DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

So a few weekends ago I stumbled inadvertently into a sort of modern-day coven, and as any brand-new experience might, it got me to thinking. What was really different about this gathering took me a few moments to notice. Being one of three men in a room of about 40 women is somewhat shocking at first, at least for me, at least the first time it happens. Part of why it was shocking is the realization that I’ve been through a third of my life and this had never happened before. Why not? Odd.

But as I looked past the fact that I was, as a gender, outnumbered 12 to 1, more subtle differences presented themselves. With few exceptions, I was the worst-dressed person in the room: I was surrounded by attractive jacket- and sweater- and vest-pantsuit combinations. My ratty jeans and overcoat marked me as a sartorial neophyte, if not simply a slob. And then I realized something perhaps even more telling: except for my wife, I had the longest hair in the room.

Soon it became clear that I had joined an event where about 95% of the attendees were lesbians. This was sort of a trip, but only for me, I’m sure.

The event was an open-mic night, but it was better run than any other similar event I’ve ever attended. The MC, who could double for Ellen Degeneres, ran a tight stage show. I was wholly impressed with the evening, although the openly lusty jokes and sexual references (between women) — not to mention the frequent kissing, onstage and off — managed to shock me, due to the persistence of my corn-fed Midwestern upbringing.

One performer in particular made me laugh. She is a musician and singer, and dedicated a song to “that someone special.” She was clearly heterosexual because she’d been clinging to a male companion prior to taking the stage. During the dedication, she purposefully made eye contact with just about everyone in the audience except her male friend, and although she carefully avoided using any gender-specific or otherwise identifying terms in the dedication, it was obvious to me whom she spoke of. But then, presumably because she feared her “special someone” might miss the reference, she added sotto voce, “he knows who he is.” Ha! Unless she was talking to me or the guy in the other room mixing lattes, there weren’t any other HEs in the building.

A friend remarked that I use the word “however” a lot. “You make these huge, grand statements,” he explained, “and then with however you take it all away.” He didn’t give any examples, but here’s one he might have used: “I am making a huge, grand statement. However, I may have my head up my ass.”

And that’s sort of the point. First, take the fact that I’m an engineer by trade. Actually that’s not quite accurate — I’m an engineer by birth. Accuracy is important to me. Empirical data is my currency. Secondly, although the physical, empirically-measurable world provides a lot of potential for sweeping, broad statements, e.g. objects falling on Earth accelerate at a rate of 9.8 m/s/s, those don’t typically come up in conversation. Whereas the sort that do, e.g. canned meat products are disgusting, often need to be qualified, because I quite enjoy a Spam sandwich from time to time.

I’ve seen the other side — I studied psychology for a number of years. Splitting time between psych classes, in which nearly nothing is certain, and engineering classes, in which the only thing that is NOT certain is how I ever imagined I’d pass the final exam, I saw with clarity this imbalance. And so, although I feel most at peace in a world where events can be predicted from input data, I happen to inhabit a very different world: a world where input data is inscrutable, a place where events cannot be predicted, a place where some men drink wine coolers.

It’s not about being afraid to take a stand. It’s about recognizing the complex, chaotic reality of our world. Strictly speaking, it is more accurate to qualify general statements, and from this quest for accuracy, I tend to qualify pretty much everything, e.g. “pretty much everything.” Hence, “however.”

In fact I have a whole arsenal of these words: but, although, somewhat, still, perhaps, maybe, sort of, possibly, provisionally, not precisely, well, err, umm, and no. I’m not waffling. Not really, anyway.

I received a spam email from Microsoft today, regarding their bCentral site manager service. The opening paragraph contains unsubscribe instructions — a good thing — but the opt-out URL they give doesn’t work!

SHELL> lynx -head -source http://redir.cq0.net/r/default.asp
HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Server: Microsoft-IIS/4.0
Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 16:33:49 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Cache-control: private

The back cover says this: Funny. Hip. Compelling. Book. I agree completely — this book is authentically Californian, or at least authentically Santa-Cruzian, and very very clever.

The worst thing about this book is the photo on the cover. I hate when publishers try to depict characters; there’s no way the dorky guy in this photo could be as smart as the main character in the book.

It’s a sort of love story, with some political machinations, some Native American history, and a big old car. Smart people learn new things. Attractive people have sex. And everybody has wonderous, glib conversations that are laugh-out-loud funny.

Here’s the main character’s recollection of a job interview.
  Law Firm Flunky: What would you say is your greatest weakness?
  Ronnie: I respond with hostility to stupid questions.

Heh. I really enjoyed this book. Except for the damn photo on the cover.

Patronize these links, man:

• Amazon (Paperback)

I resisted reading this book for years because I’m not a fan of Microsoft, the company or the products, and I’d read enough about the book to know that it is about Microsoft employees… ugh.

But finally I’d heard enough positive reviews that I had to find out for myself, and now I know I’d made a mistake — this is a great story.

The characters are weird and arty, and best of all they all quit their jobs at Microsoft. The book ends up being more about geek culture and startup companies, and Coupland gets it more right than anyone else I can think of, save Po Bronson. The scenes in this book were not written by an outsider who doesn’t really grok hackers. It’s not so much that the microserfs characters are authentic… they’re actually more pure than most of the hackers I know. What Coupland gets right, what he really understands, is the ideal, even though most of the folks who comprise this subculture can only strive to be as weird (hackish) as Coupland’s cast of misfits.

If you like Legos, The Fan Man, The First $20 Million is Always The Hardest, or Linux, you should read this book.

Even if you’d sooner set fire to your hair than use any of the Windows family of products, you should read this book.

Patronize these links, man:

• Amazon (Paperback)