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"Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go."
- Mother Teresa

On February 12, dozens of the music recording industry's shiniest glitterati gave unveiled "We Are the World 25 for Haiti," a multimedia charity orgy even more awkwardly jumbled than its title.

And wow, is it awful.* It is as if someone baked the Grammy awards into a Hot Pocket, sprinkled it with the ashes of Michael Jackson and Ray Charles, washed it down with Cristal and then vomited it into a MacBook.

*Actually, MTV liked it. Which is not surprising, since MTV stopped caring about music a decade ago and is now the world's foremost purveyor of calculated, formulaic zeitgeist and scourge of original, creative thought.

As for the song itself, while the melody remains thoroughly hummable, there should be no illusion that the lyrics have somehow improved with age or repetition. The message remains unabashedly self-aggrandizing: We are the world/We are the children/We are the ones who make a brighter day/So let's start giving. Let there be little doubt that when the chorus sings "We're saving our own lives," their mindset and motivation are painfully obvious.

There are many who will agree with my thoughtful friend Josh, who writes, "given all the money it will raise for Haiti, the artistic merit is irrelevant." This argument is fundamentally an microscopic assertion that the ends justify the means. As Josh's Machiavellian/free-market theory goes, if it raises loads of cash, who cares how much it sucks?*

*To add a splash of Darwin to the mix, we can assume that this excercise in noise pollution is lifting money specifically from tone-deaf, tasteless idiots. (This is also known as the Hootie Tax.)

But the theory doesn't quite hold up in practice. If a person were to club one baby dolphin every day until he raised $1 million for the ASPCA, would that also be okay? And would that sound any better than "We Are the World 25 for Haiti?"

Criticizing WAtW25-4H for its heinous crimes against eardrums everywhere is not an indictment of the charity itself. In fact, it is because the devestation in Haiti is such a solemn and serious cause that it deserves better than Lionel Ritchie's lukewarm leftovers.

Even if we set aside the song's loathesome, nauseous aesthetics, there is still plenty of subtext worthy of criticism: Not only is it artistically cheap and lazy to simply repackage an existing song for a new cause, it is pretty blatantly commercial. Either they are trying to capitalize on the hard-earned nostalgia of children of the 1980s, or they're pretending like the original benefit (USA for Africa) didn't matter. Whichever gets you to write a check.

And if you think that's cynical, consider this: not only are they hitching a ride on an old cause, they're also hitching a ride on the new cause. WAtW25-4H is nothing more than opportunism dressed down as philanthropy, with the Haiti tragedy being used to gather the spotlight on attention-hungry performers eager for easy PR and global cred. That's life in the Kanye West Era. I'm not saying Huey Lewis and the News wouldn't have done the same thing in 1985, I'm just saying that it wouldn't have occurred to them.

It's not like the original We Are the World/USA for Africa was a perfect expression of unblemished human decency, spilling forth from the pure hearts of benevolent geniuses like the healing glow from Jesus's smile. And, as noted above, it's not like the lyrics contained any kind of etherial truth, like the Gettysburg Address set to the Theme to the Greatest American Hero.

Maybe my roots are showing. But 25 years ago, We Are the World was a cultural touchstone, featuring performances from actual living legends rather than a bunch of people who happened to be popular at the time (including something called a "Justin Beiber"). It was simple, it was spare, it was original and it was ours.

It would be nice if everyone contributed money, supplies or services to the Haiti relief effort -- or African aid, for that matter. It's good that the most influential among us are helping to promote the cause. But it would be much, much better if we weren't bludgeoned into contributing by a bunch of egomaniacal rock stars looking to dash off some community service between their Bentley tune-ups and their manicure appointments.

"Wars would be a lot better, I think, if guys would say to themselves sometimes 'Jesus — I'm not going to do that to the enemy. That's too much.' "
- Kurt Vonnegut, Happy Birthday, Wanda June

I learned today, hours ago, that an old friend from college was seriously injured in the December 30 suicide bombing in Afghanistan. He is currently recovering in Bethesda Naval Hospital with an assortment of terrible injuries, although reports from the family indicate that he is making good progress so far.

I'm ashamed to say that I had to do a little online research to confirm that the bombing in question is the same one that killed eight CIA agents, earning widespread notoriety. At the time I originally heard about this bombing, I admit that the news didn't affect me much. I probably shook my head, sighed, avoided reading any of the details.

Eight deaths did not move the needle, until I found out my friend was one of the lucky ones. On the surface of my brain, in my peripheral vision, eight deaths has become nothing. It's a quarter of a Tarantino movie. It's the last segment of This Week with George Stephanopolous, the one I always fast-forward through. It's another Wednesday morning in Afghanistan. Do I avoid thinking about it because I'm self-absorbed? Desensitized? Helpless?

The phrase "suicide bombing" is a perversion, an abortion of humanity. Every day, it seems, a poor and undereducated young person prepares to kill himself and as many as hundreds of other people in the name of dogmatic warfare. But are these men really warriors, or are they weapons -- low-tech drones operated by so-called holy men with dreams of pious totalitarianism? What turns a man into an instrument of death? What would make anyone want to kill my friend -- who has a beautiful wife and a three-year old daughter and the quickest laugh-trigger I've ever seen? Is it anger? Ignorance? Helplessness?

And the U.S. marches forward, playing whac-a-mole in the desert. We cannot retreat, lest the threat advance. And we cannot escalate, lest we risk greater losses. And we cannot stand still, lest we sink in the sand. So we barter and negotiate, overture and undermine, yell and whisper. And we only get closer to these fundamental questions: how do you win a war? Why do we fight? Are we righteous? Deluded? Helpless?

All I can do now is shake my head, sigh, and wait for more details. Because of my friend, and Americans like him, I am safer. But I don't really feel any safer. So what have I gained? What have we bought?

I feel a deep sense of gratitude to our fallen soldiers. I have sincere pity for our beseiged leaders. I hope and wish for my friend's full and fast recovery. But I remain helpless.

"Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay"

Death brings me out of hiding today. No, not the passing of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, my shirt-tail relative, though I hope he's enjoying a nice Irish coffee in the sky.

No, in the past two months I've been confronted with two deaths that hit slightly closer to home. One, a 35-year old professional acquaintance, and the other, a college classmate with whom I was marginally familiar. Two ostensibly intelligent, reasonably young and presumably vibrant individuals, gone.

At first this news made me sad, not just sympathetically, for theiir families, etc., but personally -- in that I am getting to the age where it's not totally ridiculous that my peers might be dropping dead, or by induction, myself.

Then it made me curious. What did they die of? Was there an accident, or a disease? Was it a common disease, a familiar villain? Or was it a rare, predatory medical mystery? Was it sudden and dramatic, or slow and emotional? Was it contageous? Could I get it? Might I have it? Can it be stopped?

But nowhere was I able to find this information. Not in the official obituaries, or related news briefs, or the funeral home guestbook pages. All these reports were frustratingly, intentionally vague.

Which made me angry. And I got stuck there, in the middle of a Kübler-Ross jumble. Why don't people include the cause of death in their death announcements?

C.C., the Official Mortality Expert of Enchanted Pants, informed me that "it's generally not relevant. And usually you can figure it out by the charity of choice."

The second reason is not applicable. And the first reason is baloney. Not relevant? If you're going to say that someone died, you should at least mention how it happened. This is a basic tenet of journalism, to say nothing of common courtesy. Announcing a death without mentioning the cause of death is like reporting who won the football game but declining to tell the score. ("The Giants lost today. They leave behind 50,000 angry drunks.")

C.C. held fast. "I think the assumption generally is that the people to whom it would really matter would know already."

This is not an acceptable excuse either, for the self-evident reason that it matters to me. It may not be important to them that I know ("them" being the deceased or his/her survivors), and I can accept their desire for privacy. But if the announcement is only for people who are already "in the know," then why make the announcement public? And if it doesn't "matter" to anyone else, then why hide it?

The whole approach is blatantly ambiguous, calling attention to the unspoken.

Then C.C. tried to shut me up by going deep and philosophical. "I think obituaries are considered more about the life than the death."

But that doesn't make any sense, either. How a story ends is usually an important part of the story, isn't it? In A Tale of Two Cities, would readers have been satisfied if Sydney Carton had inexplicably died in his jail cell? Or if The Great Gatsby simply passed away on Page 64, leaving Nick and Daisy alone with their upper-class ennui? Here, in real life, Michael Jackson died a month ago, after we watched him erode into a cadaver for the last twenty years, and people (by which I mean viewers of CNN Headline News) still want to know what the fuck happened.

Obituaries are about the life and the death, because the death is a part of life. (You know, the very last part.) People deserve to know how the story ends.

Instead, people choose to be mysterious. Instead of using the occasion to promote [disease] awareness, or even [accident] prevention, they indulge in their little secrets like 12-year old girls. How bad could it really be? And is keeping it quiet worth infuriating the rest of us?

It's almost as if they don't care about my feelings.

Or they want me to use my imagination.

So, for those of you who might eventually die, or who might be entrusted with the estate of a loved one, heed this: from now on, if I read an obituary that doesn't list a cause of death, I'm just going to assume that the deceased was crushed by a vending machine.

There's no moral judgment there, no real shame in it, but it's just graceless enough to be embarassing. Plus it will ward me away from vending machines.

So, rest in peace, dearly departed. Wherever you are, I hope there are plenty of Twix.

"When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large scientific method in most cases fails. One need only think of the weather, in which case the prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible."
- Albert Einstein (Physicist and Madcap Genius)

Prediction/
Key Question

AL EAST
Tampa Bay Rays
A lot of guys actually underperformed offensively last year. Can Evan Longoria match his solid rookie campaign?

New York Yankees
80 percent of A-Rod should be good enough to fill out the lineup. But will a suspect defense be able to support their $100M pitching staff?

Boston Red Sox
Lots of depth on the pitching staff, not so much in the lineup. How much do their aging batsmen (Papi, Lowell, Drew) have in the tank?

Baltimore Orioles
The offense and the defense should actually be pretty good. The pitching staff just needs to throw strikes. Can they?

Toronto Blue Jays
Probably a lost season, with young hitters maturing and young pitchers recovering on the DL. Can Roy Halladay pitch three times a week?

AL CENTRAL
Cleveland Indians
The lineup should score runs, but the pitching staff looks light without Sabathia. Can Fausto Carmona bounce back enough to negate Clif Lee's inevitable regression?

Minnesota Twins
There's a lot of replacement-level talent here surrounding four or five elite players. Will Mauer and Baker -- two of those elite -- get back from the DL in time to save their season?

Chicago White Sox
The aging offense is bound to fade. Can Ozzie Guillen once again perform alchemy with a no-name pitching staff?

Detroit Tigers This past offseason, the team traded some offense for a little more defense. Can Justin Verlander right his own ship and lead a patchwork pitching staff?

Kansas City Royals
Their offseason improvements were mostly cosmetic. Will they have enough men on base for the free-swinging muscle in the lineup?

AL WEST
Los Angeles Angels
The pitching staff is held together with band-aids and scotch tape. When the starters are on the field, they should be fine, but can a slap-hitting offense carry the team when they're not?

Texas Rangers
Scoring runs will never be a problem in Arlington, but preventing runs is still an issue. Will the young arms graduate to the majors ahead of schedule?

Seattle Mariners
Pitching and defense should be fine, but questionable roster construction yields a lineup without many attractive options. Will Jeff Clement and Wladimir Balentien perform when they're eventually recalled to the majors?

Oakland Athletics
The offense is better, but now the defense is worse. How much can you really expect from such a young pitching staff? (Ask the 2008 Yankees.)

NL EAST
New York Mets
More depth in the lineup and the bullpen than last year, but their window is slowly closing. Will the back of the rotation give them anything at all?

Florida Marlins A strong young rotation is backed by the majors' best player. But who else in the lineup can hit 30 homers? Anyone?

Atlanta Braves
The totally renovated pitching staff will have to carry the load on a roster with little margin for error. Can Jeff Francouer save his career?

Philadelphia Phillies
Didn't improve anywhere on the diamond and regression is likely for some key members of the championship squad. Will Cole Hamels' arm hold up for another long year?

Washington Nationals
Remarkably similar in design to their Beltway neighbors, except with a much lower ceiling. How will Manny Acta divide up the playing time at OF/1B?

NL CENTRAL
Chicago Cubs
Still have more depth and talent than anyone else in the division. Between injuries and plain old performance, will they get enough innings and production from their outfield?

Cincinnati Reds
They have a couple strong young pieces in the rotation and a couple strong young pieces in the lineup. Can Dusty Baker work his magic with the team's proletariat without wearing out his elites?

St. Louis Cardinals
One great hitter, a halfway decent pitching staff and a good defense can carry a team a long way. (See: late-90s and early-aughts San Francisco Giants.) Will their defense be "good" enough?

Milwaukee Brewers
Gallardo is good, but he can't replace two departed ace pitchers. Can the offense pick up the slack by hitting better on the road and against righties?

Houston Astros The good players are very, very good, but the bad players are truly rotten. Do they start selling off pieces at the break?

Pittsburgh Pirates Like the Astros, except they don't have any really good players. Will the kids provide any optimism when they're called up in the second half?

NL WEST
Los Angeles Dodgers
This team is younger than you think. What will break down first: Manny's will or his body?

Colorado Rockies
As usual, it all comes down to pitching, but this time they're looking to high-ceiling youngsters instead of high-priced veterans. Is this Ubaldo Jimenez's breakout year?

Arizona Diamondbacks
The pitching staff should be great, but the offense is unproven. Will the young hitters actually start hitting?

San Francisco Giants
The pitching staff should be great, but the offense could be historically bad. Will anyone step up at the plate?

San Diego Padres
They looked overmatched last year and spun their wheels this offseason. Where will Peavy be in August?

WORLD SERIES PREDICTION: Tampa Bay Rays over Los Angeles Dodgers

Predilections
From most-favorite to least-favorite

Oakland Athletics
Pittsburgh Pirates
Milwaukee Brewers
Tampa Bay Rays
Minnesota Twins
Detroit Tigers
Philadelphia Phillies
Kansas City Royals
Cleveland Indians
Washington Nationals
Chicago Cubs
San Diego Padres
St. Louis Cardinals
Atlanta Braves
Los Angeles Dodgers
Cincinnati Reds
Baltimore Orioles
Florida Marlins
Colorado Rockies
Arizona Diamondbacks
Toronto Blue Jays
New York Mets
Houston Astros
Seattle Mariners
San Francisco Giants
Boston Red Sox
Texas Rangers
New York Yankees
Los Angeles Angels
Chicago White Sox

The latest Facebook meme going around -- perhaps not the latest, exactly, as I am hardly on the cusp of these things and in any case by the time I am actually finished writing this there will be 14 other Latest Things -- is the commandment to "list 25 albums that changed your life."

Right away, this seems like a hyper-romantic and unusually ambitious exercise. Maybe I'm being too literal here, but are there really people out there who have had their lives changed 25 times? And each time by a record album? Are these the same socially manic people who enthusiastically extol the virtues of absorbent shammies on television infomercials and communicate their deeply-felt grievances in weekly letters to the editor of their local pennysaver?

Apparently not, because many of my otherwise well-adjusted friends have chimed in on this particular query with a disconcerting lack of irony. Or honesty, for that matter -- my money says that at least half of these people experienced monumentally life-altering heartmake or heartbreak to something like Richard Marx's "Repeat Offender," but you never see that on any of these top-25 lists. I mean, seriously. I don't even think the Clash sold that many albums.

As I've written before, there are certain songs that are intimately linked to particular people, places and things. (Incidentally, Marx's "Angelia" is one of them.) But truly transcendent, destiny-shaking, Hearing-the-Voice-of-God-type albums are far more rare in my personal catalogue. I can think of only three. Here's the first:

1. George Michael, Listen Without Prejudice, Volume I

In late 1990/early 1991 I was in the eighth grade, departing my lumpy adolescence and entering the full-blown Awkward Phase. Perhaps more than most 14 year old boys -- or perhaps simply no less than any 14-year old boy (an admittedly solipsistic lot) -- I was generously posessed of self-awareness and self-consciousness but lacking any sense of identity. My personality, such as it was, was little more than a loose conglomeration of involuntary tics, popular television programming, and peer pressure.

That peer pressure was applied by a relatively small social circle. I was an unattractive and anxious young man, qualities that effectively discouraged and in any case precluded interaction with girls, admired or not. So I held fast to a band of three boyhood chums, two of whom, it would turn out, were sociopathic assholes.

Of course, once I finally realized this and divested myself of their abusive brand of friendship, my social circle had shrunk to the point where you could fit its constituents in a mall photo booth. Feeling lost and more than a little lonely, I stumbled into a sort of purgatorial malaise.

Then I heard George Michael's Listen Without Prejudice, Volume I, sort of by accident. I actually bought the cassette for my mother, who was a feverish fan of his solo debut album, Faith. It's hard to remember this now, but in 1988 George Michael and Faith were galactic smash hits, spawning four number-one singles (plus a scandalous tune with the word "sex" in the title -- and which my mother initially tried to fast-forward through when we were in the car).

As it turns out, Listen Without Prejudice was an calculated departure from the Faith formula; it was a dark and deeply introspective meditation on truth and identity. My mother nonchalantly removed it from her rotation, but I eagerly made it a Walkman staple.

It spoke to me. I can still remember watching the world premiere of the video for the lead single, "Praying for Time". The video itself was a confrontationally minimalist approach that presaged his retirement from the sex symbol business and whispered "fuck you" to the MTV image factory (I don't think they ever played the video again). Reasonable people can disagree on what they think the song is "about" -- charity, justice, God -- but I always thought it was about survival: doing the best you can, trying to keep it together, holding on long enough to find the moments of joy scattered among the legion of frustrations.

On the dancier-but-still-brooding "Freedom '90," his voice seethed with anger and frustration at the mass media and the mass marketing that pigeonholed him as a rock star. (I know, poor guy, right? But apparently -- and I was oblivious to this at the time -- there is a lot of subtext here about his coming to terms with his sexual identity.) More conventionally, the song is all about the struggle between his personal and public persona. This dichotomy is probably too sophisticated to be fully appreciated by a mere teenager like me, but it nonetheless appealed to a guy who yearned to be seen as more than a neo-maxi-zoom dweebie.

His cover of the Stevie Wonder song "They Won't Go When I Go" was a dark trip through the looking glass, a decidedly un-George-Michaelish dirge about the pain of solitude and persecution. It's certainly melancholy and morose, which oughtn't appeal to anyone, much less a 14-year old. These lyrics in particular, from the song's bridge, haunted me:

Unclean minds mislead the pure
The innocent will leave for sure
For them there is a resting place

People sinning just for fun
They will never see the sun
For they can never show their faces

There ain't no room for
The hopeless sinner
Who will take more than he will give, he will give, he will give
He ain't hardly gonna give

I wasn't really sure then what it meant and I'm not sure that I do even yet. I just know that it made me feel better about telling those two assholes to go fuck themselves. And it made me feel better when they taunted me with religious epithets. And when they defaced my eighth grade yearbook with the most vile descriptions of unnatural acts.

The last song on the album is technically a reprise of an earlier song, but it has its own meter and its own message. It functions effectively as an epilogue, preaching patience and, not unironically, faith.

All those insecurities
that have held me down for so long
I can't say I've found a cure for these
But at least I know them, so they're not so strong

You look for your dreams in heaven
But what the hell are you supposed to do
When they come true?

For me, the "dream" was freedom and the challenge was -- as I grew more responsible for my own life -- living with my own choices. And in the most stark relief, that included getting rid of some of my "best friends" without much to fall back on.

This album found me at a low point, put me back on my feet and set me in the right direction. Within a year I had cleaned myself up, discovered my diversions, made a few friends and charmed a few ladies. I can't give all the credit to George Michael -- there are people out there reading this who certainly helped -- but I'm sure glad my mother wasn't a Michael Bolton fan.

"We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces."
- Carl Sagan

Dear Readers: I apologize for being so delinquent in my communication here. I sort-of promised that I would continue writing here sort-of weekly, and instead I have written here sort-of weakly.

The fact is that J. and I have, for the last several weeks, been neck-deep in negotiations to buy a home. Much of my waking time has lately been spent on realtors, agents, lenders, insurers, appraisers and other people with vague, imposing or disconcerting titles like "home service specialist" -- talking to them on the phone, trying to get them on the phone and worrying about not being able to get them on the phone.

The actual content of these conversations has been largely encouraging -- aside from the mere concept of spending, even in the abstract, what feels like the GDP of a small African nation -- we seemed to have timed the real estate and mortgage markets perfectly to get a good price (relative to the D.C. market) and a good rate.

But the process has its complications, and as the last one of my friends to join the home ownership revolution, I can't understand why I never heard anyone complain about it. I feel like I must be the most soft-shelled, unprepared and intemperate person to ever sign his name on a purchase agreement. I am stressed out to my limit, from my eyebrows to my toenails, and I don't ever remember anyone else whining like I am.

Chief among my frustrations is the real estate industrial complex's total reliance on the fax machine. The business infrastructure of these lending and title companies apparently dates back to the late 1980s, because they all need documents faxed to them. And we're not talking about one or two pages, either; I mean extensive, 30 or 40 page lawyerly documents, on legal-size paper.

To my knowledge, manufacturers stopped making fax machines before they even evolved to the point where they could handle such business tasks. These days, nobody owns their own personal fax machine, down from the 0.05 percent of the population that ever did (including my father, back in the day, when the digital facsimile images were manually punched by a pterodactyl). So of course it must be expected that people will either pay $10 a page to use a hotel business center or surreptitiously commandeer their office's fax machine during coffee breaks. My office's fax machine must have been a top-of-the-line piece of corporate weaponry back in 1993, but clearly has unresolved anxiety issues at any job involving more than a half-dozen clearly typewritten leaves.

Apparently, not everyone has entered the e-mail and attachment environment in which fully evolved people like you and I exist. Of course, there are translational "desktop fax services" out there, where such technologically enterprising people can scan their documents (if they're not already electronically encoded) and fax them to our neanderthal brethren via computer. But a casual audit of these services suggests that they cost $60+ on an annual basis, a steep price for temporary convenience.

I am more inclined to simply FedEx the damned papers and hope that the recipients get paper cuts.

"History is merely gossip."
- Oscar Wilde

At least a quarter of all civilized humanity is apparently descending on Washington D.C. this weekend, gassed-up with neo-political enthusiasm over the swearing-in of a new president.

It is not enough that our new president is simply replacing the old one, whose term has been about as beneficial (and about as popular) as a staph infection. No, people everywhere want to be here to watch the changeover happen. Some folks have traveled thousands of miles to watch the new guy recite a thirty-second oath and give a 15-minute speech.

Oh, sure, there's some value in being "present," I suppose. Aside from the traditional social and cultural events that accompany such affairs, like inaugural balls, cocktail parties and the We Are One: Inaugural Concert to End All Inaugural Concerts, In Which Bono, Springsteen And Every Other Prominent Zeitgeist Troubadour With An Inflated Sense of Purpose Will Lead The Whole World In A Choir of Harmony And Peace, and Possibly "This Is Our Country," Making Us All Forget About Our Legion of National Troubles For Two Hours So We Can At Least Briefly Feel Good About Ourselves, Sponsored by HBO, there is also the predictable sense of synergy, in which the good spirits of all the participants combine to achieve an even greater sense of community.

It's intoxicating. I get that. I myself have felt it, in 1998 at Game One of the World Series in Yankee Stadium, when Tino Martinez hit a grand slam off of Mark Langston and the place erupted in volcanic euphoria -- I was caught up in the moment and I was rooting against the Yankees. And whenever anyone talks about that game, or that moment, I can say "I was there."

This seems to be a pretty significant motivator in our society: the ability to say "I was there when". There are a million people in this city literally saying, "I want to be able to say 'I was there when we inaugurated Barack Obama.'" Of course, when you stop and think about it, this compulsion is totally stupid.

Because, first of all, anyone can say it. "I was there when the Berlin Wall came down." See what I did? With minimal effort, I just made myself more interesting. Don't believe me? Prove me wrong. Think I'm lying? Here's the great part: at that point, it doesn't really matter if I'm lying, because there's no difference in being shallow enough to pretend like you actually had something to do with the Berlin Wall coming down and being shallow enough to lie about it. The truth is irrelevant.

Maybe 200 years ago, when news still traveled by horseback and mass communication was still an embryonic notion, first-person accounts were useful and interesting. But the 1998 World Series was seen on television and heard on the radio by millions of people. They know what happened. They where there, watching on their televisions, taking part in their own ways. I simply happened to be many miles closer. But it's not like I was divining any particular information from my seat in the upper deck, other than the fact that I thought it was going to collapse under the incessant stomping of 60,000 Yankee fans.

The phrase, even when weilded honestly and earnestly, is a meager commentary on character. After all, mere proximity does not necessarily imply anything other than good fortune, good connections or maybe, maybe the personal dedication it takes to forge a difficult journey. Ultimately, "I was there when" is little more than a way to insert oneself, however insignificantly, into a significant event. (If indeed it even is significant, which is usually a matter of opinion.) It's a very mild, generally acceptable form of self-aggrandizement. It's small-talk junk food.

Nevertheless, here everyone is, squeezing onto trains and trudging over bridges and carving out their own two square feet of grass in order to be a teeny-tiny itsy-bitsy part of "history." And yeah, I'll be out there too, given to a sense of obligation, experiencing the experience. But I'll be happier when it really is history.

"The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

So I was on the Metro today, minding my own business, absentmindedly nodding my head to the incessant beats of Fatboy Slim & Wildchild's "Renegade Master", when I noticed an umbrella just laying there on the floor.

Or, more accurately, an umbrella fragment. Its telescopic shaft was broken in half, the handle inexplicably missing, perhaps having rolled under a seat somewhere or holstered as a shiv. The umbrella part of the umbrella rested upside-down in full blossom, as if left to dry, though its structural integrity had been compromised; many of the thin aluminum girders were broken or bent out of shape, almost certainly rendering the umbrella practically unusable. The cheap black polyester webbing was tattered, frayed in spots and lightly stained with a mysterious crusty-looking brown substance.

This was the disabled homeless veteran of umbrellas.

At first I thought it belonged to one of my fellow riders, pressed into emergency service or even lately ravaged by the unexpectedly cold and wet morning weather, and could only be rested in its collapsed state. But the passengers nearest the item seemed to disavow it with their dismissive postures and sidelong glances; with each shuffle of the subway car their legs recoiled, as if avoiding an open syringe. One by one they departed the car, leaving it behind.

Someone had clearly abandoned this umbrella. And despite its obvious functional uselessness -- not to mention its hazardous position on the floor of a moving train -- nobody could be bothered to pick it up and dispose of it properly. Regretfully, at my stop, I declined to remove it myself. (I did not want to go near the crusty-looking brown stuff. I'm just getting over a cold.)

I left it, and it left me wondering: what will happen to it now. Maybe some good samaritan or sanitation worker will give it a proper burial, perhaps considering its long journey or perhaps not, while tossing it into a dumpster with the stray newspapers and food wrappers and other discarded rubbish. But what if nobody throws it away, and the train simply reaches the end of the line and turns back on a return journey, back and forth. Will it be there when I head home? Will it stay there forever? Is it stuck to the floor?

What if there are thousands of hobo umbrellas, used and discarded, riding trains back and forth every day? Once fresh and new, so full of utility and ready to brave the rain and sunshine, they are now consigned to this endlessly depressing coda.

It's almost enough to make me pray for precipitation.

"I wish the world was flat like the old days
Then i could travel just by folding a map
No more airplanes, or speedtrains, or freeways
There'd be no distance that can hold us back"
- from "The New Year" by Death Cab for Cutie

On January 3, 2008, I resolved: "I will write. I will write regularly. I will write earnestly. I will write ~~good~~ ~~well~~ awesome."

I wrote regularly, anyway. Five days a week all year, with very few exceptions, I did my homework.

The grand object was to see if I was indeed a writer. Less abstractly, my goal was twofold: to get in the habit of writing every day and to build an archive of thoughts, stories and phrases upon which I could someday draw -- perhaps in the service of a more formal, ambitious literary effort.

Not only has this yearlong project been intensely educational, it has been spiritually gratifying. The encouragement from my readers -- particularly my extraordinarily dedicated family members -- helped sustain me throughout the year. Old, long-lost friends rose from the ashes of anecdotes and connected these days with the good old days. Ghosts and grudges that once haunted me were exorcised and rendered powerless.

It's been fun, but I've graduated. It's time to do something different. It's time to take this ethic and apply it toward something tangible -- and, if possible, something lucrative. That something could be a novel, or it could be a self-help book, or it could be a manifesto. Whatever it is will be offline.

But that doesn't mean I'm abandoning you, or this space. I'll try writing something here every week or so. There was a lot of stuff I meant to get to, but never had the chance: my List of Forbidden Words, my all-time favorite television shows (haiku style), an exclusive interview with the elusive Ms J. ... Have I talked yet about proper elevator etiquette? It probably deserves another mention.

I'll also try to keep you posted via my Twitter feed, handle EnchantedPants. Those of you who know me by my proper name can also find me on Facebook. [Sigh.]

Who knows, maybe I'll miss this particular grind and come back strong again soon. I doubt it, but you never know.

You only know this: I sincerely appreciate everyone who stopped by and propped me up. You all are the best. I look forward to your future support, assuming you remember who I am after this week.

Love.

E.P.

"And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love
You make."
- from "The End" by The Beatles

"I feel like one who treads alone
Some banquet hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!"
- Thomas Moore

Valentine's Day gets all the publicity, but in my opinion New Year's Eve is the most insidiously romantic night of the year. While Valentine's Day is overt and demonstrative, New Year's Eve is sly and subversive. New Year's Eve inspires an unspoken but pervasive conflict between companionship and loneliness, brought into stark contrast by the end of one year and the beginning of another. The formal transition from one year to the next only seems arbitrary when you're not the person looking around for a hand to hold.

One of the most enduring New Year's Eve traditions is the kiss-at-midnight, a looming peer-pressurized moment in the year of any desperately single individual. This desperation has been known to manifest in all sorts of unhealthy ways, from ill-considered dates to impulsive late-night post-boozing Girls Gone Wild purchases.

The touchstone romantic comedy of this generation, When Harry Met Sally, features a climactic scene at a New Year's Eve party in Manhattan. "Harry" alludes to the evening's expectations when he intones, "it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." This movie, for all its modern-day wisdom, gave misplaced hope to millions of guys who look like Billy Crystal that they could land a babe who looked like Meg Ryan, merely by invoking funny voices and glib observations.

The usual New Year's Eve dinner is custom-made for a romantic evening with one's partner. And is it merely coincidence that a single bottle of champagne is just the perfect size for two people to consume and metabolize in such a way as to encourage copulation. In fact, the whole New Year's Eve celebration is practically a choreographed fertility dance, designed to promote the propagation of the species.

For a long time, I didn't understand why the preeminent national symbol of the changing year was the dropping of the ball in New York's Times Square. I mean, what the hell? A ball dropping? If it's some kind of sports metaphor, it's egregiously stupid, since a dropped ball is almost universally a bad thing in any sport. And it's not even "dropping," really, it's more accurately "gently falling," like the "unnecessarily slow dipping mechanism" used to "kill" James Bond back in the "1960s."

But then I noticed the greater symbolism, working on any number of levels. The term "ball dropping" is itself often used to represent the descension of the male testes, evincing sexual maturity and readiness to engage in the physical act of love. Or perhaps the ball represents the female's egg, patienting inching toward fertilization, presaging the birth of a new year. More brazenly, we need only watch how the long, cylindrical shaft slowly penetrates the round, swollen sphere until the moment when it is completely consumed, at which point the whole thing lights up, fireworks go off and everyone screams with passionate delight. It's so obviously dirty, in fact, that it's sort of surprising they show it on broadcast television.

Alas, I am too sick to dine and party with my loved one this year. But the notion still holds strong: I pass into 2009 flush with the pride and confidence that comes with having J. to kiss every night. With her, every night is like New Year's Eve, only without the hangover the following day.

"Razors pain you
Rivers are damp
Acid stains you
Drugs cause cramp
Guns aren't lawful
Nooses give
Gas smells awful
You might as well live."
- Dorothy Parker

The signs are all here: Mild sinus congestion and inflammation. Scratchy, tender throat. Vague, indeterminate soreness. Sudden dental sensitivity. Persistent sense of foreboding. I'm getting a head cold.

Not ideal timing, considering that tomorrow night is New Year's Eve, one of few established, national occasions in which conspicuous consumption and reckless abandon are not only expected but encouraged. But I am concerned that by the time the clock strikes midnight, I will be slathered with Vicks Vapo-Rub and wheezing into my pillow.

It could be worse, I suppose. I could have come down with this cold before my Vegas Vacation^[1] and spent my Quality Family Time inadvertently flinging mucus at my immediate family. In fact, the unseasonably cold weather in the American southwest may be partially to blame for my ague, as more than once I impulsively braved nearly-freezing temperatures in mere shirtsleeves. Repeated contact with filthy gaming machines, undersanitized hotel linens and germ-encrusted airline equipment could not have helped, either.

I have been coming down with colds since before I was old enough to wipe my own nose and still I'm not sure how to proceed, particularly at this particular stage of illness. Should I rage against the infection, trying to slow its determined advance and perhaps break its will? Or should I embrace the sickness, wallow in it for a while, and let my immune system quickly and quietly do its work?

"Rest" is often prescribed as a sure-fire cure for what ails me, but I'm not sure if this means "sleep" or just a lack of exertion. Sleep doesn't really make any sense, because if I sleep when I'm usually awake, it generally means that I'll be awake when I'm usually asleep. And if I'm going to be awake and bored and fussy, I'd rather do so in the company of other awake people. It would be pretty frustrating for me to lie awake thinking about my deviated septum with J. laying next to me, dreaming about cheesecake.

Rest as in non-exertion sounds fine, especially if it means I can stay home from work.^[2] But what does that really entail that's different from my usual non-work hours? More television and whining? Does it get me out of minor household chores? What's the policy on really deep, analytical thinking?

Often I will feel better after going to the gym. I'm not sure if that's because it splits my focus or improves my circulation or pumps up my endorphins or what. But it usually helps. Then again, I'm not sure that the best thing for me to do while sick is break out into a profuse sweat.

I will have to be particularly vigilant with regard to a love quarantine; it would be very bad for me to get J. sick at this time, as she is trying to wrap up one job this week and starting a new job next week. It has long been my philosophy that if someone can love you when you are sick -- and infectious and sloppy and ugly and irritable -- then that person really loves you. But in this case, love comes with a hazmat suit.

The only halfway good thing about a head cold is that it usually eventually becomes a chest cold, making it that much easier to do my Kathleen Turner impression. :et us hope it goes no farther south, though, lest I be forced to do my diptheria impression.

"To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right."
- Confucius

So, I'm back. And soooooo close to completing the Year of LiveJournalism without a single missed weeknight. Taking a pass on Christmas Day is easily defensible, but I simply blew you off on Sunday.

It would be presumptuous for me to suggest that my meager blatherskite in this here space would be roundly missed, especially since many of you readers are or were just as vacationized as I. But for those of you who missed your daily dose of Vitamin E.P., you have my flattered appreciation and a valid excuse.

For nearly five days I devoted every single moment to the small, extremely exclusive group of people I love the most in the entire world. The 100 hours with my family was, if not necessarily soothing, spiritually gratifying.

Of course, the problem with family gatherings of large scope is that there is only so much quality time to go around. Inevitably, someone ends up being shortchanged. It becomes particularly tricky in a town like Las Vegas, which is like the metropolitan definition of "distraction".

I was relentlessly torn between various constituencies, all of whom deserved more love and attention than I was able to shower upon them. There were:

My grandparents, Las Vegas residents who don't travel very much and, let's face it, are getting old. They don't act old; my grandfather still spends several hours a day swindling wannabe poker studs out of their per diems and my grandmother is still feisty enough to make those Golden Girls look like frontal lobotomy patients. But the fact remains that they are not going to be around until I'm their age, and I secretly worry that the last time I saw them is the last time I'll see them.

My parents, my profoundly beloved empty-nesters to whom I have grown closer emotionally in recent years (and most specifically during this god-foresaken 2008). As I make certain bounding leaps into adulthood -- marriage, home ownership, financial independence -- I look to my folks as an essential how-to/how-not-to resource for building a well-lived life.

My "little" brother and his fiancee, who live way the hell out in California and rarely make it back east. Bonding with my brother is especially important, because I already feel like we've gotten a late start -- due to what I'll call "personality differences," we refrained from communicating with each other on any kind of meaningful level for about ten years. Trust me, it was safer that way. But now that we've matured to the level where casual conversation cannot be misconstrued as a sarcastic rebuke, our relationship has improved significantly.

My adored fiancee, obviously, whose happiness is most closely linked to my own. Also, with this being her first real trip to Las Vegas, and her first Christmas away from family, and our first holiday as an engaged couple, I was also expected to fulfill certain romantic obligations.

And then of course there's me, the guy who is actually on vacation, for whom some peaceful rest and relaxation would have been a nice little Christmas bonus.

But of course this is not the season for thinking of one's self. And naturally I was happy to share these precious moments with my family. The tough part is apportioning a finite amount of quality time in such a way that I appease each and all of the aforementioned constituencies. The task becomes progressively more difficult when you consider that the eight of us share widely varying interests, appetites and tolerances for televised football.

But I'd like to think that everyone's dance card was completed to their satisfaction. I know I had a wonderful time, and that's even factoring in the disappointing efforts of certain good-for-nothing NFL franchises who seemed not only unaware of but totally unconcerned with the betting line.

So, for those of you who missed me, I'm kind of sorry, but I'm really not. And to those aforementioned family members who want to hear more about themselves in this space, I strongly encourage you to write your own blog. That, I wouldn't miss.

"My creed is this:
Happiness is the only good.
The place to be happy is here.
The time to be happy is now.
The way to be happy is to make others so."
- Robert G. Ingersoll

Tomorrow, Christmas Day -- if the weather cooperates -- J. and I will board a flight to Las Vegas and spend the holiday in the twinkling light capital of the world.

This is not to say that it will be a decadent Christmas. Sure, there may be some gambling here or a lavish stage show there or a gourmet meal somewhere else. But it will primarily be an Enchanted Family Christmas, as my brother and his financee, my mother and my father and my grandfather and grandmother will be there to provide the requisite mirth and good-natured mockery.

It should be a good time.

I am pretty much demanding that it be a good time, because 2009 is going to be a vortex of stress and activity, like living in the middle of a Eddie Van Halen guitar solo. There will be home-hunting, a Bat Mitzvah, a wedding, wedding planning, J.'s new job and my current job, which is shaping up to be its own horn o'plenty. This weekend may be my last chance to relax until April 2010. So I'm going to cash in my blessings and count them all.

And if I happen to come out ahead on my wagers, even better.

Have a merry Christmas, everyone.

"Man strives for honor, glory, fame
That all the world should know his name
Amasses wealth by brain and hand
Becomes a power in the land
But as he nears the end of life
And looks back o’er the years of strife
He finds that happiness depends
On none of these, but love of friends."
- Unknown

As you know, I am currently making the transition from faceless to Facebook. Many Facebook customs, while practically reflexive to longtime users, are entirely novel to me.

In some ways I imagine it is like being a foreign exchange student -- you pick things up gradually by watching other people, say just enough so that you don't look stupid, and when in doubt, plead ignorance. Facebook itself is already like an awkward high-school reunion, with all sorts of voyeurism and judging going on. Being a late arrival just adds another layer of apprehension.

Already I am getting the hang of it. I've uploaded a profile picture, won my first game of Faceboook Scrabble and collected a relatively small stable of followers.

It's an interesting thing about those followers that they seem to come in distinct waves.

For the first day or so, there was a rush of "friend requests" from my nearest and dearest friends and family, the elite relationship guard, the interpersonal first-round draft picks, as it were. The people who know me well, as described under Section 3B(1)(a) of these house rules.

For the next few days after that, I received requests from a handful of "second-order" friends. That is, people who are closely associated with the elite friends -- spouses, siblings, best buddies, etc. At this point in the experience, there is a very clear executive decision to be made: is my Facebook page going to be a come-one, come-all house party (not unlike this site here) or is it going to be an exclusive VIP lounge? Ultimately I chose to keep those doors open, not only because I want to be inclusive but because I don't have enough close friends to make a VIP lounge truly worthwhile; I might as well just call them on the phone.

For the week or so after that, the requests from friends-of-friends -- or what we might call "acquaintances" -- came dribbling in. These are the people that I know and socialize with solely in the context of my closest friends. These are the people you see at other folks' parties, weddings, funerals, etc. You may be able to carry on a perfectly nice conversation with these people, but there is no interpersonal history from which to draw when it dries up. I gladly accept these requests, because they seem like good friend prospects, and anyway they are no different relationship-wise from the spouse-and-sibling group.

Then there was the Out-of-the-Woodwork subset of individuals, the people that I haven't talked to in years -- long-lost classmates, former roommates, old friends who I thought were cool but then moved away and got married and had babies and apparently forgot that I existed, even after moving back to town, not calling or anything for like a year and a half before dropping a friend request right out of the blue. I accepted those people too, because if you're not going to stalk long-lost friends then what are you even doing on Facebook?

Finally there were the Others, the people that I can't really stand, only they don't know it. I choose to "ignore" those people. Unless they're reading this, in which case I probably just deleted them accidentally. Sorry! Better not try again!

The one thing I haven't done much at all is actually make friend requests myself. It goes back to the high school metaphor again, where it's like asking a girl to dance. Sure, it's low-risk/high-reward and in the grand scheme of things not at all important. But there is nevertheless a risk of serious ego damage. Or even worse, the possibility that someone will see a mere friend request as an overture to a real friendly relationship. (Again: if anyone wanted real relationships, they wouldn't be on Facebook.)

But what the hell. Before I leave for vacation, I'm going to go with a saturation-bomb strategy, friend-requesting a shitload of friends, acquaintances and out-of-the-woodworkers. If any of them choose to ignore me, then I'll probably forget about them anyway. That's what friends are for.

"Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Random observations and other miscellany:

It is bloody freezing outside today. Or so I suspect. My tenderloins are still thawing out after yesterday, when J. and I wandered around downtown Silver Spring looking at potential neighborhoods. I haven't actually left my building yet today, but I can hear the wind slamming against the window panes of my apartment, like a howling ghost begging to be let inside because its #@&%ing cold outside. It makes me feel a little soft, given that I grew up in Western New York, America's climatological answer to Siberia. Since I moved away from my hometown nearly a decade ago, my blood has warmed to the point where I actually get chilly at 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Thirty degrees! That used to be barbeque weather. Now I just want to stay inside and eat soup. Maybe that's why...

I never play football anymore. It used to be that Sunday pickup football games were like a spiritual obligation. Of course, that started when I was 25 and not only somewhat immune to the elements but also reasonably quick and shifty. At first, since I was joining a weekly game that had already been a neighborhood tradition for decades, I was commonly tasked with "blocking," which in pickup terms is basically the crappy assignment to guys that can't be trusted with actually touching the ball. For a year I attempted to prove myself by doing little more than absorbing mild physical battery. After a while the other guys started to consider me as an actual offensive weapon, and for the few years after that I was a relative star. But then a few things happened: I became fussier about the weather, declining to play not only in cold weather but snowy weather, hot weather or wet weather; my fellow players started getting younger, meaning that I wasn't the fastest guy on the field anymore; and I settled down with a girlfriend, making me both busier and fatter. For the past couple of years I could feel myself slowing down and enjoying the game less. I've only been on the field once this season, and while I sort of had the itch to play today, I didn't want to risk getting hurt or getting sick, especially not right before ...

I go on vacation this week. That's a funny word, when you think about it: literally, when you go on vacation you are vacating something or someplace, i.e. getting the hell out of town so fast that you leave an empty space where you used to be. For Christmas this year J and I are meeting my grandparents, my parents and my brother and his fiancee in Las Vegas. My hope is that it will be at least a little warmer there, although apparently they had up to six inches of snow in Las Vegas last week. Snow in Las Vegas. Global warming, my ass. At any rate, I am looking forward to the vacation time and the family time -- even if those two things sound like mutually exclusive concepts. I briefly considered taking the week off from this journal, as well, but dismissed the notion since I only have two more weeks before this year-long experiment is over. It would be silly to come this far and not finish out the year strong. It will be enough for me to vacate my office for a little while, since ...

Work is driving me bananas. December -- and the whole post-election season, really -- is supposed to be a quiet time, divided between holiday parties and those mindless housekeeping jobs that always end up on the back burner during the congressional session. But this has been an unusual year, what with the economic meltdown, administrative transition and legislative hand-wringing, and we are still hip-deep in policy wonkery. January is already shaping up to be one long headache. So I have that freight train coming at me. The last thing I needed was static from my boss about our office's holiday card. Last year I came up with a fun, creative concept, and the pressure was on to at least approach that level of creativity in 2008. So I wrote what I thought was a fairly clever poem, bemoaning our current financial quagmire but expressing optimism for the year ahead. BossMan liked the poem, but felt the need to "make a few tweaks." These "tweaks" included lawyerly fine-tuning of the language, as if the verse represented some kind of official policy memorandum. This, of course, totally messed with my rhythm and rhyme scheme, which for a poet is like crumpling it up and using it as toilet paper. The final product required extensive, delicate negotiations with a guy who basically holds my entire livelihood in his hands, taking time that could have been better spent picking my nose. But I'll say this for work: at least ...

They gave me a brand-new Blackberry. And when I say "brand-new," I don't mean that it's just new to me. I mean that they gave me a Blackberry Storm, the just-released top-of-the-line new-fangled next-big-thing in the world of mobile communications. As I told my friend

dl004d, going from the Blackberry RIM 7950 to the Blackberry Storm is like going from a Ford Pinto to the Milennium Falcon. When I explained to dl004d -- who is so technology-forward that he's already on the waiting list to have the forthcoming Blackberry Lobe implanted directly into his brain -- that I wasn't even sure if I'd need my cell phone anymore, he scoffed. (At the concept of a "cell phone," I guess. I'm not really sure.) The point is, this is some brave new shit I'm dealing with here. I remain a little uneasy with the idea of a work-issued Blackberry, thinking of it as a shiny electronic Lojack. The irony is, the sheer number of features on this new item will make it practically impossible for me to sit attentively in a meeting ever again. I only wish I could have imported my BrickBreaker high score.

"If I were asked to give what I consider the single most useful bit of advice for all humanity it would be this: Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and when it comes, hold you head high, look it squarely in eye and say, 'I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.'"
- Ann Landers

Today, I thought I'd dip into the ol' Enchanted Pants mailbag and provide my time-tested advice to troubled, pathetic individuals in need. Unfortunately, I don't have a mailbag. Nobody is asking for my advice. So I'm raiding other people's mailbags instead.

Dear Enchanted Pants:
My cousin, my father’s brother daughter, came to my house last Friday. I do not know her well, and she said she wanted to talk to me. She brought over some papers she found among her own father’s things when he died. These papers prove that I am not my father’s daughter and that he knew this. My father has been dead for ten years, my mother for six; I loved them both dearly. I have been walking around in a daze all weekend. I do not know what to think.
(Dear Mrs. Web)

Dear Father's Daughter:
Let's get the juicy stuff out of the way. Does this mean that your mom had an affair? With your uncle? Is your cousin a total bitch or something? Are you sure she wasn't rehearsing a Shakespeare play?

At any rate, I understand how this news would be staggering. Your reaction is entirely normal. Be careful walking around in that daze, especially if your home is near the train tracks.

Now think about it: salaciousness aside, is this any different than learning that you were adopted? You are indeed your father's daughter -- he raised you, protected you and loved you. He obviously made peace with whatever circumstances brought you into his family. Your mother, whatever role she played in all of this, apparently did her best to build a loving family.

The revelation of such long-held secrets will naturally challenge your faith in people, but do not let it disturb the affectionate memory of your parents. If anything, let their unconditional love be an example of what real family is.

Dear Enchanted Pants:
I am a 22 year old woman, never married, no children. I work as an adult dancer, and am only working as one as a means to save lots of money while I am in school.

I have been dating a 33 year old man for about 4 months now. He is a wonderful person and I have to say, he is becoming one of my best friends. When we are together, things are very natural and relaxed, and we are always able to laugh together. This is a person who I am sure could love me and I know I could love him. I know we are both eventually interested in settling down and having a family.

I only have one problem. He is in debt. He "owns" his own business, which he started up 2 years ago. It hasn't really caught on, I guess, because he consistently has to borrow money from his parents. He rarely has money to take me out, although he manages every few weeks, so I know he is trying. He does not seem to spend his money on frivolous things, yet he still need to borrow money from his parents quite often, for home repairs and things of that nature. This bothers me for a few reasons.

First, I am 11 years younger than him, yet I have a substantial amount in savings. Granted, I realize my job enables me to make quick cash, but when the subject came up the other day, he mentioned he only has a few hundred dollars to his name. I wonder what this says about his level of responsibility.

When I offered to help him budget, he was not willing to let me help him. I know his business is going through some slow times, but shouldn't he be trying to save and pay off his debts?

I guess my main problem is that I have seen him behave very irresponsibly with money. I am not a gold-digger...I make enough money on my own. But I think he is someone I would like to settle down with and hopefully marry someday. Should I be concerned with his financial situation, and if so, do you have any advice on how to approach the subject and hopefully help him with this problem?
(Ask Dr. Tracy)

Dear Fantasy Woman:
Your boyfriend is a loser.

More specifically, what we have is a 33-year old guy who has not matured to the point where he can survive without an allowance from his parents. We also have a 33-year old guy who is so intellectually and emotionally stunted that he cannot relate to women his own age and has turned to dating sweetly naive 22-year old strippers.

No offense. Give it a few years and a steady job, and you'll be able to smell losers like this from 100 yards away. It won't be long at all before you've matured to the point where you'll feel like you're dating a 16-year old.

Incidentally, you might want to get more details about these "home repairs" he's talking about, and whether they involve extensive "weeding."

You also have to take into account that many of the men you meet on a regular basis are strip club patrons, which is to say totally skeezy scumbags who are led around by their tiny little penises. You may not realize this now, but there are so many guys out there who are handsome, intelligent, funny and don't collect their paycheck in one dollar bills.

Forget helping him with his problem. He sounds more like the ran-off-with-my-car type than the marrying type. I'd dump his sorry ass before he brings another wrinkle to your taut, tanned cheeks. That would send him a message and buy you another few years of blissful relative innocence.

Dear Enchanted Pants:
What is the Federal Reserve System, can you tell me in simple terms? -- Jorn, TX
(Ask Roy)

Dear Jorn:
Okay, so "federal," that means the government of the whole United States, which is the big country to the west, north and east of Texas. Occasionally the "federal" government has to "reserve" certain things of value, so that not just anyone can walk in and take them. To do this "reserving," the "federal" government acts according to a "system" -- a prescribed set of rules and relationships. Simple enough?

Too simple? Okay. Think of the Federal Reserve as the banker in a game of Monopoly, except totally drunk on power. Not only do they control the inflow and outflow of money within the financial system, but they also set the rates and terms for borrowing money while monitoring the total amount of money within the game. When money is so plentiful that inflation rises (and the value of each dollar thereby decreases), they can raise interest rates to encourage saving and reduce the amount of money in the game; when money is so scarce that it threatens deflation, they can lower interest rates to encourage borrowing and spending. They can also just make more money by going out and buying another Monopoly game.

They're never going to lend you money to build that hotel on Baltic Avenue, Jorn. Everyone knows that property is a total shithole.

Dear Enchanted Pants:
I have two employees who do not like each other. It is affecting the morale of the other employees who are tired of the conflict. The two employees come to me one at a time "telling" on the other one. It is taking up so much of my time dealing with these two employees and, frankly, I have had it. What can I do? -- Frustrated in Florida
(Workplace Issues)

Dear Frustrated:
I assume you have already considered some of the traditional options, such as mediated arbitrage, sensitivity training and arm wrestling, otherwise you wouldn't be putting this decision in the hands of a total stranger on a fly-by-night Web site.

If these alternatives have all failed or failed the feasability test, and the productivity of the whole office is truly suffering, you're just going to have to fire one of them. This is why they pay you the big cheese, Big Cheese.

So now you have to figure out whom to fire. Consider the following criteria, in this order:
1. general productivity
2. seniority/institutional knowledge
3. willingness to take a pay cut
4. reluctance to litigate
5. pleasantness to have around
6. cleanliness/personal hygiene
7. whether they know about your personal slush fund
8. gams
9. mafia affiliations
10. value to company softball team

If, after all that, they're still neck and neck, have them flip a coin. Whomever picks "tails," fire them for sexual harassment.

Dear Enchanted Pants:
Hi I am 12 and I have a girlfriend that I really like and I want to give her a gift, not something that is to extreme, but something that she will really like. She likes cats, does that help you any?
(ABCs of Life)

Dear Cat Lover Lover:
Yeah, that helps me plenty. Be careful with girls who like cats. They tend to take after the animals themselves, purring in your lap one moment, then suddenly, without warning, they decide they have to do something else and just walk away, apparently forgetting that you ever existed. And when you go to pick them up again, they scratch your heart out and pee on it. Oh, you'll learn.

But you're looking for gift advice, not relationship advice. A former girlfriend of mine -- who, incidentally, loved cats -- gave me the best gift advice ever, and I have subscribed to it ever since: "metals, minerals and gifts from the sea are always in good taste." Maybe a nice amber pendant, or a charming charm bracelet, or a fanciful conch shell from your parents' beach house. Oh, your parents don't have a beach house? Man, have you got a lot to learn about women.

Dear Enchanted Pants:
I graduated last spring but still haven’t landed my first accounting job. I’m feeling pretty discouraged and wonder if anything will come along. How can I stay motivated?
(Ask Andy)

Dear Discouraged:
As a prospective accountant, I would think you could simply stay busy filing all your rejection letters, auditing your supply of resume paper or even counting the fleeting seconds of your mercilessly dull existence.

The dearth of accounting jobs is likely due to the economic recession and the drastic efforts of the federal government to redirect billions of dollars to purchase troubled financial assets. Who needs accountants when you're haphazardly flushing money down a giant toilet?

Instead of New York or Washington, you might consider moving to Chicago. I have a feeling they're going to be counting every nickel over there for a while.

Dear Enchanted Pants:
I am 20 years old and yesterday was the first time I ever heard of Twin Flames. I already am a strong believer because I believe that the woman in my life is my other half, my Twin Flame. We met unexpectedly our freshman year in college, and ever since, we have grown together. I have read many websites about Twin Flames already and all the signs and symptoms are exact. And I read that when Twin Flames meet when they are not ready, they face hard times and stuggle, which is somewhat of a test by God of unconditional love--that was when I knew. We have struggled so much together.

We think the same, spiritually and emotionally, about each other. We have the same thoughts. My heart melts every time I see her and hers the same for me. But these struggles--it is one right after the other, for almost 2 years straight. We have been holding onto fears and our egos, just the things we are to let go of. We have decided to be friends until the time is right, but no other love can compare.

Is there any advice you could give me? I know we should let go of our fears and egos and just let our hearts bring us together and Gods Will. -- Believer
(Ask Antera, Intuitive Advice)

Dear Believer
Heart melting is a serious condition. You should take two aspirin and seek immediate medical attention.

You sound like a deeply sensitive, spiritual person who is deeply connected to your own thoughts and feelings. This is obviously your problem. Take a look around, man. There is more in heaven and Earth than is dreamt of in your little Twin campfire or whatever.

All groups of people -- couples, families, coworkers, mortal enemies -- "meet when they are not ready ... face hard times and stuggle." Just because you and another person face some tough times doesn't make you soulmates. It just makes you human.

What makes a relationship, or more to the point, what makes a relationship work, is mutual affection, appreciation and understanding. You seem to have the affection, and maybe the appreciation, but real understanding requires actual communication. That means talking to each other, not reading spiritual pablum about fire and shit.

You say you care about this person, but everything seems to be about you and your own precious feelings. Stop spending so much time looking for your own reflection and actually take a look at who your partner is. You might not be as in love with what you see, but at least you'll be seeing clearly -- and seeing where you're going.

Dear Enchanted Pants:
I am bored with the mascara I am using now. I am ready for something new! What should I try?
(Ask the Makeup Diva)

Dear Bored:
Try looking in the mirror and appreciating what you see there, instead of a dull canvas that needs some sort of artificial enhancement. Makeup is nothing more than a product of (The) man's desire to turn your gaping sense of physical insecurity and subconscious demand for external validation into a marketable commodity. Try going without mascara for a while, and maybe you'll notice that people (and men, especially) don't like you for all the shit you put on your face.

Dear Enchanted Pants:
I just started dating this guy who I really like. The other night, we went out and got hammered. I ended up passing out in his bed. When I woke up, I discovered that I had wet the bed. I was so embarrassed that I left while he was still asleep. If I call him, do I have to apologize or can I pretend it never happened? Or do I have to wait for him to call me?
(Yo, Spencer!)

Dear Hammered:
My guess is that you are made-up. No actual person would ever willfully recount this story, much less seek advice about it from a sun-bleached douchenozzle whose only qualification seems to be an ability to tolerate Heidi Montag for more than 30 consecutive seconds. So I don't feel bad about telling you this.

Let's set aside the fact that you are pretty obviously an alcoholic. It seems clear that this episode was a blaring cosmic signal that you are just too stupid to live, much less reproduce. Not only shouldn't you call him, you should consider checking into a hospital in Germany or something so that scientists can study whatever the hell is wrong with you. Try not to get hit by any buses on the way there.

How Much Stress is Too Much Stress?
- Matt Groening, Life in Hell, 1990

I am stressed out. I am filled to the brim with stress, now fortified with stress, part of a complete stress. Were I to take a stress test, I would stress out the test, and it would explode. I have all the major stresses: job stress, money stress, relationship stress. None of these stresses alone reach the level of critical stress, but they are collectively forming a stress union, holding derisive picket signs and barricading the entry to my Happiness & Relaxation factory.

Normally I am able to sublimate most of this stress by working out, or writing, or clipping coupons. But my brain seems to be careening out of control, like a plinko chip rattling against the pegs on the board, at the mercy of incessant gravity.

It's like I can't stop thinking. The simple act of going from work to home takes the shape of a giant decision tree, consuming the analytical, efficiency-obsessed part of my mind.

Should I walk fast or medium fast? It's cold outside, and walking fast would keep me warmer and get me to the train station more quickly. But these business shoes are not really designed for fast walking, and could give me shin splints. Plus I'd look like one of those uptight dorks, huffing and puffing down the street in my preppy little outfit. And I'm at the mercy of four different traffic lights anyway, so does it really matter? I just hate it when I'm making good time and then all of a sudden I have to break my stride and stop at a traffic light.

Of course, this could depend on which Metro station I take home. Since my office is at 15th and M Streets NW, I could walk the five blocks southwest to Farragut North and take the Red Line to Gallery Place and then catch the Yellow Line home to northern Virginia. Or I could walk four blocks due south to take the Blue Line all the way home. Or, if the Blue Line is delayed in that direction, I could take the Blue Line in the opposite direction to L'Enfant Plaza and transfer to the Yellow Line. The Red Line-to-Yellow Line includes the longer walk, but the faster train trip, although there are no alternatives once you're in the station so if the train is waylaid or anything, I'm sort of screwed. The Blue Line direct has the shortest walk -- although the fact that it's a straight line prevents me from avoiding any stop lights -- and it offers the easiest train ride in that it's just one line, with no transfers. But it's also the longest ride on the train, which can be particularly unpleasant if it's truly crowded, like at peak rush hour. The Blue Line-to-Yellow Line combines the shortest walk with the shortest train ride, but it doesn't really save much time because it's only one fewer total stop than the Blue Line Direct, plus there's the transfer, which means that it usually takes just as long as the long train ride, it's just that I'm always moving and getting on and off trains, which can relieve some of the commuting boredom but makes it difficult to read my Newsweek.

Once I get to my home station, it's a fairly easy walk to my neighborhood, but I usually spend that time trying to determine whether I need to stop by the grocery store on my way home, which forces me to do a quick inventory -- from memory -- about what's in our fridge, pantry, etc. and what J. and I are going to do for dinner, now that I can't just fall back on macaroni whenever I need to, like in my bachelor days. So I think to call J. and ask her about her dinner preferences, except that my direct route through the shopping mall and the parking garage precludes sustained cell phone coverage, so that I can't call her until the point when I have to decide whether I'm going to the store or not. So I usually end up heading toward the store anyway, which I normally don't mind but after a long and stressful day, more options and decisions are not what I really need right now, especially once I realize that I left my coupons and my reusable nylon grocery bag at home.

Whether or not I go to the grocery store, there are basically two ways to enter my apartment building: on the main (first) floor or through the basement. The first floor is where the mailbox is, which is nice, plus it's more heavily trafficked so that there's less of a chance I'll have to fumble through my pockets to clear the outer security perimeter, and it's more likely that an elevator car will be waiting on the first floor to take me up to my apartment. The basement offers quicker sanctuary from the cold weather and it's not uphill, but it can sometimes take a while for the elevator to come to the basement, so you're just waiting there, possibly with several bags of groceries. And sure, I could enter on the basement level and then walk up one floor to the mailbox and then take the elevator from there up to my floor, but this seems like an obnoxious and unappealing detour for some spatial or psychological reason that I can't quite explain.

And then once I get up and in to my apartment, the rest of my evening sprawls out with more questions. Go to the gym or not? Cook dinner alone or wait for J.? Eat at the table or in front of the TV? And when do I write for this journal? During the early evening hours, in which case I'm basically ignoring J. while she's awake, or should I write later at night, thereby staying up until some God-stupid hour?

Maybe I should have waited until later. Maybe then I'd be too exhausted to lie awake, stressed.

"APPLAUSE, n. The echo of a platitude."
- Ambrose Bierce

Now is the time of year for professional music mavens to bang out an easy column based on their annual Top Ten lists -- top ten albums or artists or singles or worst singles or whatever. Lists are like the TV dinners of the writing world: oh, so easy, if not particularly fulfilling. Well, I want to get in on that action.

Furthermore, in a matter of weeks, Official Hipster Correspondent ERD will release the sixth volume of his Listen, Dammit series on an exclusive basis to his dearest friends. This extremely limited edition CD -- usually a two-disc set -- confers instant indie cred to all who hear it and invariably receives near-orgasmic acclaim from ERD's ardent patrons. I'd like a piece of that action, too.

But ERD is understandably reluctant to part with any of his action. He relishes his hard-earned action. He tends to closely safeguard his action, like a squirrel protects his nuts. And besides, as a professional music maven himself, he listens to more new music before 10:00 a.m. than I hear all month. This imbues him with a musical-cultural-commercial knowledge and sophistication that I cannot hope to match, or even understand, no matter how much I listen, dammit.

But I must have some critical chops, because ERD still occasionally throws me a bone in the form of a freelance CD review. Over the past six years, I must have several dozen reviews to my name. (Then again, this could be because I am the only writer in his stable willing to listen to, much less review Jessica Simpson's or Hootie and the Blowfish's latest albums.)

That's enough for at least one CD's worth of quality material. This is what mine would look like. [Track URLs good for seven days or 100 downloads each]

The Rules:
- No more than one song per album.
- Deep cuts only -- no widely released singles.
- No songs that previously appeared on any of ERD's compilations.

The Disclaimer:
- There isn't a lot of musical variety here; my critical niche seems to be corporate rock and wussy singer-songwriters. I'd like to think that I'm more well-rounded than that. But I'm probably not.

Track No. Title / Artist / Album / Year

1. Wheels / Cake / Pressure Chief / 2004
2. Dumb Girls / Lucy Woodward / While You Can / 2003
3. Hell Yeah / Neil Diamond / 12 Songs / 2005
4. Love / Rosey / Dirty Child / 2002
5. Utilities / The Weakerthans / Reunion Tour / 2007
6. Walter Reed / Michael Penn / Mr. Hollywood, Jr., 1947 / 2005
7. Don't Wait Too Long / Madeleine Peyroux / Careless Love / 2004
8. Lay My Burden Down / Dr. John / Dis, Dat or D'udda / 2004
9. Every Saturday Night / Ray Charles with the Count Basie Orchestra / Ray Sings, Basie Swings / 2006
10. Alone / Susan Tedeschi / Wait for Me / 2002
11. Hung Up on You / Fountains of Wayne / Welcome Interstate Managers / 2005
12. Please Don't Tell Her / Jason Mraz / Mr. A to Z / 2005
13. Cologne / Ben Folds / Way to Normal / 2008
14. Pancreas / "Weird" Al Yankovic / Straight Outta Lynwood / 2007
15. Kill / Jimmy Eat World / Futures / 2004
16. In This Life / Chantal Kreviazuk / What If It All Means Something / 2002
17. Stop Crying Your Heart Out / Oasis / Heathen Chemistry / 2002
18. Miami / Counting Crows / Hard Candy / 2002

"If you don't get noticed, you don't have anything. You just have to be noticed, but the art is in getting noticed naturally, without screaming or without tricks."
- Leo Burnett

Each year, in conjunction with my office's holiday luncheon and gift exchange, we also have our annual Cookie Exchange & Contest. Each person is expected to make, bake or otherwise acquire and proffer two dozen cookies, which are adjudicated by outside affiliates and then promptly consumed.

Not only is it an enjoyable bit of fluff for most of my socially malnourished colleagues, it also provides the sugar rush necessary to propel us through the post-legislative December malaise and toward the five o'clock whistle.

As holiday traditions go, it is not my least favorite. But I still have some problems with it.

I am a traditionalist when it comes to cookies -- and, for that matter, desserts. Chocolate chip. Shortbread. Peanut butter. Occasionally, when I'm feeling unusually zesty, a snickerdoodle. When people want to show off their baking skills, they tend to get all ambitious and create these elaborate, ostentatious confections using decidedly non-traditional components like cranberries, rum and Asian noodles. Desserts should have one single purpose: to batter your taste buds into exhausted submission; they are a blunt instrument, not a flowery potion. I, for one, cannot and will not abide the irresponsible and unnatural fancification of cookies. Would Cookie Monster eat a Coconut Macadamia Tartlet? No. Next.

Also, the whole "contest" angle makes it very difficult for me to enjoy the proceedings because I am both irrationally competitive and obsessed with the fundamental notions of Justice. Each year, not only do I have to come up with a cookie recipe that I will like -- since I'm goddamn for sure not eating a Coconut Macadamia Tartlet -- but I have to make it interesting in a really creative way in order to garner any attention from the judges. Of course, the stupid judges are suckers for the rudderless insouciance of things like the Coconut Macadamia Tartlet, so I get stuck with stupid runner-up awards like "Best Use of Butter." I'm never going to win, no matter how hard I try, which bugs me. It bugs me even more that I have to participate in this charade. And what bugs me most is the fact that it bugs me so much.

Last year, I gave it my best shot. I went to a cookie cookbook and whipped up some Tiger Striped Chocolate Chunk Cookies, a basic yet exotic taste treat. They turned out pretty well, I think, even if the tiger stripes sort of smooshed together with the cookie batter, giving each cookie a generally brownish-gray hue. As part of my presentation, I thought I would use this nondescript color to my marketing advantage:

The label for my 2007 entry, the Choco-Briquettes, complete with nutritional information. (Click photo for a larger view.)

Of course, I got totally ripped off in the awards ceremony, settling for "Most Sugary," while some fool who built a whole gingerbread house won first prize. Stupid gingerbread house. No way could it serve as even a modest studio apartment for the average gingerbread man. Also, it tasted like the vinyl siding it was intended to mimic.

For this year, I had intended to mail it in. I've got enough shit going on right now that I don't need to slave over an oven all day for the sake of a bunch of prissy tartlet eaters.

I really got into the marketing effort, though:

The label for my 2008 entry, or "Fun with Fonts." (Click photo for a larger view.)

And in the container: three dozen Keebler Fudge Stripes. Incidentally, these cookies taste great when mashed up with vanilla ice cream.

But alas, still no award. (I was given the "Best Store-Bought Cookie" prize, those distrustful pricks.) But hey, at least the stripes came out okay. And I had plenty leftover to take home.

"True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost."
- Arthur Ashe

Michael Phelps seems to be everywhere right now. He's shilling for video games, he's popping up on talk shows to hawk his new book and he's claiming a spot on all the most superficially subjective 2008 Top Ten lists.

Maybe he's not as overexposed as he was during the Olympics, but at least I could sort of control my exposure. He was in his element, so to speak, and I didn't have to worry about him milquetoasting up my Colbert Report.

What is consistent with this summer's PhelpsFest is the lionization of this 23 year old athlete. He's a great swimmer -- quite probably the best ever.* But is he our national savior? "Michael Phelps, American Hero" generates 454 Google hits. "American Hero Michael Phelps" comes up with another 850 hits. "American Hero Barack Obama"? 310 hits.

*But I have a little problem calling him the "greatest olympian ever." Okay, fine, he won all those medals. But he was able to win all those medals because swimming is one of those sports where there are like 50 different medals available, for swimming in medleys, swimming backwards, swimming with your legs kicking in a specific motion, etc. All that metal is great, but if we were having an all-time olympian fantasy draft, Jesse Owens is my No. 1 pick. Owens, by the way, was a hero.

Look, I don't begrudge him his success or his fame or his book deal. I don't want to be a hater, because I would probably do exactly the same thing were I in his Speedos. (Note well: I do not want to get "into" his Speedos.) I don't want this to be another screed against the inequitable esteem afforded athletes and entertainers. But let's maintain some perspective, here.

By any reasonable definition of the term "hero," Phelps falls short. It's great that he stayed at home on Friday nights so he could train, that he eschewed pepperoni pizza in favor of Powerbars, that he made sacrifices in the service of personal excellence and patriotic glory. But real heroism is about more than personal excellence and patriotic glory. It is about giving of oneself to make the world better -- a malleable concept to be sure, but I'm pretty sure that swimming really, really fast doesn't qualify. And it certainly doesn't entail appearing on The View.

For every multiple-gold-medal-winning olympian, there are thousands of beat cops, free clinic physicians, cancer researchers, armed forces servicemen, reading teachers and loving parents out there who are actually making differences -- real, big differences. They don't have time to dictate a book because they work for a goddamn living, every day.

I'm just saying, this has been a rough year on just about allof us, and this is supposed to be a season of giving. It would be nice if Phelps -- and all the people paying him so much attention -- gave a little more credit where credit is due.

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Nowhere Man

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go ahead and destroy this

(better come with an army)

Recent Entries

FAILanthropy

Helpless

Burying the lede

Annual Baseball Predictions and Predilections

Picture Albums (Part I)

Just the fax, ma'am?

I was there when

The Tale of the Hobo Umbrella

Next

**What are you doing new year's eve?**

Sick in the Head

Family Feudalism

Enchanted Family Christmas Special

He Ain't Heavy, He's In My Friends List

Crossing the Stream of Consciousness

Enchanted Pants Explains It All

nobody gonna break my stride, nobody gonna hold me down

Leased Greatest Hits

So you can have that cookie

Hating the Game