Spring

The days are getting gorgeous. It's really a miracle. Much better than some guy rising from the dead, pardon my insensitivity.

A couple of days ago, the rain clouds were moving off in a solid formation, and leaving behind this incredible blue sky, made all the more beautiful by the stark spring green budding out of the trees.



My photo doesn't really speak the story, but it was jaw-droppingly beautiful.

WPHC - 1

This inaugurates a series of posts - that is, whenever I think of something and am inspired to post on the topic - about Why People Have Children. These are my conjectures, based in theory. Sweet, sticky, muddy, uneven, opinion-rich theory.

#1 - Some people get so intensely involved and dedicated to their work, and yet they instinctively know they'll burn out if they only focus on work. So having kids is a great way to to have a socially condoned way of saying "I can't work on this anymore, I have other responsibilities."

No judgment, just a theory.

Thoreau and me on Cape Cod

So, I never was much of a Thoreau fan. He has always struck me as one of these faerie Victorians, with a little too much idealism. I'm pretty sure had I met in him in person, he would have annoyed me, or perhaps not. However, he is a damn good writer. I'm reading Cape Cod, his treatise on his experiences over the course of several visits in the mid-1800s. Fertile mind, his. He writes about walking across the beach from Eastham through Nauset, and of how boring it was. Giving a flavor to the kind of boredom he was experiencing, he wrote about what he read (while under an umbrella, walking along the dunes towards the coast) as he walked, that is, about the first preachers of the Outer Cape, in the 1600s. He writes about several preachers and related events for a good several pages, then ends with this wonderful sentence:

"There was no better way to make the reader realize how wide and peculiar that plain was, and how long it took to traverse it, than be inserting these extracts in the midst of my narrative."

Cape Cod is an interesting place, as much for the history that is woven into the roots of the trees and the roads and buildings running through it as for the way it reflects the current sociological fabric. The season is only just beginning to start here, and as I tour around, I see the elements clearly: the retiree, the vacationing families, the lone parent who lives out here more often than the other parent, working elsewhere. And you see the Brazilian or Portuguese landscape workers. The construction crews, natives of the fishy land. The financially well off, in their vacation uniforms of flip-flops, sunglasses, and baseball caps, the women almost always sporting a pink, green, or navy blue, slightly nautical bag. The native teenagers, doing what teenagers do everywhere in the world.

You can imagine what the construction crew guys think of the lightly clad rich woman, with her pink handbag and starfish silver jewelry. You hear the voices of those same women, concerned with either their children or their work in a shop or at some high-powered company. Surely similar socio-economic class differences play out everywhere in the US, but I think it is rather stark here on the Cape during shoulder season.

In any case, I'm enjoying my time here, with the stinky one, Bandit.

It is the Year of the Tiger, after all.

If you look up predictions about this Chinese zodiac year of the Tiger, you'll find sentences like this: "The year of the Tiger is traditionally associated with massive changes and social upheaval. Therefore, 2010 is very likely to be a volatile one both on the world scene, as well as on a personal level. "

In Tiger years, natural catastrophes frequently happen. The world seems particularly rife with large, incredible, perhaps unfortunate, events. Volcanic eruptions should be expected. Earthquakes should be expected. Just hang onto your hats, folks.

Being poor, working hard

Life is not easy. It isn’t easy when you have a routine and you’re following it, and it isn’t easy when you’re in the midst of change and upheaval. It especially isn’t easy when you’re poor. You have to work so much harder than people with health and enough money for a simple, but decent life. Here’s a simple example.

Cleaning. You’re too poor to buy a proper vacuum, and the place where you rent has carpet. So you get a secondhand vacuum that probably doesn’t have great suction, and the hose attachment doesn’t work very well. (This may not be a great example for those of you who don’t believe in cleanliness.) When you vacuum, the vacuum does a so-so job of picking up stuff, and you can’t just vacuum the upholstery or anything off the floor. And the vacuum doesn’t roll easily, the pedal that lets the handle move at different angles doesn’t work properly, so you’re left lugging the heavy thing around over every little bump and lump on the floor. It’s heavy. But you have to clean - you have a child that likes to sit on the floor and play. Or you have a dog and a tick phobia…

In any case, you can’t go buy a new vacuum. You make do, you work your fingers to dry, red stubs, and get an aching back, sore limbs, fatigue, etc., making things as good as you can get them. God forbid you get sick, lose your health.

If you miss cleaning regularly, your abode gets dirty, you are more likely to get sick. Not only that, but the dingier things get, the worse you feel psychologically, the deeper into the hole you are dropping….

You wind up having to work so much harder than people with money just to climb out of the hole. As a cautionary tale, these are a few key points:

1 - Never let yourself slide so far down you have to work twice as hard to get back out.
2 - If you’re down, realize you have to work very hard to get out.
3 - It’s easier to maintain a relatively decent life than it is to live on in sickness and poverty.

The third point may be the most important one to remember. If you’re used to a cushy life, it may be hard to understand.

If you’re used to things just working, or things being done for you, it can be incredibly hard to understand that if no one’s doing things for you, you absolutely must do for yourself. You will have to work harder to get to where you were, or just stay afloat. People aren’t actually so forgiving of others being down and out. And they make assumptions about you when you are down and out that may not be true, and yet you may need those people’s help more than ever. Yet another point at which it becomes so difficult being poor.

Let me just finish by remarking on the things that people need to do better:
Sleep - a good bed, enough warmth, decent bedroom in a proper sleeping environment.
Food - good options, good knowledge of food preparation (go Jamie Oliver!!! Luv ya.) You absolutely cannot do better than you are doing if you are not eating properly.
Education - not only food education, but training in how to prioritize, think logically. What comes first, buying all organic food, or saving to buy a decent bed that stops hurting your back? The conundrums are not always easy to solve, therefore, you need your wits about you as much as possible.

Life is hard, rife with little problems, not easily solved.

Buying Gifts

This is a reminder for myself and others that it's easy and good to use Amazon's Wishlist to let others know what they should get you for Christmas, birthday, Easter, or whatever the occasion. It's searchable by name.

Modifying Goals

So it gets light, like, at 6 am these days. So when do I wake up? Yeah.

I think I'm only confirming my human vs. outerspace alien status when I say that I seem to be waking up earlier the older I get. Nuts. Not a teenager anymore...

So I think I need a different goal to track....there are plenty to try but the question is, to what end? Spanish? Chinese? Nature photography? One economics book per week? Hmm...at least one book a week for a year? How about that? And write about it in blog. OK, not super original, but worthy. Very worthy.

Topics to consider: economics, sustainability, psychology, history, architecture...Social sciences generally is a good, attractive idea, but given that I have a bit of a hardcore streak, I'm thinking hard science. Engineering, materials science. Hmm. Will have to mull over this. To start, however, I will plan to finish Gregory Zuckerman's "The Greatest Trade Ever" by the end of this week, and blog about it.

This habit-making business is great. I'm waking up early, walking every day, and feeding my brain regularly. I think personal networking will also be an important goal. Because as has been oft written about, people need people.

So light so early! Spring.

Was actually awake at 6am, but it seemed that it would be a mistake to actually get up that early. So, I dozed until 7:30, got up and went for my walk. In retrospect, because my walk takes almost an hour, it would be better to get up earlier and go for the walk, get it out of the way.

The WEATHER! It's so nice now! It's funny how to arrival of spring is a bit of a surprise. I mean, here I've been indoors all winter, taking my walk between my utility room to the kitchen sink and up the stairs and looping around again, feeling chilly the whole time. It's funny how it feels like suddenly, the air outside isn't cutting into my skin with a million tiny daggers the second I step outside.

It's also funny how the weather seems to change right after some big event, like a rainstorm and flood. Before the flood, it was cold. After the flood, it's warm. I suppose it sort of makes sense in a scientific way - weather fronts often bring some kind of tumultuous weather event as two air masses of different temperatures collide or move over a region.

Wanted to note a few things about Google Reader. I've been using it for a while now, and have blogs like Design*Sponge and ArchDaily, as well as some local and national news. It's really quite an excellent thing. It brings a certain milieu right to your desk, without much work. I think my earlier critique of it was the interface and relative paucity of personalization in the way the blogs are presented. This could still be improved, but I'm finding that the content greatly overshadows the formatting, fortunately for Google Reader. However, I'm not letting it go entirely. There ought to be a way to get an even cleaner interface, but with even more adjustability, per blog. Some blogs are picture blogs, some are text. You should be able to set a text blog up for optimal text reading, and the picture blog for optimal viewing of images. Perhaps some application that picks up the images out of the blog and higlights and magnifies (literally) those on your reader screen. To be able to have a flip feature would be even cooler. I should learn some animation program so I can illustrate what I'm trying to say here. But the parts are available in the world. They just haven't been strung together quite right yet.

OK, back to taxes. Almost done.

Early morning walk

Woke up around 6:50, started in on the morning ritual of loosening up my body. It's so variable, how the body feels in the morning. Did my calisthenics, and went out for a walk to check out the ghostly mist of the morning.

Images from the neighborhood.

Flood waters haven't receded yet.

My favorite groundcover, periwinkle, vinca minor.

By the way, apparently, Bill Gates is following my example - from twitter:

Flooding in my basement

Big rainstorm. Problems.


Tree uprooted across the street and tripped the power line circuit breaker.


My tax dollars at work.


No power, no sump pump. I had a mini waterfall in my basement.


Neighbors next street over have small waterfalls down the side of their yard.


The crapped up drainage at the corner of my yard.

Today, however, there is lots of sunshine. Perhaps even 70 degree weather!