I think this is the first time I’ve tried to write a poem in years.

I’d love feedback on this if you have any thoughts on how it could be improved.

Collections

My name is blank
and I’m calling today
to discuss an important personal business matter.

Please return my call.

I’m calling today
to let you know I am here to listen
and I understand.

I understand what it is to be a stone
giving way to hammers and drills,
reluctantly yielding dark fluid
from secret places and impossible depths.

Please return my call.

Today you are the stone and I am the drill.
Tomorrow there will be new stones and new drills.

Please return my call.

In the tree the luminous sap ascends

Today, watching brick and concrete dust rise in a column of light from construction over Beacon Hill I was reminded of a poem by Rita Dove that I read years ago and had to google for. Apparently it’s titled “Horse and Tree” and was published in 1989 in her book Grace Notes, and was cited by the Library of Congress when it named her Poet Laureate:

Everybody who’s anybody longs to be a tree– or ride one, hair blown by froth. That’s
why horses were invented, and saddles tooled with singular stars.

This is why we braid their harsh manes as if they were children, why children might
fear a carousel at first for the way it insists that life is round. No,

we reply, there is music and then it stops; the beautiful is always rising and falling. We
call and the children sing back one more time. In the tree the luminous sap ascends.

I need to read more poetry.

I need to write more.

Oh, Achewood. Oh, Michael Jackson. Oh, tempora. Oh, mores.

Achewood really has the perfect coda to Michael Jackson: The old guy interrupts the middle-aged guys to explain their grief to them. “He was your Elvis,” he says, “and when your Elvis dies, so does the private lie that someday you will be young once again, and feel at capricious intervals the weightlessness of a joy that is unchecked by the injuries of experience and failure…. In other words, you died a bit today. Welcome to the only game in town.”

It reminds me of Neal Stephenson on being under 25 – his assertion that youth comes with the delusion that you could, if necessary, become totally badass. And growing up requires acknowledging that you’re not going to be what you once thought you could.

Michael Jackson never grew up, never acknowledged that he was never going to become perfect. He knew it, of course – who other than someone fleeing adult responsibility names his house “Neverland?” But still, some days, I wish I could avoid growing up too. I guess we all do.

But no: I’m never going to be a race-car driver, ninja, astronaut, poet, novelist, or public intellectual. Those aren’t really in the cards. What I am going to be – technical writer, marketer, blogger, husband, citizen, adequate gardener, affable dinner-party host – is just going to have to be enough.

I only hope that truly growing up doesn’t mean being forced to face the fact that even those diminished dreams are not feasible, or not capable of redeeming me.

Water Use In New England and New Mexico

Even in the comparatively rain-soaked northeast we’ve got water troubles, as the recent Globe article on overuse of our river resources indicates. Well, I sent that out to my friend John Fleck in Albuquerque, who does a lot of science and drought reporting for the paper there.

He commented that drought isn’t necessarily a specific low level of water – just less than you use. Obviously New Englanders could use a lot less water than they do, but they’re used to not having to worry about it, so they don’t. And then they run out.

Other Southwesterners are likely to be a little less sympathetic. For example, this water-blogger in Tuscon just seems surprised that there aren’t any of the usual water-use policies that everyone’s familiar with in Arizona. I guess those rain-rich New Englanders will have to act like reasonable human beings instead of profligate wastrels. It kind of reminds me of the people who comment on financial articles illustrating families who run into financial trouble even when they make a lot of money.

It’s easy: Just spend more than your income.

Same with water: Don’t pay attention, and you’ll wreck everything.

It’s been awhile since I wrote a strongly worded letter

But I sent one today, to Fred Dekow, M.D., the Associate Medical Director of the Physician Review Unit at Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA:

Fred –
I got your letter today indicating that my fiancee’s emergency appendectomy was probably, but not definitely, covered by her insurance. Thank you for letting us know.

Your letter reminded me of a joke about three medical professionals awaiting entrance to heaven. The first, a surgeon, tells St. Peter that he knows he’s led an imperfect life, but that his service to humanity as a physician and healer merits him some kind of reward. Peter agrees and lets him in. The second, a hospital director, tells St. Peter that he wanted to help people but was afraid of blood, so he went into a field that allowed him to make sure the supplies and staff that did the healing were available at the right time and in the right place. St. Peter says he’s done a reasonable job and lets him pass.

The third is an insurance company executive. He tells St. Peter that his salvation-worthy accomplishment was preventing unnecessary medical care, thereby lowering medical costs and making treatment available to more people. St. Peter says, well, you can come in, but you can only stay for 36 hours. After that, you know where to go.

How the hell do you sleep at night?

Sincerely,
Aaron Weber

A fool and his money…

I’ve been reading a galley of the upcoming book Cheap by Ellen Ruppel Shell, and it’s got me thinking about marketing practices a lot. I don’t agree with all of Shell’s conclusions – she seems to think that discounting and production efficiency is a zero-sum game, for example. But she definitely has keen insight into the psychology of discounting, building on studies of irrational behavior by people like Dan Ariely (whose book I also enjoyed).

At first I didn’t really believe what she was saying about how even savvy consumers are easily duped by the appeal of Bargain Prices, even when it’s not in our best interest. Merchants, she says, override our logical behavior at times of emotional stress, appealing to our irrational desires with discounts from arbitrary reference prices, a sense of urgency, and a feeling of participation in something special. Well, obviously that’s true for some people, but I’m no dummy, and I’m resistant to that kind of trick. Right?

Well, last week, while Bookdwarf was in the hospital having her appendix removed, I got an email from my local wine merchant announcing that Facebook fans would get an exclusive early peek at their best value ever, a heavy discount on a stellar bottle of wine that would be available for one day only. It turned out to be a good value indeed: A $10 bottle on sale for $4 if you bought a case. I did buy a case. Maybe because I was under emotional stress, but mostly because I thought I was saving a bundle, I ordered an extra $100 worth of other stuff I didn’t need. After all, it was also on sale, just not as much. The discounted wine turned out to be pretty good, but I was still unsettled by how effectively the direct-marketing specials plucked at my wallet-strings.

I got another email today that illustrates just how timely Shell’s book is, this one from a market research group, analyzing the ways that different groups of people have responded to the recession. One label in particular caught my eye: “The Ostrich behavior is self-explanatory and irrational. At 9% of the population, they feel unaffected by the financial chill are spending as normally. Some of them are well paid enough to get away with this, but the bulk of this group are in denial… This group is a double edged sword for businesses. In the short term, they’re great for the bottom line, but in the long run, many of them may be forced to raise their heads and lower their spending as the crisis catches up with them.”

Good luck, folks. They’re out to get you.

I Love Factoids

Things I have learned recently:

From the NYT on tattoo history: “The red star trademark of Macy’s department store, we learn, might well have evolved from the tattoo that the store’s founder, Rowland Macy, had on his arm when he sailed on a whaling ship.”

The word bombora is an Australian aboriginal term for places where big, big waves break over offshore rocks. Bomboras represent a navigation hazard and an awesome surfing challenge. (Learned this reading Breath, by Tim Winton, a story of risk, death, coming-of-age, and the origins of big-wave surfing.

Texas governor Rick Perry hates interference from Washington and would consider secession, but not before getting $11 million from the feds to rebuild his mansion.

There’s a strong correlation between Wealth, education, and liberalism, and a converse correlation between poverty, ignorance, and voting for McCain.