Yeah, But Two THOUSAND???

A couple days ago, I woke up to find nine hundred e-mails in my in box.

Yes.

Nine hundred.

There were five or six different subject lines, but each e-mail appeared to come from a separate e-mail address, and each e-mail address appeared to be associated with a fictitious name. Now, I did not open any, because I practice computer prophylaxis (I am careful about virii), but there they were. In my spam box.

When I got home from work, there were another eight hundred and fifty. Same half-dozen subject lines. By the end of the evening, I'd received another three hundred or so.

This is not the first time this has happened. A few weeks ago, I got two thousand e-mails a day for a period of three days. I am grateful for my spam box.

I suspect that the tactic is intended to catch those who will open JUST ONE of the e-mails to see why there are so many. But damn! Two thousand e-mails?

Made my incoming e-mail look like a Monty Python sketch: Spam, spam, spam, spam, e-mail from my dad, and spam. SPAMMITY SPAM, WONDERFUL SPAM!

Bloody Vikings.

She Had It Coming

I killed a woman Sunday night.

Granted, she was one of the characters in my screenplay, but it was still a gut-wrenching experience. In the end, I didn't actually show her death, since the conversation between the characters at her death-bed was the important part of the scene, but that didn't make it any easier.

In fact, not showing her death felt a little like I was holding something back. I don't pull my punches on the rest of the screenplay; it's not gritty or edgy, but its examination of some topical and sensitive issues will certainly draw criticism from the Religious Right and quite possibly from women's rights organizations. Some of it will be decidedly difficult to watch.

So, why did I hold back from showing her issuing that last, long sigh as she passed? As I wrote the scene, and the two characters at her bedside talk, it became apparent that I didn't need to. No matter how I tried to steer the scene in that direction, the characters' conversation wouldn't let me go there. The dialogue was good, powerful, meaningful stuff; it just didn't mesh with the moment of this woman's death. Suddenly, I was at the end of the scene, and she was still alive.

And I realized that I didn't need to show it. It may be more powerful because I don't show it. One moment on screen, she's alive but on life support. The next, her sister is putting her personal effects in a box.

I'm learning a great deal about story telling as I write this screenplay, and one of the most important lessons is that what you don't say, what you don't show, can be even more moving than what you do.

I had known all along, since the morning I first outlined this story, that this woman was going to die. Her death carries important lessons for all the other characters...lessons about how we connect with each other, lessons about hate and intolerance and ignorance, lessons about love.

From a purely storytelling standpoint, her passing came at the climax of the story, the point at which the film moves from the second act into the third. We're into the home stretch, now.

Still, when the moment came, it was painful, and I found myself grieving the loss. I sat in the dark for a while. I got up and poured myself a glass of Pinot Noir, then sat in the dark a while longer.

I'll be finished with the first draft by Sunday at the latest. After that, it's out to my readers, then back for rewrites and adjustments. I won't see her in quite the same way I did when I was writing the first two thirds of this first draft, though. I'll know where she's going, how she ends up. Our relationship won't be as innocent as it was.

I guess that's to be expected. After all, I did kill her.

Even if she did have it coming.

Open the iPod Bay Doors, Hal

As a gift to myself on my birthday, I bought an iPod Nano (red, for those of you who are both Apple-savvy and socially conscious). Because size matters, I bought the 8 Gigabyte Nano...and yes, that's an oxymoron. I'm not sure how you can call anything a "Nano" if it can potentially store FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS WORTH OF MUSIC.

In keeping with the Electronic Tradition of ThingsFailingToWorkRightOutOfTheBox, it took a while to get the thing installed. I didn't have to spend a whole lot of time troubleshooting; I downloaded the latest version of iTunes and everything worked.

And work it does. I am in love with this thing. Not only does it store and play back my music, and allow me to set my own playlists, it also sorts everything by artist, album, song title, genre, and composer. If I have more than one album by an artist I select on the Nano, I find that I can select all the songs by that artist, or the individual albums. Likewise, if I choose a compilation album, I'll see a menu of the artists whose music comprises the compilation. And it's all automated. All I have to do is load the thing, stick in the ear buds, and jam.

When I see those iPod commercials which feature people (or their shadows) dancing like spasmoidal hyper-lunatics whenever they hang the player's ear buds in their aural canals, I can so totally relate...no, that's not a descriptive enough term...I grok in fullness. Even now, as I write this, I can hardly refrain from tapping my toe to "Afraid To Dance" by Don Ross. Not only does the song kick ass, but so does the Nano.

Listening to music this way is ass-kicking squared.

When a device is this simple, I think it should kick this much ass. It should be this convenient. I shouldn't have to format the device, or program it a certain way to get it to work.

Ass-kicking aside, this much convenience makes me slightly uncomfortable, as though I need to know what I did to deserve it. Surely, I must have done something more substantial than capitalize the second letter of certain proper nouns. It doesn't help that, for such a very long time, I have openly smirked at people who professed their passion for iDevices.

It's the lower-case "i"; it seems to indicate possession, but with the normally capitalized first-person pronoun reduced to lower case, while the device's name is capitalized, is there some message of subjugation there? By owning one of these, is one submitting to the Will of Apple? And just what possesses who, if the "i" is attached to, and smaller than, the device's title?

I still smirk at the Apple iNotion (or perhaps it's an iCorporate iPhilosophy) that electronics are somehow vastly more powerful if they are plug-and-play-accessible to everyone. I've used Apple computers often over the years, and invariably ran up against the anti-immigration fence between what I needed the machine to do and what it would do*.

I show up at the computer store like Rodney Dangerfield, "Two of those, four of these, six boxes of the naked lady tees, and oh, my! That has to be the worst looking thing I've ever seen! Do you get a free bowl of soup with that computer? Oh, sorry! I looks good on you though!" Later on, if I see you around the electronics superstore, I'm likely to snort derisively and shout, "Hey, Whitey, where's your computer?"

I mean, am I the only one who hasn't missed the fact that the Mac computer spokesman is Justin Long, who has made a career out of playing Megadorks. Don't get me wrong: there is no one better at playing dorks than Justin is. Maybe that's the iMessage: "You own a computer, so you're already a dork. You should be the absolute best dork you can possibly be, and we can help you with that."

Let's face it, this little ass-kicking Nano is all the help anyone needs to be a complete dork. Or at least dance like one.

If you happen to be cruising around San Diego, I'll be the one rockin' out like Anthony Michael Hall in The Breakfast Club and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

*Key distinction: I said what it would do, not what it could do.

Random Thought on a Superficially Pretty Day

Is it even possible to grind your own coffee without thinking of stampeding cattle?

They Got Us Coming And Going

We didn't have to spend another night in the Denver International Airport, but our bags haven't made it to San Diego, yet.

As it happened, more than a dozen passengers on our flight from Denver were deposited here in San Diego without luggage.

Clearly, the baggage handling system in Denver is broken.

To be fair, I should probably not blame the baggage handling system in Denver, I should blame the airline: most likely, they failed to load our bags on the flight out of Casper because of the weight limitations of the turboprop we flew to Denver, opting instead to put them on the next flight. That flight arrived in Denver after our San Diego flight departed, so our luggage was left stranded until at least this morning.

The thing is, the flight out of Casper was a) not full and b) two hours late because of mechanical problems.

And that, gentle reader, points to incompetence.

Standing by the baggage claim turnstile last night, watching the dwindling and slowly circling collection of not-our-bags, I thought about how little tolerance I have for incompetence.

If I go into a restaurant that is uncrowded and still boasts of slow service, I'd rather leave and go stand in line or sit at a table in a busy-but-efficient place than wait for Chatty Cathy to finish flirting with her manager. Drivers who hold up traffic because they can't simultaneously make a directional decision and talk on their cell phone should consider themselves fortunate that their metal box insulates them from the invective I'd offer them if I thought it would make a difference. I'm too polite to shove past people who block an aisle or path instead of moving out of the way while they fumble with their belongings, but the day when I'm not that polite is coming.

These days, the most polite response one can expect when telling a retail clerk or service representative of a problem is a shrug: not my problem, they say.

Now that automated customer service is so prevalent, they're probably right, and there is often no one there who can offer a solution. For example, when I call my parents, the phone company in Casper will often route my phone call to a recording that says, "You have reached 307-XXX-XXXX. We can't come to the phone right now. Goodbye!" While my parents sat by the phone on Christmas Eve, waiting for updates from the girls and me, all I got was that stupid recording. They could call out to me, however. Last night, I got the same message when I called to let them know we'd arrived safely, and when I called Operator Assistance to see if we could break through, I got no answer. From AT&T. I did get a recording which said that if I stayed on the line, an operator would assist me. I stayed on the line and let it ring for more than five minutes, and got no one.

As it happened, I had nothing better to do...we were standing in line waiting for a taxi. The girl managing the airport cab stand understood customer service, and in between calls for more cabs, she'd walk the length of the line and apologize for the delay, saying that she understood people might have New Year's Eve parties to get to, and just generally being bright and pleasant. Not one person waiting registered a complaint.

The day after Christmas, I called the airline's lost baggage assistance line, and ran through the standard automated maze ostensibly designed to route calls to the customer service representative who might be best suited to help, and got a terminal recording: "All our customer service representatives are busy assisting other customers. Good bye!" After six tries, we just got in the car and made the half-hour drive to the airport to see about our luggage in person.

Last night, when the baggage representative told us to call the baggage claim number today, I'm proud to say that I was able to muster the enormous self-restraint it took not to snort in derision at her. She had, after all, arranged to send my younger daughter's bag to Phoenix, even though she'd be flying there on a competing airline. The woman had done all that she could within the limits of the system, and she'd been concerned, even if she wasn't overly pleasant.

Therein lies the problem, I think. There's a system, designed to appear efficient, but which is anything but. Companies go to great lengths to tell their customers that automation is there to allow them to provide better service, but the reality is that the automation is there to avoid having to employ people whose salaries might be put to better use bankrolling the wildly overpayed CEO. (The "retention bonus" paid by bankrupt United Airlines to its CEO in 2004 was equal to...get this...what a customer service representative at United can make in fifteen years working fifty hours a week.)

It doesn't take much to make a customer feel appreciated. When I brought my car in for service in November, the customer service representative with whom I had my appointment was with another customer, so another rep helped me right away. After doing all the paperwork and making sure I was comfortable in the lounge (with a capucchino), he briefed my service rep on what I wanted and what was being done to my car...and it was MY customer service rep....the one I had the appointment with...who came to update me on the status an hour later, and who gave me my keys and my paperwork when the car was finished. The runner who went to get my car asked if I wanted it washed or if I had some place pressing to be (it was a weekday morning), and when I opted not to have him wash the car, he told me to just drop by any time and the dealership would wash the car for me. Two days later, the dealership called me to ask if I was happy with how I was treated and what was done to my car, and if I had any ideas that might help them improve the quality of their service. A few days after that, the manufacturer called me to ask if I was happy with the dealership. Not once was I subjected to an automated customer service phone maze.

Most people I talk to think this kind of service is beyond any reasonable expectation, but I disagree. It doesn't cost anything to be polite, and though it may take a few more minutes to ask, "Is there anything else I can do for you today?" and then actually do it, that sort of treatment builds customer loyalty and actually makes money for the company. Think about it: I spent more than a thousand dollars to fly to Casper. The two hours it took to make sure I was happy on Christmas Eve cost the company two hours' pay for the representative, and a couple meal vouchers...some $31 in total. The airline rep who dropped what she was doing to let me into the baggage room in Casper the day after Christmas took perhaps fifteen minutes out of her day, at a cost to the company of a whopping $2.25. Had I not been so abysmally treated by other employees of that airline, that $33.25 investment might have guaranteed thousands of dollars revenue, simply by creating a loyal customer.

It's unfortunate for the airline that the ticket-crusher I wrote about in my prevous post doesn't understand that. Nor do the baggage handlers and maintenance techs who can't be bothered with doing the job right. There will always be customers who are unreasonable and insulting, as was the woman I met in Denver who was wearing a full-length ermine coat. She was upset that the airline had brought her to Denver at all, since her flight was bound for Aspen. It had diverted for mechanical problems...flaps that would not fully deploy, which meant that the minimum landing distance for the airplane was greater than the length of the runway in Aspen. When she stopped her ranting for a moment, I said, "Well, better to spend Christmas Eve in the wrong airport than to spend it strewn all over the woods near the right one." She blinked at me twice and barked, "I have a home in Aspen." When she approached an airline employee, she said, "I'm looking for someone with enough intelligence to..." The guy smirked as he listened, no doubt wishing for the sudden appearance of a PETA crusader armed with a bucket of blood.

I think it was the film "Kelly's Heroes" which introduced the pseudo-Latin phrase, Illigitimati non carborundum: Don't let the bastards grind you down. Human nature being what it is, this slogan ought to be the defacto motto for anyone who deals with customers in any way, shape, or form. Unpleasantness on the part of people who haven't gotten what they paid for should never be an excuse for bad service.

When I was on my first ship, I had a chief who would inspect my work, and if he found it lacking, he'd say, "There's never time to do it right the first time, but there's always time to do it again." His words came back to me years later, when I was the chief, because the price of failing to do the job right the first time was often too high to contemplate.

I don't think that my military service has made me unreasonable in my expectations. Rather, it instilled in me a sense of how little difference in effort there is between doing the minimum and doing one's best, between getting in people's way and taking others into consideration.

I'll wrap this up now. Our baggage should have been on the ground in San Diego for seven hours now, and I still haven't heard a word.

Next year? I'm driving.

I Wish I Had a River

I called my sister on Thursday for the latest news about Clara, who was in the hospital last week, undergoing treatment for infantile spasm. The news was good, that the steroid treatment seems to be working, though we've seen this twice before...she'll start on a new medication, her seizures will disappear for a week, only to return in a week with greater intensity. Each medication is purported to be effective for 50% of those it's given to - so this being the third, and last, available treatment option, perhaps the Law of Averages will work in her favor. My sister is hopeful; I am not sure I have room for more disappointment.

What's been astonishing to me is how acutely I feel each piece of news about my niece, though perhaps it's my sister's pain that most deeply affects me. She and I have always had a special bond, but I am only just beginning to understand what motivated her to be so powerfully supportive during and after my divorce.

I seem to be feeling everything much more intensely lately. A cheesy Lifetime movie ended with me streaming tears this afternoon; what's more, I'd seen it before. Music can make me misty-eyed, if you'll excuse the alliteration. It doesn't even have to have lyrics: W.G. Snuffy Walden's rendition of "The First Noel" snuck up on me a little while ago, and Mozart's Overture from La Nozze di Figaro before that.

It must be because it's coming on Christmas, and they are indeed cutting down trees. They're putting up reindeer.

The other night, I took Heidi Christmas shopping. I had thought to let her go do her thing for a while while I knocked out my gift-hunting for her, but a phone call from an old friend kept me from getting much done. The call kept me on the outside of the Christmas rush for the evening, and I'm grateful for that opportunity. I honestly think everyone should set aside one evening during the busy season to simply sit and watch.

I guess that's how I've been feeling this Holiday season: on the outside, looking in.

I am hungry for something, and I know what it is, but like a kid looking up at a cookie jar on a high shelf, it's out of my reach.

When I get like this, I have a tendency to walk around in circles and cast off the things I have that I enjoy for want of the thing I don't have that I crave. Scott Peck would have said that I lack the ability to defer gratification.

It's not that I lack that ability, it's that I often choose the easier path, the one in which I don't have to exercise it.

I wish I had a river that I could skate away on.

Soundtrack

Inside my head, there is a large chorus singing in a minor key, with thematic counterpoints from cellos and violins.

I woke this morning to the call of the fog horns on San Diego Bay. Next to the sound of a lover's sigh as she snuggles against me and tries to hang on to the last vestiges of sleep, fog horns are my favorite thing to wake up to. They remind me of summers in Maine, of when I was young and the world had not shown me any of her crueler jokes.

I had a meeting this morning, out of the office and across the Coronado Bridge, just past my favorite part of San Diego: the beach in front of the red-roofed Hotel Del Coronado. I'd been asked to give a fifteen minute presentation, and the drive would be forty minutes there and back.

The sky was dark and low, especially out over the bay, where the clouds came right down to the water.

Given my mood, this was a welcome change from the perpetual sunshine we've been given for more than a week. The fog rolling in late yesterday afternoon, sweeping across the sea and pouring up the hillside below my office, gave us the first clouds we'd seen since Tuesday last. I'm not sure if the clouds were a precursor to my mood, or if the billowing vapor was manifested by my discontent.

Cresting the overpass on Pacific Highway, where the view of the airport and downtown is always best, the sun broke through the overcast for a moment, and I knew that neither the overcast nor my mood would last. This, too, shall pass, as my boss is fond of saying.

But what if I don't want the mood to pass? What if I don't want blue skies and warmth and sunshine? What if I just want an excuse to retreat a while, to hunker down under the covers to hold in warmth and ward off the daylight?

I don't want to spend today in the real world.

I don't want to spend the day in a world where selfish people act as though the rest of us should be okay with their erratic, cell-phone-impaired driving.

I don't want to spend the day in a world where babies have infantile spasms, and impaired cognitive development, and symptoms of autism.

I don't want the winter of my discontent to be made glorious summer by this sun of San Diego.

Just for a day, I want my world to be about biplanes with wires that sing in ninety mile winds and smell of gasoline and oil and leather, set to playful music on a single classical guitar.

Just for a day, I want my world to be about the softness of a loving woman's touch and the perfect eagerness of her kiss, set to Harry Connick or Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra, or simply to the beat of my heart.