Ah crap, not another Star Trek movie. It’s gonna suck; you know it is. Odd-numbered, even-numbered, it doesn’t matter anymore. I can’t even remember the last decent SF film I saw that wasn’t connected to a franchise. And comic book movies don’t count, not that many of them are that great either. But I will admit that the new Star Wars trailer [torrent] looks pretty sweet. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to grab a torrent of the new Dr. Who.
I owe various people e-mails and edited manuscripts, so I’m keeping this short tonight. Random thoughts: I was getting my the ramp on my van fixed earlier this week. While I was waiting, this old guy who I think owns the place comes up to me and starts prattling on like he knows me. I realize he’s mistaking me for someone else, but I don’t say anything. “How old are you now?” he asks me in this you-must-be-a-big-boy-now tone. I should have asked him the same, but I was polite. I’m always polite. But someday I’m going to get tired of all the condescending, infantizing bullshit I put up with and go medieval on someone’s ass. And it will probably be some poor little old lady, but I’ll still get a sick kind of pleasure out of it. Because sometimes I just want to be bad. I want to drink, ingest hallucinogenic drugs, urinate in public, tell a cop to fuck off, date a stripper, proposition the next pretty girl I see in the elevator, and generally be a bastard. Just for a day or two. But I’m not sure my superego would ever let me do such a thing. My head would probably explode or something equally unpleasant.
A recent study confirmed that there is no causal link between the MMR vaccine and autism, despite the continued objections of some parents. The fact that thousands of people actually believe vaccines are harmful is, for me, a baffling phenomenon. I would contend that is the very success of immunization programs which have led otherwise thoughtful people into this kind of intellectually bankrupt thinking. With a few exceptions, there aren’t many deadly contagions for us to fear anymore. People aren’t being stuck in iron-lungs because of polio or dying from smallpox. These diseases have become relics of another era; it’s almost like they never existed. And now all the work and ingenuity that went into eliminating these diseases is casually dismissed by mostly affluent, mostly white suburbanites with college degrees. It’s too bad people living in sub-Saharan Africa don’t have the same luxury of having a middle-class hissy fit when deciding whether to vaccinate their children. Maybe it’s because my father is a microbiologist, but I find this kind of uninformed distrust of science both lazy and reeking of unacknowledged privilege.
Now I see that Garbage is coming to First Avenue in April. Man, I have to go see them. I have the biggest crush on Shirley Manson. That Scottish brogue of hers is heartbreakingly sexy.
I’ve mentioned previously the federal grant I’ve been working on for the past few months. The official press release for the grant has been published. It’s essentially a research project; we’ll be offering Medicaid-type services to a limited number of employed people with mental illness who don’t yet qualify for traditional Medicaid. The idea is to test whether a set of early interventions will prevent these people from becoming completely disabled and ending up on Social Security. I think this project has the potential to yield some interesting results and I’m looking forward to getting it up and running .
The book is now past 100,000 words. I’m hoping that it will cap at 150,000, but that should come down once I start editing. I’m worried I may be chasing too many plot threads, but I’ve lost all perspective.
I’m always surprised when people tell me they read my blog. Getting comments and e-mail is always nice, but it’s quite different when someone comes up to you and says, “I read some of your stuff.” Yesterday, my message therapist told me that she had discovered my blog through one of my nurses. She was especially delighted to see that I had mentioned her in a previous entry. It’s good to know I can make someone’s day with my writing. As much as this blog is a kind of miscellaneous recounting of my life, it is also about the multitudes of people who shape my experiences. Things wouldn’t be half as exciting without them.
I’m planning on getting tickets to see U2 in September. The last time I saw them was at the Metrodome in 1997, during which I was, for lack of a better expression, felt up by a drunk but cute woman who stumbled across me while the band was playing “One.” The acoustics were horrible, but the Target Center should be a better venue. I’m debating getting three tickets in case an undetermined friend wants to come along. The seats I’ve had at other Target Center events are usually good. Surely, I can bribe someone into a date with a free concert ticket.
When I woke up this morning, the last place I expected to spend the evening was the Minneapolis Impound Lot. But life is funny like that. I was coming from St. Paul back to downtown Minneapolis. I had a meeting and I decided to park near the meeting location rather than park the car in my building and walk several blocks. I didn’t even see the sign that said NO PARKING 4-6 PM. After the meeting, I go back to the street where I parked. No van. My nurse thought it might be stolen, but I was fairly certain there isn’t much of a black market for Chrysler minivans tricked out with wheelchair ramps. We go to the local police precinct and discover the van has been impounded. Fortunately, I’m able to call for an accessible taxi to take me to the impound lot.
I could be pissed, but it really isn’t worth it. As a general rule, I’m not quick to anger. I have my van back. My nurse and I split the towing cost, so I’m only out about $60. I haven’t decided whether to contest the ticket yet. I could try playing the pity card, but I did screw up when I didn’t see the sign. This is simply one of those weird things that happens to me sometimes. And it’s good blog material, don’t you think?
I’m having some of the Humphrey Fellows over to discuss a group project, so I need to sign off soon and supervise the assemblage of the cheese and crackers. Before I go, does anyone know anything about broadband access in Berlin? My brother is searching for relatively inexpensive broadband for his apartment and he was looking at some kind of WiFi option. Any Berliner geeks out there with advice?
In post-9/11 America, it’s dangerous to have an imagination. Item: a Kentucky high school student is being charged with making terrorist threats after someone found a short story he had written about zombies overrunning a high school. The judge even raised the bail amount because of the “seriousness of the charge.” I seriously hope this kid becomes a bestselling author someday and that he brutally parodies the ignorant, paranoid denizens of his hometown.
A friend of mine e-mailed me in French a few days ago after reading about my desire to polish my language skills. I wrote back in French and found myself remembering words and rules of grammar I hadn’t thought about since college. It’s funny how the brain holds onto things that were drilled into it years ago. I guess I owe that to my high school French teacher, Mr. L. The man had an atrocious accent, but he made damn sure we could conjugate the imparfait form of être. French class was usually at the end of the day, which seemed appropriate because I usually had a lot of fun in that class. It never felt much like work. But to be honest, I had other reasons for liking French class. And that reason was named Hannah S. Hannah was the first girl for whom I felt a full-force, five-alarm, Defcon 1 crush. Hannah was all that and a bag of chips. Intelligent, beautiful, funny. Hannah had a twin sister, but I never noticed her twin that much. Hannah and I became friends through some various after-school activities, but my heart always seemed to thump a little more loudly whenever she was near. We even ended up going to the same college. In my freshman year in college, I decided that it would be a most excellent idea to send her a love poem I had written specifically for her. It was the most god-awful thing ever to disgrace the paper on which it was written. Imagine the worst love poem you’ve ever read and multiply its cringe-worthiness by a factor of a hundred. I never did find out whether it amused or horrified her because I was too chickenshit to go up and ask her. We settled into separate social circles in college and I never saw her again after she graduated a year ahead of me. The last I heard, she was actually married and living in Paris.
I haven’t thought of Hannah in years. I told you the brain works in funny ways.
The New York Times Business section, of all places, has a pretty good analysis of how Social Security private accounts might affect disability beneficiaries. The author makes some interesting observational. If the disability benefits are preserved at their present levels while everyone else is shifted to private accounts, then disability benefits might look more attractive to people who don’t get good returns on their private accounts, prompting more people to apply for disability benefits. The disability determination process is notoriously inconsistent, so who’s to say what someone’s odds are of being found disabled?
The author also makes this troubling conclusion: “From all appearances, disability beneficiaries are indeed a group largely incapable of substantial gainful employment, at least in the current labor market.” I can’t dispute the evidence he cites. But he doesn’t delve deeper into why this is so. Despite some measure of reform, disability benefits are still structured to discourage employment. To begin collecting SSDI benefits, you must be unable to work to any significant degree. And once you are receiving benefits, you can’t earn any more than $830/month or you will go over the “cliff” and your cash benefits will be reduced to zero. This puts many people in the untenable position of choosing between work and the sudden and complete loss of benefits. The author seems to think that people with disabilities can’t work because they’re disabled. This circular reasoning, which sounds nice and pat, ignores the systemic barriers regarding employment and disability.