Bryan Adams Blog

Fridays With Mommie

Since Mom was such a big hit, she's going to be posting here every Friday, starting today ...

Livin' in a Marshmallow World....

My husband Mark and I just returned from a visit with 'the fam.' On the way home, we spent a night in Hershey, PA, at the hotel built by town's founder, Milton Hershey. We'd been to Hershey about 20 years ago when we herded the young'uns through "Chocolate World" and the Hersheypark. This time, however, we visited Hershey Gardens and the Hershey Museum. We also passed the Hershey Convention Center, Hershey Golf Club, Hershey Theatre, Hershey Trolleyworks......you get the picture.

Now, at first blush, I could be really cynical about Milton's need to name everything after himself. But, as I read about the guy, I actually came to have a lot of respect for his business smarts and his treatment of his employees. As I learned about Milt, I was reminded of a recent television biography of Richard Sears, founder of the department store chain. I don't profess to be a scholar on either of these gentlemen, but I was struck by some similarities in their attitudes toward running their businesses and their philosophies toward their employees.....and it struck me how rare those attitudes are today.

My husband is a partner in the firm where I work (yeah, nepotism is alive and well), and so he is part owner of the business. Yet, my husband and I both come from working class families -- three of our four parents worked in factories, the fourth worked in the local Sears store. So, we're still able to see from "both sides of the fence," so to speak. I feel like the partners here are really generous with their employees, and I also see that the employees are pretty dedicated folks. Sure, the partners make good money, but they also assume all the risks. Most of the employees here are old-timers - they've been here over 25 years. But, that doesn't stop the occasional grousing about wages, time off, working conditions, etc.

But, you know, as good as the firm is to its employees, I'm afraid it doesn't hold a candle to Sears or Hershey. Both of these entrepreneurs actually boasted about their employees' ability to support their families on the wages they earned. Both men also built homes for their employees and subsidized the financing. Sears started the first profit-sharing program in America. My mother, who worked many years part-time before becoming a full-time employee, had a substantial sum in her profit-sharing account when she retired by virtue of her longevity with Sears. Both my parents were loyal to their employers....they bought the products they produced and sold, and they stayed with the same employer until they retired. My in-laws both retired with more than 30 years continuous service to their employers. There was a sort of mutual respect.

My job involves talking regularly with "working people." These are minimally educated folks doing work that is physically hard, repetitive, but indispensable to our economy. And I can tell you that none of them feel as loyal and appreciative toward their employers as our parents did toward theirs. The attitude today, of employees and employers alike, is to "get while the gettin' is good." Employers (at least of this class of workers) try to get whatever they can from the employees, and when they have, they like it when the employee quits and then they can hire someone else who maybe wants to work a little harder. Likewise, the employees want as much money as possible with as little work as possible, and when they feel like their employer expects too much, they quit and move on. Honestly, I can see both sides here.

What's going on here, really? People of my age lament "the old days" when you could feel somewhat secure in your job and you felt valued by your employer, if only for your loyalty. Nowadays, it seems there's a sense that everyone's protecting his own self-interest at all costs. I'm not sure what started the trend, nor am I sure that we're all better off. I think it's somewhat tied in to the concept of sacrifice.......which will be part two of this post next week.

Get Your Learn On

Today's Bible class, according to the syllabus: Investigation of John, use of simple language, symbols, and class designation to re-establish Jesus' place in the world.

Today's Bible class, according to experience: Neighbor chews gum loudly for ninety minutes, the young lass sitting directly across the circle will wear hotpants, yes hotpants, to class, and building construction will proceed under the beautiful sunlight outside.

Comment Spam

Until now, I'd been holding back the comment-box spam with a basic oh-no-you-di-ent! method: I would delete all spam on arrival and then block the IP of the source. It was annoying, but it was simple and it worked pretty well.

And then, I woke up this morning with 12 spam comments from 12 different IP addresses. And they keep coming in today.

So, sigh, I guess I have to do some anti-spam stuff to my MT install. Anyone have any recommendations? My priorities are: ease of installation and use, invisible to the user, effective. Also, if it has some way of hunting down the spammer and applying 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to his or her genitals, that would be a plus.

Some Things, I Don't Wanna Know

I'm going to link to this story about how Bush is planning to win Ohio, but I'm warning you right now: it made me want to pry my eyes out with spoons. And if you're my mom or dad, please make sure you're not holding anything sharp.

Learning To Fly

Thoughts that occurred to me while sitting in the Philadelphia airport for almost four hours:

Smack!

I want to write something today, but I hit myself in the face with a squash ball this morning and I can't concentrate on anything long enough to

Jesus For President

We're in the home stretch here in Bible class, and we've finally started talking about the big You-Know-Who. Captain Passion. The Guy With Oily Hair. Jesus H. Christ.

I can't help but think about him from a political perspective. How would Jesus do as a candidate? Let's reach deep into our bag of issues for an example and ask ourselves: what would Jesus have said about gay marriage?

Well, we know that Jesus studied the Old Testament very closely, so we know that he would have been very familiar with the Covenant Code -- the 613 laws laid forth by God to Moses. In particular, he would have read Leviticus 20:13, "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed and abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them."

What position did Jesus take when he read that? We don't have any idea -- Jesus himself never wrote a single thing or gave a single speech that was transcribed. I mean, if he'd had a blog, he might have posted something like:

May 3, 17 A.D.

But they barely had Movable Scrolls, let alone Movable Type. In fact, everything we know about what Jesus said comes from The Gospels (TM), which were written almost 50 years after Jesus died by the disciples of Jesus' disciples. So our source on this is about as reliable as your basic USA Today feature.

Ok, but do The Gospels (TM) say anything about what Jesus thought about the laws in Leviticus? They do. They tell us that Jesus basically says one thing and does another.

I mean, at one point (Matthew 5:17), Jesus says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law of the prophets [the stuff in Leviticus]; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill." But then, not ten chapters later (Mt 15:11), he says "[I]t is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth that defiles." Lots of the laws in Leviticus are about what you can and can't eat. Jesus! Come on! Are you going to abolish the laws or not? Don't flip-flop on the issues!

What's his voting record? Well, Jesus does reverse a lot of the stuff from the Old Testament. Like, God tells Moses that measured revenge is OK in Exodus 21:23, "If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." But Jesus cites this, then reverses it, saying (Mt 5:38), "You have heard that it was said, 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer [GWB? You reading this?]. But if anyone strikes you on the cheek, turn the other cheek as well," (emphasis added). So, clearly, Jesus would have been incredibly weak on homeland security. No way he makes it on the Republican ticket.

I guess, then, that you could say Jesus actually voted for Covenant Code ... right before he voted against it.

And when you press him on the wider issue of marriage, you find that he has some decidedly non-mainstream views. Like that you can't divorce your wife unless she cheats on you. Or that if you look at someone with lust, you have already committed adultery. Those views aren't going to play well among the womens groups, and you can forget about getting support from the entertainment industry. So he can't marshal his liberal base -- adios Democrats.

So I guess what I'm saying is this: WWJD? IHNFC.

Patty and Mark

I think that you become an adult on the day that you realize that your parents are people.

That sounds strangely simple, but I remember how difficult it was. Indeed, how difficult it sometimes is. I look at those pictures of her and a little baby, and I have an academic understanding that it's me. But I don't have a visceral understanding. I don't look at that picture and remember anything. All I really remember is having mom around as, well, mom. And dad around as dad. They made me do my arithmetic flashcards and read my essays before I turned them in. They went with me from place to place or waited for me to come home. Whatever I did, I did it in the context of them.

But, of course, I eventually left for college, and suddenly that context was gone. And I had to re-learn what it meant to have a mom and dad. I emailed and called. And they came to visit a number of times, and I introduced them to my friends. My dad said that the bathroom in our fraternity was more disgusting that your average gas station bathroom, but he didn't make me clean it. I bombed a test freshman year, but they were more sympathetic than mad. I stayed out late on the weekends, and no one was there when I got home. Now whatever I did, I did in the context of me.

Moreover, I met people for whom this decontextualization was a very different beast. Some people had parents that were never around anyway -- their high school was basically a little college. Others only had one parent. Others hated their parents and refused to return their phone calls. I was completely consumed with trying to understand computers at the time, so I didn't give it much thought -- but in retrospect, I was slowly getting a wider view of what parents were, and what they meant.

This all came to a head on a day when mom, dad, and I were riding in the car. Mom asked me where I thought I got my smarts from. I said I didn't really know, or that I got them from them, or some such non-answer. And I remember my mom looking at my dad and saying, "Well, you're definitely smarter than us." It was a shocking moment. Not only did it invert my picture of the natural order of things (mom and dad are supposed to know more than the kid), but it had been inverted voluntarily.

In retrospect, it's both untrue and irrelevant -- my parents are brilliant, and anyways, being smart doesn't matter two licks in this world, but that's not the point. The point is that that moment crystallized a shift in my perspective. My parents were other people. They had strengths and weaknesses, good days and bad, accomplishments and disappointments like anyone else. The fact that mom wiped my butt from the very first day I was born doesn't in anyway change the fact that wiping my butt was just one more thing that she did.

And yet ... she did wipe my butt. She did read me books. She did feed and clothe and love me. She even stuck me in a kiddie pool without any pants on so that she could take a picture and later embarrass me with it. She did all those things, and she did them all in the context of being a woman who was born in 1953, lived with her own family until she was 18, and left for college, just like me. My dad coached the little league teams and helped with homework and made us lunch for school -- all while trying to establish and grow a career, just like I'm trying to do now. And, last week, my mom wrote some interesting and personal stuff for examination by a group of perfect strangers, just like I do.

Part of being an adult, I think, is seeing your parents in these two lights. They're the people who gave you life and took care of you from your first day. And they're also people who had this kid, and that kid happened to be you. Building this kind of robust relationship with my parents has been one of the most rewarding and wonderful experiences of my life. I'm glad that I got a chance to share part of it with all of you.

Oh -- and if you're having any trouble with the "parents as people" side, just try reading that your dad "loves for [your mom] to wear high heels." That oughta do the trick. *shiver*

....Oh Where Oh Where Can He BEEEEE!?

Yeah, he's back, but still a tad overwhelmed with work. I imagine he'll be popping up on the blog any time now.

However, continuing my desire to make sense of popular culture (yeah, I know, I could just read Greg), today I read (USA Today Life Section) that 82% of women would forgo foot health to wear "attractive" shoes. Eighty-two percent! This truly boggles my mind, though I am aware of the "Sex and the City" influence on shoe styles. My husband loves for me to wear high heels, and I do, occasionally. But, for the most part, I wear sensible shoes. Most of the women I see are wearing sensible shoes. Where is this 82%?

And, is there ANYTHING fashionable that men would wear that actually causes pain and adverse health consequences? And why don't you?

Oh Where Oh Where Has My Bryan Gone?

And he was worried that I would lose his readers? Here I am, anxiously awaiting his return, expecting a few kudos thrown my way, and what do we get? Nothing. This is what happens when there's a long weekend in Montreal with an unreliable internet connection.

Since we can't leave the blogwaves empty, I'm here for an encore.

I read recently that voters are more polarized in their feelings about George W. Bush than any president in history. Pollsters have found that people who like or dislike Dubya hold those feelings with such tenacity that all the advertising in the world won't change their minds. They believe the upcoming election hinges on a relatively small pool of undecided voters. I believe this is absolutely true. I have such strong feelings against Dubya that there is literally nothing he could say that would convince me to vote for him. See, I like to listen to "fancy pants intellectuals" for my information, and Dubya has no use for those people.

Unfortunately, since I live in a "swing" state (Ohio) lots of political advertising is on the airwaves, with no let up in sight. And, since Dubya has more money than any presidential candidate has ever had, his ads are on the TV and radio all the time. I read today that he's already spent $98 million.

I have an idea: wouldn't it be cheaper to enlist pollsters to identify all the undecideds and then have the candidates appeal to them individually? Maybe give them a call, or send someone over to talk to them. He could simultaneously improve the jobs picture and promote his re-election just by recruiting some unemployed Republicans (well, maybe that's a bit of an oxymoron) to go door to door and identify the undecideds. Then, the advertising dollars could be spent directly on these people, and the rest of us can be left alone to actually think about how to make the world a better place.

The Joy of Blog

Thanks to all of you for stopping by, reading and commenting. This has been a really great experience for me, because I've been able to talk to a whole bunch of people whose paths I might never have crossed. You're all caring, witty, insightful, reflective folks who make this world a better place.

And as part of my swan song, I wanted to give you some skin - Bryan's that is. (It's not exactly a "tub shot," but it's close).

As well as my boy having some childish fun (and not a transformer in sight, yet).

And... one of my personal favorites (except for the glasses, i guess - but hey, it was the 70s).

A Brief Note of Thanks

Today, it just so happens, is my one-year blogiversary. It has been an incredibly enjoyable experience, and I just want to send a heartfelt thanks to everyone who's participated and contributed over the last year. I hope I've been able to enrich your lives in the same way you've enriched mine. And by "enrich," I of course mean "fill with booger jokes and dik soks."

And now, for your mom-reading pleasure ...

HIPAA - POTAMOUTH

Are any of you familiar with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known affectionately as HIPAA which was passed by Congress and went into effect about a year ago? As with all legislation, it contains a bunch of stuff that is totally beyond the average person's comprehension. But the part of the law that is of interest to me, and maybe to you, is the portion that regulates the redisclosure of your personal health information (PHI), which is contained in your doctor's records. Now, this is actually a noble attempt to help maintain some of our privacy, much of which has been substantially eroded by the Patriot Act. In my job, I work with clients' medical records on a regular basis, and I can tell you that they have no idea how many people can and do read those records. Before HIPAA, once you gave your doctor the authority to disclose your medical records, they could be "redisclosed" to many other entities without your knowledge. HIPAA tries to restrict this. Does it matter? Well, it depends on how you feel about your privacy, I guess. Medical records are not near as objective as you might imagine, and doctors differ in the amount of editorializing contained in their observations. I have read some records that are incredibly subjective, and I imagine that the patient would be surprised to read them.

Most doctors are in a bit of a tizz over HIPAA, and understandably so. There are financial penalties imposed on doctors and other medical entities that violate these rules. However, before any penalties could be assessed, someone is going to have to determine whether the rules have been violated. Believe me, this is going to take a while.

However, the next time you go to your doctor, you'll have to sign some form of consent or acknowledgement of the doctor's "privacy practices." This is meant to comply with HIPAA rules, but basically falls into the CYA category, since no one is totally sure what constitutes a violation of HIPAA at this point. These "practices" basically involve doing whatever the hell they want with your PHI, as long as you sign this document, which you will have to sign if you ever want to get out of the waiting room.

I visited a new doctor just the other day, and I signed such a document before I had spoken five words to the receptionist. I'm an intelligent woman and I read what I sign. But, I also realize the futility of it all. The following paragraph is quoted from the "Notice of Privacy Practices" I signed:

"Dr. Blabbermouth** may use or disclose, as needed, your PHI in order to support the business activities of our practice. These activities include, but are not limited to, quality assessment activities, employee review activities, training of medical students, licensing, marketing and fundraising activities, and conducting or arranging for other business activities." (**not his real name)

"Marketing and fundraising activities"? I guess this means I've agreed that Dr. Blabbermouth can use my name and PHI in an ad campaign, if that will help his business. Maybe I'll see something like: "Zap the clap! Our patient Patty Adams was cured in one treatment!" Or: "Depressed? Get over it! Patty Adams did, and you can, too!..... with Zoloft." How about: "AIDS doesn't have to ruin your life. Look at our patient Patty Adams...with treatment she's leading a normal life."

Hey, I signed the paper. HIPAA be damned. So, I guess if this is how he chooses to use my PHI, it's my own damn fault.

For Men Only

OK, men, now it's your turn.

(Bryan - don't forget to insert the digital photos I sent you in the places I've marked. Ok? Thanks)

*Insert photo of scantily-clad Jennifer Garner*

Competition: Is it me, or do guys feed on competition? I mean, Bryan and his dad can (and do) turn just about everything into a competition. In fact, it's multi-layered. Watching a competitive sport like football or baseball isn't enough - there's fantasy football to put an extra layer of competition on top of that. It seems you guys are constantly jockeying to see who's on top and then trying to knock him off. What, exactly, do you get out of this?

*Insert centerfold photo of JLo*

Body Image: How much, if at all, do you obsess about your looks? Is the largest mirror you've looked in lately the rear view in your car? My husband seems pretty typical in that he doesn't obsess at all. After he gets dressed, he'll check the mirror to see if his tie is straight, but that's about it. There's no 360 to see if those pants make his butt look big, or to check if his stomach seems to stick out too much. Heck, there have been a few days he's forgotten to brush his hair. He always looks great, though, but with very little angst. He never seems to need my verbal affirmation that he's attractive. What's at work here? Are you all really that secure?

*Insert adorable photo of you as a baby*

Kids: Do you want them, and if you do, who should assume primary responsibility for their care? Would you be willing to interrupt your career to take care of them? While my husband worked and I stayed home with the kids, it was only because his career path was more well-defined than mine. I know now that he would have stayed home with them in a heartbeat. He is a very nurturing father. Is this a more realistic option in today's world? Or is the risk to career advancement just too great? (Feel free to tie this in with the 'competition' answer).

*Insert that photo of you and Sonia looking so happy*

Marriage/Intimacy: Do you expect to marry your best friend? Do you want an equal partner, or do you want (like our esteemed president) to be the 'ultimate decision-maker'? Men are reputed to need 'time alone' and to maintain their connections to their male friends in a stronger sense than women need these same things. Is this really true? I enjoy being with my husband more than any other person in the world - male or female. And it's been that way for a long time. I know he feels the same way. Is this old-age setting in?

Chivalry: Is it dead? Do you think it should be?

For Women Only

WE NOW RETURN TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED BLOGGING

I have two terrific daughters, so they provide me wonderful, valuable feedback on being a woman in the second millenium. But I want more. Because sometimes I think I may have warped them or something. I like the way they think, but then, they think a lot like me. Here's what I want to know about:

Competition: Is it just me or are women terrible at competing with one another? Take "The Apprentice". Each of the women who was fired made it personal. They mostly took pot shots at the other women whom they perceived caused their failure to make the cut. Contrast this with Troy and Kwame. How civilized was that? Nothing personal, and the friendship remained intact. My experience with women is that it's all about the relationship, and if you try to act otherwise, look out.

Body Image: My mind's image of my body is when I was about 30 - it looked pretty good then. Sometimes when I look in the mirror now, I'm shocked that I don't really look like that anymore. My husband tells me all the time how great I look (he really does - an amazing guy), but, you know, I never actually believe him. Since you all are in the age range of your physical prime, so to speak, what do you think? Do you worry about your aging body? What worries you most? Wrinkles, weight gain, graying hair? (It's all happened to me, so don't be afraid to say it).

Kids: How DO we take care of them and everything else in our lives? I stayed at home with mine until the youngest was entering high school - and then I worked just part time. I hadn't really planned to, but I hadn't planned not to, either. After Bryan was born, I felt much differently about mothering than I thought I'd feel. And, my husband's job required lots of time away from home. I learned quickly that kids need constancy, in whatever form. I provided that constancy for them, and I've never regretted it. But, I can tell you that watching many of my contemporaries establish impressive careers did give me a sense of longing from time to time. We've encouraged our girls to be responsible, intellectually curious, and accomplished. I also hope they are mothers some day, since it's an incredibly rewarding experience. But how will they care for the kids - I honestly don't know. (Lori - thoughts ?)

Marriage/Intimacy: Do you expect your husband to be your best friend? What do you want most out of your marriage/significant-other relationship? I married my husband when I was just about to turn 21. My youngest daughter is older than that, and still single. Looking back, I had no idea what I was getting into, but it couldn't have worked out any better. Should you go into it with eyes wide open or do blinders help?

Chivalry: Is it dead? Do we care?

Not My Job

[This will still be Mom Blog week. I just need one minute and a few kilobytes to speak my mind. --Bryan]

When I was in high school, I used to go to the local Baptist church for lunch once a week -- free pizza for the price of a short Bible lesson. While I can't remember anything at all from my Russian Soviet history class and I couldn't tell you a single thing I did in Algebra II, I can remember those lunches. In particular, I can remember one aspect of them very clearly.

The church pastor, who gave the impromptu sermons over lunch, often said that the Bible did not contradict itself.

Now, a cursory glance at the Bible will demonstrate this claim to be patently ridiculous. Start at the very beginning -- Genesis 1. Tells the creation story. Now turn to Genesis 2. Tells a different creation story. In chapter 1, the world is a watery chaos, and God creates the world by molding it into shapes. In chapter 2, (starting in verse 4 for those of you following along at home), the world is a desert, and God creates things by making it rain. There are two stories because they were written at different times. The first was probably written during the Israelite exile in Babylon (where there was plenty of water) and the second was probably written during the exile wandering in the desert (where, obviously, there was not). The Redactor (the official title for the aggregate person who edited the Bible) didn't want to piss anyone off by only including one or the other, so he stuck both in there.

The point is this: the very first story contains contradiction. Did the earth start out wet, and God made dry land? Or did it start out dry, and God made it rain? What was that pastor thinking? Errors like this are all over the place. Many of the major stories are told twice, frequently in contradiction. What was Moses' father-in-law named? Why was Saul stripped of the kingship? On and on. When I first started reading the Bible, I wanted to make a mental list of all the contradictions, just in case I ever went to another high school Bible lunch. I ran out of memory before Exodus.

Now, I might forgive my Pastorly friend if the errors were limited to just details in the stories. But it's worse. Much worse. Some of the problems are downright scandalous.

Take the story of Job. The majority of the book is written in poetry; only the first two chapters and the last part of the last chapter are in prose. It doesn't take Indiana-Jones level archeology to figure out what is original and what was added later. Now, the first two chapters of prose are great -- they frame the story by telling us that Job was righteous, and the Devil made a bet with God, and that Job's family was killed and he was stricken with disease. Then the poetry starts, and it's quite something. In an almost Socratic form, Job pleads his case with three friends. They explore the possible reasons for his misfortune, and just as they have exhausted what seems like every possibility, God comes down in a whirlwind and speaks directly to Job. I'll leave you to read his answer (starts in chapter 38), but I can tell you that it's meaty and there's a lot to think about. The poetry ends in chapter 42, verse 6. It's challenging, timeless, and beautiful.

And then, I'm not even joking, the book jumps the shark.

The poetry stops, and in the last 11 verses, Job gets back everything he lost and lives happily ever after. Seriously: Job 42:17 says "And Job died, and old man, and full of days." It's the worst ending ever, and Biblical scholars generally agree that The Redactor, in a pathetic attempt to make sure Job made it into the holy cannon, stuck on this saccharine crap. Forget not having contradictions -- the ending of Job flat-out sucks eggs. And, after one round of reading and discussion, I wanted to mail the whole book of Job back to the Pastor of First Baptist Church in Gahanna, OH with the ending highlighted and a big "WTF??" scrawled on the page.

But doing that misses the point. Yes, much of the discussion about the Bible treats it like some perfect masterpiece when, clearly, it's not. It has errors and inconsistencies, minor flaws and major defects. It's full of ancient ideas, edited together by humans, translated from a complex and vague language. If you're expecting God's Word (TM), you're going to be sorely disappointed.

But if, instead, you're willing to let go of the dogma and read between the lines, you can find some really interesting, important stuff. I have found it incredibly worthwhile.

To Work or Not to Work - That is the Quest

I'm 50. But, I'm relatively young in the work world, as I was a stay-at-home mom for about 18 years. I did some part-time work and a lot of volunteer work during that time, but as you all know, that's different from a full-time career. I've been working full-time now for almost 10 years. But, you know what I spend a lot of time thinking about? Retirement.

Now, it's not exactly like I've "earned" it yet. But, I can tell you that almost everyone I talk to who's within throwing distance of my age talks about retiring from their job. In a way, I'm in a "sympathetic" retirement state by virtue of having shared closely my husband's career. I entered adulthood on the cusp of the women's movement. Well, that's probably wrong in a historical sense. Let's just say it felt like the cusp to me. My husband and I faced the world as one. His work was sort of my work - only I stayed home with the kids and didn't have a 401K. Actually, I'm trailing off to a whole different blog topic, so let's get back to the point. Retirement.

I know that my parents' generation approached retirement as nirvana, since most folks of that generation (at least in our socioeconomic class) were working their jobs to pay the bills. I don't believe they ever spoke of their work as a "career." I was the first person in my entire family to attend college, which was the first time the concept of a "career" ever entered my mind. The idea of choosing a vocation with the intent for some sort of fulfillment other than economic was relatively new. So, since most of my peers approached work with a different attitude, why are we focusing on retirement at around the same age, or even younger, than our parents? And what attitude do you GenX-Y-Zers have toward retiring?

Response key:
DE (born in the depression era); BB (baby-boomers); GZ (all of you)

Social Security benefits:
DE: Absolutely, and I deserve every penny.
BB: Any way I can get my money back?
GZ: ?

Retirement is:
DE: The end of the line for this freight train, sister.
BB: A chance to stop doing THIS *%&#^# job
GZ: ?

I will retire when:
DE: The clock strikes midnight on my eligibility date
BB: The day my financial planner tells me I can afford to,...maybe
GZ: ?

Lifelong learning is:
DE: The School of Hard Knocks, baby, and I was the valedictorian
BB: It might be fun to take a class.....
GZ: ?

My dream job is:
DE: Sitting on my ass collecting the Social Security checks I worked so hard for
BB: Half the work I'm doing now for the same pay
GZ: ?

In My Dreams

I don't dream the way normal people do. I usually don't talk about my dreams because they are ridiculously weird. I've read about dream theory, and a lot of it is based on categorizing common dream themes. I have never had even one of those themes pop up in my subconscious.

For example, I once dreamed I was a "roadie" for Bryan, travelling around the country setting up books for some presentation he was making. I once dreamed I'd had an argument with my husband, and it put me in a bad mood for the whole day. Recently, I dreamed I was a bacon inspector. I had a nifty hard hat with a medallion on it, and I actually felt like I was pretty cool in my dream world. (However, this particular theme did cause my youngest daughter to fall off her chair in laughter).

These are my dreams, for heaven's sake. Just once couldn't I be queen of someplace, or win an award, or fly?

Actually, I had a dream a few months ago that makes up for all the lousy dreams of my lifetime. Our dog Daisy died last November. I loved that dog like she was one of my children. She was the last of my charges, thankfully feathering my empty nest as our youngest child left home. In her final months, she was much like an elderly person. She needed lots of assistance in her everyday tasks. We were forever taking her for some sort of medical attention. She hated being left alone for very long. My husband and I doted on her, since we both knew she was in her twilight. Still, when she died, it was a painful shock to us both. I grieved over her for a long time - until I had this dream.

Really, it was more than a dream. It was truly a spiritual episode, as it was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I dreamed that Daisy was alive and sitting right next to me. It wasn't like she'd always been alive, but rather that she'd come back from the dead. I honestly felt the silkiness of her ears and inhaled her familiar scent - right there while my face was next to hers smooching her soft little muzzle. A series of unrelated people paraded through my dream, and I intently asked each one, "Do you see her?" Each one calmly affirmed that he did, and my dream self began to believe she really was re-incarnated. As I reached that point where I was beginning to wake, I actually felt my subconscious self resisting the transition. I wanted to stay there with her with all my being. As I awoke, I was in a transcendent state for a few minutes as I felt her spirit leave me. I can honestly tell you that I believe I communed with her spirit that night, and for that, I will be forever grateful.

Now that my subconscious has returned to its regular programming, it's ok with me. That one night makes up for a lifetime of meatball dreams. I got to have one more visit with my pretty girl, and that's enough for me.

economics 200.4

I first studied economics more than 30 years ago in college. I majored in psychology, but my real love was economics. Somehow that stuff about Adam Smith's theory, supply and demand curves, market forces, and monetary policy made sense to me. I was two courses shy of a double major, but the economics of tuition stopped me from completing that. But I understand that economic nirvana (at least to capitalists) is full employment as a result of free markets allocating available resources.

These days I feel like my education, like my knee joints and hearing, needs a supplement. I need a refresher course that examines the case studies below and tells me how these fit with traditional economic theory.

[Each of these case studies carries the disclaimer *I am not making this up.*]

Case study #1:
A 14"x14"x18" box arrived at my office by UPS the other day. Inside the box was a glossy envelope from our health care provider containing about 25 8 1/2"x11" pages full of "administrative guidelines" for my use when our policy renews on May 1. These materials easily, and I'm assuming, more cheaply, could have fit into an envelope and been sent through the mail. Incidentally, our policy renews with an 22% increase over last year's rates.

What can be done to hold down rising health costs while maintaining quality care for patients?

Case study #2:
Our firm maintains an ad in the Yellow Pages. The Yellow Pages is published in October. On January 5, I received a call from our account representative requesting our commitment to renew the ad for the new book. After ignoring a dozen or so of these calls I finally asked why he needed this commitment 9 months before the book was even published. (Heck, we could be out of business by then.) He explained to me that he had "thousands" of accounts and that to reach all his customers, he needed to start that far in advance. After detailing his obligations for the next month or so, he let me know I was pretty darn lucky he could even squeeze me in.

What tenet of salesmanship is illustrated here? What is the maximum number of accounts a single salesman can handle effectively? When does it make sense to employ a second salesman? Who even cares about the yellow pages anymore?

Case study #3:
We use an outside payroll service to process our payroll. We've used the same company that caters to smaller businesses for years. A competitor solicited me recently. The salesman was persistent, yet friendly, so I agreed to hear his pitch. He brought his sales manager with him, and together they gave a polished presentation complete with charts and graphs. They emphasized how their service was web-based, allowing me to customize each and every payroll, print it out at my convenience, review and submit tax filings, print W2s, etc. For all this convenience, the monthly fee would be twice what we pay now.

Note that modern salesmanship involves transferring the work onto the customer and packaging it as "convenience." The customer uses her time, paper, and toner, while all you do is maintain a website. All this 'service' at twice the cost to the customer leads to a maximization of profit.

(darn), I mean, whoopee - it's spring!

I'm not a big fan of spring. I realize this is a minority opinion, since this is the time of year pretty much everyone engages in optimistic banter about the coming of spring. I play along, but my heart's not in it.

It all starts with daylight savings time. I'm sorry, but all I can focus on is how I'm robbed of an hour's worth of sleep over the weekend, and for what? A little more daylight in the evening? Couldn't we at least roll the clock forward on Monday at, say, 9am when everyone's actually paying attention? I think we could all pretty much skip that hour without any real damage being done. Is it really necessary to take time out of the weekend? So it's a little lighter in the evening. Heck, by July 4th, we're all sitting around waiting for it to get dark so that we can get on with the fireworks.

Can't we just be patient and let the days lengthen naturally? This unnatural acceleration of time feeds right into that pervasive feeling that you're running just a bit behind, that there aren't enough hours in the day (and that's actually because one IS missing). You look at the clock and you can't believe how late it is. It really irritates me.

Spring is moody and erratic. Adapting to spring is like living with an adolescent. Take today, for example. I wake up to bright light streaming in through the tiniest little crack in the blinds. That's ok - at least it's not raining. But by the time I get dressed and ready to go, the sky's clouded over and rain looks imminent again. Will just my shirt be enough now or do I need a sweater? Well, if you stuck with just the shirt, you needed the sweater. If you went with the sweater, you needed a coat. You're wrong no matter what you choose - this is spring. Tornadoes, flooding rains, weeds, and a few daffodils here and there.

Contrast this with fall. Making the passage to fall is like visiting an old friend. The transition is smooth and easy. Fall doesn't arrive in fits and spurts. There aren't any catastrophic weather events lurking, while the changing color of the leaves gradually decorates the landscape like an impressionist painting. We wait and ponder the first frost, which, when it appears, reminds all the foliage it's time to rest. Every warm day is a delightful surprise. If you brought a coat, fine. You were prepared for the cooler weather anyway. Pumpkins, apples, hay bales - the fruits of summer's labors abound. And let's face it, we all look at fall as the real beginning of the year. Sure, January is the "official" beginning, but none of us is in the mood for it, what with all the exhaustion of the holidays. No - fall is the real beginning. Even those of us who aren't in school still feel like we're ready to settle down and get to work. And we finally get to gain that hour that's been lost.

So, spring - hurry and grow up so fall can get here.

WHILE THE CAT'S AWAY.....

Ahem. Let me just say that I'm honored Bryan asked me to do this. I promised him I'd try not to lose any readers, and that I wouldn't resort to just reminiscing over his most memorable childhood moments. I won't resort to telling you how, as a 3-year-old he gave me the most heartfelt apology I've heard in my life; or how as a 5-year-old he mesmerized neighborhood kids with his magic show (complete with cape, hat, and wand); or how cute he was in his space camp video; or how on stage in high school he rearranged the words to his solo (C'est Moi from Camelot) so that he sang about being "exceptionally clean." Nope. I'm not going to resort to that. I'm going to keep up this blog in the intellectually stimulating, socially penetrating, politically astute tradition that Bryan started nearly a year ago.

But, of course, you all want to know a little "Inside Bryan," right? Well, let's take a look at this little hiatus as an example. Bryan works like a snake eats. He'll go for a long time normally metabolizing the diet of a research assistant. But, from time to time, he'll need to just gorge himself in order to produce some really meaningful results. (and, um, there's no bathroom humor metaphor intended there).

The elements of his learning style were present from very early on. Of course, as parents, his father and I felt that this wasn't a "good" learning style. Everything we knew about learning stressed the "tortoise" style rather than the "hare" approach. Bryan's dad is a tortoise - in that he prefers a more longitudinal plan to accomplish something. And this style has served him well. Actually, the educational establishment also espouses the tortoise approach to learning. I remember sitting through an open house presentation by a middle school teacher detailing quite specifically, down to the location of the student's name and homeroom number on the paper, the homework notebook that each student was required to keep. Was any middle-schooler actually capable of this? Should they be? Certainly not Bryan, though we did our best to force him.

But, it was for naught, and ultimately for right. Bryan has a style that doesn't suit everybody, and certainly doesn't mesh with traditional educational theory. However, he's also proof positive that there is no "right" way to learn. It's tough to recognize this in children, and harder still to allow them the freedom to learn as they will. But educational theorists and practitioners sure need to try. How many children and adolescents suffer undue frustration because their learning style is at either end of the bell curve?

But, now that I've aroused my parental angst, do you suppose it's indicative of any parental malpractice that, at age 27, he's still IN school? Or that he's turned out to be both a tortoise AND a hare?

Oh I'll Take A Vacation ... A Vacation From My PROBLEMS

I saw Mike Brown, the founder of CityYear, give a talk once on leadership. He laid down several really interesting rules, but one I've always remembered is: "There is no such thing as a problem, only an opportunity for a new partnership."

Which is the dumbest thing ever. Of course there are problems! For example, the fraternity kids play their music too loud at night and it keeps me awake. That's not an opportunity for a new partnership, unless you're talking about a partnership between my foot and their collective ass. I'm sorry, Mike. You're full of shit.

A more careful statement of his advice would be: "Some problems can be solved by creative partnering." Which is quite true. In my case, my problem is that I'm about to enter one of those rough patches at work where I need to focus really hard. And that means that either my posts are going to be really lame and poorly-thought-out (I won't link them, but I feel free to search the archives for "booger" if you'd like a sample), or I have to stop entirely. I don't like either option.

The answer, obviously, is a guest blogger. I've given this one a great deal of thought, and I've narrowed the field down to one. This candidate has the credentials, the writing chops, and she'll provide a fresh alternative voice. I know that you'll love hearing from her, and I will feel good knowing that my readers are in her hands. Plus: she breastfed me when I was a baby, so I sort of owe her.

April 5, 2004. Mom Blog. Mark your calendars.

April Fool

Most April Fool's Day pranks are usually pretty silly. Banana in the tailpipe, pretend religious conversion, that sort of thing. But, yesterday, I was witness to one of the best, or maybe worst, AFD pranks ever.

As I may have mentioned, I'm the resident adviser for an MIT fraternity. One of my jobs is to be a huge buzzkill, and in the pursuit of that goal, I busted up a highly-unsupervised, highly-dangerous, drunk-skanks-playing-foosball party last week. I followed that up by reaming both the kid who threw it and the chapter officers for not taking care of the situation themselves. So I stopped someone having fun, scolded everyone in sight, and got to shout a little bit. Really, a classic RA job.

Except one of the students one-upped me.

He wrote and printed a fake letter from an attorney. In the letter, he claimed to be representing a woman who'd been at the party, gotten drunk, and injured herself. He stuck it in the president's mailbox and wrote an email to the chapter officers, saying, "There was a guy in a suit here this morning asking questions ... I think he left a letter ... " And then he sat back and watched everyone hit the panic button for a few hours before calling it all off.

Now, there's a part of this that's Not At All Funny. The chapter president, who tends to be the emotional type, kind of flew off the handle and had a bad meeting with a professor. That's unfortunate. And any time you cry wolf on a serious matter, you suppress the response to the real event. Also bad. Finally, a joke about a woman being injured at a party is maybe a few steps over the line of good taste.

But that's the thing: this was a joke with a purpose. While, thankfully, no one was injured at the unsupervised party, the officers' panicked responses were proof of how possible the scenario was. And this joke drove home the point that almost never sinks in with these kids: if someone gets injured after drinking in a fraternity, it will be the fraternity's fault. The officers, the school, and yes, the RA will all be completely screwed. And so, while it may be fun to just invite a gaggle of random women into the house, give them a bunch of beer, and then watch them play foosball (this is MIT), it's not smart. Because if the dice comes up snake eyes, it's your ass.

But, then again, I dunno, April Fool's Day is supposed to be for fake vomit and moon bases. Maybe next time the guy should just stick to the old dog-poop-in-the-asparagus joke.

Apprentice Update

Separated at birth: Bill and Hellboy?

Mudmouth

Last night, Dave and I took Matt out for some celebration at Grill 23, a ritzy scotch-and-steak kind of place. I note that they claim that they claim to be "redefining the steakhouse experience in Boston" on their website. That's fair. Let me give you two brief moments that "redefined" our "experience" in particular.

Bryan: (Puts his scotch down on the white tablecloth and looks in) Hey, there's a fly in my drink.
Matt: Lemme see. (Looks.) Maybe it's supposed to be there -- you know, worm in tequila, fly in scotch.
Bryan: Maybe. (To Dave) Know what it's doing in there?
Dave: (Confused, looks in) What?
Bryan, Matt: (Unison) The backstroke.

Also

Matt: What's this sauce on the asparagus?
Dave: I dunno, some kind of Bearnaise?
Matt: It tastes like dirt.
Bryan, Dave: No.
Matt: (takes a little on his fork and eats it) Dude, this is dirt.
Bryan: No. (takes a little on his fork and eats it) Ok, that's dirt.
Dave: No. (takes a little on his fork and eats it) Waiter!

So, if you think that the steakhouse experience involves "eating steak," then Grill 23 will be happy to redefine it to mean "eating bugs and mud." Which is fine for a lowly graduate student -- I eat mud regularly for financial and emotional reasons. But for a newly-minted HBS student? For shame, Grill 23. For shame.