secreted it away from a neighboring department. After using it to punch for a while (and having several co-workers come by to try it), I asked our office folks to order us one. I heart Swingline. Honey asked, when I was raving about it, “who punches holes any more?” I do and think my office deserves the brilliance and efficiency of the Swingline 525.

Here’s the completed product:

Thick, huh?

Look at those labels. They look nice, despite Avery’s stupidity, inanity.

My normal bag didn’t seem even close to capable of holding the five inches of hole-punched me for delivery to the dean’s office. Fortunately, I had gotten a bag for travel that was up to the task.

My green bean machine was ready to carry me for the delivery.

I won’t know anything until the end of the semester.

The thing is called a PIF. That’s sort of how I feel now that it lives in the dean’s office. Like all the air’s been released.

piffffffff

The crying, thankfully, has subsided somewhat.

Most nights I sleep by myself in our Select Comfort bed. My honey sleeps next to me in a device that protects her very badly arthritic spinal column. The Select Comfort bed was not made for one…

The upper arrow pointing to what they’re calling “support foam” is actually pointing to something I call “the crevasse” which is an indentation between the two air chambers. When I sleep alone in the bed, I roll into the crevasse. I stay in the crevasse. The crevasse was not meant for sleeping in. And yet, night after night, I hear its siren call and into it I roll.

Saturday night I must have ensconced myself into it fundamentally because Sunday morning my lower back felt as if it had been slammed with a cricket bat.

See how flat those mofos are? Sleeping in the crevasse=getting hit by a cricket bat in the lower back. So what did we decide to do yesterday? Glad you asked; we decided to buy large things at Ikea. Large things that had to be loaded in the FJ and then unloaded in the garage.

Honey had this lovely massage thing from Brookstone I didn’t know about and we took turns spending time with it.

Meanwhile, I was riding my bike around campus today and did something to my bad knee. I’m fine sitting. But walking, no so much.

The coporeal and kinesthetic is part of my life, whether I like it or not. Still, right this minute, I might start hitting people and things with a cricket bat if something else goes wrong.   Those mofos hurt.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

My first computer was a PC. Not a real IBM one, but an Epson with a Hercules paperwhite monitor. It served me fairly well. I upgraded it at some point and it functioned like DOS based PCs did. Well. Then Windows cam along and I lost faith.

In graduate school, I had a class that introduced me to the wonders of that magical place called Cupertino. Hypercard prefigured and guessed at the beginnings of the web. I used the internet then–e-mail and netnews–but hadn’t yet seen a graphical interface. Hypercard changed that. I promptly got myself a Mac. A laptop.

Color and everything! It weighed a ton, but I was delighted to have a system that worked.

Taking a page from my Honey… to keep you going. There are baby animals here!

Anyway, we entered into the bright phase when Apple did. An original bondi iMac was complemented by the famous (from Sex and the City) iBook. We called the iBook “clam.”

Swivelhead came next. I sent him packing this summer when his disc drive went out. That and he wouldn’t play Sims2.

Need another baby animal picture? Honey uses them to help deal with tough stuff. I’m compensating for boring stuff. Not the same thing, really.

Pretty and Swivelhead lived together. Pretty has served us well. Even when Biscuit broke her powercord input, she bravely went to the Apple store and got fixed.

She welcomed Flathead when he came home this summer to replace Swivelhead. She chirped merrily along, all the while communicating with the spaceship (our Airport wireless router).

When Honey told me about Pretty’s problems, I was worried. Pretty was nearing the end of her life, it seemed. Was it her screen? Was it her motherboard? Either way, she isn’t worth fixing. She’s a G4 Mac in an Intel CoreDuo world.

Honey and I discussed, looked online, and talked some about it. She’s very careful, my Honey. I am a rushing-in kind of fool. Here’s one thing we agreed on, though. Apple needed to stop introducing white computers and then making the non-white ones cost more. Flathead was purchased JUST before the new silver and black iMacs came out. Flathead costs $200 less than his silver and black brethern do now. $200. Remember that number.

The new MacBooks are available in white and black.

Here’s the thing, though… The white ones are cheaper.

$200 cheaper.

Oh, sure the black one gets you a better hard drive. But it’s so little better that it’s not worth talking about.

At one point, Honey said exactly what I was feeling, “I don’t want to spend $1000 on something that LOOKS exactly like what we already have.” Look again, gentle reader. See the resemblance? The current MacBook and Pretty are so closely related in looks that they shouldn’t be allowed to marry. They’d produce warped little white plastic babies. What? Oh, ok, fine. More baby animals…

The dolphin isn’t white or deformed or anything. Happy?

Apple knows us. We both REALLY wanted the black one. It was matte black, it was smaller than Pretty. It was faster than Pretty or Flathead. I have a big presentation next week for a major nonprofit in a faraway city. Ok, it’s Denver, so it’s not that far away, but it is a major nonprofit. Dating back to the 19th century major.

Both of our iPods are black. It costs more. We really liked it better. It had a bigger hard drive. It costs more. $200 more. Apple knows us. $300 more? We’d have a white one. $200, we stand in the Apple Store and discuss.

It was hard to justify. We did it, though. We made it work in our brains and now own “Jelly.”

Call us shallow. Go ahead. Here’s the thing about Apple. They’re gotten 100% on the Human Rights Campaign survey of good places for GLBT folks to work for six years. $200. 6 years of good GLBT relations. Black. $200. White.

They know us.

Jelly is a fine looking machine.

And thus endeth the story. Can I get an amen?

Thanks.

A year ago my life changed and I became a permanent member of the faculty at a fine institution. The weekend after I interviewed and before I got the job, Honey and I went to NorCal and I bought a bicycle. It was an impulsive decision.

Since then, I have ridden it, but not very much. I am, as some of you know, not an insubstantial person size-wise. In my brain, both consciously and subconsciously, I always kind of thought I might break the damn thing. It didn’t help that the reviews of it on Roadbikereview cited a tendency for the carbon on the seat stay (that’s the tube that runs at an angle from the bottom of the seat to the rear wheel) to break for no really good reason. And there I was giving it a reason to break.

I finally, with some help from Honey, who is wiser about me than I am, realized that my ongoing tweaking of the bike (saddles, stems, seatpost, etc.) was really a way to make myself feel better about the bike. I loved it, but I did not trust it. So, I strayed. I bought an all steel urban assault machine. No carbon weenie parts to break, no worries. That thing is a tank compared to the old one. Here it is. The color is called “bean green.”

Last week, I listed the NorCal bike on ebay and it sold yesterday. I got less than I wanted (really, I kinda got hosed), but when I got home, I packed it up right away and had the box taped shut and ready to go before Honey got home.

No, she didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. This morning I took it to UPS and sent it to its new home. Ironically, the buyer lives on NorCal, fairly close to where I bought it.

It’s just an object really. A pretty one, but an object nonetheless. Why, then, am I sad?

The new bike hangs where the old one did on my bike rack. It’s a blast to ride and on Sunday, I found myself jumping off little curbs on my tour de ducks. (Where I ride has a pond with ducks and geese at a great take-a-break point). I’ll fall for the new one. I like it a lot already. I’ll miss the idea of the old one. I hope its new owner loves it and rides it the way I never could.

While we were at the beach last week, I got my shoelace caught in a bike chain and down I went. As I was falling, I slowed the bike with the brakes and tried to will myself to put my left foot down first. (I always put my right foot down first in normal cycling contexts). “Left foot!” my conscious mind screamed, but my kinesthetic responses weren’t there. I have the scrapes and bruises (on my right knee) to prove it.

I try to be graceful. I try to be coordinated. I can catch a ball in a glove and hit one reasonably well with a bat, but ask me to do any higher order movement and I will fail.

Today, I was presented with a problem. It was more annoying than anything. I learned about the issue at noon. It took four phone calls and some persuading on my part, but I solved the problem by 4pm in such a way that everyone was happy and contented. No cross words were uttered. I was apologized to (by the creator of the problem) twice, thanked five or six times (by all involved) and am feeling satisfied.

Truth be told, it was a graceful.

I was just reading a piece my honey wrote about em dashes. It was a less boob titled version of this post from her blog. The grace with which she wrote this piece (and many other things) was really amazing.

It’s nice, I think, to occasionally rediscover small pleasures in life. Grace, it seems to me, comes in a variety of ways. When it comes, I want to spend a little more time appreciating it, if only for a moment.

If only my knees didn’t have to suffer my lack of grace otherwise.