Hi! I Am Self Absorbed!

How are you?

Really... I mean that.

How ARE you? Sometimes people say that and don't really want to know. This is makes for terrific awkwardness, as no one wants to suddenly realize that the painful rectal itch they've just mentioned was not well received in conversation. The inability to read the intent of the inquiring conversant makes for blithe, meaningless words. In order to play it safe, you might just posture and make say all sorts of foolishness, like:

• Good: Are you that ready to break into that level of qualitative assessment so early? Seems a bit premature that such an ejaculation, but I wouldn't presume to know. I mean really... Goodness? Proclaiming it outright, just like that? Summarily? Thats a little ballsy in my book. This answer from an unsuspecting miscreant is the worst... I suddenly am torn between conversing and investigating this alleged 'Goodness'.
• Fine: Another in similar context. You're 'fine'. Ok... What would you say to me assessing you as honestly a bit coarse? I mean if you drink beer out of a can, its it ever possible to be fine? Or a think of delicacy for that matter... Seriously? Don't make me talk about finery. Don't do it. The only saving grace of this word is the potential to mean 'unique'... 'rare'. That I would buy... If only the other person did too. That could make me digress on my initial digression and move into the area of equality and the misuse of that word. A load of populist savagery that one has become... But perhaps we'll tackle that another day.
• "Ok": I'm sorry... THIS IS NOT A WORD! Its origins are suspect to begin with. Its a statement of mediocrity. Ambivalence, or worst; carelessness. Burping in response to the question ("How are you") has more real emotional intent. Don't give a damn? Tell'em you're ok, ok?
• Well: This is my favorite, not simply because it is grammatically correct, but because of its tremendous flexibility. A sea of ambiguity wherein you are free to work:
  • Well...: The basic statement of health.
  • wHell! ...: There is a story coming.
  • -Whale? ...: You're just not sure.
  • weLL? ..: I guess this is it... Resigned.

In general, 'well' has the utility of 'set' right away in the beginning of conversation. Versatile... noncommital... ambiguous. Love that. And getting back to the point before I actually made a point, to the first digression, you don't really care... Do you?

Please don't take this the wrong way. But of the percentage of encounters wherein you actually inquire as to the wellbeing of the other, how often do you mean it? You know... That feeling of excitement: "Hey! How ARE you?" Most of the time its the same tone reserved for hotel conventions and the social time allotted to 'mixing'. "How are you?" is a lifeless, tired thing for me in that place. I'm not sure I want to know... Less sure I want to ask... And I sound like a petulent toddler being told to say he's sorry.

And so, perhaps this is nearing the heart of the matter: care. It should seem impolite to not inquire into the wellbeing of someone you happen upon. Yet is it less impolite to not care and still ask?

Why should you? There is an infinity of things upon which to engage in this moment. Places to go, things to do, stuff to remember. Maybe that's max capacity, or you think it is... Because its the realm of the known? Because it cannot be fully attended? Because your own navel seems so much more appealing?

No. That just feels wrong. So why not care? What is the risk? That you may see your humanity in that person loathed in a glance? Because the stunning exterior of that person is shiny like their hairspray and it makes you wonder about what you are not? Because you don't want to be summarily rejected? Because you don't want to see the paltry differences separating you from me. You and I... I realize I am talking about me here. Not you... Sort of a quaint irony.

I am left to revisit a conversation with my own child about food. My daughter didn't want to try something new because she didn't know what it would be like. Would she like it? Would she hate it? Rather than risk the best, she accepted the worst: nothing. I pointed out how she seemed eager enough to get off of soy formula as a baby in exchange for real food. And if she didn't care to know, she never would.

And looking back at these words, I can only laugh. There's something funny about this to me. Maybe that I orginally started to a letter to a friend and these words turned into a rediculous monologue. Consider this in a letter... now you know what its like to get one from me. I laughed, because I see frankly I do this a lot in a certain grade of company. Not intimate acquaintance... but people I like. In fact I do it all the time... I think I made a career of it... this nervous tick. Monologuing. Distracting. Amusing. Irritating. To be honest, I always thought it was about someone other than me. Its not. Its all about me. I guess I am just self absorbed. We probably have a lot in common...

So...

How are you?

I'm well.

Mice Like Ecstacy Too!

Ripped from the headlines... ok, buried in the obscure health pages:

Researchers in Italy found that an ecstasy-linked dampening of the rats' brain activity lasted long after the rodents were given the drug if they also exposed to music of 95 decibels, the maximum noise intensity permitted by law in Italian nightclubs.

If the rats weren't exposed to loud music, the drug's effects wore off within a day.

During the experiment, the team at the Institute of Neurological Science in Catanzaro monitored the rats' electrocortical activity (EcoG spectrum) using electrodes placed on the rodents' skulls. The EcoG spectrum was recorded from 60 minutes before the rats were given ecstasy and the music began, then again for up to five days after the music had been turned off.

Without music, a low dose (3mg/kg) of ecstasy did not modify the rats' brain activity any more than a dose of saline solution. However, loud music prompted significant changes in the brain activity of rats who received a low dose of the drug.

A high dose (6mg/kg) of ecstasy alone caused a reduction in the rats' brain activity and that effect was enhanced when loud music was played and lasted for up to five days. The brain activity of rats that received a high dose of the drug but were not exposed to loud music returned to normal within a day.

Rats that received saline solution and were exposed to loud music showed no changes in brain activity.

Conclusions? Well as a guy who reads science journals for a living, I have many thoughts:

• What music do rodents prefer in the club? Me? Does it vary geographically? These are Italian mice... so are we talking Bochelli or Moby? Somebody help me out with a list here...
  
• How much does it suck to be the saline mouse?
  
• Did the E mice tease the saline mice, or did they try to love them?
  
• Was the hangover different after it wore off after 5 days, or after 1 with low music?
  
• Where did they find all those tiny little Seuss hats?

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Love-Hating On Quality... And Persig

I can blame it on Persig, that jerk who wrote Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Like the garden of Eden, I used to cavort mindlessly, carefree. I had issues with wonder, but I tried to repress it. Idle thoughts, really, like fixating on the meaning of words. Once I spent 2 weeks in a stupor when I finally figured out when it REALLY mean to 'want'. So this was a pre-existing condition- I'll admit that freely. But this book of Persig's really stuck in my mental craw.

Stupid quality. Quality? Quality. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid quality. There. I feel better. I am sure Plato did that after getting his perfect circle out of his head, or Newton, after he recovered from the mental collapse brought on by the universal laws of gravitation (yes, Isaac learned firsthand that gravity is a harsh mistress). Maybe it gives me a chance to laugh about the fact that I went from being totally unobservant to its painful inverse after this book. Without any increase in wisdom. Just watching the wonder of a wider screen.

So it started with the whole idea of 'what is quality?' Its easy enough. I've seen quality before. Good food, great art, music. Something. But they are all different. In fact quality is simplicity, complexity, synchronicity, or all or none of those things depending on what's being discussed. It just seems to depend totally from case to case what makes something an item of true quality. Maybe its really just giving a damn. Doing more than just the minimum work required, even if it doesn't show in the end product. Maybe that's quality.

So that's why quality control seemed like such an oxymoron. I know a little about quality control in a manufacturing environment. It makes sense there: parts need to come out a certain way or they do not fit during assembly. These ISO/QS9000 standards in manufacturing define consistent manufacturing process to the level of a living, tediously boring document. But how do you control quality? Perhaps I am just the oxygenated moron, but I always thought about quality being akin to excellence. The highest example. The highest is a relative problem, I understand that. It changes depending on your view. Call it parallax. I get that part of the lacuna, but can you control quality?

So going back to manufacturing, I thought about this anew. A product could not possibly be the best example of excellence if nothing fit together. Who would want a car like that? I've had one. Trust me. GO ISO! All right, so ISO has a place. Consistent manufacturing helps keep bolts out of the Cherrios box. My teeth can appreciate that. And then it would make sense then that if a company could deep fry a million chickenesque nuggets of some kind and distribute them evenly around the world, it would be a great example of quality control. Except I think I just used chicken nuggets and quality in the same sentence. That is really disturbing.

I know its just fo0d. But I thought I understood quality. Actually, first I had no idea at all what it was, then it was a convulsive loop of knowing and unknowing. Concentric circles of foolishness brought on by sensible examples of everything. Maybe food isn't the best example, but it is disturbing because of the homogenity that is made sublime through quality control. Suddenly I am having suburban flashbacks. Burbs sub-divided into micelles of homogenous housing. Similar lawns, siding, kids playing. People who live there know the houses by the names architects gave them... The Manchester, The Barrister, The Pennitant. Dogs of similar pedigree are led past these homes by people with the same logos on their shoes, heading back to one of 4 possible floor plans to enjoy a meal of chicken meat, stamped into a die, then fried.

Housing makes me think it could be a good example. These floor plans offer consistency and improved quality, presumably because the kinks of making these houses get worked out as hundreds are put up. Quality is better. But hundreds is really a small number. Manufactured, stick-built houses... now there's volume. There could be a couple thousand of those. They are made inside. There's a guy with a slide rule and a pocket protector making sure the screws went in the right depth. Now that's quality. But... what if you put wheels on it? And called it a double wide? There are far more mobile homes made than custom or manufactured homes. The best opportunity for quality control happens there, probably with the single wide trailer. And curiously, they are grouped in clusters of similar homes- trailer parks. Perhaps its moomoo's walking pit bulls instead of soccer moms walking retrievers, but its close.

So quality control is eating nuggets in a trailer. Quality? That is quality? No, of course not. I guess I've coming to the conclusion that quality perhaps, like lightening, cannot be controlled. It just happens. You give a damn for something, but can you for everything? And quality control can keep a mouse out of my Pepsi bottle, but it can't make a better Pepsi. I always thought the true nature of quality was to chase the infinitely perfect up and up and up concentrically inane or insane circles.

The problem is one of mass delusion: people believe they are all entitled to quality. If it exists for everyone, then is it really quality after all?

Progressive

It is finally happening. In the back of my mind I've wondered if we would, when it should, when we could. There is no rehearsal for this surreal play. You just show up on stage with whatever props are laying around. If you'd like others, maybe the Director will write in something useful like a burning shrubbery... nothing too big mind you. That's happened once.. maybe. I am not crazy about the odds of waiting that long for random luck. Priorities ebb.

Today was momentous because it ebbed low enough to buy flooring. It lurked somewhere in the lower pantheon of life's necessities for a few years. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is peculiar in this regard. Its not like Bingo. You can have some moderate degree of food and shelter before going on to seek employment and eventually the Nirvana of self actualization... whatever that is. I think its done in layers. You double back to upgrade... Mrs. Maslow could have pointed this out to Abe at some point during a home renovation. In my case, life has not recently presented a near-death experience, job loss, or natural disaster. Blame it on Spring.

The removal of the dead tree was proof I was capable of getting around to the things at the bottom of the To Do list, but the turn toward summer has me seeing all of nature fixing up their nest. Why not mine? I know it will not last, but it is a good feeling having temporarily given the finger to entropy. And that rude neighbor kid that came by last year and commented on how bad the flooring looked? She can complain about the deck instead.

So its done. Trigger pulled. Poof. In three weeks it will be done (and most importantly, by someone else). I have to admit this particular item has been bugging me for a while. I've noticed it and disliked it for some time... but wasn't sure how to get around to the actual change. Marriage is of course a factor, but not really hindering this. In fact, it can only help, since I have no real confidence in any color matching at all. My wardrobe is really not evolved successfully past the Garanimals era of my youth. My wife knows what ocher is. How sandstone is different that willow. I am a deer, wholly dazed in the glare of these light tones. I don't know why it took so long, but its done. Now I'll fixate on some other insignificant thing to prove I'm getting somewhere.

Progress is a funny thing. It defines a relative movement between two places. Does it mean you are getting anywhere? Yes, I think, just not anywhere that's necessarily important, so that also sounds like no. It reminds me of the conversation every kid has with their parent: "why do I have to clean my room if it just gets messed up again?". A fair question. I usually answer "because I said so" since their statement is a gratuitous assertion. But at the root is a question that never really seems to go away. It sits, like my tree and carpet, at the bottom of this long list of unanswered questions. How do you know if you've made progress? Do you have to do anything to progress?

The American myth is told with its saccharine aftertaste, lauds hard work as the root of success. Perhaps that is true and there are 200 million different definitions of work out there. The "land of the free, home of the brave" seems more aptly a roost for the doughy and indeterminate. Clearly then you can have progress without hard work... can you have progress with out work at all?

Well initially I would have thought no, but then I ran into the Infinite Monkey Theory. It turns out if you wondered what would happen if you never cleaned the kitchen again, if your kids didn't clean their rooms anymore, they might actually have the means to clean themselves. So the theory has been posited that an infinite number of monkeys pounding away at keyboards will eventually bang out Hamlet. They produce nothing nothing nothing to nearly infinity, then... poof: Something's rotten in the state of Denmark. It sounds like entropy itself could wear things to so untenable a state it actually organizes, given enough time.

Is this possible? I don't know. First of all, if chimps wrote Hamlet, I would think there would be a banana or a tire swing mixed in somewhere for dramatic effect. Yet then I remember we have a mega-lotto jackpot in every state so any shlub with a buck can get a few hundred million. If I didn't replace the carpeting, it would eventually wear through to the floor, which would perhaps wear until it broke and we all fell to the basement and walked on the concrete. I am not sure the theory works that way. Perhaps an unclean kitchen gives rise to a super strain of antibiotics. Penicillin was first found on bread. But does this new antibiotic do my dishes? That's what I want. I want to know if a life of sloth nets out the same result as one of furious labor. In the end, I suppose each consumed 1 unit of life, its just when I look at it, one seems to have been dead for a lot longer. I just can't tell which one that is.