Temp Check 10/13: This is ridiculous.

So, if I weren't so scrupulously honest I'd consider giving up on the tally sheet off to the right there. It has not stopped being too busy and too warm and I have been off my pace for too many weeks. I was so busy today that I didn't even have time to write this post in advance, and i don;t even have time to finish it properly!

Well, we have three weeks left to try to make a comeback. part of my busy-ness today was getting my grading completed, so summer quarter is officially over, and that will help. Of course, the three new preps for September won't do me any good... but neither will bellyaching.

I have a half-a-book report to share. I was reading The Violinist's Thumb by Sam Kean, a wonderful explication of DNA that careens from Deep Science to Wacky Anecdote. Kean is a good explainer and has a great way with the vernacular; some of his turns of phrase are delightfully jarring, like neon signs in chapel. Before I had to turn the book back to library half-read, I learned the following:

• DNA and genes are way more complicated than most things we read make them sound
• Retroviruses are totally scary
• There was a guy who was at both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic blasts - and survived

This week also held campus time, pub trivia (my team came in second!), two RPG nights, a morning spent wandering downtown while the car was being serviced that was extremely pleasant until it went on too long, an evening of circus arts, and some angel duty. See what I mean? Busy!

Artsy picture of a crane reflected in a building.

(The one on the right is the reflection.)

Temp check 9/13: Verily, we stumbleth onward

So, it is beginning to look like this prediction is going to be only as accurate as the stereotypical weather forecast - which is to say hardly at all. I haven't run the numbers yet, but just eyeballing it, it's a pretty good bet that we're not hitting 91% green on that chart off the right.

As I sit here in the still exceptionally warm summer air, after having spent all morning on campus and all afternoon online with my students' work, I'm not going to sweat it - well, maybe literally, but not metaphorically. I'm not sure what's different from last summer to this summer, but my lack of participation in my self-designated activity areas has had little to do with doing little: it seems I am as busy as I ever am. It's just hard to figure out with what, exactly. I have spent more time on campus this summer than I intended, but not too much; we've had to pull some angel duty more often than we expected, but not a whole lot; I have been gaming a fair bit, but not that much more than normal; we've been socializing, but no more than we have in past summers.

It seem that things like re-arranging the living room furniture so the coaxial cable could reach the TV, or arranging for and then sitting for Coco's new tattoo, or tripping over a home inside the Seattle city limits that we could actually afford and dropping in on an open house - these all just seem to take up more time than they should. So be it.

This summer is going great. And based on my meeting this morning with my new dean, I expect fall to be awesome. And that is some fantastic art that Coco got:

Temp check 8/13: Heavens to Betsy

So, the latest WARMER tally sheet is up to the right. It looks much the same as it has done, except for that great red slice across Friday and Saturday. That bloody gash represents a trip to The Lilac City: Spokane, Washington. I went to grad school in Cheney, just outside Spokaloo, and I still have lots of pals there. At least once a summer, we head out early on the 4 hour and 35 minute drive, have lunch, catch an Indians ball game, stay up too late talking, have brunch, and head back home to the cat. It's a great trip every time - and was especially good this time - but it means 36 hours of hard chargin', starting this year on Thursday morning and ending on Friday night.

Coco during our snack break in Vantage, overlooking the Columbia River

As a result, the WARMER plan took a hit. It has taken a lot of hits this summer. I started out strong early in the season, but it seems there's been too much cool stuff - as opposed to WARMER stuff - distracting me this year. When I look at last year, I seemed so on task and consistent. But maybe I was just a lying liar last year. Or maybe I am actually busier.

***

I know one thing I did this week that I didn't do last summer: I officiated a wedding.

My gaming buddy Alex married his girlfriend Sage and I got to do the honors. It was a pretty cool ceremony; one of the "readings" was a quotation from Dr. Who!

The Loo Legacy

So, way back in 1993-1994, I was the Coordinating Library Associate for the Green Lake Branch of the Seattle Public Library, working for the Managing Librarian, the incomparable Toni Meyers. My primary job was borrower service and supervision of the clerks, but I seemed to spend an awful lot of time on those other duties as assigned, such as going up into the cupola and laying down a black tarp over the skylight to block the summer sun and climbing onto the room dividers to secure (and subsequently dress for each season) a six-foot Curious George doll.

I can recall that at one point during a shelf-read, Toni and I decided that some additional signage would be nice - little things, like Car Repair Manuals over the 629s and other small touches that would help with frequently-sought categories. We had no extra budget for signage, of course, and the library did not yet have a color printer (although we were installing our first public-use PCs), so I made the signs at home on my household color printer, a clunky $600 HP that my girlfriend's father had given her as a present. I don't know how many ink cartridges I went through to make all those green-on-yellow signs - or why I didn't use colored paper! - but I duly printed them all, cut them out, and glued them to stiff backing.

In addition to the signs over the collection areas, I wanted one more. The branch had a single-occupancy public restroom. It was kept unlocked, and users could lock the door for privacy when inside. Confusion would arise when someone tried to use the restroom when it was occupied: they would find it locked and come to the desk to get the key, presuming it was kept locked. Then someone would have to explain that there was no key, that someone was in the restroom, and that they had to wait. Sometimes, when the explainer was me, I would see over their shoulder that the person using the restroom had come out, which meant that they didn't have to wait, but made the explanation even more confusing. (No, that just meant that someone was in there, but they're gone now, so go back and it will be open.)

Ever interested in efficiency and service, I made up this little sign and affixed it to the restroom door. It seemed to do the trick and cut down on patron confusion quite a bit.

I left the library - and Seattle - in November of 1994. SPL underwent a massive capital improvement project beginning in 1998 with the Libraries for All campaign, and the Green Lake Branch was shut down in 2004 for several months of extensive remodeling. The checkout counter was completely redesigned and the building was modernized a bit while keeping the classic style of a 1910 Carnegie library.

Somehow, in all that hoorar, the restroom door was restored intact, and with it, my sign. Even though the door has been retrofitted with one of those VACANT / OCCUPIED signs that switches when you throw the lock, my helpful hint remains on the door over two decades after installation.

That's not much of a legacy, I suppose, but it is something.

Temp check 7/13: Indolence and Industry

So, if I ever write a self-help book, it'll be called Be the Game Master of Your Life. I just checked and it's not taken yet. There is a Tumblr called The Game Master of Your Life, but it's about how to DM. My book would contain tips for living a rich, self-actualized life, presented in the idiom of tapletop RPGs. Once I figure out some content, I'm ready to go...

Tabletop view of what gaming looks like when John DMs.

Innyway, this is supposed to be a WARMER check-in.  The new tally sheet is off to the right. Yesterday was the first all-green day in a while. Art is still the reddest column, and reading is the greenest. Overall, its a bit shabbier than I had expected it to be.

When I made up the WARMER acronym (with Coco's help!), I didn't expect it to get confused with the weather forecast, but it easily could. Here's the last week:

As I have mentioned before, us mossbacks get pretty indolent in this truly summery weather. Coco and I can spend an hour just eating some watermelon and looking out the window. That has been one source of the red paint on the tally sheet.

On the other hand, this was a hella busy week for stuff that doesn't show up in the stats: my online classes, of course; meeting a pal and his gal to introduce her to the world of D&D; a dentist appointment; meeting a pal from California for drinks; meeting some pals for dinner; doing some assessment work for a research grant; meeting some pals from Massachusetts for an evening; running a D&D session; playing in a D&D session; and the rest of life, liberty, and the pursuit of housekeeping.

Oh, and one other item: a long, leisurely dinner at Canlis. This restaurant has long been on the bucket list: it is ranked as one of the top 20 restaurants in America by Gourmet Magazine and called "Seattle's fanciest, finest restaurant"by the New York Times and "a dressy, fine dining restaurant" on its own website. Sissy, NatDog, and I splurged on this extravagance to celebrate two things: our joint advancement to Senior Tenured Faculty at our institution and Sissy's birthday.

It was extraordinary. I am not a foodie and I come from a working-class background, but this place was beyond excellent. From the view, the ambience, and the service to the food and wine, everything was top-drawer. Valet parking with no ticket stub. A hostess who addresses you by name. Hat check. Teams of servers, all kind and courteous and not the least bit unctuous or pretentious. Small artsy hors d'oeuvre that melt in your mouth. Champagne that tickles the palate. A sweet beet salad that as tasty as it is colorful. The Platonic Ideal of grilled salmon. Dessert that practically floats. Real brewed coffee. Your car magically appearing when you walk out after the meal. In fact, it was all so good that my Catholic Worker reflex kicked in and I began to feel a little guilty, as if I was mixing with, if not the 1%, then at least the 5%.

But only a little guilty. It was that good.

I believe we were at the table on the right.

Ferrante & Teicher it ain't...

So, as part of the several celebrations of Sissy's birthday, a group of pals went to Keys on Main in Lower Queen Anne for an evening of Dueling Pianos. I had seen shows of this type before: pianists at twin keyboards, playing music, singing, engaging in repartee, telling jokes, taking requests, collecting tips. Having just come from a dinner at Canlis, the paradigm of a swanky joint, I was hoping to continue a great evening with some entertainment and the company of friends.

To put it mildly, it did not turn out as I had expected. Perhaps it was just the jarring transition from the rarefied air of "Seattle's fanciest, finest restaurant" to what was essentially a dude-bro bar, but the tone and timbre of Keys on Main was a real let-down. Here's a catalog of disappointing qualities.

Loud: I'll be the first to admit I am not a connoisseur of music, but it seemed to me that the most prominent component of the skill sets of the pianists was volume.  They did play some of those really-fast-banging-the-keyboard bits like Jerry Lee Lewis, but the rest of the time the music seemed pedestrian. And it was always extremely loud. I don't think this is just age talking; it was literally impossible to converse with Coco, who was sitting right next to me, much less have any kind of celebratory interaction with the table and the guest of honor.

Crass: It became evident quite quickly that if you wanted to get a particular song played, you would have to pony up some serious cash: even early in the evening, people were dropping twenties on the piano along with their request slips. So, if you had a request, you needed to be rich enough to toss off a big tip, or drunk enough to overspend. That system didn't serve to generate a sense of good-time community.

Intemperate: The attitude and remarks of the pianists made it clear that a goal of the evening was to consume a lot of alcohol. Comments like an encouraging "Oh, you're louder than before I took my break - that means you're drinking!" and a chiding "This table is too quiet - you're not drinking enough" established that consumption - indeed, overconsumption - was the point of the exercise. Not just having a good time per se, but getting drunk and having a good time. To me, this seemed like a deliberate strategy to feed both the bar and the tip jar (see Crass, above), but I think it is also an authentic part of the culture of which this club is a part. I'm no teetotaler, but I've also responded to enough bar disturbances to prefer to keep a healthy distance between me and a roomful of drunks.

Heteronormative: The tenor of the evening was all boyz will be boyz and wimmen are the sexay! The only attempt to establish hip, progressive Seattle credentials was when the pianists went out of their way to denigrate country music ("This isn't Tacoma!"). From an early request exhorting male patrons to come to the stage by saying "All the real men stand up!" to one performer pointing out a sailor on leave and relating how he "was in last night and left with like seven women," the evening could have been a scene out of Mad Men as far as gender roles and relations went.

Sophomoric: This heteronormativity was expressed in the most juvenile of ways: Get a woman to come on stage to sit on the piano and say that you're sure "it's not the first time she's sat on some hard wood." Get a woman to come on stage and invite her to sit on your "big, black instrument." Get a woman on stage and sing about how many men she has sex with for money. Get a woman on stage and make her shake her boobs doing the hokey-pokey. Get a woman on stage and make her bob her head so it looks like she is giving oral sex. Snigger, rinse, and repeat. If this stuff was ever amusing, it must have been in the junior high cafeteria.

Not funny: That "big, black instrument joke"? He made it twice in the space of ten minutes. Not only was the material deficient, but the performers were, too. Trying a little too hard to be clever, they did not engage me or make me want to spend any more time in the room with them.

Now, I am well aware that taking this attitude is going to make me the skunk at the picnic and I'll certainly be hit with accusations of being a wet blanket or a stick-in-the-mud. And that's exactly what would have happened to any woman who was called on stage and did not play along with the puerile, sexist shenanigans that passed for entertainment last night.  Fine.  "Anyone has the privilege of offending who is willing to bear the odium," as Rex Stout wrote, and I am perfectly willing.

I'd planned on ending with some inclusive things, like YMMV, or to each her own, or it was just not my tribe, but really, I think this was just a nasty, poisonous place and it's hard for me to say anything remotely positive about it. Which is why I left early, if anyone who was there was wondering.

Happy birthday anyway, Sissy.