random thoughts

New York Times gave Clinton an 85% chance of winning.  Which meant Trump was a 7-1 shot. Do horses win at 7-1? Only all the time. Would you get on a plane with a 85% chance of landing safely?

Post-election analysis points to feelings of disenfranchisement, alienation, being ignored or snubbed by political power elites. An op-ed piece in my paper today says the election was all about race. My daughter (and her gal pals) say it came down to sex - people simply couldn't pull the lever for a woman.

I think everyone is right. Because they are all talking about their own experiences, their strongest feelings of fear and anger. And the election was about fear and anger.  Trump tapped into basic feelings.  Not good ones - base ones, in fact.  But they are strong. 

Interesting that 2008 was also about a basic feeling - hope. 

Poll error - I wonder how much lying went on?  People not admitting to Trump support in case they got laughed at.  Cooler to say you didn't approve of either candidate.  Reminds me of those college lifestyle surveys, where, apparently, the average undergrad has monkey sex 7-10 times a week with multiple partners and vast quantities of drugs.  Yeah, sure.

Fear of being laughed at is a real thing. And that fear - and the resulting anger - my well impact American foreign policy.  How will Trump react to world leaders who can not disguise their superior smiles, their deprecation?


The next few years could well be laughable, tragic, terrifying, incredible, or a combination of all of these.  They probably won't be boring.

NOT (much) ABOUT TRUMP

OK, I that's not true. I was channelling The Donald there and told a whopper. This is about Trump. But it's not what you think. I am not going to rag on the guy.  Yes I worry about the world, and I have all the trad liberal values, so I find his racist sexist xenophobic bullying and barefaced falsifications tiresome, scary, and darn near risible. All right, maybe I'm ragging on him a bit.

But.

One of the sticks Trump is being beaten with now is his comment about the underage kid he may be dating in ten years. And that comment shows an almost (almost) likable side.

Nothing to do with underage kids. Nothing to do with him saying what we're all thinking. I hope no grownup is thinking about dating underage kids. Geez.

But.

The comment is (follow me closely here) a joke. Trump is laughing. And who's he laughing at? Himself, that's who.  He's laughing at his own creepiness.  That's rare.  How often does a politician point at his own weakness? Did George W make jokes about how stupid he is?  Did Bill Clinton make jokes about his libido?  Hell, does Obama laugh at his perceived desire to please everyone, his inability to play hardball with Congress?  

I am not saying politicians should laugh at themselves.  Politics is power.  I used to wait tables at corporate functions, and it was easy to spot the CEO - the one who was not smiling. So Trump's ability to laugh at himself (now and then) does not make him a better leader.  What it makes him is the sort of person I could imagine having as a friend IF -- if he weren't such a gigantic knob in every other way.

That's all.

fantasy - guy and gal

I love the 'Wee Libraries' in my neighborhood.  I always check on them when I walk by, often drop off a book or two.  This past week I picked up a recent thriller by Lee Child.  (Not that one over there, but that's the one I could find a picture of.)

I have read several of these.  I love the king of the road fantasy  Child sells: observant hyper-physical superman working for justice, with no ties, no fears, and new girl every adventure.  James Bond and Travis McGee come close to this fantasy but Jack Reacher is freer from the world than they are. No boss, no best friend, not even a change of clothes. He is an ideal, really, the purest example I know -- almost an abstract extension of 'guy'.  It's easy to laugh at him, and perhaps he should lay off the head butting before he ends up with CTE, but I think there is a small yearning towards Reacher in most of us Y-chromosome types.

Know who he reminds me of?  Bella, from Twilight.  Yup.  Now, here I am talking without a lot of knowledge (I've been unable to get through one of the books) but ignorance has never slowed me up before. And I am aware of Bella as an icon.  She seems to embody a certain aspect of femininity -- pliant and submissive, seeming to exist only for relationship, succeeding through manipulation.  And what a success she is! Not one but two sexy powerful guys will do anything -- anything -- for her.  Like Reacher, her girl fantasy is almost perfect. She doesn't even have to walk by herself if there is a guy to carry her.   Again, it's easy to laugh.  But pay attention to the bit inside that is somehow satisfied by Bella -- or what's her name from 50 Shades, who is virtually the same character.

I am not judging here. I am interested.  The Twilight and 50 Shades books have sold umpty million copies despite being fairly badly written. There's something there.  Don't let's hate ourselves for liking them.  What's the appeal?  I mean, I didn't race through Thunderball because of the prose style.

Bella is a heroine who gets what she wants using her best girl powers.  Is that it?  Maybe.  When Reacher takes 4 big bullies down at once using elbows, feet and head, we go, Huzzah.  Guy power.  When Bella puckers up, is it the same thing?  (And she's not risking CTE.)  One of my favorite heroines is Eliza Bennett, who uses charm, humour and belief in herself to succeed.  But what she succeeds in doing is asking Darcy to marry her. 

deus ex machina

When last we spoke, I was buying a place.  Now let me tell you about moving day.  Last week.  It was - fun is the wrong word for any moving day, but even judged by moving day standards this one was - kinda awful.  And yet a valuable experience too.  For I found God.

No, not that guy. A younger looking deity.  And yet there were some similar elements.

What happened was this. I had been phoning my new building management company for days and days trying to arrange to put an elevator on service. Nobody returned my calls. I began to feel like what's his name from the movie, Office Space:  Uh, hiiii.  It's me again.  Yeah. We seem to be missing each other...

So my moving guys showed up at the old place, loaded the truck, and we took off.  Arrived at the new place, we found that the super was not on site, and only one elevator was working. First gulp. It was 8:00 am and folks were doing things.  Elevator things.  We moved my stuff around them, working slowly, raising a few eyebrows, causing some sighs, realizing that the job was going to take longer than normal. The ground floor hallway filled with my stuff.  And then a dude in a striped shirt showed up, looking official.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.  Seriously.  Biting back some pretty darn witty things, I told him I was moving in.
"You can't do that today!" he said. "The elevators are being tested. It'll take hours! Hours!"
Second gulp.
I pointed out that my stuff was here, the truck was outside, and in fact I could indeed do that today.  I said that maybe management could have answered my messages, telling me that the elevators were being tested today, and saved a lot of grief.
"When did you leave the message?" he demanded.
"Yesterday," I said.
"Well that doesn't leave a lot of --"
"And the day before yesterday.  And the day before that. And the day before that. You guys really should check your messages now and then."
"Well," he said. "Well.  I'll have to get back to you.  Let me get a card and leave it with you."
Striped-shirt dude stalked off down the hall.  I never saw him again.

All this time we had been hearing moans and screeches from the elevator on the left - the one not in service. The call light over its door was dark.  The other elevator moved slowly from the penthouse down.  And then ... and then ... its light went out too.
No elevators were working.  Third gulp.
We pressed the call button. Nothing. No movement. No light.
My moving crew chief -- Joe, an older stoic guy -- sighed audibly.
"You live on the 6th floor, right?" he said to me.
I nodded.
He looked at my pile of stuff, thinking, no doubt, of having to carry it up 6 flights of stairs.  I thought about how long it would take - I was paying by the hour.  The other 2 movers showed up with more of my stuff, took in the situation, and sat down.
"Oh oh," said the young cool guy.
We waited.  As moments go, it was a long one.  Yes, 1st-world problem. No, nobody in danger.  Still, it was pretty stressy.  Did I say a prayer?  And then ....

The elevator on the left opened.  A golden light inside it shone down on 5 weights, 500 lbs each, with the logo of the elevator company.  This was a full load.  Standing in the middle of the elevator, in a boiler suit with the light shining full on him, arms folded, was ...
"Are you the super?" I asked.

"Super?  Well, some people say so."
He was my height but about twice my breadth, packed hard with muscle. His beard was Old Testamental. His arms, hands, neck - just about all of him you could see - was tattooed.  His teeth shone when he smiled.
He was the elevator inspector, doing the load test. I explained my problem. He got it right away. "Management in this building is a joke," he said. "I don't care about them - I care about the people moving in and out, using the elevators. Now listen, I have to take my guys on break now - you understand that?"
"Totally," I said.
"But I am on your side. I will clear this elevator for you.  I will do it soon."
I swallowed. "Thank you."
He strode down the hall. The light seemed to follow him. 

In twenty minutes the elevator was working.  My stuff was in my new place lickety split. I overtipped Joe and the guys out of exuberance. It was a kind of offering to the real saviour of the day.  The elevator inspector. God from the machine.

I did it for you

You know the scene in old war movies where one guy falls on a grenade to save the rest?  It's always a dramatic moment.  The whole unit is in a foxhole and this guy -  usually a comic or conflicted character -- maybe the whiner, or the guy with the Italian or Polish accent, or the guy who doesn't get it -- he sees the grenade first, and jumps on it just as it goes off.  And all his faults are redeemed in that one moment of self-sacrifice.



That's who I'm feeling like right now.  I am taking one for the team. 

This is about rising real estate prices.  We're all in this war together, like our movie unit.  We're asking the same questions.  If we're renters, when will we afford a place of our own?  If we're homeowners, should we upgrade now, or sell and rent for a while? Will our kids ever be able to buy a place?  The market is overdue for a correction, but when is it going to happen? How long can we hold off?  It's a grenade, I tell you, a housing grenade.  And it's landed right in our foxhole.

Good news!  You can let out the deep breath you've been holding.  I just bought a place.  I did it for you.  Now, thanks to my decision, you know when the market correction is due to hit -- within six months at most.  That's how long it took the last time I made a real estate decision.  And the time before that.

I do not have a chequered past in real estate.  I have a uniformly grim past, a sad past, a past full of wrong decisions.  Over a number of decades during which housing prices have risen umpty-ump percent, I have lost, well, umpty umps of money.  Not possible?  Oh yes it is.  I buy high.  I sell low.  I do it consistently.  You could say I have bad luck. Or bad advice. Or you could say I'm just bad at real estate.

My expression as I signed the Agreement Of Purchase And Sale this morning was the same expression as that Italian-Polish whiny smart ass in the movie, when he jumps on the grenade.  Think Sidney Carton, only without the lost love. Tis a far far better thing I do ....

joker's regret

I am not a regular overeater but it happens.  I do, on occasion, have a What was I thinking? moment halfway through a second helping of ribs or fifth shortbread cookie.  I have regretted menu choices even before they arrived at the table, even as the words leave my mouth.  Tower of onions rings?  Duck confit poutine?  What am I thinking?

But you can regret other bad habits.  More than once in my life -- more than twice, hell, more than a hundred times -- I have regretted the easy joke.  It's there in front of me, a quick laugh, and I find myself unable to resist.  I speak without thinking (actually, this is my regular style, even when not telling jokes) and then - after I have cast the words out and cannot reel them back in -- only then do I realize that I might have stepped on some toes.  Maybe, just maybe, someone could feel bad about my gag.  And I feel bad.  Joker's regret.

I remember  a few years ago standing on stage in front of a couple of hundred high-school kids. I choked on my coffee and, without thinking (enough), blurted, Well that certainly did not go down in a fun way.  There was a pause, then one sputter, then a few more.  Then a general laugh.  I tried to save the situation by looking puzzled and segueing to the Titanic (which certainly went down in a not-fun way) but I don't think the teachers were fooled.  It wasn't the anger I minded -- it was the sighing.

If I had the moment to live over, I probably wouldn't have made the joke.

Anyway, I may have hit another iceberg tonight.  Facebook notified me that a friend had commented positively on a book club featuring indigenous Canadian writers. I jumped in without thinking - a quick and easy joke, not even particularly funny -- something about this was all very well but where were the book clubs that featured aging straight white guys?  A gag along those lines.  As I say, not brilliant, but political correctness is a big fat target, hard to resist.  That's not the point.  I have joker's regret because I might have made a friend feel bad.

Now, it would be hilarious if the community collectively kicked me.  A hundred thumbs down on my post.  De-Friended all over the place.  Expressions like the girl in the picture up there.  Again, though, it wouldn't be the objective anger that got to me. I'm used to disapproval. Anyone who feels that there is only one way to approach a topic - any topic - is just wrong.  But if my friends feel bad, I will too.

Probably there will be no Facebook-shaming.  My friends will roll their eyes.  The community will ignore me, or sigh and pat me on the head.  I'm used to that too.

Will the moment of joker's regret stop me from speaking without thinking ever again?  I'd like to believe that. I'd also like to believe I'll never again order duck confit poutine.  But, you know, I just might...