“Octopus, why do you have so many arms?”

I wrote that I had had a horrible dream the other night. I was in a back yard but it was a class room. The school marm was absent. I was making a point so stepped into the hall (which was through the back door of the yard’s out-building) and grabbed Octopus. When I had gotten back, one of the students said “Octopus, why do you have so many arms?” I had to step away for something.

When I had returned the students and teacher were gone and Octopus had morphed into two people. They had completely rearranged the yard/classroom and were busily salvaging anything they could get their hands on. I noted that the teacher wouldn’t be happy. We looked at an old school photo where I could make out my own classmates from grammar school. I pointed at one and said I knew him but they were all older in the photo.

I went away again and this time when I returned the people in the yard had become one fat person lying prone. He sat up a little and a look of realization set in as he discovered that the left side of his body—face, arms, legs and torso—had been viciously ripped from his body; entrails all. He lay back down—dead? I suppose.

I walked away from the yard and heard the sound of what I figured were the perpetrators. I was leaning against something that occluded their view of me and looking across from me I saw another person doing the same. That person was discovered. The people (who may or may not have destroyed the body of the person in the yard) shot tasers with cube shaped darts at the other person. As they turned to do the same to me I berated them and discovered that they were only children.

Manhattan Tunnels

Today at around 9:30 am I read in the paper that the Manhattan Tunnels were flooded and this got me thinking, "A hurricane hit New York." This seemed a profound notion.

I had been hearing about it for a few days. The Caribbean and Florida were hit by surges and wind. There were dead and displaced. I know what hurricanes do to the American South. There are even stories of hurricanes in Baja California. I had just never heard about this kind of thing in New York.

So, I made a list of people in my mind that lived on the East Coast. It wasn't long of course and I don't think it was especially complete but hell, I thought it would be an interesting experiment to find out what happened to them.

I sent out the same text to each: "How's the weather?" and waited. The first was from my friend Dew in West Virginia, where it probably was snowing. He sent back, "it's beautiful g I heard your team won the big game. Congrats. How's your weather?" To which I replied, "It's damp but work wasn't cancelled. How was the test?" He said, "The test wasn't cancelled the test was like getting kicked in the balls for two hours and after a while you don't care."

My friend Trout, said, "It was hella windy. Shit is pretty fucked up all over the city, but central Brooklyn, where I live didn't have a bad time. We have power and our street is ok. Several old trees in the park across the street fell, which makes me sad." I texted back to her that the Giants had won the World Series and after she said, "Yay Giants! Transportation is the next big problem here. Tunnels are flooded and it might take a week to get the subways back. Maybe it is a good time to bike around the city :)"

My other friend in Brooklyn told me she was in Peru. I told her that Manhattan was under water and she was in disbelief. She had been out in the wilds for several days and knew nothing.

Finally, Johnny, who lives in Port Jefferson at the end of Long Island across from Connecticut, got back to me late in the day. He said "the weather is fine now, massive tree smashing crazy time last night."

The Final Count

I’ve been working as an enumerator for a while now. Naturally, I’m excited about the job as I have been doing this kind of stuff for a long time now. Basically I walk around a designated route in several places counting things. The job involves three things. First there is the ontology. Since this study is the first of its kind I have to build a list of all of the things that I can possibly count. Next, I need to actually count those things. Finally, I have to indicate whether the things that I am counting are absent on subsequent passes.

Okay, so it makes sense right? Well I don’t expect everybody to understand. I understand it only enough to actually do the job. After all I am a geographer and not a philosopher.

However, up till now I was only theoretically aware of how difficult it can be to simply count things. My biggest qualm with the job is the fact that the swings between counting are so short. On the first swing at each site I have had to spend nearly twice as much time as normal to get the ontology down and this doesn't even account for the fact that subsequent swings have unearthed mistakes that may take even more time. In the end I have had to do my counting and then run run run to the next portion of my path or else be late and not meet my next requirements.

Suffice to say that lately, like when I go looking for a pub to watch the NLCS or World Series, I don’t have a lot of time to enjoy myself.  Celebrating, say, my team’s successes or scarfing down a taco or sandwich has been difficult lately.  Generally, I only have enough time to punch my fist into the air after the final count.

I started writing this on 102112.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.

Salmon and Beans with Quinoa

On Monday I helped a bike organization perform maintenance on the bikes at a local middle school and cut out early to go to work. The job takes me all over the city and is pretty easy. Before each survey I set up camp at a central coffee shop. On Monday though I had to go the project organizer’s office where we discussed the new routes and procedures. After the meeting I ran off to catch the Giants win NLCS 7 and bumped into some friends. I was really happy that the Giants did so well!

Next day I went to dinner at a girlfriend’s house after I did my route; salmon and beans with quinoa. Amazing. I finally got some work done at home that day.

I was so conflicted over a volunteer party to which I was invited. I had made plans to see the Worlds Series with my good friend. I called the volunteer coordinator and he said they would have a TV but when I got to Yancy’s we decided to just stay there. Good thing too because I realized after the Panda hit three homers that I hadn’t wanted to miss that.

This is series chronicles my life at regular intervals. This Memo series is meant to be a retrospective of what I have written and experienced. In each of these posts I use my notes in conjunction with memory, mementos and souvenirs to create a snap shot of my life.

My Tenure

I am tired of Youtube changing. It has always been this way. I have been trying to keep up with it but it doesn’t really work. From day to day it has only continued. I can hardly get used to it. There is stuff in there that I really like listening to and, well, to be honest I am NOT going to stop. I just keep switching my playlists up so that I don’t get interrupted with commercials. I have to hand it to them though. They have come a long way with a product that basically does nothing but lose money.

I had a conversation with my two friends the other day about an organization of which I used to be a part. We were talking about being a part of a movement or organization and keeping up with change and development. Much like a website or even a company for that matter, groups need to change or they die. My one friend was talking about this with her work; about how changes at work can make things hard. This is when we started talking about my activities organizing in the town I last lived. My other friend made the salient observation that I had started this one club there only to watch it die.

I wouldn’t contest this but I don’t think that this was actually the case. Organizations tend towards dissolution and only the best organized and visionary of us can keep things up—especially in the face of adversity. I didn’t even preside over the failures he identified but I suppose I could have helped to keep them from happening.

It was about four years ago. I had started a campus club and my co-chair and I went looking for members. He set up the website and posted stuff. I made flyers and other types of artsy stuff. It was a public-safety/awareness organization and we were active. There were a lot of people involved. We had a lot of fun. We had events and trips and went all over the county.

There was a club in town—off campus—that was very similar to ours and was oriented more towards fun and entertainment and my co-chair was elevated to being their vice president. The city took notice because there were many elements to the club that fit the local government’s agenda. In time my tenure came to an end at the campus club and I stepped down—giving the chairmanship over to someone new.

From there both clubs stopped functioning in the same way. Both the campus and off-campus clubs both had a fair amount of readership and had even been mentioned in the local periodicals on more than one occasion. I had always tried to steer my organization based upon principles and I felt that my co-chair ran his vice presidency off-campus in the same manner.

This stopped being the case at some point though. I am not really certain where this happened since I moved away. However, I know that neither organization exists anymore in the form that I remember it. What has changed? The principles are all still there. They just require that someone return to them and pick them up. Hell maybe the principles themselves have changed in some fundamental way on a local level. However, those principles or a set of similar ones still inform my character and I am still using them to work.

Which is sort of why I wrote this isn’t it? The songs are still there. I just have to constantly keep reorganize the playlists to listen to them.

I started writing this [rphl] on 101412.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.

Two Playoff Games

I’ve been surveying parked cars lately and the routes I do are pretty mundane. Basically, I walk around and count stuff. I have to make a list of stuff that I count and then write how many I saw and then return to see how things had changed. Every time I do it it changes and while the whole thing is interesting I only have a rudimentary understanding of what is going on since someone else is the organizer for the project.

I usually get some breakfast before doing a job like this and last Wednesday wasn’t much different. I stopped at Yancy’s to check in on the Giants that night and discovered that the A’s were playing too. There is nothing more nerve wracking than watching two playoff games at the same time!

The next day I saw the last NLDS game and was happy for the Giants moving on to the Series!! I ended up meeting my friends for a show in the Mission. One of them was from LA County. We all went to one of my favorite bars on Market for a beer and conversation. There we saw some of my friends from several state bicycle advocacy groups. I thought that was cool.

My friend from LA and I went on EB Bike Party with his friends. It was liberating. I saw a bunch of people I know and we visited the city of Alameda. As I had never been there before I was glad I went. That town had a lot of older Victorians that made the neighborhoods look generally quaint and livable.

Tomorrow I am planning on going to the Noriega Street Faire.

This is series chronicles my life at regular intervals. This Memo series is meant to be a retrospective of what I have written and experienced. In each of these posts I use my notes in conjunction with memory, mementos and souvenirs to create a snap shot of my life.

Secret Worlds

We all have secret worlds. Sometimes, on the way home from work say, we stop at the store or pass through the park. When we get home, our roommates or spouses don’t know where we’ve been and most of the time it doesn’t matter anyway. These moments are personal and irreplaceable.

A secret world doesn’t have to be one that you hide from those around you. It is simply inevitable. I can open up the drawer at my desk and find six packs of gum. Where did they come from? Each pack tells its own story.  They represent numerous trips to random liquor stores or supermarkets. However, none of these stories ever gets told. Even a pile of pens and envelopes holds a truth that only the hand of an expert interrogator can unlock.

I started this blog to make sure that the world at least has a chance to learn about my life and times. I ride my bike a lot; take trains and buses all over the place. I have reasons for doing everything but I don’t always say what those reasons are. I meet a lot of people in the course of a day but they don’t all know each other.

I suppose I can say that I am still young and maybe I will have a chance to talk to the radio host about my greatest hits in my seventies. However, even by that measure I can’t be certain how many years or decades I have to go. I am not even certain who I am let alone what secret truths I need to record for posterity.

Even now I am beginning to segue into new things. I volunteer at the Botanical Garden and go on less bike rides now. I’ve been working for on a local a parking survey lately. Who are these new people and personalities and how do they fit into my world? I can’t say and I won’t know until many years from now maybe. This is the most important element to a secret world. I can never actually know how many stories are locked up in my mind that other people in my life probably aren’t ever going to hear about.

I started writing this on 100712.  This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.

Knitting Circles to Unions

Sameness is traditionally used to define group formation because of the way that addressing problems must involve system wide solutions. Group formation usually involves a class of individuals identifying a certain thing or idea as important and they organize for the sake of having a stronger voice or making that idea a reality. For instance, fatal medical epidemics require huge amounts of money and awareness to be successful, especially when success means saving the lives of giant populations. Other examples may implicate a more narrow range of individuals but by and large organizations from knitting circles to unions depend upon this basic idea.

However, I think it is worth noting how concepts such as work, membership, choice or exchange use difference as a source of energy and development. In fact, these internal differences are hugely important to the idea that each member of a community finds acceptance by way of their unique contribution to the whole. For instance variations in stature and prominence within the membership define an internal hierarchy where some members are more connected to external facilities or projects and other members serve to power the group’s ideology.

In fact the way that groups are constituted through difference allows better organization via this process of specialization. Eventually the group—in the United States at least—has to make decisions on how they can develop their organization because of the way that this specialization affects the membership. For instance, it can combine with the speed of information to provide opportunities for corruption or abuse. Of course society has instituted many safeguards on this process and continues to do so but it only shows that individuals cannot always operate on the same platform though they may have shared values.

This is to say that individuals rely upon an implied understanding of shared values and objectives as they rise up the chain of command within their group and this is why I find it amazing that people are able to work together at all. I have always wondered at how people can trust politicians or union representatives since they don’t always have to make decisions dependent upon their constituents.

Turning to my own experiences with group formation and development, I remember that I was always rather naïve in my teens. I believed that those around me only had my best interest in mind and it took me a long time to understand what it meant to contribute to a community. However, even when I did manage to make a significant contribution I still didn’t feel like I was necessarily accepted as a member.

Moving on from those experiences I slowly learned the role that power and money plays in the process of organization and it happened then that I was longer so naïve. I tried to avoid the pitfalls of participation, crafting agendas that were relevant and using each experience for my own benefit. In time I found that I not only was a part of the process but driving it. I now know that there is no way to avoid organization. People must work together to get things done or else failure is inevitable.

This understanding of difference has always driven my interaction with others. However, I lately have been struck by how valuable my naïveté can be. While I cannot return to my early years, my reflections on past experience and how I intend to move forward in life have indicated that my current attitude towards organization isn’t too far off from my attitude then. I think this is because I have come to realize that thought is action too.

I like to contemplate the question: “What is the relationship between same and different?” because it helps to keep my reasons for organizing in perspective. It stands to reason that we can never actually solve our differences. We can only internalize them. Meanwhile, we have more in common with those around us than we know. I find that simply listening helps and once we know what is going on around us we may then move on.

While there may always issues to attend to, I think that the stories of what makes each issue what it is are what matters most. After all if you don’t know what the issue is then how are you ever going to tackle it? I have found that this method of engagement can often be as difficult as any other if not more. Meanwhile, those in power often misinterpret this perspective as being ignorance. It may even draw the attention of nefarious personages. However, this isn’t so bad if it identifies the weakest link in the chain of organization.

I started writing this on 092912.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.