Ten commandments of shotgun

Okay. Not that I’m bitter or anything but if you call shotgun and occupy the front passenger seat, the position carries with it certain responsibilities. I wouldn’t have thought this was necessary but, well…

1.       Whensoever thy driver is trying to clear right for a left turn, shalt thou keep thy head back and still.

2.       If thy car stops at a house for sale, thou shalt hop out and grab the flier.

3.       Once yon flier is in hand, hasten thine butt back to thy car before reading it.

4.       Never shalt thou change the music without permission.

5.       Thou shalt not suffer thine driver’s sodas to remain unopened, nor shall the cap be allowed to stray under the driver’s foot.

6.       Neither a leaner nor a gum popper shalt thou be.

7.       Thou shalt not suffer thy feet to rest upon the dashboard.

8.       The fast food wrappers shalt thou gather and desposeth of them in the back seat.

9.       Thou shalt not covet thy driver’s atmosphere controls.

And verily, if no other rule shalt thou abide…abide thou this:

10.   Whither thou passeth gaseous annoyances, thine window shalt thou lower. Quickly.

List time again

Activities that become difficult when one cuts off one’s index fingertip with a vegetable peeler:

·         Peeling veggies (Mary finished making the soup);

·         Typing, such as this;

·         Sweeping and vacuuming (I never said this injury totally sucked);

·         Personal hygiene – don’t  ask;

·         Playing guitar;

·         Non-NOOK reading;

·         Throwing stuff for Zoey the Small and Annoying;

·         Cutting up fallen tree branches;

·         Two-thirds of the activities I normally engage in at the gym;

·         Other things I’ll think of that will provide me with an excuse for sitting on my butt all day.

Our progress?

I rode unfamiliar bus routes on the way to work today, owing to a medical appointment that took me out of my normal weekday travel path. Naturally, I was not surrounded by my usual ‘bus buddies,’ and so found myself surreptitiously examining the inhabitants of routes 241, 235 and 550 westbound. I spent most of my 550 ride sitting across from a woman in reference to whom one might be tempted to apply ‘denizen’ as a descriptive moniker.

I only assume this was a woman as she seemed to have a woman’s eyes. That one horizontal stripe across her face was the only part of her that was exposed through the many layers of this and that she used to protect herself from elements that are probably not limited to weather. She staked out most of the width of the aisle between us with her home-on-a-handcart so that the folks getting on and off the bus had to step around her and over me in order to pass without tripping. So in self-defense I gave up on reading my NOOK in order to stand watch and avoid catastrophe.

My traveling companion nodded off repeatedly between ruts and bumps when she would jerk awake and peer around defensively. I found myself wondering if the relative safety and warmth of the bus ride wasn’t a highlight of her day. A driver once told me that on really cold nights, homeless folks will sometimes ride the bus all night, transfer to transfer and back again, hiding out in the bus tunnels until encouraged to move on by Metro security folks and then starting all over again. Those who have passes, that is.

We both got off at Westlake and after spending a moment figuring out which stairway I needed, I found myself walking behind her. Her cart made a constant thubbing sound that upon examination turned out to be from the left wheel rubber ripping away. It won’t be long before her cart becomes a travois and the portability of her travelling set will be seriously diminished.  I don’t know her story and can’t confidently predict her future but I’m pretty sure, based on the carefully folded blanket and sheets among her stack and the torn plastic that offered dubious protection from the afore-mentioned elements, that everything she owned was on her back or on her cart.

A few hours later, while eating my Chipotle burrito bowl and browsing the day’s news on the Net, I came across an article on robotics in which an engineer interviewee posited that the use of robots would allow ‘us’ to bring back “a lot of work from overseas.” His assertion rests on the idea that it’s the lower-paying repetitive-motion production jobs that have moved to countries (sometimes even states) with lower pay scales and non-existent worker safety protocols. And then, looking at the news feed from MIT, I read an article about some cutting edge commercial application work in robotics that seems similarly aimed at replacing human workers. The speaker in this case wasn’t even personally invested in the outcome so much as the development work.

“Really, we just enjoyed the hard engineering and design and wanted to build cool stuff. This was a fun way to do it.” He found a use to justify some interesting work rather than finding a need and filling it. And I don’t blame this young PhD. It seems we do a lot of that these days.

Yes, I know I’m making lots of assumptions in areas in which I have neither standing nor expertise. But I can’t help coming back to the intersection of two ways to formulate what seems to me a critical question: can we versus should we. 

Robotics is definitely a cool and vital discipline. Robotic devices allow us to go places and do things that no human could safely or effectively undertake and to do things repeatedly that would drive humans to distraction and cause unacceptable repetitive motion injuries. Robotics research leads to breakthroughs in devices that reduce barriers for persons living with disabilities. I get all that. I’m on board.

But is the development of a robot that can perform human-like functions and even accomplish some analog of social interaction an important and worthy pursuit when we have people riding from bus tunnel to bus tunnel to stay dry and warm?

Is the woman with the breaking down hand cart part of the ‘us’ that is bringing the work back from overseas?

Baby Box

Sometimes it’s call a baby hatch, sometimes a baby box, sometimes just a doorstep in a classic ring-and-run. Pastor Lee Jong-Rak in Korea has made a heated, alarmed pass-through chamber his mission in life and has attracted enough attention to spur talk of a Nobel nomination.

In Europe and India and the Far East, in Poland and South Africa, Russia and Japan, people who can’t bear the thought of unwanted babies being left to die provide safe haven for the babies and safe getaway for the birth parents. In some places, the law allows for handing the baby off in person and in others, some form of handoff chamber or at least an agreed location allows the birth parent anonymity.

I admit my great temptation to launch into a jeremiad on birth control, abortion and the plethora of related moral and political debates. But I won’t. I’m not talking here about a woman’s control over her own body and frankly, I don’t believe that as a male, I have standing to join that debate. I wish more men – particularly in congress – would similarly abstain.

Tonight I’m considering not a woman’s authority over her own body but rather, our collective embrace of those little bodies toward which surely, we all bear inescapable responsibility.

There is a debate ongoing about whether such benign abandonment is a good thing or a bad thing. I have trouble framing my participation in this discussion simply because I don’t have the data to understand this movement at a societal level.  And at a personal level, I am similarly bereft, if only because I’ve never walked in the proper moccasins to understand the decision.

I never had to question my ability to provide shelter, food and basic education. No baby was ever unwelcome in my extended family. I have never held my own wailing newborn while Jonesing for my next fix. And it matters to me not one whit what brings a mother to this crossroads. What matters – the only thing that matters – is the life in her arms. And at that crucial point, we should do everything we can to make her decision a safe one for her and for the baby.

Baby boxes may not be the way to go. But I think it’s better than most of the alternatives. Because whatever the sins or struggles of the parents, a breathing baby is good news. Always.

Mary is thirty feet away and the doors are open. But as easy as it would be to check with her before I write what follows, I just don’t need to.

However the laws or life affect you and regardless of your reason, if you just can’t figure it out, bring your baby to us and we’ll figure it out. We’re parents. It’s what we do.  

A book recommendation

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman. It made me cry at the end.

I don’t mean that as a manner of speaking. I mean I kept wiping my eyes and casting furtive glances to the other side of the bed to make sure Mary hadn’t caught me.

There was never a time while reading this book when I was entirely sure what was going to happen next. And I frequently found myself asking Stedman to back up and take a different path. But the woman is unflinching in taking the story in directions dictated by the lives of the characters, rather than by the sensibilities of the reader.

No kidding, made me cry.

And now, if you’ll excuse, I need to go do something manly. Ahem...

Small pleasures

It doesn’t take much to float my boat.

Mary and I were touring the annual recreational vehicle show last weekend and while there, I picked up a new set of bungee cords for my kayak. Itty-bitty bungees that I can use to secure deck items such as water bottles and zip lock bags of nuts/raisins/chocolate chips (Trail mix – they call that trail mix,  Michael!   [Oh,yeah…]).

Yes, I’m a sucker for the crap they sell in booths at consumer shows. I mean, you didn’t really think we were shopping for an RV, were you? But we did spend forty bucks for five bucks worth of show food and picked up some really cool brochures for recycling at home later when we found ourselves wondering why on earth we decided to bring home a stack of brochures.

And of course, the bungees.

I took them out of their package today and separated them into sets according to size, imagining as I went all the cool uses to which I’ll put each of them. I got a big kick out of my little flight of fancy.

Yes, I am indeed a sad, sad man.

Writing a book...

… is a very solitary but also a very communal undertaking.

Since the characters and the story spring from my mind, I can only do this when I’m alone with my tablet (no, the paper kind!) or my computer or my little pocket notebook or just my imagination.  This requirement isn’t actually as limiting as it might seem, since I’m entirely capable of being profoundly solitary on an airplane full of strangers or sitting across the room from the woman with whom I’ve built a life. I’ve been alone in my bunk aboard ship with a half dozen other sailors within arm’s reach. Or at my desk with a dog snoozing on the carpet just next to my foot.

In my world, alone is not causally connected to lonely. I’ve never, ever been lonely when thinking about the book. I’ve been frustrated, angry, disappointed, confused, discouraged. But never lonely although always alone.

I suppose the obvious conclusion is that it’s the presence of the characters that prevents me feeling lonely. And certainly, there’s an element of that. But it would be a lie to claim that communion with Julia or Georgia or Max or Oreo makes me feel that I’m keeping company.  In order for that to be true, the characters would need to have lives – thoughts, passions, motivations, memories – independent of me. Of course, that’s not possible since they’re each and all inventions of my mind.

The reason I can’t be lonely when working on the book is that it is in a very real sense a conversation. The fact that the book itself represents a soliloquy and that the other parties to the conversation won’t speak until I stop does not make it less interactive. Because until someone reads it and makes it their own, taking from it some of what I intend but even more what they make of it, the conversation will not have begun.

That I can’t know when or even if anyone else will read it in no way detracts from the nature of the thing. It is the opening line of a conversation that is no less so if the other person fails to hear or elects to turn and walk away.

It’s a dangerous thing, beginning a conversation when you can’t know when or in what situation the other conversant will hear your words. It takes confidence or cluelessness, not sure which.  

Perhaps a bit of each.

Proof of the divine

Okay, so it’s remotely possible that there IS a god and that she likes me, and the scene that played out at the grocery store tonight may be the proof we need that this is the case:

I’m pushing my cart along the front of the store, having completed my purchases and heading for the front door and freedom. A guy coming from another register cuts me off so that I have to stop quite abruptly. He’s got a thousand dollar suit, highly polished shoes, an impeccable haircut and a cell phone plastered to his ear. What he doesn’t have is awareness that the world includes anyone but him.

He trundles his way to and through the automatic door, then comes to a dead stop, blocking and me the woman who is now lined up behind me. He then proceeds to fumble about for a good half-minute, intent on finding a way to gather up all his stuff with one hand so he won’t have to relinquish his phone from the grasp of the other. Finally swinging his bags out, he turns without looking behind and proceeds out into the parking lot, leaving his now empty cart blocking the doorway.

Having pushed his cart and mine into the queue of empties, I headed to my own car, all the while streaming some fairly uncharitable thoughts in the direction of Mr. Self-Important. I safely stowed my milk and canned beans on the passenger seat and sat down on the driver side, inserted the key and was about to turn it when I realized that the jerk with the phone hadn’t gotten into his car yet.

I didn’t have to watch for long to deduce from his frantic pocket-squeezing that he couldn’t locate his keys. I watched as he explored the possibilities. Not in the inside pocket. Nope, not in any of the bags. He looked under and around his Jaguar and even back toward the cart corral. Then, in a punch line that only I was in a position to properly enjoy, he shaded the window so he could peer inside. I’m thinking that the fact he next tried both doors before leaning back with a look of despair that is familiar even to those of us without fancy cars or tailored suits meant he’d located his keys.

Did I mention it was about 32 degrees in that parking lot? Am I getting too much joy out of this? Was the cackling that could be heard in my non-Jaguar as I drove away leaving him standing there proof that I am a bad person?

For a guy who has just seen solid evidence that karma actually works, I’m thinking my reaction was downright modest.

Erratum

In an earlier post contrasting This Explains Everything with Sh*t My Dad Says, I may have been somewhat too over the top regarding the former book, even as I accused the compiler of hyperbole.
For those who might check out this book on the basis of my recommendation, I do indeed recommend it, but with a caveat. As I got farther into it, I came to realize that my initial skepticism was well placed. (Note to self - don't recommend a book before reading all the way through.)

Don't get me wrong - there are some great minds represented here and I do find myself stopping to ponder much of what they have to say. But true to my suspicions regarding the self-aggrandizement of the editor, he has indeed chosen a number of contributors who are clearly more impressed with displaying (and occasionally misapplying, ahem) polysyllabic vocabulary than with profundity of thought. Some of the ideas presented are downright specious and many badly argued.

Buy this book if you can get it at a discount and be prepared to be disappointed as often as inspired. If you want to be consistently inspired (and frequently comically horrified) read Sh*t My Dad Says.