Woe is I

I ran into a former student the other day, and after we'd chatted as he was walking away, I heard myself saying, "Give my regards to your parents for me." Ugh! I mean, I like this guy's parents a lot, but who says that kind of thing? It's like I'm pretending to be an adult and trying to say the kinds of things an adult would say. Ugh!

School Daze

Actually, I think the correct spelling is Skool Daze.

Earlier in the year, all the college hoo-hah was about what school, wait lists, and all that. Now we're getting bombarded by petty paperwork. How the hell am I supposed to know whether to get laundry service, or if I do, do I want the "Just the Basics" or the "Look Sharp" plan? Is there really any choice? Who doesn't want to look sharp? Plus, the "Look Sharp" (I'm using the quotes because the pamphlet uses them throughout) includes "Golf shirts pressed and hung, " in case my daughter takes up golf. And it also includes their "Fresh" Comforter and Blanket Plan (though not their "Fresh" Towel Rental Plan) for free.

And to give parents inducement to provide this service for their child, they brochure features a couple of pages of photos of young people wearing brightly colored, clean clothes, followed by a page with two photos- one of a bored-looking girl photoshopped to appear as if she is staring at a washing machine, and another of an overflowing basket of laundry with the caption "Hi Folks! I'm Home!" Add in a couple of quotes like "gives me extra free time, something invaluable during finals week," and what's a caring parent to do? It's blatantly manipulative and quite compelling.

Today was busy. I took a long bike ride this morning. Would have gone further, but there were serious problems with the bike, The rear wheel was rubbing on the frame to the point where if I tried to spin the wheel it wouldn't move. Being technically inclined, I devised a fix, which involved kicking the wheel repeatedly until it was pushed away from the frame. Believe it or not, that worked. I had to do it every few miles, but it got me somewhere and back.

After that, we went to a baseball game at Fenway Park. I hadn't been there since 1968, which made me feel really old. Gotta say, it's really cute. They really do up the old fashioned thing well, and it really feels old in a good way. We sat up on the roof. There are seats there, don't worry. Great view though and a nice breeze.

We came back to the hotel to stop sweating for a moment, and then I went for a long walk. I saw the house where Henry Longfellow lived. I know absolutely nothing about Longfellow. I assume he was one of those vaguely boring New England writers that are forced on unsuspecting high school and college students from time to time. Now I know he lived on Brattle Street.

This was a nice little mini-vacation. Flying back in the morning.

Not so dramatic

The 50th birthday thing was a very nice little get together. I gather there was some drama going on off camera, but I missed it. It's interesting to watch a bunch of people who've known each other forever interact. They all know each other's little quirks and sensitive points. They all have to potential to get offended by seemingly innocuous things that harken back to something else that happened 30 years ago. But it was fun. It turns out that the husband of one of these women is law partner with 2 people I know back in New York- old Rotisserie league folks. Very odd.

Cambridge

If you're looking for a place to make you feel old and out of shape, this is a good choice.

Weekend in New England

I am in Boston, Cambridge actually, for the weekend. My wife is turning 50 this year, which she finds totally traumatic, and so we are here to meet up with a bunch of her high school friends, all in the same boat, for, well, I'm not sure. I guess a celebration? It seems like all kinds of fun to me. My wife was in the intersection of two social groups in high school- there were several overlappers apparently, with representatives of both groups in on the event. Between this and the usual group dynamics silliness that comes with this kind of thing, I've been pretty entertained by the e-mail thread planning the whole escapade. Hopefully the actual event won't be a letdown.

We flew up this afternoon, delayed by an hour for reasons unknown, but safe and sound. We are accompanied by our 18 year-old daughter, who is kind of peculiar company- walking 10 feet in front of us as we went to to a restaurant, only talking to us when she wants something, unless something suddenly interests her in which case she talks for several minutes nonstop. Girls are funny.

We had a nice dinner and then went to bed. This morning I find myself in my normal situation when we travel. I get up at least 2 hours before everyone else. This is fine at home, but in a hotel room it's a tad inconvenient. So I snuck out, which is what I usually do, had breakfast, borrowed a bike from the hotel and rode along the Charles River for an hour. It's funny seeing Boston this way, being used to doing similar activities in Philadelphia. The two cities are very similar, and one of the pleasant similarities is that they both have bike paths along the river.

Riding a bike on a multi-use path, as they call it, is always an interesting experience, especially on a summer Saturday when it's full of people. It's less about riding than it is about dodging. People with strollers, skaters, and people jogging with headphones on. I don't understand jogging with headphones on. I like music and all, but if you don't like jogging enough to do it without extra entertainment, find something else to do. Plus they're almost as much of a hazard as people driving while on the phone.

I rode from Cambridge as far as the Boston Science Museum, where I tried to cross the river and managed to do so after waiting for a drawbridge to open and close (I know I could have jumped it if I got a good start). Everyone was in a good mood and it was a very pleasant hour or so.

I am truly sorry for this

Whenever I find myself apologizing for something that I don't really think is my fault, I can't help picturing the scene in A Fish Called Wanda when John Cleese is being hung upside-down outside a third story window by Kevin Kline.

Apologizing is a necessary but underdeveloped skill among most people.  Not that apologizing always works, but not apologizing is usually a terrible idea. This would seem to set up some inner conflict for someone who thinks they're right. Not so! Apologizing costs nothing and doesn't make you any less right. However, since reasonable and unreasonable people alike are more than capable of disagreeing on something even given the same set of facts, arguments are bound to ensue and there's not better way to lower the temperature of a discussion than to apologize.

A corollary of this is something I often tell my students if I think they've gotten to a point of trusting me, so I apologize to those for whom this is repetitive. It's advice to the guys, really, and it goes like this: If you are a man in a relationship with a woman you will find yourself apologizing and you will have no idea what it is that you are apologizing for. This is an unstable situation which can lead to very bad things. The sooner you learn how to know what you're apologizing for, the happier your life will be.

Less than 200 words on climate change

Any time you bring up global warming the discussion tends to descend into silliness. So let's say I stipulate that it's possible that the vast majority of legit climate scientists are wrong and that the corporatists who stand to benefit short-term from denying the science are correct. I'll lump the "part of God's plan" folks in there as well. And in exchange I would like those people to stipulate that it's possible that the scientists are right after all and human activity is causing climate change.

I don't know 100% for certain who is right, but here's what I do know. Let's assume that whatever we think  is wrong. If I'm wrong, we cost some very large and powerful companies some money for the next 10, 15, 20 years while they lower their carbon footprint. If the other side is wrong, life as we know it on earth will cease to exist. Cities will be flooded and there will be mass extinctions.

So which mistake would you rather make?

And "at the beginning" is not helpful

I don't know where to begin. Elvis Costello's "Accidents Will Happen" starts with those words, and I can guarantee what I come up with will not be as good as what he did.

Plain and simple, my summer is a mess. There's no coherence to anything. I should preface this (See, I told you "at the beginning" wouldn't help) my noting that it still hasn't been a full week since I've stopped working. I finished report cards about 6 days and 12 hours ago, so maybe I should give it time. There's just a heap of emotional baggage, with my wife's 50th birthday, my kid going away to college, that kind of stuff.

In that spirit, I'll start with some miscellaneous bits. First, and least important, I was given what we used to call a slug back in the day. It was something that looks and feels just like a quarter, but is in fact a Philippine Peso, worth about 2 cents. That's a good racket. Pass off about 100 of those little suckers and you can almost buy a tank of gas.

I've been trying to ride my bike some, but the weather has noot been particularly cooperative. When I start evaluating routes by how much shade there is, you know things are bad. Though I have gotten out a few times, I am having to resort to my least favorite form of exercise- swimming.

Anybody who tells you swimming for exercise is fun is lying. Don't get me wrong. I love to splash around in a pool when it's hot and I can do a pretty spectacular jackknife splash (years of practice trying to soak the lifeguards at the town pool). But swimming laps? The most fun thing about that is not drowning. But it is the only kind of outdoor exercise you can do when it's over 95 degrees. This year, having failed miserably in my preparation for the mini triathalon I did 2 years ago, I am swimming round and round the outside of the pool so I don't stop to turn around. Hopefully I'll be better able to handle a 400 meter open water swim with that kind of preparation.

The one thing I have been doing is, once again, trying to clean my desk. This is a bit like trying to keep a lawn free of crabgrass, or kind of like that arcade game "Whack-a-mole." Whenever it looks like I have the thing under control, I find another pocket of stuff I have no idea what to do with. I do not know why there are tweezers, a bicycle tube and reflector, a replacement ski goggles lens, a rainbow pencil. and a varsity softball letter all right in front of me, mixed in with important papers. There isn't a filing system in the world designed to handle that.

Time to go to dinner. Back to it tomorrow.