Aches and Pains

I've been having a peculiar problem with my left arm, around the elbow. It's like a muscle ache, but it seems deeper than that -- a tendon, maybe, or some joint or connective tissue. I think I must have strained something while lifting weights. I've been trying to go easier on that arm at the gym, but after more than a week it still feels stiff and painful, especially when I first wake up in the mornings.

My left shoulder is also a little tricky. I can't scratch my own back anymore, which I used to be able to do with ease. I can feel my rotator cuff creaking and protesting when I reach in certain directions.

And then there's my right hand, which seems to have developed a tendency to go numb fairly easily. I notice it in bed and even when I'm just sitting around. What's up with that?!

I don't think any of these are really serious problems. If they persisted or got more severe I might have them checked out, but let's face it -- I'm in my mid-40s!

Aging is so interesting -- when you're younger, you hear older people saying things about their aches and pains, or how their hearing is going, or their eyesight isn't what it used to be. (Not to mention their memories.) But you never really know what they mean until you start aging yourself. Then you find yourself thinking, "Ah! So THIS is what it's like!"

I don't mind it, really. It's just what happens to all of us. C'est la vie.

(Photo: Graffiti by Jhoke, South Amboy, N.J.)

A Single Man

Lots of cooking this weekend -- clam chowder on Saturday, and last night a fish dish layering butternut squash, cauliflower and pollock wrapped in thin potato slices. Our friend Adam came over to share last night's dinner, which also included blackberry and pear cobbler.

(I used to pick blackberries in the wild while growing up in Florida, and my babysitter often made cobblers from them. It still irks me to spend $3.99 for a carton of blackberries, when to me they should be as free as water or air.)

On Saturday we watched DVDs of "Marnie," one of Hitchcock's lesser efforts from the '60s, and "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," known mostly for being Roger Ebert's one screenwriting venture. "Beyond" was a spectacularly, phantasmagorically bad picture, but at the same time a riveting period piece. It had nothing to do with Jacqueline Susann's book or the movie of that book. It was just a drug-fueled psychedelic romp of unknown actors, bared breasts and fake blood spatters. There was even a beheading!

Yesterday we went to see "A Single Man," Tom Ford's movie (adapted from Christopher Isherwood's novel) about a professor coping with the sudden death of his partner of 16 years. It was a good movie in places, with terrific performances by Colin Firth and Julianne Moore -- in fact, Firth is being buzzed about as a potential Oscar nominee. But I thought the film crawled a bit and was too heavy on style, to the detriment of content. You could tell the director is a fashion designer!

(Photo: Coney Island, January 2010.)

Activities

This has been a busy week!

On Tuesday I went to Perth Amboy, on the New Jersey coast near Staten Island. A friend on Flickr had told me about a hot graffiti spot there, so I drove over and checked it out. Among the many pieces I found was this one, "Equinox," which is pretty great, if you ask me. Nice colors, nice lettering, nice proportion.

It was a fun drive. I always like exploring new areas, and I found several more graffiti sites along the way, so it was a productive afternoon of photography. At one point I found myself scrambling through brush on the side of a highway overpass, so it was kind of an adventure, too!

Then, yesterday, I had to go into the city for a meeting. When I registered to collect unemployment -- which as I understand it is paid by my erstwhile employer for a period of weeks on my behalf -- I was told I had to attend a mandatory meeting at an unemployment office. As you can imagine, it was bureaucracy in action.


I suppose if I knew nothing about how to search for a job, it might have been helpful. The presenters talked about the services their office could provide (mainly things like help with resume writing and basic training on computers). I filled out some forms. Then I met individually with an employment counselor who spent most of the time talking about the wonderful view of Central Park from Bergdorf-Goodman. (I was thinking, "I'm unemployed. Do I look like I'm going to Bergdorf-Goodman anytime soon?")

The counselor did tell me that she thought the print size on my resume was too small, and I should enlarge it. So I suppose that was something.

Then I went to meet my friend Dan for lunch. Dan's partner Jimmy is on the City Council in New York, and he was taking part in a press conference on behalf of our senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, who is emphasizing her support for gay rights as part of her reelection campaign. Dan and I stood on the steps of City Hall and watched the press conference -- in 20-degree weather. It was interesting because I'd never been to New York City Hall, and although I've been to tons of press conferences as an ideally objective reporter, I've never been to one where I could actually applaud and express support for the subject at hand.

We had lunch in the historic Woolworth Building in lower Manhattan, and then I caught a train back to New Jersey, carrying a heavy backpack containing all my dishes. (Dave decided he's sick of his own dishes, so I shlepped mine out from the city. Fortunately it's a small set!)

Received!

You know that check I was complaining about in yesterday's post? Well, it arrived yesterday afternoon. Mailed on the 13th, delivered on the 27th. I'd love to know where it's been all this time.

The important thing, though, is that I now have it. Whew!

(Photo: Steps in Greenwich Village, last Saturday.)

Check's in the Mail

There is a curious torture associated with waiting for something to arrive in the mail.

I've been waiting for almost two weeks now, and lately, as humans, we're not used to waiting at all. We usually get everything instantaneously, communicating with email and texts and cell phones. We have the information of our global cultures at our fingertips on the Internet.

What I don't have, and what I've been waiting for, is my severance payment from my erstwhile employer.

For some reason, they chose to mail me a paper check. Why, I have no idea. I've had direct deposit for a decade. When I was laid off, I asked how my severance would be paid, and was told it would be deposited just like my paychecks.

But it wasn't. It was mailed, via plain old, everyday, 44-cent mail.

Problem is, I no longer receive my mail in New York. I've been having it forwarded to Dave's, and its arrival has been sporadic at best. I get a piece here, a piece there. I still don't have my New Yorker from last week, though my Newsweek managed to arrive. I got a letter mailed from the Zendo within a few days; other pieces have taken much more time.

Of course, this is not a small check. It's tens of thousands of dollars, and it's just wandering around out there, probably shelved in some dusty corner of a New York City post office by moderately competent postal workers. I'm trying to be very Zen about it, reminding myself that eventually it will arrive and until then there's nothing I can do, but frankly it makes me crazy.

(A friend suggested that my company mailed me a check in order to hang onto the money for a few more days, thereby earning interest. If that's the case, they must be overjoyed that the postal service is keeping it in limbo.)

(Photo: Pigeons in Brighton Beach. Note the Cyrillic writing on the sign -- it's a very Russian neighborhood.)

Death of Reason

Sometimes I fear that reason, as a goal of society and humanity, is dying.

I'm not a philosopher or a student of philosophy, so I'm no expert, but I think it's clear that some of our great historical thinkers -- Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and others -- valued reason as a tool for navigating the questions of existence. Approaching issues from a reasonable, thinking perspective, with the ability to gather and weigh evidence and come to enlightened conclusions, helped society evolve from European feudalism to a more egalitarian model. It shaped our nation and our ideals.

Nowadays, there seems to be a worldwide backlash against this approach. We see it in the deniers of evolution, the so-called "family values" crusaders, the home schoolers, the evangelical Christians, the radical Islamists, the Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Faith, and fighting to the death for faith, has replaced a reasonable worldview for much of the planet's population and many of its leaders.

This isn't entirely new. The Scopes monkey trial took place nearly a century ago, and there have always been elements of society that denied the reasonable, rational approach. But I think there was once a respect for the great thinkers, the scientists and philosophers who advanced ideas about our origins and destinations. Now they are mocked, ridiculed, criticized as anti-God or anti-Bible, or labeled blasphemers or heretics.

When I was in school the word "heretic" seemed so antiquated -- something associated with the Inquisition. Now we see it used all the time by religious fanatics.

I've said it before -- I am not anti-religion. But I am definitely anti-extremism. I think the planet is drifting toward a more extremist existence, and away from moderation and reason. Why this is, I'm not sure -- I think it's grounded in overpopulation and a primal need to fight for turf. We're the proverbial rats in a cage.

People often muse about the death of empires, and whether the United States is in its descendancy as a world power. If we are, I think this is why. We're abandoning sensible, reasonable approaches to issues and to each other, and wallowing instead in extremist faith-based arguments that can only hinder our scientific, social and political progress.

(Photo: Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.)

Bathing Dogs

I spent this morning giving a bath to my four-legged pals, Ernie and Ruby. They're very clean dogs, usually, since they spend all their time inside and they're not a particularly malodorous breed (unlike, say, black labs). We can usually get away with bathing them every couple of months.

But lately they'd been smelling a little doggy. They have a nice, toasty smell -- Dave likens it to Fritos, and he's right -- but even that can gradually get too intense. There's such a thing as Too Much Frito.

They aren't particularly crazy about bath time, so the routine goes like this:

1. Lure the unsuspecting tail-wagging dog into the bathroom with soft approving noises.
2. Block its escape when it understands what's coming.
3. Hoist all 45 pounds into the tub.
4. Baste liberally.
5. Douse with shampoo.
6. Scrub, while simultaneously frontally blocking the dog's insistent push toward the edge of the tub.
7. Baste repeatedly, continuing frontal block, until all suds disappear.
8. Remove wristwatch you forgot to remove at beginning of procedure, and hope it will still work.
9. Grab towel and shroud dog before it has a chance to shake.
10. Allow dog to escape tub, and towel vigorously. Realize dog must basically air-dry.
11. Watch with dismay as dog shakes.
11. Repeat procedure (except step 8) for second dog.
12. Spend half an hour cleaning the bathroom.

I did the best I could, though it was hardly a professional job. They're far less Frito-ey now.

(Photo: Vent in a graffiti-covered shipping container in Brighton Beach. Not sure why the shipping container had a vent.)