Musings About Chicago Diners

The first time I went to Deluxe Diner, I was impressed. It had received some bad reviews, so I didn't set my expectations too high. What I found was a classic Chicago diner with great diner food. Rather than having bad service, I had a perky, young waitress that was very on top of things. It quickly became a regular haunt.

Over time, the food remained the same, but the service wavered. We started going every weekend. One of our waiters was good, and for awhile he was always there, but that became less predictable. The perky waitress from our first visit began to seem moody and unhappy. For example, one time, she hastily doused my french toast with powdered sugar and slammed it on my table--not because I had said anything to offend her but because her replacement was ten minutes late and she was pissed that she had to stay late. We heard her blow up at some co-workers as well. On another occasion, she waited on us and was again cheerful and helpful. She did forget one of the items from my husband's order. It was a small item, so he didn't say anything. When it showed up on the bill, though, he pointed out that he hadn't received it. She fixed it, although she was very expressive in her frustration.

The next time we went in there, she was gone. We don't know if she quit or was fired, but we have not seen her since. We met her replacement, who was a nice enough fellow. He seemed very on top of things. We enjoyed our meal and the tip reflected that, as it generally does. That same day, I noticed that there were no women working. I went in to use the bathroom. It was...disgusting...as in, toilets used with no water in the toilet, stuff building up over what looked like a long span of time...type of disgusting. After throwing up in my mouth a little bit, I wondered if perhaps none of the males went on bathroom clean-up duty in the women's bathroom.

After that it was a few weeks before we went back. Initially, I thought, well, if that is what the bathroom is like, what is the kitchen like? Plus, the visual was hard to shake. I began to rationalize it, thinking, well, maybe it was a timing issue, maybe it was a bad day, I don't know that the kitchen is in bad shape and think about how many times I've eaten at Chicago diners only for them to get shut down by the health department. I've never heard of this place getting shut down by the health department, so it must be okay. Really, though, I just liked that it was close by and had good french toast. So, first, I went back but waited to use the bathroom until I was out of there. The time after that, I saw two waitresses, so I braved it (it appeared to be clean).

Yesterday, we were going to go, but it was unusually busy with techno blaring, so my husband and I decided to go elsewhere. We wanted to get our Deluxe fix, so we went by today. We had the same waiter that had been so nice when he first started there. Our order was taken promptly. Then, we waited. And waited. And waited. I looked over at the food pick-up area periodically. Mostly, he was back there hanging out. He never stopped by, never said anything to us about our food coming. My husband, usually more patient than I am on these matters (or is it less neurotic than I am? A little from Column A, a little from Column B?) also started to look antsy. Whenever we looked, though, our waiter wasn't doing anything and never came near our table. (There were two servers working and it wasn't particularly busy in there. It wasn't quite a lull, but was about five minutes away from being one.) Finally, the manager came by and asked if we were waiting on food. He went over to our waiter. A few minutes later, the manager came back and said our food would be right out. Five minutes later, the waiter came by and said, "it will just be a few more minutes." I asked very matter-of-factly if he'd forgotten to place our order. (A reasonable question, since it was going on forty minutes for a basic breakfast order, and neither my husband's order nor mine had come up in that time.) He denied that, but copped a bit of an attitude, and argued about why it shouldn't be a problem, before storming off. A more appropriate way to handle it would probably have been to ask me if I'd like to speak to a manager.


I looked on Yelp later. Over the past month, other people have complained about their orders being forgotten for long stretches of time until they reminded the server, only for the food to then be hastily prepared. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same server. When I see things like this happen, I always wonder if it's a problem with morale at that place or if it's a problem with youth and inexperience. This might be another "A little from Column A and a little from Column B" scenario. I do think that there are a lot of younger, less experienced servers but that might also be a by-product of it being an unpleasant place to work, since more seasoned servers would quickly move on to greener pastures. The less experienced servers probably stick around with the intention of building up experience, until the place starts to make them a little bit crazy. I'm not sure if it's a case of management greatly overworking the servers or if it's a case of there just not being a lot of money to be made due to all of the college students in the area. After all, the tipping system only works if most customers abide by it (See this guide to tipping). Whatever the case, there's something wrong there that makes the waitstaff become really reactive after awhile. I can't say I'll never go back (I really like their french toast) but I think we're going to take a break until at least the spring to try out some other places. Once I do, it will probably only be an occasional thing and not our default regular breakfast place.

Acrimony and Facebook

I'm not really the "go along to get along" type. I've always been someone that is passionately opinionated and, if I feel strongly, can be quite vocal about my views. As a teenager, my mom thought I should become an environmental lawyer due to both my strong convictions and my predilection for arguing. Still, I generally think there are certain rules that apply. You don't attack the person, nor do you attack whole groups of people/entire sets of beliefs. For example, suppose you oppose a certain practice (or practices) within the Catholic church. It's okay to critique these practices. It's not okay, however, to do a global trashing of Catholicism...and if you happen to be debating the subject with someone that is Catholic, you never, ever bash on them personally for believing what they do. This principle encompasses a wide range of things, from politics to differences in aesthetic judgment. Formulate a good but civil argument if you feel strongly about something. You can point out flaws in the argument, as long as it doesn't deteriorate into attacking the person. If you can't approach the person in the discussion with respect, that's a red flag that this is not a discussion you should be engaging in.

Still, I've noticed these basic rules of respectful engagement seem to be going out the window, particularly on Facebook. I guess it all started a couple of years ago. When Occupy Wall Street happened, it hit Facebook full force. People (for, against and somewhere in-between) were sharing news articles and photographs. Facebook had become political. This continued to build and seemed to really peak around the time of the election. News reports of mass unfriendings were all the rage. Everyone was talking politics on Facebook and people were dumping friends and relatives as a result.

People have always argued on the internet, but Facebook has been unique for two reasons (1)the boundaries between real life and the internet are more permeable than they have ever been and (2)American society* has entered a new era of intolerance. A decade ago, if a disagreement online got ugly, you had the advantage (in many cases) of the person being a user name and icon and little else. These days, though, the person insulting you may be someone you've known for years. They could be a co-worker. You could realize that the old college roommate thinks everyone with your spiritual beliefs(Christianity, Paganism, Atheism, etc) is morally and/or intellectually flawed. You can't not take it personally. There's no telling yourself that HotBabe39859394 is really probably a forty year old guy that works at 7-11 and lives in his mom's basement. This is someone that you've grabbed drinks with and talked about life with, and suddenly,they seem willing to trash this whole history because of a status update or shared link or blog post. Or you're ready to trash the whole history because you can't quite convince yourself that the insults they've heaped on you are based on this difference of opinion alone.

It may very well be the case that it really is just because of this one difference of opinion. If you follow the politics of the US, we have become very marginalized. Different viewpoints are no longer even tolerated. Whether those viewpoints are related to politics, art, music or spiritual beliefs doesn't matter. We've become very factionalized and the idea that you can value the person while respectfully disagreeing seems to have flown out the window. In a social situation, if it seems to be getting volatile, one might find a way to sidestep the discussion. On Facebook, though, others' opinions are up in your face pretty much constantly, both in terms of their posts and their responses to your posts. It has become a way for a factionalized culture to bring the conflict front and center.

I would never unfriend someone from Facebook because of their beliefs, although I would unfriend them if they persisted in disrespectful behavior. I'd let them know that they were crossing the line first and give them a chance to chill out, of course, but if they just ignored my concerns then I'd feel justified in removing them. To me, this only makes sense. If someone came over my house and started personally insulting me, spiritual beliefs or social skills they would be unlikely to be invited back. I see no reason why social media should be any different.



*My focus for this blog post is restricted to American society since that's my frame of reference. I'm not trying to overlook Facebook users from other countries, I just don't feel qualified to offer an analysis of social media in other cultures.

Amy's Guide to Like Button Etiquette

As we all no doubt know by now, some time ago Facebook gave us the option to "like" posts. First this was just on the posts themselves. Then, it was added to comments. At first, I thought this was great. I could just "like" a post if I found it cool/amusing/interesting but had nothing specific to say. If someone posted on my status update and I wanted to show I appreciated that they took the time to comment but couldn't think of a clever response, I could just click the "like" button. With the passage of time, however, the "like" button has become increasingly annoying to me. It has started to seem gratuitous.

So, today, I got the idea to come up with a list. A list of Facebook "Like" button etiquette. I don't claim to speak for everyone, I don't claim to be presenting a social norm. Rather, I present you with how, in my own inner Utopia, the Facebook "like" button would be used.

1. If you'd like to congratulate someone, please use the "like" button.

So, someone you kinda sorta know has a new job/spouse/house/locale/career aspiration/creative pursuit. They want to share their latest milestone. You see it. They have 57 likes. You, however, don't know them well enough to be privy to the finer details. So, you leave a comment asking some question or other about this new thing in their life. Within minutes after you do, though, ten people feel the need to, rather than like the post, type "CONGRATS!!!!!" which means that you now have ten notifications, and your phone is going crazy. What do you do? Do you just grit your teeth and endure or do you unsubscribe to that post? If you unsubscribe to the post, though, you won't get to read your friend's response. All of this could be solved if people would just use the "like" button. Trust me, the OP will understand that "like" translates into "congrats" and you won't run the risk of annoying other commenters needlessly.

2. "Like" means "I like this" not "I read this."


Only "Like" a post if you actually like the post. For the love of God, if your old high school friend makes a distraught post that says something along the lines of "I was raped at the company Christmas party and now I need to have an abortion so I don't give birth to that Bastard's demon seed" do not, I repeat, do not hit the "like" button! You can leave a comment. Say, "Oh my God, are you okay?" or "You are pressing charges, right?" or "let me know if you need to talk." Because, while everyone will probably understand your intent, they will no doubt realize that by clicking the "like" button, it could be interpreted as saying that you actually think your friend's severe trauma is a good thing. I'm pretty sure you don't want that.

3. You can "like" a reply to your post, but again, you probably should only do so if you actually like it.

A "like," as I've said, is a nice way to deal with those times when you either can't think of a response or the comment is a stand-alone where a response would come across as forced. However, if you actively dislike the comment, then you probably shouldn't click "like." For example, if someone comments with a difference of opinion (say you just made a political post with an accompanying link to a news article) don't click "like" just because you're afraid of getting in an argument. Unless you're notoriously malleable in your opinions, it will be rather obvious that you're just trying to avoid a debate. If you really don't want to discuss it, just ignore the comment entirely.


4.It's not necessary to click "like" on replies to your replies.

Again, just "like" it if you really did find it cool/amusing/clever/etc. If you commented initially, then the other person replied to your reply, it's okay to let the discussion drop. Let's not play a 21st century version of "Who can hang up first*," okay?

5. Don't click "Like" just to end a protracted dispute.

This is related to some of the above points, but I thought it deserved its own category. Sometimes, stuff gets out of hand on Facebook. For example, once, I briefly had someone on my friends list that added me after seeing a few posts in another discussion. The person wasn't on any of the other sites I use more (LJ, Twitter) where I often disclose more than I do on FB but, in a short span of time, she started telling me all about who I was as a person. The comments were very flattering. This is particularly ironic since those that know me well know how much I hate being told "who I am" by people that don't know much about me...especially when it's positive feedback that I consider to be inaccurate. Anyhow, at first I tried to correct the person but when it persisted, I finally had to be firm in pointing out how untrue it was.** She then "liked" the comment. I thought this was, well, weird, because I knew she couldn't possibly "like" what I had said. Sure enough, the next day, she sent me a message explaining she was unfriending me. If you're "liking" comments that bother you enough to unfriend people later, then you're probably too conciliatory.

In summary: the like button is for, well, when you like something. It's especially useful when you like something and where a "like" can communicate that sentiment more readily than a comment. It is not, however, for circumstances where you don't actually like something nor is it to simply say "I read this."



*The game some of us played as kids, before we learned to use the phone properly, where both parties said "'bye" incessantly until someone finally hung up.


**In this case, it was done in the context of trying to convince me to make a major life decision that was something I had, many years before, vowed never to do. It didn't help that the personality attributes she cited were traits that I'm acutely aware of lacking. So, the bluntness was part irritation and part a desire to curb expectations that I knew I couldn't live up to.

Why I'm Boycotting E-Books and Why You Should too

As you can see from the title, I'm advocating boycotting E-books. It's been a long time since I've told anyone that they should boycott anything. A couple of decades in fact. So why do I think you should boycott e-books? Romantic notions of the physical structure and the history of the book? A desire to preserve something I can touch, flip with my fingers and smell? No. While I admit all of those are why I love non-digital books, I can also appreciate the beauty of a well done digital collection. Besides, I'm not a big fan of imposing my judgments of taste on others. No, this is something much more serious.

In a recent article called Your E-Book is Reading You, Alexandra Alter alerted the public to one particularly insidious aspect of the e-book: that your data is being collected with every e-book you download and read. By this, I don't mean they simply track what you buy, but what you read. They know if you read the introduction or don't, they know what your favorite passage is, they know if you finish the book or if you don't. They track how quickly you read the book. All of this is collected to determine just how popular a book is and has broad ramifications for publishing, civil rights and personal privacy. Alter explains,

Amazon can identify which passages of digital books are popular with readers, and shares some of this data publicly on its website through features such as its "most highlighted passages" list. Readers digitally "highlight" selections using a button on the Kindle; they can also opt to see the lines commonly highlighted by other readers as they read a book. Amazon aggregates these selections to see what gets underlined the most. Topping the list is the line from the "Hunger Games" trilogy. It is followed by the opening sentence of "Pride and Prejudice."

The problem with this is two-fold. First, there is simply the sense of one's privacy being invaded. If you're one of the many people who have become weary of sites like Facebook using basic information about you--who you know, where you met them, where your photos are taken and where you went for your anniversary dinner--to sell so that they might better market to you, this will take it to a whole new level all the while making you pay for the privilege. I know for myself, one of my favorite things to do with a book is underline and make notes in the margins. At the same time, I don't mean this to be for public consumption. I remember one time, I wanted to loan a friend a book on the enneagram. I had made a number of notes and underlined sections that I thought described me. This was more personal information than I wanted to share with my colleague, so I went out and bought another copy of the book to loan to him. It became my loaner copy for anyone else that I happened to meet who wanted to learn more about the subject. However, if I didn't want my colleague, a very accepting and easy going Taoist who had lived an interesting and varied life, to know this about me how much less would I want that information shared with Amazon? If forced to read an e-book, I would likely stop underlining passages altogether and just keep a private, hand written journal in which I could write down quotes and reflections on the material.

There's a bigger problem, though. The problem is that this data is being used not just to market what someone might like but to potentially control what is written as well.

"The bigger trend we're trying to unearth is where are those drop-offs in certain kinds of books, and what can we do with publishers to prevent that?" Mr. Hilt says. "If we can help authors create even better books than they create today, it's a win for everybody."

The problem there, though, is that it then shapes the market. Right now, those types of editorial decisions may be very loosely shaped by trends ("teen horror is really in right now, let's sign on more horror writers!") and general stylistic concerns. Cutting may be as much a subjective choice based on the editor's individual experience and whatever aesthetic sense they may (or may not) bring to the table. However, once you incorporate numbers based thinking, you start tossing all deeper considerations out the window. The numbers become facts and these "facts" dictate reality. If data says that readers really like a certain line in a book, the author then may be pressured to write lines like that in. Yet, the immediacy of data is a problem. Sometimes the most significant works, the ones that have most stood the test of time, had only a modest degree of responsiveness among readers when they were first published. The truly visionary writer may, in fact, yield less promising data than someone who will enjoy brief success but make little long-term impact on literature. I support Galassi on this point when he's quoted as saying,

Others worry that a data-driven approach could hinder the kinds of creative risks that produce great literature. "The thing about a book is that it can be eccentric, it can be the length it needs to be, and that is something the reader shouldn't have anything to do with," says Jonathan Galassi, president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. "We're not going to shorten 'War and Peace' because someone didn't finish it."

Additionally, what happens to the book with modest, but not sweeping, success under this model? Many of us have the experience of becoming obsessed with a television show which, while not mainstream, has a huge cult following. We are all too familiar with realizing that, no matter how much we love something, if the numbers don't rank it as highly as the latest reality show, we're SOL. Do we really want the same thing to happen to our books? What if those readers of literary fiction, works which rank a much slower read time than popular novels, suddenly find publishing companies slashing the amount of titles they'll publish in that category because, while there may be modest success in sales, they still don't seem to "grab" people as much as the latest made-into-a-tv-series title?

Finally, the most distressing is the legal ramifications. It's a thin line between information gathered for marketing purposes and information collected by the government to spy on its citizens. However, as Alter points out, the ACLU is on that and some states have already begun to put some restrictions in. Still, one may recall when the Patriot Act first came into existence, librarians were having to stand up against the government en masse in order to protect their patrons' privacy. Laws in place may help, but we've all seen that laws protecting individual rights are seldom set in stone, and all the provisions in the world won't stop that should so-called "exigent circumstances" arise. Do you trust Amazon to stand up for our rights should such a scenario occur? I do not.

My stance as a reader? I will buy print for as long as I'm able to. And as a writer? Well, I may just need to take up playwriting after all.

On Navigating the Entry Level Gap

There's been a lot of publicity lately about the plight of college grads. At the same time, albeit less publicized, have been the gripes of employers complaining about the difficulty finding decent hires for entry level positions. In addition to reading about these gripes online, I've had the privilege of discussing the problem with people who are in a position to hire recent college graduates. This, combined with my own experience in the workforce (I didn't do undergrad until after thirty) and my experience teaching undergraduates, has given me a unique perspective. I wanted, therefore, to give some advice for students who are in college now about how to best navigate the workforce upon graduation.

1. Think of a degree in terms of minimum qualifications

Some people have described, rather cynically, undergraduates as seeing a degree as their "passport to the middle class." I think that, more often, it is seen as a backstage pass. This is not really the students' fault. More often, it's the fault of university administrators that seek to profit off of those dreams and increase student retention by giving a rose colored view of their prospects. However, a degree is just the starting point, it's what you need to make the first cut, so to speak. In that sense, it is very much like a passport. Think about it like this: imagine that you want to take a trip to Italy. You know that you need to get your passport to get in. There's so much more you need to do to have the type of trip that you want to have: picking the right hotel, finding the best places to eat, tours to go on, art museums to visit, bars to hang out in and so forth. In many respects, the quality of your vacation is up to you. If you only got the passport and did none of those other things, then you would have denied yourself the necessary components to get what you want: an enjoyable vacation. College is much the same way. The degree is only a minimum qualification. However, taking courses that improve your writing and critical thinking skills, learning how to solve problems independently, learning how to navigate bureaucracies--these are all part of the picture and can be invaluable assets.

2. Get Experience

Don't wait until you graduate to get experience in your chosen field. Find a professor's lab to work in, get a part time job in tech support, volunteer in a mental health facility, work on the school newspaper, you name it...get experience. Get lots of it. Get it often. If your school doesn't have these resources, look at a site like Volunteer Match. In the summers, get an internship. Employers expect that you've been doing that while in college, and if all you have to show is a degree and a listing of your GPA, then they very well may pass over your resume.

3. Know What Entry Level Positions in Your Field Really Pay

I've heard horror stories of some very respectable schools telling its students that the going rate for entry level in their field is $20-30,000 higher than it actually is. I'd like to think that this is naivete--an indication of academics not keeping up with the times--but I fear that it may be more self-serving than that. The truth is, if there are a bunch of undergraduates taking out $25,000 or more in loans, they may not be happy to learn that the starting salary for supposedly pragmatic professions is only likely to be $40,000 a year. The problem, of course, is if you come in with only minimal experience asking for $70,000 a year, your resume will quickly be put in the trash file. It would be better if universities gave a realistic perspective to students and explain, "Yes, this profession may be lucrative but only after several years experience." That way, grads wouldn't be thwarted by the unrealistic expectations they were given in college. The solution? Find people working in your profession. Look them up on message boards, Twitter, Facebook--but find them and ask what's realistic. Don't count on your college to give you an accurate picture.

4. Write a Compelling Resume, But Keep it Professional

Definitely try to make your resume sound as impressive as you can while still remaining truthful. Think about how your experience might be relevant to the position. Use online resources. At the same time, remember that this is still a resume and not a blog or Facebook profile. I once saw the resume of an out-of-work Library School grad. She showed off her technical know-how by doing her resume online. Unfortunately, she failed in understanding her target audience: her resume was full of flower graphics and, at the top, a heading which read "My FAB Online Resume." Sure, she knew to put her resume online. What she did not know was how that resume would come across to a potential employer. Avoid "cutesy" titles, kitschy icons and the like. Have a nice, classic look with all of the relevant information and, above all, be professional.

5. Interview Well

I've asked hiring managers and one of the things that I hear a lot is, "I don't want to do all the work." In other words, don't be so afraid of making a mistake that you make the interviewer uncomfortable. Don't interrupt them, be engaging and be knowledgable. Have some questions in mind to ask the interviewer, since they'll want that. It sounds paradoxical, but don't try too hard. Think of it as being like a first date: you want to be well-dressed and charming, but you don't want to worry so much about how you're coming across that you blow it. The best way for a date to go well is if you actually have fun. On the other hand, if the date is too forced, then the other party will just want it to be over and you won't get a second call. An interview is much the same way. If it's too forced or awkward, all the interviewer will be thinking is how much they want you out of their office. On the other hand, if you put the end result out of your mind and see it as a pleasant, albeit somewhat formal conversation with a colleague, it will go that much more smoothly.


Of course, I can't guarantee that even mastering all of these will get you the job. Just like in more selective undergraduate universities and most graduate programs, there is a big element of luck. Luck in terms of when you apply, what your competition is, how many others are applying and so forth. Still, the more of an edge you give yourself, the better a shot you have at steering luck in your favor. My hope is that this information will provide that edge to some college students who may not have heard it elsewhere.

"You don't understand my work!" On Being Misunderstood

Awhile back, I was reading an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education that related to graduate students' reactions to feedback on their dissertations. The commenters discussed, among other things, the transition that needed to happen by the end of the dissertation where the ego was put on a back burner as the person learned to accept criticism. As is usually the case in internet-based discussions, there were valid points mixed with questionable ones, but it got me thinking about a general tendency among intellectuals of all disciplines and backgrounds, which is the tendency to fall back on the "You don't understand my work!" defense. The general implication behind such a claim is that if someone is not impressed or persuaded, it must be the fault of the person receiving the idea, not the fault of the idea's creator. Fleshed out a bit, you could call it "The Argument From Intellectual Superiority." It goes something like this:

1. I am extremely smart.
2.Only someone at least as smart as me can understand my work.
3. My work is so flawless, that if you understood my work you would necessarily agree with it.
4. You disagree with my work.
5.Since you disagree with my work, it must be the case that you do not understand my work.
------------------------------
You are not as smart as me.

Of course, as ego-gratifying as this may be, most of us can't really convince ourselves of this for very long. It's like a parent that tells her daughter that she's beautiful on the inside and some day the boys will see it. After a certain amount of Saturday nights at home alone, she's going to start to think that her mom is kind of full of crap. At the same time, the girl could probably benefit from examining legitimate, non-self esteem crushing reasons why she's alone on Saturday night (maybe the guys in her school really are kind of jerks, maybe she hasn't noticed the "good buddy" that's secretly in love with her, etc) as well as some fixable ways in which she might contribute to the problem (e.g. perhaps she comes across as aloof and disinterested). So, here goes:

1. Closed-Mindedness

I'm addressing this one first because it's probably a bit over-diagnosed but still can be a problem. Usually the litmus test for this is how much support you're getting for the actual idea. If your idea seems promising but then it isn't accepted, then it's possible that you failed to deliver. Maybe there are important objections to your analysis that you aren't addressing. Maybe there are some major misinterpretations. On the other hand, if most of the criticisms seem related to the over-arching theme, then it might give you pause. I've heard a lot of people complain, for example, that you can't write a horror piece in most Creative Writing MFA programs without getting eviscerated. It can be an excellent piece, but if it's an excellent piece about vampires, you're committing career suicide. Attempts to combine philosophy and pop culture sometimes get a bad rap for this as well. If, for example, many of the complaints center more around your choice to integrate a television show than about the arguments per se, you may have hit against some rigid definitions about what topics/styles truly are or are not adequately "intellectual."

2.Communication

Sometimes it's a failure to communicate adequately. This can often happen for reasons not related to one's knowledge base or clarity of thought. Being too anxious, for example, is a sure-fire way to produce crappy work. Trying to pull off too much in too little space is another. Another way is by either over-estimating or under-estimating others' knowledge of your subject matter. You run the risk of jumping over key points that seem obvious to you (while forgetting the process you went through to learn initially) or giving so much minutiae that others' lose interest. In everyday conversation, we have lots of little ways to communicate: asking someone what they meant, cutting them off if they go on too long, etcetera. You can't do this with some sort of artistic or intellectual endeavor. If you don't nail it in the potential journal article, the work of fiction or the independent film that you made in your basement--that's it, you're kind of screwed, at least for now. At that point, you have to bite the bullet, admit that you failed to express yourself effectively and either revise the work or save your energy for the next project.

3. Lack of Knowledge

Sometimes, it really is a lack of knowledge. Maybe you made some fatal mistake--like attributing to Aquinas someone else's position which he merely stated for the point of refuting it--that caused you to truly misunderstand what you were attempting to write about. Or perhaps you didn't adequately research your short story and so you don't know that archivists work in really clean environments, not some musty old basement. These things happen.

A truly original, creative mind ought not be overly attached to one's ideas. I struggle with this myself. Dogged determination has its virtues, to be sure, and I've often been a big advocate of it. At the same time, to really be innovative, you need to detach a bit from your own ideas. You have to know when to say, "They're wrong," when to say, "They're right and I can make it better" and when to say, "It's time to toss this idea into the fireplace and put my energy into something new."

Psycho Bicyclists

Back when I lived in Austin, bicyclists were the bane of my existence. Well, not really, but on more than one occasion, I would have a sanctimonious hippie preach to me about the virtues of bicycle riding while chastising me for my decision to wait for the bus to get coffee. (On both counts: the fact I wasn't riding a bicycle and the fact I was a caffeine addict.) In fact, over the years, my choice to not drive a car (or even get a driver's license) wasn't applauded for the corresponding support of public transportation systems but rather was seen as an opportunity to "convert" me to the ranks of bicyclist. An effort, I should add, I resisted, with great determination.

Really, I just didn't want to learn how to drive. I liked taking public transportation. And, at least before I developed chronic foot pain, I liked walking. I still don't know how to drive and am somewhat proud of the fact that I not only am forty with no driver's license but that I managed to live five years in Detroit without a car. Okay, okay, so my husband has a car. Still, much of the time we were in Detroit, he worked from 9-5 and I typically would either walk to school or take the bus.

A couple of summers ago, bikes became really trendy in Chicago. I started noticing because, where previously there were only occasional bicyclists, seemingly over night the streets became full of them--the telltale sign of a hipster fad. Since moving here, I've started to wonder if bicyclists aren't just preachy, but may, in fact, be insane.

My first encounter was in my building. A woman with a bicycle made a snide remark about my clothes as I walked up the street. I drew attention to the rudeness of her remark. I then went inside and learned, as she trailed behind me, that she either worked or lived in my building. I collected a few packages waiting for me in the mailroom, including one that was very large and bulky. I then got to the elevator, with one of them nearly dropping out of my arms. It took three attempts to reach the button. She screamed from the other end of the hall, "hold the elevator!!"
I was struggling to hold onto the package with the five ceramic coffee cups in it (replacing ones that were broken by movers) and did not hold the elevator.
She screamed outside the elevator door, "Really?!?"
The door shut. I was going to the second floor, and since she had her bike with her and since there are only six floors (and the elevator is relatively new) assumed she'd just wait for it to come back down. No such luck. As I got off the elevator, she was lugging her bicycle up the stairs.
"That was a total BITCH thing to do!" She screamed at me.
"I'm carrying a bunch of packages !" I retorted.
"That's NO excuse."
Really? I think not wanting to risk breaking $75 worth of merchandise so someone doesn't have to wait five minutes is a pretty good excuse, but that's just me. If positions were reversed, I don't think I would have asked her to hold it for me. Anyhow, I didn't say anything else, just went inside my apartment. She was still screaming at me when I shut the door.

Since then, I've noticed a lot of what can be described as kamikaze bicyclists. Just zipping in and out of traffic, flagrantly disobeying traffic rules. I've seen a lot of "share the road" stickers, including ones attempting to "raise awareness" for bicyclists who were seriously injured by cars in various neighborhoods.

Today, I was going to a nearby coffeehouse when I ran afoul of another bicyclist. I was crossing the street. I had waited for traffic to clear a little, as the foot pain was really bad today. Once it cleared a bit, I began to cross. Cars stopped for me. A bicyclist was coming full speed towards me. I wonder, I thought to myself, are they as considerate of pedestrians as they ask cars to be of them? So I hobbled across the street as Mad Bicyclist Guy(tm) made it abundantly clear that he was not going to stop. Thankfully, I managed to get out of his path in the nick of time. He flashed me a maniacal grin as he pedaled down Racine at warp speed.

Huh. Apparently, sharing the road doesn't apply to pedestrians after all.