I Have Monkeys In My Pants

Two weeks ago I injured my back. Nothing dramatic - probably just months of too much work, bad posture, and zero exercise. To date, here are the remedies I've tried and their results.

Hot Bath: Stay in tub until you start to feel too girly.

Amount of improvement: A small amount of releif. A large amount of pruning.

Vicodin Scored From A Friend: Broke pills in half to spread them out. Taken with best possible Dr. House impersonation.

Amount of improvement: Some, but temporary. Also, not good for driving. House impersonation improved somewhat.

Chiropractor: First appointment was just an interview. (What's up with that? Since when do you have to pay to be interviewed?) Second appointment involved a vibrator the size of a belt sander, some poking, and lasers. Actual lasers.

Amount of improvement: Hurt more that day. Felt a little better the next day, but much worse after 3 days.

Traditional Doctor: Took my pulse, said he felt bad for me, and sent me to a spinal expert. Also gave me a prescription for some pills that are supposed to reduce inflammation in my muscles.

Amount of improvement: None. And those pills did nothing for my House impersonation.

Spinal Expert: I went in to make an appointment in person. There was a sign that said "Please Tell Us If You Need To Lie Down." I considered it, but did opted against it. They kept me waiting for 15 minutes while the secretaries argued with each other. When they finally turned their attention to me, they said couldn't make me an appointment for two weeks.

Amount of improvement: None. Plus bonus frustration.

Neuromuscular Therapist: Poked me for an hour while we talked about our favorite television shows.

Amount of improvement: A little, but far from better.

Scotch: Single malt, 15 years or older. Used liberally, after work hours.

Amount of Improvement: Back? What back? Unfortunately, the effect is temporary. Plus it adds a headache the next day.

The winner so far? Scotch by a landslide. Also, it makes me irresistible to women.

My nephew Hugh is two years old. And, as the husband of the sister of his mother, it is my duty to impress him. I am determined to be the Cool Uncle.

Heather and I are in Chicago for a family visit. We're all gathered at a nice restaurant for dinner - Heather's sister Claire, Claire's husband Owen, and their two boys: Eamon, 6, and Hugh, 2. Dinner is lovely, and the paper tablecloth is gradually covered in spent tic-tac-toe grids, doodles, and food scraps.

I've noticed, in the short time I've spent with parents, that they basically do not eat when their kids do. They eat in the spare moments in between questions and/or tantrums, and then chow down on fast forward just before the staff comes to clear the dishes.

So I'm trying to do my part by distracting Hugh while the parents eat. I grab a pen and draw a dog on the table cloth. The same cartoon dog my dad used to draw for me. "Look, Hugh!" I say. "A dog!"

Hugh examines it closely, considers it, and requests a cat instead.

"Okay, sure." I say. And whip up a quick cat beside my cartoon dog.

Hugh examines them both for a while, and then says, in the amusing sing-song of a 2 year-old, "Could you draw another cat, except a little bigger and over here?"

I look at Claire. "He's kind of an art director," she says.

Art director, huh? I know how to deal with them. So I launch into my best high design speak. "You see, Hugh," I say, "what I'm trying to show here is that the idea of the cat really is smaller than the dog. In my experience, I've found that it's better to express the vision of reality, than reality itself. User testing shows that, while it might seem counterintuitive, the large dog problem isn't really a problem at all. In fact, the sheer brilliance of the artistic vision demonstrated on this paper tablecloth is only outshined by its user friendliness."

Hugh's eyes go glossy for a moment, and ever so slowly, a smile spreads across his face. I think I've design-babbled him into submission, but it turns out he was just coming up with the perfect retort.

"Mommy!" he shouts to Claire, "I made a poopy in my diapee!"

There's an old story. I don't know if it's true, but it goes like this. Penguins mate for life. And there's a moment when some boy penguin is looking over that infinite expanse of black and white when one female penguin stands out. And he stands out to her. And then, well, that's it. Of all the penguins, these two are now together for life.

A couple months ago, Heather and I went camping with some friends. One morning, we emerged from our tent, bleary eyed. There were a number of dogs camping with us, too, and one of them came trotting over to me, happy as can be.

And I did what I always do. I reached out with both hands and gave him a nice hello rub. Slowly, in my early morning haze, it occurred to me. Something smelled bad. Really bad. I looked down at the happy dog and something in his eyes said to me, "Yeah, I met a skunk. Kicked his ass."

I brought my hands to my face and gave them a good sniff. The smell was intense. Skunk smell is bad from afar. But up close, it's like pure essence of death.

And my first thought, of course, was: I've gotta share this with Heather!

"Hey, baby." I said, walking to her, arms outstretched. "Smell this!"

And as she was bent over, hands on her knees, gagging and on the verge of vomiting, I knew I'd found my penguin.

The first week of August 2006 was hot in NYC. The hottest it’s been since 1936. Cars overheated. Power went out. People even died. And Heather and I were visiting New York City together for the first time.

Wandering the city with my camera bag, I soon discovered that the tape was melting off my Holga and my huge digital SLR attracted unappreciative stares. It turns out NYC is a Lomo kinda town.

The Lomo LC-A is a tiny brick of Russian camera awesomeness. It’s quiet and unobtrusive. And since you can set the focus (such as it is) manually, it’s easy to just walk around and shoot from the hip. So that’s what I did.

And my camera found New York in a rare moment. A city of incredible diversity, united in sweat. From Chinatown to the Village to Coney Island, New Yorkers were out in the world, doing their jobs, making the best of it. By the time the rain started to fall and the heat began to fade, we felt a new bond with the people who call New York home.

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What is your current computer desktop image? Let's see it!

I whipped this up when I got my new Powerbook a few months ago and needed something new. The patterns came from somewhere online - I forget where. Feel free to grab it and use it if you like it.

The other day I found myself needing to contact a friend. This friend and I, we're both bleeding edge technology nerds, so it got me thinking about how many ways there are for people like us to contact each other, and what the unspoken rules of etiquette are for each one.

Here were the options, in order of most immediate to least.

Phone

These days, I answer the phone with, "Is everything okay?" The phone is so pressing, so overt, so immediate, the only socially appropriate reason to use it is if you're trapped in a fiery building or someone's in the hospital. The phone insists itself upon the user, annoying everyone within earshot, and has to be answered immediately to make the noise stop. A hateful experience for everyone involved.

Instant Messaging

It used to be safe to assume that IM was limited to the comfy confines of computers, but more and more cellphones have IM capabilities, so now you never know. Instant messaging is only slightly less intrusive than a phone call, but it's still expected that your respond in under a minute if you're there.

SMS / Text Message

The other day I sent a text message to my dad's RAZR, and I'm pretty sure he thought I was magic. He never did respond.

Lately, SMS is my preferred method of communication for, as its acronym implies, short messages. The technical limitations of SMS require brevity, so you never have to deal with those long, meandering voice messages. It makes the recipient's phone ring and/or vibrate, but usually less so than a phone call so it's less interruptive. And the message is immediate, so it doesn't require the recipient to do anything to get it (like call in to a voicemail service).

Plus it's basically okay to ignore it if you're busy. Unlike a phone call, it won't keep bugging the recipient to answer.

Voice Mail

So annoying. As the recipient, I have to call the phone company to get it, and that's never fun. And I have to remember which numbers do which commands. And even after all that, it's still not really expected that I respond in a timely manner, because unlike IM and Email which report an error to the sender, voice mail fails quietly, so the sender never knows when, or if, the message was received.

Email

Ah, email, my old friend. Remember when were were buds? Yeah, I miss those days, too.

Email is now dead to me. Of all the communication methods listed here, it's the most passive. You can leave a message whenever, and I can get it whenever, and I don't really have to reply in a timely manner.

But the spammers have ruined it for everyone. I have my email clamped down with a Spam Arrest whitelist and a Bayesian junk filter and spam still plagues my inbox. I still use email, and it's still my preferred method of communication for messages that are not immediate, but you almost always have to follow up any email with a message in another medium if it's important.

I still love you, Email. But it's just not working out. It's not you, it's me. (Actually, it is you, you big slut.)

So those were my options. What did I choose? Didn't matter. By the time I'd considered all my options, he contacted me. Viva technology!

Whether it was faulty settings, old film, the random photo on the last frame of film, or the last photo a camera ever took, issue 6 features some of the finest slip-ups, freak-outs, and happy accidents ever captured on film or pixels. We're also joined by featured photographer Rion Nakaya, who shares some of her favorite serendipitous moments, and Ryan Gallagher, to talk about camera tossing. Check it!

July 4th, 2002.

In TV shows, when a character grabs a cup of coffee in a to go cup, and pretends to drink it, and you can just tell it's stone cold empty. Look, I know I'm watching actors, on a set, behind cameras, etc. But if I'm gonna suspend my disbelief of all that, at least give those fuckers some real coffee.

I'm spiffing up for my sister's wedding this weekend. Here I am, fresh from Rari's salon chair. He's a miracle worker.

Rari says keep the beard. So does Heather. But I'm not sure. What do you guys think?