white hair

I sink slowly into the street. Escalator etiquette slouches during the evening commute; a man yawns and stretches so languidly that no one may pass. I stare at his crown, mocha through a darker fringe. One white hair knifes from his scalp. I wonder what happened on the day this hair was born: like any other, up at seven, shower and oatmeal and train and hours of inconsequence, or the unthinkable day. The day he murdered his neighbor over an anxious animal. The day he finally got the courage to abandon the crust of love. The day he gave up his dream of being a playboy in Prague.

The white hair is a reminder of the one thing or of nothing. He never will see it in the mirror, so I will carry the secret for him, even if I can’t know what it is.

the fastest post of the slowest runner

O, look, a fifteen-minute break: just enough time to talk about exercise.

Since we last talked about exercise, I am still in the Couch to 5k program, with a few breaks due to illness. How I hate that phrase “due to illness”! But there it is. Also, I have now mapped my regular route, and discovered that my pace is much too slow. I will need to train significantly harder to complete a 5k in a reasonable amount of time. Right now I am stuck on day one of week six of the nine-week program, which is slightly demoralizing but not spirit-crushing because I love it.

There, I’ve said it: I love running. I don’t love running uphill, but that makes sense, right? My legs go all noodly and the whole running thing seems like an ill-conceived idea. Running downhill is less doubt-filled noodle-making, but still not as fun as Just Running. Sadly, San Francisco’s topography has not returned my calls, so there will be no debating this issue.

As much as I love running, I dislike pretty much anything else designed solely for exercise. Someday I will find the thing that makes strength-training endurable. Please let it not be yoga, because all of my yoga-loving friends are already annoyed with me for mocking the names of the poses even though they know I have the sense of humor of a fifth-grader.

And with that, my break ends conveniently before I can talk about being in vocational limbo!

academy award winning movie trailer

This is a cleverly-turned phrase that inspires you to spend a few minutes of your precious time watching this video.

(Obligatory dedication to Ergazork.)

galactica: sabotage

I love Battlestar Galactica. I love Beastie Boys. Therefore, this shot-by-shot tribute to the Boys’ “Sabotage” video using clips from BsG … well, it made my frakkin’ day.

(Thanks to Monica for the link.)

portland redux

Because sitting in my office with the door closed while eating a wilted salad and trying not to cry is not an acceptable new hobby, here is the briefest of notes on our trip to Portland.

[flickr album=72157623524721396 num=5 size=Square]

It feels so good to take a risk — traveling with friends — and have it turn out better than I could have hoped. Although it is always nice to have alone-time with FunkyPlaid, the four of us made a great team.

The highlights were many, and involved eating, geocaching, and visiting with friends. There was only one lowlight, in the form of an overpriced and disappointing meal at Bluehour, which I will be reviewing in detail soon. In fact, I have decided to dedicate a portion of this site to reviews, focusing on but not limited to my culinary adventures. It’s well past time.

Portland is enchanting. I love the Pacific Northwest for so many reasons, but the people I meet there consistently impress me. Seattle and Vancouver are more culturally diverse, and therefore more compelling to me, but Portland is so charming and quaint without being precious that I could easily see myself living there.

FunkyPlaid and I are Active Travelers, which is a kind way of saying that we neglect to schedule downtime and end up rather frazzled on the last days of our vacation. We ran out of time before we ran out of things we wanted to do and people we wanted to see, so we’ll just have to go back.

links for 2010-03-09

• Newsom's Orwellian doublespeak on city layoffs
  From the article: "As the Chronicle reported that day, none of the affected employees are happy about this 'offer' they can’t refuse, and their unions are even talking about suing the city. As for this plan to 'maintain services,' that’s based simply on Newsom’s demand that city employees – who, because of the layoffs in previous years, are often already doing several people’s jobs – do 40 hours of work in 37.5 hours."
  (tags: sanfrancisco economy jobs layoffs)
• 15,000 S.F. workers given layoff notices
  Yes, I received a pink slip. No, I have not (yet?) been rehired. No, I most certainly do not approve of the mayor's tactic. From the article: "Newsom ordered the layoff notices be sent to most of the city's 26,000 workers and said the overwhelming majority of them will be hired back within two weeks to work 37.5 hours a week instead of their current 40 – meaning they'll see a 6.25 percent cut to their paychecks."
  (tags: sanfrancisco economy jobs layoffs)
• Newsom Highlights Efforts to Save Jobs and Services
  I know, I know; I'm a broken record on the topic. You would be too, if you just got laid off. The article is good; the first comment (by "A City Worker") is outstanding.
  (tags: sanfrancisco economy jobs layoffs)
• Don’t blame fast food for making you fat
  From MSNBC.com: "Fast food isn't solely to blame for weight problems. Your diet may be hindered by a class of chemicals researchers have begun to call obesogens." (via Rich)
  (tags: diet food health)

what to say

I had this idea during dinner that I would get out my laptop and write something about the Big News, but I don’t know exactly what to say. Forgive my befuddled rambling.

For those of you who haven’t yet heard, I was one of the 15,000 City and County of San Francisco employees to receive a pink slip on Friday. Only I was on vacation and, in an effort to unplug, had not checked work email or RSS feeds all week. We returned home late Friday night, and my pink slip arrived in the mail on Saturday.

To say that I was shocked in that moment … well, I was shocked, but I was also a mess of other emotions. I opened the envelope, expecting a direct deposit slip, and received something very different. (It wasn’t pink at all, if you’re curious.) Because I hadn’t read the news, I thought I was one of a small number of layoffs — you see, I still believed all the “no, there won’t be layoffs” so heartily bandied about before this whole thing. Silly, naïve me.

FunkyPlaid and I sat in my study for a while, awash in disbelief and anger and who knows what else. Then I thought to call the library, and I asked a colleague what was going on. She informed me that she, too, had been laid off, that we all had been, library-wide, and then she related the 15,000 number, which blew my mind. I thought it couldn’t possibly be legal, but of course there are loopholes for any behavior.

I know I am hardly unique in this experience, especially now while our country suffers such economic turmoil. Last year, the union had dealt with the budget shortfall by arranging furlough days in order to stave off layoffs, so I know what it means to make sacrifices so that everyone can keep their jobs. But here we are, and with such a vague promise of rehiring at a shorter work-week, combined with my lack of seniority in the system … well, it looks bleak for me, if not during this round of layoffs then during the inevitable next.

This is hardly personal, but its personal impact is massive. My job is a complex and troubling one, but one I have grown to love with a fierce heart. I had so hoped we — and here I use “we” despite feeling cast aside by this city — would find a way to work together to provide our services to the public without losing anyone. Sometimes that is impossible, I am now told.

I hate that word “impossible”.

My gratitude for your compassion and your patience cannot fully be expressed by a mere “thank you” but I will still say it. I fully realize how despised civil servants are — I regularly hear comments to this effect — and yet you have only shown me kindness. Thank you. No matter what the outcome, I am humbled by your friendship.

links for 2010-03-08

• The Ultimate Dungeons & Dragons Game Room
  From the post: "The Burntwire Brothers spent the last two years building the ultimate Dungeons & Dragons game room." And what a game room it is. (via Laughing Squid)
  (tags: d&d game home design)
• YouTube – The Coolest Guy in the World 2
  I don't know if he is the coolest guy in the world, but his video is worth a watch.
  (tags: video parkour juggling gymnastics)
• Recipes for Health – Baked Tunisian Carrot, Potato and Tuna Frittata – NYTimes.com
  Tonight's recipe … very easy to prepare, and quite tasty! (via funkyplaid)
  (tags: recipe food tunisia gluten-free)
• Ethnologue, Languages of the World
  An encyclopedic reference work cataloging all of the world’s 6,909 known living languages. (via my dad)
  (tags: linguistics language reference database)

links for 2010-03-06

• Edward Anatolevich Hill – Justin Erik Halldór Smith
  This is a brilliant explanation of the Trolololololo meme.
  (tags: humor Trolololololo)
• Mr. Trolololololo (trolololololo) on Twitter
  Mr. Trolololololo has a Twitter account!
  (tags: humor twitter Trolololololo)
• TROLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO
  I can't stop watching this.
  (tags: humor videos music Trolololololo)