cris' LiveJournal

Monday, June 7th, 2004

we begin bombing in five minutes

There's a small part of me that winces whenever I read tributes of Reagan, specifically those bits of him as the defender of freedom, who defeated the Soviet Union with one hand tied behind his back, saving the world from tyranny and restoring American power to its primacy. I imagine, for many of the writers, those were rosy, glorious days with noble intentions and evil enemies shaded in color tones of a stark contrast to current times. Their enemy wore uniforms, back then, but they were evil all the same, and if we confronted our foes with the same resolve that Reagan held then perhaps we would find a victory of our own.

I remember those times as well, but as a child in a country within Reagan's shadow. Unlike most of my friends now, my memories of Reagan aren't dominated by images of an affable dunce, but of a stern face who stood behind a dictator who was always obeyed and never loved. He was a man who appeared on our TVs and spoke of the impending apocalypse, and sent the thousands of troops that rotated through our cities and the hundreds of nuclear missiles in submarines and ships that docked at our ports. Yet despite that image, I never really feared or hated him, because I knew he was on "our" side (or we were on his, really), though I was always raised to believe that to be protected by American power was good, but it was also unreliable and benignly neglectful. It was like the doting mother who sews up your eye after your father hits you, but always waits until after he's finished, and never tells him to stop.

Reagan did not yield an inch to the Soviets, and his resolve is lauded by many, but it also scars the memories of others, who knew that this resolve was based on supporting dozens of nations who were ruled by the most unsavory of men, whose only saving grace was that they hated Communism more than they hated Democracy. That's why I wince when I read about Reagan's love for freedom and I remember how he stood by Marcos almost through the end -- past the insurgency of peasants who called themselves communists, past the blatant assassination of Benigno Aquino, past the corruption and lies and ostentation. Reagan stood with Marcos, Noriega, Papa Doc Duvalier and many others. It was growing up in this that one was taught that American definitions of freedom meant freedom for America first, and the rest of the world could take a number; that the ruler of the most powerful nation in the world was a hypocrite at best and delusional at worst -- and in all senses selfish enough to sacrifice any and all of us in his crusade. After years of being a pawn, Iran-Contra, by comparison, felt like an anti-climax.

I am a little sad that he died, if only because he died before a treatment for Alzheimer's could be developed, and he was robbed of the chance of telling his own story. I regret that he never got a chance to exchange jibes with Clinton, in what would certainly have been a colossal clash of eloquence and hubris. But I am also sad of the example he has set for a nation, and am fearful for how seriously that example will be taken.

Monday, May 31st, 2004

by foodie request

ways to get mileage from a crippling hand injury when you're hosting a cookout

seal your hand and cast in a ziploc bag held together by rubber band and masking tape for jury-rigged Mad Max chic

use your cast as a meat tenderizer (it works well for crushing garlic, too)

shadow puppets. with food.

actually, the whole purpose of this post is to publish the recipe for the tea rubbed burgers.

( Read more... )

Thursday, May 20th, 2004

The first question they usually ask when they first see the cast on my right hand is, "what happened to your hand?"

My first answer is "well, there's this tumor..." and that's usually good for a first reaction. Nothing like the potential for cancer to get someone's attention. "See, I've got this tumor..." is certainly a better opening line than "See, I was playing golf..." At least that means the follow up question will be, "are you going to be ok?" instead of "what were you doing playing golf?"
( don't worry, it's benign. )

Monday, April 26th, 2004

when foreign is a relative thing (part 1)

The border crossing into Canada at Highgate Springs, Vermont does not have cameras that take very obvious photos of you as you roll up to the booth. It does not have mirrors in the road surface meant to reveal human traffic strapped to your suspension. It does not have a parliamentary commission breathing down its neck asking why it did not catch terrorists prior to 9/11. It has, instead, a bored-looking guard who greets you with a sleepy "Hello Bonjour¹."

"Good Evening."
"Purpose for visit?"
"~~Kraftwerk Concert.~~ Vacation."
"Length of visit?"
"The weekend."
"Do you have any drugs? alcohol? tobacco?"
"No."
"Any ... umm ... weapons?"
"No."
"Any ... uh ... ~~I know I'm forgetting one more.~~ Any meat?"
"~~are you hungry?~~ No."
"Welcome to Canada, then. ~~Land of gun owning mad cattle ranchers loved by Michael Moore who have legalized marijuana but still ask for it at customs, because, you know, you might want to share.~~"

( Read more / Lisez Plus )
¹ and for a moment one might imagine a comic strip with a Canadian character who always has a bilingual dialogue balloon whenever he speaks.

Wednesday, March 31st, 2004

Reading Update

I had to leave the LittleReaderThatCould after our company moved to the suburbs. The reading program is only supposed to be an hour long and round trip travel time to and from Cambridge would've easily eaten up most of that. So, instead, our company was re-assigned to another public school in the town next door. The program coordinator asked us if we had any reader preferences and I considered saying "precocious little grommets, please."

( and, yeah, I totally should've said that... )

Monday, March 29th, 2004

planes, trains and automobiles

Late afternoon, last Friday, I was sitting in a Green Line D train car, waiting to head to the airport and charting out my schedule for the evening. Drove home from work, bus to the T station, T ride to airport, flight to LaGuardia, bus to Grand Central, subway to the hotel. I was thinking that I needed another car segment in there for symmetry's sake, or maybe I should've taken my bike to work that day to add another mode of transit to the day. I was feeling indulgent. I was flying to New York, and that always reeks of indulgency or expense or both.
( Read more... )

Wednesday, March 10th, 2004

for I walk through the valley ...

A light rainstorm settled into town on Friday night. The drops felt like a cold sigh on my face, and I would've enjoyed it if not for the fact that the rain on my glasses caused light to refract in many interesting and dangerous ways. Headlights burst like brilliant kaleidoscopes, obscuring the road in front of me, and darkness was a muddled, many aspected thing illuminated by the dim bulb mounted on my handlebars. So I rode to the first traffic light, slowing down purposefully to catch it switching to red and took off my glasses so I can dry them off. I felt something give, a sickening crack and my glasses fell apart in my hand.

( on riding blind, having faith and that fucking Passion movie )

Thursday, March 4th, 2004

The map is not the territory

There's a corridor in

silentq and

photiq's apartment that's lined with maps, more for personal reference than decoration, and in the minutes and seconds of idle time between waiting for people to get dressed or coffee to brew, I've found myself hovering near them, tracing the paths of cross country road trips I've done in years past, placing thumb and index finger on Omaha and Denver and trying to remember what I saw in that space between my fingers.

Lately, I've been looking at the map of Eastern Massachusetts, and more specifically in the stretch between the apartment and the new office, trying to chart out my bike commute and visualize the terrain. The maps aren't topographical, and they don't tell you that the first two hundred metres of Concord Ave. outside Belmont Village are murderously steep. There's no map symbol that says you will be down at the lowest cog of your granny gear and still cursing the climb, wondering what on earth motivated you to pack the ten hole steel toed boots that you were going to change into when you got to work. There isn't a notation that tells you to expect full force headwinds across open plains. There is no universal warning for pot-holed streets with a malicious hunger for your wheel.

Likewise, there are no indications for a stretch of great scenery -- where you'll glide past low stone walls and fallow fields waiting for spring. There's no sign that tells you to expect the scent of baking bread wafting quietly across a sleepy neighborhood waking to the dawn. And, on the way back, there's nothing that identifies that slight slope with the tail wind that gently pushes you home.

There's no way I can plot out any of those moments. All I can do is get on my bike and seek them out for myself.

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2004

vote early, vote often

A couple of weekends ago, while riding in a car along the Alewife Brook Parkway,

julishka pointed out a small nearby public school and said, "I believe that's your local voting location, isn't it?"

and I shook my head, which confused her until I said, "Hello. Canadian."

"Oh, that's right. Sorry."

"No worries. Common mistake. My outspoken political viewpoints are all a scheme to actually influence the people around me. I can't vote, but I try to get five of my friends to vote for me and it works out great."

Though, of course, not having a direct say in the matters makes it all the more frustrating when you have to sit on the sidelines and face the disappointment of watching a colossal bore's presidential campaign surge on vague hope and media momentum but, hey, can't win them all. I told my roommate last night that I wasn't all that reassured with Kerry's political waffling and the election had now boiled down to a choice between a liar and a thief. "But it could be worse," I concluded, "we could be Haiti."

the relativity of the workaholic

it's like light speed really. Your job changes and the work piles up and the late nights blur together. You stop, surface from the job for a second, and suddenly realize that a month and a half's gone. It only felt like two weeks. It always feels like it's been two weeks.

Sorry about the absence, folks. For the record, I'm glad that February is done.


based on a true story ...
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