Thursday, May 27, 2010
Secondhand Rants will return on Thursday, June 03.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
I plan on abandoning you again this month, a second run of silence stretching all the way until next Thursday, and honestly I can’t wait to let the negligence begin. I’m tired. There comes a point when every keystroke, every e-mail, every meeting becomes a chore of the gravest weight, and there is an urgent need to unplug. Typically this means taking a vacation and traveling to some faraway country replete with sunlight, sand, and people, all three of which happen to offend my senses.
For me, unplugging actually involves a surplus of cords and plugs and discs. Indeed, the plan is to fire up one video game after the other until I’m patently out of my mind. There is currently a bumper crop of digital delights, a rich bounty of titles I’ve harvested by the pound. And in trying to determine what should make the docket, I’ve eliminated sports games, anything that requires me to wield a ridiculous plastic instrument, and puzzles. There may be virtual killing. There will probably be killing. I’ve yet to commit to precisely what or whom I’ll be vanquishing, but I have a rough curriculum in mind: the entire pantheon of Greek gods, for starters. Country folk, perhaps. Even writer’s block.
Now, to what degree I’ll be able to unplug remains to be seen. I have serious doubts, frankly, but that’s the way things are in this era, where increasingly wireless capability strangely begets a greater need to be wired. Constantly. I’ve been watching Mad Men lately. One recurring theme seems to be that life in the ’60s was fraught with many of the same issues we wrestle with today. But I’ve got to tell you, without e-mail, touchscreen phones, and goddamn tweeting, those same issues seemed a hell of a lot less annoying back then.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Much to my disappointment, the word “reintardation” had already been added to Urban Dictionary not once, but four times, with each entry repeating the same crass definition: to be reborn as a hick. My own interpretation was far more nuanced, I’d like to think, when the word–a cross between “retardation” and “reincarnation”–came to mind today after reading about how the Dow took it on the chin. Again.
To me, the word means retreading ground at a noticeable disadvantage. Let me explain. After trading closed today, I didn’t even bother logging into my retirement account, for fear of beholding some truly ugly numbers. Certainly the changes I made last year weathered some of the storm, but by and large it felt like I’d just been at this exact place–money evaporated, a gnawing dread at the login screen. Didn’t we, like, put this rough patch behind us months ago? Or maybe we never truly left. It’s this feeling of “well, fuck.” Imagine a janitor being reincarnated as a urinal cake, or a cop coming back as a flak jacket.
About two years ago, I wondered what exactly the recession would mean, and here, months later, I can finally define it on my own terms. It’s being stuck. A struggle to get back to zero. For you, maybe this pertains more to your house or your job, rather than your portfolio, but the sentiment remains. And motion, a commodity I once believed to be so readily available for the taking, has become profoundly scarce.