Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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Lost! And, Found!

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I woke up with ambition yesterday morning (rare) and, after a brief (and cheap) Amazon shopping spree I decided to go for a bicycle ride while it was still early.

(This in spite of last year’s traumatizing bicycle hijinks, and instead of a mile jog, on the assumption that i could sustain my exercise much longer on a bike than wheezing and myocardial infarctioning my waya round Dickinson Square Park.)

I had an idea of the route i wanted to take away from my house, but hadn’t really decided on what streets to use to get back to my house. I considered bringing my wallet in the event that i passed anywhere interesting to have breakfast, but i couldn’t find my bike lock, so i realistically couldn’t stop anywhere.

Fast forward to the beginning of the fourth mile, as i realized that i would swing just two blocks from the Melrose. Maybe i could order out and sit with my bike and eat? I patted my ass to check for my wallet only to find that it wasn’t there.

No big deal… i didn’t bring it. Right? Right?!

I had to hope not, at least for the moment – it was no use backtracking. I could only retrace half of my path while covering the same ground before Pattison turned into a mile-long, medianed, blind curve on which i wouldn’t dare ride against traffic.

By mile five i still couldn’t remember what my ultimate decision on the wallet-bringing was. It would be just like me to not remember leaving it on my desk, or anywhere else in the house, for that matter – i don’t lose things so much as i leave them in places i don’t expect them to be left.

By the time i got back to the house i was sure that my wallet was still on my desk. So sure that i was shocked, shocked i tell you, to find that it wasn’t on my desk. Or on the floor in front of my desk. Or in the jeans i decided not to wear. Or in the basement where i keep my bike. Or in the refridgerator, or anywhere else i might have mistakenly left it in trade for some other item.

Yes, my wallet was almost definitely somewhere on the course of my seven mile route, which included well-travelled bits of Snyder Plaza and prime jogging territory in front of the stadiums. If it fell out of my pocket either of those places it was bound to be gone by now.

My first thought was that, clearly, a higher power was trying to convince me not to exercise via bi-wheeled cycle, as nothing good ever happens to me when i ride it. After i got past lamenting that I starting to get worked up thinking about cancelling my credit cards, and if my shopping spree would still go through. I had to find that wallet, if for no reason other than for the scandalously cheap Indigo Girls CDs that i had just bought.

Let’s think about this, i told myself. Up to where I realized I lost it I had stuck with my path with no deviation, and always rode with traffic when there was a bike lane. The wallet was in my back pocket. At points where my ass was planted firmly on the seat it had nowhere to go. It also wasn’t likely to slip out anywhere i was idly pedalling or mostly coasting. I had it have lost it somewhere bumpy, or somewhere where i was pedalling hard to speed up or change gears.

By sheer deduction this (in theory) eliminated all the well-travelled bits, leaving the Weccacoe-Pattison connection, which involved crossing both cobblestones and tracks, followed by a lengthy straightaway, and then the scary one mile blind curve of Pattison Ave that cars definitely took at more than the posted 35mph. I hoped it wasn’t on the curve, because couldn’t figure out how to stop there to pick it up without being killed. It was scary enough the first time while moving.

Well, it wasn’t at the curve … it was at the exact point where all three of my conditions were met – i was high above the seat to avoid getting jostled by the tracks, already pedalling hard heading into the straightaway, and fingering the gear shift. Actually, i almost forgot to keep an eye out for my wallet before i realized that i was doing all three things, and then i looked down and there was my wallet.

Serendipitous luck? The bicycle gods trying to entice me not to abandon their instrument of misery and destruction? Are my Veronica Mars-like skills of deduction honed to such a fine point that the location of the wallet was hardly a mystery? Or, am i just so deep into leftover good karma from this summer that i was bound to find it somewhere?

In any event, point taken – the wallet comes with me every time, safey ensconced behind a zipper or several buttons.

Gimme a Head With Hair

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I am emerging from my ugly phase.

Last trip to the hairdresser – just for a trim – my shampooer warned me. “You’re going to go through an ugly phase,” she matter-of-facted at me, before admonishing, “and don’t go cutting it off just because you’re in the ugly phase.”

Because, cutting it off means my hair has won our little battle.

The ugly was seductively convincing. Hair in the eyes. Messing with complexion. Head is too fat now to look good with long hair, anyhow.

The litany was in full-effect last week, and it became clear I would have to beat my hair into submission before it would end. So, I did something unprecedented (which cutting it off wouldn’t be, if we recall the Mohawk and other such endeavors). I walked into the bathroom, lined up my styling products, and took out Elise’s curling iron, hairdryer, and an array of brushes. An hour later, I emerged with feathered hair.

You have to understand that – long or short – hairstyling with anything other than a hand and some mousse is against my personal aesthetic. In high school I grew my hair into a pony-tail to avoid styling, and subsequently chopped it all off for the same reason. Every haircut I’ve had has been motivated by wanting to have to style less.

But, desperate times call for the most desperate of measures, and so style I did. My hair is perhaps a wee long for framing my face with feathers, so I wound up slightly more Farah Fawcett than John Travolta from Kotter. Before bed I carefully wrapped my work in a series of bandannas to preserve it for the night, and the next day I sported stylish (though slightly flattened) feathering at work. And, I didn’t feel ugly!

I have yet to reattain the epitome of my prettiness, but I have escaped the seductive “cut it off” allure of the uglies to inch ever closer to unspeakably desirable rock star look i’m cultivating.

Thoughts Right Now

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The most awesome part of Eight Minute Abs is that the instructor totally doesn’t mind when you scream obscenities at him on every exhale.

As an added bonus, if you continue this habit (even under your breath!) after picking up the phone mid-crunch for a telemarketer they will find a way to hang up with you as quickly as possible!

In other news, i was just a quarter inch shy of my longtime dream of crushing a rat to death with a flip flop, except it was a mouse and a box of wine. Still, so close!

The Long Tail of Things I Enjoy Doing

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I’ve recently been reading The Long Tail, which I was originally turned on to completely separately by the original Wired article and via author Chris Anderson’s brainstorming blog (still ongoing).

I haven’t formed a complete opinion on the book yet (I should probably finish it before doing that, eh?), but something I have enjoyed so far is that certain passages have made me put the book down to do my own research, or to start my own discussion. A good book should do that!

It isn’t really necessary to understand what “The Long Tail” means to appreciate the rest of my post, but if you’re interested Wikipedia can tell you, or you can just trust me to summarize it as follows:

The Long Tail is essentially a model (not necessarily of business) where end users have an tremendously huge number of choices – a number typically impossible to amass in any kind of bricks and mortar establishment (think of Amazon’s book and CD selection vs that of Borders or the currently liquidating Tower).

Given this huge number of choices, it turns out that significant user demand for choices continues far past the initial popular choices – ranging even beyond the choices typically offered in a more limited format such as a bricks and mortar store. For an eBusiness such as Amazon or Netflix that incurs relatively low cost to keep these seemingly infinite choices in stock, a significant portion of their profit will be generated by those more obscure choices that a physical storefront would never offer – in effect, the “long tail” of the choices being offered.

Anyhow, back onto my topic.

One passage that had an extremely visceral impact on me as a read was this one: Labor – forced, unspontaneous and waged work – would be superseded by self-activity. [Eventually] nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes … to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

It isn’t author Anderson’s writing – it’s a quote from The Pro-Am[ateur] Revolution: how enthusiasts are changing our economy and society by Charles Leadbeater and Paul Miller (DL it here), who are in turn quoting Karl Marx’s writing from between 1845 and 1847. And, though Marx’s meaning is diluted when taken out of context, the quote resonated with me.

(Marx’s point is that Communism will ultimately find success in the many crafts of its people, as society will “regulate the general production” through the varied skills of its members. For more on the idea of crafting, visit Craft Research)

The quote resonated with me because of a certain conversation I had towards the end of high school. I was talking about potential college majors to my good friend Robert (who I owe a call), and he said something akin to, “Peter, I want to be a jack of all trades, and a master of none.”

Now, I was familiar with the phrase, but I had never thought of its practical application to a person. Why would anyone want to be halfway good at everything and perfect at nothing? It seemed unfullfilling to me at the time.

Robert’s words reverberate in my head from time to time as I take up yet another new hobby – piano-playing and MYSQL, as of late. I don’t know that I have a hope of mastering either skill, but it hasn’t stopped me from pouring time and energy into either. So, am I a jack of all trades, and in the process have I mastered nothing?

Marx’s quote resonates because it gives Robert’s some perspective. According to him – and I agree – none of us are meant to function solely in a single dimension of production. Yes, most of us have a proverbial “day job,” but our passion carries us to work just as feverishly at acting, or mountaineering, or homebrewing, or any of the other interests of my many friends, and we shouldn’t necessarily despoil that passion by attempting to thrust that work into focus in our lives by majoring in it or making it our business.

I love communications as much as everything, and it’s a perfect thing to take up my 9-to-5 because I would never contrive quite so much communications to work on in my free time. What if I do spend my weekends struggling to debug my own code or master a new instrument? It doesn’t mean I have to get my degree in IT or Performance – if I did I might not like either as much.

That’s just one instance of the trains of thought departing from The Long Tail station; even if it’s not a superior book, it’s a superior catalyst.