waiting and watching

One of my dealbreakers has to do with how someone treats a waiter. I figure that how you treat someone who is serving you says a lot about who you are. I'm not alone in that assessment.

Ever since Carl Jung's work on archetypes, there have been a lot of systems devised to categorize people, such as the Myers-Briggs personality test used often in business.

Here is a simpler categorization technique: take someone out to eat and watch how they treat the waiter. You will learn quickly that there are three types of people in the world, as follows:

• "[Waiter: can I get you something to drink? Person: yes, let me think about what I want. (Pause.) How about a ginger ale? (Pause.) No ice please. (Pause.) And with a lemon. (Long pause.) Actually, do you have diet sprite?]" These are people who like to push waiters around, getting pleasure that there are some people they can "control", and show their power.
• The second (and most common) type are people who are oblivious to the issue of the waiter's time: they are usually prompt in their answers, and they interrupt the waiter only when needed.
• The third type are people who are sensitive to the waiter's time. They recognize that waiters are often very busy, and might even realize that most waiters find it hard to earn a decent wage. These people are very polite to the waiters: they smile and make very quick small talk, but let the waiter get to their work. The extreme form of this type almost never interrupts the waiter-- if they are brought the wrong food, they will sometimes just eat it!

~Which type are you?

please hold

I've been exiled to phone tree purgatory more times than I like.

And like many people, I'd give my firstborn for the keypad sequence to use bypass the phone system and reach a human being. Thank goodness for the NPR story on Paul English's IVR cheat sheet to reach a human.
Via NPR.

more than one way to be two

My friend Granger used to joke that suggesting a threesome was a sure-fire way to break up with a woman. If she accepted, it meant introducing a third party to the relationship, ensuring its demise. If she refused, then he also had an easy out.

A few months ago, someone in a committed relationship put the moves on me. It was an odd situation because there hadn't been any up-front communication about what the rules were for the couple and how I, the single friend, fit in that equation.

This week, I had a thought-provoking conversation on the whole "do-ask-do-tell" topic and then ran across this article on the new monogamy. Here are some excerpts:

Getting from here to there
For years, we have said—to each other, to our boyfriends, to people writing in to our advice column—that monogamy is a choice, and if you expect it to come naturally, then your relationship (or your shot at one) is doomed. In other words, don’t take monogamy for granted; take the urge to stray for granted. But then again, our underlying assumption was that of course you’d choose monogamy, because what other choice was there? That’s what happily-ever-after requires. Although we may crave a fling on the side, the thought of our partner’s doing the same is heartbreaking, and so we agree to fidelity in order not to drive each other crazy.

The flip side
If you’re partners in crime, it would seem, then there’s really no crime.

Rationale
“I wanted a relationship strong enough for him to share his desires with me, even if those desires weren’t about me. Because what had really hurt in the past was not the indiscretions but that my partners had lied.”

Some groundrules
To our pleasant surprise, however, there is absolutely nothing skeevy about Siege and Katie. They’re smart, funny, polite, hip, attractive, self-deprecating, and affectionate with one another. And that’s the most disconcerting thing of all. Call us snobs, but it’s easy to dismiss suburban swingers who show up at orgies with a Tupperware container or Bay Area hippies missing the irony gene. But when a couple like Siege and Katie decry strict monogamy? It makes you wonder, How old-fashioned, socially programmed, and ass-backward am I?

These two can certainly teach most couples a thing or two about communication: They finish each other’s sentences and tease one another gently about the few times they’ve failed to follow their own simple yet strict rules. (1) The Vampire Rule: If they’re both in the same city, they have to make it back by dawn. (2) The Three-Strikes Rule: All pinch hitters must be interested in befriending both Siege and Katie (and vice versa); however, up to three solo dates are acceptable to warm someone up. (3) The Postcards Rule: If they’re seeing someone else on their own, they must bring home photographic evidence. (4) The Woman-Only Rule: Katie is bisexual, Siege is not—thus, for pinch hitters to meet rule No. 2, they must be female. (5) The Veto Rule: for Katie’s benefit, allowing her to rule out potential home-wreckers. (6) The Safety Rule: What some couples call “body-fluid monogamy,” i.e., always use condoms when having sex with a third . . . or a fourth . . . or a fifth . . .

Above and beyond the rules, what makes their relationship work, say Siege and Katie, is that they’re a team, and that comes before anything (hence the Three-Strikes Rule). In fact, this idea of working together came up repeatedly with couples who have tweaked monogamy: Part of the appeal, it seems, is a sort of “us against the world” vibe. More than one couple referred to their additional partners as living, breathing sex toys.

Woman + Man + ?
The most smooth-running nontraditional relationships, it seems, comprise a straight man and a bisexual woman who’s not particularly interested in men besides her No. 1 guy. “I wish I were bi,” says Siege. “It’d make things easier. But it’s like this island of old-fashionedness in my brain—I just don’t want her messing around with other guys. Because I don’t find men attractive, my only instinct would be to punch them.”

In fact, it’s rare to find hetero couples where the guy is willing to entertain even fantasies involving other men. Christen, a 33-year-old performance artist, says that neither she nor her husband are “conventionally straight,” so they ogle men and women together—like “pretty boy Mig from Rock Star: INXS.” But we found that male-female couples like this are few and far between.

It’s impossible to isolate a single explanation, but we’ll take a shot: Maybe women really are more sexually fluid than men—or their sexuality is simply more socially malleable. Or maybe this is just a particular brand of bisexuality; most of the women we spoke with said they are sexually, but not romantically, attracted to other women. And maybe this is a good thing, a sign that girls have more options, more pleasure, more of an experimental nature, more freedom overall. Or there’s the negative interpretation: Perhaps this is all a performance to turn guys on, Girls Gone Wild Gone Nonmonogamous. It could be that sexually speaking, women are just not taken seriously: Hot, yes, but as sex toys, not real romantic threats. (Who could trump the mighty penis?) As two women about to embark on what we hope will be lifelong commitments, we’re left wondering: Has the bar suddenly been raised? Is female bisexuality the latest way to be the perfect girlfriend?

These definitions are useful.

happy thanksgiving

Hope your Thanksgiving is peaceful, tasty, and includes a nap.

Meanwhile, don't show this to your two-year old.


Via Georgia

they're coming

I've been a fan of Savage Love (a NSFW sex advice column) for some time now.

I just got around to reading last week's column and loved the 'straight update,' especially his rant about the religious right lobbying to shelve the HPV vaccine, in spite of the fact that it will save lives:

Who ultimately gets to determine the government's position on the HPV vaccine? Thanks to George W. Bush, the Christian fundies do.

From The Washington Post: "The jockeying [around the HPV vaccine] reflects the growing influence social conservatives, who had long felt overlooked by Washington, have gained on a broad spectrum of policy issues under the Bush administration. In this case, a former member of the conservative group Focus on the Family serves on the federal panel that is playing a pivotal role in deciding how the vaccine is used."

"W" stands for women, he told us when he ran for president. But George W. Bush never said anything about standing for live women.

The right-wingers, the fundies, and the sex-phobes don't just have it in for the queers. They're coming for your asses too.

to (mine) own self be true

the life aquatic

This story, on how Fabien Zissou Cousteau (the grandson of that Cousteau) is using a shark-shaped submarine to study great whites, is proof that truth is stranger than fiction. That it was inspired by a Belgian comic strip — and that the sharks don't seem to mind— makes this even funnier.

Wacky scientists are hot, I tell you. Hot.

Ocean Explorer Becomes One With the Sharks
There have been many men inside sharks through the ages, but only one has wanted to be there, and his name is Cousteau.

The familiar name carries with it a well-established sense of seawater, science and showmanship. But this Cousteau is Fabien, the 38-year-old grandson of Jacques and an ocean explorer in his own right.

Fabien Cousteau is studying the behavior of great white sharks. They have gotten an unfair reputation as soulless killers, he said in an interview. Reading stories about shark attacks, he said, "It struck me about how much misinformation about sharks is out there." With a new documentary that will be shown on CBS later this year, he's out to show that they are, well, not exactly cuddly, but not evil either.

One problem with monitoring sharks, he said, is that it is so hard to observe them without affecting their behavior. The shark cages, the bait - it all adds up, he said, to footage of gaping mouths and churning water foamed with blood.

The idea for a shark submarine came to him, he said, from the adventures of Tintin, a comic strip character created by a Belgian artist. In "Red Rackham's Treasure," Tintin explores the sea in a shark-shaped sub. "I was 7 years old when I read it," said Mr. Cousteau, who was born in Paris but lives in New York.

He named his submersible Troy, for another animal-shaped vehicle with invaders inside. Piloting the 14-foot craft was not a joy. "Troy is definitely not for the claustrophobic!" he wrote in an e-mail message after the interview. He compared the experience to "being in a womb."

The interior is filled with water, and he uses a rebreather. He carried six hours of air on each dive, but would usually become uncomfortably chilled after a couple of hours.

Mr. Cousteau's gamble paid off, he said, when the groups of sharks he approached off the coasts of Mexico allowed him to cruise along with them. "The sharks were willing to be around us," he said. He found that some - perhaps not the brightest of the bunch - were apparently fooled by the swimming fake.

"The fact that it even remotely worked, remotely resembled a swimming shark, was really neat," he said.

marking time

While headed to my car last week, I noticed that the leaves on the sycamore trees are (finally) dropping, despite our schizophrenic weather.

quotable

"Everybody's got to leave their darkness sometime."
-Sting, aka Gordon Matthew Sumner (1951 - ), English musician and actor, in "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying"

at a loss for words

I aspire to cheekiness.

Naturally, I think that the "cheeky not geeky" T-shirt being sold at the Scrabble world championship is terribly clever. But I'd prefer one that just says "cheekiness." Gratuitous tangent: When I was a little girl, my mother's pet name for me was chiqui, (pronounced like the English work "cheeky,") and short for chiquita (Spanish for "little one.")

Oh, I also wouldn't mind being a better Scrabble player. For now, I'll settle for being a good Boggle player and leave the Scrabble domination to Laura, Aaron, Brandon, and Cass.

Scrabble Kings Vie for Linguistic Superiority
In the end, the zobo and the ogive could not quite triumph over the qanat and the euripi on Sunday, and thus the contender was birsled - Scottish dialect for scorched or toasted.

It was with such linguistic acrobatics that the eighth World Scrabble Championships came to an end in a north London hotel, when Adam Logan, a 30-year-old mathematician from Canada, scored 465 points to beat Pakorn Nemitrmansuk, a 30-year-old architect from Thailand, with 426 points in the final game of a playoff.

two words

Minimum wage.

meet cass

Cass is one of my closest friends.

In addition to being smart, beautiful, talented, an amazing listener, and kind, she is also a great cook.

These are from Eleanor's birthday this weekend.

Can you please take the picture, already?

We're not drunk. Really.

this i believe: there is no god

"This I Believe" is a series of essays on values and beliefs by Americans from all walks of life.

I thoroughly enjoyed Penn Jillette's essay, There is No God. I'm struck by how he lives in the present and appreciates everyday gifts. That's a lesson for all of us, no matter what our personal beliefs happen to be.

So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

redemption

Can a person change?

Can someone who (in his own words) did monstrous things in his past do more good for society alive than dead?

Today's Morning Edition story on Tookie Williams has me churning on these questions.

Crips co-founder Tookie Williams faces execution in California on Dec. 13 unless the governor grants him clemency. Williams, convicted of four murders, has become a noted anti-gang crusader, writer of children's books, and a Nobel Prize nominee while in prison at San Quentin.

layering

Today's forecast calls for a high of 82° and a low of 48°. W.T.F.

subtle

I like people who are direct.

Welcome to my 'hood, where at least one of my neighbors is very direct.

happiness is ...

... sleeping in on a Saturday (and Sunday) morning.

... hearing Dan Savage talk about his new book on NPR.

... crocheting at the gym and having a perfect stranger ask if my pregnant friend can "just put it [childbirth] off a little bit," so that I can have more time to work on the baby blanket.

... organic baby greens, organic sweet 100 tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, marinated artichoke hearts, and caesar chicken strips tossed in an olive oil vinaigrette and seasoned with a touch of salt and freshly ground black pepper.

... watching an especially good episode of Six Feet Under Saturday afternoon.

... brushing Casey's belly and watching him play the (air) banjo with both hind legs.

... a Saturday afternoon at Wine Steals, celebrating Eleanor's thirtieth birthday with her, Cass, Jason, Tony, and other far-flung folks.

... congratulating Karen on her recent engagement while at dinner with her, Georgia, and Jane.

... recounting the 14-game Rummikub winning streak story to Cass and getting the low-down on why neither of us wear skirt boots.

... being completely unfazed at the thought of my parents house/Caseysitting for me while I'm on vacation.

... realizing that its 31 30 days until finals are over and 37 36 days until my vacation.

... seeing a box of Bentley tea in a store Saturday night.

... eating the inaugural breakfast (pumpkin pancakes) in Cass' beautiful new kitchen while singing along to Sting and the Indigo Girls and trying to figure out when This American Life will come on.

... walking around at the farmer's market in short sleeves and jeans and being too hot because it's 88 freakin' degrees on Nov. 20. Can you say global warming?

cass' pumpkin puff pancakes

1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 TBSP melted butter
1 cup milk
1 TBSP honey
1/2 cup pumpkin (cooked and pureed)
2 egg yolks, beaten
2 egg whites, stiffly beaten

Sift dry ingredients together. Combine wet ingredients, except for egg whites. Stir. Fold in egg whites.

Serve with butter and maple syrup. (Or fresh whipped cream and apple/ pumpkin butter.)

Makes 8 pancakes.

spellcheck on aisle four

More fun for Anglophiles like me who love Britishisms ...

While double-checking the spelling of the word "bollocks," I ran across the English-to-American dictionary.

quotable

"Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own."
-Bruce Lee (1940—1973), Chinese American martial artist and actor

isoquant inflation

Finals countdown: 31 days until I gladly forget that isoquants aren't something I'd do at the gym.
Vacation countdown: 37 days until I get empirical data on the scientist's doting threshhold and his analysis of doting inflation theory.

stitch and bitch

Serious props to Regina for hosting tonight's crochet stitch and bitch. The Chinese food was tasty, the plum wine divine, the homebrewed limoncello potent, the fireplace toasty, and the hookers fun.

Thanks to Susan A. for stirring the pot and ensuring that the conversation with Regina, Cass, Carol, Norma, and Melissa stayed in interesting territory (politics, religion, and sex) almost all night.

balancing a hooker

Finals countdown: 32 days until trial balances cease to be so damn trying.
Vacation countdown: 38 days until I hang with a hooker.

phalaenopsis

While looking through some old files today, I stumbled on this image.

It's a detail of a photo from a series I did on orchids a few years ago.

great googly moogly

If you google the word "failure," the first site in the results is President Bush's biography.

Because many Google users would not find this amusing and would "assume that this reflects a political bias on our part," Google has kindly and defensively provided an explanation:

The Google engine ranks pages in order of popularity. Pranksters adept at Google-bombing can influence those rankings. Google doesn't like such pranks but doesn't want to "alter our results by hand in order to prevent such items from showing up."

I thought it was interesting that Michael Moore is second in those results.
Via Nancy and the SF Chronicle

diana's sangria

2 bottles red wine
1 liter (the large bottle) Orangina
1 cup vodka
1/2 cup triple sec
1/2 cup peach schnapps
Fruit (sliced apples, oranges, peaches, plums, nectarines)

Tip: macerate the fruit in the hard liquor for 4-6 hours. I like to macerate the fruit for 2-3 days (in the refrigerator) before making the sangria.
Via Diana L.

quotable

"There's nothing new under the sun. The difference is how the furniture is arranged."
-My friend (and fellow Toastmaster) Teresa Jache

potential

peachy drinking

Finals countdown: 33 days until I kick, take, and drink with my fellow SchMemBA-ers.
Vacation countdown: 39 days until I meet the woman who's "sweet as a peach."

fellow traveller

Tonight I learned that a woman whom I greatly respect is taking a journey similar to one I began in April 2004.

I hope that she finds the same rewards along the way. And that she savors the strength that comes from being one's own person as she grows out of a relationship that no longer makes sense.