Patrol Pledge.

Not long ago, I made a reference to the "patrol pledge" among friends and got blank stares. "Weren't any of you guys safety patrols in school?" I said.

"No. What's a safety patrol?"

The more I tried to explain, the dorkier it sounded: Well, in grade school you could apply to be a patrol and if you got it, you wore an orange belt with a badge on it and would get off the school bus and wave kids across the street when they were boarding and exiting.

It was a desirable position. Really!

I mean, not just anyone could be a safety patrol. You had to have good grades and a flawless obedience record.

Okay, it was dorky.

But still, I was psyched to be a patrol in (I think) fifth grade. First, there was the belt, which to me connoted leadership and also was an additional accessory that needed to be cared for and folded properly. Second, you got to sit at the front of the bus at all times, which I liked to do because the view from the big front window was much better than from the sides, and also I liked Mrs. Kidd, the bus driver. Finally, it felt pretty official to be helping kids cross the street and, most importantly, reciting the Patrol Pledge:

I promise to do my best to:
·report for duty on time
·perform my duties faithfully
·strive to prevent accidents
·always set a good example
·obey my teachers and officers of the patrol
·report dangerous practices of students and
·strive to earn the respect of fellow students.

Between this and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, I was doing a lot of pledging on a regular basis in grade school. And you know what? I like the Patrol Pledge. I still think it's a good idea to report for duty on time, perform my duties faithfully, strive to prevent accidents, always set a good example and strive to earn the respect of my fellow humans. Not sure about obeying the authorities or snitching on dangerous behavior, but I'm sure in some cases that makes sense too.

Any fellow patrol alumni out there? Anyone?

Music: "Goody Two Shoes"

Pass It On.

I put this page up approximately 10 years ago.

First of all, is anybody out there still weirded out when they can say things such as "I've known so-and-so for 20 years," or "Yeah, that was 10 years ago?" I mean, I feel like I was born 10 years ago. And then, the World Wide Web came along a few years after that. No?

Anyhow, Haruki Murakami is like this awesome vacation spot you found that eventually got overrun by tourists just like you. His novels and short stories are bizarre affairs marked by disappearing women, pensive men, impeccable clothing, jazz and whiskey. He has also written nonfiction, about the sarin gas attacks in Tokyo and about running. He is an author the way Christopher Walken is an actor: He inhabits different roles, but is always resolutely himself.

I was really getting into Murakami when I typed up his short story and put it on that page, which has languished on my other site, which additionally has languished on the vast Internets, in the decade since. But what's nice about the Web is that people can find just about anything. And everyone once in awhile, one of them will write to me. Here is the most recent note:

Hi,
I am just writing to let you know that your painstaking transcription of Haruki Murakami was not in vain. I just read the story and it reminded me of stories my dad used to tell me. I started scanning the book to send it to him in email, but my scanner is very slow. So I decided to take a look around the internet to see if I could save some time. Anyway, I googled "The Second Bakery Attack" and your transcription came up. Thanks for doing that.

It's nice because most of the time, I am never the person who put up that thing you were looking for. That song, that movie clip, that image from the '80s, that commercial... I greedily consume it all and link to it all and rarely contribute. I leave it to the saints of YouTube and imeem. But in this one instance, I am helping out people who want to know and/or share what this author is about. Also, I am committing copyright infringement. But I hope the spirit of the former helps mitigate the latter.

Anyway, I recommend "The Second Bakery Attack" and anything else by Murakami. If you like what's on that page, get the collection from whence it came, The Elephant Vanishes.

Music: "Star Crossed Lovers"

One-Night Stands: 'Sparring Partner'

Have you ever noticed how a visual can affect the way you process a song? Do you have songs that you like because you first heard them within the context of a music video, movie or TV show?

Do you ever wonder whether you would have liked the song if the imagery or scene hadn't led you into it? I mean really, think about "Take On Me" by A-ha and tell me you would still remember it today if it didn't have that video attached to it.

"Sparring Partner" serves as the backdrop for this scene in the disturbing French movie 5x2, which tells the story of a couple's breakdown in reverse order, starting with the divorce and ending with their first meeting. As you can tell from the scene, it is very, very French. There is a lot of smoking and people never being incredulous or shocked, even when a bunch of fucked-up shit happens.

This song, particularly within the context of the scene, is hypnotic and could not be a better choice. The singer, Paolo Conte, sounds like his vocal cords were dredged in gravel, whiskey, tobacco and severe disappointment for several years. The piano and the guitar snake around each other beautifully in the beginning. You know, like sparring partners.

I listened to it compulsively after watching the movie and still come back to it every once in awhile. To me, it captures what is seductive and also elusive about love. Then again, I am utterly clueless regarding the meaning of the Italian lyrics, which involve a monkey, memory, a secret, a smile, an elephant and some other words that came up on Babelfish.

It appears that the title of the song, however, has no convenient Italian translation. Conte finds the phrase "sparring partner" so necessary that he turns to English within the song. I almost prefer that the lyrics remain unknown to me. That said, if anyone out there knows Italian and cares to translate, that would be welcome.

Music: "Sparring Partner"

UPDATE: Thank you to commenters for the insights! Lyrics translated below, as listed in Phil Powrie's "The Haptic Moment: Sparring with Paolo Conte in Ozon's 5x2." First of all, I can't believe someone wrote a whole paper on this song as featured in the movie. My hat is off to Phil Powrie. Second of all, I just learned a tubular new word, one that dovetails nicely with the previous post: haptic. Finally, "Sparring Partner" may not be about the seductiveness and elusiveness of love, but rather about the seductiveness and elusiveness of lyrics translated from Italian.

A macaque without history,
She says about him,
As he lacks memory
At the bottom of his dark gloves
But his gaze is a veranda
Give it time and you will see him,
Entering the jungle
No, don't ever meet him

Did you look inside the game
Is this all? -- well, you know
I'm an old sparring partner
And I never saw
A calm more tiger-like
More secret than this,
Take the first bus, go,
Everything else is already poetry

He might be more than 40,
And that applause
Is due to him for love,
No, don't ever meet him
He was there in his smile
Looking at the trams go by
Old elephant track
Spread over the tarmac

Things That Should Not Happen in the Workplace.

In general, I am anti-touching when it comes to the office. No matter how friendly I have become with my boss, I still think that hugging him or her, even in a final goodbye, is a little weird. I realize this is extreme. There's nothing wrong with hugging someone goodbye. It's just that I would prefer that the universes of work and touching intersect as little as possible.

Someone recently told me that one of his coworkers tried to give him a pound before a meeting, one that he reluctantly returned, only because he wasn't sure what else to do.

First of all, I think it's hilarious when guys try to interact in a specifically guy way in an office setting. It drives me nuts when I see guys drop "man," "bud" or "bro" to each other at work, while refraining from using such expressions around women. So, for example, "Hey, Christina, when do you think that project will be finished? OK, thanks!" becomes, "Hey, man. How's it going? Cool, cool. When you do you think you'll have that project? Alright, thanks, dude."

Why do guys do this? After all, women don't walk around going, "Hey sistah, how's that report coming along?" or "Could you forward me that e-mail? Thanks, girlfriend." Maybe we should start!

Here is a list of things that I would prefer not to see in a work context:

- High-fives

- Fist-bumps

- Winking

- Patting someone on the head

- Hip-bumps

- Bumps of any kind

- Exceeding the capacity of any given seating, i.e. sharing a chair in a meeting

- Resting any part of your body on my chair as you are talking to me

- Coming any closer than eight inches away while leaning over me to look at something on my screen

That's all I can think of right now. Anything else?

Music: "I Have the Touch"

Now Departing.

On March 12, 2006, I moved into San Francisco. On March 14, 2009, I will move out. I thought I may have been buying, but it turns out I was only renting, and now my lease on the city is up. Three years and three residences. One large failure and many small triumphs.

The decision to move here happened quickly and because of one person. Opting to leave behind a job, apartment, family, social life, and city that you love within weeks of an ex calling you up one day is crazy, isn't it? Yes, it's crazy -- but if it works out, you're also romantic and brave. If it doesn't work out, what else are you besides crazy?

People who take a harsher, more absolute view of life would say I screwed up. It was a mistake, pure and simple, and now I'm reaping the consequences -- maybe I'm not even reaping enough consequences. It was a very damaging, wasteful move for which I should be apologetic and regretful. Sometimes, I am the person holding this point of view.

Most of the time, though, I do not see it this way, for the simple fact that I cannot imagine my life without the people in it now -- people I met in San Francisco. I cannot imagine never having worked for a small cooking party company with purple and green walls and pop music in the background. I could not, at the time, imagine losing the person who brought me here. I guess it's a character flaw. Like George Bush, I prefer to put a positive spin on ruinous situations of my own making.

After I became single again, the question became not whether to move back East, but when. Many people asked me whether I wouldn't just stay in San Francisco. It has so much to recommend it, and I had built my own life here. Why leave?

My family lives in the D.C. area. It's true that I miss them and do not like spending money and vacation time on going back and forth to see them. But if I didn't have them there, would I still want to move back? Does it matter?

What connects you to a place?

Family is a big part of it, but it's also a "connection to the geography," as my friend Jackson put it. I know someone who grew up in Napa and says that the brown, dry hills of the Bay Area make him feel like he's home. To me, the trees and the air of the East Coast make me feel like I'm home.

I appreciate the rolling fog of San Francisco, the amazing, ever-changing light, the fact that skiing and wine country are both easily accessible, the produce so good you feel as if you never really tasted anything before, and the way the ocean seems massive and imposing on the beaches and cliffs here, as if it might swallow you. I appreciate all of that, but from a distance, as a visitor.

I am at home in trees with deciduous leaves, the hickory smell of fall, wide avenues and low buildings, Great Falls, snow in winter, seeing your breath in the air, cherry blossoms in spring, hay fever, heat waves, rooftop bars in Adams Morgan, sky-cracking thunderstorms, WHUR and the Quiet Storm, the residential streets of Northwest with quaint single-family homes built before the McMansion era, the Potomac River and the C&O canal, Georgetown, and beaches that are less impressive, but hot and familiar.

My social life and job prospects are likely to suffer a downgrade in quality, at least initially, in this transition. Every place, just like every relationship, involves making compromises and determining what you're willing to give up.

I tell people I'm going to come back and visit San Francisco regularly. I actually mean it, too.

Music: I'm trying to post YouTube links where possible because I know imeem forces a registration popup. If anyone knows of other good ways to link to songs, please share. Also please share your song selections in the theme of being home, or anything else you feel like airing, so long as it is not a proselytizing treatise.

"Going Home" (Rolling Stones)

"Coming Home" (SWV)

"Solsbury Hill" (Peter Gabriel)

"Home" (Zero 7)

"Hometown Glory" (Adele)

"Coming Home" (Cinderella)

Fits of Pique.

Herewith please find a day of bitchery, broken down into instances listed in no particular order.

"But, Christina," you say, "I already have plenty of things that I get annoyed about on a daily basis. Why should I care about your petty annoyances? And why do you have to bring the universe down with your negativity, man?"

Fair points. I say this to you, or my imagined you: first of all, maybe you share one of these peeves and we can commiserate and laugh about it all and shake our heads and then marvel at the miracles of life; secondly, maybe you would like to air your own grievances in the comments, which I welcome; thirdly, my negativity is but a wisp of smoke compared to the nuclear cloud here.

1. Sorry for the inconvenience. "You've stumbled upon a temporary problem we're having with Yahoo! Mail. Usually this problem gets resolved quickly, without you doing a thing." When I encounter this message at least five times a day, it's more than a "temporary problem." It becomes a soul-searching journey about how I am so attached to my Yahoo! e-mail address of 10 years that I cannot cancel my service and open a different account elsewhere, because that would require me "doing a thing," and Yahoo! knows that I prefer to have problems resolve with complete inaction on my part. What strikes me especially about this Yahoo! message is how they say, "Sorry," with no pronoun attached. Not "We're sorry," just, "Sorry." With this language, they succinctly manage to convey the sentiment, "Shit happens, man. Oh well!"*

2. Did you find everything OK? I'm at Trader Joe's, waiting in line. The cashier, a white guy with ratty dreads and a pierced lower lip, says to the customer in front me, "Did you find everything OK today?" The guy says, "Eh, I was looking for some chile powder but didn't find any." The cashier says, "Yeah, wasn't meant to be." I always wondered why grocery cashiers ask this question about whether I found everything I was looking for. I assumed it was an effort to improve customer service and inventory in case the answer is, no, your establishment has failed me on a particular item (e.g. inner peace). However, it turns out that I was wrong about this, and that sometimes the question merely offers an opportunity for the cashier to comment on the cosmic probability of uniting with one's desired groceries. Maybe when the timing is right, and that man is in a better place in his life, he will find the chile powder he seeks.

3. Your remote car lock system. I cannot stand it when a car's key-based remote locking system is hooked up to the car horn, so that when the person locks up, the car emits a "bip bip" like it's honking at someone. Naturally, these cars are usually SUVs. My question to the public is, is this a setting that can be altered? In other words, should I be mad at the car owners, or at the manufacturer? Or both? Please do not say "neither." That does not jive with the misanthropic theme of this post.

4. Giggling at hip-hop. One of my (cool) coworkers hooked up her iPod Touch to Pandora on our sound system to change up the office music and tuned it in to the R&B and Hip-Hop station. Select members of the office took this as a cue to snicker at every song and comment on how funny they are. Now, I'm not saying songs such as "Lollipop" and "Grillz" aren't amusing on certain levels, but by the time we're on the fifth song and it's "Gin and Juice," you need to either get over it and put your head down (and bob it) or you need to say "Hey, this black music makes me uncomfortable and is kind of inappropriate for an office, can we turn it off?" Either one would be acceptable. Tittering the whole time like a kid looking at Playboy is not.

Music: "What If I Had a Gun"

* Please do not tell me to open a gmail account. I eschew gmail. I want discrete e-mails, not Conversations.

Stuff the US Air Pilot Could Have Said.

"I know I can speak for the entire crew when I tell you we were simply doing the job we were trained to do." -- US Airways pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger II, who brought 155 passengers to safety by landing his compromised jet in the Hudson River

You knew from the moment it happened that the headline on the post-rescue story was going to be "Hudson River pilot says he was just doing his job." But what if...

• Hudson River pilot: 'Jesus, that was close, thank god I'm awesome'
  
• Hudson River pilot thankful he happened to be sober on day of water landing
  
• Hudson River pilot considered 'letting God take the wheel'
  
• Hudson River pilot disappointed by 'ungrateful' passengers
  
• Hudson River pilot: 'I thought that was a runway' (courtesy M.R.)
  

Any other ideas for stuff Sully could have said, just for the sake of being original?

Music: "Take Me to the River"

Top Weirdest Fan Entries on Facebook.

Of the many bizarre and pointless things one can do on Facebook, I find declaring oneself as a "fan" of something to be one of the more unsatisfying. (SuperPoking, on the other hand, I acknowledge to be bizarre and pointless, yet oddly fulfilling.)

Fandom on Facebook is a nice promotional tool, but it's a weirdly fallow experience for the fan. Declaring my fanship of something has not yet resulted in any discernible benefits. And look at me, asking for benefits just because I click on "become a fan"! Next I'll be asking for accolades because I brushed my teeth.

But still. Has anyone had a more fulfilling experience as a Facebook Fan? I invite you to comment. Lately, commenting and telling me I am full of shit is in vogue at UncMo.

If you have chosen to become a fan of something on Facebook, why have you done so?

I am a fan of exactly seven things. Here are the seven things and the reason I fanned them.

1. Chill Radio. "What, Christina?" you say. "You seem so easygoing. I'm shocked that you would seek out anything to help you chill." I know! But it's true. This Internet station rules. I became a fan to remind myself to download their podcasts. It didn't work.

2. My employer. Enough said.

3. Crushpad. Work-related, but cool.

4. Lykke Li. She's a Swedish pop singer whom I really, really like. I hoped that in becoming a fan, I would maybe find another friend who likes her, or turn a friend on to her. I don't think either thing happened.

5. Adele. She's a British soul singer whom I really, really like. I hoped that in becoming a fan, I would maybe find another friend who likes her, or turn a friend on to her. I don't think either thing happened.

6 and 7. Gabriel Mann and The Rescues. Gabe is a friend from college who was music director of my singing group and is an extremely talented musician. His band, The Rescues, was recently featured on Grey's Anatomy. I support anything Gabe does, because he kicks ass.

I took a spin through other profiles in my network to see what other people I know have in their fan pages. Nothing too surprising: musicians, schools, politicians, some brands. Movie titles I don't quite get, but I can sort of see how that would be like a TV show or a band, so it sort of makes sense.

But then there are some things that I see and become totally confused as to the point of be-fanning those things. Here's my list of those instances:

1. Charles Darwin: Charles proves his own theory by making it all the way to Facebook. More than 10,000 people have felt compelled to state the equivalent of "Hey, I dig evolution," which makes sense, because hey, it's worked out for us so far.
2. Sushi: This delicious foodstuff beats out Darwin in terms of Facebook popularity with more than 451,000 fans at this time. This number jumped up by about 5,000 in one day. Jeremy Piven, are you among these fans?

OK well, actually, that's all I have for now. If you are a Facebook Friend and you are a fan of one of these two things, I apologize, but I don't understand. Maybe you can enlighten me. In the meantime, I think I will start a fan page for Breathing, or maybe Porn. Neither of these things yet has an altar on Facebook.

Anyone else perplexed by certain Facebook behavior? Maybe you are not on Facebook (JK, PB, HI, DR), in which case I support you in your Lifestyle Choice.

Music: "Little Bit"

Day In and Day Out.

So, it has been several weeks now since the writer David Foster Wallace hung himself.

Usually, when we hear that a public figure has passed away, if it’s someone we like, we get sad for a few minutes. We talk about it with friends or coworkers: “Did you hear that so-and-so died? It’s so sad. I really liked him/her.” You might even get misty when you see the tribute in People magazine or read the AP article.

For me, it was different with Wallace. The news made me gasp with disbelief. I cried about it. And then a few weeks later I looked him up online and cried again. I revisited A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, wishing I’d revisited it earlier, as if appreciating DFW more when he was alive would have made a difference in how or when he died. Then this weekend I thought about it again, and read this speech, and cried again.

I’ve been trying to figure out why I'm reacting this way. After all, as DFW himself would point out, it’s not completely about him. When you mourn a death, you’re not sad for the deceased, or at least that's not the whole story. You’re sad for you, because someone or something has been taken away from you.

I mean, I didn’t know the man, never had a correspondence with him. Never saw him speak. Didn’t follow his career particularly closely. Hell, I haven’t even read Infinite Jest. Where do I get off, really?

The fact that it was suicide, obviously, is the most salient thing about how upsetting his death is. I just didn’t know what he was dealing with. Apparently, many people didn’t. We had only experienced the benefits of his massive brain. Now, reading his writing with the knowledge that he ultimately strangled that brain into submission, it becomes clear that its power to torture was as great as its power to produce amazing language and insight.

The essay “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” DFW’s account of his experience aboard a cruise ship, first appeared in Harper’s in 1997, and it was my introduction to his writing. I don’t think I’d ever seen anything like that piece before. I couldn’t believe it. And using my own clumsy writing in an attempt to adequately praise or describe his feels like an insult, so I’ll leave it there.

The point is, he was deeply inspiring to me. I didn’t hope to match his level of skill, but I hoped that exposure to it would make me a better writer. One of the jarring things about his death, to me, is the revelation that someone whose intellect vibrated so loudly and whose writing screamed with life was so shackled internally that even his own talent could not unlock him.

And so I guess if I look at this from the me-as-center-of-the-universe perspective that DFW has chronicled so well, what's grievous is how he has bluntly shattered a notion with which I liked to comfort myself sometimes: that language and intellect are unassailable buffers against darker things. He had one of the biggest, fanciest minds I'd ever encountered on a page, and he was forced to pack it up and take it home.

Anyway, it just makes me profoundly sad, to learn how he suffered and to know that he is gone. In one sense, I’m glad that I was such a lazy admirer, because it’s left me with more yet to discover than his truly diligent fans have.

Disconnect.

From time to time, the company I work for runs events for singles.
Without fail, we sell out of women's tickets every time we have one. And without fail, we are scrambling for men -- anyone with a Y chromosome really -- willing to attend.

The other day, one of our precious male ticket sales called. "Hi, I was just told that I have a ticket to tomorrow's event," he said. "I will not be able to attend. Can I apply my ticket to another class?"

"Sure," I said. "We're having another event for singles in Februrary."

"What about OTHER classes?" he said. "Someone else bought this ticket for me, and... I just found out and... she did it out of self-interest."

"Well... we have some classes scheduled... for couples," I stammered.

"Hmm," he said. "The person who bought this ticket is trying to marry me off."

"I hate when that happens," I said.

"She is about the grandchildren," he elaborated, his anger barely concealed.

I felt for the guy. He wasn't the first emotional person I'd encountered calling about singles classes. I've had a woman call me an hour before the event, asking what she should wear, because she's a single mom and it's the first time been out there in years. Another woman asked if it was OK that she's 52, even though our age guideline is 35-50, because all she runs into is sixtysomethings. Some women, encountering a sold-out message at the ticket site, have tried to buy men's tickets instead.

One man bitterly asked me why he should bother coming to our singles events, given that we don't show photos or profiles of the registered attendees ahead of time. I acknowledge that this would be helpful, in theory. Hell, wouldn't it be nice to get a roster of scheduled attendees handed to you before you went to anything, including work? But my attempts to explain that this wasn't feasible were met with further complaints. He typed that the "couger [sic] thing is out of control" in the Bay Area and that the events he has been to have been all older women and younger men because there are "too many tech guys" in this area.

Somehow, I don't think age discrepancies are this guy's main hurdle.

Still, it makes me sad to see so many hopeful, eager women and more than a few angry and/or apathetic men. But then again, the context is a singles event. I think once you get to the level of "singles event," you have been through some things. And those things are probably not good.

But here's the thing: We are offering a night of food, wine, and at least 15-20 seriously eager single women. Sometimes, when we are in dire straits, we are offering it gratis. And we STILL are scrambling in the 11th hour. What is it, men? My sense is that if you are a guy who is a) honestly straight and b) 35-50, you may be in a sort of recessed zone only reachable via porn sites, takeout menus and Law and Order. Should we advertise on these channels instead?

Music: "Feel This Way"