Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Absolute Magnitude

I know I haven't written in a few weeks. While I am not sure if my three followers noticed my absence, I missed my own absence. I am actually writing this as a text file because I am currently somewhere over Canada, about to cross from Quebec airspace into Ontario airspace on my way in to Chicago O'Hare airport. More on this epic journey in a moment.

Last night, I spent a sleepless night in the InterCityHotel at the Frankfurt Airport. I stayed up all night (not really by choice) thinking of things that I wanted to write about. I have probably forgotten most of it by now since I've been awake for over 30 hours so far. But there are a few items that I do remember.

Billy's blog, especially when it involves people that I've known for almost 20 years, reminds me of things that would normally be filed neatly away in the memory banks. I want to talk a little bit about my senior year Government/Economics class taught by (1) Mrs. Salzman (or Mrs. Mosckowitz, as we first knew her). This all occured 9-10 years ago, so a lot of my memories sometimes feel as though they may as well be dreams that I had once, and tend to blur together. So instead of giving a narrative, I will just cover a few awesome highlights. I will not be includinig any last names to protect the innocent.

This class had an all-star cast of characters. In the U-shaped horseshoe of our classroom desk-configuration, one side was occupied by the following people, in a row: David, Jeremiah, Mike, myself, Cameron. If you know/knew any of these people, one could actually start to feel sorry for Mrs. Salzman.

I do not have the penchant for giving 20 nicknames to people. But this is about the time of the year that Jeremiah and Mike (and Matt J, right?) called each other "Bruce" just because it was ridiculous. So Bruce and Bruce were the best at pissing off our J-dating teacher. I wasn't bad either. But she knew that I actually liked her (true story, she really wasn't bad at all considering who she had to put up with daily. The name of the game was to see just how much one could get away with before getting a referral, or at least a good head-cocked, wide-eyed scolding from Suzy.

I never really paid attention, which is funny because I got the highest grade the Economics portion of the class and the subsequently useless "Honors" award. One day I was daydreaming and playing a game where I write the number of minutes until school was over (it was my last class of the day) on a piece of notebook paper and try to see if I can go 1 full minute without looking at my watch. Anyway, Suzy was lecturing and it was something about governmental authority. Her voice went like this in my head: "blablablabla blabla's Power is absolute." Upon hearing the word, I pumped my fist in the air and yelled at an inappropriate volume: "Absolut Vodka, Yeah!" The class waited about 1 full second before the laughter starting, earning the aforementioned look of death from Jared and Eric's Mom (Hell, one of them might have been there too, it was often the case...) Another time she openly mentioned her frustration with my behavior, to which I jumped up on a desk, jumped down to the floor and walked over and gave her a hug to diffuse her anger. She actually hugged me back, earning a wave of "Awwww"s and (as I like to think in my dream-like, exaggerated recollection) a few scattered bits of clapping.

Jeremiah was pretty good too. He earned my life-long respect by using the then-antiquated Apple LCIII classroom computer to "hack" into websites and would turn some off and on. Jeremiah and Mike fed off each other, mostly in trying to make David laugh (definitely a worthwhile endeavor though). One of my favorite memories is when Mike was "seperated" from the rest of us because of his shenanigens, which I believe followed a referral. Suzy and Mike definitely had a love/hate relationship. Anyway, one time Mike got in trouble without saying any words. In fact, it was Because he didn't say anything. He just stared at her with an slack-jawed guffaw on his face, unquivering. Smiling because it was part of the joke, but never laughing despite how much his peers were failing at trying not to chuckle. Upon being asked to stop making the face and to respond to her, Mike continued to stare until she blew her top. It was the most passive-aggressive thing I have ever seen in my life. He sat across the room for a week or more, trying desperate to get my attention (or David's) so he could perpetrate the same "I'm going to stare at you with this dumb grin until you crack" ploy against us. I think it ended with Mike coming back and sitting on our side and nobody ever saying anything about it. Maybe Mrs. Salzman was just tired of fighting when she knew she couldn't win. But then, both she and Mike had been known to make Katie F. cry (admittedly not a hard thing to do. Katie, if you ever read this, you know we love you but I am not lying).

But going back to Absolut Vodka... I also had Mr. Percival for astronomy that year. Considering that was my first major/real hobby/career path, I took it very seriously. I still remember some stars and the constellations and the rest is just a smattering of factoids. I think whenever we had a "constellation quiz" basically 2 tables of people would cheat blatantly off of me in front of Chap. Man, Chap and I deserve a seperate blog post. I'll try to remember.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you about Absolute Magnitude. You see, every star has both an Apparent and an Absolute Magnitude, ranging from -1 (the brightest star) all the way up into the 20s, with each number representing a difference of a power of ten (like the Richter-scale) to indicate how bright the star is. The Apparent magnitude is how bright a star "seems" to us here on Earth, simply. The Absolute magnitude is what the same star would be look if it were 10 light-years away from us. Therefore, a star that is really bright to us, and still much farther away than 10LY (as most stars are) would have a huge Absolute Magnitude.

I realize this is all probably pretty boring, so I guess I'll get to my point. I guess I have always hung on to this knowledge because I feel like it applies to more than just stars. I think one of the reasons that I always loved science was because it allows one to put things into order, whereas the rest of life is relatively disorderly. I was thinking, wouldn't it be great to meet someone and be able to determine their intelligence, charisma or other character traits in both a subjective (apparent) and objective (absolute) frame of reference? You'd be able to size up people instantly. You'd be the best person at the party in terms of calling people on bullshit. Like that douchbag in Good Will Hunting, at the beginning, who was trying to impress Minnie Driver by spewing facts he had learned from a textbook. Then Matt Damon shows up and gives the biggest and most heroic intellectual smack-down ever, like we all wish we could do (whether or not we ever act on that wish) more than we get to.

Having crossed into United States (Michigan) airspace, I will start to wrap this up. I am currently on my way to my cousin's wedding in Kentucky. Before I get there, I will have taken 1 train, 3 flights (the one I am now is the trans-atlantic 9-hour hell), and I'll have spent the night in 3 hotels, obtained 1 rental car, and physically been in 4 States (Illinois, Georgia, Indiana and Kentucky) JUST to see my family for a couple of nights before heading back to Germany next Sunday. I am so tired. I cannot sleep on planes, something I always wish I could change about myself. I've been awake for so long, and don't get to Atlanta (my resting stop for the night) until around 4:45pm EST (five hours from now).

Remember now, everything has both an absolute and apparent magnitude, even if you yourself can't tell the difference.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Sexual War Stories

I decided that the title "Sexual War Stories" makes a catchy headline for a post. Thanks go to Billy Bauer for the suggestion. ("Bauer" = "Farmer" in German... seriously!)

Even those who have never watched 24 have heard of Jack Bauer, the ruthless counter-terrorism super agent. And no one is more American than Jack Bauer, except for maybe Billy Bauer. Think of them like the Baldwin brothers. Alec gets all the exposure, but you still see the others once and a while.

So, on to the Sexual War Stories. Actually, I am not going to write about my personal stories. It's not only crude and embarrassing, but also something that I find difficult to write about, least of all for an internet audience.

Instead, I will take a moment to dissect the sadly understated role that I believe sex plays in society. I'm definitely not the "free love" type of guy, having been (mostly) a serial monogamist in the history of my sexually-aware adult life. I've probably got more hang-ups than the average American guy. Some would say that I'm "picky," but it's more like "careful." Sex, or sexual attraction, is a vitally important spark to the beginnings of a relationship. It's something that no adult can adequately explain without the child being immediately grossed out and/or embarrassed because they find themselves in the middle of the archetypal "sex-talk" with their parents. It's something that we all wonder about from childhood until puberty. Then after we figure out the "point" during puberty, it's an awkward, fumbling race to find the real thing. And then after the first time, you're screwed (zing!), because now it's damn near impossible to imagine life without it.

Still, an impressive spectrum emerges from there. Some people only sleep with one person for their entire lives [and I kind of cry for you people] and some people are always bouncing around from one monogamous relationship to the next. Some people are swingers and others are in "open relationships." These last groups intrigue me, because it seems to me that a lot of (if not most) people are very sexually possessive of their partner. Why? Good question. Maybe it's genetic, maybe we just don't like to share... or maybe both? I don't know. Perhaps many people feel that it is the ultimate form of acceptance by another human being, and thus feel validated in themselves for having been so accepted. Of course... similar to food, drugs, and working out, it can also become an addiction. Maybe some of the lure of monogamy is that it provides the promise of regular sex (along with all the emotional stuff too, of course). That could be the motive for swingers too, but they prefer a wider selection as their vehicle for sexual self-validation.

Really, it's a fascinating part of humanity that most people are too shy to talk about. What a shame, because if we could understand it better, we might not all act so stupid in search of it.