The Least Fun Game

Some people don’t enjoy the dating game. I’m done with that one, luckily. Phone-tag can be a drag, unless you have friends like my pal Craig, who makes up droning, off-key songs on my voice-mail. There are other games I do not enjoy, like games of chance or games where my nephew shows off his creativity by making up rules as we go along (he’s growing out of this habit, luckily, because he’s too old for it to be funny anymore). There is one game I will never enjoy: The Waiting Game. And that’s what I’m playing now.

I sent off a manuscript of a book I’ve written to a publishing company, and I’m waiting to hear back from the publisher. The company has been great. I’ve already worked with one of their editors to hammer out some bumpy parts of the book. He was very helpful despite the fact that I secretly second-guessed much of his advice. He read and re-read passages for me, and when I thought it was ready to submit to his boss, he made me feel comfortable doing so.

Then I began to wait.

I am not a patient man. I skipped a year of high school because I wanted to be in college. In college I didn’t bother to wait to decide what kind of job I wanted when choosing classes to take. When I met the woman of my dreams I didn’t wait long to propose, and though I agreed to be engaged for two years I was still married pretty young. I did wait a while to have a child, but not until I was as financially stable as I would have liked. Despite my impatience, I’m lucky to be married to the right person, have the right child, and have a job I love. From my perspective, seeing how everything has worked out so well, patience seems highly overrated. I know it’s a virtue. Yada yada yada. No time for that! I want to have my cake and eat that m-f-er NOW!

Like so many other areas of life, there are things that are simply not within one’s locus of control. I cannot make the publisher make a decision, and if I could, it would likely be to encourage him to reject me that much more quickly. I mean, let’s face it; most manuscripts are rejected. I know my novels and short stories were never picked up in the past. Why do I think this one will be different? Aren’t I just hastening my own disappointment?

There’s the rub. Is it better to know, even if knowing hurts? These things would be easy to measure, if only we knew in advance how much we would hurt later. When the publisher rejects the book (which, deep down, I know I should expect) will I wish I could have had more days of waiting? Will I be relieved to move on to another publisher? Will I sink into a funk, decide the project was a monumental waste of time, file it in a drawer, and forget about it? I can’t know. Analyzing the prospective outcome of my waiting only adds another layer of uncertainty.

Is there a pleasant side to waiting? Definitely, though it isn’t as enjoyable as Craig’s spontaneous songwriting. Anticipating gives me a window to imagine what I will do if I get good news. It’s a ticket to daydream. Sure, the dreams are much smaller than the ones I enjoy when I buy a lottery ticket. Actually, I’ve only done that once, but my wife and I spent the whole evening discussing what we would do if we won the 300 million bucks, and even after taxes it was a kick. We even wrote down the charities we’d want to support, the influence on them we’d like to have, and some we’d like to start. Since then I’ve come across other ideas and logged them in my memory for when I hit it big. But I haven’t played again. When it came time to announce the winner, I found I was no longer enjoying myself. Sorry Wikipedia and The One Campaign. You won’t be getting a couple mil from me anytime soon.

Publishing the book isn’t about money. I don’t expect to be paid even minimum wage for the time I spent hammering at this keyboard, let alone the time I’ve spent wondering if it was all worth it. I’d write anyway. I’m an addict. No, publishing really is about the ideas getting out there. I’d self-publish or post the whole thing on the web, but I know that, sadly, people are far more likely to read something they have to pay for. I’ve been given people’s manuscripts before, three-hole-punched with Xeroxed black-and-white covers, and I know what happened to some of those. Or I don’t, which is the point. No, publishers are valuable gatekeepers. They let people know what they decided to invest in, so readers, in turn, can have a better sense of what is a worthwhile investment of their time. Publishers make that investment, so they get to make the decisions. Writers, we get to wait.

My particular prospective publisher hasn’t made waiting easy. He doesn’t have to. That’s not his job. Still, after waiting for about a month, I finally sent off a letter to my editor friend asking if it would be appropriate to ask the publisher when I should be expecting a response. He told me that was fine, and that it was a good thing I’d asked. The publisher then told me he’d get back to me by the end of the month.

Last month.

When that came around I went through the editor again. He talked to the publisher, who sent me a kind apology for running late and told me he’d be done by “the first of next week”. I took that to be Monday.

Today.

Now, he may have sent out a letter by snail mail today, or maybe he’s swamped and I’ll hear from him tomorrow, or maybe the “first if the week” quote means the beginning of the week, as in the first few days. In which case I don’t want to nag too soon.

So here I am. Waiting. And if this post feels a bit inconclusive, well…

See? Not fun.

New Dictionary for New Neighbors?

I'm a big fan of great quotations. I put up a new one on the overhead in my class every day. My students copy it down while I take attendence, we discuss it, they turn in their completed list at the end of the semester, I return them, and they promptly throw them away. Still, I think it's worthwhile. After today, I am reconsidering my decision to limit the quotations to those meaningful, inspirational kind penned by famous authors, thinkers, and politicians. Tonight I overheard one of the best quotes from the neighbor across the street, and I know that, if it were appropriate to share, my students would hold onto that quote noetbook like it was made of gold.

My wife and son and I recently moved to a new town, the town where I teach. It's a small town (population 7000) and I am doing my big-city-boy best not to get claustrophobic and judgemental. Over-all the people here have been wonderful. Our new landlords, for example, are a huge improvement over the hoochy slumlord landlady we suffered for the last couple of years. We were so amazed when they not only showed up to fix a couple things we noticed, but showed up the next day and then, to our great amazement, promtply fixed both problems in one visit. I don't think this is an inherently small town thing; they are both immigrants from China, and I don't think that country has any towns with only seven thousand residents. They are just good people, and I need to remind myself that a town of good people is a good place to live, regardless of its size.

The lady across the street serves as an example of the sad fact that no town is filled with good people. As far as we can tell her full time job is sitting out in front of her house verbally abusing her children. Personally, I can't see why one would make such a career choice. The pay is non-existent, and the more she harangs then the worse her retirment benefit gets. Regardless, shes proven to be a tireless employee, and very capable, so I'm glad she hasn't chosen to work in customer service. She is quite a piece of work, let me tell you. I think her family chose to live in this inland town because her vocabulary would make sailors flee in shame. The mouths on her kids are filthy, even when they are defending themselves from her, but I can't really blame them for that. Tonight, during a dispute over who would mow their lawn, we tink we heard her hitting the kids. I hope not, because as a mandatory reporter I'll have to call child proective services, and that's no way to ingratiate yourself to new neighbors. Anyway, as the kids tried to defend themselves from the charge that they'd previously destroyed a garden hose with the mower the mother shouted at one of the boys, "Well, if it wasn't you it was that nimble-minded f*&% you hang out with!" I could tell from her tone that she was not complimenting her child's friend on his mental agility.

As I ran inside to share this new epithet with my wife, I idly considered grabbing one of our dictionaries and going over to introduce myself. We have more dictionaries than we need, and even our lower quality ones would certainly serve to help this poor woman avoid such faux pas in the future. But, I decided, she would probably use it to come up with a more fitting slur for me.

Intead I will wait until she hits her kids and I see it. Then I will go tell her that I have to make a call, that the authorities rarely do anything about it the first time someone calls them, and that she would be better off sitting on her back porch, where I won't be able to see what she is doing to her kids, and where my son is slightly less likely to learn new words from her.

I very much hope that when this happens she will tell all the other neighbors about the pesky, intrusive, know-it-all, nimble-minded f*&$ who just moved in across the street.

What if it isn't about the spies? An alternate theory of the Hayden nomination.

Yes, Bush may be calculating that people are more concerned about the threat of teorrorism than the threats to civil liberties, and that this issue will pull the Repubs through the midterms, but I don't think so. He may genuinely think that Hayden is simply the best man for the job (and he may be) but I don't think that's the motive, either. Here's my guess:

Rove has been saying that Republicans need to make this election about how the entire Republican party is tougher on defense against terrorism than the Dems. I think part of the strategy may have less to do less with winning the election than with reuiniting party defectors. Bush is more worried about losing the Repubs than the election.

After all, losing the Senate is unlikely, but losing enough Repub senators to push through an article of impeachment is possible. If the Dems take control of the house, the issue will be how many Republican senators would be willing to break ranks. How can Bush generate an insurance policy? Imagine if there were a way to make sure all the Republican senators had a vote on their record that would certify them as anti-terror at the expense of civil rights. Imagine if they all voted for the guy who ran the NSA program which will certainly be part of whatver article of impeachent Dems draw up.

Bush needs to force these guys to unite behind one anti-terror-screw-civil-rights banner, and making them do so makes them look like flip-flopers come impeachement time. This might be a move to ward off impeachment already, which is a nice sign, because if they know it's coming, the Dems sure as hell know it's coming and are strategizing to make it happen.

Hopefully, rather than serving as an insurance policy for the Pres, this will actually speed up the process. As Republican senators set themselves apart (keeping their eyes on '08) Hayden will get more difficult questions, and the more heard questions Hayden gets, and the more he struggles, the more it will be guessed that these Repubs might support an article of impeachment. And, as we all know, perception has a way of becoming reality in Washington. Sentaors might think, "If everybody else was grilling Bush via Hayden, they must not like him, so I won't either." This could give the impeachment movement momentum before the elections.

Sure, maybe I'm being overly optomistic, but think about it this way; just as no one wants to be the last man to die in the wrong war, no one wants to be the last guy to go down supporting the wrong president.

Who's the Biggest bogeyman in the Closet

President Bush has nominated a soldier to be the next director of the CIA. Some members of Congress have stated misgivings about a military man in a civilian intelligence agency, but that is a question for other people. These questions are not without merit, but the real room for conjecture is how is this supposed to play for Republicans in the midterm elections?

Bush seems to be taking a risk, even if it is calculated, by sending the man who oversaw unwarranted, unconstitutional, and illegal wiretapping to confirmation hearings on the hill. This hasn't sunk President Bush yet, but someday it has to catch up with the administration.

The options, as I see them, are these:

1. Bush is setting up Republicans in the Senate to look strong by standing up to him, and Dems to look petulant by whining about civil rights.

2. Bush actually thinks this is still 2004 and he can push through anything he wants.

3. Bush is myopic enough to think that drawing more attention to his unwarranted, unconstitutional spying on American citizens will score him and the Republicans security points.

4. He thinks #3 and he is right.

The biggest question at this point seems to be where the administration's priorities/loyalties lie. Karl Rove is on a mission to prevent a debilitating defeat in the November ballot. Is Bush giving the Republicans a lifeline, either by beefing up their security credentials or appearing independent from the administration? Is the Bush White House really ready to play itself out as the fool once again in front of Congress (think back to Harriet Miers)? Or is Bush trying to pull defectors back into the fold with a controversial, and potentially polarizing opponent?

I fear the most likely scenario is that Rove has once again set up the Democrats. They will somehow take this bait to look petulant, wimpy on security, bungling, obstructionist, and negative all in one fell statement from Nancy Pelosi.

Or maybe, just maybe, Rove has finally lost control of the apparatus he so carefully constructed, and that machine is now casting wildly about, bent on its own destruction.

Inconclusive Ramblings about Geography

A fellow faculty member at the high school where I teach informed me today that he'd come across my site on MySpace. One of his posts explained his reason for creating a MySpace site: He is studying the behavior of his students on MySpace as a kind of anthropological research experiment. He describes MySpace as a gathering place within their "sociological jungle". Combine this with the fact that Paige, Noah, and I are moving, so I am sitting in a room filled with labeled boxes, and a conversation I had with Joel yesterday about how the new NYTimes website is more navigable, and it's all got me thinking about geography. I'm acting out the R.E.M. song "Stand". "Think about direction/ wonder why you have it now."

MySpace isn't Space, strictly speaking. Given time and processing speed it could all be shoved through a single fiber-optic cable, right? I mean, in theory, given a powerful enough blender, enough pressure, and enough added liquid my apartment and all its contents could all be shoved through a piece of normal PVC pipe, but that doesn't sound very pleasant. But there is something quantitatively different about navigating a website as opposed to navigating this room filled with boxes full of books. I'm not just referring to the two dimensions of my computer screen as opposed o the three of the room, either. Data doesn't have to be spread out and navigated like space. What does it say about our ability to comprehend information that we like to have it defined in terms of space, even when it isn't, so that we can... well, navigate it?

This question is more vexing for someone like me who prefers to write in prose rather than poetry. Poets manipulate space when writing all the time.
I
rarely
play
with
words'
location
on the page. Instead, I follow the rules of paragraphing and alignment. And yet, seen in the context of the "gathering place" in the "jungle" post, the new NYTimes site, and this room filled with boxes, I'm forced to consider the fact that any one of the books I've written could be read as a continuous line in a text file, with some editing marks to denote paragraph breaks and the ends of chapters, and no information would be lost. But I recoil in horror at the thought. Why? Is it merely because no one would go to the trouble of reading a mile of text stretched out rather than printed in block form on individual pages? I think there's more to it. I think that formatting itself might be a facet of this Witgensteinian language game all writers play without careful consideration. Sure, writing in Arabic of Japanese seems odd to me, because the text is navigated in the opposite direction, and I've heard that Chinese can be navigated in multiple directions (though my mind boggles at the thought) but I've never questioned why text must be presented spatially in the first place. Is this an outgrowth of our need to anthropomorphize ideas so that they relate to our physical world? Is it just convenience (at best pragmatism in the sense of Richard Rorty's?) Is it something else, some Kantian mechanism within the mind that Kant himself didn't explore? Is it a manifestation of a Platonic reality; true ideas being manifest as a navigable world like ours but better? I seriously doubt the latter, since we can all recognize that the arrangement of ideas is

somewhat

arbitrary.

So what does it mean? I don't know. But think about it: You, dear reader, didn't read this backwards. Even if ideas have a logical, sequential order, we could express them in a linear fashion in whatever direction we might choose. If our technology were capable, would we make use of a third dimension to express ideas? Would we pull important ideas towards us, to get our attention, or push them away to relate the fact that they are "deep"? I wonder.

As I advertised in the title, I have drawn no conclusions. What are your thoughts? When you stand in the place where you live (now face north) and you think about direction and wonder why we have it, what do you think?

P.S. Don't write your reply backwards or vertically. I am clever enough to appreciate the idea, but not clever enough to actually sail through un-navigable waters, so don't waste your time.

Dear Middle America: Quit Whining About MySpace!

Okay, that's enough! Stories about MySpace have been filling up everything from tech journals to reputable newspapers to tabloid TV. Last night the story made its way to my local news. It's got to stop.

I don't know when exactly this all started (I don't have Lexis search capabilities) so I don't know if David Brooks was the start of all this with his January 8th piece "Bondage and Bonding Online" in the NYTimes, or if he brought his credibility to this silliness and that helped give reputable news sources permission, but it's just ridiculous now.

There are two kinds of pieces on MySpace. The first go something like this: Look at this wild phenomenon. Kids are connecting with one another at an unprecedented rate on this site called MySpace. It's growth is phenomenal. This alone isn't that interesting, but it says something about modern kids' need to connect with others. Wow!

The second kind goes like this: Check out MySpace. Kids are posting sexually revealing pictures of themselves and sharing startling facts about their drinking and drug habits. What is America coming to? Sexual predators will take advantage of this. Run for the hills!

Both of these are garbage. As to the first, the growth of MySpace is the story, not kids' need to connect. Middle America, if you needed MySpace to let you know that American teens feel isolated and emotionally deprived, you deserve a solid smack to the head. Teens have been lonely and melancholy since the dawn of time. This isn't news. Historically, cultures have provided them with meaningful rites of passage (you know, like backbraking child labor, arranged marriage, and families to support) which forced them to ignore their angst and get on with adult life. We take responsibility away from kids, but instead of helping them cope with the feelings they are wrestling with, we create a purpose vacuum and expect them to navigate it. Has MySpace tapped into this? Yes. Has it filled the void? No. Kids are just as alone and in need. Now you can log on and see it for yourself.

Thank you MySpace.

As to the second, MySpace doesn't tell you anything you shouldn't have known, and your fear of it is more of an explanation than the site is.

Are sexual predators going to use it? Sure, just like they've used e-mail and telephones and the mail. Sickos find a way, but we don't get rid of mail or phones or priests training alter-boys because of a few whack-jobs. MySpace hasn't made kids more vulnerable to pedophiles (or peer bullying) than e-mail or instant messaging.

Are kids sexually active? Shocking. Are they far more provocative and promiscuous than the previous generation? Sure. Look at the role models they've been provided. First, there's Hollywood, and before you blame them, recognize that they don't make a single thing you don't pay for. Second, your kids get to see porn (both boys and girls). Third, when you don't talk to them about sex, they assume that what you do behind closed doors is whore it up just like the people they see in progressively more perverse films. Do you talk openly about it with them in your homes, your schools, your churches? No. You tell them to be abstinent. You say sex is forbidden. Have you forgotten that the very forbidden nature of sex, like any activity, makes it more attractive? If you are worried about your kids being overly fascinated with sex, talk to them about it. Trust me, nothing will take the fun out of sex faster than a kid being forced to imagine their parents doing it. Ditto with alcohol. You forbid it, so it's cool.

Your kids drink just like you did when you were their age. And, just like you, they exaggerate how much they drink. When they drink, they do so irresponsibly because it's a rare occasion and they haven't learned to pace themselves. Just like you, at their age. Then they brag about it. You bragged in a locker room, or on the phone. They do it on MySpace. Because you (like your parents) downplay the amount you drink, there seems to be a very large disparity between your alcohol intake and theirs. Don't worry. You still drink more than your kids. You pace yourself, you sip, you do it on a more regular basis. They sneak around and binge when they get the chance. The only difference is that now you get to read about it when they tell their friends.

Again, thanks MySpace.

There are some legitimate news pieces about MySpace. Some people are recognizing that musical groups have found a new venue. The quality generally stinks, just like any new medium, but there will be some gems that will rise up out of the gravel, just as great groups marketed themselves through cassette recordings once upon a time. Also, there's money to be made, and people ought to pay attention to who is winning and losing on that front. Most ominously, the site has been purchased by Rupert Murdoch (owner of Fox "news") so it will be interesting to see if people maintain the right to freely share political beliefs. That's something for journalists to watch.

Is there more we might learn about our teens from MySpace? Perhaps. But, so far, we haven't seen anything newsworthy. Middle America, put down your papers, turn off your TVs, and go check out your kids' MySpace sites. And please, for the love of all that's good and holy, quit your whining and talk with your kids about what you see there.

Welcome!

Welcome to Unapologetic Conjecture. We struggled mightily to come up with a name that perfectly suited our purpose here, which is to present ideas which are not born of expetise but also aren't encumbered by the biases that often come with titles. The collection of contributors that we'll assemble here will aim to entertain and enlighten (and, doubtless, irritate). Hopefully we will earn the time you devote to reading our posts. As some guy named Bill once wrote, "...if you with patient ears attend, /What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend."