The World's First Computer Programmer Was A Woman

via Women Rock Science

I can tell you the exact moment when I realized that history wasn't the story of the past, but millions of different understandings and manipulations of how things have happened since the world existed. I was a naive college student out of the suburbs/exburbs of Southwest Ohio who had never received anything less than an A in school. I got A's because that's what you were supposed to do. Things were what they were and your textbooks were true and that was that. What I had learned was right, and it covered everything important that had ever happened.

So one day over beers during my sophomore year in college, I was having one of those "serious" discussions with a fellow member of College Democrats at Miami University, a school where only 4% of the students were minorities at the time, and I said, "Maybe the reason we don't learn about significant black historical figures is that there weren't any.

Boy, was I schooled by just the look on the face of the person I was talking to. And then came the lecture. It was one of those seemingly insignificant moments at the time that turned out to be vastly influential in my life. (I've had many of those moments, trust me.)

In primary and secondary school we had learned about Martin Luther King, Jr., of course, and Rosa Parks and Dred Scott and Frederick Douglas and Washington Carver. They explained the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement to very young minds. In Englewood, Ohio in the 1980s, they explained black people.

Does it shock you that I put it this way? Why? Is it so tough to admit that we have race issues in this country? I see so many white people state that because we have a black president, racism is over. (Yeah, people really think that.) Here's the reality: in the United States of America, the color of your skin determines where you live, what you do for a living, how much you make, your education level, and how likely you are to be arrested, among other things. They didn't teach us that in Southwest Ohio. They taught us that everyone was like everyone else. I think that's where multiculturalism fails in education. Because everyone is NOT like everyone else - we all have very different backgrounds and experiences, and such things as the color of your skin vastly influence those backgrounds and experiences. This teacher gives a student an excellent lesson that I wish I had had at that age.

Just as I hadn't realized that our history books were written from a white perspective, I didn't realize they were written from a male perspective, either. Susan B. Anthony gave us voting rights and women's lib gave us the rest of them and that was that. I certainly never felt any gender discrimination when I was a kid. After all, I was first in the class and a star athlete and it's pretty tough to discriminate against a good student. I didn't know anything about the glass ceiling or the unequal pay or the higher levels of insurance premiums that women faced in the eighties and nineties. I certainly couldn't foresee the brewing war on women that the GOP has waged in the last decade, reviving controversy on previously settled issues like contraception and abortion.

And I never knew about people like Ada Lovelace (pictured) or Hedy Lamarr (inventor of wireless communication technology). We knew Betsy Ross because she sewed a flag (sewing being viewed as a women's occupation.) We knew Clara Barton because she founded the Red Cross (nurse being viewed as a women's occupation.) When it came to male-dominated positions, we never learned about women who did great things in those fields. Marie Curie was spoken about with her husband, never as an individual. And I think we knew her as "Madam" Curie.

But you know, you can excuse a twenty-year old for not knowing that the American history taught in our schools was written by white men. You can't excuse a forty-year old.

Just because you were taught something is one way doesn't mean it is. School textbooks are rife with information that is included because of some political decision. Parents often give their children misinformation simply because they don't know the answers. Far too many minds are poisoned with that vile form of Christianity that thinks a 1600 year old book gives them permission to hate others who don't live like them. Although there is a lot of evidence showing brain chemicals and genes shape a person's behavior, there's no denying that how and what you are taught in childhood influences your behavior as an adult.

If you don't look at multiple sources of information, if you don't read multiple newspapers, if you don't talk to people of multiple ethnicities and religions, if you don't travel outside your city, state, and country, you aren't going to know how things really are. Fortunately, it's a lesson I learned early enough, but far too many people never learn it. We're seeing the consequences of that today, with people believing conspiracy theories, denying climate change, opposing gun regulations, professing a hatred for gays and Muslims and blacks and liberals, and all of those other bizarre behaviors coming from the Fox News crowd. In the end, we all suffer from the warped views of these individuals. Ask the Filipinos. Ask Sandy Hook families. Ask your neighbor.

Slumlord Hundredaire (Nightmare on Kenyon Street)

I knew we were doomed when we heard the deep voice of Tombe, the massive chunk of African muscle who rents the room next to us, thundering from our shared kitchen. He was yelling at the property manager about the tiny vampire problem he was having which would soon plague us all. It was the beginning of the end of life on Kenyon Street.

Two years ago I moved to Kenyon Street after I had returned to Washington from another stint in Beirut. I was looking for two things - cheap and location - a combination rare in the revitalized capital, among the most expensive cities to live (in civility) in the country. Two rooms had been available when I went to see the place; I chose the larger one and gave a security deposit that very day. There was a property manager who lived in one of the rooms and took care of the property related issues for the landlord, a man I had never met in the first year I lived there, and two other rooms, only one of which was rented at the time.

It was a dumpy place and I knew it, but the cheap was important because I thought I'd be flying to Denver every month to visit the Cosmonaut, only he joined a cult and I flew out there just one more time. By then, however, I had gotten to love the neighborhood of Columbia Heights, an area you wouldn't walk through at night less than a decade ago. Gentrification had given it new life. I was in the center of it all, not even a block from the main square, and had found friends and bartenders near me who made me feel part of the community. So I stayed. I had no real problems with the place for about a year. That first winter was mild, so I didn't notice the problem with the heat - or lack of it.

I met Chris in February 2012. He was this obnoxious loud guy who seemed to be at Lou's City Bar every time I was there. He listened to my complaints about the cult and my crazy boss and how I was sick of it not being baseball season. We became friends on the night of the Oscars, when the spectacle that is the NBA All-Star Game was on at the same time and we had to read the closed-captioning for the Oscars. I took a poll of the bar to see which program should get the sound. The basketball won, so I invited Chris to come watch the Oscars at my place. It still took over a month before I actually liked him. It took baseball season to start dating.

In July 2012, realizing that renting two places was a waste of money, we crammed his stuff into my room. I made use of PVC pipes that were laying around the house and some glorified milk crates to create another closet for the room. And there he's been, for a year and a quarter, living, receiving mail, cleaning up the property manager's messes in the kitchen, etc. He once helped the landlord put up walls in the apartment upstairs. He was with me when we asked the landlord if we could plant a garden in the backyard.

The landlord is a gaunt man of questionable intelligence and reason. His gray hair reaches his shoulders almost unwillingly, and a slight mustache gives some substance to an otherwise featureless face. His bony frame moves silently as he conducts his bizarre behavior. During the spring, he crawls around on hands and knees in the backyard and picks mulberries from the ground, blows on them, and eats them. At first, I thought it was a stray dog roaming around the yard until I actually saw him doing it. I never once saw him pick the berries off the trees. Every now and then he'll have a big bag of Budweiser cans in the back that he dumps, stomping on each can individually. He employs a Latino guy named Jose to do various tasks around the property. Watering and mowing are the normal activities - sawing things at random hours is not so normal, nor is carrying large items like mattresses and broken furniture to the curb on the wrong trash days. (We don't know where these large items come from, as they aren't coming from the mounds of junk in the basement, because that never goes away.)

I can't figure out how this strange man came to own $3 million worth of property, but we speculate. To be honest, he seems more like a guy who'd live in a shack in Appalachia with broken cars and chickens in the yard. Perhaps he inherited it. Or he came into money through a lawsuit of some sort. Very little can be found about him on the internet. If he hadn't been adamant about his opposition to chemicals of any kind (in the garden, building walls upstairs, and apparently getting rid of pests), I'd think he were involved in selling meth or something, because he doesn't seem to have a steady job since he appears on the property at random times during the week. He has a real estate license, from what I can tell, but he doesn't sell real estate. I suspect he got this license to avoid having to get a business license to operate his rentals, which I believe would require further regulations. He is a certified lead abatement specialist. He lives on Clifton Street, not too far from here. He once represented himself in a lawsuit with a tenant, in which he sought nearly $25,000 in back rent, property damages, and punitive damages. I couldn't find out anything more about the suit except that punitive damages were denied. $25,000 is a lot of money for a renter - either there was some sort of fire or, well, how do you cause that much in damages? That's the extent of his online identity. Having a business and no online presence is suspicious to me.

Even that weirdness was bearable, until the property manager stopped managing the property. He still lives here, he just stopped caring about anything. Things started to break without being repaired. The kitchen sink started to drip. He started paying the DirecTV and internet bills so late that they kept getting cut off. Certain undesirable pests made their presence known in the kitchen.

Then came the tiny vampires, otherwise known as bedbugs. Oh yes, they are terrible creatures. As it turns out, Columbia Heights is infested with them. On the day when I went to Target to get cleaning supplies and bug killers, I saw others buying the same products. They have nothing to do with cleanliness except that they will make you scrub every inch of everything you own once you get them. No one, not even the rich, is immune. I spent $150 that day on mattress covers (they make them for bedbugs), rubbing alcohol (to put in a spray bottle and kill them), Pinesol, scrubbing brushes, caulking for the baseboards, a caulking gun, a new mop bucket, sponges, an eco-friendly bug spray, and plastic storage containers to replace the boxes under the bed. Then I tore the room apart.

I thought I had been suffering from mosquito bites, that maybe a couple of mosquitoes had gotten into the room and were content to wait until dark to feast on my blood, but when Tombe was shouting in the kitchen about how he was getting eaten up by bedbugs, I knew the real culprit. I couldn't bring myself to look under the mattress that night. It wasn't until the next night, a Friday, when the hell began. Tombe had thrown his mattresses out on the curb - I think that displaced enough of them that they scurried under the wall of our structurally insufficient place of residence into our bedroom. I was itching mightily that night and switched on the lamp to inspect our slumber area. What I saw was horrifying.

Dozens of the bloodsuckers were climbing up the wall and on the mattresses. We lifted the mattress; the image of them crawling has been branded into my memory and my nightmares. When I did the cleaning, I found dozens in picture frames on the walls. But I'm not even going to get into the details of what I found when I lifted the box spring. They were building a civilization.

I texted the absent property manager to get an exterminator over there. I got no response. I did it again two days later. No response. Finally the landlord himself came over to talk to me about it. He claimed that he was waiting for something in the mail to deal with them. After A WEEK he brought over some homemade things to put under the legs of our beds that would hold diatomaceous earth, a natural compound that kills them. By then I'd gone through two large bottles of rubbing alcohol. We were supposed to do it ourselves but Tombe and I were the only ones who used it. The property manager, an idiot (and also an INS violator, which is relevant later), didn't bother cleaning anything and even dared tell me to get my stuff out of the hallway after a week when I still was cleaning every day.

By law, a landlord is supposed to take care of bug infestation problems. Dropping off some chemicals and telling tenants to do it themselves is a violation of the law. I'm still seeing a few of the bugs a week even after a month, but they've mostly been dealt with. But I spent a lot of money on the problem, and possessions were ruined by the bugs. I believe I'm entitled to compensation.

Despite all of this, the landlord complained to the property manager that Chris was there too much, and the property manager conveyed this message, AS IF CHRIS HADN'T LIVED THERE FOR MORE THAN A YEAR. Then the property manager had the nerve to text me - TEXT me - and tell me he didn't want to see Chris for the rest of the week.

Naturally I was furious. I thought of all the violations that I knew of at the place. Rather than respond to him, I thought I'd take some time to research the laws that I knew the landlord was violating. Here are some:

• There is no heat in the winter. We use space heaters. Last year Chris dared mention that he would help bleed the radiators to get them functioning again, and the landlord said he would get a radiator key and then never did anything about it. Here is the law:
 

Whenever the heating facilities of any habitation or bathroom are not under control of an occupant of the habitation, it shall be the responsibility of the owner or licensee to supply sufficient heat to maintain the following minimum temperatures for every occupied habitation and bathroom:

(a)             A minimum temperature of sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit (68° F.) between the hours of 6:30 a.m. and 11:00 p.m.; and

(b)             A minimum temperature of sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit (65° F.) between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 6:30 a.m.

I think that's pretty damn clear.

 
• The landlord raised the rent by 12% last year. In DC, a landlord is only allowed to raise rent by the Consumer Price Index unless he is exempt. That would be 5.6% in 2012, but the Office of the Tenant Advocate checked the records and it shows our landlord is exempt from the law. However, I think he's violating the law and lying to get the exemption. The law states that small landlords can be exempt if they have four or fewer rental units. We have four people paying rent downstairs and I can't tell how many people upstairs. (They are undocumented tenants - people are going in and out of there all the time.)


• The kitchen faucet has leaked since March. The landlord had been told several times but refuses to have it fixed. Meanwhile, the idiot property manager is paying the water bill and doesn't seem to understand that he's probably paid hundreds of dollars because he won't insist on getting the faucet fixed.


• The basement is so stuffed full of junk there's no doubt it's a fire hazard. There are other unrented parts of the property, and my suspicions are that those, too, are full of hoarded junk like mattresses and broken lamps and boards and pipes. I have a hard time getting to the circuit breaker controls when we trip a circuit, and this is not rare since the electricity in the place sucks.


• The trees are diseased. Many have blight. One has this pink oozy fungus on it. I haven't done any research yet, but I'd assume that tree management is a requirement of property owners, lest the diseases spread to the trees of neighbors.


• Last year the landlord's fire insurance lapsed, or that's what he said. A fire inspector was coming to inspect the upstairs apartment, and he frantically tore out walls and rebuilt them over the course of a few days before the inspection. We know this because Chris helped him put up the walls. I don't know if he passed the inspection. If he did, the inspector was probably incompetent. He never bothered to check the ground floor or the basement.


• One time we had fire shooting out of our ceiling because of faulty electrical wires. Or something like that. The electricity is bad. Some outlets don't work. Others blow a circuit if you use them. Once every outlet in my room blew and an electrician did come and replace them. But I have my suspicions that he was unlicensed.


• Mice. Yeah, a nightmare. We were getting them in our bedroom on occasion and buying a bunch of sticky traps which does nothing to solve the problem. Ironically, the bedbugs forced us to caulk around the floor and we filled in holes we hadn't realized were there and we haven't had any mice since then. But recently I've heard them in the walls. So I will complain. Again.


• Roaches in the kitchen. We live in a city. Sometimes it happens, even in nice places, and you call an exterminator and they go away. But this is recurring, and nothing is being done about it by anyone but me. I shouldn't have to buy the chemicals to kill them, and I shouldn't have to apply the chemicals. That's why there's an onsite property manager. But apparently Chris and I are the only ones who manage anything about the property.

I never documented the instances where I complained about things. I could probably get text messages from the phone company. (Can you do that?) God knows what else is wrong. I've only recently been paying close attention. The fact that the property manager had the nerve to tell me Chris couldn't be here prompted this research. He hasn't been working recently; we have our theories. Mine is that he had his visa revoked. An INS agent called me about him several months ago. I couldn't tell her much because I didn't know the answer to her questions. He hasn't been working so that's probably why he's noticed Chris is around during the day, since he doesn't start working until the afternoons. But it's like he completely forgot that Chris lives here. It's so weird.

I'm searching for a new job that will pay more so I can get the hell out of this dump. Hopefully we can stay in Columbia Heights, but with rent skyrocketing in this area and me not being one of the 50,000 lawyers in this city, I worry it will be difficult.

We’ve definitely been tricked

There’s a commercial that was aired frequently during the World Series by some mobile phone company where a family uses some app that shows where the best treats are. The family talks about avoiding a house that didn’t give treats they like, and their eyes light up when they learn what houses are giving whole candy bars.

Greed. Instead of marveling at the fact that we have this awesome tradition where we knock on strangers’ doors and they give out free candy, they bitch about what one house is giving out. Maybe those people are struggling financially and can’t afford to give out whole candy bars, or perhaps they just don’t feel the need to compete for most popular candy-giver. Whatever the case, to bitch about the gift that a stranger has given you is nothing short of greed.

Of course, a little disappointment in your some of your treats is to be expected. As a kid I remember hating those peanut butter toffee things and wondered who on earth would eat them. Then there was the house that passed out apples from the tree in their backyard that had wormholes in them. But generally you didn’t bitch about free candy given to you by strangers. Trick or treat was a community event; we knew a lot of the neighbors and we were generally grateful for all of these gifts (unless we ate too much and got a stomach ache.)

Lest you think this is about “kids these days,” it isn’t. It’s about parents. It’s about society. It’s a theme we see repeatedly in our day-to-day activities: gimme gimme gimme. And how can we not expect these results when for the last fifty years we’ve been bombarded with marketing, which is the systematic art of deception. First it was “buy because you need this” then it was “buy because this makes your life easier” then it was “buy because you want this” then it was “buy because others will judge you for not having this.” Now it’s “buy just to buy.” What I’m noticing is a complete disconnect from other human beings in far too many people, and it crosses cultures and borders. But it started here in America. Screw whoever is hurt in the process of me getting my products! My cell phone causes people to be murdered over conflict minerals in Africa? So what! Slaves made my clothes? So what! Hundreds of thousands of people die every year in wars for oil so I can drive to the mall to buy, buy, buy? So what! It doesn’t affect me Me ME!

Bitching about greedy trick-or-treaters may seem trivial, but it’s these little things that add up. It’s the YouTube videos of greedy children rejecting Christmas presents they don’t like. It’s the woman who rips the Elmo doll out of another woman’s hand on Black Friday. It’s the parents who spend thousands of dollars on their children’s birthday parties to outdo the other parents. It’s the people who vote no on school levies because they don’t have children in the school district that needs the funding. It’s bitching about taxes because god forbid you contribute anything to America.

Greed. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato wrote his most famous work, The Republic, at a time when Greek democracy was in a freefall. His observations were that society had become greedy and individualistic and it was ripping apart Greek civilization. It led to constant wars and eventually the society collapsed. We’ve seen countless examples of this same theme throughout history, and we’re seeing it now in the United States.

We’re about to enter yet another Christmas season, the time when Greed is on full display and marketing whores drink from the cup of abominations. I’ve come to loathe this time of year and reject materialism outright. These days, if you give me an apple with a wormhole in it, I’ll cut it up, ask you if you want some, and thank you for the gift. To those who have been tricked into avarice, how about counting your blessings instead of bitching about not getting a whole candy bar?

The King is dead! But you may be able to find him in the Q’s. Or the L's. Who knows?

My laptop is dead.

You don’t know how much you depend on your laptop until it dies. I called a tech guy and he couldn’t get it to wake up from sleep mode even after I bought a new battery for it. Here comes the nighttime. Right now I’m borrowing one from Chris’s brother until I can get a new one, but you know, my stuff just isn’t there.

Case in point: Reflektor.

Reflektor is the new Arcade Fire album that came out today. Normally, I’d just download it from iTunes and be done with it, but I no longer have access to iTunes thanks to cheap parts from China, at least that’s what I’m going to blame it on since someone must be responsible for my woes! Still, I wanted the album. So I did what we did back in the nineties – I sought what we used to call a “compact disc.”

Back in the nineties you had these things called “record stores” where you went to buy round or square objects that held recorded music data on them. They used to be big, black, and plastic and you called them “vinyl.” Then they were little strips of magnetic material contained in square plastic containers. Next they were smaller discs; these are to what I referred earlier. I had a lot of these things called “compact discs” but over time found the convenience of MP3s too much to resist. Thus, I am part of the problem. I helped close the record stores.

The thing is, I loved record stores. I loved flipping through the discs looking for buried sonic treasures, loved to look at the covers and the funny names of bands and the displays of what we called “new releases,” which came out on Tuesdays in the United States and Mondays in the United Kingdom. I’d dig through the bargain bins to pick up older music for a few bucks, and I rarely left without a handful of new discs. Even when I was downloading music, I still visited the stores. It was a payday ritual – I’d reward myself for getting through another two weeks of work with some new music.

But the stores disappeared. Sure, people blame online music, but that’s only part of the explanation. The music stores started to disappear before MP3s existed, when big box stores started selling CDs for lower prices. Walmart began to hoard a larger share of the market until a quarter of all CD sales came from its stores. Like in so other many industries, Walmart succeeded in shutting down the independent guys. They weren’t the only ones – chains like Best Buy and Borders are also guilty.

Which is why I feel so dirty about what I did today. No record stores stand in my neighborhood. Melody Records in Dupont Circle, where I had purchased countless CDs, no longer exists. But I wanted that record. There are only a handful of bands these days that I make an effort to purchase on the day of release – U2, The National, and Arcade Fire are pretty much it. So I went to Target.

I hate the box stores, but what can you do when the indie stores have dried up? I go to Target because it’s a block from my house and there isn’t anything else – aside from CVS – where you can go to purchase toiletries and household goods. The minimarts in the neighborhood were all pushed out by “development.” There’s an indie pharmacy but you can’t just go there to pick up some contact solution; it’s predominantly for medicines. I support the small businesses if I can – I am a frequent customer at the indie coffee shop instead of the chains, and well, what can I say about Lou’s except it’s practically our living room – but Target is unavoidable.

The Columbia Heights Target is a frustrating experience. A certain demographic that shops there seems to have no respect for it as a place of business, as it’s often trashed. In addition, the shelves are frequently empty of the products you want and full of junk you don’t need. The prices are pretty ridiculous, too – Target advertises that you’re getting your products “for less,” but not at this place. Perhaps that would be tolerable if the prices of things weren’t missing so much and you get up to the register (after waiting forever) to find out what you’re buying is several dollars more than what you logically expected. What’s more, the employees don’t give a shit and let you know it. Try to get one of them to help you when they’re talking to each other – you wonder how they don’t get eye strain from rolling them so hard.

I went to the meager section where they sell products they call “music.” You aren’t going to find much that isn’t pop garbage. A whole shelf full of Katy Perry and Justin Bieber and that type of stuff was labeled “New Releases.” (They did have one copy of the Paul McCartney album, so apparently someone in the supply chain knows something about music.) I moved some of the Katy Perrys aside and tried to find Reflektor, but it wasn’t in the new release section, so I went to the “rock” section, which wasn’t even in alphabetical order. In fact, it was in no order at all. I tried to dig around to see if there were any copies of Reflektor there, but I didn’t see any. I went to the section labeled “pop” and briefly considered suicide since I don’t want to live in a world where people listen to the stuff I found there.

Target didn’t have Reflektor, the new album by the band who won “Album of the Year” at the Grammies for its last album despite being on an independent record label, a band so big that it got its own post-Saturday Night Live special, a rarity that only the biggest worldwide acts like U2 get. And I wondered, is the CD really so dead that Target doesn’t carry this record, or is it just that the employees in this particular store are so bad that they didn’t put it on the shelves?

That’s when I went to Best Buy. They had more CDs, but I found it strange to navigate the shelves looking for one. Several copies of Reflektor were on the new release shelf, so I grabbed one and came home to listen to it. I feel like I’ve violated my principles. Yet, what choice did I have if I want to support this indie band? Best Buy helped kill the record stores. Best Buy won.

If we had blogs in 1998, mine would have been poorly written

April in Paris. What more do I need to say?

As always, spelling, grammatical, factual, and emotional errors have been preserved from the original journal. Today’s comments are in red.

le 6 Avril 1998

Leaving Paris. I glance back for one last look at the city’s symbol, the Tour. The spirit has attacked my existence, challenging me to conquer it. Alas, I have no control, and have only to look toward the next venture to the city. Insanity was lost upon arrival; insanity returns upon departure. Good lord. I’m glad I’ve since learned how to write.

Friday, the debate about whether to go or not found the yes side a winner. Despite no guarenteed accommodation, we set out any way. Upon arrival, we sought a tourist office for booking, but found nothing. A stop in a hostel found us marching to another hotel, which proved to be successful. A venture to the Champs Elysées for Burger King, however, was not, as Burger King exists no longer. Yay! McDonald’s won. Boo! At least we got to see the Tour at night. We sat up till 2:30am. Yanni was on the telé, and we actually watched. We got a late start in the morning, about noon, & headed over to the Latin Quartier for eating, after I semi complained because we always go to the same places in Paris – the touristy ones. I don’t understand why, if Paris is Matt’s favorite city, why he won’t explore it. So we went to the Latin Quartier and passed by a Jean Louis David. Andrea got her haircut for $30 there. It looks awesome. After that little adventure, we found a café and ate good panini, croissants, et great chocolat chaud. Then we wandered. Through the rain. In April. In Paris. What more could you want from life?

I avoided using an umbrella, not just because Andrea kept hitting me in the head, but because the rain felt awesome. No words can describe April in Paris. No words I knew at the time, anyway. Apparently the only adjectives I knew then were incredible, awesome, and amazing. There I was, in this fabulous outdoor museum flavored with all of the spices of history, and I can’t find words to describe April in Paris? I mean, here is a city that smells of fresh bread every morning, that houses many of the greatest works of art ever conjured up from the souls of man, that has practically become synonymous with romance, and I can’t find any words. Geesh. We walked through Luxembourg Gardens, just wandered until we sat for awhile until wandering past the Arc down champs elysées, where we bought tickets for L’homme avec le mask de fer, version orignale. The Man with the Iron Mask. Was that Leonardo DeCaprio? While waiting, we ate at Haagen Daas, then saw the movie, which was good, except the end, which said Louis XIV was the greatest French king. It was quite embarrassing, really. French people in the theater actually laughed when that statement was made. Metro returned us to place de Republique, where Andrea prostituted herself before we went to McDonald’s. (A guy on the street offered her a credit card for some reason.) Oh, I forgot about Perry/Paris, the flour filled balloon. Enough said. No, not enough said, because I have no idea what this was. Anyway, we got back after 1:30am and crashed. [UGLY FRENCH GUY STARTING AT ME DESPITE BEING A METRE AWAY]

Got up late again this morning. Went back to the Latin Quartier against the wishes of Matt. Our café was closed but we found the Grand Bistrot with menus for 42 francs. Incredible food. Salade, turkey with Normandy sauce et frites, desert. A whole desert. Must have been dry. Fairly cheap. We hadn’t realized how close we were to Notre Dame and its scaffolded front. Every time I see it, it gets more incredible. Walked to Musée D’orsay. Line was too long. Listened to a violinist busking. It was awesome just sitting there, listening. It started pouring. I was wandering. We met back together after an hour and headed over to Gare de l’est but waited an hour to avoid the supplement on the earlier train. And here I sit. This was the best weekend of the entire semester.

There's something enchanting about Paris that you don't find in other places, but I can't put my finger on it. It's like you go in there with certain expectations, and you expect those expectations to be unattainable as expectations usually are, but it's as good as advertised every time. I've had similar feelings about New York. Sometimes you find yourself awed at the fact that you're there, as if it were a fantasyland that had come to life. I love Paris in a different way than I love most places, but I would say it is similar to how I feel about New York. I suppose you could say that there are certain places on this planet where there are things "happening," where people write books and paint masterpieces and somehow manage to capture what this thing is we call "soul." And I think the reason that Paris and New York are different from other places of the arts, such as Florence, is that they are the cultural and economic centers of their respective countries, whereas a country like Italy has its soul scattered over Florence, Milan, Rome, and others.

I feel like I've been sent back to 1998, because I'm struggling to find the words for what I want to say.

If we had blogs in 1998: What’s the French word for “hangover?”

And here we are with a night of too much beer in Strasbourg, France.

As always, spelling, grammatical, factual, and emotional errors have been preserved from the original journal. Today’s comments are in red.

29 Mars 1998

What a weekend. Strasbourg has to be one of my favorite cities in Europe. It’s the best of German France. Known as Alsace-Lorraine to the educated among us. La Petite France. Great company. We went to visit Andrea’s host brother Akky (spelling?) He goes to University of Strasbourg. Friday we got there about 5pm. We picked up Seck (still can’t figure out his name.) and went to a restaurant/bar where we ate flamkooke which is really a thin pizza type thing & is excellent. Drank some beer. Then we went to a birthday party – Jacques & Matthew, I believe. It was pretty crazy. I only recall bits and pieces. Lots of beer. Losing a chugging race. Putting U2 New Year’s Day On. Then having Pogues and Ash. Not mentioned – the host getting mad at me for changing the music. Claude. Can’t believe that one. making out with strangers I can’t believe Andrea & Matt found out. I’m embarrassed. I don’t remember smoking, as Andrea later informed me I was doing. I do remember tequilla. I remember meeting Olivia, who was all over Andrea. Quite strange. I remember the guy who looked like Scott Anthony, though I don’t know his name. I remember the gnome and the big kinder eggs and the answering machine present, which was a great idea. It was a garden gnome – someone had given it to one of the guys as a birthday present. I think it was some kind of joke. I still remember the gnome. I passed out as soon as Andrea made my bed for me. I don’t remember that.

Next day, walking around Strasbourg. Felt like shit. It’s a great city, it really is. I wish I could have enjoyed it more. I almost puked and passed out, while walking around, after we visited the cathedral. excessive misuse of commas in that sentence The cathedral was amazing. It had this awesome clock inside. I didn’t like the skeleton at that top, though. That was creepy. But I felt sick even before we walked up and down the 330 steeps in the spiral staircase. The view was worth it. Perhaps the building that stood out the most was the European Parliament building. It looked like something from space. After we climbed down, that was when the sickness was at its peak. Andrea got me some water from the Haagen Daas store. I wish I could have had ice cream. Bailey’s. Anyway, after that I felt ok. We bought postcards and saw an anti-Front Nationale demonstration. Front National is the rightwing, racist, extremist party of France. Think Tea Party with better food. Then we walked to La Petite France. It was an incredible day – warm, sunny, all the things you could ask of a spring day. I tied my fleece around my waist, leaving nothing but a mere t-shirt to block the spring air from my body. We got bratwursts. We had coffee at a café in a square on the terrace with a fire juggler as entertainment. I had Coke, but I didn’t drink it. I was doing the withdrawal shivering thing in response to the alcohol finally leaving my blood stream. Claude was there. I didn’t look at him. Mostly because I felt inferior. I didn’t want him to be like what the hell was he doing. I hope I didn’t hurt his feelings. I wish I would have talked to him. We looked at CDs. We shopped for wine and cheese. I bought Tropicana Pure Premium. It made me feel better, but then we walked around forever. But it was a great day. We ate French fries at akky’s. Lots. Then everyone came over for wine and cheese, mostly wine. I had none. Andrea had a bottle and a half. She was flirting with all the guys but denied it. I was bored and tired. But it was funny. I told her how I thought the Matt thing was annoying Friday. I hope she’s not mad. She pretended not to be. I felt drunk Saturday night though I hadn’t touched a drop.

We got up at noon Sunday. I could have slept longer. But now I can’t sleep at all, and it’s one o’clock am. Akky drove us home. Nice change of pace. He’s a really nice guy, very thoughtful and considerate, funny, tidy. I find it difficult to believe those guys were from Luxembourg.

1 April 1998

Actually, it’s 2am on 2 Avril. I’ve been writing my bullshit ITS paper, which actually is just good writing practice. I took care of most of the Ireland arrangements today. I can’t wait. Mostly I can’t wait for the Aran Islands. I hope that works out. Maybe I’ll try to call. I keep flip flopping on whether my EDP story is good or bad. I’ve finally figured out some themes. I hope she doesn’t mind the length. I’ll be turning in over 30 pages, twice what it’s supposed to be. I’ve enjoyed it, mostly. I hope Andrea will go to Paris this weekend. I know Matt won’t go without her, and besides, I don’t want to go with just Matt. It’d be too wierd, too much small talk. I won’t be suprised if it happens, though. I don’t know why I chose to write tonight. I guess I’m just in a writing mood. It sucks that I have to go to bed now.

Things I couldn't spell in college: weird, surprised.

Ahh, college.

 

If we had blogs in 1998: St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin and Erika whines way too much

In this episode of my 1997-1998 study abroad journal, I go to Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day. I got two days off school for it because I wanted to do “research” for my project. Which was true, to an extent. I was there to learn something cultural about a holiday in the country that was the focal point of my research. Unfortunately, I traveled with two people who weren’t compatible travel partners. If you’ve traveled a lot, you understand there are certain people with whom you can travel and some with whom you just can’t. I’m a wanderer; I don’t do schedules and itineraries. Some people can’t travel without having every minute of the day planned. I enjoyed this time in Dublin, even if at times it doesn’t seem so.

As always, spelling, grammatical, factual, and emotional errors have been preserved from the original journal. Today’s comments are in red.

*drawing of a clover* 17 March 1998 St. Paddy’s Day

What an interesting weekend. It started in Bruxelles; I should have known it would be disappointing, esp. since Andrea didn’t come. But Friday night wasn’t that bad, nor was Saturday. We touched down and went directly to the crappy hostel with the girl scout bathrooms and the fifty million people in the rooms. And it took forever to walk there. So on Saturday we went on down to Grafton Street to window shop and walked around. I don’t much remember the day, but it was a good thing we went into the tourist office, because we picked up the event guide for the holiday. There was actually loads of great stuff to do. However, it wasn’t quite organized. The Irish are actually new at it. I mean, America’s big cities have been celebrating it for a number of years. They didn’t even have St. Patrick’s Day t-shirts, though they had a logo. Saturday evening posed the greatest of all evenings. After a dinner at Beshof’s, we saw a wonderful fireworks display, brought to you by Aer Lingus. It told the story of St. Patrick. I only wish I’d known more of the story. Saturday afternoon proved to be expensive, as I bought the second part of Christy Moore’s Collection, & 2 U2 bootlegs, one of which I hope Andrea will buy. After the fireworks, we went to Fitzsimmon’s at Temple Bar to listen to some Irish music played by kids our age. It was great. By misfortune we happened to run into Roach and some other MUDECers, who followed us to Fitzsimmon’s. The place was jam packed, full of Guinness drinkers, as was I. I was full of Guinness drinkers?!? We finally got a place amonst the people who could actually see the musicians. It was grand.

Sunday came around; with it came Howth. The cliffwalk was well-worth the extra miles we walked following it. I’ve photos. I was pleasantly suprised by the place. I hadn’t figured Howth would be so grand. I’d been south before, but this put Bray to shame. Too bad we had to get off the path and walk past all the rich houses. We kept walking & walking till finally Emilee asked a lady where the hell we were. The lady drove us all to the Sutton DART station because we were so far. It was cool, because the Luxembourgeois, being the caring, friendly people they are, would have never offered a lift. That was one of the highlights of the trip. I love the Irish!

We ate a packed lunch on the train heading to Bray. Bray’s beach was great for looking for rocks – beautiful despite the absense of sand. I wanted to climb the hill, but fatigue had taken us hostage on Howth Head, and another hike up a hill was not in our futures. So we stopped at a place for coffee (& apple juice). Then we went back to the hostel for a rest. I can’t remember when the anger started, but I believe it was around this time. See, I was pretty upset about a lot of things. And it didn’t help that I was so tired & PMS was affecting me. But that’s when Erika started dictating what we would be doing. She refused to borrow money, so we had to go cheap everywhere. Well, that leaves out most of the great things about Dublin, i.e. great music and craic. So instead of going to a great place, we ended up eating in this shitty North Side café. (It really sucked staying on the North Side, because they thought the North Side was Dublin. Let me just say that of all the things I love about Dublin, the North Side is NOT one of them. I feel like such a snob saying this, but working class neighborhoods are not my idea of wonderful.)  

I feel I should inject a comment here, because this was a stupid thing to say. First of all, I never got far enough away from the city centre to be in any "working class neighborhoods." In 1998, however, there were still neighborhoods throughout Dublin who had yet to see the mighty paintbrush of the Celtic Tiger, so we were in a part of town that wasn't so pretty. Traditionally, the working classes lived on the north side of the river, while the wealthier, more fortunate people lived on the south side. I knew this at the time, most likely because I knew that U2 had grown up on the north side, and so, without any other knowledge about where I was, I came to the conclusion that wherever I was, it wasn't worthy of a visit. My comment wasn't just snobby, it was ignorant.  

So anyway, we’re eating at this working class café, the food’s shitty and more expensive than anyone thought. I mean, I paid £5 for the driest chicken I’ve ever had, and the next night I paid £5 for some awesome broccoli, cheese, & mushroom streudel. So we finally swallow the food, and then we headed over to Grafton Street to watch a carnival parade. We got there early but people piled in front of us, because the thing was poorly organized. & instead of enjoying the moment, Erika complained the whole time and was more worried about getting a picture than just enjoying it. I wish more people would have been dancing. Then I started thinking about how Erika wouldn’t shut up throughout the fireworks, sounding like a dumbass when she was trying to guess what was going on, not knowing anything about St. Patrick. It was quite annoying and somewhat embarrassing. Another thing that was somewhat embarrassing were the Shamrock shakes at McBathroom. When the end of the parade came up, we followed behind it. But then Erika ran up ahead just to get pictures. She didn’t even try to have fun. We went to bed then.

Monday morning – day of hell. There I was, in my favorite city’s big day, and having to spend it with the moaner. I don’t think a word passed without a complaint from her mouth. My foot hurts. I can’t afford it. (Then why the hell did you push Andrea for her ticket!?!) She put me in a foul mood – her confidence was no match for my mouth. I have no idea what that sentence means. Emilee was pissed, then I started taking it out on her. Put she kept saying, shouldn’t we ask and was all worried because I wouldn’t use a map. Just because she didn’t no where the hell she was going…That all pissed me off. If you know me well, you know I have an uncanny sense of direction. By this time I’d been to Dublin several times, so I knew the layout of the city pretty well. Another thing was, she kept asking "shouldn’t we ask...?" instead of just asking, which was annoying to the point that I started getting snotty with her. We saw Christchurch & St. Patrick’s, which were incredibly disappointing. (Oh, another thing on Sunday that pissed me off. Erika found 50 pence in a Coke machine, & spent it on Pepsi. So someone's choice of soda pissed me off? And she kept rudely asking for my candy. If I didn’t want it, I wouldn’t have bought it.) Those churches need to be given back to the Catholic church where they belong. Catholics in Dublin use a temporary cathedral because the English reformation took Christchurch from them. Same thing happened to St. Patrick’s. Erika didn’t go in because they cost money. This was me during the previous semester. I should have understood her concerns. I think it was the way she went about whining aloud and dictating what the rest of us could do. I just whined in my private journal, but I never prevented people from doing things - I just told them I'd meet them later if they wanted to do something I couldn't afford. Then came the eating fiasco. Another working class café. But that came after the Loving Spoonful shithole, this might mean The Lovinspoon, which is well-loved and the attempt at Mother Redcap’s. What is the obsession with goddam markets? All fruit looks the same.

*I had yet to learn to appreciate markets. I had yet to understand that markets represent the life-force of the world. I couldn’t see the beauty of a pepper or an apple. My comment above surprises me. I remember going to European markets and loving them. I loved the fact that the markets were located in some central spot in cities and how everything was fresh and how locals came to purchase food for their daily sustenance. Going to a market when you travel is the most local experience you can encounter. How many photographs have I taken of mounds of bananas or fish on ice or rows of tomatoes?

Mother Redcaps was a treasure and I didn't even know it. It had a tavern dating back to 1760 attached to it where many Irish musicians had played. The market moved out of the old place in the middle of the last decade. Many in Dublin got rich in the nineties and instead of restoring and conserving so many culturally significant places, they started demolishing them to build soulless highrises, the fate of so many cultural and historical places across the world. I found this petition to stop the demolition of Mother Redcaps. Not many signatures, I'm afraid. When we knock down historic landmarks, a little piece of our identity dies with them. What a shame.*

But the Factory Café (it was actually called that) was good. I had potatos with mushrooms & spaghetti sauce. And it was cheap. A good find for the situation, but no place I’d go back to. Next was the National Gallery. I saw the Irish artists then went and sat in Merrian Square and walked down Baggot Street. I so wanted to go to the Baggot Inn or Kitty O’Sheas, but no. We have to go to a cheaper place, but Erika didn’t even eat, which pissed me off even more. Because I spent £6 at this Cornicopia place, when I could have gone to Baggot Inn for just a little more. This was after St. Stephen’s Shopping Center, which I really didn’t want to go to because I had a wonderful Baggot Street experience and wanted to walk around the area more. But I decided to go in & ended up buying a sweater & an orange shirt, and I didn’t tell Emilee or Erika because then they would have made me show them. I still have the orange shirt. I think the sweater fell apart years ago. I was already getting tired of getting my stuff out for Erika’s use. I hate being inconvenienced constantly. Once or twice doesn’t bother me, but once or twice and hour bugs the hell out of me. So after St. Stephen’s I threw the dinner fit. Then Erika wouldn’t let us give her money and made us feel guilty the whole meal. I think I was secretly laughing. Then we went to the night parade (Bailey’s night parade), and stood on the wrong side of the street, but it was still really cool, despite the disorganization. The fireworks were excellent. It was all very exciting, but then Emilee again pissed me off by wanting to leave before it was over to go see more traditional music, and kept asking should we leave, which was even more annoying, and I was fuming. It’s ST. PATRICK’S DAY. Trad can be seen any night of the year. And what are the chances of being in Dublin for St. Pat’s? Besides, I’ve been to Ireland a number of times. I wanted to do something I wouldn’t normally do. I WANTED TO DO THE FESTIVITIES BUT GAVE IT UP BECAUSE THEY HADN’T BEEN TO DUBLIN, AND I’M PISSED. It wasn’t worth the time. Erika always thinks she’s right. Did she notice the train to Namur got in at 20:42 LIKE I SAID. How come everyone thinks I’m stupid. THEY’RE THE IDIOTS! *really thick exclamation point* I HATE PEOPLE WHO THINK THE WORLD IS ALL LIKE CUSHY SUBURBIA! *really thick exclamation point* FUCK THEM ALL! *really thick exclamation point* THEY CREW UP IN THEIR FUCKING NAÏVE CUSHY LITTLE (BIG) SUBURBIA HOUSES AND HAVE NO FUCKING CONCEPT OF HOW THE WORLD WORKS. I don’t understand this rant about suburbia. It may have had something to do with how they seemed afraid to do anything, like growing up in secluded suburbs made them afraid of cities. I don’t know. I don’t even want to be friends with Erika. She’s no fun and a one sided conversationalist. I’m sick of it. We remained something of friends until we had both moved to DC years later. I'm the one that encouraged her to tell Ryan she liked him during our senior year of college - they eventually married. But she had to stick her nose into something she had no business being involved in, and I haven't spoken to her since. I thought I saw her a few years after that when I was on a bike ride. She was whining on the side of the trail to her husband about how something hurt. I laughed because I remembered the whining all those years ago.

So that brings us to looking for a pub after the night parade. We went to Temple Bar & they were all crowded. Then I looked up Bars in Let’s Go. Big Mistake. (“That’s not going to help” – E) FUCK ‘EM. They don’t know what fun is. What horrible company. And you will definitely get skin cancer for being out in the sun for 2 hrs. THAT PISSES ME OFF. IT ALL DOES. The parade was awesome. I took a whole role of film. That’ll explain the actual parades & its American High School Marching Bands. (Oh – I forgot. The Guinness Brewery Tour was a waste of £2, except for the Guinness. The ads were cool. The tour was cool if I had been with different people. I wish I could have gone with Steph & Matt & Andrea. We got there at 8:30am and were in the front row. Cops were standing in our way because some bratty mouthy girls were back talking to them, after the group Boyzone, I think, passed. There was a kid that kept waving a flag in my face. But it was great. St. Paddy’s Day in Dublin. U2. Enough said. My flash is dead.

While this may sound a lot like it's whining about not getting my way, it's not exactly that. The thing is, I was interested in the history of Dublin City, and there were many historic places I wanted to visit to understand the city better. The point of the trip was to do just that, for it was central to my research project. These places included restaurants and pubs, and Erika didn't seem to understand this. While it was nice that they didn't want to go to McDonald's all the time like Andrea and Matt, popping into just any old place was missing out on the history of the city, its soul. Music and literature in Ireland are the pride of the people. To get to know the place, you need to go to the places Joyce went, the places he describes in his books, places like Davy Byrne's Pub. You need to know where Bob Geldolf and Christy Moore and U2 played their gigs in their youth, places like Baggot Inn. 

Of course, I didn't know as much about the city as I thought, because I didn't understand the significance of a place like Mother Redcaps and couldn't appreciate the "working class" neighborhoods. But how could I? I had never read Ulysses at that point. In fact, aside from reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as a senior in high school and Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha as a sophomore in college, I'd never read a single thing by an Irish writer. That was changing, as my research project required getting to know the culture and I had purchased several books, including The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde and Dubliners. But that hardly scratched the surface of the brilliance that is Irish literature. Eventually I began to understand. Today, my bookshelf is lined with books by Irish writers. I've pored through Ulysses three times. Heck, my online name for my first blog was Daedalus, not for the Greek architect, but for Stephen Dedalus, the alter ego of Joyce himself. By the time I began my internship at Glencree Peace and Reconciliation Center in the Wicklow Mountains, I'd become well-versed in Irish history. You had to be to understand the conflict that had consumed the Irish people for centuries.

History is not about the past. It makes us who we are and has shaped our world. It is a guide to the future. Often that guide tells us what not to do, but hey, that's just as useful as telling us what to do. The Irish stopped using their history as an excuse to fight and instead used it as an excuse not to fight. I think that's a damn fine idea.

 

Something fishy

A few years ago, I went to Paris for vacation. I'd actually gone to see U2 in concert, as I had purchased a ticket on a whim because I could. I flew to Paris, spent a few days there, flew to Beirut, spent a week there, and flew back to Paris to spend a few more days.

At that time, I hadn't been to Paris in a decade. The thing about Paris is that it's Paris. You're not going to return after a decade and find the place razed and rebuilt looking completely different than it had on your last visit. But you see things differently, at least if you open your eyes.

My previous trip to Paris was right after college. I had been hired as an intern at the Glencree Center for Peace and Reconciliation in Ireland and went to visit my friend Matt, who was teaching English in Tours, before heading off to Ireland for three months. By this time, I had already been to Paris five or six times, all as a college student. But I had yet to experience any real post-graduate life and was still traveling through as an inexperienced human being.

Fast-forward to 2010, when I had gone through a stint in the Army, learned Arabic, moved to Washington DC, worked in international development, lived in Bulgaria and Lebanon, and fell for digital media. In that time I had also gained a fascination for ancient history, comparative religion, philosophy, and literature, among many other interests. I went to Paris and knew what I was looking at.

The picture above is from one of two fountains at Place de la Concorde built in 1840. This one is the Maritime Fountain and represents the maritime spirit of France. The nude woman holding the fish as if it were her lover represents the fishing industry.

I'm sorry, but there's no way anyone back in 1840 didn't look at this statue and laugh under his breath. I'm trying to look at it through a historical lens, and knowing a little about art understand symbolism and that sexuality was a major theme in the art of the ancients on which this fountain is modeled. But good lord. Disturbed is the woman who wants a fish for a lover.

If we had blogs in 1998: Skiing in the Alps

It’s been a couple of months, I know, but I’m continuing my 1997-1998 journal from my year abroad in Luxembourg. In this episode, I’m getting tired of feeling like a third wheel as two friends go off on their own on a ski trip to Interlaken in the Swiss Alps. The thing is, I’d never skied before – five of the six who went on the trip had never skied – and we needed the one who had to show us how.

As always, spelling, grammatical, factual, and emotional errors have been preserved from the original journal. Today’s comments are in red.

6 Mars 1998

I haven’t been this pissed in quite awhile, and it’s another New Year’s anger, but it’s one of those things that keeps building till you explode. I have no idea what “New Year’s anger is. It sounds rather juvenile. I don’t want to explode, but this whole Matt & Andrea thing is making us all feel invisible, and I’m getting real sick of it. And now it’s almost one in the morning and they’re still not up here, and we’re going to be getting up in five hours and skiing for a day. So I’ll be in a shitty mood – even worse than I have been all week. I shouldn’t have even come for the weekend. What’s the point? Matt & Andrea prefer to be by themselves anyway. I guess we could have a just fine weekend with the four others, though none of us know how to ski. I’m just getting sick of this, & I’m beginning to wonder if it’s even worth it, I mean, putting myself through the feelings of invisibility. I hate feeling left out. Speaking of that, I wonder why I haven’t heard from Lynn in forever. It’s no surprise, people are always ditching me. I guess I’m destined to be alone until I find a suitable husband, if it ever happens. LOL. I don’t remember ever having that concern, so it’s funny to see it written here. [And how can I ever stay angry.]

The train ride today was long & uneventful, with Matt & Andrea once again isolating themselves from the rest of us. I’m beginning to realize why Erika felt the way she did, & I’m beginning to agree with the monopolizing part. Why did I not realize it before, when I could have told them when they asked me? Now I just have to sit & watch it, & I hate it. I hate the way things have to work. I wonder how much they’ll separate themselves from us tomorrow. When we went to Scott’s last night, Andrea wasn’t going to go because Matt wasn’t going. Then we changed our plans for the weekend because Matt didn’t want to get in at 6am on Monday, though what’s the fucking difference between getting in at fucking 9pm Sunday night & 6am Monday morning. It’s fucking ridiculous, & it pisses me off. Ooh...cursing. Because two friends have a secret relationship that everyone knows about? Dumb. I’ll never be able to sleep in this kind of mood. This sucks. I wish I would have stayed home. “I wish I would have.” Grammatical genius right there.

8 Mars 1998

Well, I’m leaving Suisse – on the train right now. The place was incredible, the company less so. The best time I had was skiing through the woods alone. Skiing is great, & it’s pretty easy. I would love to do it again in this country, minus the people that couldn’t do it. I can’t understand that. It was really quite simple. I fell a few times, but really not that many times. 

We dragged ourselves out of bed about 7am and left Balmer’s at 8am. It had been a late night on Friday, because Matt & Andrea didn’t get in till late, and because we had the long train ride before and because Thursday night we went to Scott’s the bar in Luxembourg City. Erika smoked. It was funny. But anyway, we should have been tired. But we were too anxious to be tired. We were scared, really. Andrea was excited. Poor Andrea, had to try to teach us all to ski. We took a train to Grindelwald, where we rented our skis & headed for the mountain top. I bought a pair of sunglasses. We finally got to the top about 11-11:30. Andrea had to teach us all. It was quite easy to attatch the boot to the ski. Then we started off on a really steep slope, so we all wiped out. First it was Matt, who slid on his butt down. He was pissed. Then Andrea had to go down to get him. Then Brad went down & wiped out, then I went down & wiped out, then Steph wiped out, then Lucy wiped out, but it was before she even went down the slope. It was all humourous. Then we practiced some snowplowing. After a long time, I decided I wanted to go down. So I took off. Brad & Steph came too. Every so often we’d stop & wait for the others, but they were incredibly slow. We never saw them again.We never saw Andrea and Matt until the evening, either. Apparently Matt has limited athletic skills and never got the hang of the skis, so he never even skied down the mountain, if I recall correctly. Andrea had my camera in her bag, so I didn't get to take any photos that day.

We took off and got to the train station at the bottom in over an hour. The trip was incredible, going through the pine, along a mountain stream, snowcapped peaks looming overhead, you feeling the peace that the setting has to offer. I felt incredible. We all took the train back up to the top, and zoomed down again. It only took me 25 minutes to get down, and I waited for Brad for ten-fifteen minutes after that. It was great. I wiped out on the second run, on account that I was going too fast and freaked out. I went fairly slow down a lot of it, not wanting to break things, logically. I bought a Sprite from the restaurant down the hill and waited. Steph didn’t go back up, but Brad and I did. By the time we got to the top, it was snowing. Tons of people were in the Teepee Bar, I guess because the ski conditions were bad. But we went down. I’m glad I had my sunglasses, because the rain beat against my face like life beats against my being. It was quite symbolic, actually. Me, in solitude, speeding past everything, and getting beaten by the rain. I took a different path down the third time, much like I have taken a different path throughout my life. Terrible metaphor disease strikes again. Also youthful stupidity. I wiped out badly, hitting a spot of grass, rolling a ways, losing my poles & my hat. My skis never came off. I hit my back, & it still hurts today. A bunch of people came over to me to see if I was ok. I would have liked to lay there longer, but I didn’t want to look like a fool. I wiped out again later on, and a bunch of kids passed by. I got to the bottom where Steph waited. We waited for Brad, then went down to Grindelwald, turned in our skies, & waited for the others at the train station. I neglected to mention that the people who asked if I were ok did so in three different languages, which I found delightful.

13 Mars 1998

As I often find myself doing, I’m writing this while sitting on a train. I never finished about the weekend, but basically it ended when we went down the hill. We went to a Swiss restaurant, which was excellent (rösti is a sort of hash brown dish – it’s wonderful.) Slips into present tense. So then we go back to Balmer’s and shower. Slips back to the past. Then we had to go to that horrible pub downstairs, where I stood there, not even in the circle, downing a beer so that I could go upstairs. Then Matt came down, though he had been sleeping. I’m sure he just had to rush to Andrea’s side, though much to his dismay, I’m sure, she was talking to another guy. Ha ha. I went upstairs first and went to bed. Steph came in last after talking for quite awhile to a guy from Kent State who was studying in Florence. We dragged ourselves out of bed Sunday morning. Andrea bought an expensive Swiss Army Knife. I almost forgot about the words I exchanged with Lucy. We were riding back from the slopes. When we came to our stop, we didn’t know we were supposed to get off. The conductor came & knocked on the window, and Steph & Lucy screamed, but Lucy’s scream started a dog barking and a baby crying, and I commented on that, so she went off. Everything seems fine now.

Andrea was sick all this week, and she’s not coming to Dublin. I wanted to cry when I found out because I was so disappointed. Erika’s taking her place. Back in the day when you could use someone else’s plane ticket. I wanted Erika to come anyway, but with Andrea and NO MATT. Poor Andrea, got ditched for spring break this week as well. I wanted so much to be able to help her. The thing that killed me, though, was when she was emptying her pouch, and she pulled out the shell that I gave her, and I had been so horrible to her all week, and I almost started crying. I swear, I’m a baby sometimes. But I just get so emotional.

Being at MUDEC was like being in high school. It was a small group of students - 100 at that time - who were thrown into new cultures and new experiences, sometimes with very little sleep, so these type of petty issues came up fairly often. Matt and Andrea were my friends, but we were all put off by their isolating themselves and pretending they weren't in a relationship when everyone knew they were. It seems rather humorous to me now. Andrea married her high school sweetheart, not Matt, and Matt disappeared to Boston, where I know through internet research that he is a professor of English at Boston College (I think). He also did some work with the Red Sox on archiving, and he presented a paper on something to do with travel themes in Victorian literature, which I found interesting because it's more evidence that the travel never leaves you. The last time I saw him we went to a Yankees-Red Sox game at Fenway more than ten years ago. He has no web presence, like he's actually living in the Victorian age about which he teaches. I'm sure he's married with children by now. He wanted to name his kid Britney Alexandria. I hope his wife said no to that. 

Matt, if you ever read this, I still owe you some baseball tickets. Come down and see Boston when they play at Nationals Park. Or I can meet you halfway at Yankee Stadium.

No to military intervention in Syria

I wrote this in response to an article in The Atlantic entitled "The Awkward, All-American Marriage of Anti-Interventionism and Racism." I've edited it from it's original form.

As a quasi-socialist lefty who believes in gun regulation and health care for all, it's been more than a little upsetting the past week to realize that I am rooting for the Tea Party to stymie my president and hand him a humiliating foreign-policy defeat.

I, too, have this problem. I hate wanting the same policy outcome as the morally reprehensible Tea Party, but our reasoning is far different and rooted in humanitarian, rather than selfish interests.

The idea that chemical weapons are somehow more appalling than conventional weapons is rooted in British WWI propaganda. The fact is - people are dying regardless of the type of weapon, as they have been for three years in Syria. Fighting war to end war is just more war. More death. More senseless human suffering. For what? So the defense industry can rake in profits?

What we never see is any world leader calling the aggressors out for their sectarian bullshit. Sometimes, you need to say what things are and not try to be diplomatic about it. (Not calling what happened in Egypt a "coup" is a perfect example of this.) When we do try to make peace, we leave certain groups we don't like out of the dialogue (Hamas is left out of Israeli/Palestinian peace talks, for example.) We are sectarian in trying to end sectarian wars. You can't make peace without all the actors sitting at the negotiating table. And there are never serious calls for reconciliation or peacebuilding. That's left for NGOs to do (with their less than 1% of the US budget for funding.) There are never serious calls for the restriction of arms trade or anything that would prevent war from happening or escalating in the first place. We always react, never take any proactive measures to stop war from happening.

And at what price to Americans, too? We have so many problems in our own country. We'll spend 50% of our budget on our military when we have trouble paying the bills at home. Just because poverty and gun homicides aren't as dramatic as a chemical weapons attack doesn't make them less worthy of attention. What's the difference between Sandy Hook (26 dead) and the attack on that Syrian school (10 dead, though many seriously injured)? The difference is the perception that chemical weapons are worse. And why do we think that? Look at the photos of burnt flesh. Horrific suffering. Guns in America are totally fine - it's the evil killer who is responsible, so don't pass any anti-gun laws or do anything. Never mind that 30,000 Americans die every year by gunshot wound. That's 100,000 Americans dead in about the same amount of time as the Syrian war has gone on. But chemical weapons? We'll start a war over chemical weapons. That's a damn warped view of the world.

Most Americans can't point to Syria on a map, and they didn't know the country was at war until the last few weeks. I remember when it started. I remember young Syrians with posters in hand running through the streets of Hamra in Beirut to a pro-Assad rally in front of the embassy. I walked up to the Lebanese tanks that were on my road in front of one of my favorite bars in Beirut and watched the soldiers look bored while war slogans were shouted beneath them. I watched tourism dry up, watched friends leave Lebanon, watched businesses close up, watched Hezbollah banners and Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party banners raised on lampposts and walls and everywhere with a blank surface. The fear that the war would spread was very real. Already people were dying just across the border. But you couldn't find mention of any of it on CNN. Suddenly, people care? All because "CHEMICAL WEAPONS!!1!"

Assad used chemical weapons because his is a tired army, having been at war for three years and counting. The use of these weapons seems to be an act of desperation, a quick way to clear out towns rather than the slower but no less tragic conventional means. It sux. War sux. But choosing sides and adding more weapons to the fray will only make things worse as it always does. Ask Iraq how things are going there. There are innocent people of all sects that are suffering. That includes Alawites, Shia, and Christians who would be categorized on the "pro-Assad" side, as well as Sunnis and others who would be categorized on the "rebel" side. In reality these people just want to live their lives. The militants won't let them. There are Islamists on both sides, Al-Qaeda on the "rebel" side, rebels who attack Christian towns, as well as democracy advocates who wanted to depose a dictator. There aren't two sides. There are many sides, just as there were in Lebanon during those 15 years of the apocalypse from which they are still recovering. We got involved in that one, too. We ran away with our tails between our legs because of it.

I hope the Russian proposal goes through, I really do. Don't drag us into another war in the Mideast. This one is complicated. As I said before, fighting war to end a war is just more war. More death. More suffering.

Opposing military strikes is a humanitarian choice, something the gun-toting Tea Party radicals can't seem to fathom. You know, like Syrians are human beings? That concept blows their minds.