I’ve had this lingering cold, but my soul is satisfied. Two weeks of satisfied. Three weeks of cold. maybe more than three weeks.

But there is happiness in my life.

Hello, happy, my old friend.

Women complain a lot about how men feel entitled. That the guy gets to have his way, that HIS voice in the meeting is the one to be heard.

I know that men tend to state things rather than reference things. Women I know will say ” I heard a news story about a huge pile of trash in the ocean that no one will clean up.” Men will usually say “There is a big pile of trash in the ocean.”

Women feel like we have to back up what we say, because it’s not enough that we say it. Men will just assert it. It can come across as arrogant.

I sometimes try to do this in my job, because it seems that arrogance pays. I dont’ know if it does or not.

But men often say that women are entitled. Men say it long and loud how women are x, y, z entitled.

It is hard for me to see. It’s hard for anybody to see the back of their head that way. Boy oh boy, men don’t like it when women call them entitled. Women don’t like it either.

I heard this fascinating interview with a person, born female, who underwent a sex change operation. He described the changes, and one of the things she had to trainsition into as a man was different conversational style. He said as a man, that he had to learn to realize that he didn’t get to ramble on in conversations the way a woman might. He missed it. He said “but I’m so fascinating!” in a self-mocking way.

I wonder. Men do complain about women rambling on. And we can, it’s true. Do we feel entitled to tell our stories in the detail we want?

I’m not sure. Maybe.

It is very hard to know what it’s like from the other side. There are a number of greek myths that talk about going from one to the other, man and woman.

I know I wish that the men in my life understood and appreciated how amazing–ingenius and preseverent–I am. It seems taken for granted. Hm.

This piece made me think about it.

And this:

This is where he is supposed to have an epiphany of how amazing I am and what a hard week it has been for me…

Only he doesn’t.

only he doesn’t. It doesnt’ seem to matter which “he” i’m talking about either.

There are times when I hear “good job” or “thank you.”  It does happen. But the context and emphasis is insufficient.

Yes, it has come back to gold stars. Proper appreciation, Proper respect.

I feel very entitled to that. So much so that it can kinda ruin my day if I don’t get them.

It is very seldom that I get them. What on earth makes me think I am entitled? Not experience, that’s for sure

Most of you know I”ve been looking very hard for a new job. The search has not been successful, in that i don’t have a new position yet. But it has been very rewarding in many ways I didn’t expect.

I was listening to an interview with the animator for a bunch of grown-up comedy cartoons. He talked about how he had not done so well in school, but at one point, he met a guy.  A guy who talked to him and hooked him up to become a professional animator.

And when he met the guy, he never looked back. The interviewer was asking if he had any doubts about the value of animation.  But this guy, Loren Bouchard, said he knew that this was his chance. He knew that animation was his chance and this was what he better get really good at it and stay good at whatever it was.

That is exactly how I felt about my career in videoconferencing. When I got the internship, I knew that this was my chance. I had nothing nothing nothing going on. The best I could have expected was a long slog through state college at the most ordinary and unmarketable major–ENGLISH–and get in line with all the other ordinary-at-best people who graduated, but I’d have student loans.

But I got this chance. And I took it. I did not attend the state university I had been accepted to. I took a scary risk and went to find a job. And once I found it I dove into it, because this was my chance.

I was so hungry and desperate then. I didn’t have anything going on.  And this showed up. I had to grab on and never let it go.

And, to be fair, it took me pretty far.  I should remember. It was my big break, as tired of it as I am now.

Sometimes that sort of thing happens. It takes awareness, I think. To know that

so today was pretty great. I was worn out most of the weekend (staying out late does have consequences)

But I ate very healthy, and had a productive (TOTALLY NOT THE NORM) workday.

It was a good day.

I shall not give up on my ambition. But maybe i can take a half day on the ambition.

preachers told this story, it was like a joke i’d heard so many times. I don’t know where the all got it from, or whether it is true.

THe story is that the way to trap a monkey is to drill a hole in a coconut just the size of a monkey hand, and then put a rock in the coconut.

THe monkey will put its little hand in the coconut, grab the rock and then pull their hand out. THing is thought, when they are holding that rock their fist is too large to get out of the hole.

they will not let go of their wonderful surprise and the hunters will catch them

What is the risk and what is the reward?

Veronica is at the stage where she is beginning to understand the difference between boys and girls. She understands pretty well, to be clear.

I was asking her about it. “Is Veronica a boy?”

“NO! silly mommy”

“Is Veronica a girl?”

“Yes.”

“Is daddy a boy?”

“No, he’ s bigger.”

Astute. “Is mommy a girl?”

“no…”

“No? What is mommy?”

“Mommy is a princess”

Mutual princess recognition.

This is election season – don’t forget to vote! – there seems to be a lot of talk about the middle class. The middle class is getting crushed.

Made me think a bit about the middle class. I started talking with the internet about it, and up pops this term:

Middlebrow

Since I am an aspiring artist, this is my area. Middlebrow is a sometimes derogatory term for culture. It lives somewhere between lowbrow and highbrow. It’s very middleclass. Which might be a way of further defining this interesting term.

Middlebrow culture would be restaurants with waitstaff–known as a sit-down restaurant. And certain TV shows. NPR would be middlebrow.

Perhaps NPR would be upper-middlebrow. Enjoyed by the middlebrow middleclass who might be wanting to better themselves.

Wanting to better oneself is the upward mobility of the brow. There has been a lot of interest in the Book of the Month club that was started in 1926, to feed this culturally aspiring need. People wanted to read a good book, one that made them a little smarter and a little better. And they wanted it to be good, so they went to a trusted source.

There are cultural events that gain this status: Movies, music, books and even live theater. Awards are part of this, the grammies and the nobel prize spotlight certain things of interest. We want the good stuff, and we want to be sure. Certain categories are intrisically higher brow than others: live theater trumps movies and the symphony is better than a CD.

I myself am engaging in a highly middlebrow endeavor right now. I am trying to finish James Joyce’s Ulysses, a darling of the literary laurel-givers for almost a hundred years. It’s a beast of a book. I’ve been wanting to read it for forever, and I cant exactly say I am enjoying it. But I will be better, somehow, for doing it.

I have help. I have a recorded lecture from the teaching company which is a fascinating professor explaining all the delights I have just read and am about to read. I love his voice, and his excitement. He is so sure of what he says; he is the expert. But I want to hear it!

It is as if he is saying, “Come! Join me at the table in this delicious and satisfying feast of knowledge.”

And with that thought freshly formulated, there was a click. Now I understand what has been bothering me about the middlebrow. Let me tell you a story to explain what I mean.

Smack in the middle of middle is this relatively recent establishment known as Starbucks. There are not too many americans who have not frequented a starbucks. And it’s not for their great value prices. It has comfortable chairs and cool hip music. Intesting art is on the walls. It invites conversation, contemplation and study.Starbucks is a coffee shop, and it presents itself as part of the great coffeeshop diaspora.

And many people wear that ambiance like a fuzzy blanket. I also know people who understand the mystique of the coffee shop, with a memory of artists and bohemians who would partake in nights of small dense cups of coffee and think revolutionary thoughts in conversation.

Here is the thing: Starbucks in not that kind of coffeeshop. It may be comfortable, but it is not revolutionary. You may find dense cups of coffee (how often does a true cup of black espresso get ordered, though?) but you will not find revolutionary thoughts. You will not find a painting by an unknown artist on the wall, and you will not find an open mike night at a starbucks.

And this is the essence of Starbucks middlebrow success. It is filtered.

My Ulysses professor invites me to enjoy this delicious book. He gives me a place at the table.

But he does not invite me to cook. He is not in the slightest interested in my concoction.

And that is the definition of the middlebrow. It is curated. And that is the problem.

Starbucks is fine for what it is. But it is not such a feat to please someone with a hazelnut latte. And it should not surprise anyone to hear that I am beginning to enjoy Joyce’s Ulyesses.

But where is the wellspring of the new? The distinctive, challenging and revolutionary?

If I am going to get an epiphany I am going to have to look further than the span of my brow.

Back in 1997 or 8…we had an internet to build. I had come to silicon valley in 1995 and one of the biggest thrills of my life was to see the Netscape N in real life outside their headquarters. it was as if the people who made things  had come off the tops of the faraway planet where the superheroes live. I realized that human beings worked hard and made this stuff.

THe internet was a magical castle that everyone was working on, and making up exactly the way we all wanted.

We hoped that it would take off. We all said it *had* to take off.

We were so excited when URLs appeared on billboards. This was the era of geocities and flashing color hightlights. the “under construction” icon was seen almost everywhere.

I had a half of an idea to start a business of my own. Four of us were going to offer to make websites for small businesses. It failed. for numerous reasons, but i did make a lot of cold calls askign small businesses what they might pay for such a service.

It grew. THe internet got as big as we thought it would, and maybe even better.

When I drive on the 10 free way to West LA there is graffitti on one of the overpasses.

It’s been there for more than a year. It’s a URL. a Uniform Resource Locator as a spray-painted bit of tag under an overpass.

I can hardly credit it.

I was watching a documentary about Carole King and James Taylor. The Troubadour and folk music came into it. THe voice over said that after the craziness of the 60s people were ready to calm down.

And I thought about the 60s, because i grew up in the after eddies of it. And I remember the 70s. I was born in them, but the people I grew up around were still living the 70s.

In the 1960s they were so proud of what they had done. They say they stopped a war, and ran a bad president out of the white house.

I didn’t follow that part of the 60s. I followed the part where the landed on the moon. I got together with my friends and worked on technology. Me and my freinds–my computer freinds, email friends–we worked and made the internet. The dot coms exploded and then imploded. But what we built went on, and it’s still changing the world.

We didn’t stop a war. But maybe we are a little tired after the nineties…I wonder what music was supposed to pick us up?

I feel like I built something.

I think the 60s activists feel like they built something too. Or maybe they feel like they stopped something from being built.

What’s our legacy? What’s our anthology?