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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
They say as you get older, you pay less attention to milestones. Like birthdays or number of Twitter followers or anniversaries.
(Anniversaries, riiiiiight. Tell that to a married guy whose wife is all dressed up and meaningfully clearing her throat, waiting to be escorted to the annual dinner at Bistro L’Fancypants.
Not my wife, of course. Our anniversary is in June. I pay attention. Oh, attention I pay.)
Historically, I’ve paid attention to an awful lot of milestones. Not because I’m particularly sentimental, or numerologically inclined. I think I just have a mild case of OCD or something. And when you’re a teensy obsessive, everything’s a milestone. You can find one practically every day, if you think hard enough.
(Case in point: I proposed to my wife on our fifty-month dating anniversary.
Nobody knows when the hell their fifty-month dating anniversary is; it’s absurd. But it’s a milestone, and by god, I milked that thing for all it was worth. Namely, two hundred and five months of marriage. And counting.
This seems like it’s becoming a post about me being married, and various numbers associated with that fact that would bore the bejeesus out of anyone not, in fact, married to me.
But it’s not, I swear. Redirecting focus in 3… 2… 1…)
I was reminded of this “milestone” business recently when I visited Chris over at Rude Cactus, who’s gearing up (with what appears to be a ten-part series) for his tenth blogging anniversary. Ten years. That’s a lot. And a nice round, aesthetically pleasing number. Many congrats to Chris and the Cactus crew.
(Which, so far as I know, is just Chris. But when something’s gone on for a full decade, you like to think there’s some sort of “crew” behind it, who can take pride in their long-lasting accomplishments.
Unless it’s that Big Brother series. Then you just assume its the work of Satan or Hitler or something.)
Anyway, it got me thinking about milestones, and I realized I haven’t written about any here for a while. Oh, there was one ‘State of the Blog’ post back in April, but mostly I was noting milestones upcoming. Nothing had actually happened yet. They were “on the horizon”, to quote my selfie from another monthie.
“Also, that OCD problem I had seems to have cured itself.”
I did recall — at some point in the hazy distant past — commemorating ‘bloggiversaries’ for my own site, though I’ve fallen sorely out of habit. The last one I could find, in fact, was my three-year anniversary congratulatory self-backslap (complete with decorative coffee mug hawking; I really wish I was making this up).
It’s funny to look back, all this time later, at that three-year star on the calendar. A lot of things have changed since then; so much time has passed. Exactly how much time? Well, I wondered that, too — so I looked it up. Since that three-year anniversary post, it’s been… seven years. Plus a month. And two days. So, um, apparently, my site’s ten years old. Plus a little.
Also, that OCD problem I had seems to have cured itself. Because I sure as hell didn’t notice.
Of course, I haven’t written solidly for the entire ten years. There was a lot of activity in the first couple of years. Like, a lot. Sane people might say too much. I dropped a thousand words or more in most posts, and I rarely missed a day.
(Also, I posted twice a day a lot, to make up for it somehow. Make it up to whom, I have no idea. Ask the OCD.)
I took a few months off in 2007, and then a lot more months off between the summer of 2009 (just before the six-year anniversary) and early 2011. But in fairness — who hasn’t taken a hiatus in this business for one reason or another? Tina Rowley was sick all winter. For a while there, we all wondered whether Allie had glitched and gone off to literally CLEAN ALL THE THINGS!!! Julia wandered off for sixteen months, then came back, and then wandered off again. Temporarily.
(Yes, it’s been six years. But she’ll be back. I SAID, SHE’LL BE BACK, DAMN YOU!)
And don’t even get me started on Monkey. Oh, Monkey. Sigh.
I’ve pretty well forgotten where this is going. Which seems appropriate, given where it started — namely, that I forgot my site turned ten last month. If it were a child, it would hate me forever and probably call me by my first name and tell people I was an uncle.
(Yet another reason why I don’t have children. Even pets are better than that. When I forgot my dog’s tenth birthday, she just waited until I went to bed and then peed all over the couch. So much simpler. And I never forgot her birthday again.
She still peed on the couch, of course. She just stopped doing it with intent.)
Anyway, we’re ten years — and a little — into this thing. Maybe by the time we hit twenty, I’ll have the damned thing figured out. And I’ll remember the anniversary.
I might have to hire a “crew” to remind me. But I’ll remember.
Probably.
Permalink | No CommentsI’m generally not a fan of prejudice. I believe it’s a misguided and insidious human notion that we should work to recognize and eradicate in ourselves, each and every day. Much like the wave in sports stadiums or the idea that Denise Richards can act.
(Look, the pinnacle of her thespian career was when George Costanza stared down her blouse in 1993. I’m just saying.)
I’m specifically and solidly against the sorts of prejudice that you see in corporate disclaimer blurbs — racism, genderism, skin colorism, ageism, sexual preferenceism, creedism, national originism. There are probably others by now. The lawyers would have seen to that.
Still. There is one place where a little pre-judging is perhaps justified. Or maybe it’s “real-time” judging. Programming geeks might call it “just-in-time judging”.
“I stand beside my fellow computer nerds every day, pocket protector to pocket protector.”
(And no, that’s not a form of geekism. I stand beside my fellow computer nerds every day, pocket protector to pocket protector.
Mostly proverbially. On especially frightening days, less so.)
So where is this place in which I’m advocating bias, and on what grounds? I’m talking about the internet, and the judging I’m doing is all about intelligence.
Here’s the thing. When you meet someone in person, you have a wealth of information to clue you in about how “together” this individual’s shit is likely to be. Visual cues, in their mannerisms and dress and interactions with others. Audible hints, in the tone and subtlety and message of what they’re saying.
(Also, in the accent. I’ll admit to having a fairly strong bias against accents typically associated with the southeastern U.S. I recognize this, and fight it every single time the first words out of someone’s mouth make me picture them as a cross between Foghorn Leghorn and one of those people from Deliverance. Not the ones in the rafts. You know the ones I mean.
And okay, I don’t fight it every time. But most. At least sixty percent. I’m trying, over here, is all. I promise.)
But on the internet, these hints are mostly absent. All that you know about most internet people — the ones not using ChatRoulette, anyway; good lord, let’s not talk about the ChatRoulette people — is two things: what they’ve typed, and how they’ve typed it. Seeing as how the point of typing something in a public space is, presumably, to get a coherent message across, I think it’s fair to judge (or pre-judge, or JIT-judge, if you like) the “how” to determine something about the credibility of the “what”.
Or put more simply: I’m likely to ignore someone who seems like an idiot on the internet, irrespective of whether they’re actually an idiot, virtually or in real life.
This is not a new concept. Many people have said the same. I, however, have some particular rules I follow. And here they are:
First and foremost: Everyone gets a fair shake.
I visit some spots on the interwebs where the discourse is deep and insightful… and I lurk in other corners where barbs and poo and AOL-speak (in increasing order of disgustingness, naturally) are flung with alarming regularity. The way I figure it, if I’m reading there, I can’t really ding anyone else just for writing there, without further evidence of a botched lobotomy in an individual poster’s past. Fair’s fair.
So, everyone starts equally, which suggests also “averagely”.
Thus, The pre-assumed IQ of a post’s author is roughly 100.
That’s how the IQ tests work, or so I’m told. “Post” here means anything on the web — articles, comments, petitions, this piece, whatever.
(Yeah, right. Like anyone would assume my IQ is three digits.
No, you shut up.)
There are rules, naturally, for moving up the scale. These have to do with eloquence and salience and respect for the reader and logical argument and all sorts of other boring shit that nobody wants to hear about. So forget the assumed scores that go up. Instead, I’ll lay out the other half of the equation. Namely:
Charlie’s Rules for Who Is Probably a Slackjawed Boobjob on the Internet
These all work in the same way. To wit:
| What I Read | IQ Adjustment I Assume |
| ‘Ur’ used instead of ‘your’ | -2 points |
| ‘There’ used in place of ‘their’ | -1 points |
| An ellipsis longer than three dots | -1 point |
| An ellipsis longer than five dots | -4 points |
| An ellipsis longer than eight dots | -100 points; died on keyboard |
| First misspelling per 100 words | -0 points; everybody gets one |
| Second misspelling per 100 words | -1 point |
| Third misspelling per 100 words | -3 points |
| Defending misspellings as “not using spell check” | -5 points |
| Misspelling words in the misspelling defense | -10 points and irony lessons |
| ‘Lol’ at someone else’s post | -3 points |
| Each additional ‘ol’ on ‘lol’ | -2 points |
| Refusal to use capital letters | -5 points, unless e.e. cummings |
| A reply starting with ‘um’ | -5 points |
| Each additional ‘m’ on ‘um’ | -2 points |
| More than two ‘!’s or ‘?’s in a row | -2 points |
| More than four ‘!’s or ‘?’s in a row | -10 points; possibly Gilbert Gottfried |
| Sentence starting with “everybody knows…” | -5 points |
| “Clever” respelling of someone’s name | -20 points; slow head shake |
| Evidence of usual prejudices above | -50 points; a tear for humanity |
Is it a perfect system? Not really. For one thing, it allows — in some contexts, you might say encourages — negative IQ values. But it’s a system. And I sleep a little better knowing that when someone I’m reading dips below an assumed, say, 50 IQ or so, it’s time to disengage.
See, that was Costanza’s problem: he didn’t know when to disengage. It’s all circles within circles here. Circles within circles within Denise Richards’ circles, apparently.
Permalink | No CommentsI have one overarching goal in life: to make it easier. Life is inherently difficult, what with the constant metabolizing and the breathing and dealing with hat hair and such. It’s just one thing after another.
And so, I take steps to ease my way. To lighten my load. To smooth the potholed path ahead.
Naturally, these steps end up making my life infinitely more difficult and complicated. Because of course they do. No one is surprised by this. Least of all, my hat hair.
Take office meetings, for instance. Office meetings are hard. Obviously. You have to listen, and sometimes you talk, and there are slides and computers and laser pointers to deal with. It’s exhausting. But more than that, there’s the other fundamental, equally difficult question:
“I don’t sit near the head of the table. Obviously.”
Where do you sit?
In my company, the main meeting room is right across the hall from me. There’s a long table at one end, and an empty space — maybe eight by twelve feet — at the other. The slides and computer keyboard and focused light-based pointing devices are up by the head of the table. That’s also where the important people sit. The C-E-something-or-others. People who put together the agendas. People who know how the laser pointers work.
I don’t sit near the head of the table. Obviously.
That leaves maybe a dozen seats further back — but these seats pose their own problem. We’re a growing company. In most meetings of any importance, there are plenty more than twelve non-executive asses for those twelve seats. This gives most people one of two choices:
Either get to the meeting early, and claim one of those comfy desk chairs, or show up on time (or late) and sit in the back.
Now, there are chairs in the back. We don’t make people sit on the hard cold floor. I mean, we’re not Neanderthals. We have laser pointers, for crissakes. But the chairs in the back are not the comfy desk chairs. Nuh-uh. The desk chairs are luxurious — tall-backed, cushioned, adjustable. They go up and down and spin around and even recline, if you want them to. Not lasciviously, mind you. We’re running a business here.
The chairs in the back are not like that. They’re functional, and they’re not uncomfortable. But they’re a quarter-step up from folding chairs, with thin wiry arms and no levers or adjustable knobs to play with. They sit in a stack in the hallway, just waiting for poor meeting-tardy bastards to show up and drag one in to sit on for an hour.
So I had a dilemma. I couldn’t sit up front. I could sit at the table, but only if I get to meetings early — and what are the chances, seriously? And even if I managed to score a table seat, there’d always be someone more important — a director, a manager, one of the janitors, maybe — who’d come in after me and I’d feel like I should be in the back. In a dark corner. In a ghetto chair.
But I don’t want to sit in a ghetto chair. They kind of suck, when there are nice chairs all over the room, mocking me. So I found another path — a way to make my life, ostensibly, easier:
I sit right across the hall. So when I have a meeting, I drag my own damned desk chair into the room. And I put it in the back, in a dark corner, behind the C-E-whatevers and the group leaders and the group members and the assistants and the assistants to the assistants and to the guy who comes in every three months to make sure the fire extinguishers are still working.
I know my place. But I still like to have a comfy tush.
That’s all well and good, of course. A labyrinth of perils, deftly navigated. So now my life is easier, right?
Does the pope shit in the woods?
Of course my life isn’t easier. Because that’s unpossible.
Now I have different problems. First, I have to time my arrival just so, to avoid a room of odd glances. If I show up too early — with my own chair — then I look like a doof.
(Sure, I am a doof. But it’s best to hide it, at least in corporate settings.)
If I show up too late, I look marginally smarter — but then there are people littering the back of their room with the PlaySkool chairs. I’ve got my plush superior throne, but nowhere to put it. That’s no good; the king is not amused.
Getting in is nothing, though. It’s getting out that’s complicated. Everyone else just gets up when the meeting is over and herds toward the door. I can’t do that; I’ve got a piece of freaking furniture to lug out. Insofar as you can “lug” something that rolls on wheels, at least.
Furthermore, I’m camped out in the back of the room, usually right by one of the doors. The other door is up front, where the handful of execs pile out. That leaves two dozen working stiffs to stampede for the lone remaining exit. Plus me. And my chair.
Needless to say, I’m the last one to leave. I tried rushing out once — I had another meeting, in a different room — and nearly scooped one of the managers into the seat and gave her a ride down the hall. That’s probably not the best way for me to get ahead. As I recall, she wasn’t even in the next meeting.
So, life is just as hard. But my chair is soft. I guess that’s some kind of improvement, anyway. Short of actually getting out of meetings altogether, it’s probably as good as I’m gonna get.
Permalink | No CommentsI don’t set a lot of rules for myself. Not because I don’t need them, necessarily. The jury — on which my wife, my boss, every teacher I ever had and occasionally the neighbors’ kids take turns serving as forepersons, apparently — is still out on precisely how much “structure” in life would benefit me most.
The thing is, I’m probably not actually going to follow a bunch of rules. Or even remember them, at least until the lights are already flashing in my rearview or the sink has been fully dissassembled. So why have them in the first place?
However. One rule I do have — and mostly follow — is this:
“Never look in the mirror before noon.”
This is not a rule for everyone. This is just a rule for me. Because I’m not pretty in the morning, and nobody should have to deal with that before lunch.
(For the record, I’m not especially pretty in the afternoon, either. I’m just easier to deal with after a nice sandwich and maybe some caffeine.)
Luckily, I can bathe, dress and prepare myself for the day without particular reflection on my reflection. I know where all the parts are in the shower. My clothes — unlike some of the weirdo workout garb my wife wears, with breathable linings and strappy doodads and whatnot — are fairly self explanatory. And I only rarely get toothpaste in my ear or nose or down my underpants when I’m not watching what my self is doing.
So most mornings, I don’t look in the mirror. Because no good can come of that.
This morning, I looked in the mirror. Because I’m a doof.
And when I looked, I saw something. Something odd.
No, odder than usual. Smartass.
I saw that when I opened my mouth a little bit — as one slackenly does first thing in the morning, as one stares zombie-like into the mirror — my lips on the left side stayed together, just at the corner. Not on the right; just the left. And just a little bit. Nothing anyone else would even notice, unless of course they closely studied me staring zombie-like and slack-mouthed over a long period of time for reference.
(Which means they’d either have to put a camera behind the bathroom mirror I usually avoid looking at — which nobody wants — or they’d have to be there every time one of those sexy Fiat commercials comes on TV.
Probably no one wants that, either. So sayeth the jury.)
“Oh, your philosophy might change or you might take up activism or painting or Rastaveganhempanism.”
The problem with this lip thing is not what it is. What it is is nothing, a trifle. Probably a result of sleeping cheek-deep on a pillow all night, or slight dehydration from the unrelenting hellish heat all weekend.
(As an aside — seriously, will it ever be cool again? Boston is not a ninety-degree city. I know the Texans and the Brazilians and the sweaty naked hippies at Burning Man are laughing at us: “Oh, ninety degrees! Water’s still a liquid, asshole. Walk it off.”
But it’s a relative thing. You can gird your loins for subzero temps and fourteen feet of snow, or for sunshine that’ll bubble your roof and — evidently — melt your freaking lips together. But not both. I object! This whole latitude is out of order!)
The problem is, it’s a change. A physical, bodily change. A thing that wasn’t there before on my person, and now it is, and that is not a good thing. Not by any stretch.
Oh, sure, it was fine at one point. As a kid, things changed all the time. There’s shit growing over here, and getting bigger over there. Shit falls out, shit grows in, shit sprouts out of nowhere and mysteriously turns into other shit — it’s like Mister freaking Potato Head in a sideshow funhouse. Every goddamned day it’s something new — but it’s natural. There’s a process, and you’re moving toward something. You’re turning into the “you” that you’re going to become.
In those days, I looked in the mirror. Every day. My image was like one of those advent calendars you see in December, only it was year-round and instead of opening the little window each day to see a Christmas tree or a bunch of carolers, it was wisdom teeth or neck pimples or knuckle hair.
Which would make for a really lousy calendar, frankly. Christmas or otherwise.
Then you hit a certain plateau age, and you’ve got ten, maybe twenty years of that “you” you’re turned into. You’re more or less the same, every day. Oh, your philosophy might change or you might take up activism or painting or Rastaveganhempanism. But unless you develop a nasty habit of falling down stairs or having plastic surgery, you look like you.
These are the “golden” mirror years, when it’s actually a tool, rather than some window into the horror flick shitshow of the aging process. It’s in this magical time when you use the mirror for the things it should be used for — finding spinach in your teeth. Adjusting your contact lenses. Secretly checking out that cutie at the next table.
And then your plateau begins to crumble, as mine has. Your mirror self begins to change again, and there’s no wonder left. You’re not a young person any more, squirming in your adolescent cocoon to grow wings or boobs or a manly-but-subdued thatch of chest hair.
Oh, no. You wish you were a caterpillar.
Now you’re careening away from “you” into… well, one of your parents, first. Then a grandparent, maybe, or some Wilford Brimley or Estelle Getty body double. If you’re lucky. Because now the process is all higgledy-piggledy, as shit goes fully haywire on you. Those rosy cheeks? Unrosened, and sagging like a couple of coin purses strung over your nose. When something falls off now, it doesn’t grow back or get replaced. It just sits there, smugly mocking. And that “subdued” patch of chest hair? That spreads like kudzu to your back, and your ears, and parts unknown which spring into existence from time to terrifying time.
I take it back. Maybe you are a caterpillar.
I’m pretty sure I am. But my cocooning years are gone, and that’s why I don’t look in the mirror. At this stage, change is bad. Very bad. Any little bump or dent or mysterious tuft could be a nightmare. Years ago, I fretted over these things because it felt like they’d last forever. But of course, they didn’t; they got better.
And now, too, I know they won’t last. Because they’ll get worse. It’s what they do. Old people have goiters and wattles and hair growing everywhere. They’re like old lumpy werewolves, except some of them don’t have teeth any more and when the full moon goes down, they can’t change back to normal.
That’s the path ahead of me. I can’t do much to change it. I think I can mostly accept it. And maybe someday, find a graceful way to navigate it, weirdly stuck-together lips and all. But when I get home tonight, I’m smashing the bathroom mirror.
Because I sure as hell don’t need to look at it.
Permalink | No CommentsSecrets are funny things.
(It’s true. I’ve been on the FBI’s “Margarita Watch List” for years.)
I don’t have one of those kinds of secrets. I do have another kind of secret, a much blander and more mundane version: the “corporate secret”. In this case, a bit of news my company will talk about publicly soon, but as yet only in private board- and conference rooms.
Also, we dim the lights, and speak in hushed reverent tones. Secret-having is serious bidness, after all.
Now, of course I’m not going to give away this secret.
(Or really, “secret”, if I’m being honest. I don’t really consider an “I can’t tell you now, but I’ll tell you later” sort of thing a secret, in the strictest sense. Secrets are things you take to your grave — or at least to your poignant and highly dramatic deathbed confession.
“Really makes a guy jealous of those people who had kids no one knows about or practiced secret rituals in their basements.”
I think everyone should have one true secret, just for that contingency. We won’t all have the luxury of a dramatic deathbed reveal, of course. But if you happen to get there, and your best material is something like, “Oh, by the way, I used to pee in the shower“, you’re going to be a little disappointed in yourself. And nobody wants to enter the great unknown feeling like a doofus.
Really makes a guy jealous of those people who had kids no one knows about or practiced secret rituals in their basements. If those people get deathbeds, they’ve got it made. Lucky bastards.)
Now, this work info is not mine to give away, so I’m not going to give it. But what fun is a secret — of the non-body, non-spying, not-involving-pentagrams-or-orphaned-Thai-children variety — if nobody knows you’re keeping it?
So of course, when I learned of this super-for-the-moment-secret information, I ran right home to not-tell my wife.
But wait, you might be thinking. If there’s anyone that you’re allowed to tell, corporate semi-secret-wise, it’s your spouse, right? They already know more important and personal things about you, and hold them in complete and utter confidence. The way you slurp your soup. That dance you do in the mirror while you brush your teeth in the morning. Those disgusting noises you make when you’re asleep. Or pretending to be asleep. Your spouse never told anyone those. Surely, he or she is allowed in on a little company tidbit that’ll soon be public, anyway. Right?
Well, sure, probably. Except that it’s a secret. And nobody else on the planet particularly cares if I have a secret, except my wife. No one else would be curious, the possibilities darting through their heads, tormented by what this news could be or the impact it might have on me, and therefore on us, directly. In short, there’s no other person in existence who would especially want to know that I have this secret, and what it is.
So clearly, I can’t tell her.
And obviously, I have to tell her that I have something to tell her — but I can’t tell her. Because what’s the fun in having a secret otherwise?
So I told her — told her that I couldn’t tell her, that is — this evening. And she told me to tell her. But I stood firm. This is but the first phase in conspicuously keeping a secret — the “reveal” that there’s a secret lurking, and then weathering the initial storm of pleading and cajoling to spill the beans.
I knew this drill, and I was strong. No secrets were divulged. My beans hath not spilleth over.
To be fair, she only asked once, and then went back to reading her book. She’s playing it cool, see. She’s a crafty one, the missus.
We’re now in the second phase — the wait. This is when the desire to know is eating away at her from within. A hunger, almost literal, to gain and devour the secret is seething within her, building to a frenzy, maddening her with every second of unrevealing silence.
On the other hand, she doesn’t look particularly “seethy”. In fact, she’s dozing off right now, in the middle of an old Frazier rerun. Not really the behavior of somebody who’s haunted by an unknown mystery.
But probably, that’s just what she wants me to think. She truly is diabolical. A mastermind, I’m telling you.
So I’ll just wait her out, until the third phase — the desperate plea for knowledge. At some point, her facade will inevitably crack and she’ll come to me, begging to know the secret. Pleading. There might be crying, or gnashing of teeth. Wailing is not out of the question; I could envision a little wailing. And possibly — just possibly — moved by her consuming obsession to know, I might just relent and tell her the secret. Maybe.
Of course, she’ll have to wake up first. And show at least a tiny sign of interest. I mean, we’ve only got a month or so before everybody gets to know this thing, so, you know, you could speed it up a little over there, dear. If you can’t work all the way up to “consuming obsession”, just a moderate obsession would do. Or mild. Even a gently piqued interest. I’ll meet you halfway here.
I see. Still snoozing. Okay, take your time.
Piqued yet, honey? Dying to know? Or drooling on the couch?
Drooling on the couch. Oh, you’re good. Very good.
Look. If you don’t ask me soon, I’m going to tell everyone about those noises you make when you’re asleep. I’m serious.
(Not really. I wouldn’t do that. I can keep a secret.)
All right, sleep away, then. I’ll just sit here and watch you, knowing that inside you’re really a mass of swirling nerves, wondering endlessly about this secret. Driven mad by it. Obsessing over it. Seething…
I’ll just be here, watching. Waiting. Drumming my fingers restlessly on the chair.
Are you awake yet? No? Damn.
Now? Curious? Tormented?
Rats.
Frasier‘s off, and now she’s sleeping through Seinfeld. I’ll concede this round. I’ve got a secret, folks. And it’s going to be a looooong month.
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