So, I will be working at Hollywood . com, starting Monday. I am excited about this. I will be manager of the tech team (7 people plus the QA/project manager). I am disappointed that this means I will have less time for my own personal startups, but I think this will be a great job.

An interesting quote about slavery from Adam Smith:

The experience of all ages and nations, I believe, demonstrates that the work done by slaves, though it appears to cost only their maintenance, is in the end the dearest of any…. Whatever work he does beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own. In ancient Italy, how much the cultivation of corn degenerated, how unprofitable it became to the master, when it fell under the management of slaves, is remarked both by Pliny and Columella….

The pride of man makes him love to domineer, and nothing mortifies him so much as to be obliged to condescend to persuade his inferiors. Wherever the law allows it, and the nature of the work can afford it, therefore, he will generally prefer the service of slaves to that of freemen. The planting of sugar and tobacco can afford the expense of slave cultivation. The raising of corn, it seems, in the present times, cannot. In the English colonies, of which the principal produce is corn, the far greater part of the work is done by freemen…. The profits of a sugar plantation in any of our West Indian colonies, are generally much greater than those of any other cultivation that is known either in Europe or America; and the profits of a tobacco plantation, though inferior to those of sugar, are superior to those of corn, as has already been observed. Both can afford the expense of slave cultivation…

The argument is that men will pursue owning slaves even when it was uneconomic. I can think of other examples: the Germans wanted to enslave and kill Jews, even though it was a terrible setback economically for Germany, with brilliant scientists like Albert Einstein fleeing Germany and moving to the USA. Adam Smith talks about the craving of men to feel superior to other men, though he doesn’t touch upon sexual assaults aimed at women, which is also a part of slavery. Historians have worked too hard to come up with economic explanations for slavery, when explanations based on pure emotion and lust work much better, and explain much more.

Are neotenic traits perserved longer in women? Does that have anything to do with the reason why they live longer than men? Some researchers have wondered about neotenic traits as a form of sexual competition for men, but couldn’t it also be a strategy for adapting to the diversity of children that a woman might produce, and of whose upbringing women have historically done more of the work? I’m always a little amazed at these essays that look primarily at women as sexual competitors for men, while ignoring how the same traits might play a role in child rearing.

Is Homo Sapiens a neotenic great ape? Did our ancestors (and still we) select for infantile traits in their choice of a mating partner? David Brin, in his essay Neoteny and Two-Way Sexual Selection in Human Evolution tries to explain this:

Our starting point is a perceived dichotomy between adult men and women — and thus potentially hazardous ground. Although evolutionary biology has lately been defended from a feminist perspective by Patricia Adair Gowaty (1992) and others, caution remains essential when stepping into this arena, hence I will at times seem to belabor the obvious. Let me also emphasize that Homo sapiens appears less riven by sexual dimorphism than most species, and exceptions exist to nearly every generalization. Nevertheless, it seems clear that past and present human dimorphisms are legitimate topics for careful discussion. While certain neotenous traits seem to be shared equally among the sexes (e.g., curiosity and plasticity of behavior), human females certainly do appear more paedomorphic in outward physical appearance than males. Although they mature at an earlier age, women do not go on to acquire the toughened skin, coarse body hair, thyroid cartilage, bony eye ridges, or deepened voices which are the common inheritance of most adult hominoids and other primates. Jones and Hill (1993) have shown that this generalization remains valid across racial, ethnic and cultural boundaries. Difference in degree of paedomorphism is one of the few truly decisive human sexual-dichotomies, used by most of us in visually distinguishing women from men.

Dead Beat Jones had some funny things to say about Mystery, on VH1:

we move on to kissing techniques, which seem to be the least of these guys’ worries. Mystery’s friend, Tara, is set to help the guys out with this one.

Mystery’s method helps people make a connection that is beyond sex.

She says this, of course, right before she instructs the nerds how to kiss by having them make out with fruit.

This girl then goes on to blindfold herself, kiss all the remaining contestants and name a winner (although in these poor guys’ eyes they probably all feel like winners for getting to kiss something other than a peach). The winner of the challenge (Kosmo with a K) gets the honor/horror of having an earpiece on their next hunt which Mystery will use to guide him like a horny robot.

With his over-excited, adolescent personality and constant referrals to everything being “money,” Kosmo can clearly use every ounce of help he can get. But it brings up an interesting conundrum: if you need someone in your ear telling you how to pick up women, are you really accomplishing anything useful?

We then move on to touching or “kiss tactics.” Here, Mystery offers an obvious mindfuck: the “kino.” Claiming that it refers to “kinesthetics” or the ability to feel movement, he first says that you should touch everyone you’re talking to after 15 seconds…and I literally can’t wait to see these schlubs counting in their heads as they make awkward conversation. Then he makes the awesome claim that if you can’t get a woman to hold your hand, she probably won’t kiss you. Really, Sherlock? How many rejections did it take to figure out that gem? Let me give you a freebie: if she’s pulling away from you and screaming for help, you might want to let her go. And run.

Finally, it’s time to go out “in the field” again. We watch a few guys try to engage women who obviously have no real interest in them. There’s a lot of rejection, a lot of borderline-misogynistic coaching (one guy missed out on a “perfectly good-looking girl”) and a lot of uncomfortable actions.

This lead me into several hours of reading Pick Up Artist websites. One thing I noticed is the one’s with the most active communities (where each posts gets a lot of comments) tend to be the one’s where the writer is NOT trying to make money off the advice they give. An example:

I found it on this excellent site which showcases very old photographs. The description of the photo reads: “Unemployed lumber worker goes with his wife to the bean harvest. Note Social Security number tattooed on his arm.”

Despite this man’s pauper clothes (there was little peacocking during the Great Depression), his jobless status, his search for employment or food at a bean harvest, and his home made out of canvas, he wears the confident smirk and mischievous gaze of an alpha male. What does he have to be happy about? Oh, his attractive wife. And by 1939 standards she is a real hottie.

Shouldn’t he feel ashamed to be dragging her to a bean harvest? Most modern men couldn’t imagine taking their wives or girlfriends on a bean harvest date. It would be a massive DLV. Not only that, but he’s obviously proud of the Social Security number tattooed on his arm. This is one step above waving your food stamps in the air like a certificate of accomplishment. What could be more beta than tattooing the government’s ownage of you on your arm?

Self-satisfaction will see a man through all sorts of tribulations. Radiating confidence, deserved or irrational, is what is most attractive to women. This man looks confident, and his wife stands by him. She has the mousy, hunched over posture of a woman in love. All else that’s objectively negative about him fades to insignificance in the matter of what stirs her heart. In glaring contrast, today we have the spectacle of wives divorcing their dutiful husbands (70% divorces initiated by women) for the sin of catering to her every whim by being “economic partners, lovers, …co-parents and best friends. [A]lso each other’s co-workers, editors and primary readers.”

I have a new system for learning inner game — I call it bean harvest game. This is where you take a woman on a really shitty date, let’s say to a soup kitchen to pick up your rations for the week, and refuse to act apologetic or ashamed of your anti-signaling station in life. Instead, you carry your unemployment and poor taste with the confidence of a master of the universe. Handicapping yourself this way means you have no crutch to close the deal. Everything desirable about you must flow from your internal state. If this doesn’t sharpen your inner game and hone your ability to reframe, nothing will. Expect to be amazed how many women will still sleep with you after running tight bean harvest game on them.

I suspect that the better sites are going to be the ones where the writer is not trying to make money, especially on a subject like this, because as soon as the writer tries to make money, they have to lie and pretend they have secret techniques that no one else has. Not trying to make money allows them the chance to be more honest, which brings in a more active readership. If the writer does eventually publish a book, or somehow monetize this work, I give them credit for building up an audience in careful, patient way.

I live at the corner of Waverly Ave and Flushing Ave, and for a long time there were no good wifi cafes near here. But all that has changed since Ted And Honey just opened up 4 blocks from my house, at the corner of Carrollton.

This has potential since the place has wifi, and is fairly empty. Most of the wifi spots I go to are over crowded and suffer from 2 huge problems:

1.) it is too crowded so there are no seats

2.) it is too crowded so the wifi sucks because too many people are using it

As a point of comparison, there is Think Coffee, on Mercer Street in Manhattan, and also Atlas Cafe in Williamsburg. At Think Coffee, it is almost impossible to find a place to sit down, and at Atlas Cafe, the wifi is frequently terrible.

So, one of the nice things about being on vacation is that I have time to stop and explore things. I was walking down Flushing Ave and saw a sign outside Building 92 that there was a cafe inside. I went inside and, to my surprise, it turned out that the cafe was up on the 4th floor. The location is weird for several reasons. First of all, this is inside the grounds of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which normally feels sort of walled off and forbidding. Second of all, there is no obvious sign, from the outside, that there is a cafe inside, other than the small hand drawn sign that I saw (which looks temporary). Third of all, its on the 4th floor!

I got some food and and some fruit juice and considered the place. Here are the pros and cons:

1.) it is on the 4th floor so it offers views. These are not your typical aesthetic skyline New York views, these are views of Brooklyn’s industrial port landscape. Personally, I like this, though I can imagine not everyone might.

2.) it is mostly empty, so it is a great place to work

3.) for me, it is 4 blocks away, so if I need to get out of the house so I can concentrate (I often do) this place would be perfect.

Up till now, when I want to go a wifi cafe, I felt like had to go far way: Williamsburg or Park Slope or Manhattan. But this place is practically next door.

It is true that there were a few other places near here trying to offer wifi. There was Connecticut Muffin on Myrtle Ave, however, I only went there twice and both times the wifi was not working. I recall that I asked the staff to reboot the router, as that normally straightens things out, but they were terrified to do so. So I hate that place and don’t want to go back.

Ted and Honey had 2 potential weaknesses:

One was the music. There was a high percentage of classic 60s rock in the music they play. I personally like classic 60s rock, so that isn’t a deal breaker for me, but I know a lot of my friends hate that kind of music. A cafe communicates a lot about who belongs there by the music they play. At Atlas Cafe, the music is wildly diverse, going from Johnny Cash to Mozart to hard-core industrial noise in the space of 20 minutes. The music at Atlas says “You need to be open minded to be here.” Nowadays, classic 60s rock is a conservative choice, so it communicates “We are playing it safe and not taking risks and let’s just all chill with some pleasant, non-controversial music.”

The other potential weakness is that since it is empty there is no social scene. But I feel like there are an abundance of cafes you can go to if you want to be surrounded by other interesting people. There is a shortage of cafes that let you just get work done.

I am curious if this place can survive in its odd location. Apparently the Brooklyn Naval Yard is now offering tours, and I assume this cafe is meant to cater to those tours. I am puzzled if that is actually enough to keep the place going. There is also the possibility that everyone (like me) who lives in this area and is desperate for a good local wifi cafe will discover the place.

I really hope this place survives. It’s got outdoor terraces with tables which would be a dreamy place to sit and work once it gets warmer.

Views of the industrial landscape:

If I ever get married, I will beg my friend Kristy Caldwell to create the invitations. She is the most talented illustrator that I know, and all of her work is suffused with humor and tenderness. Apparently she recently got recruited by some dear friends to do their wedding announcements, and now that she’s done it once, she sees the potential of the medium.

Something has been introduced to me that I never could have anticipated: wedding invitation illustration and design. Consider this the confession of someone whose knee-jerk skepticism has been overturned in favor of love and one very happy day. Really.

The first commission came from a couple with very specific needs—like all pre-wedding couples, I imagine: specific content, tone, color palette. You know what? It’s kind of freeing. As I’ve reiterated (to myself and others) over the past couple of years, true collaboration is so appreciated in a client-based environment. Especially in a case like this, where the clients are so emotionally tied to the outcome. Together we put together a package that represented the personality and vision behind the occasion.

We started with (1) Save the Date cards, followed that up with (2) formal invitations and (3) enclosed RSVP cards inside (4) personalized envelopes, then created (5) two sets of driving directions to be included in hotel gift baskets, (6) programs for the actual ceremony and (7) food labels for the reception. I won’t bore you with a lot of process stuff, but below is a look at how it turned out.

Go check out the artwork she has posted: full of warmth and love and tenderness, which is exactly fitting for the event that the work is announcing.

My co-workers:

The blue mug is from my girlfriend, who works at the Polish and Slavic Federal Credit Union.

A nice write up about BKLYN Dry Goods: Way to go Kurt and Jahn!

Over the last several months, I’ve been able to make the acquaintance of the gentlemen behind serial pop-up/vintage shop, BKLYN Dry Goods. Right off the bat, it’s obvious these men practice what they preach as they’re a walking example of the products they sell. Founders Jahn Hall and Kurt Uhlendorf have over 30 years of experience between the two of them in the fashion world. They’ve traveled the world working for some of the industry’s top brands. Over time they noticed that vintage clothing and accessories where either exorbitantly priced or poorly merchandised. They set out to change the way consumers consume vintage by fundamentally changing the usual approach to retail.
So, how’d they do it? The two founders decided to forgo the traditional brick and mortar shop and take advantage of the rapidly growing online style/fashion community. Every month, BKLYN DRY GOODS host a pop-up event in New York City. Each one is driven by a theme, the products filling out the story they’re trying to tell. Oh, and there’s booze. Alcohol and sweet vintage finds? Sounds like a great night to me. And it’s through these pop-up events that the shop can bring to the vintage market a thoughtful, tightly curated collection of items – from menswear pieces to random accessories – at very affordable/fair prices. They focus on American-made products and top heritage brands, in order to bring to light the craftmanship and quality of the brands our fathers and grandfathers grew up with.

If you’re in the NYC area this week, come check out their latest event taking place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (Thursday, 10/6, from 7pm – 10pm @ In God We Trust on Bedford Avenue). Buffalo Trace is hosting the bar (props to bourbon!) and as always there will be an impressive collection of items, handpicked by the founders. Remember those first few weeks of school in September, when you end up daydreaming about tales of summers past? That’s the motivation behind this week’s event. Cross country trips and quintessential American summer bad-assery. I think the image below sums up their inspiration quite nicely.

I have tried to imagine what a complete history of sexuality would look like. One could look at the history from the point of view of emotions, of biology, of custom and culture, the changes over the centuries, what emerged in various countries, one could even trace the evolutionary roots, imagine pan and look at the bonobos and the chimps, and try to guess what happened when, and how the lines diverged. And there is the question of where we are going.

What is clear is that marriage has been important to all human societies for as long as we have written or verbal information to track, and yet marriage everywhere, at all times, has been shadowed by infidelity, which is just as pervasive as the craving for loyalty.

I am intrigued by this:

Mistresses, it seems, are everywhere. One U.K. reviewer was startled to find the painful story of the end of her own first marriage on page four of my book. Bel Mooney’s husband, British radio present Jonathan Dimbleby, suddenly plunged into a dramatic and obsessive affair with the magnificent soprano, Susan Chilcott, who was terminally ill with cancer. Against her anguished pleas that her very new lover consider his own well-being and not ruin his life for her, Dimbleby vowed to care for her until she died, and moved in with her and her little son. “I still do not adequately understand the intensity of passion and pity that animated my decision,” he said later. “It felt like an unstoppable force.” Yet he also “felt absolutely torn” about being away from Bel and their decades-long, happy marriage.

Less than three months after her last public performance, playing Desdemona and singing sorrowfully, her voice rising to a crescendo, “Ch’io viva ancor, ch’io viva ancor!” (Let me live longer, let me live longer!) Susan died. But a grieving Jonathan did not return to Bel and their tattered marriage unravelled into divorce.

My retelling of their story, Bel wrote, “was a reminder that there are no easy generalisations about this subject.” But she did offer this perspective: “I admit to a suspicion that most men are susceptible to temptation. Show me a loyal husband and I’ll show you one who’s never had a real opportunity to stray.”

Well, not all loyal husbands lack opportunity, but as Bel Mooney’s personal experience suggests, opportunity is all too often irresistible. Remember when President Clinton was under attack for his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky? We discovered later that as Reverend Jesse Jackson piously counseled and prayed for Clinton, he was also cheating on his wife with a mistress who was carrying his child. And Clinton’s self-righteous prosecutor, Newt Gingrich, was secretly pursuing a passionate relationship with Callista Bisek, whom he married after divorcing his wife, Marianne.

Both Jackson and Gingrich mistook the waning years of the 20th century for an earlier era, when mistressdom was the familiar handmaiden of marriage. That was clear when Jackson’s mistress, lawyer Karin Stanford, successfully sued him for child support. After millennia of protecting marriage by bastardizing the offspring of mistresses, indeed even making it difficult for men to recognize and provide for their “outside” children, our new laws essentially “outlaw” the concept of illegitimacy; they also demand parental accountability. Gingrich made another kind of mistake: he gambled on keeping his affair a secret but six years into it, he got caught. The values of the media world were also changing, and the man who had been angling to run for president on a platform of “family values” had to settle for divorcing his wife so he could marry his mistress.

The values of the media world were also changing, and the man who had been angling to run for president on a platform of “family values” had to settle instead for divorcing his wife so he could become his mistress’s new husband.

I’ve been wondering why I got into Berghain. I was dressed as an American, and I was wearing American “office casual” clothing. I was not dressed the way you might think you have to dress if you want to get into Berghain. (I’ve written about Berghain before.) I suppose this explains some of it:

His first job working the door at a club was for his brother Oliver, a D.J. He proved to have talent for picking partygoers who meshed well and didn’t start trouble, and he began working regularly, eventually ending up at the celebrated club Ostgut.

…He does not like the term bouncer; curator would be more appropriate. He chooses an often surprising — those who are rejected say capricious — selection of people, old as well as young, eccentric as often as beautiful, helping to give the club its staying power.

Most reports suggested that New Jersey might lose electricity, once the hurricane hit, and I was worried about my mother, so I decided to go to New Jersey and spend Saturday there. I ended up spending all of Sunday there too, as the buses all got canceled.

Here is my mom, in her kitchen:

We lost electricity at 10:40 PM on Saturday. My nephew called and told me that a tornado had been spotted 8 miles from the house. My mom had gone to bed. I decided to go out on the porch and look for tornadoes. I stayed out there for hours, wary. I thought if a tornado appeared I would run and wake my mom and then we would hide in the basement. Thankfully, no tornado appeared.

At first I was thinking that the hurricane had been less severe than expected. We’d lost power, but that happens during severe storms, in that area. It is frustrating, but it’s also within the usual range of things. The real damage of Irene took some time to become apparent.

The next morning I went out. A large maple tree had been brought down:

Eventually my mom and I got hungry. We did not want to open the refrigerator, as we were hoping to keep the cold air locked in, so as to save the food from going bad. We had no idea how long it would be before the power would be restored. We decided we would go out and find a restaurant. This was not easy. Large areas had no electricity, and even along some main roads, where there was power, most restaurants stayed closed all day. Finally we found a family run Italian place that had opened. It was about 1:30 PM now. We were there only customers:

Funny, the food was good and the place was pleasant, yet we never would have tried the place if there hadn’t been the storm. The staff was very attentive, since we were the only customers. I was so very pleased to get coffee.

The worst damage began to appear after the storm was over. There was only a light rain falling, but all the lakes and rivers were at the breaking point. There were some shocking flash floods. After the restaurant, we drove home, but our route home was cut off by water:

I’ve never seen flooding like this in New Jersey.

I went up to the police officer and asked when this had happened. He said he’d just driven down the road 20 minutes before, and then he was driving back and he was cut off by water.

I should explain, to my right, there is a housing development, and in the middle of that development is a lake. The lake is elevated, maybe 2 meters above where I was standing when I took these shots. The lake is dammed up and controlled, so it can look nice and be safe in the middle of that housing development. But the water had built up and the dam had given way, and when it gave way an avalanche of water raced down the hill and ambushed these cars as they were driving through the low spot. I assume if my mom and I had been 10 minutes sooner, it would have been us out there in the middle of the new lake.

Our lawn was covered with fallen branches, many of them very big. I told my mom I was going to go and clean up. She sprung into action. She wanted to help to. She started grabbing branches and we gathered them into a pile.

We were lucky that the fallen tree had fallen away from the house and the power lines:

I had expected the power to be out for one night. I had not expected it to be out for 2 full nights. The second night was frustrating. I was bored and unsure what to do. My mom lit candles and wrote in her journal by candle light:

In the end, the house was without power for 30 hours. Electricity came back on early Monday morning.

I headed back to work on Monday. My mom drove me to the bus, though we had to take an unusual route as the main road was still deep under water. I was several hours late getting to work, but they were understanding. In fact, I was the only one on tech team to make it in that day. Everyone else worked from home.

Kurt and Jahn organized a popup show for some designers in Brooklyn. At the place were 2 men with a printing press from the 1870s, which they operated by hand. I paid them to create new business cards for me. It was fascinating to watch them pull together the lead slugs that make up words. I think the final product is simple, clean and elegant. I think it compares well to Kurt’s elegant business cards, which he had made in the nation of Columbia.

This is at the place I work. Some old technology.

I rented a car from Hertz. All of the cars in Manhattan were sold out. I suppose it is stupid to assume anything on a weekend in August, when everyone else is also going on vacation. I had to go all the way out to JFK, which wasted 2 hours.

In Virginia, I got few photos, save of me driving.

Interesting:

Later that night he e-mailed, asking if I would meet him for a drink. I ignored him as I already had plans. He e-mailed again, saying that he would love to take me out the next night. I ignored him further, as this was shattering my previously-held perception of a friendly encounter and my vision for a future liberal friend (I have a deficit of these, which I would like to remedy). Instead, he had other impulses which I did not share and I was now in the awkward position of having to let him down. I went for the “I am seeing someone” approach. This was not in fact not a lie, but when I emailed this staffer that information, apologizing for possibly being misleading but offering to be friends (while understanding if he did not want to), his response was that I should have told him that sooner instead of letting him make an idiot of himself. This struck me as ridiculous. Why on earth would the first thing I ever tell someone be that I am not exactly single? It is, first, not the kind of thing that comes up un-forced in casual conversation. More importantly, though, I do not think that it is safe to assume that every member of the opposite sex with whom I have a conversation is necessarily interested in seeing me naked. I feel that I have interesting things to say on occasion and am generally a nice person; it does not seem so silly to think that someone would simply want to be sociable with me. Evidently I am mistaken?

Several days later I ran into him in a bar and he pretended not to see me when I smiled and waved at him. It struck me that this was an unnecessary reaction. Even if he felt embarassed, which he had no real reason to, I firmly believe that civility and adherence to basic social norms should trump any personal hang-ups and it would not have killed him to smile back. So much for wanting to be friends though …

This week, what was just an awkward incident was exacerbated in a staff meeting. One of our clients needs help with this guy’s boss and it was just my luck that he handles the particular issue. Our partner explained what the issue was and what he thought the best approach to it would be. He then asked if any of us had any friends in that office. No one knew anyone, except me. I made the case that I sort of knew a guy, but was skeptical that he would take my call and did not think I could get very far with him. Unfazed, and feeling vindictive as I had made fun of his choice of seersucker earlier that morning, my boss decided that I should try my best with him anyway, very casually, in an effort to avoid having to put a fundraiser together as an alternate strategy. In my brain I convinced myself that this staffer is good at his job and will recognize the importance of the issues over whatever he thinks about me as a person. I left him a message saying “I would like to lobby you, please call me back.” Needless to say, our client and the partners in my firm are going to have to cough up a few checks …

I wonder about this:

I do not think that it is safe to assume that every member of the opposite sex with whom I have a conversation is necessarily interested in seeing me naked

I am not sure I can agree with that. Even if you think some men never think of you in a sexual way, is this a good default assumption for dealing with every man who you are meeting for the first time? Unless they have a marriage ring on their finger, why not default the other way? I mean, what is the cost of simply assuming that sexual issues are something to be negotiated in every context? If the argument that such an assumption would be exhausting, then what is the cost of not having that as your default assumption? Seems like the blog post answers that question. So which is the better option when meeting someone for the first time?

However, I should add, the Hill staffer acted very badly: defensive, arrogant, assuming, petulant, whining, accusatory, stupid. What a cry baby. You go after a woman and then she says no and so you act like a cry baby and accuse her of leading you on? How very attractive! I think we can guess why the staffer is single. Who would want to date a man who acts like that? He sounds pathetic. I think it’s fine for the staffer to go after the woman and think perhaps she was available, but once she explains the situation, the guy should go back to being professional, without indulging in self-pity.

Radley Balko writes of all that Osama bin Laden achieved, in terms of changing the USA:

We have also fundamentally altered who we are. A partial, off-the-top-of-my-head list of how we’ve changed since September 11 . . .

We’ve sent terrorist suspects to “black sites” to be detained without trial and tortured.

We’ve turned terrorist suspects over to other regimes, knowing that they’d be tortured.

In those cases when our government later learned it got the wrong guy, federal officials not only refused to apologize or compensate him, they went to court to argue he should be barred from using our courts to seek justice, and that the details of his abduction, torture, and detainment should be kept secret.

We’ve abducted and imprisoned dozens, perhaps hundreds of men in Guantanamo who turned out to have been innocent. Again, the government felt no obligation to do right by them.

The government launched a multimillion dollar ad campaign implying that people who smoke marijuana are complicit in the murder of nearly 3,000 of their fellow citizens.

The government illegally spied and eavesdropped on thousands of American citizens.

Presidents from both of the two major political parties have claimed the power to detain suspected terrorists and hold them indefinitely without trial, based solely on the president’s designation of them as an “enemy combatant,” essentially making the president prosecutor, judge, and jury. (I’d also argue that the treatment of someone like Bradley Manning wouldn’t have been tolerated before September 11.)

The current president has also claimed the power to execute U.S. citizens, off the battlefield, without a trial, and to prevent anyone from knowing about it after the fact.

The Congress approved, the president signed, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a broadly written law making it a crime to advocate for any organization the government deems sympathetic to terrorism. This includes challenging the “terrorist” designation in the first place.

Flying in America now means enduring a humiliating and hassling ritual that does little if anything to actually make flying any safer. Every time the government fails to catch an attempt at terrorism, it punishes the public for its failure by adding to the ritual.

American Muslims, a heartening story of success and assimilation, are now harassed and denigrated for merely trying to build houses of worship.

Without a warrant, the government can search and seize indefinitely the laptops and other personal electronic devices of anyone entering the country.

The Department of Homeland Security now gives terrorism-fighting grants for local police departments across the country to purchase military equipment, such as armored personnel carriers, which is then used against U.S. citizens, mostly to serve drug warrants.

I’m relieved that bin Laden is dead. And the Navy SEALs who carried out the harrowing raid that ended his life have my respect and admiration. And for all the massive waste and abuse our government has perpetrated in the name of fighting terrorism over the last decade, there’s something satisfying in knowing that he was killed in a limited, targeted operation based on specific intelligence.

This is a sad story, and yet I like it very much. And it leaves me wondering (I’m always wondering) what was it that drove the individual who decided the best route forward was to go at maximum speed. And were they honest the whole time, or lying from the start?

After spending a year recovering from a roller coaster relationship that left me in shambles, I finally decided to get back out there and really date. I signed up for match.com, my first time for online dating, and mulled around a bit. After a few months I met TX, who I fell madly for. He was exactly the opposite of the man who had broken my heart. Sweet, sensitive, full of compliments and he showered me with affection. After three dates he said he didn’t want to see anybody else. I must admit it felt like things were moving way too quickly but I had never experienced something like this before. ‘Maybe this is it’, I thought. ‘This is just what real love is like and I’ve finally found the one.’ Sigh….how naïve I was.

I couldn’t believe how much we had in common. We had equal values and wanted the same things out of life. He would even jokingly talk about what we would name our kids someday. We enjoyed all that the city has to offer together including the first day of spring in the park. So many of those days felt like magic. He treated me the way I had always wanted to be treated. He made me feel sexy, confident and safe. On top of all that, it was the best sex I had ever had. I was floored. It was as if this man had opened a whole new universe of sexuality for me (I still thank him for that)!

Three months in I noticed that he was getting a bit moody. I brushed it off because I figured that was just him. I mean, hey, he was still talking about us going on a summer vacation together! Then, out of nowhere, he needed space. The same man who had taken the reigns of this love-affair express was now putting on the brakes! It was as if a rug had been pulled out from underneath me. What did I do? What happened? Less than a week later he broke it off altogether and I was heart broken. Even quicker than it had started, it was over and, yet again, I had to pick up the pieces of my broken heart.

This ‘winter romance’ in my case, taught me a hell of a lot about dating. We broke every rule in the book and it opened my eyes as to why there were rules in the first place. I had never been the kind of girl who could fall in love like that. In fact, I didn’t think it was even possible. I would roll my eyes at girls who told stories resembling this and here I was, one of the club. Now that enough time has passed I see how silly I was to have allowed myself to dive headfirst into something so new. Sometimes the romance sweeps you so high into the air that you lose sight of yourself.

I never go this far north, so for me it was like a visit to a different city.

I have been here 4 months now yet my stuff is still in cardboard boxes. I have barely started to unpack.

So, I read that the economy is doing badly:

The US economy has just marked two years of recovery from its worst recession since the Great Depression. But few Americans are celebrating; indeed, most believe that the economy is still in recession…. According to calculations by the Hamilton Project, the US will face a “jobs gap” of about 21m jobs…. The jobless recovery is also a wageless recovery for most Americans…. Real median household income in 2009 was 4 per cent lower than its pre-recession high and about the same as it was in 1997….

Of course, the economy is diverse and one individual’s experience can differ from the national average in marked ways. For me, this is my best year ever, in terms of the amount of money I’m making. And last year was also my best year ever, up till that time. But my experience is clearly not the national average.

Last Friday was foggy. I took some photos from where I work on 34th Street.

Last summer I did not have air conditioning. This summer I do. It makes a difference.

It’s amazing that I still don’t recognize the effects of coffee as it goes through my system. I’ve been drinking coffee for more than half my life. You’d think by now I’d be able to say “Oh, I’m mentally focused, this is because of the cup of coffee I drank 25 minutes ago” and then “Oh, I’m not mentally focused any more, the cup of coffee that I drank 3 hours ago is leaving my system.” But I rarely make the connection. And when I do make the connection, there is still some sense of surprise. Like, oh yes, this is why I drink the stuff (You might ask, “But surely you drink it for the taste?” What a silly question! Us addicts drink first because we’re addicts! Taste comes second!).

I was planning to travel to Virginia to get work done with Chris Clarke and Misty. My friend Lark was planning to travel to North Carolina to see her family, before she moves to Sweden. Lark has been a dear friend (especially these last 2 years that we’ve both been in New York City) and I will miss her. I thought a road trip would be a great way to say goodbye.

We rented a car (a red Toyota Camry from Hertz) and we drove south. We left New York around 8 PM. There was a crazy storm near DC, and visibility got down to 10 meters. There was a terrible accident that blocked traffic for an hour. Still, Lark and I had some great conversations, till it got late and we got tired. We drove through the night. She took a nap around 2 AM. I got tired around 4 AM and she took over driving. I got some sleep. She got tired around 6 AM, so we traded places again. By now we were in Burlington, North Carolina. We stopped at a gas station to gas up and trade places. By now, the sun had come up:

After that we drove the final hour and got to her friend’s house. I got some sleep, then left at 10 AM. I drove north into Virginia. I had planned to meet Chris Clarke at his office in the quaint little historic village of Scottsville. Back in slavery days this place was important as the furthest point up river they were willing to take small barge.

Here is the place where Chris Clarke keeps his office:

Chris and I made big progess on the website on Friday. Misty joined us on Saturday and she and I worked on documentation and the FAQ page. I left on Sunday. I drove past Richmond. I remember the exit where Laura Denyes used to live, where I often went to see her:

I drove down to Newport News to see my friend Angelica. She had an adorable new bundle of cuteness with her:

Then I started on the drive home. Interstate 64 remains a reliable bottleneck. It is especially bad at Christmas, but even on a normal summer Sunday, it is bad, and the traffic jam is as bad as anything at rush hour in New York City.

I drove to my mom’s house in New Jersey. I got 5 hours of sleep. I left at 6:50 AM. I got stuck in traffic. I got to work at 9:33 AM. I’ve no idea how people do this (commute from the suburbs) on a regular basis.

At lunch time, I took the car back Hertz and traded it in. Thankfully, there was no drama about scrapes on the car.

At work today there was a concert on the main hall.