Exposed Houses

In an effort to update the house my Mom moved into a few decades ago, the siding is being redone. This is not a complicated process: take off old siding, put on new siding. Of all the things that can be done to a house, this is probably one of the least complicated.

That said, it is really becoming quite an issue in my life.

My Mom smartly hired outside help to do the siding, Champion Windows and Siding (if you need a referral, please let me know). That is, after all, what champions would do: hire Champion to repair your house. The first thing that the contractors did was strip my house of it's siding and backer-board (the Styrofoam padding between the plywood of the house and the siding). At one point, I wandered outside to see how the work was progressing, and there was my house, exposed to the elements, it's siding strewn about the yard.

It was hard not to feel an tinge of embarrassment looking at my naked house. There were spots were the plywood had rotted from weather damage. Some mold damage blackening other spots, generally near where the rotted sections were. Insulating spewing from the vents that lead to the attic and washer/dryer. It was like accompanying my sister to a gynecological exam: I knew all of this stuff existed underneath the siding, but I would rather not have that theory quantified in front of me (and the neighborhood, for that matter). Thankfully, the workers were quick, and within a few hours, the rotted pieces were replaced, the vents were covered, and the whole house was wrapped in a moisture resistant layer of Tyvek.

Besides exposing my house and all it's physicality to the neighborhood, the contractors are required to sporadically bang on my house with hammers. Obviously, many hands make light work, so there are at least three hammers at any given time going to town on the house. For a fun experiment, put your head in a hamper and then pound on it with a shoe. That's sort of what it's like. The walls are rattling constantly, requiring my Mom and I to go around the house and take all the pictures off outside walls. In the hamper experiment, though, there is one important difference: you know when the blows are about to happen. There is no discernible pattern to the workers hammering (the they use actual hammers, so each individual hammer stroke is different). The lack of a pattern makes sense - what with all the up and down ladders.

This starts every morning around 7:30. Now, anyone who knows me (or most of the Lannon family for that matter) knows that the morning is not the best time to engage me in any manner. I tend to be one of two things: 1) really amiable just to get whatever is happening to stop so I can return to sleep (I lived with a girl who abused this horribly, getting me to take out the trash, move the car, and walk the dog); 2) really grouchy and testy. Because there is nothing I can half-assedly do to make the banging stop, I imagine I am leaning toward the second one.

But upsetting my sleeping patterns is not the only problem with having the siding people around the house. The main problem is that they are up on ladders near all the windows.

I woke up the other day and the house was unusually dark. My Mom likes to keep all the shades and curtains pulled tight when the weather turns hot so that the house stays cooler (ostensibly, this is to save on running the air conditioner, but because the house is so dark we have to run all the lights; in the end, I imagine it balances out). Recently, though, my Mom has taken to sitting in the corner of the living room where no one can easily see what she is doing.

I thought this was crazy until this morning when I was sitting in the family room, still in my pajamas at 11:30, watching The Colbert Report. Suddenly, I was really anxious wondering what the workers might think if they caught sight of me eating cookies and watching television in the middle of the weekday. I quickly turned off the TV and started reading.

Then, I started to worry that the workers would start to judge my taste in literature. At the moment, I am reading Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klosterman. Catherine, a friend of mine from high school, and I have recently been talking about writing non-fiction, and it got me thinking that I hadn't read any for a little bit. Anyone familiar with Klosterman's work knows that it is basically the ramblings of a pop culture critic who has seen too many movies, read too many books and listens to too many CDs. He also has an ease with drugs, and writing about his use of said drugs. I was worried that the workers might notice this and assume I was some pretentious snob that would rather listen to The Postal Service and discuss the merits of PBR than do an honest day's work. I could have read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code but I don't want the workers to think that I am a slave to popular literature or that I found that type of writing engaging. I wanted something that said I was intelligent, but not pedantic, like Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao or Jennifer Egan's My Life with the Goon Squad. So I did what any rational person would do in this instance: work out.

I was really athletic in high school (another thing that talking with Catherine made me realize has dropped from my life almost entirely), and I used to be able to run long distances at better than average speeds. If pressed, though, I would pick track over cross-country as my favorite sport, and the one I was better at. Cross-country was nice, in that it kept me in shape and gave me a community to belong to, but I really don't have it in me to run miles and miles without complaining. The rational part of my brain realizes that I could drive the same distance much more efficiently. Or walk it, if a car weren't available, and still reach the same result. Running seems to be one of those things that needs to be done in emergency situations only.

Despite this recent change in demeanor, I found myself compelled to use the treadmill that collects dust in the family room. I returned to The Colbert Report, and undertook a thirty minute (or so) walk-run routine. Exercise, I thought to myself, ain't nothing strange about a man running on a treadmill in the middle of the afternoon. Or rather, running on a treadmill makes me less of a loser than sitting in my pajamas mid-day, watching TV and eating cookies.

Or did it? As I cooled down from my impromptu exercise program, I was suddenly worried that maybe it sent the wrong message. Who runs inside on treadmills? Am I the sort of person who is so distant from the working class that I have to run inside on expensive machinery when the world is free to run on? Was my workout suggesting that I was an elitist? I jumped off the treadmill and tried to both make use of the kettle bells and the Ab Circle (my Mom's house is something of a museum for exercise equipment), but neither I felt portrayed the "salt of the earth" sentiment that I wanted to suggest.

I decided the best thing to do was show these judgmental day laborers that I was contributing to society. I was going to take a shower and then get to work editing a document that I need to have submitted by tomorrow. See, I would say with my actions, I am TOTALLY like you.

Unfortunately, the workers by this point had scaled to the part of the house where the bathroom window is, and had, no doubt, begun making judgments about my choice of shampoo and body wash (Shampoo and conditioner in one, eh? Too lazy to use two bottles. Or, Suave Professionals? Is he too good for the regular Suave?). There was no way I could possibly take a shower with these people on the other side of the window, no matter how nontransparent the shower curtain is.

At the time of posting this, I am sitting in my room, away from the prying eyes of these contractors who, probably, have not noticed anything about my tastes in literature, movies or music, and who have more to worry about then what all of these choices say about me. In fact, unless I make my presence known, these workers are more interested in the outside of the house, rather than the two people knocking about inside of it.

That said, I have yet to shower.

Relearning and Redoing

Remember a while back, there were a series of ads that suggested a person could relearn how to perform certain activities without cigarettes that are associated with cigarettes, like driving and drinking coffee. Though these ads seemed to associate smoking with intelligence (that is, when you stop smoking, you forget how to do common every day things like driving or drinking a beverage; in fact, the effects of quitting are so crippling to one's mental capacity, that said quitter needs to relearn, like someone waking from a coma, how to do easy things), the point is worth examining: activities associated with other activities seem off when done solo.

Today was my sister's garage sale. I was not looking forward to it for a few reasons: 1) all forecasts suggested dangerous heat in and around the city. Some weather people suggested that it might get as high as 100, with humidity making it feeler even more uncomfortable than a temperature nearly high enough to slowly cook beans. In the end, it got to 72. As one of my friends said on Facebook, "I wish I had that margin of error at my job."

2) Garage sales are not really populated by awesome people. There are two agendas at odds here: I want to sell my crap; they want a good deal on things that are between gently and heavily used. For my sister, she fits into a nice little niche: little kids clothing. Anyone who has had kids knows the inherent problem with clothes other paraphernalia, like high chairs, bouncers, car seats, etc.: children grow out of things quickly so that shirts, pants, jackets, seat, and so forth are only good for a short period of time - a time much shorter than the life of the product. That is, a high chair is perfectly usable for many years after your kid can no longer sit in it. After a while, there is a pile of perfectly good clothing and kids gear that sits washed and folded in a bucket in the garage. Enter the garage sale. It gives my sister a chance to unload some of her goods while it gives new parents a chance to buy clothes and gear at discount prices.

Unfortunately, the value I put on goods is generally higher than the value the buyer places on the same goods. Thus, the negotiation. I hate haggling over prices, but I also hate taking home a TV that is taking up space in my Mom's basement. That said, I also like getting money for stuff I have lying around not making money. So I have to quickly balance the price I place on an item with the price offered and the potential price I could get. Generally, I tend to push the multiple item discount. Buy two things, and I'll cut the price on the two. This way we both win: I get money for my goods and said goods leave the sale; the buyer feels like he or she has gotten a deal. Win/win.

3) The third reason brings me back to the beginning of this entry: last year, Erika and I contributed some of her old belongings to help earn some walking around money for the summer. He manned the sale together, and it was a good time. I enjoyed myself. It felt weird manning this years garage sale, which like last year was overcast and sparsely attended, by myself.

Let me take a minute to describe a recent dream I had:

While waiting for an elevator in a large balcony decorated in a shiny, contemporary glass and chrome way, I struggled to arrange a large number of shopping bags. These bags were like those fancy bags you get at boutiques: odd shaped and strange colored with ribbons and braided strings for handles. I was really worried that when the elevator got there, I wouldn't be able to get on, and hoped that when it arrived it was empty. It arrived, and true to my concerns, I couldn't get all my bags onto the elevator easily. The doors opened and there was a really attractive woman on her way down. I wanted to get onto that elevator with the woman, but I was also worried about my bags. There was no way to take the elevator and get all my bags on at the same time. The woman, who had a British accent and looked not unlike Emily Blunt, keep urging me to leave the bags behind and get on the elevator.

That was when I woke up.

It's weird being in Chicago, or rather Bolingbrook, and doing things I did last year, but this time without a fiancee. I keep looking around and saying to myself, "Last year, Erika and I did this," or "I remember when Erika and I did this." And so on. Sometimes, it's not too big a problem; sometimes, it really sucks to be reminded of the really good times I remember from last summer. I haven't been able to bring myself to go into the city, though I'd really like visit some of my favorite comic stores.

But, in light of my dream, I realize I have to move on. If I want to get on elevator with the beautiful, accented woman I need to drop my baggage and just get on with my life. After all, there are only so many elevators, and not all of them will come with beautiful women.

On the Unrecognized Aspects of Our Parents

I've been helping my Mom clean out some of my Dad's belongings this summer. It will be four years since his passing and every day there are more things found to deal with: to shred, to file, to store, to destroy, etc. etc.

As I was cleaning out a box that was full of miscellaneous paperwork in desperate need of filing, I ran across an envelop addressed to my Dad from the American College of Surgeons, dated 1967. There is a myth about how my Dad, as a young construction worker, fell on a pipe and was nearly killed, but because my Dad never talked about it, the story always seemed surreal. When I opened the envelop to see what was to be done with the contents, the reality of my Dad's story was visible in a picture taken by the Fire Department of Chicago.

In the picture, a younger version of my Dad (who looks a lot like my brother Kevin and I) lays on a stretcher, his faced wrenched in pain. He was surrounded by a lot of concerned looking officials and one guy smoking a cigar (which dated the picture, as no one these days would smoke a cigar around a bleeding neck wound). There, centered in the picture, is a pipe protruding from my Dad's neck, piercing his bloodied shirt - the pipe that was never really talked about, but clearly existed. My first though: Shit. My Dad's a badass.

With the picture was the March and April, 1967 edition of the Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons, Vol. 52. This issued dealt with ambulances and trauma, and featured a small write-up on my Dad in the section titled, "What's New in Trauma in Your Area?" Here are the first two paragraphs:

Keep the Wound Plugged. Just two months after Chicago Fire Department ambulance drivers were instructed in the technique of handling a person who has been impaled they were summoned to give first aid to a construction worker with a reinforcing rod through his neck, and take him to the hospital. A tuckpointer, the man had fallen 16 feet onto the rod.

As instructed in the annual course given by the Chicago Committee on Trauma for those who are first to see the injured, the firemen left the rod in the tuckpointer's neck. With an acetylene torch the protruding part of the rod was cut off a given number of inches from the man's body, and he was gently transported to St. Luke-Presbyterian Hospital where doctors removed the rest of the rod. He recovered, returned to work, and is now in college.

It goes on to say that the procedure done in the hospital was to be used as an example in future courses taught on the subject of impalement.

My Dad had a lot of admirable qualities. He was a hard working, loyal man who cared a lot for his family - both his brothers and sisters, and his own children. Finding this picture and the clinical, emotionless retelling of the events added a lot of shading to the picture I had drawn of my Dad. He, evidently, was the type of man who could take a pipe to the neck - a pipe THROUGH the neck - in stride, not letting a near death experience detract from his work, school or family. Hell, if that had happened to me, I would have had turned completely inward, seeing life through some sort of pseudo-religious lens. I would have talked about the wonderment of fate, and questioned what my role in life was.

I have had three "serious" injuries in my life: I tore my hamstring in my junior year of high school (a class two tear, the size and depth of the average pinky finger) while running track; and I dislocated the second knuckle on my right index finger, fracturing the joint - this happened while playing pick-up basketball as a sophomore in college; my forehead exploded when I bumped it against another man's forehead at a Flogging Molly concert. When I tore my hamstring, six weeks of electro-therapy fused the muscle back together; and while I never regained the spring in my jump, I walk just fine now. In college, my finger was bound for a few weeks, a bone fragment fell out some six to eight weeks later, and then was fine. I had five stitched put in my forehead, which left a now mostly faded scar.

I like telling the stories of these injuries because they make me feel athletic and, at times, a little tough. I mean, I took a blow to the head that required the concert venue to close down while they mopped up the floor; the in-house doctor said he could see my skull. That's tough, right?

In light of my Dad's injury, documented by a major medical bulletin, which he never talked about and was only made obvious by a thick scar that sometimes was seen above the collar of his shirt, I find two things are true: 1) I now don't feel so tough; 2) I have more respect for my Dad who lived his entire life like he never had a pipe pushed through his neck. Regardless of the reason why, that he never talked about it speaks volumes about how my Dad lived his life: he bore his problems and hurtles with a quiet resolve to continue moving in his life, focused on what was more important. [Note: later in his life, diagnosed with a terminal, muscular degenerative disease, my Dad would rarely complain about his lot in life, working until he could no longer physically make it to the building (and even then fielding phone calls). In light of the neck injury, this makes a lot more sense.]

And finally, I miss my Dad quite a bit now. There were times I really fought with my Dad who did not really understand me. It sucks that now, almost four years after he's gone, I'm finally starting to put together a picture of the man. I wish he were here now so we could talk about how badass he is.

The Art of Wearing T-Shirts

Comic-Con, like most of you would assume, is packed full of nerds. Despite the fact that the convention has been drawing a less nerdish crowd, and despite the fact that comic books in general have been gaining cool people credibility, the majority of people who read comics are generally more concerned with knowing the minutiae of fictional worlds featuring a surprising number of super powered people than they do about social conventions, like showering and the art of conversation that does not revolve around the question of who could beat whom in a fight.

I know that all of you who see me a suave, globe-trotting academic will find this surprising, but these are my people (and for those of you who know me, you can stop laughing now). Take for example, my high school obsession with The Simpsons. I came into adulthood with The Simpsons, both of us maturing and growing old together - both of us fading from relevance at about the same time (and I know that they are still making new episodes, but really...when was the last time The Simpsons mattered?). This was also the time that The Simpsons were really popular, appearing on Fox at least three times a day. I knew everything about that show, could quote most episode from beginning couch gag to end credits, and would have endless discussions about the cultural relevance of each episode. I once dated a girl that said I quote Simpsons episodes like Catholics quote the Bible.

Because the show was so much my life, I tend to own quite a lot of Simpsons paraphernalia: Simpsons Chess, Simpsons Clue, several releases of Simpson toys, Simpsons ties, Simpsons boxers, etc. etc. I owned all The Simpsons episodes released on VHS, and up to Season 5 on DVD (I was really bothered by the DVD packaging on Season 6 because it does not match the rest of my collection; Homer's head was not at all like the neat, cardboard packaging that I was used to, nor did it fit on the shelf as nicely; and I can't buy the seasons out of order - that would be crazy). I owned and read all The Simpson encyclopedias that detail all the episodes. My friends and I used to have Simpson's parties where we would watch hours of The Simpsons; this was in the age before DVD players, and before they appeared sporadically on VHS, so I would bootleg the episodes off the TV. Armed with boxes of VHS tapes, we would watch, quote and discuss the afternoon away. Hell, I wrote a paper on how The Simpsons comment on American masculinity, and I have been crafting a cultural theory class around the show.

So, I can really appreciate the crowd at Comic-Con. I get waiting in line for hours to see your heroes. There was certainly a time when I would have waited hours to meet Dan Castellanetta or Hank Azaria.

One thing that I like best about Comic-Con are the t-shirts. I am a man that likes t-shirts. If ever you are thinking you would like to buy me something that I would 1) appreciate, 2) love, and 3) get a lot of use out of, then find a clever t-shirt (such as those found at Snoorg or TopatoCo [especially those at TopatoCo for the webcomics I like]).

But, as any one who has studied rhetoric can tell you, there is more to a t-shirt selection than one might imagine, especially when the t-shirt features so prominently in your cultural group (here, read: comic nerds). The key is: you want to show this community that you belong, that you speak it's language and share it's interest; while at the same time, you want this inclusion to seem natural and unforced. In other words, as anyone who has seen PCU knows, you never wear the shirt of the band you are going to see (I looked for the clip where Jeremy Piven said that line, but it wasn't on YouTube; I thought this clip was relevant). In this case, when going to hear about comic books, I find it overkill to wear comic book t-shirts (though I do own several). So, to show that I am part of this community, I need to pick my garb carefully. In fact, I am nearly as worried about what t-shirts I am going to bring with me as I am about the talk I am giving at the conference.

So what I am left to do now is rifle through my closet stuffed with t-shirts making esoteric references to associated nerd things like video games (like my shirt that has a huge, ultra-green Triforce of Power emblazoned on it), and cartoon shows (like my Aqua Teen Hunger Force or Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law shirts); or t-shirts that are clever (like the t-shirt I have with a Venn diagram on it, the consonants in one circle, the vowels in the other, and "y" in the intersection).

It might seem like I am making a lot out of very little, that the clothes one wears couldn't possibly matter that much, but think about going on an interview: the clothing choices made speak a lot about the individual. Wearing a tie could say that you are a professional person, or could suggest that you are stodgy. If a woman wears pants to an interview it could say that she is a modern woman dressed to be taken seriously, or it could suggest a lack of femininity that may or may not be true. This convention is like an interview for me. Here is where I will meet with other academics and publishers who take this stuff very seriously. If I show up looking like I've never read a comicbook, or am distant from that culture, I might not be taken a seriously as if I show up wearing a shirt that features a large dinosaur in a mortar board, clutching several large books with the words "THESAURUS" blasted across the bottom.

International Banking

I opened a TCF after college, seduced by the 7 - 7, 7 days a week availability and free checking. It was nice having a bank branch in every Jewel, which, for a while, was on almost every corner of Bolingbrook. I've stuck with them through a lot of their trouble (they had a run of identity thefts due to lack of account security, and their customer service is historically atrocious). Their free checking and convenience was more important to me than nice people on the phone.

Now, though, the ugly head of the TCF monster has turned it's gaze on me.

The first to go was the free checking. One would think that, having had an account that was built on free checking, I would be grandfathered in as they changed from free checking to heavily fined for going below a certain dollar amount checking. That was not the case. Unceremoniously, I was told that I could either have my account type changed, or I could bank with someone else. I am smarter with my finances now, so it didn't bother me that I could no longer empty my account to zero and leave it that way for several months without a charge.

Now, though, they have added a straw, breaking my proverbial camel's back: overseas ATM fees.

Anyone who has done any banking internationally knows that a certain percentage of the money transferred or withdrawn will be pulled from your account. TCF charges 3%. My account was riddled with $.26 fees as I withdrew money at the end of the year, having drained my British account. I expected that, and wasn't too upset.

What was a little more disconcerting was a sudden $90 fee for using the overseas ATMs. In America, we are used to ATM fees, sometimes getting as costly as $2.50 when in a congested, or heavily used area. In Britain, ATM fee are like albino sheep: everyone has seen one and know they exist, but most of your life is spent without ever seeing one. I can think of one ATM that charges, and it's just outside the Inn on the Pier. In fact, when I use my American ATM card at the UK ATM, it is quick to remind me that they won't charge me a fee, but my American account would. And they did: not only did they charge a 3% fee, they also charged me a flat fee of $5. 5$: every ATM transaction, every time.

Here, though, is where I decided I needed to pull my account. I called TCF looking for an explanation (they explained to me what I explained above for the first time, despite asking before I left if there was going to be much of an issue; I would put an extra $5 per withdraw as a pretty big issue), and the woman acted very concerned. Her advice: just take out as much as I feel comfortable carrying every time, and to avoid just running back and forth between the ATM. Ah...good. Thanks for explaining to me, slowly and in great detail, what would be common-sensical to anyone with half a brain.

In short: I need a new bank account. There are rumors that some banks have agreements with UK banks, allowing me to pull from, say HSBC ATMs without accruing withdraw fees. Or maybe I just put everything in my British bank account and use that for the few months I am here. Any suggestions from people more familiar with both banking systems would be greatly appreciated.

The Art of Flying

I have criss-crossed the Atlantic now eight times now since going to Aberystwyth. I don't want to suggest that I am by any means an expert in flying, but I have learned a lot since I piled into Ohare Airport a year and a half ago.

Here's the first thing that I learned: I don't need as much as I thought I would while on the plane. My first time across the Atlantic, I packed three novels and four comic trade paperbacks. I think, by the end of it, I read one comic and half of a novel. The thing is: an eight hour flight sounds like a daunting task, particularly when you put in a plane change, as I tend to have. Honestly, though, that time is not empty time.

For example, when I saw that I would have a two hour layover in Frankfurt, I imagined needing to fill two hours. Truthfully, it took me about an hour to get from one terminal to another, which included two trips through security. By the end of it, I think I had about twenty minutes to fill at the terminal, and I spent most of that making sure I had made it to the correct terminal.

On the plane, of course, there is a lot of time. On average, my flights take about seven and a half hours from Heathrow to Chicago (a little more if I fly from Zurich or Frankfurt, but not too terribly much; less if I can snag a direct flight from Birmingham, but again, not by much). Most flights, though, punctuate your journey with food and snack services. I find that just shy of two hours of my journey is filled with eating and drinking. Then, the first twenty minutes and the last twenty minutes are spent taking off and landing, during which time I sit completely upright with no electronic items in use. Likewise, all my overhead gear needs to be stored, so I a really stuck to a book. I don't know about you all, but I have trouble focusing on much when the plane is banking and turning, engines full bore. Once in the air, the flight crew starts with the snacks. Then, at least on international flights, the movies start.

A brief aside about movies: I see a lot of movies. At home, I am lucky enough to have access to a pass which lets my Mom see as many movies as she wants for free, and take two other people with her. My Mom and I tend to see about four or five movies a week, and then I'll rent from the Redbox or watch on Netflix another two or three movies. All in all, there is not a lot that I haven't seen. In the old days, airplanes used to get movies that were recent, but not particularly new. For instance, when I fly to London for New Years Eve in 2006, I had seen all the movies I was interested in and the ones I was left with were movies I never wanted to see. This past few trips, though, the movies have been pretty recent. For example, on one trip, I saw Never Let Me Go, a Kiera Knightly movie (sorry Lizzie) that was actually pretty good. The thing was, it had not been released yet in the UK. This past trip I saw No Strings Attached,Rango, and Unknown, three movies I missed at the theatre, but which had not been released on DVD yet. In my eight trips across the ocean, there has not been a single trip where there wasn't at least two movies that I wanted to see.

Now, I will say this: some flights are better about their movies than others. For example, United and Delta just run the movies, so you have to be on the channel when it starts to see the whole thing. American will start the movie, and then start it again about ten minutes later, so you have a few opportunities to catch it. Swiss Air is probably the greatest of them all, offering each passenger complete control. Each seat comes with an on-demand remote that allows you to choose the movies; pause, rewind or start whenever you choose; and offers a range of languages and subtitling. The Gold Standard for in-flight movies has to be Swiss Air.

Between the movies, the food, take off and landing, I was really left with little idle time. And honestly, the crew tries to push you to fall asleep as soon as dinner has been served. The plane is usually dark, and the crew asks that all the blinds be closed. Because most people are watching movies, not many of the overhead lights are switched on. The darkness and the white noise of the engine usually gets me to drift off for a bit.

With each successive trip, I have found that I can pack less and less in my carryon. This past trip, I packed my laptop (obviously), two novels and a comic book. Had I been able to get to the airport without a five hour train journey (no movies or food there) and without a night at the hotel alone, I may not have even packed that much.

Despite getting better at the carryon luggage, my checked bag continues to be an issue. It helps that I can store some things overseas, but I still feel that I need to bring most of my life with me when I come home for the summer. In all honestly, I probably don't.

Last summer, I checked two bags, both of which exceeded the weight limit. One bag was so heavy, I needed to unpack some of it and add it to my carryon. I brought half my comic collection and a ton of criticism books, expecting that I would spend the summer writing my dissertation. This summer, I realized the folly in that thinking, and only packed the novels I'd finished reading through the year (and wanted to leave here in America with the rest of my collection), one criticism book that is germane to the one chapter I want to get written, and the book I need for my presentation at Comic Con.

One thing that I still struggle with, though, is clothing. Here, I have found a genius solution that creates as many problems as it causes: vacuum bags. These packing bags allow me to pull all the air out of the bag, which collapses things like clothing and bedding (which I leave in Aberystwyth) to a much smaller size. In this way, I can bag two bags worth of stuff into one suitcase. Seems great, right?

Unfortunately, packing all that stuff into a smaller size reduces the size of the clothing, and increases it's weight. Fitting two t-shirts into the space of one makes that same space two t-shirts heavy. In this way, my suitcase becomes nearly twice as heavy as it should be. I have yet to pack my suitcase in such a way that it does not exceed the weight limit.

My problem is the length of time that I am going for. On short trips, like this one I am currently on in New York, I pack exactly what I need with little extra clothing. However, for four months, time in which I might not know what I will need to do, it's hard to know what to pack. I have a wedding to attend, a presentation to give, two vacations to take, etc. etc. If I hang out with just my friends, then I won't need too much more than a few button up shirts and a boat load of t-shirts. But if I end up going out like I did last year, I need a lot more fancy clothing. With all this time, it's hard to know what I am going to need.

The problem here is that over-weight bag charges are more expensive that extra bag charges. A smarter man would figure out how to get the same amount of stuff into more, lighter bags. Because I am by myself, though, I tend to need free hands. As I see it, fewer bags are more important than lighter bags. What I need to realize, to get the bags down to the minimum number, and have these bags meet weight limits, is that I don't need as much stuff as I think.

There is this scene from Up in the Air where George Clooney's Alex is showing Natalie Keener's Anna that she doesn't need all the baggage that she brings. He throws away the pillow that she's packed, the enormous winter coat she has and so on. He eventually pares her down to what can fit in a carryon.

The more I travel, the more I realize that Alex might have it right. I think I value my possessions to greatly. I pack almost every t-shirt I own (around 40 or so) and a dozen or so other shirts (button ups, polos, et. al.). I pack a lot of socks, which really, I don't need. I was trying to think about why I have such anxiety over getting rid of my things and I settled on one conclusion: ownership.

I don't have a house. I don't even have an apartment. My stuff is in two different storage units across two continents. My things, my books and clothes and what not, that is the only stuff of mine that I have. Having things is a sign of having a place in the world, and since I don't have a place in the world, I feel like I need to bring my stuff with me everywhere. Literally load up all my baggage and drag it across the country with me to show the world that I do exist. What I need to do is realize there is more to being a person than just having things. Once I can feel secure with myself, separate from my things, then I can get down to one bag, one carryon, and all of it meeting the maximum bag weight.

Cause for Celebration

I woke up this morning to an email from my Mom saying that Osama Bin Laden had been caught and killed. Immediately, I opened Yahoo to see what the news would be. I watched President Obama's address, and found it to be poignant and moving. I thought he did a good job, touching on how this was a long sought after act of justice, but that America needs to remain vigilant as Bin Laden's death is going to create some backlash. Hopefully, though, as al-Qaida loses popularity among Muslims, this branch of organized terrorism will start to die down. The flip side, that by killing Bin Laden America has galvanized the extremist, is another equally likely possibility. Again, though, as Obama hinted in his address, Bin Laden's death feels like closure - closure the Nation badly wanted and has been denied over the last ten years.

But, that's not on what this entry is really going to focus. My Mom also raised a question: "I wonder what the British make of this." The small survey of British people that I know (and one Polish woman) all seemed rather indifferent. The biggest tell would be the front page of Yahoo.co.uk.

Because it makes finding my Fantasy teams easier, I have Yahoo set to the Extra Freedom edition (aka Yahoo.com). When I went seeking more information, partly convinced my Mom had been duped by some sort of Internet hoax, I was greeted with this:

Generally, Yahoo has a series of stories, ranging from hard news to entertainment journalism (yesterday, for instance, I learned that Indian scientist had reintroduced giant tortoises to an island off their coast to help the plant life survive, particularly the ebony tree). This morning, though, the story was fixed: "Osama Bin Laden is Dead." This was later softened throughout the day as fervor wore down, and messages were reconsidered. All the headlines lead to more information on Bin Laden, his death, and America's reaction: "Death Comes for the Master Terrorist: Bin Laden's twisted path" and "How the U.S. Finally Got Him." The message was clear: America has done something major here. Something worth celebrating. The main image is of celebrating Americans, mostly young people waving flags and clamoring outside the White House.

How, then, did the British Yahoo decide to handle the news? This is the screen capture from Yahoo.co.uk this morning:

This story was run like any other major headline. This looks like what Yahoo any other day would look like. There are four stories to scroll through, some hard news (such as the story of Bin Laden's death) and others are lighter stories (like movies actors have decided to disown certain movies [I'm looking at you Harrison Ford and the last Indiana Jones movie] and the soccer goals from yesterday's matches). Interestingly, in the top ten trending topics, there is no mention of Bin Laden, al-Qaida or President Obama's address. Instead, British Yahoo searchers were more concerned with William and Kate, and David and Victoria Beckham. Even the story of Bin Laden's death focuses on the facts of the situation: a major player in a terrorist organization was killed by the US military. There are no pictures of celebrating Americans. There are no American flags emblazoned across the screen. By 10:00 PM BST, the story of Bin Laden's death was relegated to the third page of stories, and spun as a cause of concern among British Homeland Security personnel. It was sandwiched between a story about foods to boost your brain power and how bees held up a soccer match by nesting in a goal.

I also find it interesting how no other countries involved in the military actions in Afghanistan want any part of this. Even the Pakistanis, who have a lot to lose in foreign relations with the Afghani, are only remotely mentioned. All stories, from America and abroad, clearly pin this action to America.

It could be that the British just don't understand the catharsis that immediately washed over Americans when the news broke. Or, it could be that the British are looking to distance themselves from the celebrations, going as far as to bury news about it. From the British standpoint, I can understand if that is the impetus: if there is going to be a backlash, I wouldn't want to be associated with the target. By sticking to the situation itself, not showing how the situation has been interpreted, the British news seems less antagonistic to angry Bin Laden followers.

But, like most Americans, I wanted blood. I've never condoned going to war in my life, but as soon as a face was attached to the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, I wanted vengeance in a way that makes me uncomfortable. Honestly, had I been in Chicago, I might have joined in the revelry.

3000 miles away, though, distanced both by time and location from the main celebration, I'm afforded a different vantage point on the picture that graced Yahoo for most of the day. Remember after the September 11th attacks, when news was scarce, the 24 hour news outlets showed pictures of certain countries rejoicing? Pictures of people celebrating the loss of American lives - I remember how viscerally angry that made me. I understand that Bin Laden was anything but innocent, and he got what he deserved in the end; while those who lost their lives in the attacks were innocent, having done nothing wrong other than go to work that day. Clearly those celebrating the attack on 9/11 were celebrating something atrocious while America was celebrating justice. Obviously, the two situations are different, but I am not sure people outside of America see this as a reason for celebration. And I know that people who are sympathetic to Bin Laden's cause are going to see pictures of these celebrations as cause for recourse (much in the way that Americans saw the celebrations and flag burnings after 9/11 as reason to bomb a country to rubble).

Again, though, I was pretty happy when I heard the news; I'll admit it. As I noted earlier, I watched the President's address, and then went to collect something for breakfast. I ran into my housemate Bernie in the kitchen, and he hadn't even heard the news at this point in the day (which was later than most people eat breakfast, I'll say...and leave it at that). He didn't immediately express his happiness hearing the news, and this was confusing. I expected him to congratulate me for what my country has done, shaking the hand of a citizen of a great nation that just did a great thing. Instead he said, "Wasn't he old when the terrorist attacks happened? So he must be really old now. Your government just killed a really old, possibly dying man. Is that a good thing?"

The subtext to this argument raises questions about the value of killing Bin Laden. By some accounts, he was not a well man, physically. Some believe it's likely that he wouldn't have lasted much longer as it is. I guess only time will tell if killing Bin Laden was worth it. If there are major offensive strikes against America by a rejuvenated terrorist cell that has atrophied in recent years, then maybe it was a mistake to kill him. If this puts the killing blow to terrorist thinking that America is soft or an easy target, then it was certainly worth it. If this is the act that brings a divided America together, healing wounds that have been festering for the last ten years, then I am elated that it went down as it did.

As for how to handle the news, in the end, I am torn. I am really happy to see the face of the 9/11 terrorist attacks put down like the rabid animal he was. But I also understand the need for some tact here. In an effort to not further poke the anemic bear of terrorism, it might be best if America kept the celebrations quiet and dignified, to try our best not to sound overly confident or arrogant.

Remember when France lost to Italy in the 2006 World Cup Final? If you are in America, maybe only vaguely. In that game, French soccer legend Zinedine Zidane had scored the first goal, and the Italians answered. With ten minutes left in the game, the Italians were playing well, and feeling cocky. One of the strikers said something to Zidane as they trotted up field. After briefly walking away, Zidane turned and headbutted the Italian striker in the chest. It was violent, and it tarnished his run at the World Cup that year. In the end, though, Zidane was unapologetic to Marco Materazzi. He was willing to sacrifice the game, his reputation and France's chance at returning to glory all because of something the Italian had said to him. There's a lesson to be learned by everyone here, and Zidane sums it up pretty well in the linked article above:

Asked what had caused to react so violently, he said Materazzi had directed some "very hard words" at him.

"You hear them once and you try to move away. But then you hear them twice, and then a third time," said Zidane.

"I am a man and some words are harder to hear than actions. I would rather have taken a blow to the face than hear that."

Sometimes the actions aren't the catalyst; sometimes it what's said afterwards that inspires violence. America needs to choose her words carefully from this point forward.