Companies often attach a persona to a product to strengthen the brand and convince the consumer that he or she has a tangible relationship to the product. It makes you feel as though you’ve found a soul mate in a personable product, because what we all really want in life is an emotional investment in an emotionless thing. As a marketing ploy, it often times it works. As I sorted through the available cereals at work, I came across a prime example of it failing.

The Multi Grain Cheerios box is a box packed with sass, vanity, and condescension.

“I love looking my best.” Ah, a great way to start any conversation. This is the line most people skip at the beginning of the Gettysburg Address.

“That’s why I lead a healthy lifestyle and make Multi Grain Cheerios a part of my sensible diet.” In the history of man, no one has ever authentically conversed about cereal with such a sentence.

Add your own name to the end of that last sentence to compound the impact, “People who chose more whole grain tend to weigh less than those who don’t, Jessica.”

Since I’m not worried about being a fit, healthy, purple woman, I went with the manly route and made a bowl of non-Coca~Cola fortified oatmeal.

Coke + Oatmeal = Coke-Meal

 

Coke-Meal + Microwave = Mess

 

 

For Science!

 

Second Bite

 

Finishing Move

 

It isn’t good, but it isn’t bad. It just tastes like lumpy Coca~Cola. If Coke could curdle, this would be the result, except it still tastes like cola syrup and not sour milk.

Tuesday evening I wandered over to Laura’s workplace to keep her company while she finished some late-evening work. While I waited I grabbed some Post-It notes and left a message for the new receptionist, who had started on Monday:

Today is just another Sunday on the Internet, and I am not personally going to attempt to either understand or explain what in the hell this is. However, the best description I have found thus far is “I love nothing more than randomness and a Bavarian man of Asian descent yodeling like a chicken to a Euro-pop beat.”

Thank you, Internet. Thank you.

Monday night we had book club, where we encountered an eclectic group of older poets whose pens are still anchored to the beat era for which their minds still pine. One of the poets wore a hat that appeared to be a dead peacock dyed neon blue. We relocated to a different region of the coffee shop and discussed Sinclair Lewis’s “Kingsblood Royal”. Though I do enjoy his writing style and the book was surely sensational at the time, now it falls in the “Eh” category. 

A while back I grabbed drinks with some coworkers, and I ended up in a conversation with one of my coworker’s friends. She is some sort of author. I told her that I am in a book club, and she responded negatively: “That is a feminine thing to do.” First, no it isn’t. Second, why would she, as an author, take a stab at someone who enjoys books? Third, she apparently has never published a book (the Internet yielded no relevant search results).

I received an e-mail that stated: “Yes sir, your all set.”

Three possibile interpretations:

1. He meant you’re.
2. He misspelled my name.
3. I possess an “all set”, which I presume is similar to the All Spark in the lore of Transformers.

Tuesday and Wednesday I performed open mic at the Purple Onion. Someone asked me to be in an upcoming comedy show. An invitation which I had to decline in a very “first world problem” fashion as I will be in Brazil on the date of the show. I tried to pass it off as simply being gone, but then they asked where I’d be. 

Thursday I woke up at 4:30am to be on an early morning phone call, and I lost the rest of the day in a blur of day dreams about feather pillows followed by seeing the movie “The Five-Year Engagement”. The movie is okay, but the plot needs to be tightened up and the length reduced by 40 minutes.

And earlier this week I had my first attempt at the “I Wish This Was” stickers:

Last night we saw Ivan & Alyosha open for Rosie Thomas at the Hotel Utah in SOMA. The Hotel Utah happens to have a bar inside of it that happens to have a cavity in it. Someone looked at that cavity, which is substantially smaller than our apartment, and decided to jam a tiny stage in it, cram a few chairs in front of that, and then let thirty people sardine in behind the chairs.

Yes, you can fit a stage inside of a bar inside of a hotel, but the result is more novel than practical. It is the equivalent of a turducken. And though the space is a bit awkward, we enjoyed the concert.

As I purchased a beer at the bar, I noticed that one of my fellow concert goers had a to-go box of Chinese food. And I really wanted to buy it from her. I didn’t want to buy it because I needed dinner. I wanted to buy it just to baffle Laura by returning with some random stranger’s Chinese food.

I’ll give you $10 for that Chinese food. 
Why?
Because I have $10.
Okay. If you really want it. But you have to recycle the box.
Deal. 

She returns to her friends…

Jenny, what happened to your Chinese food?
I sold it to that guy over there.
Why did you do that? 
He had $10.
He doesn’t look like someone who would recycle.
I had the same thought! 

Meanwhile I return to Laura…

What are you eating?
Chinese food.
Why?
Because I bought it.
Do they sell it at the bar?
Nope. That girl over there does.
You can’t keep eating food from strangers*! You’ll recycle the box, right?

(* A friend had a birthday at a pizza parlor. I love pizza crust and I didn’t know most of the people. But I trust the friends of my friends, so I spent some time convincing these stranger-friends to give me their unwanted crust.)

Then anytime I spotted someone with a to-go box of Chinese food, I’d buy it. Eventually Laura would turn to Dear Abbey for help.

Dear Abbey,

My boyfriend keeps buying to-go boxes of Chines food from strangers. I’m not appalled, but I find the behavior concerning. And I think he has started doing it when I’m not around. Also he has started to carry low-sodium soy sauce and a pair chopsticks with him at all times. How do I address the issue without making him mad?

Sincerely,
Chop-stuck.

I have tried to write a new blog post multiple times over the last three days. Each attempt has been fruitless–Bradford pear fruitless, but without the dank smell of pollen. Typically when this happens I write through it (the writer’s block, not the pollen), and a common thread appears between the paragraphs. Then I rearrange the paragraphs into an acceptable perfection.

Lately I sit down and find myself uncomfortable (the apartment is too warm, my chair too hard, the penguins too distracting, etc) or I find myself to restless (my desk is too cluttered, body eager to move, or I can’t focus on a topic). More accurately, I feel a bit unbalanced and therefore bored and unproductive.

A few months ago, in a moment of introspection, I asked myself two questions: How can I feel more healthfully balanced? What makes me interesting? Both are good questions with a nice introspective bite that started a long string of thoughts.

On the question of health, I first divided health in to three types:

• Mind (Mental) – Bettered by Learning, Solving, and Remembering
• Body (Physical) – Bettered by Exercising, Eating Right, and Sleeping
• Spirit (Spiritual) – Bettered by Expressing (i.e. forms of art) and Meditating

Then I decided to focus on one aspect of each health for an uninterrupted 20 minute period a day. For aspects that don’t fit neatly into 20 minutes, I decided to exercise them whenever the situation allows. For example, I might do 20 minutes of puzzles, 20 minutes of exercise, 20 minutes of art, eat right, and go to bed on time.

Finally I realized that each type of health can be combined with another in a way that lets: you more thoroughly enjoy the world, you help others, or others enjoy you.

• A healthy mind and body allow you to take part in adventures.
• A healthy body and spirit allow you to be at service to others.
• A healthy spirit and mind allow you to express yourself in a creative or passionate fashion.

On the question of interest, several thoughts came to mind. First, having an interest is moot if you don’t exercise the interest. Second, the things I find interesting are things I admire. Third, I don’t exercise my interests enough.

From there I began to couple my interests with aspects of health. For example, I try to walk to work every morning (health), which takes 45 minutes. During that walk I either spend my time lost in thoughts (meditation), listening to podcasts (learning), or doing language tapes (learning).

I’ve lost some of that balance lately and am eager to get it back because I know it makes me more agile.

And if anyone is interested, I try to listen to a different podcast each day: “You Made It Weird” (interviews with comedians), “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!” (game show about current news), “Mike and Tom Eat Snacks” (a humorous review of popular snacks), “This American Life” (stories), and “Radiolab” (where American Life is more about the stories of people, Radiolab is the stories of science).

It is fascinating to push a science or technology to its furthest limits because when you start to reach the edge of those limits everything you know is challenged. That transformation is what makes technology fascinating and ignites curiosity, and that ignition is responsible for turning my passive interest in Formula 1 into an obsession. 

Nothing about a Formula 1 car is normal or simple. To demonstrate this, I think it is reasonable to presume that to some degree a steering wheel indicates the complexity of a car. With that in mind, here is what a NASCAR steering wheel looks like.

Overall, that isn’t a complex steering wheel. It is similar to the bland, boring steering wheels we’re all familiar with. Now compare that steering wheel to a Formula 1 steering wheel:

That wheel is insane. Although most of those buttons and dials do not directly control steering, their presence indicates the number and complexity of systems that must be conducted by the driver. And if that much design goes into the steering wheel, imagine how much advanced technology goes in to the more complex parts and systems, such as the engine, gear box, brakes, tires, helmets, goggles, and such.

A massive benefit of those technologies is that the sport has become easier to watch. Although I would have found the technology of any previous F1 era fascinating, I would have found the sport too heartbreaking because prior to about 1983 the sport lacked much safety and drivers’ deaths were not uncommon. The previous eras were lethal for drivers and surely a wrenching time to have been a fan. Today the most recent driver death in Formula 1 occurred 18 years ago–Aryton Senna in 1994. In the 18 years prior to Senna there were 7 deaths. And in the 18 years before that there were 29 deaths. If losing 1 hero can be a tragedy, then losing 29 is utter devastation.

When my Dad actively followed Formula 1, Jimmy Clark reigned driving a Lotus. Of his 72 races in Formula 1, he started in pole position (first place) 33 times and won 25 races. Sadly, he died during a race in 1968. I can imagine how sad that must have been for my Dad and for the other fans. I am thankful to be a fan when vast improvements in safety have been made. Most likely I will never experience that loss as a fan. And I am thrilled to be a fan during such a period of excellent competition. This year is rare because 6 of the current contenders are former world champions and to see that many champions at once is incredible.

For anyone intrested, my favorite drivers are Lewis Hamilton and the legendary Michael Schumacher (although Schumacher really should have stayed retired). And my favorite teams are McLaren Mercedes and Mercedes. Yes, two different teams have the name “Mercedes”. And for anyone not interested, my favorite drivers are a Yoshi and Toad.

Stacks.

I don’t like them. In fact, I hate them.

I’ve never seen a stack of something and thought “Good job! Well done.” No. I see a stack and think and know “That person has no idea where anything is. I can hide donuts in there and that person will never know. If I ever need to plant evidence, this person is an easy mark, especially if I need to plant a type of unglazed donut.” (Glazed donuts hold finger prints more easily, which is why powdered donuts are the preferred donuts of the criminal underworld.) 

Some strange part of me enjoys organizing things. Not that I have an odd appendage or third hand that autonomously organizes things as I go about the day, though it would be convenient. Rather, I find it satisfying to organize things or more specifically I enjoy designing systems, and organization is the expression of an underlying system. For example, three things I am very good at are: architecture, computer programming, and creating board/card games, though unrelated in many degrees, are highly similar in that each is a type of organizational design.

I keep things pretty organized around the apartment (my desk does reach a “critical mass of crap on it” once a week). But Laura specializes in making stacks. All around me are little stacks. Taunting me. Distracting me. Daring me to hide donuts. Daring me to look for donuts that have been stashed and forgotten about.

While I have passion for creating systems, Laura has a passion of creating cairns out of all her possessions. I need to start buying her things that don’t stack well (penguins, elliptical machines, or overweight gymnasts) or that stack exceptionally well (goats, those competition stacking cups, large limestone blocks).