To the Author of My Dishwasher User's Manual, Thank You

I am writing today to express my gratitude to the author of the 32-page manual that came with my dishwasher. While there are many things I appreciated about it, I believe your masterstroke can be found on page 11:

Do not wash dishes before loading them into the Maytag Jetclean dishwasher.

What an intriguing sentence. The first thing I notice about it is that it serves no purpose for the manufacturer. Shouldn't Maytag be content to let you scrub, scrub away before loading in your dishes, thus making the dishwasher seem completely infallible?

I can only conclude that this was a writer who took matters into his own hands. One who said, "To every husband out there whose wife made him clean the dishes by hand and, on top of it, give them a second cleansing in the dishwasher – this one's for you!"

Sometimes I ponder the grammar of this little sentence. At first glance, it seems boring and stale. Though just a short sentence, it repeats the words "wash" and "dish." But the more you read it, the more you appreciate its little complexities. Is it not gently mocking those who would have a dish washed twice? The redundancy of the language denotes the redundancy of the action.

But there is a deeper subtlety, and one that to me belies true relationship wisdom. What it does not say is, "Anyone who washes their dishes by hand before putting them in a dishwasher is a dumbass." It takes the more neutral tone of, "It is not good for this dishwasher to be loaded with clean dishes." By taking the specific case, it does not call up all the arguments that have existed before this dishwasher. And there have been many. This is a sentence amenable to both parties, allowing neither to say, "I was right, so nyeh nyeh nyeh." Bravo. Bravo!

Dishwasher manual writer, you rule. I know you never got a byline, but, if you stumble across my blog, please know that there is at least one person out there who appreciates your gift.

This Holiday, Give the Gift of Suggestion

There are expensive gifts and there are thoughtful gifts, but in my family, the most common gift is the gift of suggestion.

For example, when I was a newly-minted professional of twenty-two, I thought the best course of action was to grow a three inch beard and start playing the banjo. While my parents could not crush the spirit of the hillbilly music welling up within me, they could do something about the beard. That Christmas, I got a titanium-finished electric trimmer with a ceramic blade – the best trimmer money could buy. It was so nice that I overlooked the suggestiveness of this gift and admired it simply for its art deco qualities. I stood it up in a prominent place on the mantle of my first apartment for all to see.

Only years later, when I was looking for a new job, did I flip on the power switch. Quite surprisingly, I learned that form followed function, and it's kept my beard in line ever since. It's also come in quite handy since I discovered on my 25th birthday that my parents did not give me the gift of hair everlasting.

This year, I'll be returning the favor with a few gifts of suggestion of my own. My father will be receiving a CD of new folk music that I have scouted out. This, I tell myself, will be the CD that finally convinces him that good songs have been written since Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog and good harmonies have been sung since the last "lie-la-lie" of The Boxer. What I really should be getting him is the new Simon and Garfunkel box set, which gets repackaged every year with new outtakes, early unreleased recordings, and, this year, the extended lie-la-lie remix.

But gifts of suggestion can go too far. For example, now that I have been married two years, I am hoping not to receive a copy of the book, Making a Baby: Everything You Need to Know to Get Pregnant by Debra Bruce. That I would deem overly suggestive. Whereas if you wanted to buy us a week's vacation in Puerto Rico, that might speed things along. I certainly wouldn't take offense.

In conclusion, I encourage you to give generously, and to sprinkle a few suggestive gifts here and there in the name of loved-one improvement. And where you are concerned your intentions might be too bald-faced, mask them with outrageous expense. That way, when they see through your ploy and get hurt, you can just direct their attention to the gift receipt and say, "I think that new Three Dog Night box set goes on sale December 26."

Home for the Holidays

Every year, more people in the U.S. travel home for the holidays. NYTimes reported today that 37 million are on the road this Thanksgiving weekend. This number says to me that we are more mobile than ever, choosing to live near good jobs rather than near our families.

I currently live in Boston, with parents in upstate New York. My wife’s family is from Louisiana but they do Thanksgiving in Texas. Our siblings live in San Francisco and Spain. And next year, we’ll be moving from Boston to Chicago, where we have no family, just a strong feeling that it's the right city for us.

The reason we don’t live near our families anymore is because The Good Life to us depends foremost upon professional satisfaction. My wife and I will choose a city where we can both find stimulating jobs that offer reasonable hours and reasonable pay. And after that, we will choose based on housing costs, aesthetics, weather, and cultural institutions. That is why my friends so often choose to go live in San Francisco, even though their families are a five hour flight away.

But isn’t living near family also The Good Life? Yes it is, particularly when it comes to raising children. There is no substitute for having your parents nearby. But now that the generation size has been lengthened, we no longer have to move near our parents. They can come to us. Since they had us in their 30s, and we are having kids in our late 30s, our parents will be just around retirement age when our children are born. All we have to do is convince them that they should move to the city we have chosen.

This weekend, as I sit in traffic with everyone else, I’ll be working on my pitch. And hopefully, in a few years, I’ll be staying right at home for the holidays.

Porterman Lost 30 Pounds

It's true. Porterman's back down to fighting weight. Or, for those of you who are lovers, not fighters, lovin' weight. How did I do it? With the new Porterman fad diet. Lose 30 pounds in 3 years or your money back.

Let's do the math. 30 pounds over 3 years = .03 pounds a day for 1100 days. Just 65 calories off my daily intake. One cup of coffee.

But to be honest, it wasn't quite as smooth as .03 pounds a day. I can go up or down several pounds in a single day. I never know quite what that scale is going to read in the morning. But slowly, that top number started inching down.

And I wish I could say it was as simple as just cutting out one cup of coffee a day. One week, I'd deprive myself of beer. Then I'd swear off sausage. Then I'd eat only sausage. There were a million variables, minus one: I didn't exercise. Thus I never really understood how I could be losing the weight. Was I afflicted by an extra-slow version of the curse in Stephen King's Thinner?

But, folks, the Porterman has finally figured out the answer to this riddle. It all boils down to three simple words. Eating. At. Home.

In my never-ending quest to live better, I wanted to save a little bit of money. Cambridge is notoriously expensive for lunch, with a sandwich and a drink costing $9. Dinner is far more expensive, with most entrees in the $18+ category.

Like a modern ascetic, I undertook a cooking campaign like no other. You think four nights a week is ambitious? Try six. And I took my lunch to work. every single day. My goal was to save a few thousand bucks. I didn't realize I was saving a few thousand calories.

So why does cooking at home shed the pounds? First, I don't have a deep fryer. Never eating French fries turns out to be pretty important. Second, portion control. My portion sizes haven't been increasing at the rate of inflation like everyone else's. It's as simple as that. And I won't even get into the other benefits, like all the salt intake you are avoiding.

Live longer, feel better, be richer. It's the Porterman 3-year 30-Pound Cook-at-Home Diet (tm)!

Hunting for Sport vs. Hunting for Food

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was chagrined to learn that most New England fly-fisherman preach the code of catch-and-release. Now, I have been practicing catch and release ninety per cent of the time as a bass fisherman, but I always kept one or two for breakfast. I also go hunting two or three times a year, and I always eat everything I kill. My stance is, take one or two mature animals that have had a chance to breed, and leave the youngsters be.

I don't want to address in detail all the various arguments for and against hunting and fishing, but I well mention three common ones. The "hunting is cruel" argument is a losing one if you purchase mass-produced grocery store meat, and a winning one if you forsake your incisors and become a vegetarian. That "hunters wreck the environment" doesn't hold up considering the $185M a year in license fees benefiting state conservation efforts, the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act that puts 11% of guns and ammo purchases back into conservation, and the uncounted millions of charitable dollars donated by sportsmen who want to see habitat protected. Finally, the argument that "hunters are all drunk republican gun nuts" is loony. You're looking at one who is none of the three, and there are many more like me.

Now that that's out of the way, I want to address an important question brought to my attention by Blake: is catch-and-release cruel?

This is an argument I'd never heard before, because catch-and-release has always been beyond reproach. But basically it goes like this: C&R causes enormous stress to fish. In the case of trout, you can often kill a fish by playing it too long. Thus if you are there to harvest fish to replace what you would eat from the grocery store, take what you need and get out of the water. If you are fishing purely for sport, then find a new hobby.

What a concept. Thank you, Blake, for that mind-expanding query. It is one that seems aimed directly at the most hallowed of sportsmen: the New England fly-fisherman.

I'd like to begin by saying that the eat-or-go-home stance would take a lot of people out of the sport, thereby reducing some of the economic benefits laid out above. I could also add that one expert fly-fisherman can fish out a stream and harvest all the mature fish. This would hurt the breeding population and ultimately keep others from fishing the river and caring about the habitat.

"But so what?" you say. At least the fisherman won't be stressing all those fish. But what about the children? How many four-year-olds have experienced the supreme joy of catching a 3-inch sunfish on a worm? I certainly did, and it may have made a lifetime outdoorsman out of me.

Second, is it better for a population of fish to die a long slow death due to pollution, rather than experience some stress from sportsmen? Trout are famously pollutant-intolerable, and only through the results of conservationists and fisherman are those rivers being cleaned.
Furthermore, in Adirondack lakes, the effects of acid rain out of the midwest have brought mercury levels in fish to a nearly inedible level. If you can't eat the fish because of mercury, and you can't fish for sport, then no one will be fishing. And no one will be caring about the existence of those fish populations.

In conclusion, I respect any hunter or fisherman who only takes what he will eat and makes a positive benefit on the habitat and game population. And doesn't leave his game to rot in the freezer -- for nothing is more shameful than that.

There ends my argument, but feel free to carry on the debate in my comments section. I'll be shopping on www.flyshack.com for some of the flies I lost last weekend.

Big John, Continued

I received some great feedback from my friends:

Blake, force meat king though he is, said he may have sat on a lidless bowl once or twice at 3am. And after his confession, I myself recalled that I had sat on some chilly porcelain nearly eight years ago. It was a memory I had long tried to suppress, and I shudder to think on't.

Adam remarks that the only fair way is for both the woman and man to have to put the seat and lid down after each use. I find much wisdom in that statement. But it would certainly help to have a Big John, given my lengthy legs and torso but oddly short arms.

The Great Toilet Seat Debate, Solved

In a previous post, I said that my dream condo would have a Big John toilet, and not because I have the physique of a sumo wrestler. The reason is height. In my current place, I'm forever bending down to the floor to lift and lower a dainty toilet seat.

The only possible reason for this is that, when all toilets moved to the 1.6 gallon-per-flush standard, the designers decided to scale the whole thing down, instead of just making the tank smaller. Or else they hate all men over 6 feet. That's why I want a Big John.



But all the time I spend bending and lifting and lowering has given me exceptional clarity on the time-honored toilet seat debate. Should the men put the seat back down?

Let me digress a moment and say that I have no illusions that men are superior to women in any way. At my tiny high school, I had no way of cracking the top 10 in class rank, even in spite of my incredible sense of self-worth. The reason is that 10 exceptional young women had a lock on it since the middle of 9th grade. They were smarter and worked harder. I could neither beat them, nor date them. (I did, however, ultimately get the last laugh: I married a valedictorian.)

Now that I've established my respect for women, let me address the first argument: equality of the sexes. Let's say, after every use, the man and woman both leave the toilet as they have used it. The woman leaves it down, the man leaves it up. If everybody urinates the same number of times, then everyone does the same amount of lifting or lowering. When the man has to take a crap, he leaves it down -- bonus for the woman. There's the equality argument, and it holds up pretty well.

But wait! Then the woman counters with, "I might accidentally sit in the water." A compelling argument. No one wants to sit in the water, especially not the Porterman. There are two responses: in an all-male household, does a man sometimes accidentally sit in water during an emergency 2am crap? I've never heard of it. Second, the more time the man and woman spend in an environment of equality, as explained above, the more she will be used to putting the seat down. It's only in the toilet-seat-down-99%-of-the-time world that such risks exist. Thus, I don't think the argument holds up against the equality scenario.

"But it just looks better to have the seat down." Ah, an aesthetic debate! I myself think a bowl looks more interesting than a covered lid, from a modern art standpoint. Very 20th century. You, however, might think a the stair-step form is more appealing. Probably a 50/50 split, nationwide. But if it's a messy toilet seat you find objectionable, then yes, your argument has been made. The men should clean up after themselves, or else install a toilet that isn't so damn short and splatter-prone.

Those are the three prevailing arguments, and, as you can see, I don't think any of them argue for more than strict equality. Why, then, do I always put the toilet seat back down? Rather ponderous, isn't it?

The answer is, because it's an easy way to make my wife happy. There are so many other complicated procedures and rituals that I'm supposed to remember but fail at. Here's one that's simple. I can't water the plants correctly; I can't remember which utensil turns brown in the dishwasher. But this -- this! -- I can remember. It's a meaningful gesture, and takes little thought if incorporated into your daily routine.

I just wish I had a Big John so I could shave off six inches x 2000 lifts a year.

Mighty Barbecue Tour 2005

Lest anyone question my BBQ credentials, I am uploading photos from our recent 10-day barbecue odyssey that crossed Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, New York, and Massachusetts.

Shreveport, LA

Leon's has the best smoked turkey I've ever had. The bread is buttered and grilled, and the sandwich comes with lettuce and mayo. I asked them to toss in a "lone bone" on the side, which was well worth it. Total cost: $6.50.


On to Hickory Stick. Why, why is your barbecue sauce so good? We got smoked roast beef sandwiches and a coupla ribs. The price is on the sign. (No, I didn't try their summer salad.) Their beans are oustanding, and don't neglect the Texas Toast perched atop your potato salad. It looks bad for you, and is, but your tummy will thank you.

Arkansas

More smoked turkey and BBQ beef at Burge's, off the side of the highway in Arkansas. I ate this one in the car, so sorry, no photos of the sandwich. We had a lot of ground to cover before dinner in Memphis.

Memphis

Barbecue and architecture -- my favorite combination. Yes, that is a sausage sandwich (with cole slaw) on the right. The 1/2 rack was $7.95 and the sausage was $2.65. Thank you, Neely's.

Payne's was a mom and pop BBQ pit, famous for it's chopped pork sandwiches -- and yes, more cole slaw. $2.85. Enough said.

Nashville

Not far from a large park-- and 1/3-size Parthenon reconstruction -- is a little place called Hog Heaven. They specialize in pulled pork, and their BBQ sauce was outstanding. The pulled chicken with white BBQ sauce is also worth mention. All the food before you came with a price tag under $6. Right next to Hog Heaven is a McDonald's, and the lunchtime drive-thru line wrapped around the block. Dumbasses.

Syracuse

OK, enough pulled pork. In Syracuse, it was back to the ribs at this famous biker bar. None of the sides were worth the real estate they occupied on that platter, but just look at those ribs. They stood up next to any other BBQ we had on the trip.

Boston

We made it back to Boston a little BBQ-d out, and to cleanse our systems we headed to Masao's Kitchen in Waltham, a vegan, macrobiotic restaurant that puts forth an oustanding vegan buffet at $7/pound. What was the special of the day? BBQ tofu. We thought it deserved a mention.

BBQ Roundup

Best BBQ sauce: Hickory Stick, Shreveport, LA
Best pulled pork: Hog Heaven, Nashville, TN
Best ribs: Dinosaur BBQ, Syracuse, NY
Best smoked turkey sandwich: Leon's, Shreveport, LA
Best prices: Payne's, Memphis, TN
Best baked beans: Hickory Stick, Shreveport, LA
Best sausage: Neely's, Memphis, TN
Best potato salad: Hickory Stick, Shreveport, LA

Boston, Take Note of My Ribs Prowess

In the greater Boston municipality, there are two well-known barbecue competitors, both trying to outdo the other in the "Most Overrated Ribs" category. It seems that neither of these establishments knows the three essential properties of outstanding ribs. Fortunately for them, neither do their patrons. Please allow me to raise everyone's awareness at the same time.

1) A good piece of meat. Not all pigs are made equal. Find a supplier who provides lean racks from formerly athletic pigs. The goal here is never having a customer take a giant all-fat bite. If possible, figure out who supplies them to Whole Foods, because their ribs are leaner than those supplied to other local grocery stores.

2) Tenderness. Folks, your ribs are too tough. I know because it takes 24 toothpicks to get all the sinew out of my teeth. I boil my ribs for 90 minutes before tossing them on the grill – perfection. They're so tender, you can leave your teeth at home. Now, some might scoff at a rib-boiler like myself, but whatever your preferred method, you're an amateur until you can match my tenderness.

3) Sauce. Why do these Boston joints have to get so fancy? Six different sauces to choose from but none of them passable south of the Mason-Dixon. I guess they make a lot of money selling sampler packs to rubes. But if they want to stick it to their competition, they should buy it by the 55-gallon drum from Hickory Stick BBQ in Shreveport, LA. They've been making the same one sauce for over twenty years, and it doesn't come in a logoed bottle.

Boston, consider yourself educated. I've got one more year left in this city. I challenge you to come up with a decent rack by the time I have the U-Haul loaded up. If you can, then maybe I'll change my mind and stay.

The New Deputy Undersecretary of Cheesesteaks

It has just come to my attention that I am the new Deputy Undersecretary of Cheesesteaks. This was, I believe, a "midnight appointment" by the Bush administration. I only became aware of my new responsibilities upon waking up this morning.

In an effort to ensure transparency, I am going to answer the many questions you and others probably have.

Are you the new Deputy Undersecretary of Cheesesteaks?
Yes, I believe I am.

What are your official powers?
My department, if I am correct, has the power to set and safeguard cheesesteak standards.

What are your credentials?
Four thousand hours logged at the business end of a cheesesteak.

Do you have a budget?
I found two twenties in my wallet this morning that I don't remember having yesterday.

What exactly will you do on a daily basis?
This is quite clear to me: order and eat different kinds of cheesesteaks.

Will you be getting letterhead?
I plan to request grease-resistant letterhead.

Any recommendations you can make public?
Toasted bread and full customization options. That's all I can say at this early stage. Thank you.

"The Good Life" Defined -- and Questioned

For the past six months, I've been working sporadically on this blog about The Good Life, but I've never tried to define what those two words mean. Leaving aside the question of faith and spirituality, I think there are nine essential aspects modern life: food, housing, employment, transportation, safety, health, relationships, recreation, and children.

Leading The Good Life, then, would mean striving to better each of those aspects. But how do we define better? Is a Mercedes S-Class the pinnacle of transportation goodness? Should I strive to be as fit as a marathon runner? Is it good to live to be 100?

I had an interesting talk with an academic the other day about "keeping your options open." This was a mantra for my friends and me growing up. It meant trying to get into the most selective college we could, and afterwards building the most impressive resumes possible -- all in order to leap on the best opportunity when it came along.

The interesting thing is that you'll never find a group more adept at envisioning the future than the "keep your options open" crowd. We have a 5 year plan. We have a 10 year plan. We have a 25 and 30 year plan. Sometimes I feel like I'm planning so far ahead that my kids are already in high school. And I barely got a chance to know them.

I would argue that, if you can so easily envision your life in 10-15 years, you aren't really keeping your options open. You're taking a prescribed path. You've been seduced by the Good Life as defined in the advertisements found in the back pages of your alumni magazine. Which I'll admit looks tempting. But there are many ways to live, and many ways to live well.

I flirted with one alternative way of living when I tried to make it as a professional folk musician. It was a hoot. I was making my own way, with no idea what the future held. Maybe I'd get a record deal. Maybe I'd write a hit song and move to Nashville. Maybe I'd become a wizened old bluesman.

And was I living well? No doubt. My work was my play. I had dozens of friends. I wasn't going to live to be 100 eating all that bar food, but it sure tasted good.

But after four years I hung it up. I didn't want to have a hole in my resume. I wanted to keep a clear path open to having that perfect summer cottage in the Berkshires.

Now folks, I'm not ungrateful for what I've got. Lord knows I am rich in many things, particularly meat. But I am going to exercise a greater appreciation for alternative ways of living well. The next time I'm in the middle of a huge Boston traffic jam trying to find the best lane, I'm going to envision my life as beekeeper.

Where the Porterman Has Gone

I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus while moving into my new Cambridge flat. Here is an update on The Good Life and the Porterman code as I have lived them these past few months:

Taking my own advice from “Big Man Lives Small,” I gave away, sold, or tossed about 1,000 pounds of stuff before the move. I also lost 5 pounds lugging the remaining 6,000 up the 46 stairs to my new abode. Big man lives small indeed.

The fate of my grill – much speculated about in “Blithely Did I Sign that Lease” – has gone to my friend Blake, who has agreed to all of my terms. While I miss it dearly, I’m glad it has gone to a person who I consider my equal in meat (See “Bacon Versus Sausage” for more about meat).

Concerning “It Came Down to Me or the Hobby,” I am happy to report that calling myself a fly-fisherman has opened plenty of doors for me. But I was chagrined to find out that most serious flyfisher-gentleman only practice catch and release. I wish they’d told me that before I shot all those fish.

Finally, water still hasn’t touched my face, though it almost did at one point. Have a good summer!

Reports from the Field

In an earlier post I opined that, when someone says "there's a 99% chance," there's really only a 50% chance; the person is just trying to be persuasive. I then encouraged my dedicated readers to test this theory in the real world. After several months, I've received my first field report.

Joe wrote:

"I went to the dentist this morning and (long story short) I didn't know if this dentist took our insurance. I asked the receptionist, and she said ... (you know what's coming) 'I'm 99% sure we take that.' She ducked into the back room and came back a minute later and announced (again, you know what's coming) 'nope, we don't take that.' No shock in her voice. No apology. Nothing that would make you think she had dropped from 99% to 0% in about thirty seconds. I knew I was in trouble when she didn't add any .9's onto her guesstimate."

Thanks, Joe, you've reinforced my world view. Now if only all my other (fully-funded) research assistants weren't so lazy!

It Came Down to Me or the Hobby

Part of having the good life is creating a balance between work, relationships, and hobbies. This unfortunately has eluded me. Typically the third category launches an assault on the other two, making it hard for me to work or sustain relationships when I’m in the midst of a full-blown hobby attack.

In the past, when I’ve tried to determine if I have a hobby problem, I’ve turned to the “Are you an alcoholic?” quiz. It asks questions like, “Has your spouse ever accused you of being an addict?” “Has it put you in dire financial straights?” “Have you ever been hospitalized because of it?” While I pass from a booze perspective, I miss about 7 of 10 when it comes to my hobby du jour.

Thus over the years I have developed a few simple strategies for lessening the impact of hobbies on my work, life, and finances:

1) Conservation of hobby money. I recently sold a guitar for $500. Did I spend it on a new dishwasher? Hell no! I put it into fly-fishing equipment. Hobby money in, hobby money out. But, but the same token, I try not to make any new investments without selling something first.

2) Take it out of the home. If you’re going to invest your entire Saturday in some dorky pursuit, take it somewhere your wife can’t see you doing it. Trust me.

3) Avoid becoming a collector. Has anyone ever gotten rich off Beanie Babies? Once something is “collectible” it means so many people are doing it that it ain’t worth the beans it’s stuffed with. Collecting is a black hole for hobby money.

4) Consider how people will react to your hobby. You’d be surprised how many people in Cambridge turn up their noses at bird-hunting but admire fly-fishing. Similarly, being a good flamenco dancer will be better received in certain circles than being a good Klingon.

5) Calculated hobby-switching can be beneficial. You may not be able to change your addictive personality, but with a little willpower you might be able to trade one hobby for a more socially or spousally acceptable one.

Porterman Party Part II

Yes, yes, you're right. I need to focus on the ideology. That's where the Dems went wrong, and they took a beating for it. In the Porterman Party, these are paramount:

1) Democracy
2) Peace
3) Prosperity
4) Individual Freedoms
5) Our Kids Having It Better Than We Do

Most of my platform extends naturally from these doctrines. For example, environmental sustainability and pay-as-you-go federal government would both fall under "our kids having it better than we do."

Lessons from the Farm

I recently joined a shared farm in Waltham, Massachusetts. It's basically a non-profit that has leased land from a university to start a little organic farm. My $250 share means I get to go pick up fresh fruit and vegetables every week in my own canvas bags. Good stuff.

But when I went out for a visit, I realized that I was quite a bit different than most of the other farm sharers. Not only do I eat organic veggies, I eat plenty of organic meat – that which I shoot myself. In my freezer are rows of little white packages of deer, quail, turkey, rabbits, and ducks that my family kills in Texas every year. This grade A free range bounty comprises most of our meat diet, supplemented by organic carne from the grocery store.

While I am an organic food consumer, just like these folks, they did not appear to be hunters. When the farmer mentioned that some woodchucks had taken out a few rows of beets recently, I considered offering to come at dawn with my .22 and do some volunteer work. But noticing that several of my fellow sharers arrived in Toyota Priuses with John Kerry stickers still intact, I thought better of it. My hunting would not mesh with a peace-love-and-granola constituency, despite the fact that we all wanted beets on the table.

This led me to think about political parties. Though we all have very personal views about things like guns, stem cells, and taxes, we all have to fit ourselves into one party or the other. My affiliation with the Dems is like my visit to the Waltham farm: it’s a coalition of vegans, hunters, and city families who want their kids to experience a real working farm. All have distinct, firmly-held values that are hard to dispute, yet they all show up at the same farm every Thursday with their canvas bags.

This got me thinking about what my values really are, and what my own ideal party, the Porterman Party, would be like. This would be our platform:

1) Progressive taxation. Make more, pay a higher percentage. Unearned income taxed at a higher rate; middle class less burdened.
2) Living longer, working longer. The retirement age and the average life expectancy number must move up together.
3) Individual rights and freedoms. Protect gay marriage, abortion, and habeas corpus.
4) Much decreased hard power and military R&D spending, much increased soft power (cultural attraction) spending.
5) Deprivatized prisons.
6) Give up your handguns, keep your hunting rifles and shotguns.
7) Environmental sustainability and biodiversity preservation in US and abroad.
8) Pay as you go federal government.
9) Incentivize alternative energy technology and let the market do the rest.

These are my initial thoughts about my ideal party. Some other issues are in the too-hard pile for now: terrorism, welfare, health care, No Child Left Behind, genocide intervention. But by the time I get this party launched, I should at least have a part-time staffer to help me work that stuff out, right?

I encourage your critique of these issues, in order to strengthen the Porterman platform.

Water Can't Touch My Face

Out of all the laws and norms governing our society, showering technique often goes unpoliced. Some people, for example, might stand on one foot in the shower, like a flamingo. They don't even realize they are wrong, the poor things. Television commercials can be instructive in this regard – lovers too. But I would guess there are still a few happy flamingoes out there.

I myself used to be a happy flamingo. See, I don't like water touching my face, particularly striking my cheeks or dribbling down my chin. It is safe to say that I have not washed my face in about 25 years. Then one day my wife noticed and – WHAM – I got normalized. How could I have known my shower technique was so wrong, so dangerous to our civil society?

The reason I got to be such a deviant, I believe, is Water Babies. My parents, in all good intention, probably took me to a class where babies get their faces wet in the swimming pool. My cerebrum doesn't remember this event, but my cerebellum sure does. Whenever water starts getting close to my face, it yells, "Hey! Get that wet stuff away from my breathing holes!"

But there is another possible explanation. Much as I haven't washed my face in 25 years, I also haven't cried in about that long. Crying, I learned, was bad. It was immature and stupid. It was wimpy and uncool. If you're going to be a crybaby, you might as well put on some turquoise pants, etc.

Indeed, I cauterized my tear ducts long, long ago. And now, whenever I get wetness on my face, it brings back those bad, mad, sad feelings of when I used to be a turquoise-clad crybaby. It is utterly loathsome to me.

So, yet again, not being able to cry has landed me in trouble. First I was accused of being an emotional vegetable. Now my private shower regimen has been made a matter of national security.

When, people, when will I learn to cry?

I live and breathe (and evaluate real estate)

Sorry for the long delay. I have been spending a lot of time considering a new Harvard study on the growth of cold-weather cities. The reason it’s thrown me for a loop is that it completely contradicts some of my earlier theories about wages and housing prices right here in Boston.

In my earlier post, “Continuing Pursuit of the Good Life,” I posited that Boston’s highly-educated elites are driving up housing prices and driving down (my) wages. This chap Glaeser says that the highly educated workers of Boston are actually driving up wages over time. Furthermore, and this is the kicker, he basically says Boston is going to fare better over time than my beloved Chicago, because there are four times as many masters degrees per capita here.

While this would normally send me into a frothing rage, I have to admit that he has the data and I don’t. So I've been using all that extra froth instead to lick my wounds this past week or two.

Here’s the study. May it guide you in your own pursuit of the good life:

http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/rappaport/downloads/policy_briefs/skilledcities.pdf

Blithely Did I Sign That Lease

This was a rough week for the Porterman. In my quest for the perfect Cambridge two bedroom apartment, I signed a lease for a place that doesn't allow grills.

Indeed, last night, I cleaned my Charbroil Masterflame and prepared it for sale. Research indicated that I could expect a twenty dollar bill for it. How could something of such value to me be worth a mere twenty bucks? How many filets were perfected on that grill? How many portabellas turned aside under its noble meat-only policy?

Few people know that I actually got the grill from a couple in Chicago, recently laid off, who were moving onto a 28' sailing vessel bound for the Atlantic. I have no idea what happened to them -- perhaps they broke up somewhere along the St. Lawrence Seaway -- but the story gave the grill great significance for me. In my mind, it was as if the grill itself had made a heroic maritime journey and was my own exotic treasure.

I offered the couple $20 for it, which might bring this story full circle, except they would not take the money. I can only guess that they realized my purpose and ultimate fame might somehow be linked to this grill.

But that hasn't happened, and now I can only hope that the new owners of my grill will abide by the guidelines established during happier times:

1) Meat only.
2) Clean the grill rarely but with gusto.
3) When the grill finally expires, give it a burial at sea.

I Love These New Land Mines

[Did you see the AP article yesterday on the army's new land mines? Called "The Matrix," they can be detonated by remote control. That is awesome! Land mines are important in Iraq for our war against roving armies and other infantry. And adding this new remote control feature makes these the new, sexy land mines of the future!

The reason we need these weapons is that the bad guys also have these weapons. The insurgents have been using remote control bombs and land mines against us in Iraq for quite some time. It's payback time, bitches. Here's a quote from the FY 2006 Military Defense Budget describing our research and development mission: "The Department continues to emphasize technology efforts that ensure that the Nation will maintain a technological advantage over potential adversaries." Rock on!

The only difference here is that our soldiers are plainly visible, as opposed to the insurgents, who look like Iraqi civilians. This might actually make the insurgents' remote control bombs more effective than ours. Ha! I almost tricked you! See, ours are better because we can set them off by laptop. I know for a fact that insurgents don't have laptops, or at least not very good ones. This is where we really take them to the cleaners, with our sheer portable computing power.

Plus, we all know land mines are just as effective at killing civilians as infantry, so we've got all our bases covered.

Finally, let me complement the developers on their exciting name, "The Matrix." I personally loved "The Matrix" when I saw it in the theater, so these land mines set off a lot of positive associations for me. However, I would warn against calling the second generation of this land mine "The Matrix 2," because that would make everyone hate them.

In conclusion, I truly believe that with this new technology will hasten the conclusion of our war on terror. Congress, I hope you make the developers of this fine innovation very, very rich.

How I Learned to be Cool

In fifth grade, I went through a turquoise phase. Before school started, my parents took me to a big outlet mall (rare at the time) to do all my new clothes shopping for the year. Apparently I was in a turquoise mindset that day, because we came home with turquoise pants, turquoise socks, turquoise t-shirts. On the first day of school, I put together what I thought was my best ensemble and wore them all at once.

At that age, I wasn't afraid to express myself. I could celebrate an A grade, tell a girl I "liked" her, and spaz out in gym class all in the same day. But I began to learn that expressing yourself is the antithesis of being cool. If you want to be liked in middle school, you have to control and suppress your emotions. Let nothing phase you. Never cry. And for god sakes don't wear turquoise.

These were hard lessons for me, but I learned them well. I and many other kids built safety mechanisms to avoid letting our feelings show. And now it haunts us. How many times has my wife told me not to be afraid of expressing my emotions? Funny how in fifth grade I didn't have that problem.

This, I'm convinced, is why we drink. I am perhaps the world's third most inhibited dancer. But not with a few drinks. Going out to dinner to meet new friends? Uncork a bottle of wine to relax and open up. Too bad the effect is only fleeting and often comes with a price tag.

Indeed, now it's good to be expressive. That is the tragic irony. We need to unlearn our safety mechanisms and strip away our crab-shell plating to succeed in relationships. I don't know how to do it, but I think I know how to make the first step – with a brand new pair of turquoise socks.

Exteriorism

Over dinner and a few glasses of wine with some of our good friends, I posed what I thought would be a provocative question:

“You are making a choice between two condos. They cost the same, the interiors are identical in every way, and both are on the 10th floor of their respective buildings. The only difference is that one condo is in an aesthetically beautiful high-rise looking out on an ugly utilitarian high-rise. The other is in the ugly building but with a direct view of the architectural masterpiece across the way. Which would you choose?”

As divisive as I thought the question would be, they all quickly chose to live in the architectural masterpiece. But you don’t live on the exterior, I argued. You’ll be spending most of your waking hours inside that condo. Don’t you want it to have a lovely view?

My argument fell flat, and I understood why. I felt the same way they did. The pride of knowing you were cool, that you would be talked about, that you would be envied, outweighed all practical concerns.

We’d rather drive the one Mercedes in a sea of rusted brown Fords than the other way around. We’d rather be the most beautiful person on the beach than see the most beautiful person on the beach.

We are all big show offs. We can’t help it. But we should recognize when we are making our bed on the side of a skyscraper.

Got a C on My Night School Midterm

I've been taking an art history class after work on Tuesday nights. I do the reading every week, I never miss class, and I've visited the local art museum twice to look at the Old Masters. I am a model student, just as I have always been.

On top of that, I already have a bachelor's degree in literature from an Ivy League school. The other students in the class? They are in night school to get their first degree.

And they kicked my ass.

Maybe I got cocky. I decided to go for bonus points by bringing in Leonardo's Vitruvian Man, but all the while I was writing "Vesuvian Man." It felt right at the time. Then I saw a picture I couldn't identify which I thought was overly dramatic and virtuosic, so I called it a "Mannerist" painting – a serious insult. It was a Raphael. Whoops.

Maybe my whole life has been about grade inflation. Maybe I aced one test in third grade that put me on the elite track, and I rode it all the way through a top university.

Or maybe I underestimated my fellow night school classmates. When I enrolled for the class, the registrar asked, "do you want to take this class for credit?" Why not? Another easy A on the ol' transcript. But these other students, they really need the degree. They want the kind of good life I've been living, and they're willing to hit the books – hard – to get it.

Now I have a decision to make. Do I fight to prove my worth, or do I drop the course and erase from my mind any thought that I may not deserve what I have?

Folks, I'm gonna fight. How can I enjoy The Good Life if I don't think I've earned it? And if, despite my efforts, I still get a C on the final, at least I'll be helping others achieve their goals by pushing their grades up a little bit.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a slideshow to view.

My Dream Condo Could Use One of These

Thanks to AnotherThingVonnegut for passing this my way. I've decided when I finally get my 900 square foot dream condo, I'm gonna have one of these installed. My current landlord should be ashamed of himself for making me sit 6 inches off the floor.

http://www.greatjohn.com/ourproducts.html

What People Mean When They Say, "There's a 99% Chance"

Last month, I called to make a reservation at a bed and breakfast in western Massachusetts. Our friends’ wedding is in a popular summer spot, and we wanted to plan well ahead.

The innkeeper gladly accepted our reservation and credit card, but said, “I’ll need to call you back in a month to reconfirm. We plan our summer schedule around our grandchildren, so there will be one week this summer we are away.”

Then he said, “There is a ninety-nine per cent chance it won’t be your weekend, but I’ll call you.” Before hanging up, he went a step further and said, “It’s basically a ninety-nine-point-nine-nine per cent chance.”

One month passed. He called me. Guess what? The grandkids are coming on our weekend. Lucky us, now we’re scrambling for a reservation. I should have guessed.

Why didn’t he phrase it differently? He could have said, “Our grandkids are out of school twelve weeks this summer. So you have only a one in twelve chance of losing out.” That would have sounded totally reasonable to me, and I would have made a reservation based on my 92% chance.

But instead he said “99.99%.” Why did he sacrifice straightforward math for fuzzy math? Because he knew the odds were much lower than 92%, and he wanted to keep from losing the sale.

I think when people say “99%” they really mean 50%. And with each additional decimal place they tack on (“point-nine-nine-nine,” etc.), the odds go up by maybe one per cent.

By this calculation, we had a 52% chance of getting the reservation, and we lost the coin flip. That sounds about right to me, or at least much closer to reality than the odds he presented.

I encourage you to test my hypothesis. Every time someone says “ninety-nine per cent chance” write it down. After a year, go back through and score the outcomes. You’ll figure out what 99% really means. I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere between 50%-75%.

Or better yet, offer to take people up on their crazy odds. Slap a dollar down on the table and say, “I’ll take that bet. But if you’re wrong, you owe me ten grand.” Or perhaps a reservation at a different inn for half price.