The Isle of Marm

Beveridge on “Laboratory Neurosis”. 
Which is probably applicable to most kinds of independent work.

“Okay, if Pizza Hut is not actually referring to a Hat of Pizza, then why is their logo a hat?”

(This was followed by about a minute of weasely prevarication as I tried to simultaneously explain the possibility that it was just a coincidence and reaffirm to myself that it was just a coincidence.)

Here is how we got there:

DEU: *Holds up badge holder* What is this called?
ME: A lanyard.  Or as you would call it in Deutsch…*type-type-click* der lanyard.
DEU: *looking over shoulder at german wikipedia page* ah!  No, that is not the word.  Ah, Bändel.
ME: What’s that word? *clicks on Fangschnur”. scans German page.  Sees the word “Cowboyhut”, next to a picture of a tiny sombrero.  Clicks on “Cowboyhut”.  Realizes “hut” is the additional Germanic syllable indicating “hat”.  Sudden tremors at core.*

Important things looked up afterward:

In German, his name is Jabba der Hutte

I hope it wasn’t my fault.

Sweet Past Gigs Auxilliary:  “Space Science Terms”

Because I have lived 40 lives, it is possible that you may not have known that, for some time last decade, I was paid by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  I was too short to be an astronaut, so that kind of end was never in the cards let alone in the prospective jobs list.  It’s not your fault you didn’t know; I overshare selectively so it SEEMS that I’m all open and what not, but I play certain aspects of my life very close to the vest.  There’s probably a coarse line between “reasonably compartmentalized” and “maybe a sociopath”.  Reader has an overwhelming sensation of constipation.  Also: I like rooftops and robots, but not so much heights, with the vertigo and the nausea and the stress and so on.

Anyhow, the phrase “balls* out” came up recently and I remembered I still had the memo (originally from 1968) that my boss had reproduced for us before our first conference call.  Glorious. 

*“Please be circumspect in the use of this term as it can be misinterpreted by the uninitiated.”   I love this sentence so much that I feel a little sick.  I think it’s the word “circumspect”.  Also: balls.

In honor of CMC-day: the decoy wallet, 589 days ago, in all his glory.

When things were really bad for a couple years there, I actually also had a decoy decoy wallet.  The decoy decoy was blue and had 2 bucks in it, with a note that said “Sorry.”  I think 5 people who lived at the ‘view got mugged at one point or another.  But that’s out of like…20 housemates over the course of my 2002-2009 tenure.  And mostly early on, when the South Berkeley/North Oakland border was kind of a ‘hole, as opposed to the ‘09 glory days when that picture was taken.  At that point, the decoy/real wallet distinction basically blurred to a miscellany/essential sorting. 

(Because I doubt anyone here is likely to pick my pockets, the real deal consists of the important cards, a pen, a brick of post-its, a 3x lens, a sewing and quick soldering kit, and a $20 bill which all reside perfectly inside an inconspicuous Altoids tin.  For several years it was penguin mints tins, but as those aged, they appeared less potentially unappealing to potential brigands.)

Play it cool, kid.  No one will notice. 

I’m giving this talk next week in Baltimore, and looking at the people in the invited morning session I’m in, here is an interesting piece of demographic data:

Average year that everyone (the guys and me) finished their PhDs: 1985.
Average age of the lady (ME) that year? ~ 4.58

Not that I’m panicking.  I mean, academically, I was a fairly precocious 4 year old.  And emotionally, I pretty much still am. 

I feel like I could give a pretty stellar talk on psychological flow.  That’s only like a half-turn away from the stuff that I’m supposed to cover.  Not that I’m panicking.

Stalked

Spring 2002, Ithaca NY:  there was this car.  Every morning, ostentatiously yellow, idling noisily, facing the chain-link fence, tinted windows obscuring what was probably young-people making out in the front seats, one slipped foot away from driving straight into the courts. I’d pass it every day walking to the vet school, where I had a class.  The straightest path was that 1.5 feet right between the car and the fence.  My laziness, as regards not making a 25 step detour, was probably the biggest risk I took regularly.  

It never hit the fence (while I was there), or me (while I was there), but it became a habit that as I walked by I would envision my own cartoonish demise.  Julienned through the fencing into odd diamondy slices of Mariam. Squished through and reformed on the other side.  Snipped in 2, like play-doh.  Death, death, death.

(N.B.: this is pretty much my default mental loop:

which is to say—I’m not an especially morbid person, but I have worries.)

Several years later, and a couple thousand miles away, though still  before I had a car, I was walking from Berkeley to the Target by El Cerrito and saw him there.  The same yellow mustang.  The same distinctive grumble.  Surely it wasn’t the exact same car. The weird thing about such internal habits is that, even though I was walking parallel to it, I still had the thoughts.  Dread, dread, dread.  I took that picture.  Bright and ominous.

Earlier today, another couple thousand miles away: …oh my.  Surely Death does not drive a bumblebee yellow Mustang.  Max Von Sidow might have the means and not have better things to do these days.  I don’t know.  If anything happens, or if nothing happens, remember that most treasures are hidden in plain sight.