I'm sorry, Ma'am, we're going to have to confiscate this manuscript

Apparently J.K. Rowling was worried that they wouldn't let her take her manuscript onto an airplane during a heightened security alert. It isn't clear from the story whether this was just her own worries, or whether she actually had to convince airport security to let her take her manuscript with her. But if the latter is true, I wonder if she name-drops herself right away, or tries to get through anonymously first? I can see both pros and cons to saying "I'm J.K. Rowling and this is part of the manuscript for the next Harry Potter book."

Diving

Picture a perfect dive.

The diver's body plunges into the water, then arches smoothly back up to the surface. The underwater portion of the dive is U-shaped.

I have dived many times in my life. Yes, I know I haven't been swimming in ages, but I have dived at every given opportunity.

I don't think I've ever consciously come back up to the surface. It just happened automatically. In fact, I don't think I know how to get back up to the surface. So far in my life it has always happened, but I can't explain or visualize or imagine how it's done. That's rather scary.

Why I won't take my bottles to the Beer Store

So they want to put a deposit on bottles, and have us return them to the Beer Store for a refund.

Not gonna happen.

Why? Because the Beer Store is significantly out of my way. I never go to the Beer Store (the LCBO meets all my beer needs) so I would have to make a special trip there - by bus - for the sole purpose of getting rid of my bottles. Now my exurban readers are sitting there going "So what?" To put this in perspective, I have had to take a bus (as opposed to a subway or streetcar) only three times in the 3.5 years I've lived in this neighbourhood. Why is the bus a problem? I can't read on the bus, so it's lost time. Why don't I do something else on the way? Because the only amenities near my closest Beer Store are duplicates of amenities I have here in my immediate neighbourhood, as well as in the neighbourhood where I work. So essentially they're asking me to take on a new errand that will be the most inconvenient of all my errands, and will probably take half an hour of my time round-trip, for the sole purpose of saving 40 cents per bottle. If I didn't have a Metropass, I'd be losing money on the transaction!

My sense of social responsibility is strong enough to make me put my bottles into the recycle dumpsters behind my building rather than down the garbage chute (which is more convenient). My sense of social responsibility would be enough to make me take my bottles back to the LCBO where I bought them, even though that's rather inconvenient too since I usually shop on my way home from work. If homeless people or people fundraising started collecting bottles so they could redeem them themselves, my sense of social responsibility would be enough to make me give the bottles to the right people or leave them somewhere where they could find them. But my sense of social responsibility is not enough to get me to spend half an hour on a bus just to get rid of a couple of bottles and get a few cents back. You want my bottles? Let me return them where I bought them. Get a machine to take them and give me a refund, and place it in the grocery store. Ask me to separate them from the other recycles, or sort them by colour. But going way out of my way by bus? Not gonna happen.

everything's fine

For those who were wondering, their plane landed as scheduled so everything appears to be in order.

For those who weren't wondering, move along, nothing to see here.

A poll I'd like to see

I'd like to see someone do a nice, broad-reaching, fully professional poll of a large sample of people. First, take full demographic information from each pollee. Then as them the following question:

When conducting unremarkable everyday business transactions, do you want to be treated a) like you're more important than all the other customers, or b) like you're just as important as all the other customers?

Where Were You When

For as far back as I can remember, grownups have been asking each other "Where were you when JFK was shot?" (Yes, even here in Canada) and then grousing that Kids Today just don't understand the momentous emotional significance of that event. Which is true - I simply cannot process an event that happened 17 years before my birth through emotional channels. So I always felt a wee bit miffed that nothing important enough had happened for me to say Where I Was When.

When Princess Diana was killed, I used that for a while. When it happened, I consciously made a point of remembering Where I Was so I could participate in the discourse with all the grownups when it came up. I was at my parents', making myself a cup of hot chocolate before bed (Yes, I know it was August, no I don't know why I wanted hot chocolate in August), and I wandered into the family room to watch a bit of TV while I drank it, and found my mother watching the breaking news on TV. I took that and locked it away. I wasn't nearly as emotionally affected by the event as many people, but I finally knew Where I Was When something happened.

Of course, I had no way of knowing that 9/11 would come along in a few short years and be the definitive Where Were You When. I was in my res room, which was part of a suite that I shared with H. and R., two education students. It had a semi-private bathroom, but it also had far more phobia triggers than were healthy. I had woken up at 9:30 (and was feeling very virtuous for having done so), when the DJ on JAZZ-FM mentioned in passing that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I pictureda stray Cessna and thought "Oh, this might be an interesting story, I'll have to watch for it in the news tomorrow." Since the DJ then went back to playing music (I still don't know if he didn't know the magnitude of the story, or if he had no way of running a news feed since it was a non-commercial music station), I filed it away in the back of my mind, had a shower, and proceeded to French class. French class went normally (I don't know whether no one knew or whether those who knew were making a deliberate attempt to behave normally). When class let out, I went to the cafeteria for some pizza, only to be faced with a bunch of TVs all lined up, Peter Mansbridge listing airline flight numbers. It was then, at about 2:30pm, that I grasped the full magnitude of the disaster, having been filled in in Spanglish by the Hispanic girl next to me who couldn't quite summon up all her English in the excitement.

But I don't think it's that literal Where Where You When that's really important, so let's look at it another way:

When Princess Diana was killed, I was 16 years old, about to go into Grade 12. I had probably seen mi cielito in the now-defunct online community we met in, but I doubt we'd actually talked to each other yet and I had no inkling that it might develop into a romance. I was still using text-only Freenet access to go online because it was the cheapest. Of the people whom I consider my friends today, I hadn't met most of them, and those I had met I had no idea that our friendship might last into adulthood rather than being a passing high school friendship of convenience. It hadn't yet occurred to me to study translation (I would be exposed to the idea in a few short weeks.) It had never crossed my mind that I might live in Toronto - I always figured that's what people with an inflated sense of glamour did and I had no idea that it might be practical. If you'd told me about the awesome neighbourhood I live in now, I would have been all "Young and Egg? What?" If you'd told me that I have a tiny high-rise apartment that's NOT infested, I would have been shocked that there was such thing. Shameful as it is for me to admit today, if you'd told me that the majority of men I deal with on a daily basis would be gay, I'd wonder where my future self had gone wrong. Basically, a description of my life today would have planted some intriguing ideas into my head, but I wasn't yet in a position to connect the dots from where I was then to where I am now. It was a completely different life. Where was I? In a completely different place, both literally and metaphorically.

On 9/11, I was 20 years old, just beginning 3rd year university. I was studying translation, living in Toronto, I had the same social circle I do today (with the exception of a few co-workers), I was familiar with my current neighbourhood, I had snapped out of the homophobia that I'd grown up in and was campaigning for the legalization of same-sex marriage, I had high-speed internet (for the first time). Even the minor trappings are similar: The t-shirt I wore to sleep last night might have been the same one I wore to sleep the night of Sept. 10, 2001. The underwear I'm wearing right now I bought shortly before 9/11. Same with the machine that made the coffee I'm sipping as I write this. Basically on 9/11 I could see how the next five years might make my life into what it is now. It was one of many possible outcomes, true, but I could easily see it working out like this. It was the same life. Where was I? In a very similar place. Not exactly the same place, but just a couple of (literal and metaphorical) blocks away. And people who are older than me may well be able to say that they were in exactly the same metaphorical, and maybe even literal, place as they are today.

I think this is why I'm not comfortable with 9/11 being the subject of TV and movies, or with people making money off of the story. It's still reality. We look back on Where We Were on 9/11, and we see our current selves a few years ago. It hasn't yet become history because most of us are in the same place, so it isn't quite appropriate to tell it as a fictionalized story or a historical documentary. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to hold off until such a time was we look back on Where We Were When and see our former selves.

"Don't let it rule your life"

Every time we make a decision, there are a number of factors that we take into account. There is always going to be one factor that is the strongest, just because something has to be the strongest.

Whenever I make a decision and I go in the direction that the strongest factor is pushing me, someone somewhere always tells me "You shouldn't let it rule your life," "it" being the strongest factor.

The more I think about it, the more that is a bizarre thing to say.

The Hearing Aid Sketch

An old Monty Python sketch I'd forgotten about until just now. (It starts at 1:10) It made me laugh hysterically the first couple of times, but it doesn't stand up to repeat viewings as well as some of their other material. But if you haven't see the Fliegender Zirkus episodes yet, it's worth a look.

Performance art idea, free for the taking

Get a public space that has some sort of sound/PA system. Plant an appropriate number of "agents" (if I may borrow Improv Everywhere terminology) evenly distributed around that space, and have them go about their business, while wearing a small, unobtrusive mike that's attached to the PA system. There should be enough agents that the majority of members of the public can see one agent, but not two. On an unseen cue, all the agents break into song. The song should be something that most people know and that can be reasonably sung a cappella and in harmony by a large group of people. A round of Row, Row, Row Your Boat would do the job, although I'd prefer something cooler. The agents' singing will be picked up by the mikes, mixed together, and played over the speakers for everyone to hear. However, they agents' body language should give them appearance that they're going about their daily business (as opposed to performing in a grand musical production) and that their singing is incidental, like how one might whistle to oneself in an unguarded moment.

The effect for the average member of the public is that they hear a cappella harmony singing over the speaker, and they see (initially) one person, singing mindlessly to themselves along with the music on the speaker as they go about their business.

The goal: see how many members of the public start singing along.

Why I won't watch TV or movies about 9/11

I don't think fictionalized stories or documentaries about 9/11 belong on TV or in movies just yet. Why? Because, except for the people who were there in person, we all watched it live on TV as it was happening, and we all remember it distinctly. We don't need images edited by someone else to manipulate our take on the issue because we all experienced it our own way through images. It's recent enough that we remember the events, the images, our reactions all clearly, so we don't need to sit down with some popcorn and watch someone else's version like it's a movie.

Research on the story behind 9/11, it's background and causes? Perfectly appropriate. Individual stories of victims and survivors? Perfecctly appropriate. Incorporating the fact of 9/11 into contemporary fiction? Perfectly appropriate. Just not in a visual medium, not yet. Give us a book or an article or a website, present the story in text, and let us fill in the blanks with our own images and memories. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm not yet ready to let my own memories of the biggest historical event in my life so far be tainted by a director's vision and actors' faces.

Grammar Nazi

Randy Milholland's comments on the phrase "grammar nazi" (Note: two content warnings for this link can be found at the bottom of this entry***) have me thinking about the phrase's origins. I'm wondering if people independently decided to stick the word nazi on various things, or if the phrase originated from Seinfeld's Soup Nazi. Personally, it never occurred to me before the Soup Nazi concept had entered popular culture, but I was 14 when Soup Nazi first aired so my verbal repertoire wasn't quite complete. The phrase's presence in Seinfeld gave me the impression that it wasn't entirely unacceptable, although I have always tried to use judgement about whether or not to use it in a specific context and I'm not going to be a dick and insist that it's unoffensive to someone who does find it offensive. But at any rate, when I do use it, I'm not referring directly to nazis, I'm making a sort of pop-culture reference to Seinfeld. I wonder if this is the same for everyone who uses the phrase, or if older people are actually referring to nazis?

***Warning 1: the kid's language can get offensive, although there's minimal (but not zero) offence in this strip. In the strip as a whole he is not intended to be a sympathetic character and his language is not presented as appropriate, although you can't glean this from this one strip. I don't much like this language, but he's the only character who's in school, so the author had to use him to make this point, and had to keep his character consistent.

Warning 2: This specific strip is clean and the ads I see right this moment are clean, but SP has been known to have ads that are borderline-NSFW. Not X-rated or anything, but not something I'd like my boss to walk by and see on my screen.

Another thought I wish I'd been able to articulate 10 years ago

There's no real point or interest or practical application to this post, I just thought of another one of those things that I wish I'd been able to articulate 10 years ago, so I'm writing it down before I forget.

I had a lot of pressure when I was a teenager to go to science or engineering or computers, because it was fashionable at the time to "encourage" women to go into those fields. However, at 16 I came to the realization that I am very well-suited to translation. This led to a redoubled effort on the part of certain parties to convince me that yes, I really could be an engineer. Their primary supporting argument was that I was good at math/science/computers.

The point is not whether or not I was good at math/science/computers. My marks were certainly respectable - with the exception of OAC chemistry (my lowest OAC mark (of 12) at like 76%) I got in the 80s without significant effort and in the 90s if I put some work into it.

No, the main point was that I was (and may still be) exceptionally good at languages.

In my maths and sciences, I was in the top 15 in the school (population 800ish over 5 grades), maybe in the top 10, and there was tight competition for the top spots. But in languages, I was consistently, every year, the top student. There was no jockeying for the position, no heated competition with my fellow langlings. I walked in, did my work, did the mandated amount of homework (but made no exceptional effort), and walked out at the top of my class.

I had this exceptional talent, I'd found something relevant to it that I wanted to study, and translation struck me as "Yes! I could do that!" as no other career path had before. (Every other career path I'd considered, I would have had to blindly trust that my education would make me able to do it. Translation I just knew I could do it, and it turned out that I was right.) I wasn't lacking any confidence in my abilities in male-dominated subjects, I had just pragmatically realized that I was better in other subjects, which happened to be female-dominated. I didn't need to be reassured that I was good enough at the male-dominated subjects, I already knew that I was good enough. But I also knew that I was far, far, far, better than "good enough" in languages.

Now that I've gloated enough about my nascent adolescent langling skills, so let's fast-forward a bit and see what happens to the top student in high school.

In university, I made great effort in the classes that deserved it, and slacked off in the classes that didn't. I ended up being second in my small (under 20 people) class of translation students. Perhaps, with more effort in the classes I slacked off in, I could have beaten out the guy who came in first, perhaps not, but I can't think of anyone I'd rather lose out to. At any rate, we both came out with the same job offer, but only the two of us got that specific job offer. As of graduation day, we were the only two in the class with jobs in the field. So the top student in high school becomes, from one perspective, the #2 student in university, but, from another perspective, the lowest-ranked student to still be recruited right out of university. Whoever was #3 was not offered a job.

Now, with that job and a few years' experience, I am generally holding my own among my co-workers, all of whom have more experience than me (their "more experience" ranging from a year more to a lifetime more). I am in no way exceptional, it's quite possible that I might be the worst in the office (which would only be fair, since I am the newest and the youngest), but I am generally competent, doing what's expected of me, producing adequate work. So #1 in high school is downgraded to "adequate and competent, but unexceptional, and with maybe one or two areas for improvement" in the workplace.

This makes me wonder what would have happened if I had gone into math/science/engineering, like I was being pressured to. Instead of being #1 going in, I was maybe #12. So how much footing would I have lost through university? How much additional work would I have had to put in to get by? Would my internships have resulted in an employer who wanted to hire me, or an employer who wanted to avoid me? Would I even have qualified for internships at all? Did the people, especially the teachers, who were pressuring me to choose a male-dominated career path even think of this?

Bad telemarketing

We all know that voicemail spam is trying harder and harder to sound like a real message. Today I got one that started with "Oh, um, hi...I got your number from a friend of yours..." and went on to tell me about a dating service.

Now, if I had fallen for their little conceit and believed for a moment that this was a real phone call from someone who had gotten my number from a friend of mine, my friends would have hell to pay! After all, I would be unspeakably offended that one of my friends would presume to set me up with a dating service when they know full well that I'm in love with mi cielito!

So either the telemarketer distributed this message knowing full well that people wouldn't actually fall for the conceit, or they think people would fall for the conceit but don't care if people outside their target audience get pissed off at their friends for something the friends didn't actually do.

Here I sit in the land of plenty crying about my own virginity

Virginity is a weird concept. I find it utterly bizarre that the concept exists. Essentially, the state of not having gotten around to doing something gets its own word. Usually, a concept only gets its own word when it means deliberate abstention - and we already have a word for deliberately abstaining from sex: chastity. If you look at the range of meaning that is encompassed by "virginity" but outside the range "chastity," it is populated mostly by people who haven't had an appropriate opportunity yet - they haven't been able to get a suitable partner into a suitable situation.

I don't think there's any other concept like this in the English language. Whenever the absence of an action gets a label, it's because of a deliberate decision. I don't think there are any other labels that mean "I haven't had a chance yet."

If you don't drink as a matter of principle, you're a teetotaller. If you have nothing against drinking but it's just that no one has offered you any wine yet, there's no label for that.

If you don't eat meat, you're vegetarian. If you just don't have access to meat...well, you're probably poor or sheltered, but those concepts have nothing to do with meat per se.

If you deliberately choose to remain faithful to one partner, you're monogamous. If you have no particular loyalty to your lover but no other opportunities have come along, there's no word for that.

If you don't eat pork because you're Jewish, you're Kosher. If you don't have any pork, you don't have any pork.

If you've never ballroom danced or been to Venice or tried caviar, you don't get a special word for that. But if you've never had sex, you're a virgin. That's very odd.

I wonder how it would affect our society if virginity wasn't its own concept?

On not going back

This is my fourth year of not going back to school, but it's the first time I've been actively glad that I'm not going back to school. Previous years I felt a bit lost at not having a new schedule and new books and a fresh start, but this year I'm just glad. I don't have to be nervous, I don't have to fret about whether I'll have any friends in my classes, I don't have to worry about what to wear. I just have to deal with the same co-workers (who are awesome, by the way), same clients, same work, same schedule. No presssure, just ordinary everyday life (which, conveniently, happens to be perfectly respectable and allow me to support myself.)

In other news, here's a yellow puppy with floppy ears.

St00pid alarm clock

Last night, my first novel came to me in a dream. I've never before seriously considered writing a novel, but it all came to me last night. There were these two characters, based loosely on two people I once knew (not too well, but I shared a classroom with each of them at different times), and they had to make a life together due to extenuating circumstances. Sounds like your standard odd couple story, and maybe it is. But what was exceptional (for me) is that I knew everything about these characters. All the fussy little things that authors always know and I never do. I knew their histories and family backgrounds, what they ate for breakfast, their pet peeves, their respective feelings about the situation they were placed in and their respective (and sometimes incompatible) coping mechanisms. I knew everything about these characters! This has never happened before!

Then my alarm went off and woke me up, and I found myself unable to remember my characters, only able to remember the real-life people on whom they were based.

St00pid mornings!

Things They Should Invent: bra-length camisole

Currently, it is socially and sartorially acceptable to wear an exposed camisole under a low-necked top. (Future generations, or even I myself in five or ten years, may laugh at this, but it is what we have to work with at the moment.) If the top of the camisole shows, even if it is a wee bit lacy in an aesthetic allusion to lingerie, the area under the camisole is still considered to be "covered" for modesty purposes.

However, one disadvantage to camisoles is they are long - they cover the entire torso. This can be problematic if, due to environmental or aesthetic considerations, the wearer simply doesn't want two layers.

If you don't want two layers, you'd think a bra would serve the purpose of providing additional coverage, but for reasons that are inarticulable yet unanimously agreed-upon, exposed bra cups are trashy and/or slutty.

So what we need is a garment that looks like a camisole, perhaps by not having two distinct cups, but only goes as far down as the bra elastic. Perhaps it could even fulfill a support function, so the wearer doesn't have to wear a bra AND a demi-cami. I have seen the odd bra like that, but we really do need more that are designed in a way that is acceptable to expose

Am I supposed to meddle with homeless people? If so, how?

Walking home from the grocery store today, I saw a (presumably) homeless guy lying on the sidewalk. This was unusual because it's raining, and he was lying in a completely unsheltered area, despite the fact that there's a great big overhang on the building across the street. He was moving enough that I could tell he was alive and didn't appear to have any physical injuries, but clearly something was wrong - if he'd been in his right mind, he'd at least be across the street under the overhang.

What I'm not clear on is what I'm supposed to do. I wasn't going to approach him directly myself, because I'm a weak young woman walking around by myself (and there were fewer people in the vincinity than usual because it's raining) and he's a big, strong-looking man who's clearly not in his right mind. If he had been a clean-cut man in an Armani suit exhibiting the same behaviour, I would not have approached him directly either (although, I'll admit, I might be more likely to call 911.)

But is there someone I should call? I don't think it was a 911 emergency because he was alive and conscious and uninjured, he was just lying on the sidewalk in the rain. I don't think it was a police issue, because he wasn't doing anything illegal or threatening anyone, he was just lying on the sidewalk in the rain. I know there's a number you're supposed to call when you find homeless people during a cold alert, but is there someone you're supposed to call when you find a homeless person behaving unusually by area homeless standards during a non-emergency situation?

If he had been lying under an overhang or in tunnel, I would have just left him to his nap. If he had been lying on the sidewalk out in the open during more pleasant weather, I would have thought "Huh, that's unusual," but left him to his own devices once it was clear that he did not require medical attention. If I had found him there at night, I might have assumed that he was just sleeping for the night. But flat on his back, midafternoon, raining and not under an overhang, all makes me think there was something wrong. Thing is, I have no idea what I was supposed to do about it...

Being a grownup

I found this story while googling for something unrelated.

The first part (until it gets into knitting) is presented by the author as a story of why she hates being a grownup. However, for me, that story epitomizes why I love being a grownup. To wit:

- I never have to go camping! At all! Ever!
- I don't have to go on long ridiculous bike rides! I can take a train or a cab or stay home instead!
- If I do decide to go on a long ridiculous bike ride, I can stop the moment I get tired rather than having to stick to someone else's schedule.
- If my plans suddenly become too unpleasant due to rain or scary cobweb-like phenomena, I can call a cab and tell them to take me to the nearest hotel rather than being completely dependent on someone else who has all the money and therefore gets to make all the decisions.
- My parents are no longer operating under the assumption that I'm living in luxury or comfort just because I'm not doing the more difficult or unpleasant chores of everyday life that I couldn't do anyway because I'm just a kid. Or if they are thinking this way, they have the good sense to keep it to themselves in light of the fact that I am working and paying all my own bills and maintaining my own household.

Today it is raining, so I slept a ridiculously long time this morning and enjoyed quite a few sexy dreams. The I woke up, had a nice long shower in which I shampooed and conditioned and soaped and moisturized and exfoliated using the army of bottles that I get to keep around the edge of the bathtub at all times, and put on my bathrobe and made a cup of coffee, which I'm sipping on now as I type this.

If I were a kid today, I would have had to get up early to be dragged along on my parents' shopping expedition. I would have spent the morning fighting off carsickness and my sister, then standing around bored in stores that don't sell anything interesting and I wouldn't get to buy anything even if they did. Then when I got home I'd have time to do my chores and homework, but not to relax or enjoy a computer game or a TV show (or, if I did have time, someone else would more than likely be using the computer or the TV.)

Essentially, the joy of being a grownup is that your life doesn't just get arbitrarily hijacked whenever your parents get the idea of doing something.