Being on Time (06/28/2009)

Build your life around your strength rather than patching up your weaknesses. - Dr. Lara Honos-Webb

I am a punctual person. I am a very punctual person. It's a respect thing. If I'm late, than I'm not respecting your time. And so it has been said of me, "you can usually see Jordan hanging out around fifteen minutes before an event waiting for it to start." Yes, I like to be on time.

I get this from my mother. I promise. She is neurotic. She accepts this diagnosis without hesitation and blames it on her decades as a reporter, "if you weren't on time, you didn't get the story. And if you weren't fifteen minutes early, you probably didn't get the scoop." This past weekend we were going to see a show in San Francisco that started at 2pm and so I said, "great, let's leave Sacramento at noon and we should be there by 1:30pm." No problem! Right? That gives a half-an-hour of buffer time for traffic, and a normal human might have accepted this at face value.

Of course, half-an-hour of buffer time is not enough for her. "Nono! What if there is a horrible accident? What if there is a race at Sear's Point? What if there is a Giant's Game? Then we will be late! So let's have lunch in the city and use lunch as buffer!"

The internets tell us that there was no race and no game, but fair enough, I think. I suggested, "let's leave at 11am, we'll get there at 12:30pm which gives us an hour for lunch and a thirty minute buffer." This sounds reasonable to you, right? This sounds very reasonable to me. This does not sound reasonable to someone who is a little crazy about these things, "but what if lunch takes to long? What is there is traffic? What if we can't find parking? What if we can't find the theater! We should leave at 9:30am!"

"Oh mother, let me just make sure you are clear on what you have asked for. You asked to add in lunch as use as buffer, but then you decided you needed to buffer the buffer. You understand that, right? So we should leave at 10:30am." "Nono! I will not be comfortable leaving later than 9:30am!" "Okay, how about this, we will leave at 10am and you can put a picnic basket in the trunk in case we need to skip lunch." "Deal."

So what happened? 10:00am we left the door. 11:30am we arrived in SF. 11:40am we started lunch. 12:30pm we were done with lunch. Giving us, 90 minutes of buffer time with nothing to do.

Picnics and Adoptions (06/14/2009)

Too many children in foster care are falling through cracks. Be a hero, take the time learn about adoption today. - Bruce Willis

On Saturday I went to an event about international adoption: a bay area Holt Picnic. I went there with my girl, who is an international adoptee, so that she could talk with people and so that I could learn a little bit about how her experience varies from others. She has a fascinating story, but of course, this site is not about other people's stories; it's about mine.

We went, partially for her to be there as an adult adoptee, but also for me to be there as someone interested in learning about what that means in the world. The event was mostly filled with Caucasian parents who had adopted asian children (though there was one Indian couple with a Korean adoptee that caught my eye) who were there as a support and education system and to meet other families. I found the parents inspiring at the event, they are trying desperately to learn from the well-adjusted adult adoptees about what they need to do to be the best parents they can be. Adoptive parents are a step up on the general parent population, obviously, none of them are accidental parents. Since these were bay-area parents, they are also at an advantage; not one looks twice at a single Caucasian parent with an asian child, and few people would even notice two Caucasian parents with an asian child. This place I live is a wonderful and diverse culture and few people pause at an interracial family. The stories of these parents and children will be very different than those in small-town midwest cities.

There was a panel where parents of toddler adoptees were asking questions of adult adoptees. The parents are struggling to understand what are the tough things they will have to face, and what they can do to be better parents. It's very uplifting, in general. And obviously, the adult adoptees that are involved in these types of panels and services are the ones who turned out okay, and so the panel is skewed, but it's still inspiring to hear talk about how their lives went well, even if they have adopted siblings who are now estranged.

My opinions of the challenges of childhood to adulthood got formed during my years working in housing at my university. I know I was a more open and inviting resident assistant then most. My senior year, in my complex of eight RAs, it was very common for residences from the other floors to come to me to talk about life and challenges and ask me not to bring it up with their own RA. Every child will have to deal with one-hundred and fifty things on there way to adult hood; the challenge is not to try and combat all of those things, because only five-or-so will actually really be a problem for them. The problem as a parent is to be ever-vigil and recognize those five things. These parents of adoptees know what a couple of these kids know what two of the one-hundred and fifty things are, but really don't know if those two things will be among the ones that are actually a real challenge for them.

Of course, every family has its challenges and they all seem to catch you by surprise. if you had told me a few decades ago that the uncle and the cousin that was among the closest to me would now be estranged, I would have scoffed at this. If you would have told me I would have an adopted sister who is estranged from her biological mother, I would have scoffed at this. Still, this is how life rolls: always an adventure in the unexpected.

In the last few years, I've come to a sense that it's fairly likely I will adopt at least one child. My family are large supporters of the zero-population-growth initiative. Though I am one of five siblings (or seven, depending on the math), when you actually do the math with steps and halves and adoptees, all the parents are running pretty well on sustainability. I'll admit, it's exciting to be with someone who has similar views on things.

Saving the Last Dance (06/10/2009)

Okay okay, this will probably be my last dancing update until I master the art of swing. But just a little while ago I was able to convince a modest size groups of my friends to head out swing dancing on a lovely Friday night in midtown. I managed to dance with most of the ladies (except the one that escaped me and the one who dismissed me (tear)), but above all else, the most important part of having friends there was the chance to give them my camera and say, "hey, could you take a few photos of me dancing with my lady?" DONE!

Subtle Secret Moment (06/03/2009)

There's a subtle perfect instant when the lights are fading down

I know the places I could be, the best is in this little town.

I can see the way you sway and know there's something to be done.

I'll reach out, just that hint, but it's enough to make you run.

And then together, you and me, in a wily twist and turn.

In our secret moment your secret smile is how I learn,

that swiftly with a flourish, watch you swivel watch you rush.

A simple tug to spin you close... hush...

Running the Whole Way (05/22/2009)

Though man loves his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence. - Moby Dick

Every since I moved to the bay area, every third weekend of May is an annual time I think to myself, "man, I should really run the Bay to Breakers this year." I made a valiant attempt at it back in '04, but got tired half way through, stopped for a bit to eat and never ended up finishing.

Sure, part of me feels like I shouldn't have to pay a bunch of money to walk a seven mile stretch of road in San Francisco that I could walk for free any other day of the year. But walk it this year I did! I tried to rally my friends, but most had my old opinion... "yeah, I really want to do that, but..." as the day grew near I figured I would be walking it alone, and I was set.

Then, my great east bay friends said, "oh we will go with you, but only if our four and two year old children can come too!" and what could be better than walking seven miles with drunk and naked people that if you also had young corruptible children with you?

As always, I was reminded the great wonder of mankind. My wallet fell out of my pocket on the Bart ride over, but as I stepped off Bart they called out to me, "did you you leave your wallet!?!" and I got it back averting much sadness. As we ran, and by ran I mean walked and drank mojitos, many naked people passed us. There was also quite a lot of swearing, but whenever they would notice the children they would apologize "sorry about swearing!" Ha. Keyboard cat, play the runners off!

Sippy Sippy (05/20/2009)

It's always good to wake up on the top side of the grass. - Gil Gerard

Time has been rip roaring and flying by. I am having lots of fun at the office. I'm having even more fun outside the office. So I am looking forward, more than ever, to being home in the evenings and being on vacation on the weekends. I have been using every weekend to its fullest.

I few weekends ago I went out wine tasting for my cousin's birthday in the El Dorado hills. I have not been out to that area of California and had a nice doing sip sip sip. When we paused for lunch we got pizza and there was a an air hockey table there where I proceeded to school people. Because I love to school people at air hockey.

Now overall the wine tasting was all well and fine, but then at one final spot we went into the back for barrel tasting. I have never had the opportunity to do this before, but all the barrels were sitting around and the barrel master would pull wine by vacuum from various barrels and fill out glass. He would show us what they tasted like aged slightly differently and he would mix various varieties to teach us a bit about blending. Now in the barrel room there was no spittoon in the back and as the drunken barrel master kept giving up more and more delicious options we kept having more and more problems. Until eventually, I was drinking double.

Slipped Away (05/16/2009)

Whatever is locked can always be unlocked. - The 4th Doctor

I cannot tell you the last lazy Saturday that I have had. It has been months.

After the morning routine of coffee and crumpets, blood draw, hair cut and shopping I returned to sit outside on the porch and let the afternoon just slip through my fingers with a good book. I am currently working on "Blink" which I bought in Japan after accidentally finishing the Watchman graphic novel ahead of schedule. If I were the type of person to not finish a book, I would not finish this one. It is a five page long concept, filled out with hundreds of page of interesting examples which don't do anything to prove the foundation comment. I am also working on "Atlas Shrugged" which I don't feel I can comment on yet. The only other Ayn Rand book I have read is "Anthem" which I found once upon a time on my bookshelf at my father's house.

While turning through pages of books and fiddling with music I got an e-mail from a friend who sent saxophone sheet music for "Tank!" and "Rush" and so ended any intent to do anything else today. The day slowly drained away through music and my jaw ached more and more as I tried my best to play notes too high for me and switch keys too fast for me. It was a good day.

Swung Swung (04/18/2009)

I grew up with six brothers. That's how I learned to dance - waiting for the bathroom. - Bob Hope

The swing dancing came and went. And of course, I remember it as a lot of fun. The pain fades faster than the glory, so they say.

It was more of a cake walk than I expected it to be and that was good. Midtown Stomp runs it right. Showing up early for the beginners lesson put me in a big rotating circle with a bunch of men and a bunch more women; it was easily two-to-one women to men. Which I suppose makes sense, as it seems unlikely a group of dudes would think, "let's go swing dancing this weekend!" but I can totally see how a gaggle of gals would think that. So as the circle rotated I said hi to each new partner, exchange a few words, and did a little learning of one move or another.

Then the lesson ended, the band came on stage, and the nervousness set in. While normally I am the terror on the dance floor, this time I was hit with terror of the dance floor. Strange, I know. Now, dancing with my lovely hostess wasn't an issue; I loved every moment of that. She was a kick, taught me the Charleston step and showed off her moves. (Now don't tell her this, but it's hard not to be smitten by a good dancer)

But of course, from time to time she had other things to do or wanted to dance with someone who could do more than the basic step and few spins and so I would be abandon to fend for myself. I had to peek around the edge of the floor and look for ladies posting there, waiting for a guy to walk up and ask them to dance, and that is the nerve racking part. I suspect (probably) that it wouldn't be an issue for me if I were not a beginner. But the challenge is that I was dooming some poor lady to three minutes of dancing with a tenderfoot and that was a dreadful thought.

So I did grab a dance with one of the women I had met in the beginner class who was worse than me (I know, a bit cruel), but I couldn't get myself to grab a second dance from her. Trying to learn to dance with a beginner who has no rhythm was crushing. I also grabbed a dance with one the ladies who is paid to stand at the sideline looking longingly, but she corrected my errors every three-to-five seconds and that was just no fun either.

Anyway, it all went well and good, and as I improve it will only get more fun. Sorry to say there were no pictures this time. Hope to see you on the dance floor, but please don't laugh at me too much.

Through the Veil (04/15/2009)

The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules. - Gary Gygax

In the past week Dave Arneson passed through the veil. He wasn't as well known as Gary, but this was the guy who thought, "wouldn't it be fun if we could pretend to be another person and do actions in a fantasy world that was bounded by some set of rules?" Indeed, this man had an amazing influence on my life and the lives of many of my friends.

Over half of my social life in high school and a decent amount of in college was spent with a group of good friends and a set of polyhedral dice. I remember being invited to "hang out" with other friends in college and wondering what they were spending that time together doing. With a clear and wholesome game to play, my weekends in high school and college were spent without drugs; they were spent without alcohol; umm, they were mostly spent without girls. That's just how things worked, but it kept my soul clean and pure.

While those days of gaming are behind me, I have fond memories of them. I look forward to the day when I pry my children away from their total immersion video game systems, unplugged all the wires, sharpen a pencil and throw down some clickety clack dice.

Insomnia (03/29/2009)

Even the houses of my own dear readers must—though it be for just one day, one hour—be ruined and become houses where the stones are mortared with moonlight, windowed with starlight and furnished with the dusty wind. - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

I show up at the front door and the house is completely dark. "Funny," I think to myself. I ring the doorbell expecting the lights to turn on. Nothing happens inside. I ring the doorbell again. Once more, nothing happens. I twiddle my thumbs for a moment, but then pull out my phone and call the house. I can hear the phone ring inside the house, but after a few rings that machine picks it up. I don't bother leaving a message, instead I pull up a chair on the porch and wait. Ten minutes go by and the sun sets as my bones start to get cold. I'm confused.

Getting bored I stand up and start walking around the house and peeking in the windows. It looks dark inside. It looks like no one is home. I return to the front door and on a whim I knock and the door swings open. At this point, any sensible person would be a little nervous, and sure I'm a little nervous, but I also have some strange and false sense of bravado about me. So I casually stroll in, "hello? Is anyone home?" I am answered by silence.

I flip the light switch and it barely turns on, like half the lights are burnt out and the rest have been replaced by ten-watt bulbs. It's dim and creepy, but I keep proceeding forward. "Hello?" I call out again. Then I see a flash of movement in the corner of my eye and spin to look. There is nothing there, but something brushes against my leg and I flip out and jump to the side. There is a cat, curling around me. "Hello there. Where is everyone?" She looks up at me. "Meow?" she asks. I assume she is wondering the same thing. I pick her up and she purrs and cuddles in my arms. It's strange. The cat doesn't usually like to be picked up, but she is clawing into me.

I hear from the stairs, "you found kitty..." in a quiet and passive voice. The daughter starts to come down the stairs. She's five or six by this point, small for her age, and wearing a Sunday dress.

"Are you cold?" I ask her. She shakes her head as she glides down the stairs. She reaches out and I move to pass her the cat, but the cat hisses and claws deeper into me and I can't get her down. "I'll hold on to her a little longer. Where are your parents?"

"My parents had to leave." She says it plainly and matter-of-factly, "give me kitty." I'm hesitant to hand over the cat for obvious reasons: clearly, the cat is not ready to be passed along. Then, though I made no motion, the cat is in her arms. The cat hisses, she giggles and faster than I can move she vanishes into the next room. I follow after.

She's in the middle of the room playing with her dolls. "Where is the cat?" I ask her. She doesn't respond, but I can hear her voice in my mind "kitty had to leave." She's playing with three dolls like they are a family with the two parents and one little girl. She waves her hand over the top of them, and through some slight of hand I cannot quite see, the parents are gone. "What happened?"

"My parents are gone. They had to leave." I'm down. I head for the front door as quickly as I can without running. Of course, it's locked. I didn't lock it, but it's locked of course. I struggle a bit with the lock and with the dead bolt. "Where are you going? My parents had to leave. Someone has to play with me." The bolt gives and I'm the street.

There's no quiet silence as I'm fleeing the house; it's a shrill ear piercing scream and I look back over my shoulder to see her standing in the doorway with anger emanating from her, "don't leave me! Someone has to play with me!"

Not looking forward I smack into a neighbor and we tumbled. "Are you okay?" the neighbor asks me.

"I'm scared to death. The little girl is creeping me out." He explodes into a dust cloud, swirls around me and past me, vortexes around the little girl and then fades into nothing.

That's the point I wake up. It would be nice if the story ended there, in that moment of fading terror, but I was hit by sleep paralysis. So there I was, terrified in bed and unable to move myself truly awake and staring at the clock projection on my ceiling, "4:17."

Swing Swing (03/27/2009)

Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful. - Don't Let's Start (TMBG)

So if I've played my cards right, you probably haven't noticed my avoidant personality disorder or social anxiety disorder. I mean, I'm not clinical with either of these, but I have enough symptoms that I wouldn't dismiss them out of hand. The internal monologue when struggling to get myself into an uncomfortable social situation is weird and frustrating because I've been through it time after time; it's easy to rationalize away the fear and hard to internalize that rationalization, slow my heartbeat and not forget to breathe.

I still take opportunities to push myself on these things under the hope that the more I push myself the more I get desensitized. For example, I no longer have any problem hailing a taxi or ordering a drink from a bartender. These activities once required me to go through a routine of steady breathing and mental preparation, but are now no harder than saying hi to a good friend. On a particular comfortable night, I might even buy you a drink.

While recently in Japan, the greatest anxiety was caused from going to lunch, which I had to do by myself every day. Everyone will tell you, "every restaurant has displays out front and so it's easy to order." The problem here is that just because you identify the food out front does not mean they have an English menu, so unless you are willing to stand up and walk back out front with the server so you can point at the item, this can be a problem. I also discovered the ability of taking a snap with my iPhone and just showing the photo to the waiter. Still, either of these activities makes me feel like an idiot and feeling like an idiot is the bane of social anxiety. Sure, I could have asked my brother to identify restaurants with English menus or I could have survived off packaged boxes from the convenience store, but it's all about pushing myself. I didn't starve.

On an upcoming Friday I have been asked to go swing dancing with someone and I can think of fewer greater opportunities to feel like an idiot. I took six weeks of swing dancing in high school, but the last time I went swing dancing was in college and I felt silly. My personal favorite moment was when some sketchy dude twice our age came and started watching me and my date, commenting for improvement and than asked if he could cut in to demonstrate. I realize that he might have been a genuinely sweet person trying to offer friendly advice, but I punched him out, as was the thing to do at the time. It was very awkward.

Anyway, I'm going dancing of course, because she asked me to. And of course, I'll be terrified by it. And of course, I'll get over it. And of course, I'll remember it as a lot of fun. The pain fades faster than the glory, so they say.

City Streets with Melville (03/16/2009)

七転び八起き - Old Proverb

This was my second trip to Japan. I went to Japan once before half a decade ago and had a wonderful touristy trip through Tokyo and Kyoto (with a brief zip through Nara). This time around was a long and peaceful week in Kanazawa with a brief weekend down in Osaka.

The very first thing I did when arriving town was okonomiyaki and nomihodai. Now I've got to be honest with you, nomihodai is the best and worse thing that happened that week. The idea is simple: pay a small fee (maybe ¥1,200 ($12)) and you get all-you-can drink beer for an hour. Usually, if you drink three beers, you come out ahead. But if you're aiming for cost-effectiveness and you're competitive you may end up having six to ten. Like we did. Constantly.

I showed up in Japan without any Japanese money. This method worked just fine for me in Taiwan so why not a repeat? Kanazawa was not a big enough town to have an international bank, so the first weekend I went to the ATM machines at the train stop to discover that none of them would take my ATM card. None of them! Only one even bothered to ask for my PIN, but it wouldn't allow me to enter my entire PIN and would kick out the card with an authorization failure. Yes, I am a paranoid person with a more-than-4-digit PIN.

The first weekend we headed down to a larger town of Osaka and executed Operation Citibank which involved pulling out my daily maximum from Citibank two days in a row and hoping it would be enough to last me the rest of the week. We saw the castle and headed to the very top of the Umeda Sky Tower. In theory Umeda was impressive, but having just been in Taipei 101 the week before, it seemed a little underwhelming.

Back in Kanazawa, the week was meant to be a relaxing peaceful one and the weekdays, while my brother was off teaching his classes, were just that. The weekdays were filled with long walks around the city, wandering the streets and just thinking through life and times. I had my GPS and I had my iPhone with data working in Japan, and I was amazed at how enabling those two devices were in letting me just go crazy. I could just set out in any random direction and walk for a few hours and then finally think, "I need to get home," spin up the GPS and start walking back. On my random walks I saw many trees covered with ropes to fight back the snow, powerful Disney kamis guarding temples, and foosball table big enough to play with a full size soccer ball.

The last weekend in the city I didn't sleep. We went out for a Saint Patrick's day pre-party that involved a lot of Guinness.

A Week in Taiwan (03/05/2009)

If you asked me to sum up the sensual experience of India, I would say it is the sounds. You are never left to quiet, the country always wants to speak to you. Here in Taipei, the city has to be summed up by its smells. Your olfactory never rests and never needs to. Like so many cities out there in the world (and so different from my California life) these cities were put together before cars ruled the world and so the city is designed for the walker.

I was car-free my entire trip, and aside from one excursion, never even bothered getting into one. It was all about walking to the metro, walking to the bus stop and just plain walking. As we walked from point to point the streets were filled with hole-in-the wall food stops. Every two or three places we passed seemed to be just a little noodle house, or bun stand or some such deliciousness. But there is no food at home, because there is no refrigerator at home, because there doesn't need to be, because there is food everywhere. You can smell it as you walk down the street and the beef bowl, or the buns or the stinky tofu tempt your senses. Is it any different then the hotdog and pretzel and such vendors on the streets of New York? Maybe yes. Maybe no. One of my favorites was a bun a described as an "Egg McMuffin" to the horror of my hosts.

The week was a whirlwind from start to finish, but in a good way. There were down times, quick silent moments for reading and naps, but mostly it was out and about seeing things I may never get a chance to see again. When I get a quiet moment I'll put together the full itinerary for posterity sake, but for now a few highlights.

On the first full day we took some moments to wander through Da'an park and see the skate rinks, and trees and squirrels. We had lunch plans nearby, but with a little time before we needed to be there I decided to give the Geocache app on my phone a whirl and sure enough there was a cache right there in the park! A few minutes later we had uncovered the cache and pulled it out full of goodies. I flipped through the log book to see notes in Chinese, English, French, Japanese and more. I signed the book and hit it back.

On the second day we spent the morning at the National Palace Museum. We walked A LOT. I think we made about seven hundred full rounds of the museum totalying around six thousand miles. My feet hurt! This was just the beginning of things. Full of artifacts, the ones that make me smile the most are the one from over four thousand years ago. What I find fascinating is that on these very ancient objects there is writing; there is writing that the average reader can still somewhat read today. Show me a book of English from thousands of years ago and ask me to read it. HA! I could do no such thing.

The third day had trip up to Yeliu geopark, which is just a nice park with bizarre rock formations that are caused by the ocean eroding things in crazy ways. Generally eroding away the lower section, but leaving a mushroom head on the top. The most famous rock formations there are the tofu and the Queen's Head. You are no allowed to touch the Queen's Head, but through the magic of forced perspective I have stolen a kiss. Did I mention there was walking?

The fourth day, oh the fourth day! Lots of stuff happened, but let's just post one for the end of the night at the Luxy Nightclub. I did enjoy that the bar was full of men drinking Smirnoff Ice, to which I have been told is a clear sign it was a gay bar. I think not, but who knows? Dancing in the techno room we were getting ready to head out when a techno remix of Sweet Dreams came on, and I was reminded many high school nights at the Amazon. Pictures of me dancing with my lovely hosts.

So there I was on my final day in Taiwan. We were trying not to waste it way, trying to figure out what to do. The whole week my host had been trying to convince me to go to see the matchmaker god at the city temple who boasted a very high success rate. Honestly it didn't interest me. I'm not a big fan of either: (a) participating in silly rituals that are meaningless or (b) participating in religious rituals that some people feel strongly about, but I don't believe in. I figured the matchmaker god was going to be one of those two. So we went to the city temple so I could see the gods and smile at them, but I did not burn incense or offer up any god money to them.

At the end we went and sat near the river and just gabbed about life and the times. I'm trying to think through some tough things in life these days and it was nice to have a good friend listen and give advice. As pointed out by the my fortune on the first day, "you worry too much about doing the things you know are the right things to do. Stop worrying and be happy and zen knowing you are making the right choice."

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