Goal #10

Goal #10: clean up this mess:

"That mess" is everything that came out of my office when I vacated on Thursday.  "Really, all that was in your office?"  Yes.  It was a big office, and I had made it mine.  But now that the office is no longer mine, I have to find something to do with the stuff that was in it.  Currently it's in the way of my wine.  That will never do.

Recap of goal #9: no dice.  In fairness, it was a pretty insane week for me, what with the moving and all.  But if you really want to know how badly I failed, here it is: I got through less than a quarter of the music that I wanted to.

M Builds a Lecture Series

Settle in, this is a long one.

It turns out that there are a number of lecture series sponsored by universities in St. Louis.  Probably the best known is the St. Louis Speaker Series, sponsored by Maryville University - or at least it's the best known to me; I don't know if that's true universally.  Recently, though, I happened upon some marketing materials for upcoming lectures, so I decided to build my own series and check some of them out.

Speaker #1

Wednesday night I went with some members of my college alumni group to see Dan Pink, one of our own, talk about his new book, To Sell Is Human. He was presenting as part of the Maryville Talks Books series, and those of us in attendance not only got a peek at his new book, but also were spoon-fed the basic argument of his previous book, Drive.  (It's this: if/then types of motivation work well for a simple, repetitive, quantifiable task.  They are lousy motivators for tasks that require more creative thinking and analytical skills.)

The new book begins with the idea that we are all salespeople: one in nine people is in what he calls "sales sales" (inside sales teams, car salesmen, etc.), but the other eight out of nine are in "non-sales selling" (selling ideas, a service, our time).  And sales today is different than it used to be, because the salespeople no longer have all the information.  The availability of product information on the internet has created a level of knowledge parity that has never existed before in a sales situation, and that changes the game.

The old Glengarry Glen Ross model of "ABC: Always Be Closing" is shifting to what he argues are the new ABCs: Attunement, Buoyancy, and Clarity.  If you want to more about that, apparently you'll have to read the book.

Dan is a good lecturer.  He moved around the stage, made jokes, repeated people's names, wrote on his own face with a marker.  It was hugely entertaining.

Speaker #2

The very next night, as part of Wash U's Arts & Sciences Connections Series, I got to see Dr. Raymond Arvidson talk about his work with the Mars Science Lab expedition.  That's right, that's Curiosity.  [Holy sh**, this is the guy driving Curiosity!] (Remember how much I love Mars rovers?  Happy news, sad news, happy news.)

He actually began his lecture, Cruisin' With Curiosity, with a recap of Opportunity, who is still up there chugging away slowly.  He landed in 2004 and was expected to last three months and travel about 600 meters, but has gone over 21 miles in the nearly 10 years that have passed!  He's a trooper.

Curiosity, a plutonium-238-powered, car-sized rover on a mission to explore earlier Martian environments.  It's loaded with a brush, scoop, drill, lasers, and other goodies to help it pick up and analyze the composition of whatever goodies it finds.

Let's get this out of the way: there was once water on Mars.  There are gypsum deposits which are created when subsurface water rises to fill cracks in the rocks; there's evidence of cross-bedding probably caused by water carrying sand; there are sedimentary rocks, alluvial fans, ephemeral lakebeds.

Curiosity is working its little way over to Mount Sharp to take a look at some of its older strata, and particularly one which, thanks to the help of NASA's CRISM infrared spectrometer, is known to contain evidence of a particular type of hematite (iron oxide) which requires water for formation.  But, you say, we already knew there was water.  True.  But if there was water present when that particular stratum of mountain was laid down, that might be the time period Dr. Arvidson is looking for when Mars was warm and wet, just like - drumroll please - an early period of Earth's formation about which we don't have much data because our continuing tectonic and atmospheric activity have wiped it out.  Mars is, he said twice, "eerily Earth-like" - early on, the Red Planet's molten core gave it a dipolar magnetic field which created an atmosphere that shielded the planet from other solar objects.  Pretty much like we are now.  But somewhere back in history, because it's a relatively small planet and farther from the sun, its core cooled, atmosphere blew away, water fell into a subsurface deep freeze, and now it's a pockmarked desert.  Hopefully not like us.

So there you go!  We're trolling around Mars to learn about us, more scientifically called comparative planetary analysis.  (And also to learn about Mars, really, because that's just cool.)

The good doctor did give us a heads up to tune in to the NASA press conference next Tuesday.  Apparently big news is going to be revealed that was learned using a bunch of their fancy schmancy tools - the mass spectrometer, gas chromatograph, and laser something-or-other.  So listen in!

There's a video on the Fox2 website of an interview with Dr. Arvidson if you're interested.  He's pretty adorable in a nerdy scientist kind of way.

Speaker #3 (almost)

Unfortunately I missed seeing Dan Ariely, who was also speaking at Wash U.  His presentation was in the afternoon, and I had some work commitments!

Five Star Burgers

Earlier this week, I had occasion to meet some friends at Five Star Burgers in Clayton for dinner.  I had the Magic Mushroom burger, which I enjoyed.  Warning: err on the side of having them over-cook the burger, because a lot of people were a little disappointed with how much pink was still in theirs (I didn't mind a bit - take a whole cow, walk it through a warm room, and I'm happy).  I think the consensus was that their burgers were good, and big, but not in competition for the best in town.

Here's a secret for restaurateurs: if you put alcoholic milkshakes on the menu, I will order one.  Five Star's are small but seriously boozy - don't be put off by their small size, they pack a punch.  I had the Rumdinger (which I wanted more of), but a couple of my friends ordered the Maraca, which had so much tequila in it that they didn't even finish.  (No comments from the peanut gallery regarding what that says about me.)

Thoughts on Marriage and the Single Life

My friend M asked me recently, completely out of the blue, how I felt about marriage.  Would I ever get married?  Did I even believe in it?  What's wrong with it today?  I answered, somewhat unsatisfactorily, the best I could.

Interestingly, the very next day, I was getting caught up on the weekend's podcasts.  The new episode of To the Best of Our Knowledge was called "After the Romance," and there were two interviewees who expressed some of the thoughts I had been trying, rather inelegantly, to get out.  Disclaimer: I neither agree with everything these interviewees said, nor do they cover everything I was thinking; however, they're so much more articulate than me that I thought I would share a few choice quotations.

Psychologist, couples therapist, and author of Mating in Captivity Esther Perel, discussed the history of marriage, love, and desire (she's Belgian, so sometimes the sentence structure is a little strange, but she actually has a lovely accent; if you're interested I'd recommend listening to the audio of her interview).  One segment of her interview explained in more detail my theory that it's unrealistic to expect to get everything you need in the world from a single person:

"Today we want the same person to give us security and adventure.  'I want to reconcile with you my needs for safety and security and stability and I want also to have with you mystery and transcendence and awe and novelty.  I want you to bring me comfort and edge, excitement and familiarity.'  It's a fantastic paradox that we are trying to manage. . . . We are asking today from one person to give us what once an entire village used to provide.  We may not be more insecure today, but we definitely are bringing all our insecurity needs to one person.

And in our efforts to secure love, we often will trample the passion.  If the verb that accompanies love is to have, the verb that accompanies desire is to want.  Love doesn't want secrets; love wants to narrow the gap, to neutralize the threat, it wants closeness, but desire needs space to thrive. It likes the unknown, it likes the unexpected, it likes mystery.

If desire is fueled by the unknown, then faced with the unknown in our midst, we can have two primary responses: either I'm anxious [or] become curious.  If I'm anxious, I'm going to close up, I'm going to create something that is fixed, reliable, and [doesn't] surprise me.  And I'm going to complain of marital ennui and boredom.  If I'm open, then I kind of am able to see you and to see the persistent mystery that is in my partner, and then I can actually play with this wonderful formula that passion is commensurate with the amount of uncertainty that we can tolerate.

. . . Desire needs a bridge to cross, a certain emotional distance that allows me to come and visit you.  Sometimes people confuse intimacy with fusion, and there is not enough space anymore to go and visit or be visited by another person."

Later in the show, Anne Strainchamps interviewed Kate Bolick, author of a 2011 column in The Atlantic about the rise of the single woman called "All the Single Ladies."  I read that article when it came out, but she says a few new things in this interview, specifically in terms of legitimating life for single people without simultaneously raining on the marriage parade, which really rang true.

". . . I kept thinking I would get married, it didn't occur to me that I wouldn't.  I'd been in love before, I had had long-term relationships, it just--.  It did surprise me in my early thirties that I hadn't done that yet, and then the big surprise was at thirty-five, realizing, oh, I'm not unmarried because something's wrong with me or because I'm making selfish decisions or I'm immature and can't settle down or because there are no men. I'm single at thirty-five because I haven't wanted to be married yet.  And I've kept making that decision to not be married.  I just have not had that desire. . . . I loved being alone in the world and accumulating many experiences.

. . . In the article, I never say that I'm actually against marriage, and I never say that I don't actually want to get married myself.  What I am saying is that being single is a completely legitimate way to exist, and for me a very absorbing and interesting one. Once I made that realization, I was much happier inside of my life.  And when I look back at the last fifteen, twenty years, I have been very satisfied with it.

The only thing that was making me unhappy was the idea that I should be doing something else that I wasn't doing.

If I've wanted anything to come out of this article, conversation, it's that I've wanted there to be a more positive conversation around what it means to be single.  Single people aren't the lonely, pitiable souls that we have historically considered them to be.  And my message is not 'stay single forever, down with marriage.' It's that, if you are single, there is so much potential in a life that's unfettered by another.  Enjoy that time while you have it."

So, not that you asked, but those are some slightly more cogent (and one hundred percent borrowed) thoughts on the issue.

What I Watched -- City of God

I'm not good with movies that are subtitled.  It's an unfortunate truth.  In theory, I love these movies.  English subtitles means the movie is foreign, and foreigners often have much more nuanced, artistic storytelling skills than big Hollywood.  However, I've been so busy lately (define lately: maybe the last five years or so) that I really have a hard time with these movies because I'm always trying to do something else at the same time that I'm watching them.  I lose a lot of the intensity because I'm either missing lines or breaking up the flow to back up the DVD and see what I missed.

So it went with City of God, (trailer), and that's terribly unfortunate, because I should have given it a little more attention.  The titular City of God is a Rio slum lorded over by gangs of drug-dealing kids, which sounds like a bit of a ridiculous premise except that the movie appears to be loosely based on a true story.

There's no question that it's based on a book of the same name by Paulo Lins, who grew up in the slum.  Originally, it was thought that the book chronicled the life a wannabe photographer named Wilson Rodrigues, although the consensus now seems to be that there is no such person; the main character in the book is actually a composite of the author himself and one of his childhood friends who hoped to become a photographer.

Anyway, the story.  Drugs, gangs, kids.  All pretty dark stuff.  But there's one shy, honest kid, nicknamed Rocket, who manages to stay mostly above the fray.  The film opens with Rocket standing in the middle of the street, between a gang and the local police.  Rocket narrates as we flash back to the beginning and find out how he ended up in that position, and what happens to him once we catch back up to the present.

The movie is violent, but not overly so, and not for show; what's more horrifying is seeing what the children do to one another in an effort to gain approval from or prove themselves superior to each other.  That's the stuff that's really troubling.

What took my breath away was the cinematography.  The film is full of sweeping camera shots, freeze frames, slow motion, fast motion - but somehow none of it seems kitschy or unnecessary.  Many of the shots have that fuzzy, washed out quality, the way things would look after you'd spent too much time staring into the Rio sun.  It's really spectacular.

Bottom line: visually stunning, emotionally tough but with enough humor and positivity that I wasn't left feeling drained.

Quote of the Day

"You are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run,
You missed the starting gun."
  -- Pink Floyd, Time

Random Links

Hilarious "auto-response" texts.

A very lucky unlucky bride.

I want to be her friend.  She's friggin' hilarious.  Also I would like Hugh Jackman to come to my rescue.  (Here's more wonderment.)

Microwave mug cooking.

Like bird sounds?

4D printing.

Goal #9

Goal #9: listen to some music.

Lately, I've been the only provider of playlists to listen to during my team's workouts.  While I do have some awesome playlists, I'm starting to get a bit tired of them.

I have added loads of music to my iTunes in the last couple of years, but never added it to the various playlists in which it would fit.  There's no way I'm going to get through all of it this week, but I'd at least like to get through at least six months or so worth of additions.

Recap of goal #8: the good news about last week's goal - to get docs of my last laptop's hard drive - was blessedly easy.  The computer in fact works (which surprised me a bit), although it's been unused for so long that it's basically incompatible with everything else I own.  Even my flash drive and external hard drive.  But not to worry: all the documents had already been moved to another computer, so I didn't need to pull anything off it!

Addenda

I thought of two more wonders of showering at home I forgot to include!

8.  It's also a bathtub.  In fact I enjoyed a lovely and relaxing bubble bath on Saturday night.

9.  Everything is there, not just shower stuff.  Showering away from home requires that you have not just your shower and immediately post-shower stuff with you, but also all your clothes and everything else you'll need for the day.  It is almost inevitable that I will forget something.  The most common culprits are either jewelery or a belt.  Sometimes it's socks.  Yesterday I forgot my coat (yes, it's February - it seems impossible to forget a coat, but it's actually quite possible).  I've forgotten shoes.  I've forgotten pants.

Yep.

Luckily on those days I've just been able to wear my workout clothes to work, but one of these days I'm going to get caught racing the half hour home (though it'll be longer because I'll be in traffic) to retrieve the pants I left hanging on the back of the door.

This is something that doesn't happen when I'm at home.  In a few decades of dressing myself, I have never once forgotten to put my pants on before I walk out the door.

Sauce on the Side

Earlier this week, I went to a fairly new place called Sauce on the Side.  It's a super casual calzone place, nothin' fancy.  But it's good, and the service is too - a reminder not to judge a book by its cover.

I got the Garden calzone and a Mirror Pond pale ale from Deschutes Brewery in Oregon.  The calzone dough was fluffy without being chewy, and the garlic oil was perfect - salty, flavorful, but not too garlicky.  It was easily enough for two meals, so I headed back up to the counter to ask for a box.  The tattooed, backwards-cap-wearing, slightly-saggy-pantsed cashier didn't join in when I laughed at myself for not realizing that the boxes were in stacks over near the soda machine.  Then he asked if I needed a lid for the sauce container.  "Oh, I ate it all."

And you know what?  About 10 minutes later, he stopped by the table to drop off an extra container of sauce, with a smile on his face.  Not a big deal, and it probably cost the restaurant about seven cents, but it was a nice gesture.  I'll remember it, and I hope I'll also remember my surprise at his good attitude.