Entries from May 2009 ↓

Last year (maybe at Christmas?) Alex gave me Ann Patchett’s novel Run. Inspired by Alex’s example, I shall blogify it. And my love for Patchett’s fiction, in general. Short version? It’s awesome.

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It’s in Terminal C, right outside gates 16 and 17, near an old, kind of dead pay-per-use internet service station thingy. No, I’m serious: it’s cool. Please remember me in your President/Oscar/Webby acceptance speech.

The secret alcove of WiFi

I haven’t seen my wif in holy cow a really long time (about 2 months? I’ll have to check), and now it’s time for the summer of togetherness that we tend to have every summer around this time. It’s like a tradition, at this point.

I’m currently leeching WiFi from Presidents Club in the Secret Alcove of Free WiFi, in Concourse C. I’ll make a map of it sometime, because it would be greedy to keep it to myself. It’s way awesome for three reasons: (1) free WiFi in an airport that charges for regular wireless (2) there’s an outlet right here for plugging in (3) it’s sneaky because it doesn’t look like you’re anywhere near a Presidents Club (I think the signal is coming through their back wall or somesuch).

Travel: Better than average. I shall count the ways:

1. I did not have to leave stupid early this time. 2 days after Memorial Day, apparently even the 10:40 a.m. flights are cheap.
2. Both of my monstrously heavy bags (bag A: clothes and whatnot; bag B: camping equipment) came in at just a pound or so under $50, so I only had the one bag charge. I can’t  believe I’m excited about this. How quickly we get used to oppression…
3. MFE-IAH flight –> Exit Row! At check-in, I used the kiosk to look at my seat assignments and was surprised to find previously-unavailable exit row seats! The ticket agent told me that they don’t let people have exit row seats until they’re physically present. I’ll be checking from now on.
4. In Houston, I had a sandwich. Did I pay $8 for it? Yes. Was it one of the best turkey-on-wheat sandwiches ever? Also yes. Tender, non-processed turkey, swiss cheese melted over it, delicious sliced high-quality yummy bread… I want another one.
5. Hidden Alcove of Secret Free Internet!
6. For the flight from here to BUF: Exit Row!

I realize things can turn ugly at a moment’s notice with any kind of travel; your hopes and expectations are focused and singular, and they are the reason for all aspects of your situation, at all points in time during the trip; maybe that’s why they’re so fragile. However, if things get crappy, I’ll try to remember the good times (i.e., now).

I knew when President Obama was elected that we were all in for some disappointments. I thought it possible he’d be just as bad, in a different way, as the Bush Administration. What I did not consider was that he would BE the Bush Administration.

He’s been pulling 180s on his campaign promises since January, but this week he dropped a bomb. In honor of our country’s complete, bipartisan rejection of a five hundred years of legal and human rights progress, I made a flowchart:

Habeas Corpus Flowchart

How to get a fair trial in the U.S.A.

Review of Sue Grafton’s T is for Trespass (SPOILERS AHEAD)

Alternate Titles: A very special Kinsey Millhone Mystery. T is for Tedious. Sue Grafton Discovers the Collective Values and Book-buying Power of the AARP. Ow My Ears and Brain Judy Kaye Please Watch a Detective Movie and Take Notes Before Reading Your Next Audiobook.

Final Grade: C- or maybe a D+. Past Alphabet Mysteries, though inconsistent in quality, were all entertaining, and with just enough offbeat quirks to set them apart from the crowded field of mystery fiction. They were slightly goofy, occasionally unpredictable film-noir detective novels, in which the femme fatale just happens also to be the hard-boiled detective. With this latest installment, however, Grafton has written a plot that could easily be discussed for 30 minutes on The View. That’s right; it’s one long, drawn-out, carefully politically balanced domestic dispute.

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Dear Ms. Grafton,

I am having… let’s call them “issues”… with your most recent novel, T is for Trespass. For a while, I’ve been listening to your books in audio form. True, I have to suffer through hours upon hours of Judy Kaye’s near-butchering of your work, what with her penchant for breathless melodrama at even the most mundane moments, but I can still see the quality through her vocal rollercoaster. As I lift weights and trudge on the elliptical machine in the morning, I see Kinsey nosing her quirky, semi-antisocial, incorrigibly curious way toward the resolution of yet another mystery.

We all know you’re not Jane Austen or even Connie Willis, but you’re good at what you do. And that is to write solid, entertaining hard-boiled (despite Ms. Kaye’s antics to the contrary) mystery novels about a protagonist who is described by her actions instead of her narrator; whose psychology is revealed more by accident than by introspection. The mysteries are entertaining, and the character is compelling. The rest ranges between excellent and palatable. Overall, good books.

This brings me to my point, which is: WHAT. First of all, I admit that S is for Silence worked well enough, despite your disturbing experimentation with a parallel historical narrative that had nothing to do with Kinsey. And what didn’t work wasn’t terrible. No hard feelings, for Kinsey’s sake. But with this most recent book, what is going on? Alternating chapters probing the psychological depths of a psychopathic nemesis? If that weren’t enough, NO MYSTERY? I mean there is one, more or less, eventually, but it really didn’t show up until CHAPTER TWENTY. Yes, over a week of workouts listening to Kinsey go about her winsome life, chatting up her lovable landlord, serving warrants on deadbeats, witnessing her friends’ uncomfortable relationship disputes, eating inedible Hungarian food at the adorable local pub — basically doing nothing. In your other books, this sort of detail provides a wonderful context, character glimpses, contrast to the action, etc. and I understand that you’re building suspense, and probably some other stuff, but holy freaking cow. Twenty chapters before the mystery rears its deliciously ugly head is too much. And even then, we’re headed for an unintentional mystery, in which Kinsey doesn’t know there is one for quite a while. This is dull. Why? Because following Kinsey following her nose is the best part of every book. I’m going on faith here, because of your last books. Don’t let me down.

I’ll finish this one, but when U is for … hits the shelves, I’ll be reading the reviews carefully before I invest.

Maybe I’m really just cranky because a third of the chapters are stolen by someone who isn’t Kinsey and is nowhere near as interesting. But isn’t that enough? I submit that it is.

… and her little brother:

Courtesy of my backyard. Happily, they do not seem to be living there. Just passing through.

So far, the Swine Flu hasn’t really lived up to its early media-fueled pandemic potential. Thank heavens. Still, people down here on the border are making a big show of reassuring the public, despite the fact that we haven’t had (so far) any more cases than anywhere else in the country. But big gatherings are still suspect. btw, sorry for the bad photos. Handheld little snappy camera with ISO 400 max.

Our commencement ceremonies were changed in subtle but noticeable ways. No touching. I was on the stage shaking hands and routing traffic (me: not shown), and after a few shakes, I was told to stop. No touching. This made me realize how much the touching is usually a part of the ritual. It’s a production line of touching. You get touched to be hooded, then handshake that simultaneously serves to hold you back until it’s time to walk across the stage, then the President shakes your hand, hands you the degree, and poses for a picture, then the Dean shakes your hand and sends you to the individual photographer (offstage) who probably touches you to pose you. Well, none o’that. Me, I put a reassuring (I hope) hand on arms or shoulders, the President cleverly put a hand on the back, with the other hand holding the opposite end of the (probably empty) degree tube, and then — weirdest of all – the Deans. No props, and no reason to be there except to congratulate the grads.

As you see, they settled for a weird hand-clasping, praying-type half-bow (or full bow). The whole thing struck me as kind of sad.

In more interesting news, these tubes are cool. The stacks of tubes on shelves seems to fit the medieval academia feel of the funky robes.

In other news, the big square-topped stick in the foreground? I got to carry it last year. It’s called the MACE! I guess graduations used to get rowdy, back in the old days. KEEP IT DOWN YA FRIGGIN’ UNDERGRADS ELSE I’MA MACE YA!

Dear My Butt,

I know we don’t often speak personally like this. Ours is a relationship between gentlemen: we coexist, we do our jobs, and we rarely talk. However, I must tell you how much I appreciate what you do for me. Day after day, there you are: protecting my tender bits and raw bones from hours and hours of being crushed by my upper-body weight. Sofas, hard floors, dirty ground, grass, concrete, my bicycle saddle, and never forget the office chair. Ah, the office chair. If it weren’t for you, Mr. Butt, I would have the synthetic fabric pattern of this chair permanently impressed into my colon. But there you are.

We are men of inaction; lies do not become us. You and I both know you are more corpulent than you have been in the past. I take full responsibility for this. Instead of climbing glaciers and swimming ocean swells, I have been overusing you, in this chair and others, for decades. And I have eaten — oh, how I have eaten! Despite all this, you valiantly work nearly every day to expel as much of my gluttony as you can. But Mr. Stomach and the Intestine Brothers do their jobs too well, and my fat layer grows. And still, under even these circumstances, you manage to grow only in proportion to the rest of me, always perfectly sized to cushion my increasing bulk.

I know you get sore from being sat on. I know you occasionally suffer other maladies brought on by my occasional unwise eating choices. I’m truly sorry for this. Please accept my sincere apologies, and I ask you to remember what we’ve gone through together, especially the two years in Mexico. You remember the two or three weeks of salmonella/typhoid/whatever? Do you remember the horrible “restroom” we spent so many of those days in? The outhouse on the hillside, with crumbling walls and no roof? I certainly do, and you were there with me through all of it. You’re a trooper.

Thank you for doing what you do,

Me.

Here I am at the First Annual Doctors Hospital¹ at Renaissance  (or DHR, as the cool MDs call it) Behavioral Health Conference. I have to say I’m impressed.

Speakers
The speakers are excellent, which is surprising, given that we’re tucked in such a far corner of the country. Predictably, many of the experts are from Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio², but they really are experts in their fields. We also have researchers  from Boston (Harvard Med) and Tennessee, with international folks originally from Cuba and Colombia. Everyone has big lists of national and international accolades, presidencies, and frickin’ insane publication counts³. The organizers made dang sure this wasn’t a “lame local professionals” thing. Barry Mills, who does research on dangerousness, criminality, etc., was one of the presenters. It’s always nice to meet someone whose papers you’ve been stumbling across in major journals for a decade.

Filthy Lucre
The level of funding for this one-day-only, 150-participant conference is kind of unthinkable, from a social-science/mental-health perspective. Someone said it cost around $30,000. But it’s associated with a medical center, of course, and funded by training grants from pharmaceutical companies. Of course. The door prizes⁴ are Bose Wave Radios, Mont Blanc fountain pens, Tumi luggage, a PS3, ipods, portable DVD players, and a 37″ Toshiba plasma TV. That’s maybe three to five thousand bucks, I’m guessing. The programs are slick and professional, and the venue — though small — is very nice. I guess that’s what happens when you have a super-lucrative corporation or three funding your conference, instead of dues from a few thousand university professors. The registration fee was $35. I’m going on and on, I realize, but every time I come in direct contact with the financial influence of the drug companies, I’m left agog.

Expansion of My Mind
With one exception, every presentation has just been excellent. Solid, research-based, well-delivered, etc. Being funded by drug companies, I expected rampant conflicts of interest, but it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. Only two guys (no female presenters) had lucrative non-grant affiliations with Rx companies (experts on boards etc). Two more had received grants from  Big Pharma, and the rest seemed relatively untouched by the moolah. At least in any direct way.

The first talk (at seven friggin’ thirty a.m.) was a research-intensive review of the apparent reality, etiology, neural correlates, and unsavory comorbid associates of fibromyalgia. I’ve been hearing the same things everyone else in the medical field has been hearing, for years: fibromyalgia is some kind of attention-seeking hypochondriasis experienced by whiners. I’ve resisted this interpretation as somewhat demeaning to the sufferers, but I have still internalized it, I guess. I know that because of how surprised I was to see the evidence: solid brain imaging studies, self-report, other-report, functional impairments, objective measures, and on and on. They all point to a true syndrome with the what seems to be the level of evidence I expect to regarding the reality and specificity of a mood disorder, an anxiety disorder, or many physical impairments.

Humor & Snark

1. It can be jarring for a psychologist to go from an academic or mental health environment to a medical one. We often feel a bit like kids from the poor side of town, with ripped jeans and home haircuts. The medical profession’s term du jour for psychological/behavioral health professionals is Allied Behavioral Health. “Well, we can’t use any words that would imply that they’re part of the medical community… but I guess we don’t want them as enemies, either. How can we phrase that?”
2. From a presentation on bipolar disorder and suicide: “Now, keep in mind that a man who’s lost a wife within the past year has four times the risk for suicide, ah, compared to a woman who’s lost a wife.”
3. In a Simpsons vein, one of the presenters had a voice — nasal, slightly singsong, more tenor than bass — that sounded freakishly like Professor Frink’s. I realized this as soon as I heard him say, “…but this is the *ventral* striatum, in contrast to the *dorsal* medial striatum, which everyone here is clearly familar with.”

1. From the pamphlet, “Separate professional fees will be associated with your physician” [↩]
2. Though all are from nationally-competitive research & treatment organizations, which Texas — perhaps surprisingly — has quite a few of [↩]
3. Seriously, how do those MDs get pub counts like SEVEN HUNDRED by the time they’re 50? Does their research take longer than 10 minutes? Do they have institutional review boards? Do they ever have to apply for funding? I guess it’s a pretty sure bet that these guys don’t teach classes… [↩]
4. I didn’t win anything, but a colleague won the PS3 [↩]

Hooray! I have phone and internet again! And it only took a FRIGGIN’ WEEK! As I had begun to suspect, the cable modem was fried. Interestingly, so was my little Belkin 802.11g router, I think. Hm. Adding to the mystery, when I boot into Ubuntu (the machine the modem is physically hooked to dual boots), the clock now says something like, “January 8, 12:42 pm” or such. Counting backward, January 1 at 12:01 a.m. would have been sometime last Thursday morning, which is when I lost service. So, power surge killed modem and router in one blow? But they’re both plugged into surge protectors, and the protectors did not blow a fuse or trip off.

Anyhoo, $70 later I have a new router that’s way faster than any of my receiving equipment can possibly take advantage of. But it works, and here I am. Of note, this would have been fixed faster if the first 3 days of phone calls hadn’t gotten me repeated (and vague) reports of an outage in my area. I’m not sure there ever was an outage. If so, it was never really acknowledged or explained. On Monday, the CSR finally said, “there’s no outage; your equipment just doesn’t seem to be working.” So that’s frustrating. Was there an outage? Grrr.

In honor of feeling all internetty, here are some joyful Star Wars parody doohickeys just for Alex. Warning: one is Robot Chicken, and though it’s not the MOST offensive one ever, it has some, um, content. A little bit.

1. Comic based on a recent forum moderator’s comment, “there’s no homosexuality in Star Wars.” ORLY?

2. Teh Robot Chicken – Star Wars Episode II.

Finally, a comment on a news story I saw just now: The NYT calls Obama’s recent deal with Chrysler (in which the car maker declares bankruptcy in return for federal moolah and the ability to perhaps save itself in an alliance with Fiat) “…yet another extraordinary intervention into private industry by the federal government.”

Okay, I’m not going to argue the general fact that our President has pursued a very pushy — perhaps unprecedented — agenda of government interventionism in this economic crisis. But singling out this case as “extraordinary intervention into private industry?” How does this even possibly compare to the bazillions of taxpayer dollars flung willy-nilly at the banks and insurance companies over the past months? Here, Obama is intervening to make them declare bankruptcy. And isn’t that what they were going to do anyway, if they hadn’t gotten any government money?

Sometimes the media misses the boat. Me, I want to hear more about the extraordinary interventions into my friggin’ pocketbook, driven by massively over-lobbied financial institutions paying off congresspeople. Since that little ongoing debacle has cost this nation crazystupidtimes more money than the car manufacturer deals ever will, I want to see it front and center, with the critical tones the media seems to have reserved for the car industry.

And now that I’m all riled up, time for work.