Tools of the trade

In school I always thought that the diligent fact checking, the piercing critiques, and need to justify all assumptions were intended to prepare us for a world where our facts would be diligently checked, our ideas subject to piercing criticism, and our assumptions thoughtfully questioned.  Regularly I realize I had it backwards, and that reality is far more frightening.  Back then, with the worry that an omission or flaw would be found came the comfort that someone more knowledgeable could fill in gap, patch up the hole, point the way.  For academia, it seems the point of the training was to learn the defensive arts.  Elsewhere, specific knowledge is more dilute and rather than a shield a compass is required.

Capitol Scents

I love the way DC smells.  I know it's not known for its olfactory charm, but there's a drought in LA and here, microparks bloom.  Between mall and metro, there's a patch of peaty moist mulch.  And a honeysuckle bush reminds me that school's nearly out for the summer.

Boogie Man

I'm sitting in a Starbucks near Fairfax and Olympic, and I nearly asked an older woman sharing my table to watch my things as I went to restroom.  Almost committing that irrationality that I've so often been the object of, except it's usually in airports.  In that arena where we have the most paranoid dreams about the abstract -- where we used to always have to tell that un-truth that yes, our suitcase had been within our sight since the moment we closed the latch, and unattended baggage is treated with the same gravity as a b*mb, we retain enormous faith in the specific, as long as it has an understanding smile.

2012

I think it started with Verizon's "Big Red". Ditch your boring job much better. . . You'll watch YouTube on a horse. . .

Catchy?  Yes.  And maybe I should be applauding this trend since there are some who attribute a certain amount of first world angst to the unattainable aspirational world that occupies those twenty minutes that ensure our favorite procedural fills the hour.

But this?  

It’s a problem as old as gaming itself. Stay home and just keep playing, or get to work on time so your coffee-breath boss doesn’t ride you like a rented scooter. Who says you have to choose? Your PS3 stays home, but the game goes with you. Never stop playing. PlayStation Vita.

I'm all for indulging the impulse to play hookie from work every once in a while, but I'd like to think that the potential payoff for doing so is more than playing Sony all day, and that I'll use the Star Gazer app more often than Angry Birds.

I'm OK, you're OK, gone too far? Are there people who see this commercial reflection and say, "Yes that's me, and I love what I see?"

Time

It's been three years, and it doesn't feel that long.  Three years since grad school; three with a job.  It's too easy to lose your sense of season in LA.  Where there's a pattern the rhythm is wrong.  Rain in winter, hot winds in the fall.  I travel for work to places with a more familiar clock, but it's a disorienting exercise.  March. . . in Oklahoma?  In like a lion and out like a lamb like my old home?

Then there's the matter of the lack of school calendar.  Freshman. Sophomore. Junior. Senior. New quarter; New quarter; New quarter; Break. New quarter; New quarter; New quarter; Break. No more.

Only sameness remains.