L'histoire de sa vie

A continuation of my “Confession” series, modeled after Alana’s “Sunday Confessional.”

Admittedly there are some things about me that are a little OCD. Along with eating in order, I also like to prepare my food according to routines. These are harmless routines and usually I’m not even aware I’m following them. However, I make a lot of sandwiches, and recently I noticed a pattern with my mayonnaise spreading that can be best described with the help of this flow-chart:

As I said, it’s perfectly harmless, but where I spread my mayonnaise dictates the entire makeup of the sandwich. Everything goes on top of the foundation that the mayo creates, so my whole sandwich ends up on the left side. Finally I place the last piece of bread on top, and boom, my plate is left-heavy.

Actually this left-heaviness, now that I think of it, is convenient since I hold my plate with my left hand and my glass of whatever beverage I’m consuming with my right. So far from being harmless, this particular OCDness is a major benefit to my sandwich mechanics!

A continuation of my “Confession” series, modeled after Alana’s “Sunday Confessional.”

The title says it all: my handwriting is what can only be termed abysmal. It’s pretty much always been this way, at least as far back as I can remember. There was a time, in early elementary school, where I was given a notebook with large space for practicing handwriting with the goal of preventing this exact problem.

You probably know exactly the notebook I’m talking about: it had blue lines and red lines, with a big dotted line in between. The idea was that short letters (lower-case, I suppose) would be below the dotted line, and connecting bars on tall letters (like the horizontal bar on ‘H’) would go on the dotted lines. The area was divided into two areas, those areas legal for small letters and parts of big letters and those areas legal only for the tops of the big letters.

Having been taught that prejudice is wrong, this seemed awfully letterist to me and I rebelled. Or perhaps I just lacked the motor-coordination required to write neatly. Either way, my penmanship grades were always the lowest of any grades I’ve received, even to this day.

It also helps that I don’t know cursive. I mean, I can read it, and I suppose I could probably write each letter if I tried hard enough, but I never learned to string them all together as necessary. Especially not with any reasonable speed.

So when I read this article at Neatorama, I was thrilled, shocked, and saddened simultaneously. Thrilled to find out that others share my problems. Shocked that handwriting is so judged (even though I certainly experienced this in middle and high school). And saddened by the fact that the SAT Writing Exam provides lower test scores to those with poor handwriting. [I never took the “new SAT” with the writing section though, so I avoided this.]

Therefore, I urge any of you who otherwise judge people on their handwriting to stop doing so; there are too many of us in the world with poor handwriting but otherwise good writing skills. Handwriting should not be what holds us back from being able to exchange ideas; rather, it is an impediment that should be removed. This blog, after all, is not handwritten. If it were, the results (see above) would be disastrous!

Finally, on important forms, I write in all caps. My caps handwriting isn’t that bad, so it works out. But sometimes when I’m distracted, even that looks bad. It really comes down to the amount of time I have to write. The more time available, the better my handwriting will be. Contrast this to typing, where, even if I have hardly any time, I can still produce a beautiful document using LaTeX. Once again, technology frees us.

A continuation of my Confession series, modeled after Alana’s Sunday Confessional.

“Happy Holidays” is a phrase that everyone has to hear all the time around this season. In the post office, paying for groceries, in the airport security line, at a restaurant, at a bar, and even walking on the street. Everywhere you go, it’s “Happy Holidays.”

Which you might think, from my point of view, is nice. You might be tempted to think that it’s awfully considerate of the Christian majority to remember the tiny minority of people who aren’t celebrating Christmas, and instead of saying “Merry Christmas” choose to simply say “Happy Holidays.”

You’d be wrong. On the contrary, the phrase “Happy Holidays” annoys me to no end. In many ways, I am far more offended by it than by the few people left who do still say “Merry Christmas.” When someone says “Happy Holidays” to me, I always respond with “Merry Christmas,” and often I don’t even give them the chance; I start the volley whenever possible.

The phrase “Happy Holidays” is not only tinny, it’s also naive. It’s as if the people who say it are unaware that I might know that Christmas is the actual holiday at this time of year. Sure, there’s Hanukkah, but that ended over a week ago, so I’m pretty sure the ghost of Judah Maccabee will rest easy if I am not greeted for Hanukkah this late in the game.

And according to the post office, there’s also Kwanzaa and Eid at this time. However, I’m pretty sure anyone who celebrates Kwanzaa (does anyone celebrate Kwanzaa?) probably also celebrates Christmas, and as for Eid, I’m not sure these “Happy Holiday” greeters have any idea such a holiday exists.

So please, everyone, let’s drop the act. You’re not fooling anyone. When you say “Happy Holidays,” we all know what you mean. Better you should come out and say it. “Merry Christmas.”

A continuation of my “Confessions” series, modeled after Alana’s “Sunday Confessional”

So if you’ve been reading this blog from the beginning (it feels like so long ago!) then you’ve probably noticed that quite often, I have posts that concern traffic signs. In fact, the tag “traffic-laws” returns three other posts that concern traffic signs at least to some small extent, which seems like more than should be reasonable for one website.

But the truth is, I’m obsessed with traffic signs. No joke. I love them. My absolute favorite section of the Texas Drivers Handbook, which I had to read thoroughly when learning to drive, consists of fourteen pages of traffic signs, each organized into different sections by color and purpose. Whenever I see a new sign I’ve never seen before, I ooh and aah and sometimes even take pictures. A new and interesting street sign can provide me with hours of thought. Here are some stories of the extent of my traffic sign obsession:

When I first visited New York state, I was amazed to find that there aren’t just Speed Limit signs, but Speed Limit signs organized by purpose. In addition to “Village Speed Limit,” I have also seen “Area Speed Limit, “City Speed Limit” and even “Mall Speed Limit.”

Also in New York, specifically in the city, there are a lot of signs that forbid honking or “blocking the box.” In addition to forbidding these actions, they come with strong corollaries, namely “Fine +2 points,” as though blocking the box is a game, and you get +2 points (“Fine!”) if you succeed in avoiding gridlock. [Superb +10 points! Great Job +20 points!]

When I went to Poland in 2004, I fell in love with all the crazy Eastern European street signs. On day one, I asked our bus driver what a bunch of signs meant. He explained a sign to me each day, and I then imparted the knowledge over the PA system on the bus to the rest of my group. I still remember what every sign means, but my favorite was the one that he never had to explain to me (yet everyone else wanted me to explain it to them…?)

Just look at that lollipop! It’s actually larger than the little girl’s head! [There was a disagreement on the trip as to whether it was a lollipop or a balloon. After extensive Googling when I returned from the trip, I was able to determine that it is in fact candy.] As an aside, this lollipop reminds me of another sign, though not a traffic sign, that always cracked me up when I was younger. It was on the Shell Auto Care center near my house. The fact that this man can hold such a large wrench is mindboggling.

Finally, a story featuring the wit of my brother: in high school, I used to drive often to my friend Daniel’s house. Right across the street from his house is a “Road Humps” sign. I asked aloud, “Road humps what?” to which my brother immediately responded: “The asphalt.”

A continuation of my “Confession” series, modeled after Alana’s “Sunday Confessional.”

I often find myself making a numbered list: “there are four reasons why this is a bad idea” or perhaps “I can think of six possible decisions you could make…” However, what’s ridiculous is that i come up with the numbers before i come up with the lists themselves. That is, the number four or six pops into my head and out of my mouth before I’ve actually formulated four reasons or six decisions.

Often this doesn’t cause a problem as I’m able to come up with reasonable lists quickly. Sometimes, however, this goes awry, and I find myself with a much larger number than for which I could possibly come up with the list. Two examples are below:

Once, I prepared a very long plane letter for Linda when she was going to Spain. It included the following item in the table of contents:

Section XV: The filler section, or: “Next time, I’ll number afterward”

See, I had come up with the number of sections already, I had started filling them in, but by the time I got to 15, I didn’t have anything else about which to write! So I was stuck with the number system I had created, and rather than renumber, I made a filler section.

The other example is from much further back, from my year in Israel. The story is long, but basically, Shoshana had a blog and Nehama and Gabe both made a blog with almost the exact same title. This was my reaction to Shoshana when she asked advice:

I figure you have seven options.
1. Approach them and tell them that you looked at their blogs, and although you found the writing to be subpar, you were fond of the name, because imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.
2. Approach them and tell them that you aren’t so thrilled that they took the name you made without asking you. You consider it rude and unjust.
3. Approach them and tell them that they have 24 hours to change the names of their blogs or you will hire someone to kill their mothers.
4. Approach them with a shovel and deck them with a single blow to the back of the skull.
5. Approach them with M-16 Machine Guns using the live Ammo that Nahum carries around and gun them down.
6. Forgive them, Ignore the whole thing, and move on to greater heights, such as helping me promote my new invention: Spray peanut butter.
7. Continue your facebook activities, since you managed to respond to that message far too fast and are obviously not paying attention in class.

Obviously by the time #3 rolled around, I was already out of serious ideas (of course, #s 6 and 7 were serious ideas, in a matter of speaking, so really had I said “I figure you have four options,” all would have worked out for the best.

Of course, this is easily one of the most ridiculous parts of my personality, but to combat the problems it causes (the above potentially caused Gabe to hate me. The jury’s still out, but I can’t figure out any other reason for his hatred.) I have started using much smaller numbers. Instead of six options, I’ll say three. But of course, this causes another problem: there are times when I have more good ideas but the number has already expired.

A continuation of my “Confession” series, modeled after Alana’s “Sunday Confessional.”

Whispering, it seems, is a useful tool when one is trying to avoid having others hear whatever he or she wants to convey to a limited audience. Unfortunately, I’m not very good at it. Basically, I’m capable of whispering, but usually rather than doing so, I instead speak in a quieter tone. However, this is not whispering, it is just quieter speaking. As a result, I have been told many times that I’m a bad whisperer.

Sometimes this is a problem, though usually it is not. The biggest problem associated with this issue is when I’m trying to avoid being loud, rather than avoid shielding what I have to say from prying ears. When near-silence is the goal and I forget to switch to actual whispering, others become annoyed by my sudden noise.

However, when I’m simply discussing matters that others should not hear, I find that I don’t need to whisper. In fact, I’ve learned that sometimes the easiest way to audibly hide something from someone is to in fact just say it, aloud, even when they are around. I have learned that most people pay little attention to the speaking going on around them, and as long as I avoid using actual names, the bystanders will ignore or tune out pretty much anything I’d rather they not hear.

Thus I’ve managed to avoid having to fix my whispering problem. And frankly, I’m happy with this: usually when I recognize a problem I have, I have to fix it. But this problem, it seems, can go on without rectification. And thus I will continue to whisper poorly.

A continuation of my “Confession” series, modeled after Alana’s “Sunday Confessional.”

Words and phrases seep into my vocabulary. If I’ve heard words or phrases enough, then unconsciously I’ll pick them up and start saying them myself. After a time, they’ll eventually seep out, but while they’re there, they’re like tenants who don’t pay rent but consume nonetheless.

These words poison my speech, peppering my otherwise untarnished vocabulary. They set up camp and until they are evicted, bystanders are forced to hear these words with increasing frequency from my mouth.

This is something I don’t like, but until I realize the words have taken over, I cannot eradicate them from my vocabulary. The particular word that has seeped in most recently is “unbelievable.”

I believe that Jar is to blame for this particular word, as this summer, he would use it as a one-word answer to anything he couldn’t otherwise answer, or perhaps anything for which he couldn’t find the faith necessary to believe.

Nonetheless, I too have found a lot of things unbelievable in the recent past. Among these include the Reds’ sweep of the Astros, the fact that someone took the JTS elevator to floor 2, the fact that the cafeteria ran out of French fries on meat day, and the overpowering smell of a freshman in my Ancient Jewish History class. Most of these things were in fact believable (not the odor – unbelievable) and perhaps a better description of these things would be “disappointing and outside of the realm of my control.”

Unfortunately, no such word exists (that I could find) and I am stuck with ‘unbelievable.’ Though my recognition of the word’s overuse will decrease it’s use, I am in fact upset that I will have to find a substitute word or phrase, one likely less catchy, to describe situations that occur in everyday life but are nonetheless, for lack of a better term, unbelievable.

A continuation of my “Confession” series, modeled after Alana’s “Sunday Confessional.”

So I like beer. A lot. A quick glance through past entries of my blog will turn up brewery tours, reviews of beers, and links to my three beer lists on Springpad. Those close to me will tell you that my beer love is relatively new, but nonetheless strong and passionate. So therefore, like anything else, I choose to judge a select group of people because of this.

I call these people beer heathens. These are not people who don’t like beer; such people are fine in my book, as there are many foods I don’t like and I don’t expect to be judged by lovers of those foods. No, people who don’t like beer are okay.

These are also not people who taste beers I love and state “eh, it’s okay.” These people are certainly wrong, but not necessarily beer heathens. (With the exception of Shiner Bock. If you drink beer and don’t like Shiner Bock, you are a beer heathen. Also potentially not worth the oxygen you breathe.)

No, beer heathens are a different breed of people altogether. Allow me to use a recent, politically-charged story to illustrate the true meaning of ‘beer heathen,’ and as a bonus, to possibly offend some people:

Henry Gates, a Harvard professor, was having trouble getting into his house, so he began breaking in. A neighbor called the police, and by the time Sgt James Crowley arrived, Gates was inside. He proved he owned the house, but “words were exchanged” and Gates was arrested, not for B&E, but for disorderly conduct. The charges were dropped, but President Obama first commented on the arrest, implying that race was a factor. Crowley, offended by these implications, called out Obama. Realizing his mistake, Obama invited Crowley and Gates to the White House for a “beer summit.”

Here’s where the beer heathen part comes in: Gates had Sam Adams (pretty good), Crowley had Blue Moon (quite tasty), Obama had Bud Light (what?), and best of all, Joe Biden had Buckler, a non-alcoholic beer.

The comedy of Biden’s choice aside (I’m surprised he didn’t go with Weyerbacher’s Blithering Idiot), Obama’s choice makes him a beer heathen. That is, someone who has plenty of other choices, but chooses the cheap, nasty, unexciting beer to drink. Especially ridiculous is that as President, surely he had access to any other beer he wanted, yet he chose Bud Light. [Not even an American-owned beer… in these times of economic strife, perhaps he should have chosen a Chicago microbrewery… like say, Goose Island.]

Beer heathens are not college students who don’t have money to spend on anything but Coors. These students are not worried about flavor or quality, but rather about cost, and drunkenness-potential. No, beer heathens are the people who, in a restaurant, would actually choose Coors over other options on the menu, when all beers are similarly priced. These are a particularly nasty breed of people, people who don’t understand that beer can be a good thing; it doesn’t have to taste like urine.

I’d like to close this judgment with an amusing anecdote: Once, at a party, I pointed to the “cold-activated” Coors Light can and said to my friend Alex, “See, it’s not blue so you can tell it’s warm.” He responded: “See, it says “Coors” so you can tell it’s piss.”

A continuation of my “Confession” series, modeled after Alana’s “Sunday Confessional.”

Imagine you sit down at a meal of steak, french fries, and sautéed vegetables. It looks delicious, and it probably is. At this point, I understand, most people would taste the steak, perhaps much a fry or two, and eat some of the vegetables.

But not me. See, with a few exceptions, I eat in order. That is, I finish one part of my meal before I move on to the next. In the example above, I would probably eat the fries, then the vegetables, and finally the steak. If the fries don’t look that great, or I’m really excited for the steak, I might mix it up, but in general, that would be my order.

In the picture above, I’d probably eat the chicken nuggets first, and the bread, followed by the potatoes or vegetables, and finally the cookie.

I think that when people realize that I do this, they think I’m crazy. I didn’t realize it myself until my mother pointed it out when I was younger, and at first, I tried to deny it. “I do not!” Eventually though, I grew to embrace my eating habits. Most think that my eating is irrational (like my basement fear), but I argue that it is in fact more rational than not! Let’s examine some common orders for why:

1. Steak scenario above: I eat the fries first because they are a finger food. Then I pick up one utensil (the fork) to eat the vegetables, and finally, I pick up the second utensil (knife) to eat the steak. Maximum utensil efficiency.
2. Chinese food with multiple options: last night I had Chinese featuring three different entrees, all on rice. I ate them in order, not for efficiency but for taste maximization. If I mix the chicken and the beef, I will not be able to fully enjoy the tastes of both.
3. Salad situation: If a salad is presented, or often a soup, I will eat these first, even though they may require one utensil when part of the remaining meal requires none. This is because in my head, salad (or soup) comes first. Dessert comes last.
4. Indian, etc, food: There are exceptions to the rule. Foods that require the same amount of utensils, that are better mixed together, etc, such as Indian food, are not generally eaten in order, but altogether.

When I was younger, my mom often made mish-mosh. This combination of multiple foods, in my mind, was amalgamated as one. Similarly, if foods touch on a plate, I don’t freak out. I may still eat them in order, I may not. But I am not against food integration or overlap.

Nonetheless, the next time you share a meal with me, don’t be surprised when I eat everything in order. I may be saving the best for last, I may be maximizing efficiency or tastiness, but in any case, I’m enjoying my meal the way I always have.

Alana has a feature on her blog on Sundays called “Sunday Confessional” in which she confesses things about herself. I love this feature, so I’ve decided to adapt it for L’histoire de sa vie, only not necessarily on Sundays, or any reasonable schedule. Confession 1:

People who know me very well know that I am afraid of very few things. Among these things is basements, which frankly terrify me. I’m not scared of the concept of basements, which I actually think is quite cool: if done right, the basement could be a whole other floor of a house, hidden from the outside world. Pretty sweet.

No, what I’m scared of is going into basements, alone. Perhaps it’s the lack of windows, or the idea that they’re buried in the earth under the weight of a whole house, or their unfamiliarity to me (Houston, like most of the South, has no basements), but whenever I descend basement stairs, I can’t help but feel that the earth will swallow me. Because of my related fear of dying alone, this means I cannot enter basements without a companion, preferably one willing to die with me in a Sodom-and-Gomorrah-earth-swallowing freak accident.

The first basement I ever encountered was in North Carolina. I remember it being a dark and spider-filled hellhole of doom. In high school, I was often informed that I would be “sleeping in the basement,” when I traveled to the North, a thought that is almost too dreadful to even write.

I’m okay with basements of large buildings. Perhaps my trust of large civil engineering projects is stronger than that of homes, or maybe elevators make basements simply seem like “other floors,” especially when there is more than one basement. It also could be because big buildings contain many rooms, not just in the basement, without windows. In addition, the bigger the basement, the more likely I’ll be comfortable while below ground. If I can see an above-ground window, it also goes a long way to calming me, knowing that when swallowed by the ground, at least I’ll still be able to breathe. [The soil’s jurisdiction ends at window level, presumably.]

So the next time you invite me to your beautiful Northern home, don’t be shocked when I hesitate at the stairs to the basement. I’m sure your subterranean entertainment room is really cool and stocked. It’s just that I’d prefer that you go first.