Author: Michael

That is the question
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of publishers and editors,
Or to hold my words to friends and family, and by doing so, conceal them.

A bit pretentious, yes. But I like playing with words.

I was stuck next to a frat boy on the plane Friday evening. He wanted to chat so badly, it must have hurt. He didn’t care who, he just needed to chat. The fellow to his left feigned sleep. I pulled out my laptop and manuscript. Mistake.

I was rude, but didn’t want to be too rude. So I told him what I was working on. He asked if I would publish it. No, of course not. But why, he had to know. I wouldn’t tell him. I don’t think I could have found a better way to keep the conversation alive. Damn fool, should have pretended to sleep. Definitely shouldn’t have told him I was writing a book about the West Bank.

But why won’t I publish? I’ve been thinking about it the past few days. Simple. If Janet Wolinetz could imply I’m an antisemite, anyone could. What better record to defame me? What surer way to attack my character? To reverse the logic of the old Arabic saying "the enemy of my enemy is friend," the "friend of my enemy is my enemy." You can’t be both. You can’t find a mutually beneficial solution. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is zero sum.

I will shortly have a new boss–someone I’ve talked to maybe six or seven times, and who works remotely. Still don’t entirely know what my job is.

I also lost 85% of my budget.

With my mom cleaning out thirty years of collected junk in her P*******n home in preparation to moving to a much smaller, 2BR condo in Portland, and the recent sale of my father’s stamp collection, I’ve been thinking about going through my baseball card collection one more time. I probably have 20,000+ cards. All of them are from the years 1982-1990, so almost all of the players on those cards have since retired.

The cards are stuffed in card-sized cardboard boxes, sucking up space in my closet. Half of those are complete sets and special packages. The others are just loose cards worth pennies, and not worth holding on to if I move again.

So, since I was in a glum mood anyway and didn’t feel like wandering about the City, I perused my collection with a pricing guide looking for valuable cards I missed in the 1990s. I ended up putting twelve boxes, probably 10K cards, in the recycling bin. I’m sure I threw away some slightly valuable cards, but none of them could have been worth more than $1. I found several more rookie cards, including a huge bunch of Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson cards (they were mediocre pitchers the years I collected).

What always amuses me about my collection, though, are these two rookie cards from 1986 and 1987. They’re just below, scanned in. Notice how skinny and whippet-like these young home-run kings were then? Now, you can get big in the gym, but… well, you can come to your own conclusions.

I lost my best friend this afternoon. I don’t think I’ve ever tried as hard to hold onto a friendship as I did with this one. I knew I couldn’t hold onto it forever–the end was inevitable, and I’ve known that for months. But when it would end wasn’t clear, and I held onto it as long as I could.

Anyway, my mom and I talked this morning, about life, about losing my best friend, and, as always, a little bit about Joe. When I got off the phone, I recalled one of the quotes Joe had placed in his little "commonplace book" about death: "Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends." (William Butler Yeats)

It prompted me to dig around for quotes on friendship.

• Aristotle: Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
• William Blake: It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
• Henry David Thoreau: My friend is one… who take me for what I am.
• Michael Tucker: Forget your enemies. It’s your friends you frustrate that cause all the problems.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson: A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.
• Samuel Butler: A man’s friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage–but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.
• Nora Ephron: What I’m saying is – and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or
  form – is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part
  always gets in the way.
• Anonymous: Good friends are hard to find, harder to leave, and impossible to forget.
• Richard Bach: Don’t be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.

I’ll miss her. Best friends are hard to find.

Last week was terribly frustrating. I am working on a high-profile project at work, and something that is critical to my segment. The group that is taking the lead on this project has deep expertise in most areas necessary to the success of the project, except for one area: knowledge of the segment to which we’re marketing. That’s where I’m supposed to add value, along with three or four other people with similar expertise.

Instead, however, the lead group won’t even talk to us. If we chime in on virtually any issue, we’re simply ignored. I have developed strong relationships with people in that lead group over the past two years, and now, when I open my mouth to contribute, all I get is condescension. Basically, instead of trying to collaboratively develop a program, I’m in an unnecessary turf war.

My only remaining tactic is to run and cry to "mommy" and "daddy" (two senior executives that have leverage over the group in question). Problem is, we’re not losing one or two big battles. We’re losing lots of skirmishes that are irrelevant by themselves. When I go to "mommy" and "daddy," they justifiably point out that each little bit isn’t important. Only once have I made any progress, because the position this group was taking, while valid along one narrow logical path, was utterly unjustifiable from a broader perspective.

It’s death by a thousand cuts.

A colleague at work, Dennis, made a point to tell workers at the cafeterias the day after the boycott "we missed you yesterday." He said he got a warm, broad smile every time he said it.

I wish I’d thought of that.

A friend of mine, Christine, blogged about the online dating height thing recently (Link: Katabasis), and I couldn’t help but chime in, considering my own obsession with height and online dating.

So, average heights for men in the US are estimated to be between 5’9" and 5’10". The average height for women ranges between 5’3.5" and 5’4". As compared to 100 years ago, however, the average height of men was between 5’5" and 5’6", women 5’2" to 5’3". The differential is part of sexual dimorphism, or the physical, non-reproductive differences between males and females of a species (e.g. the differences in plumage between male and female birds).

The thing to note is the increase from an average 3" in difference to 6" in difference between human males and females. This means a lot. For example, for me, it means that, if potential mates insist on that differential, I can date women who are 5’2" or shorter, instead of 5’5" or shorter. My friend Christine, who is 5’7" would have to have a man 6’1" instead of 5’10" to maintain the differential.

The challenge is that height falls in a normal distribution: half of the population is shorter than the average, half is taller. The mean deviation is also extremely narrrow, about 3" for men, meaning that 68% of men are between 5’6" and 6’0". In otherwords, a mere 16% of men are 6’1" or taller.

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