To xfinity and hell

Monday’s for gratitude, so today I’m going to gripe about having to fight with Comcast. Again. Still.

Why is it that invariably whatever their agents on the phone tell you turns out to be at odds with what their billing department does? Since they charge you for your service in advance, and I ended service (for want of a better term) two weeks ago, imagine my surprise when my bill came for an entire month’s amount.

Or, roughly, ten times what their phone rep told me it would be (after trying to persuade me not to end service, just transfer it, no matter where I was moving).

Honestly, I could do without the tsuris.

Yahrzeit

We’re a year on from the barbaric terror attack on Charlie Hebdo, and it doesn’t look to me like we’ve progressed in any respect during that time.

On 7 January 2015, masked gunmen (why the hell are they always masked, if they think they’re doing holy work?) broke into the offices of the Paris-based satirical weekly magazine. Shouting “Allahu Akbar!” they methodically went through the building, killing 11 and wounding another 11. On their way out, they murdered a policeman (a Muslim, as it happens)—a crime captured on video.

Later on, their comrades attacked a kosher grocery store, killing four more people. Eventually the two alleged perps, French-born brothers of Algerian parents, were hunted down and died in a gunfight with massive numbers of police.

There was a global response of revulsion and outcry against the attacks, but not much else, really. Not that I can see.

Except, of course, the scaled-up killing spree of November across Paris, using both bombs and automatic assault rifles to murder 130 people who were watching a football match, having a drink or a meal, listening to a rock concert, or just walking down the streets (And plenty of other attacks in various places.)

In the wake of those events, most of the civilized world backed off of end-of-year holiday celebrations and laid on heavy paramilitary actions because they were so unprepared for something on the scale of Paris. We’re talking the kinds of armed troops patrolling Paris and Brussels that you used to see in Ulster or Beirut.

There was a lot of high-level blah-blah in January and February of last year about doing something, but clearly those who push jihad didn’t get copied on the memo. Yeah, I get it—Overtaken By Events; the West is preoccupied by the whole ISIL thing, and the masses alternatively referred to as migrants, refugees and I don’t know what-all. And those are not trivial issues.

But I’m deeply disappointed that in the 21^st Century, with all our investment in intelligence technology and military systems, we still seem to lack the cojones to deal with this brand of thuggery that wants to drag us all back to the 7^th Century. And I’m disgusted that we’re marking the Charlie Hebdo anniversary with nothing perceptible to show for the 365 days that have passed.

  

Apparently nous ne sommes pas Charlie.

Cold snap

My, my, my; weather here in the District They Call Columbia has turned nippy. Quite the shock for someone who’s been living in the paradise of the Bay Area. The instant you walk out the door you know you’re not going to be able to scrump oranges and lemons off trees along your walking route.

In fact, it’s so cold your eyes tear up and you start worrying about your mascara running.

Back when I first lived in this area (back in the last century), it took me years to take precautions against the cold. I’d hare out of the house and be halfway down the block before I’d realize how bleedin’ cold it was, especially for ungloved hands. But by that, time, of course, I was half a block away and shivering.

Repeated frozen digits didn’t seem to make any kind of dent in my SoCal sensibilities, however, so I solved the problem by stuffing gloves in the pockets of every coat and jacket I owned. And although I only have two coats with me at the moment, fortunately they both have gloves in the pockets.

Yes, I did walk out of a coffee shop yesterday leaving one of the gloves on the counter, but I assure you that I almost immediately realized the error and fetched it back.

Turns out that, because I almost never needed a coat in the Valley They Call Silicon, I’ve never thought to pull the gloves out of the pockets. Thank God.

Through the academic looking glass

You will no doubt have noticed that the world of academia has pretty much gone down the rabbit hole and is currently producing wonder after wonder of weirdness. But something I find interesting is basically a tale of two famed institutions right here in California, and I can’t believe that I appear to be the first person to notice this particular disconnect.

In November, the California State Polytechnic University at Pomona (Cal Poly) revoked an honorary Doctor of Letters degree it had conferred on Bill Cosby back in 1992. The reason given was that the multiple allegations of sexual harassment brought against him are “contrary to the values” of the state university system.

The Cal State University system comprises 23 campuses up and down the state and has always been the working-class cousin to the University of California system. Cal State used to be where you’d go if you couldn’t afford UC, but that delta has blurred in recent times. The two Polytechnic schools (at Pomona and San Luís Obispo) are kind of the aggie-engineering arms of the system; my mom used to take us to the horse shows at Pomona, which were student-run.

Well, hard luck for Cosby that the university discovers it has values, and you can actually run afoul of them. Turns out that other academic institutions have snatched back honorary degrees from him, too.

But then, only the month before, famed UC Berkeley astronomy professor Geoffrey Marcy found his career blowing up in his face over not dissimilar charges of decades of sexually harassing students and colleagues. Marcy was outed by BuzzFeed, more than a year after complaints filed against him to the university’s Office of Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination were buried by officials. At first, he looked like he was going to get away with nothing more than a reprimand in his dossier, but eventually the storm rose to the point where he had to resign, still insisting that he hadn’t meant any harm by all those years of fondling and suggestive remarks.

Here’s the thing: before Marcy moved to Cal in 1999, he spent 15 years at San Francisco State—part of the system that yanked Cosby’s honorary degree—where he was also accused of inappropriate behavior.

So the Board of Trustees of the California State University system revokes Cosby’s imaginary doctorate for, basically, conduct unbecoming, but makes Marcy a Distinguished University Professor despite very similar behavior. Honestly—can they just show a little consistency?

Gratitude Monday: A year of New

The past month has been pretty stressful for me, what with starting a new job, closing out my life in the Valley They Call Silicon and moving across country. I confess that by the time I got on the plane to Washington last Wednesday, I was as sharp as a meatball, and it hasn’t got any better since then.

I can remember only once in my life where I felt as attenuated and completely stupid, and being unable to process what was happening around me whether it was a waitress wanting my breakfast order or dealing with a contractor who screws up. And that was not at all a good time.

So today, the first Gratitude Monday of the year, I am thankful that I somehow managed to get to my hotel those first couple of nights—and that it was a very good experience (as opposed to Dollar Rent A Car at Dulles, a company I’m never going to use again, even though the branch at National Airport was fine).

And that friends shared their New Year’s Eve with me, Chinese food and board games—exactly what I needed.

(I hope they’ll let me try Scrabble again, despite my abysmal performance.)

And that my first breakfast of the year was shared with one of my oldest friends, echoing a couple of hundred breakfasts we’ve had over the years. I have that tradition to look forward to again, thank God.

And that I found my new digs on Capitol Hill, and—even better (well, you know what I mean)—I found a parking spot, so I could unload my kit. And that I remembered the instructions on how to use the keypad to get into the place.

And that it’s exactly what I need for right now—cozy, comfortable and close to work.

And that, before I turned in my rental, I made a run to Wegmans and Trader Joe’s to stock up on provisions, since I’ll be without a car for probably two weeks. It’s a bit strange doing the grocery shopping for all the basics, when you haven’t had to do that in more than five years. I forgot the plain yoghurt and French onion soup at TJs, but I expect I’ll manage.

And that yesterday when I used my Metro card to visit Arlington National Cemetery, I realized (as I did once when sitting in Shakespeare’s garden in Stratford-upon-Avon), I’m not a tourist; I live here. And that, dear readers, was huge.

So here I am, a (temporary) resident of the District They Call Columbia, starting out the new year with a new job and a lot of new possibilities. I may not be the brightest bulb on the tree, and I do have to find a physical therapist/chiropractor pretty damned quick. But I am truly grateful for having made it across the abyss to all the new-and-possibles.

Light for the new year

Let’s start out 2016 with manifestations of light in morning glory. These were some of the last photos I took in the Valley They Call Silicon.

Dawn refracting against clouds in the West:

A rainbow as I went to breakfast with a friend on Christmas Eve:

And sunrise as it came to my final labyrinth walk on Christmas morning:

And rest...

It’s the last day of 2015, a year that completely wore me out.

Perhaps it’s A Sign that the battery on my pedometer died yesterday, while I was 35,000 feet above middle America, and that when I get the new one today, I reset it to Eastern Standard Time. Because in the next few days I have to figure out how to reset a lot of things in my life: recharge my physical, mental and emotional batteries; reorient myself to the Metro D.C. area; and recalibrate my thought patterns for the new job, which is different from anything I’ve done before.

Ordinarily I’d wrap up the year in a few hundred trenchant words, but to tell you the truth, I just don’t have the bandwidth for that today. I can’t wrap up the job search, the death of friends, the decision to walk off a metaphoric cliff or any of the rest of it. Instead, I’m getting a pedometer battery, and then I’m going to Wegman’s, just to look around.

After that—I don’t even know. I just know that I’m ready to ring out the year.

California, here I go

As of 0915 today (Lord willing and Virgin America for once taking off on time), I have ceased to be a resident of California. For two months I shall reside in the District They Call Columbia, within spitting distance of Congressmorons and other lowlifes, while I explore the area and decide where I’d like to live on a more permanent basis.

During this time I’ll be living out of suitcases and bin bags. For a couple of weeks, I’ll even be without a car, until mine catches up with me. That’ll make me feel terribly urban, I can tell you. And very un-Californian.

But I can use that time to find my way on foot around the city, get my feet under the desk (when my employers find me one), and generally reorient myself.

What a slice.

"We deliver for you"--NOT

More than two weeks ago I submitted the very-hard-to-get hardcopy Change of Address form to the USPS, setting 22 December as the date they should stop delivering mail to my old place and begin forwarding it to my new one in D.C.

I cleared out the mailbox on the 23^rd, and hoped that that was the end of it. But no—I went by on the 27^th to find five new pieces of mail addressed to me, which had been newly delivered after my cut-off date. Since I’m turning over the keys to the property management company today, I found this frustrating and enraging. They basically just blew off the CoA. So I had to go online and re-submit, in the tenuous hope that at least the computer system will spark some action—like, maybe, automatically pull my mail out of the delivery queue for redirection.

They make the hardcopy form hard to get (it’s not out on their counter with other forms; you have to ask one of their rude and charmless humanoid staff for it) because they clearly want you to go online to submit the change. An online form puts the data immediately into their database and saves them the labor costs of paying someone to translate the postcard details to their system. I get that.

But here’s their business model: they charge you for the privilege of saving them the work and possible data entry error. Yes—you make life easier for them, and save them a few bob, and they hit you up for $1.05.

But get this: they say they have to do this to you, for your security:

Where in the hell does that come from? How does charging you $1.05 have anything to do with security? It’s just another money-sucking scheme. (And I’m sure they hired consultants who arrived at that bizarre price point as the “sweet spot” where people would just fork it over without bitching.)

So, what I wonder is—if you don’t have Internet access, or a credit card—what are you meant to do? I guess you’re just not supposed to get mail. And if you do, you better not be moving, because you’re totally stuffed. They obviously toss out the official-but-non-revenue-generating postcard forms and do whatever they please.

Oh, but here’s the other thing: that unicorn CoA postcard doesn’t come as a single piece of paper any longer. It’s buried in a packet of “moving deals”—from Lowe’s, Best Buy and I don’t know what all. And the online form has the equivalent. Once you agree to let them suck $1.05 from your credit card, here’s the “confirmation” page:

Thanks, USPS, for being a crass, incompetent, lazy-ass organization with attitudinal staff and no discernable value proposition. Because people moving any distance really appreciate the way you put obstacles in their path and add stress to their lives. You continue to set standards for underperformance and don’t-give-a-damn customer service right here in the 21^st Century.

Gratitude Monday: Friends of the year

On this final Gratitude Monday of 2015, I’m spending the day watching as everything I own (except a couple of bin bags’ worth of clothes) is loaded onto a moving truck for storage. It’ll be there for the next two months as I explore the Metro DC area and figure out where I want to live this time around.

This has been a great and terrible year, one that’s worn me out. The best part of it has been my friends, who believed in me, encouraged me, made me laugh, listened to me rant. They sent cards, they took me to performance art, they made introductions, they offered their homes and their cars.

Basically, they got me through it.

So, as I run the mop over the plastic fake hardwood floor one last time before I turn the keys over to the property management company, let me say again: I’m deeply grateful for my friends.