(Parentheses)

The library is my favorite room in my apartment.  (Just so you will know how vexing my life is, I spent about ten minutes trying to figure out how to bring my wife and both her joint ownership and her preference for the library into that sentence without it sounding awkward.  I did not succeed, partially due to the horrible construction of “my wife’s and my” and partially because of the lack of antecedent for the use of “our.”  I was not about to use the former, and the latter just wouldn’t do without the former, so I just gave up.  How troubling!)  One of these days I’ll learn how to write paragraphs that do not include lengthy parenthetical asides. 

Hopefully I will learn that skill while seated in my library (what a segue!).  (Speaking of segues, I thought they were spelled “segway” until sophomore or junior year of college.)  The room, as one might guess, is walled in books.  Even just thinking about it makes me joyful, but being there is “a whole nother” experience, as some would have it. 

Until this point I was planning to talk about something completely different, but now that I have made this many asides and pointless comments, I might as well talk about how much I like them.  You’ll just have to wait until a later date for my original thoughts (which I really haven’t given away at all yet).  In multiple settings, I have heard that the use of parentheses (other than for citation) is a sign of a weak writer.  My pride tells me to deny this, but I cannot.  My wife and I are unable to think of any authors who conspicuously love parentheses.  Apparently, being tangential is not something many writers aspire to. 

Yet I cannot deny my love for the aside, even a multitude of asides.  I view them as a more organized form of stream of consciousness.  They allow the reader into the twisted meanderings of the brain, the ephemeral connections elicited by a visual clue or a long-forgotten memory, the complex interactions of the current state of the writer, his environment, his history, and his work.  And yet the necessity of clarity is obvious to me because of its merits both for the reader and the writer.  A focused writer keeps the reader entranced in an idea or a story, and the further that story develops, the more the reader becomes a participant.  This generally also helps the writer by retaining his readership.  I most certainly do not want to lose all of my readers, but to some extent I also write just because I want to.  If I was entirely concerned with pleasing my reader, I would never write half of what I do, I would have a much more attractive site, and I would feel like a failure as an artist (to whatever extent I grant that blogging is art, which is certainly a stretch at times).

When it comes to writing for pleasure, the aside is one of the most enjoyable aspects my work.  I think this is because the essay than resembles a conversation more closely, or at least one side of the conversation.  Most people restrain their inner voice in conversations, though their thoughts are often more interesting than what they say.  They do not say, “How are you today?  [What is that thing on his shirt?  Is it some sort of manly brooch? Oh, no, looks like some silver paint – or maybe it is a piece of stray aluminum foil from his Moe’s burrito.] Yeah, I’m doing pretty well too.”  For the sake of keeping one’s friends, some thoughts, like the ones above, are better left unsaid.  But often we arrive at the most stimulating conversations only after a long series of less awkward tangents.

It is not uncommon for me to begin a blog on one topic and learn after a few paragraphs, as in this blog, that I really want to talk about something else.  I have a long list of jottings where I keep all my ideas for blogs, and I generally glance through it before I start writing any blog.  But despite the thoroughness of my list, which truly captures nearly all of my random thoughts for writing, nothing compares to the wide array of topics that can shoot onto the page between a couple of curly brackets once I have begun writing about one of the topics already on my list.  It makes blogging all the more exciting.

(All this time I’ve been trying to fit in this comment, but it doesn’t fit anywhere:  Have you noticed how some people put nearly everything in quotations?  They have some sort of “problem” understanding that quotation marks indicate utterances, irony, or risqué-ness, and very few other “things.”)

I will try for you, reader, to chain up the tangential tiger that lurks within me on future posts, though I will probably use weak chains, because I like it when he occasionally escapes.  But perhaps I have already begun to tame that side of me by forcing it to be a topic in its own right.  It is terribly ironic when one focuses on divergence.

Balancing the Checkbook

I’m 23.  I sometimes forget my age; I guess it just seems irrelevant and my brain has decided to stop remembering it.  But I am always reminded of my age when banking comes up in conversation with members of another generation.  I’m not sure where the gap is, but I would guess it corresponds closely with the development of the internet.

A conversation with a member of my parents’ generation or earlier might go something like this:

“So Jonathan, make sure with all those car problems you’ve had that the bills tie out at the end of the month when you balance your checkbook.”

“Checkbook,” I ponder.  “Ah yes, the checkbook.  I hardly ever use it.” 

“Well you do balance it every month, right?”

I pause, awkwardly.  “Of course!  Who doesn’t?”

“Good!”

I leave the room in search of someone in the know.  Spotting my wife, I duck into a dark corner and gesture for her to come over, “Psst…Ash…come here a sec.” 

“What are you doing?”  She looks around to find out who I’m hiding from.

“Just, come here a sec.  I have a question.”

She comes over, giving into the fact that her husband’s strangeness is incurable.  “Hey, do you know what it means to balance your checkbook?”

“Um, sorta, I think.  Isn’t it just making sure your bills match the checks you’ve written?”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, but I wasn’t sure.  They were saying something about tying out to the penny, so I guess that works…Have you ever done that?”

“No.”

“Ok, just checking...”  She rolls her eyes and starts to walk away, but I stop her.  I don’t want to be spotted.  I stealthily look around to see if anyone has noticed this covert conversation, and then jump back into the light and walk down the hall whistling.

The truth is, I’ve never once balanced my checkbook, and I don’t intend to ever do so.  I’m pretty confident that most of my generation conforms to this pattern, and here’s why.  First of all, we never write checks.  It took me five years to make it through my first packet of checks.  Why write checks when you could be getting one to two percent cash back on every purchase you make?  There is nothing so pleasing as checking your rewards at the end of the year and seeing you have earned a couple hundred bucks just by paying your bills and buying what you would have bought anyway. 

Generally, proponents of the checkbook point to the security it provides over the plastic option, but I have to respectfully disagree with this perspective.  It’s true that these days you can almost count on one of your credit card numbers being stolen during your lifetime.  But you can dispute any charges that you know someone else made, and I have never heard of anyone who was defrauded in this manner actually having to pay for the fraudulent charges. 

Credit card companies are putting much more effort into identity protection now anyways.  I recently got a new credit card that had better rewards, and I immediately started using it (because of the rewards).  The next day I received a phone call from the company to verify charges they thought might be fraudulent.  Apparently, most credit card users do not jump right into their new card like I did.  So I verified the expenses and that was that.  But I was pleased with their vigilance. 

Then there is the obvious factor of internet banking.  If I couldn’t go online and see every purchase I had made, on both my credit and debit cards, I would be tempted to go back to checks.  But I can see everything – every tiny interest earning, every automated bill, every singular coke that I didn’t have enough cash to pay for because I wanted my credit card rewards so earnestly.  It’s all there. 

Now let’s think about the check.  There are two obvious drawbacks in my opinion.  First, it is slow and cumbersome.  Between the actual writing of checks and the checking and rechecking of sums at the end of every month, much time is wasted.  But more importantly, in terms of security, using a check is openly handing out your bank account number, complete with your name and address.  I find it ironic that some people can be so careful about blocking off their bank account numbers on other documents, but are completely fine with handing it out on every check they write. 

At least with debit, the card number is auxiliary to the account number.  And for credit, where the card number is often the account number, no one is leaving that number in someone else’s keeping.  You swipe the card and get it back.  Sure, people still manage to steal it, but they have to be trickier about it.  And when there is credit fraud, the money is coming out of the bank’s keeping first, rather than coming straight out your bank account.  When the fraud is recognized, it can be fixed entirely without affecting your personal cash balance. 

No – I don’t balance my checkbook, but I keep a very close eye on all of my accounts with online technology and I pay my full bill every month.  I see only one possible benefit to the checkbook habit.  For those who are tempted to overspend when using credit or debit, because it doesn’t seem like real money, using checks is a good way to temper this habit.  But for those who have no trouble keeping track of their finances, it seems to me that using checks for everyday transactions is throwing money away, wasting time, and less secure to boot. 

What were you thinking?

Scenario 1:

A couple walks into their house, the woman obviously flustered.  She throws down her purse and flings her jacket at a chair.  The husband meekly follows, locking the door, gingerly hanging up his coat. 

“Ugh!”  She is pacing around the living room wringing her hands.  “How could you be so stupid?  What were you thinking?”

“I’m sorry.  I wasn’t”

Scenario 2:

A group of friends reflects over a late night meal at Waffle House.  They are lounging, full and happy, laughing as they recount the events of earlier in the evening.

“I swear, I thought the guy was going to pull a knife out of his pocket any second and spit us all!”  He lunges at his friend with a leftover straw, and they all laugh some more. 

“I guess I’m just stupid – I thought he really wanted our help fighting the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide.  What were you thinking?”  He looks across at Jeff.

“I have to be honest – I knew the guy was messing with us the whole time.  I guess none of you took high school chemistry!”

Scenario 3:

A young man lies on a couch in a cushy office.  In a high-back chair next to him sits a psychologist.  He looks a lot like Steve Martin.  He might even be Steve Martin.  The young man speaks:

“I guess I can see her point. I mean, a blender does suggest a certain... reference to sexual politics, but I swear, it never entered my consciousness at the time.”

“What were you thinking?”

“You know those banana shakes she likes to make, right? Well, that's why I thought she'd like a blender.”

“And how did that make you feel?”

“..What?  That she liked banana shakes?  Haven’t I already been telling you what I feel?”

It’s amazing what a little change in emphasis can do to a sentence.  It is said that tone of voice (and I think that this number also includes things like emphasis) provides 38% of communication when speaking.  55% is facial expression, and only 7% is communicated by the actual words you speak.  That is to say, I’m probably communicating basically nothing right now. 

When I was in middle school, written communication was both a blessing and a curse.  Like most young teens of my day, I spent as much time as possible on Instant Messenger.  It was one of the safest ways to talk to girls without embarrassing yourself.  You had as much time as you wanted to think through how to say things.  You could just small talk if all else failed, and you didn’t need to worry about those awkward silences that can come up in real conversations.  Half the time conversations just sort of ended without even having to say goodbye. 

But then there were those moments when the lack of vocal and visual clues would drive me insane.  There I would be, talking to some girl I had a crush on.  We had just started our conversation and she would ask, “So what r u doing tonight?”

My mind would race.  Was that “So…what are you doing tonight?”  Was that a hint?  Was she twirling her finger in her hair as she said that, perhaps raising one of her eyebrows?  Was she asking if I wanted to go out with her?  Or was it “[You’re] so [boring], what are you doing tonight?”  Maybe when she said it in her head, she was completely apathetic, filing her nails as she responded in kind to my “what’s up?”  (I never even considered that she was saying “So what are you doing tonight?” and was actually curious.)

I would debate between “not too much” which would leave the door open to the possibility of actually being available, though I really wasn’t (I couldn’t drive and I wasn’t about to admit to my parents who my crush was), and “pretty busy - tons of homework in math,” which would force me to admit that I knew deep down this girl was not asking me out.  Back and forth, back and forth, and after ten minutes, I would decide it was too late to say anything at all, and I would just give up.

Later that night I would find myself in my room, listening to my traditional melancholy music – Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 – staring out my window as the rain dripped down the panes.  I had lost my chance.  If I had just said something, anything!  But now I would have to hide my face from her tomorrow, or I’d have to come up with some lame excuse about my dog eating the computer wire.  But I don’t have a dog.  So she’ll just think I was ignoring her, which isn’t the greatest way to get the girl. 

Man!  What was I thinking?

Pajama Pants

I was unshowered. My “Let the Big Dawg Eat” hat, which was too small for my head, was tilted upwards so as to cover as much of my oily hair as possible. I had not shaven in several days. I glanced down and saw my pajama pants and flip flops. Then looking back up and stealthily sipping on some Dr. Pepper, my bleary eyes tried to focus on the music projected on the screen at the front of the room. We were discussing falling fifths, a simple but elegant progression often used in classical music.

I dropped my pencil. Leaning over to pick it up, I saw my outfit once more and something clicked in my mind. What was I thinking? Had I no good taste, no sense of decorum or decency? How could I have ever allowed myself to step out of my dorm in such a state? Shame rushed over me as I considered my case. I could see the hard-working faces of my forebears in a field somewhere, laboring from dawn to dusk. How pitiful it was that after all their toil and effort to make a living, to get their children and grandchildren a leg up in life, their progeny would be so miserable and pathetic. I blushed to think what even my living relatives would think if they could see me now.

My face beet red, I knew I must do something. I quietly excused myself out of the back of the class and headed to the restroom. The eyes of passersby caught me, and, though they seemed courteous, I knew they were wondering how such refuse of the earth could actually be in their music building.

Quickly passing by their scrutiny, I arrived at the restroom and went inside to hide. There, finally, I was safe and could do something to fix my sorry estate. I took one look in the mirror and cringed. Eager to fix the problem, I took off my shirt, turned it around, and flipped it inside out. Looking in the mirror again, I found the image much more agreeable. I looked down and no longer saw the tag of my shirt dangling in front of my neck, but rather the shirt’s tasteful front. At that moment, I vowed never again to be so loose with myself as to wear my shirt inside out and backwards to class.

I took one more look at the mirror and still thought something looked off. “Ah yes! My hat.” I donned its gracious cover once again and returned to class, finally put back in order.

Not only did I feel like I had disgraced my forebears that day, I also felt rather ashamed that my pajama pants had to put up with such a ridiculous counterpart in their ensemble. But they are gracious and forgiving, my pants, and I do not think they begrudged it me or the shirt. The pants were the most comfortable I have ever owned, though they had humble beginnings. I found them in a clearance heap at Walgreen’s one day. They were purple and blue plaid and roomy in the legs. In fact, they still are so, for I have not forsaken them to this day though I have had them since high school.

They have seen many a college classroom, many a midnight walk around the quad, and untold hours of lounging here and there as my whims dictated. But recently I have grown concerned, for I can tell the pants are losing some of their earlier vitality. The elastic waistband is now visible atop the pants, some frays have developed, and they are generally feeling their age. I have already been through one difficult separation with a pair of pajama pants. I bought them at about the same time, and they too were blue and comfortable. I wore them regularly along with my current pair, but they did not last as well, and before long there were significant tears on these pants. It came to the point that I had to shear off large portions of the legs as the tears crept up like ivy. When they were more like capris or even shorts than pants, I decided it was time to end my bigamous relationship and settle for only one pair of pajama pants. I said adieu to the much amputated pants, and ever since I have been a monogamous pajama wearer.

I do fear what will happen when my current pair descends to the grave, though. All the younger types these days lack the depth of character I so relish in my current pair. The younger ones are fickle and flighty, prone to faithlessness at the most inopportune times (like just before a vacation, when a small piece of home works wonders on your ability to sleep).

And so in anticipation of the period ahead, I have a small poem to dedicate to my pajamas.

One pant, two pant, three pant, four,

Hie thee not out of my door.

Five pant, six pant, seven pant, eight,

I fear I’ll mourn thee ere too late.

I wish you all long relationships with your pajamas.

Suburban Regalia

I don’t exactly have a backyard. In fact, I definitely don’t have a backyard. Nonetheless, this very day I discovered a wonderful place in my own backyard. It’s really the sort of thing I should have known about years ago, and I know I had the opportunity to do so. I knew the name of the location, and I knew that it had a place to do some rock climbing. But it remained vague and distant until today.

Vickery Creek and its accompanying trails comprise this wonderful place. Not two miles from my current dwelling lies a small wooded area containing a few miles of scenic trails. These trails criss-cross the wood and follow the creek as it twists its way toward the Chattahoochee River. I would have never ventured into this realm had I not learned a vital fact – there is a waterfall along the trail.

Water has always been a key inspiration for me to go hiking. Forests are pleasant, but they lack the vitality of waterfalls or even creeks and streams. And there exist few boys who do not enjoy getting wet on a warm day.

So when I found out about the waterfall, I pledged my loyalty to the trails even before I had seen them. And I woke this morning eagerly anticipating my day’s planned adventure, right in my own backyard. Sometime around 11 o’clock I gathered up my small hiking knapsack and filled it with a water bottle, a sandwich, a small pad, and a pen for I intended to lunch and reflect during the hike.

I drove over to the trailhead and began to tromp up the trail. (I never merely “hike.” Tromping is much more invigorating.) Not two minutes later I encountered a long entourage of middle-aged hikers and realized reflection might be a little more difficult than expected on a beautiful day like today. But they passed rather quickly and I let them get ahead a bit to at least create the illusion of solitude in the woods. I presently forgot how near humanity was and relished the sylvan atmosphere.

About ten minutes later I came back in sight of the creek and started to hear what I believed to be the waterfall. The thrill of being outdoors in simulated seclusion, breathing the fresh air, feeling the dirt beneath me, greatly lifted my spirit. I began to see myself like some conquering hero, ruling over the path before me like an Olympian god. Tromping can do that to a fellow. Then I tripped over a protruding root, and my hubris came a’tumblin down like Icarus. Fortunately, metaphoric falls do not often kill.

My pride back in check, I could now tell that I was very near the waterfall. Then the beauteous vision burst through the thick February foliage of bare tree limbs – the falls themselves, tumbling over a mighty precipice into a bottomless abyss, churning and flinging up mist in such quantity as to instantly drench anyone who dared venture near this manifestation of mighty Nature.

I tripped again and decided to keep my romantic side in more control for the remainder of my tromp. In reality, the falls were only about twenty five feet tall, flowing over the remains of the old dam that I believe helped power the Roswell mill in days of yore. Though the scene could not compare to the splendor of natural beauty elsewhere, the eroded dam and the falls were a very pleasant sight in the midst of suburbia. I climbed down a little closer to the water and sat on some rocks to eat my sandwich.

The group of hikers I had seen earlier seemed to have taken a different route than I had, and presently I saw them appear up the trail and come down to look at the waterfall. They lingered for a few minutes and moved on. A troop of boy scouts followed shortly thereafter, and their leaders diligently kept them from the water’s edge. They too lingered briefly and then passed by.

But it was the opposite side of the creek that really kept my attention. There was another path across the way, a paved trail that led down from the mill and the historic part of Roswell, and there was a steady flow of walkers there as well. In fact, there were many more on that side than on mine. That didn’t surprise me much; their side was paved and flat; it had nice viewing areas, and it was only a few hundred yards from parking, shops, and restaurants.

And yet, nearly every walker carried a burdensome load of hiking gear. Many had backpacks stuffed to the brim; most had some form of walking stick, and all looked as if they had been working very hard so far. At first I thought they must have crossed over the creek further down (where there is a bridge) and had been hiking on my side beforehand, but this proved an untenable belief as I watched group after group come down from the parking lot, take off their sacks to view the falls for a few minutes, and head right back up to their cars, leaning heavily on their walking sticks. And even if they were hiking on my side of the river, the gear could not be justified; I doubt there is more than three or four miles of trail in total. I couldn’t help but laugh at one man in particular who had the complete outfit – a steel-framed hiking backpack completely full, two walking sticks, a hat brimmed all the way around, and a variety of other objects dangling from carabiners on his pack.

Such is the regalia of many suburbanites (or, perhaps more accurately, super-urbanites, for Roswell is north of Atlanta). We love to show off our fancy gear amongst our neighbors, even if it is completely unnecessary. And we justify it as preparedness. After all, you never know when you’ll be walking a quarter mile and fall, breaking your face, desperately needing gauze, Neosporin, and a nice side of roast beef with roasted parsnips while you wait for extraction. This desire for security carries over into other parts of our lives all the time.

Risk is always unnecessary; there is insurance for nearly everything. From our health to our lives to our jewelry to our cars to our luggage to our mail to our weddings to our dogs, if we spend money on it, we can buy insurance for it. And we often do. And when there is no insurance available (or even when there is), we have intruder alerts, credit checks, car alarms (which have woken me two nights in a row and never seem to prevent robbery), background checks, smoke alarms, personal references, carbon monoxide detectors, warranties, good faith agreements, never-ending return polices (or just take it to Wal-Mart), rain checks, and – if all else fails – you can always sue.

These same litigious folk have taught us well how to travel. It all comes down to planning. First you plan for the travelling portion of the trip, because it comes first, and we are a people most concerned with the here and now. So break out the entertainment: the computer with a multitude of DVDs, the ipod, the Kindle, the Blackberry, and your portable satellite radio (for sports), and of course you will need a charger for each device.

Next consider your clothing and toiletries. Fortunately, there is a useful volume formula:

(Number of Travelers)(Number of Nights Spent Away + 3) = Bags Needed

For example, if my wife and I are going to Savannah for three days, we would need

(2)(3+3) = (2)(6) = 12 bags!

So fill them up! You just never know when you will need a safari shirt or a ski mask.

I understand that it is a fundamental human need to feel safe. Life does not flourish without security. But I would also argue that some risk and uncertainty is equally important. It pushes us to new achievements; it keeps us motivated; it reveals our weaknesses and hones them into assets. Even the most protected person will one day encounter something completely unexpected and frightening. If they have spent their lives only trying to be safe, they will stumble and fall. But the one who has shunned the secure regalia of suburbia to face reality from time to time will stand beneath the pressure.

Llamas and Refrigerators

A friend of mine recently described the various tattoos she had considered getting in her life, though she had never gotten one. She said she had four main options that she had debated. They were these:

1) “Yes”

2) “?”

3) A circle

4) An elephant

This list made me very happy. There is a certain beauty in completely off-the-wall randomness.

Now I know I am biased on this issue. I have been told by many that I am the most random person they know, and I am no longer surprised when I here this. At work, I am the random fact guy, who occasionally spurts out completely useless, unimportant information. And every time we have a team meeting, I am expected to produce new geographic commentary as we view the wall-sized map in our team room. (I like these duties, by the way. And today I branched out of mere terrestrial geography and discussed Neptune. Did you know that this frigid planet can have sustained winds of up to 1500mph?? Wow.)

But there are many who are not so keen on things random. I have many friends who find peace and joy in the complete ordering of their surroundings. I’ve always been glad there are people like this who can balance out the ones like me.

Recently, though, I have begun to realize that my love of randomness is not so different from a love of order. Many before us have noticed that opposites in their most extreme manifestations often suddenly find themselves rather similar – Communism and Facism being an oft-cited example (I think before long General Relativity and Quantum Theory will become another one). And in some areas, like natural selection, randomness is rather orderly indeed.

But at a more basic level, I’ve realized that the manner in which I judge the merits of any random thing is in fact a logical process. It’s a lot like one of those logic games where you are presented with a group of objects and asked to spot the one that doesn’t fit. Except this time, I want them all to be completely unique, sharing as few traits as possible with all the other items in the list. That’s why my friend’s list of tattoo options was so excellent. The four options have almost nothing in common. “Yes” is a word, whose part of speech I cannot even say I know; “?” is a symbol, only slightly related to yes in that they can both be used in sentences, though “yes” is very definitive while “?” is extremely uncertain. A circle is also a symbol but it has definite physical applications and occurences and is used in math rather than language; an elephant is the only purely physical thing in the list and is obviously unique. And this list would become even better if the items’ small similarities were eliminated, though completely eliminating similarities can only go so far.

I now see that this love of orderly randomness is why I am so fond of a particular, random video entitled “The Llama Song.” I was first introduced to it in college, and it is completely ridiculous and makes no sense. It includes lines like, “I was once a treehouse; I lived in a cake. But I never saw the way the orange slayed the rake,” and lists like “tablet, brick, potato, llama,” and “doorknob, ankle, cold.” That last one is particularly good from a logical perspective. Doorknobs are physical, inorganic, and discrete; ankles are physical, but organic and continuous (who can really say, “the ankle stops here”), and cold is conceptual and subjective, never necessarily present or absent. How wonderful!

So now that I have sapped all randomness of its pleasure, I will leave you with a different sort of randomness, which is equally thrilling, and not of my making:

Haikus are easy,

But sometimes they don’t make sense.

Refrigerator